Some Saga Droid Homebrew

Some time ago, I mentioned contributing my own take on droid characters for my home game. Not that I'm an expert, but at least I'm passionate about D20 Saga. The rules as they're written, even in an entire supplement all of their own, seem more than unwieldy for a playable race. I found myself going crazy for months writing page after page of proposed mechanics and component costs, modifying talents and feats, and generally hating the Saga droid reference materials more and more.

As much as I have a personal distaste for the mechanics in EOTE, I saw a ray of light in the way droids are handled therein, and have incorporated it as the unifying principle of my new and improved droid rules. My players don't often play droids, but I think I've got it ironed out. Maybe someone can playtest it for me and let me know.

I'm going just from the Core Rulebook in this entry, so it might get tricky as it trickles down through the other material.

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Droids speak, read and write Basic and Binary.

Droid Species Traits
Ability Modifiers: +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma. As machines, droids have a knack for analysis and mechanical endeavors, but have trouble relating to organics generally.

Small or Medium Size: Medium size droids are most common, however many manufacturers make droid models suited for operation in smaller spaces.

Speed: Droid base speed is five squares.*

Inorganic: Droids may not gain or spend Force Points or Destiny Points, and are immune to Mind-affecting Force Powers and telepathy of any kind. They never require food or sleep, but regain hitpoints at the normal rate from rest. Droids may neither take the Force Sensitivity Feat nor make Use the Force checks. Droids do not undergo Ability Score modifications from aging, and do not perish from old age. Droids may not regain hitpoints from Treat Injury checks.

Off the Line: Droids are manufactured with software specific to their occupation. A Droid gains the Great Fortitude, Iron Will, or Lightning Reflexes quality.

Plug and Play: Droids do not gain Experience Points from encounters, although Heroic Droids count as a member of the party when dividing XP. Instead, a Droid's level can only increase through upgrades anywhere droids can be purchased, paying the requisite XP cost in credits (current level*1000). Any Feats, Talents or Features gained at the new level are assumed to be a part of the purchased software and/or hardware package. Generally, a Droid must be accompanied by an owner to purchase an upgrade; a lone Droid attempting to purchase an upgrade follows the rules for obtaining Black Market equipment as though the upgrade were a Licensed item.

Accounts: Droids may not open or operate traditional accounts with traditional investment institutions. Replace the Noble's Wealth Talent with the Interpreter Talent when used with Droid characters.

Interpreter: This Droid is upgraded with a heuristic syntactical database of most common languages and is able to compile communication protocols when needed. When encountering a form of structured communication (A language that can be understood by a creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or more) which the Droid character does not already know, make a Knowledge (xenology) check against a DC determined by the obscurity of the communication. On a success, the Droid character adds that form of communication to its list of known languages. On a failure, the Droid may not retry at its current level. The most common trade languages have a DC of 15, whereas understanding an ancient extragalactic entity might call for a DC of 50 or more.

*Locomotion can be achieved in a number of ways, but is assumed to be bipedal, as made-to-order droids with unconventional compositions are uncommon. Even other methods of locomotion follow the manufacturers' biases, and are treated as bipedal for the purposes of skill and ability checks, regardless of cosmetics.
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Droids as Equipment

Level one Nonheroic Droids may be purchased as Licensed Equipment for 5000 credits, and may be upgraded to further nonheroic levels at a cost of (current level*1000) credits.

Equipment for Droids

A Tool Kit is expended when used to repair a Droid.

Repair Pac: 100 credits. A Repair Pac may be expended in lieu of a Tool Kit when repairing a Droid.
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This is my first foray into sharing homebrew like this. Feedback would be appreciated. 'Dying' droids are tricky; I'm inclined to follow conventional rules, and just say that, since they cant gain or spend Force Points, dead is dead. Alternatively, I was looking at adding a Medical Kit analog to allow 'stabilization', but then I'd have to put time limits on it (can you 'stabilize' a droid that's been 'dead' for a thousand years?).

UnnaturalGas

I meant to have the 'Interpreter' entry inset to indicate it wasn't part of the species traits, but I can only post in plain text, so I couldn't make that happen. Maybe some kind soul can make that happen.

UnnaturalGas

Okay, after some playtesting (I know everyone's on the edge of their seats to hear about it).

Added to Species Traits:

Ability Modifiers: None

Off the Line: Droids gain either Great Fortutude (+2 Fortitude Defense), Lightning Reflexes (+2 Reflex Defense), or Iron Will (+2 Will Defense)at first level.

Added to Inorganic entry: Droids, as inanimate objects, gain DR equal to half their level. Ion damage ignores this DR.

Ammended Plug and Play: Droids do not count as a party member when dividing XP.

*Any powered weapon may be purchased in a version that deals ion damage instead. Organics without cybernetic limbs ignore ion damage as normal.

*Non-expendable equipment may be integrated into the chassis of the droid at no extra cost, although it is unusable by other characters and inoperable when the droid is disabled.