Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Vertexon's Guide to Creature Handling (v. 1.0)
-Vertexon<A HREF="http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=153629">.</A>
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This is the latest revision of my popular Guide to Creature Handling from the third phase of the Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided Beta Test. This is designed to function both as a FAQ and a Quick Start Guide. The intent here is not to provide a comprehensive list of statistics or recommended creature choices.
If you're already familiar with the basics, feel free to skip around to the section that interests you. All of the advice contained herein is according to my experience, and is by no means guaranteed to be accurate for the current build. Your mileage may vary.
Section 1 - Earning the Prerequisites
In order to tame creatures and make them your pets, you'll need to earn at least the Novice Creature Handler skill. The prerequisites for Novice Creature Handler are Exploration IV and Hunting IV (both in the Scout profession). Both the Hunting and Exploration disciplines require Scout XP (as does the Novice Creature Handler skill itself), so you'll need to earn a lot of it.
The fastest way to earn Scout XP is generally to kill as many creatures as possible, and extract resources from their corpses. You can then use the resources for crafting (i.e. camp kits - though please note that making camps gives you Wilderness Survival XP, not Scout XP). You could also sell them to other players, or donate them to Medics at the Hospital (medics are always in need of resources from animals). It's really not important what you do with the resources, since the act of harvesting them is what gives you Scout XP. If you can get a group together (preferably of people who don't need Scout XP) and take down lots of more dangerous creatures, you can earn XP fairly quickly. It doesn't really matter what planet you hunt on, though it will be easier to get a group together in the more populous areas. You can also earn Scout XP by successfully using the Mask Scent ability near aggressive creatures (see the next section).
Once you have Exploration IV, Hunting IV, and enough Scout XP for the Novice Creature Handler skill, go find a Creature Handler Trainer NPC and learn the skill. Not every city has a Creature Handler Trainer, so you may need to ask around to find the one nearest you. A good rule of thumb is to search for players who are already Creature Handlers (CTRL+P, "Search"). This is particularly valuable in the case of skills other than the Novice and Master skills, since other players can teach them to you for free.
You may be wondering which species to choose for your character to become a Creature Handler. The answer is "whichever species you like."
Wookiees appear on the surface to be a natural choice, since they have a +10 bonus to Taming. This is offset somewhat by other factors that are not in their favor, such as their inability to speak Basic or to wear armor. In addition, they don't have quite as large a selection of wearables as some species (like Humans) in which to place skill enhancements.
Section 2 - Mask Scent
Once you have Exploration II, you gain access to the /maskscent command. In your long career as a Scout/Creature Handler, this ability is going to be your best friend. If you don't already have it assigned to a toolbar slot, you should do so now (you can drag it from the "Other" tab of the CTRL+A actions menu to any toolbar slot).
Mask Scent gives you a chance to slip past creatures without them noticing you. The more skillful you are, the better chance of success. If it works, then aggressive creatures (who show up as red dots on the radar) won't attack, and more docile creatures won't run away. If you're in potentially hostile wilderness areas, you'll want to always have Mask Scent on when not in town. If it wears off, hit it again. If a creature detects you, hit it again. Creatures will attempt to detect you as they are entering radar range, and again as they leave it.
If you successfully avoid detection by an aggressive creature, then you'll be awarded some Scout XP. This is a nice little bonus, but probably won't replace harvesting as your primary means of XP gain. If Mask Scent fails at the wrong time, you might end up getting mauled by what you were trying to sneak past. Note that you cannot run back and forth to "farm" XP from a single group of aggressive creatures.
Section 3 - Taming
Once you have the Novice Creature Handler skill, you'll gain access to the "Tame" option on the radial menu of baby animals. Baby animals are easily identified by the "(baby)" tag at the end of their name (for example, "Greater Gulginaw (baby)"). The Tame option will not appear for creatures that you have zero chance of successfully taming with your current skills. Creatures that are Aggressive or that are too powerful will require more skill in the Taming discipline to successfully tame. Some creatures, like Krayt Dragons, are so powerful that no character can ever tame them.
