Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Shields Up! Complete DH profession proposal
I hear this so often, yet with no factual backing. Please explain why you hold this belief, preferably with some backup source from the EU material.
From my side of the fence: Who do you think were controlling those thousands of droids on Naboo? It wasn't an engineer. It was a commander in a space-ship thousands of kilometers away. It was someone trained in combat tactics, with very little background in actually constructing a droid. Just as today and army general can lead a tank batallion into battle or a flight of UAVs over some country and have never built one in their life, an engineer and user are not the same thing. In particular, with regards to combat droids, in the various EU sources, combat droids have a specific master that is their commander - a police sargeant equivalent. Let me quote to you from the WoTC D20 RPG Arms and Equipment Guide, page 56:
"Most droids are specifically programmed to avoid hurting biological beings, but this is not the case for all of them. Combat droids are built and trained to cause damage, to effectivel negate opposition, and even to advise or lead other troops. Military droids usually lack the programming that prevents them from harming biological creatures, and as a resylt they are viewed with a great deal more suspicion than protocol or astromech droids.
" Ownership of military droids is controlled by almost every government; most are restircted to military personel only, and some are illegal under any circumstance."
Rename the profression to Combat DE. Rename DE to Utility DE if you like.
I like that idea. It fits with the real-world idea of Sappers - combat engineers in the military as someone who uses tractors and trucks to build berms, bunkers, large-scale traps , bridges etc.
Don't having a taming branch. Jawas stole droids, they did not name 'wild' droids
Depends on perspective. To many in the SW universe, a droid roaming in the wilderness without a master is considered a bad thing. The Jawas were just removing potentiallly troublesome droids so that they don't interfere with anyone else. That's their justification for it. It adds a good roleplaying perspective to the profession.
Allow CDEs to build combat droids. UDEs build Utility Droids
That I disagree with on many levels. First see the points above. Someone taht uses a combat droid is not necessarily capable of making them. NExt, it makes the two professions be basically the same. Why should a profession make something that it can only sell to itself - particularly if there are certs involved meaning lower-level professions cannot use something that a higher level player of the same can make. Medics show this to a good degree - the best Stim Bs are made by master Docs, yet are usuable by novice medics. However, anything better than that cannot be used by medics and requires a lot of doctor training before anything more powerful can be used.
Module overlap between CDEs and UDEs should be minimal if allowed at all.
Split on that one. Certainly use of some modules will be quite split, but this goes down to the crafter v combat differentiation. The idea is to not have two crafting professions, but one that is purely crafting, one that is purely combat.
I understand, this is a half-baked idea, but it starts to have a little more meat to it than "we're CHs only with Droids"
Why is this a bad idea though? it seems so many people here in the DE forums want to be just that: I'm a DE I should be able to use every droid I make and be powerful in combat so that I can participate in the GCW. That is your Metallic-CH talking right there.
1. Justify why I don't like DH...
Personal opinion. I don't have EU backing, sorry. I just believe droids should be able to be controlled by anyone.
I reject the idea that a user of a droid has more knowledge of it's workings than it's creator. I will accept the concept that a user may be more skilled in a particular application, hence the need for a combat-skilled droid engineer.
By the way, when I say particular application, I would also extend it beyond combat and look more closely a medical applications for medics/doctors and sales applications for merchants, etc. There are more options to explore than what we are talking about today.
This quote is interesting...
"Ownership of military droids is controlled by almost every government; most are restircted to military
personel only, and some are illegal under any circumstance."
This implies to me that the use of combat droids is not restricted by ability but by a government agency. Perhaps then a combat droid is a rebel-only item used to combat AT-STs and the soon to be released AT-ATs for which rebels currently have no equivilent weapon.
2. Profession naming, Combat DE vs. Utility DE.
We seem to agree...
3. Just say no to a taming branch.
Yes, in some way a Jawa could be seen as doing the public a service by minimizing the mass number of roaming wild droids seen throughout the Star Wars movies. I personally believe they are scavengers that steal droids which get too far from their owners. I don't believe owner-less droids is a widespread issue in the Star Wars universe. Again, I don't have EU backing, so you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong.
4. CDEs build combat droids, UDEs build utility droids
This makes the combat droids a non-marketable item - intenionally. It would be just like any of the other profressions - pistoleers don't sell pistols. Granted pistoleers also don't craft pistols, but this is a more complex piece of equipment than a pistol, it requires a more intimate knowledge of the equipment. Also a CDE will still require armor and weapons for themselves (weaponsmiths could still be needed combat droid weapons, armorsmiths for droid armor). So they aren't a completely self-sufficient class either.
This *assumes* that utility droids will still be useful and will be enhanced with non-combat features that give UDEs a market which they currently don't have. This is the reason why CDE modules and UDE modules shouldn't mix - UDEs still need a market because combat droids won't be their's.
5. CDE modules vs. UDE modules
Well, I think I make my case above, but in regards to having "pure" combat or "pure" crafting, I don't see why either has to be pure. What if CDEs are a hybrid combat/crafting? What if UDEs still get low level combat droids and/or 3POs with (low level) blasters for personal protection? I think this still works.
