KOTOR Saga Edition - Building a ranged droid

[CharonsHelper]

If Droids are OP, they're no more OP than UTF that's for sure. And do you remember the specifics on what made them OP?

By level 8 UTF shouldn't be all that bad, even with Skill Focus.

And as Enigma said - the rules for building droids are way too wide open - so to have one be a PC the GM should be looking over your shoulder to keep you from making anything too wacky.

As to defending against Use the Force - if you're going to be fighting a lot of Jedi/Sith etc., you should probably snag the Unstoppable Force feat - giving +5 bonus to Fortitude Defense and Will Defense against any attack or effect requiring a Use the Force check.

The Misfortune Talent "Stymie" is also pretty awesome when up against force users as it can give a -5 to any skill as a swift action (I believe the tree can be taken by either a Scoundrel or Bounty Hunter). If force users are few and far between it's mediocre, but giving a -5 to Use the Force on a Sith Sorcerer boss is freakin' awesome for burning your swift action.

Between the two of them a foe will be at -10 with Use the Force so that even with Skill Focus they'd have to roll pretty well to do much to you.

Of note though: You seem to be stuck on Mind Trick's ability to make a target flee, but remember that the force user has to be a higher level to actually use it at all. If they try it and turn out to be the same/lower level, they just burned a power and wasted their turn no matter what they rolled. And if it DOES hit you, your buddy can just poke you to snap you out of it.

At low levels Force Lightning is kinda OP simply for doing 8d6 damage with 4d6 on a miss (no table worth the time WOULDN'T houserule that for a level 1-3 character - obviously the designers didn't think about anyone snagging it that early) but it shouldn't be too bad by level 8. Force Grip can be rough if there was theoretically a 1v1 scenario, but in a group your buddies can just shoot them to break their concentration.


Final note - Deflect is good, but it's not actually nearly as good as you might think if you run the #s. (Even besides doing nothing against grenades/flame etc.)

If theoretically you have a 50% chance of hitting a Jedi and their Use the Force roll is the same as your attack roll (both for simplicity), it would seem that your chance to hit them would drop to 1/4 (with 1/2 * 1/2). Wrong! It's because as the shooter, you only roll once, and so the Jedi will only ever try to deflect an above average roll. On an average hit, they only have a 25% chance of successfully deflecting, meaning that with Deflect you still have a 37.5% chance of hitting.

That makes Deflect comparable to a +2-3 Reflex against the first hit, and all but worthless against anything but mooks after that. That means that standing in the open with a lightsaber & Deflect still isn't as good as getting that +5 Reflex for hugging cover - not to mention that that helps against AOEs.

Now - if a character has a jacked up Use the Force score it can be much better, especially since those builds tend to have rather sub-par Reflex scores (Since they're going with CHA & WIS, they don't jack up their DEX and likely don't spend the feats & talents needed to make armor viable), so they need it. Frankly - I wouldn't bother taking Deflect on a Jedi combat beast since I'm either using a DEX build or wearing heavy armor to jack up my Reflex.

Edit/Final Tips: Everyone in Saga Edition should embrace multi-classing, ESPECIALLY anyone who isn't a Jedi. Bounce around between the classes to pick up the Talents you want (though you can overdo it and lose too much BAB).

Also - anyone who isn't jacking up their DEX will eventually need to snag the two armor talents (lets you still add your level to Reflex in armor & get 1/2 the armor bonus) to keep your Reflex from falling behind, and they're not bad choices for anyone - though I think droids might have different rules for the whole armor thing.