At first, it will take trial and error to determine the relative difficulty of taming particular species. As you may have guessed, more powerful creatures tend to be more difficult. As you advance in the Creature Handler profession, you will eventually be able to see a "Challenge Level" indicator when you /examine baby animals. This number, which tends to range from 0 to 50, gives you an idea of how difficult to tame a creature is. The challenge level is specific to the creature type, and does not reflect your particular skills.
In order to tame a baby animal, simply approach it and choose "Tame" from its radial menu. Your character will then start talking to the creature, trying to earn its trust ("Steady! Don't bite me!" etc). The creature's name will turn white, indicating that it is no longer attackable until the taming process either succeeds or fails. The baby will stop moving while you attempt to tame it, but will usually start wandering again if you fail. If it wanders more than a few meters away from you, it will be out of "taming range." Thus, you may wish to /follow the baby while you make repeated attempts to tame it. Just be careful not to follow it into range of nearby hostiles (unless you're prepared to defend yourself).
After a moment, you'll get a system message letting you know whether you have succeeded or failed. If you failed, you can choose "Tame" from the radial menu to keep trying until you succeed. Note that sometimes babies will suddenly attack you after a failed taming attempt (including usually non-aggressive species). When this happens, you'll have to act quickly to either kill the baby, run away and come back, or perhaps fire a /warningshot (if you have the appropriate skill) to scare it off. If a baby that is significantly weaker than you attacks, your character's auto-attack may finish it before you have a chance to react.
If you successfully tame the creature, you'll be awarded some Creature Handling XP. A "Pet Control Device" for the creature will be added to your Datapad (CTRL+D), right next to your waypoints and missions. The pet control device will be represented by your pet's name and image, and will give you lots of valuable information about the pet's condition (such as its vital statistics and currently trained commands). This is also the primary means of storing and calling your pet (see Section 6).
*sigh* My apologies to everyone. Please note, this is both Vertexon's Guide to Creature Handling, and Vertexon's Guide to How NOT To Copy-Paste a Document into Lithium.
Let's give this one more attempt. I'll type it out by hand if I have to.
Vertexon's Guide to Creature Handling (v. 1.0)
This is the latest revision of my popular Guide to Creature Handling from the third phase of the Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided Beta Test. This is designed to function both as a FAQ and a Quick Start Guide. The intent here is not to provide a comprehensive list of statistics or recommended creature choices.
If you're already familiar with the basics, feel free to skip around to the section that interests you. All of the advice contained herein is according to my experience, and is by no means guaranteed to be accurate for the current build. Your mileage may vary.
Section 1 - Earning the Prerequisites
In order to tame creatures and make them your pets, you'll need to earn at least the Novice Creature Handler skill. The prerequisites for Novice Creature Handler are Exploration IV and Hunting IV (both in the Scout profession). Both the Hunting and Exploration disciplines require Scout XP (as does the Novice Creature Handler skill itself), so you'll need to earn a lot of it.
The fastest way to earn Scout XP is generally to kill as many creatures as possible, and extract resources from their corpses. You can then use the resources for crafting (i.e. camp kits - though please note that making camps gives you Wilderness Survival XP, not Scout XP). You could also sell them to other players, or donate them to Medics at the Hospital (medics are always in need of resources from animals). It's really not important what you do with the resources, since the act of harvesting them is what gives you Scout XP. If you can get a group together (preferably of people who don't need Scout XP) and take down lots of more dangerous creatures, you can earn XP fairly quickly. It doesn't really matter what planet you hunt on, though it will be easier to get a group together in the more populous areas. You can also earn Scout XP by successfully using the Mask Scent ability near aggressive creatures (see the next section).