6. Finally, why is my idea half-baked?
Because it is. I didn't design a tree, I didn't think about skill points, I didn't work out all the balance issues - heck, I even argued that combat droids are faction a form of faction pet (hopefully craftable by some profession).
Mobreen.
Well, it is the most viable proposal for a DH-like class that I've yet seen. One of my reasons for disliking the Droid Handler idea is that there doesn't seem to be enough potential content to fill an entire profession, leading to the "Why should I waste 67 skill points to get the right to do something that I should be able to do anyway?" idea. If DH is interesting in its own right, that's less of a problem.
I do think that it shouldn't be too difficult tostop a CH/DH character from being too powerful without restricting people from taking both professions if they want to (CH being pretty easy to get as it is): IMHO, the rules for what total pets are callable by players need to be more detailed anyway.
Similarly, since it is entirely possible to make a MCH/MBE, it should really be possible to make a MDH/MDE, and yes, without dropping MA. On the other hand, I do kind of like the idea of having it require Slicing IV, since I'm working towards that anyway (just to be the Complete Tech Specialist, as it were). Decisions, decisions...
Oh, and what about 'Droid Manager'? (From 'Robot Management', the Traveller skill...)
(note that this also serves as a bump to put it on the front page again
)
BlueMorgoth - A very interesting proposal indeed. I do like the fact that you have drawn from both the canon and EU resources to make this profession more "Star Warsy". If there must be a droid controler/handler class - this is an excellent starting point from which to work. I do have a few comments for the naysayers:
"Get rid of the taming branch - droids are not tamed" - As was quoted from several Star Wars sources earlier in this post - a droid only responds to the one that has been designated as their master. So what happens to the ones that lose their master for whatever reason? Someone needs to have the ability to sieze these rogue droids and reprogram them to take a new master. The jawas with thier Ion guns and restraining bolts is VERY Star Wars (allegations of theft aside 
) and I can see this belonging here.
"If I can make a thing, I am master of that thing" - I guess that's why we have nothing but mechanical engineers in our tanks forces then? Or our airforce manned exclusively by AeroSpace engineers? The ability to create something may give you the knowledge of how a thing should work, but does not automatically give you the skill to make it work at its best. I doubt few of the engineers at Smith and Wesson are also crack marksmen just because they designed the gun. A gun is just point and pull the trigger right? How hard can it be?
This propsoal does need some refining - but I think it is worthy of further discussion.
Another remark on the "If I can make it why can't I use it" idea....
Think of it this way if it helps, DE's make the droid, they make the brain, they put it all together, etc, HOWEVER, a droid engineer knows nothing of combat tactics. If you don't know anything about combat, how are you supposed to program combat tactics (aside from the simple shoot now type stuff that low level droids have) into a droid? You don't. When the Droid Master/Combat Engineer/Droid Handler/whatever programs the droid, he actually goes in and writes the subroutines that make the droid effective in combat.
This does leave the idea that you could have a combat droid, just couldn't have it attack, and I've got no problem with that idea myself (you'd have to make sure they can't program the attack or guard commands).
Jenden wrote:
Think of it this way if it helps, DE's make the droid, they make the brain, they put it all together, etc, HOWEVER, a droid engineer knows nothing of combat tactics. If you don't know anything about combat, how are you supposed to program combat tactics (aside from the simple shoot now type stuff that low level droids have) into a droid? You don't. When the Droid Master/Combat Engineer/Droid Handler/whatever programs the droid, he actually goes in and writes the subroutines that make the droid effective in combat.
- Needing skills to pitch a basic tent.
- Having members of your opposing faction spawn random small bases at your will.
- Being able to carry tons of minerals in your pocket.
- Near-instantaneous travel between intra- and inter-planetary shuttles.
If all of these examples were reformed into something "real", the game would simply be unplayable. Game concepts vs. real concepts works both ways: some mechanics are put in place for player convenience, whileothers are put in place to limit the potential of the game system from becoming unbalanced.
Eutock wrote:
There is another way to explain this, if it helps. I know this is a tired cliche, but it is 110% true and relevant here:
This is a game.
This means that concepts of the "real world' must be suspended. More specifically, this is a role-playing game. In RP games you need skills to do things, and the whole point of the infrastructure of an RP game is to ensure that the method of skill set distributionis fair and balanced. As determined by the game designers to foster interdependency and cooperation, no one player should have a signficantly disproportionate advantage of available skills and powers. The reason for this is long in itself, but it is the same reason why a profession-distributed combat certification system would not work.
So yes, if you are thinking in terms of the "real" Star Wars universe(whatever that may be), it does not make sense at all that a droid engineer would not be able to control his droid creations. On the flip side, consider that these activities would make no sense in the "real" Star Wars universe:
- Needing skills to pitch a basic tent.
- Having members of your opposing faction spawn random small bases at your will.
- Being able to carry tons of minerals in your pocket.
- Near-instantaneous travel between intra- and inter-planetary shuttles.
If all of these examples were reformed into something "real", the game would simply be unplayable. Game concepts vs. real concepts works both ways: some mechanics are put in place for player convenience, whileothers are put in place to limit the potential of the game system from becoming unbalanced.
Jenden wrote:
Yea, I've tried that one, no one seems to get that though