The behavioral inhibitor rules aren't wasted space just because Heuristic Processors say you get to break them. Those sections are giving you knowledge of how an average droid works which is perfectly valid even when they add that PC's don't need to follow those rules. In the Players Handbook it says "Half-Orcs would rather act than ponder and would rather fight than argue". and though you're not held to those words it's not meaningless text. It is giving you knowledge of how the average Half-Orc acts. If it then contained text that expressly said "PC half Orcs can act outside of these norms if they judge that to be reasonable" you would be in the same territory as the text we're talking about. PL's claim is that a Half Orc character in an argument must either be mandated to fight by the DM or else that racial description is invalid and pointless.
virgil wrote:Prak wrote:I don't know what kind of DMs you've had, but I've never had to ask one "may my character believe this thing?"
They exist, certainly; or have you not heard about players losing their status as paladins because of the DM's interpretation of alignment?
In systems with both players and DM's there are clear lines as to who controls what. The player controls the thoughts, actions, and decisions of their avatar and the DM controls everyone else. A paladin or cleric may lose their powers if they take actions at odds with their God or code but that is perfectly in line with the DM/Player split. The players actions are being judged and responded to by one of the characters under the DM's control but the player still gets to take those actions even if the DM thinks it is out of character for them. The player controls the PC, the DM controls anyone else.
The Heuristic Processor says that it's purpose is to allow Droids who have them to bend or break the normal droid rules as long as the Droid can excuse it to itself and no one else. Control is put entirely in the only realm that DM's are not allowed to participate in, the player characters own mind and decisions.
Lets compare to the paladin. A paladin, like a Droid, is expressly allowed to break the rules they are supposed to follow. In the Paladin's case they lose their powers and can't get them back until the god they pissed off forgives them. In the Droid's case their are no consequences except that their personality changes based on that choice (as is expressly written in the Heuristic Processor description). If a Paladin lies he will lose his powers but he
may still lie. That is the player's choice which the GM may not stop. If the Droid kills someone (a choice he is expressly allowed to make) that is also the players choice, which the GM cannot stop, and one for which he suffers no consequences. In neither the Paladin or the Droid's case can a GM take control over the character and refuse to allow them to act. That is what PL is claiming.
PL's argument is that a GM can stop your Droid from killing someone because NPC droids can't kill people. The Heuristic Processor that PC's get explains that its function is to let PC's break the common rules that NPC droids operate by. The book gives us a single example of this, which is a droid being able to kill someone. PL's entire argument is against the singular example we are given about how Droid's are allowed to break their programming.
The Heuristic Processor is clear. PL's argument; that a terrible DM could make it not work, is a bizarro-world version of Oberoni. Rather than saying that a broken rule is fine because a good DM can house rule it his position is that a working rule is flawed because a bad DM might house rule it.
Ice9 wrote:Re: losing a level to body swap. It's worth it. You're basically taking +1 LA (or less than that, depending how SAGA does XP) in order to get large physical stat increases, and you're a non-caster, so there's little downside.
Yeah it's obvious. You lose a feat but get to be a super-genius in a hulking battle robot body, so you're clearly gaining more than you lose since there's no feat which says "You get to be this guy"
Finally, on the topic of the Punch Droid build, I found a feat called "Follow Through" which is like Cleave except when you kill someone you get a free move instead of a free attack. They say directly that you can move before making a cleave attack if you have both which means that would do really well in the Punch droid build. He could Great Cleave everybody around him in a 25 foot area and then move up to 60ft (depending on his locomotion) to new targets and then keep the chain going as long as their were people. If he had burrowing he can even do a Bulette impression. He can come out of the ground, murder everyone in range, then take a free move to go back under the earth.
If there's any other kind of builds people are interested in I'd look around. I've been trying to make a force user I found really impressive but it's all kinda low level stuff. I think a Jedi Wookie might be an impressive character. Wookies can mess with the RNG pretty bad and hit like trucks and there's some Jedi powers like phasing through walls that could make a pretty good Ninja-wookie.