Once you have Exploration IV, Hunting IV, and enough Scout XP for the Novice Creature Handler skill, go find a Creature Handler Trainer NPC and learn the skill. Not every city has a Creature Handler Trainer, so you may need to ask around to find the one nearest you. A good rule of thumb is to search for players who are already Creature Handlers (CTRL+P, "Search"). This is particularly valuable in the case of skills other than the Novice and Master skills, since other players can teach them to you for free.
You may be wondering which species to choose for your character to become a Creature Handler. The answer is "whichever species you like." Wookiees appear on the surface to be a natural choice, since they have a +10 bonus to Taming. This is offset somewhat by other factors that are not in their favor, such as their inability to speak Basic or to wear armor. In addition, they don't have quite as large a selection of wearables as some species (like Humans) in which to place skill enhancements.
Section 2 - Mask Scent
Once you have Exploration II, you gain access to the /maskscent command. In your long career as a Scout/Creature Handler, this ability is going to be your best friend. If you don't already have it assigned to a toolbar slot, you should do so now (you can drag it from the "Other" tab of the CTRL+A actions menu to any toolbar slot).
Mask Scent gives you a chance to slip past creatures without them noticing you. The more skillful you are, the better chance of success. If it works, then aggressive creatures (who show up as red dots on the radar) won't attack, and more docile creatures won't run away. If you're in potentially hostile wilderness areas, you'll want to always have Mask Scent on when not in town. If it wears off, hit it again. If a creature detects you, hit it again. Creatures will attempt to detect you as they are entering radar range, and again as they leave it.
If you successfully avoid detection by an aggressive creature, then you'll be awarded some Scout XP. This is a nice little bonus, but probably won't replace harvesting as your primary means of XP gain. If Mask Scent fails at the wrong time, you might end up getting mauled by what you were trying to sneak past. Note that you cannot run back and forth to "farm" XP from a single group of aggressive creatures.
Section 3 - Taming
Once you have the Novice Creature Handler skill, you'll gain access to the "Tame" option on the radial menu of baby animals. Baby animals are easily identified by the "(baby)" tag at the end of their name (for example, "Greater Gulginaw (baby)"). The Tame option will not appear for creatures that you have zero chance of successfully taming with your current skills. Creatures that are Aggressive or that are too powerful will require more skill in the Taming discipline to successfully tame. Some creatures, like Krayt Dragons, are so powerful that no character can ever tame them.
At first, it will take trial and error to determine the relative difficulty of taming particular species. As you may have guessed, more powerful creatures tend to be more difficult. As you advance in the Creature Handler profession, you will eventually be able to see a "Challenge Level" indicator when you /examine baby animals. This number, which tends to range from 0 to 50, gives you an idea of how difficult to tame a creature is. The challenge level is specific to the creature type, and does not reflect your particular skills.
In order to tame a baby animal, simply approach it and choose "Tame" from its radial menu. Your character will then start talking to the creature, trying to earn its trust ("Steady! Don't bite me!" etc). The creature's name will turn white, indicating that it is no longer attackable until the taming process either succeeds or fails. The baby will stop moving while you attempt to tame it, but will usually start wandering again if you fail. If it wanders more than a few meters away from you, it will be out of "taming range." Thus, you may wish to /follow the baby while you make repeated attempts to tame it. Just be careful not to follow it into range of nearby hostiles (unless you're prepared to defend yourself).
After a moment, you'll get a system message letting you know whether you have succeeded or failed. If you failed, you can choose "Tame" from the radial menu to keep trying until you succeed. Note that sometimes babies will suddenly attack you after a failed taming attempt (including usually non-aggressive species). When this happens, you'll have to act quickly to either kill the baby, run away and come back, or perhaps fire a /warningshot (if you have the appropriate skill) to scare it off. If a baby that is significantly weaker than you attacks, your character's auto-attack may finish it before you have a chance to react.
