I'm gonna start off by saying I know this isn't the first time this idea has hit the suggestion box. I just want to keep the idea fresh in peoples minds.

So a lot of people I've talked to when talking about new races or species have mentioned that they'd love a Droid race. But, the problem with this is obvious. Droids can't be Sith or Jedi, wouldn't be considered equal by any Imperial (and probably half of the Republic), and chances are would be missing a few companions because who really wants to follow a Droid?

The only workaround is a Droid class instead of a race.. One being the type of droid you are, which would be split into three classes with two talent trees. You could change your decision later on though, because it's not impossible to rebuild or reprogram a droid.

Enforcer/War Droids - Tanking specialization.

Protocol Droid - Healing specialization.

Assassin Droid - DPS specialization.

The two talent trees would decide on how you preform your role, like ranged tanking opposed to melee. There's just one problem -- what's making the Droid any different from exsisting classes? Droid enemies already use alot of "tech" abilities, like the Harpoon from Vanguards or Probes from Agents. The harder part is that even a few unique Droid abilities have the same functions as already exsisting ones.

Wrist Lasers = Unload

Heat Beam = Force Lightning

Retractable Blade = ...Retractable Blade.

The only solution I could think of is that while you keep some similar abilities, they work differently depending on your talents. Let's say you have a missile AoE like the Bounty Hunter's, where they just hit the button then click the area they want it to fire at. Well, what if instead of that, you gain a talent where the Droid's aoe is activated the second you hit the button, but you can drag the mouse to move where the missiles land for the duration of the ability? Or that you may click the area but then continue moving, with the missiles flying out of your back as you move?

Of course these are just examples, but this is how I imagine the Droid class being possible. It's its own race at the same time, with its own set of companions and own story. Some abilities are familiar but work completely different. It also opens up a larger range of roleplaying scenarios. A Droid simply entering the Cantina without an organic with it is an instant conversation starter. The look of the Droid would depend on the faction, and instead of a neutral class, why not just two Droid buttons on each faction class selection? Republic Droids and Imperial Droids would have different stories, maybe a shared starting area, but different stories onward.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it, because it's something I'd love to see in the next expac.

+1

a droid class would be awesome.

Yup I like this idea. Though one of the things I thought of reading this, is that we're talking about droids here. They're not biological, they're easily re-equippable with different body parts, armor levels, and are highly reprogrammable. Perhaps their skill tree could be free-form, still with dependencies but with the skills essentially all in the same tree (triple-wide) so that you can mix-and-match skills from what are groupings of skills pertaining to healer, tank, and dps abilities. And no matter where you spend the skill points, since it's all the same tree every 5 points spent gets you to the next row of skills across the entire skill tree.

Now this is probably guaranteed to be complicated, to set up the skills so that it's both competitive and lacking easy exploits in the form of previously impossible skill combinations, but I have a feeling the possibilities there are extremely exciting.

The skills you choose from your tree could all map to a change in the droid's appearance ... which would make it difficult to hide what skills your droid has learned... but wow would that be cool.

Coming in update 3.0! 3 New playable classes! Each class for just 2100 Cartel Coins!

But with all seriousness, I would love to see this come true somehow.

Through Cartel Market or not, it would be alot of fun.

Ty OP for reviving the idea

The skills you choose from your tree could all map to a change in the droid's appearance ... which would make it difficult to hide what skills your droid has learned... but wow would that be cool.

I also think that your skills should reflect how your droid appears, so that people in PvP can identify you immediatley. Like the holograms around a Trooper/BH's gun and showing what spec they are. So tanks are the big droids, healers are the protocol droids, etc.

I think it's also perfectly acceptable for everyone to charge screaming at a protocol droid the second they get an option to kill it.

General Grievous was a cyborg - and even with a blood transfusion from a Jedi (Sifo-Dyas), he still wasn't Force-sensitive.

Since droids are not considered living things, the force most likely won't exist with them. But the way technology is in the star wars universe, I can easily see a droid use technology to imitate the results of using the force. Like force lightning could be imitated by using an Arc emitter to shoot and direct bolts of lightning. an electromagnetic field or something like that can imitate the telekinetic form of the force.

quotes taken from http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/8081/are-there-any-jedi-or-sith-droids