I'm terrible at drone stats and particularly confused about how to get a reasonable speed range with the way acceleration is handled in SR4 so I implore Dumpshock for help creating stats for a Rover.


I'm also at a loss to figure out how to give a large latex drone the ability to suffocate people without resorting to granting it the Engulf Power.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO8P4fd823I

What's wrong with using the Engulf rules for it?

Smart Materials that has organic properties and passes the large object (metahuman) like an amoeba does it's food.

Unless you're trying to build one IRL, just hand wave it to the players. It's mysterious design will inspire fear even more so if they can't puzzle it out.

BTW, kudos for referencing that most excellent show. i wish we had stuff that good today.

That thing should be done as a spirit anyway, no way it is going to work as a drone.

It absolutely needs the astral gate power to put victims into an unhappy place, too . I´m sure you can work out the details on that one

10 points I say just for using a rover in a game I loved that show heheh

First question: Does this really need to be a drone? Couldn't you perhaps accomplish the whole thing better by using a spirit?
If it really has to be a drone, you could have a somewhat magicky drone using inhabitation or something.
Failing that, as others have suggested, say something about smart materials and state of the art blah blah blah, and give it an ability that works just like the engulf power with an effective magic rating of whatever you want. It doesn't have to be magic, but if it's doing the same job the rules should probably be darn similar.

Or you can just say it happens, and since the players don't have schematics on the drone, they have no idea how it happens and can't reasponable demand an explination of how exactly it manages it.

Do as Aaron suggested for the engulf, and as for putting people in their 'unhappy place' I'm sure you could put a mild neurotic gas of some kind inside the drone. Really wish I could see an episode or something, as I've never seen this show and so have no idea how exactly it is supposed to work or anything.

P.S. I'd wait for Arsenel to come out before trying to do much with customized drones, as I'm sure they'll have plenty of rules for that and should be coming out soon.

This might just be me being stupid as I'm too young to have watched The Prisoner but how about explaining the Rover via Nanotech? The sphere could contain (or entirely consist of?) nanites packing a small dose of a neurotoxin to paralyze it's victim (while inflicting immense pain of course).

I'm in the spirit camp. Nothing about it seems very dronish. You'd also have to hand wave the propulsion systems and all that. A spirit could give you exactly what you want easily using existing mechanics.

If you really want to have a done I'd have it be subtly different that the real rover. Maybe they could be really cheap blimp type drones. Just throw on a handful of thrusters and sensors and then give it a melee autosoft that only uses the subduing rules on p152 (which seem more realistic if it isn't a magical sort of engulfing).

I could see drones like that selling. They could be cheap and when not used to kill they should be less likely to cause unintended death than taser equiped drones.

Or you could just make it something else entirely, and cover it up with massive Illusion magic.

The advantage to a spirit? When the players start invariably start trying to shoot holes in it, it wont deflate. If you have a lot of spell casters, give it a big fat force, and the problem is solved.
Plus it means you can have it 'appear' from anywhere that would be its environment (lakes, wells, big puddles, ect. Id love to hear that suddenly your players are extra paranoid after every heavy rain.)