If you successfully tame the creature, you'll be awarded some Creature Handling XP. A "Pet Control Device" for the creature will be added to your Datapad (CTRL+D), right next to your waypoints and missions. The pet control device will be represented by your pet's name and image, and will give you lots of valuable information about the pet's condition (such as its vital statistics and currently trained commands). This is also the primary means of storing and calling your pet (see Section 6).
Section 4 - Finding and Approaching Babies
Baby animals tend to spawn at lairs, surrounded by adults of the same species. On each planet, some species tend to spawn babies much more frequently than others. Therefore, you may have to journey far to find the type of baby you're looking for.
When you spot a lair in the distance, it's usually a good idea to cycle through the creatures standing around it (TAB) and choose to "Examine" each of them using the radial menu (~) or by typing /examine. The Examine window gives you useful information, such as whether the creature is Aggressive, whether it's Tamable, and what sorts of resources you can get from harvesting it.
When you find a lair with a baby (recall that baby animals have "(baby)" at the end of their name), it's important to take note of whether you have a non-zero chance to tame the baby. Pull up its radial menu from a distance, and see if the Tame command appears. If not, chances are you'll need more skill before you can tame it. Aggressive creatures, for example, require you to increase you "Taming Vicious Animals" skill modifier (first earned with the Taming II skill).
If you just blunder up to a lair full of aggressive animals without preparation, chances are you're going to get hurt (and lose your chance to tame the baby). Unless you want to be mauled by the lair guardians, make sure you have Mask Scent on as you approach the lair. If you're detected (or it wears off), then Mask Scent yourself again. Don't underestimate the importance of doing this, or that cute and cuddly family of Corellian slice-hounds will tear you apart like the pack of vicious dogs they are!
As a final note while trying to tame: don't attack the baby. Some people can kill off all the adults without causing the baby to aggro, but I have found this to be a pretty risky strategy (particularly since babies tend to follow adults around at all times). Tell your group members not to attack the baby. Tell random passersby not to attack the baby, and why. While the baby will be invulnerable during the actually taming process, it can still be attacked before and after each attempt. If the baby you're trying to tame gets involved in combat with another player, you're pretty much out of luck. For this reason, I tend to retreat to isolated areas to do my taming. This makes any potential combat riskier, but also greatly reduces the chances of someone wandering along and taking potshots at the creature you're trying to tame. If you try to tame something right outside a popular town, you're practically asking for someone to interfere. :/ Particularly if you're trying to run from a baby that attacks you during a failed attempt, well-intentioned passing players might jump into combat to "help" you fight the creature, not realizing you're running because you're trying to keep it alive.
Section 5 - Training Your New Pet
So now that you've successfully tamed a baby animal, the first thing you're going to want to do is train it some commands. As a Novice Creature Handler, you have access to three commands: Follow, Attack, and Release. Every time you tame something, you should immediately teach it all three of these.
When you teach a pet a command, what you're doing is binding that action to a particular spoken phrase. Once you bind "Attack" to the phrase "Sic'em, Fido!" you can make your pet attack your lookat target simply by having your character say that phrase aloud (in this case: "Sic'em, Fido!").
To do this, choose the "Attack" sub-option under "Train" on your pet's radial menu. The radial menu will disappear, and a little question mark (?) will float off your pet's head. This indicates that it's waiting for you to speak the phrase you want to associate with this command. At this point, just make your character say "Sic'em, Fido!"
If you're successful, you'll gain a little Creature Handling XP and you'll get the message "You have trained your pet a new command." If you fail, you'll get the message "Your pet doesn't understand you." In this case, choose "Attack" from the "Train" menu again, and then speak whatever phrase you wish to bind to the command again. Keep repeating the process until you're successful (it shouldn't take more than a few tries in most cases).
