Join The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders as they continue their How to Play West End Games’ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition. Today, we are clarifying Droids and Equipment. You can pick up the original sourcebooks as PDF’s here: https://www.starwarstimeline.net/Westendgames.htm
Transcript
Intro
Welcome back to The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders! Today we’re diving into Chapter Six: Droids and Equipment of the Rules Companion.
In the original core rulebook, customization was limited, but the Rules Companion provides the necessary “crunch” to build droids from scratch and improve your gear using skill points. This chapter refines how we handle Alien PCs and introduces a “building dice” system that is vital for keeping your characters and equipment grounded in Star Wars reality.
Description
While this chapter of the Rules Companion is pretty short, there are a few things we should focus on. First, we have to talk about a major update to creating Alien Player Characters. While the original Sourcebook suggested simply adding 6D to an NPC’s base stats, the Rules Companion officially corrects this with a specific restriction: at least 1D of those 6D must be added to each of the character’s six attributes. This ensures that your alien heroes have a balanced foundation rather than dumping all their points into a single stat.
When you decide it’s time to add a mechanical companion to the crew, we move into the Droid Construction rules. Player Character droids are built using a pool of 65 building dice, while NPC droids typically use 35D. All droids start with 1D in every attribute, and increasing an attribute costs 5D from your pool for every 1D of increase. This is where things get tactical, as you must also use these dice to buy equipment and tools for the droid. Remember, most droids have one primary function. Most standard tools cost 1D, but if you want something specialized—like a tool with multiple functions or extra reach—it will cost you an additional 1D.
There are two major limitations to keep in mind for droids. First, droids can never possess Force skills. Second, a droid’s skill can never exceed 13D, preventing them from becoming unstoppable machines that overshadow the rest of the party. Interestingly, droids that have gone a long time without a memory wipe can actually start with one Force Point, representing their unique personality and “luck” in the galaxy.
Then we have Equipment Improvement, which works differently than just buying new gear. You can actually spend your hard-earned skill points to modify your existing blasters, armor, or starship components. For example, increasing a blaster’s damage by a single pip costs 4 skill points. Once you pay the cost, you have to succeed on a Technology roll to see if the modification works. A simple 1-pip increase is a Very Easy roll, but trying to push a weapon by 5 pips or more is Very Difficult and risks ruining the equipment.
Speaking of protection, the Rules Companion clarifies Armor modifications. Improving the protection of your armor is possible, but it comes with a physical cost: your Dexterity is reduced by the same amount the armor is increased. If you want to avoid this penalty, you have to spend even more skill points on specialized “Dexterity enhancements” to keep the suit mobile.
We also get a significant update on Starship repairs and modifications. If you are working on a ship yourself, you spend the skill points as usual, but if you hire an NPC technician to do the work, the credit cost of the upgrade is doubled. Upgrading a hyperdrive is a massive undertaking, costing 20 skill points to move from a x2 multiplier to a x1.
Finally, we have to talk about specialized gear like Space Suits and Breath Masks. In the core book, these were fairly generic, but the Rules Companion adds realistic limits. Emergency vacuum suits are only rated for 72 hours before they begin to leak, while more expensive utility suits can last for hundreds of hours. However, if a character wearing a utility suit is wounded, the suit is considered punctured and will begin to leak immediately. This keeps the “feel” of a dangerous, used galaxy intact.
While there are a handful of equipment descriptions, the majority of this section clarifies droids and equipment upgrades.
Outro
With these updates, building droids and maintaining gear become a high-stakes game of resource management and technical skill. You finally have the tools to make a customized astromech feel like a member of the team or turn a standard heavy blaster into a personalized tool of justice.
Thank you all for tuning in. We invite you to subscribe to this channel and click the bell to get notified about our next video. You can now join the Infernal Brotherhood through YouTube Memberships and even become a Patron on Patreon. Don’t forget to pick up some of our custom designed Star Wars apparel or even Star Wars tabletop roleplaying games by following the links in the description below.
Until the Infernal Brotherhood convenes again, my fellow scruffy-looking nerf herders… “May the Force be with you.”