Now that you've bound this particular command to a spoken phrase, there's no need to use hotkeys or radial menus to issue the order to your pet. Now and in the future, simply speak the phrase (i.e. "Sic'em, Fido!") to command your pet. You can see the phrase that has been bound to each of your pet's commands by looking at its Pet Control Device in the Datapad (CTRL+D). This is the exact same system used for Droids and Faction Perk pets (like storm troopers). Rather than having to earn extra commands for Droids and NPC pets, however, you'll have access to all possible commands right away.
If you start out four commands with the same word (i.e. "Bob attack," "Bob stay," "Bob release," "Bob group") then your pet's name will change to that first word (in this case, "Bob"). Note that, as a Novice Creature Handler you only have access to three commands. You'll need to advance and learn more if you want to name your creatures. Once a pet has learned its name, you can teach it again to assign different strings to those commands without causing it to lose its name (as long as you don't start four commands with the same word - unless you want to change its name).
Section 6 - Storing and Calling Your Pet
Until you get the Pack Management skill, you can only have one pet out at a time. Before you can tame or call any additional pets, you'll need to Store the one that's out in your inventory. You do this by getting close to the pet and choosing "Store" from its radial menu. Voila! The pet will be safely stored. All of your pets will automatically store themselves if you logout or are disconnected, so there's no need to worry about an exploding router at your ISP causing you to lose your favorite pet. You can call him out simply by double-clicking him in your Datapad.
Note that your skills determine how many pets you are allowed to have stored at once, in addition to how many you are allowed to have out at once. With just the Novice Creature Handler skill, you can only store two creature pets in your Datapad at a time. You'll need to earn more advanced skills (like Training II, Empathy II, or Group Management II, for example) to gain access to more pet storage slots. It is therefore important to budget your storage space efficiently. Particularly if you wish to use the Tame and Release method to gain Creature Handling XP (see Section 9).
Finally, pets will grow (and increase in size and strength) the longer you have them. In my experience, pets grow whether you have them out in the world or have them stored in your Datapad. The growing process generally takes days (sometimes as much as a few weeks or more) to complete, so brand new pets probably won't be viable for serious combat until you've had them for a while.
Section 7 - Using your Pet in Combat
Sooner or later, you're probably going to want to use your pet in combat. You can either order your pet to attack a target (by selecting the target and speaking whatever vocal command you bound to 'Attack'), or you can order the pet to Guard you (assuming you have earned the Guard command and to it to the pet) and then attack the target yourself. Pets who have been ordered to guard their master (or another entity) will automatically defend him if something adopts an aggressive posture toward him, so just causing a creature to aggro against you at this point will be enough for your pet to charge into the fray. Please note that pets do NOT automatically Guard their masters, so you will have to explicitly order them to do so (or they'll just stand there and watch you take a beating).
Just like players, pets are incapacitated when one of their Health, Action, or Mind bars reaches zero. At this point, an enemy can execute a "coup de grace" (a.k.a. "deathblow") to kill the pet. In general this is a Bad Thing, and should be avoided. My advice is to never let a pet fight a specific enemy without help. There should always be something else on an enemy's "hate list" while it's attacking your pet (another pet, a group member, You, etc) so that the enemy will switch targets if it incaps your pet. Most hostiles will wait until they have incapacitated everything in the area that they're mad at before going around to issue deathblows. Particularly powerful or aggressive enemies, however, will often administer the deathblow immediately after their current target is incapacitated, so it is advisable to be ready to Store your pet prior to incapacitation if it's in battle with such a foe.
Section 8 - Healing your Pet
If you have at least the Novice Medic skill, you can heal your pet's damage with stimpacks, just as you would another player. This is extraordinarily helpful in most combat situations, and can often make the difference between an incapped/dead pet and a victorious pet. If you're going to use pets in battle, then you should seriously consider learning Novice Medic. Always keep a few stimpacks on hand while traveling, and harvest organic resources from creatures you kill to gain resources for crafting more.
Pets can be wounded like players, as well. If your pet takes a Health or Action wound, you can heal it by feeding the pet after battle. Your pet will think "Fido Hungry!" out loud when it has such a wound (if its name is 'Fido'). Pets will eat anything players can eat, so travel biscuits are just as good as melons for this (beverages cannot be used... only food). If the item of food has multiple charges, the pet will only consume one charge per feeding. Though it's not a prerequisite skill, I like to have Wilderness Survival I from the Scout tree, to gain access to the Forage ability. This gives you a pretty good chance of finding food for your pet in almost any outdoor area, which is great for healing pet wounds on the run.
If your pet takes a Mind Wound or battle fatigue, you'll need to Play with you pet. Your pet will think "Fido Play!" out loud when it has a Mind wound (if it's name is 'Fido'). In order to play with your pet, you'll need to have taught it one of the two pet Tricks (which you get by advancing to Creature Empathy I and Creature Empathy II). Simply say the phrase that you bound to the trick, and the pet will do it (and heal his Mind wounds). It generally only takes one use of a Trick to heal your pet's Mind wounds to zero.
At this time, pets do not have access to Cloning (as players do). If your pet dies, it is permanently dead. Since pets are difficult to replace (and take time to grow), this can be a significant setback. Keep a close eye on your pet's HAM bars both before and during battle, and make sure you're ready to assist with stimpacks, the Store command, or your own attacks.
Section 9 - Creature Handler XP and Advancement
There are three ways to gain Creature Handler XP: successfully taming a baby for the first time, teaching a new command to a pet for the first time, and having your pet contribute to the death of an NPC or creature.
The primary means of non-violent Creature Handling advancement is "tame and release." Simply tame a creature, teach it every command that you have access to, then release it and find something else to tame. You will not gain XP for repeatedly taming and releasing the same baby, so don't bother trying.
A faster (but riskier) method of advancement is using your pet in combat. You need to kill something that's powerful enough to be a challenge to your pet (not necessarily to you) to get decent amounts of XP this way. If you find that you're consistently earning 1 XP per kill, then you need to find something more challenging for your pet to hunt. If you're using a particularly powerful pet to advance, this might require finding a group to go big game hunting with.
A question I'm often asked is "which Intermediate skill should I get first?" Personally, I recommend Creature Empathy I. If you're engaging in any combat with your pet whatsoever, you're going to need the ability to heal its Mind Wounds. Since you can't do that until you gain access to the first pet trick, Empathy I is a must have skill. Once that is learned, where you go from there is pretty much a matter of personal preference. You may wish to learn Taming I next to increase the range of things you can tame. You may feel that the advantage of Grouping with your pet warrants an early investment in Creature Management I, however. Gaining access to more stored pet slots with Training II, Empathy II, or Grouping II is a worthy goal. Finally, being able to control two pets at once with the Grouping III skill is one of the most significant milestones in a Creature Handler's career.
Wow, Vertexon - I guess you spent that day between beta and live fleshing this out - it's very nice, thank you!
For people wondering what the fastest way to gain CH xp is - tame & release seems a whole lot slower than combat. Tame a really low-level creature, and use it to attack low- to mid-level creatures. Keep that giant sand beetle stored until you go on a raid to Bestine or go on a krayt hunt.
Hi,
Thanks for the excellent guide Vertexon. I have a few questions about the creature handler discipline regarding the relative strengths of this vs other professions. I can't seem to find this information elsewhere -- so if anyone can impart their wisdom, I'd appreciate it.
1. Droids: Is the strongest tameable creature as strong as the strongest droid that can be built? Is the number of droids that can be commanded simultaneously limited to 3 (as the creature handler is). Is there any profession required to be able to command droids, or can anyone command them?
2. Bio-Engineering: Will a bio-engineer be able to create stronger creatures than that which can be tamed in the wild?
3. Other combat classes. Will a master creature handler with 3 very strong pets be a bigger damage output than say a pistoleer or a teras kasi?
Thanks for any information on this!
Thanks everyone. And thanks for overlooking my initial battle with Lithium.
To answer your questions:
Relative combat strengths are something that will probably continue to be balanced heavily for the first six months. Toward the end of Beta, for example, the few combat-oriented droids (like the Probot) were very frail from what I've been told. At least, compared to a rancor or a frenzied graul, combat droids weren't really all that balance tipping in combat.
With regard to Bio-Engineers. I believe Bio-Engineered pets can potentially be crafted to be more effective than their wild counterparts. That's one aspect of the Creature Handling experience that I never got a chance to delve into, myself. It's one of the things I'll be looking at in the near future.
As for balance with other combat-oriented professions (like Pistol Specialists or Teras Kasi fighters). I'd say, again, that this is something that's probably part of an ongoing balancing effort. One Master Creature Handler with three rancors is almost certainly more powerful in terms of sheer offense than a single Master Pistoleer... but only so long as the Creature Handler himself stays alive to command his pets. What's more, raising a pet to adulthood is a long process (sometimes taking weeks after the initial taming). The penalty for slipping up and losing a battle is potentially dire indeed for a Creature Handler, when compared to a Teras Kasi Artist. The TKA has to re-insure or possibly do a corpse run. The CH has to find new babies to tame and raise them from scratch.
Again, though, we're not in a state of final balance yet. Despite their prohibitive cost in Faction Points, an AT-ST commanded by an Overt Imperial (of any profession) was the most powerful combat force at the end of Beta. There's a famous screenshot somewhere of duel between three tame rancors and an AT-ST. The AT-ST survived without a scratch.
Great guide, I was a Droid Eng, and I was hoping to be both DE and CH now that we're live. I can answer a little about the Droid vs Creatures questions, and help you weigh a descision. The most powerful combat droid (currently the Probot) is more than a match for most creatures, but not the Very powerful creatures.My standard (not advanced) probot with Armor Module 1 (it goes up to 3) could Easily solo Mid level creatures, and might be able to take some higher level creatures (for example, it solo'd 4 Grand Wrix simultaneously, but had ALOT of trouble and could not fully finish a single Tortur Bull). Now, that tends to put Creatures in the lead for combat. Also, Unless they change this (which I doubt), You can only ever have 1 droid out at a time (though you can store like 5).
Now, on the flip side, Droids are created from resources, which has good points (no risk), and bad points (resources can be hard to aquire). Droids do not start weak, they start as strong as they will ever be. The good thing about that is you don't have to "grow" them from babies, but neither do they get more powerful with time.
Droids cannot die. I have sent my droids up against vicious deathblowing creatures and NPCs, and the droid has never died. It's been incapped, but it'll regen and get back up, and get incaped, and get back up... etc. Droids can recieve wounds, but simple storing them and calling them again will heal all wounds and immediatley restore them to full health. Keep in mind that you can only call them in towns, buildings you own, and camps. If you keep a droid out for long periods of time it will eventually run low on power. Either feed it a battery, or store/call it.
As he stated, droids start with all commands, but not every droid can use the Attack and guard commands, in fact, most cannot. R2 units will not help you take down that Rancor, I'm sorry. All the commands I can think of off the top of my head are:
**edit**, Stay, Guard, Befriend, Get Patrol Point, Clear Patrol Points, Patrol, and Group.
I may have missed one or two, but that's close. Droids learn each command the first time and can be renamed the same way as creatures. The EXACT same way.
Droids can also be fitted with modules that allow them to perform various functions, such as acting as extra item storage, extra data storage, acting as mobile private crafting stations, and allowing medics to heal wounds outside of Hospitals.
Wrap Up - If you want sheer combat prowess, your best bet is creatures, since you can control more pets at a time and have potentially more powerful pets. It takes a loooong time to get a worthwhile combat droid, and they don't have the sheer potential of a pet rancor, but if versatility is your goal, then droids are the way to go. You might just be better off going Creature Handler, and buying a droid, since you should never need to replace it.