- Planet of Evil – the anti-matter monster here is an apparently unique entity and, in any case, is more a sort of mobile hazard than something with creature statistics
- Pyramids of Mars – although we only encounter one Osiran, they are a race… however, they’re sufficiently powerful that they are more effectively described as one-off NPCs. I’m also going to pass on their servitor robots for the time being as there isn’t much to say about them other than them being large, strong, robots.
This brings us to The Android Invasion. The alien race here are the Kraals, which have leathery skin, sculpted skulls, and a small nose-horn. Other than their physical appearance, however, there seems little to set them apart from humans, and in game terms they (as with races such as the Draconians) probably don’t need any particular rules. Their titular android creations, however, are a different matter.
The Kraal androids never appeared again on the TV show, and have only rarely featured in the spin-off media, but the general concept of androids is one that's much more widely used. Strictly speaking, any human-shaped robot can be described as an android, and there may have been many such in the TV series, with examples from the modern show including the Smilers from The Beast Below, the Adherents of the Repeated Meme from The End of the World, or the Emoji-bots from Smile, among many others, while from the classic series we can add the White Robots from The Mind Robber, the Osiran servitor robots mentioned above and, indeed, the robot in Robot.
Here, however, I’m going to focus on androids specifically designed to pass themselves off as human and lacking any shape-shifting technology to help them achieve this. The Kraal androids are an obvious example, but other notable instances include those in The Androids of Tara, and individual robot duplicates seen in The Chase and The Caves of Androzani. Similar concepts have been used many times in the spin-off media although these are often unique to particular stories rather than being identical models.
Description and Biology
Both the Kraal and the Taran androids are of very similar design, with deceptively human-looking skin over a framework full of electronics (rather than, say, the more pseudo-organic innards of the Westworld TV series). There is no indication of how they are powered, and the assumption often seems to be that they can go almost indefinitely without being recharged. If only a Roomba was so energy efficient! Realistically, of course, they would either have to be plugged into a power system from time to time, be built with a battery with a very high energy density, or include a miniature fusion reactor or the like. But this isn’t usually addressed, so who knows?
The distinguishing feature of this sort of android is that they can pass for human. Obviously, there are several difficulties here if one is to avoid the uncanny valley (as they are supposed to do). Trying to make the skin and eyes look fully convincing would be problematic for a start, even if we assume that they can get the behaviour right. Having said that, if you can get past these problems, the voice may not be so hard and, if the deception doesn’t have to last for long, there isn’t much more required. In this respect, it's worth noting that Taran androids weren’t originally designed to deceive as such, just to not look weird.
Kraal androids, however, are intended to pass themselves off as real humans. What features they would need beyond the basics depends on how long they are supposed to do this for, and how much they are supposed to mingle with real humans while doing so. This is debatable, in their case, but it doesn’t follow that nobody building android duplicates would have the same plan.
For this to work, the android is going to need to be capable of other things. They are, for instance, going to have to eat. They can probably get away with not being watched when they go to the toilet, but the food has to go somewhere, so, assuming it isn’t completely burned up as fuel, they’re going to have to expel it somehow. For similar reasons, they won’t need to be ‘anatomically accurate’, but it’s probably not that much extra work to make them so, so the designers may have done so anyway, just in case. Those parts don’t, however, need to be functional… unless the plan is to use them as a honey trap, which doesn’t seem very Doctor Who.
Game Attributes
Neither the Kraal nor the Taran androids seem to be any stronger or more resistant to damage than humans. In systems that have enough detail to model things like blood loss, they are going to be immune to that, and, while they can’t be poisoned, they don’t otherwise seem especially difficult to kill. They are not armoured and have enough essential electronics inside them that an attack is as likely to strike something critical as it would be to hit a vital organ in a living being. They don’t seem to feel pain, however, so an injury short of death would have less effect on them than on humans; in game terms, this, and the near-inability to exhaust could be reflected in a high constitution score or the like.
Different designs have different intelligence ratings, although we’ll assume one that’s good enough to fake being an average human. Willpower will be high, since they simply follow their programming, and they’ll also be immune to the sort of psychic attacks that affect organic brains. Charisma is a little more tricky, depending on what it does in the system concerned. In some respects, it’s likely quite poor, but the android duplicate we’re modelling here does need some kind of deception skill and, in many systems, you can’t do that without a decent charisma. (An android not intended to deceive has no such requirement, but that’s not what we’re modelling here).
An android that’s going to pass itself off as human for any length of time will need the skills and knowledge of whatever profession it is supposed to have. Similarly, the standard Taran android is designed to perform lower-class duties and would probably have skills in farming, basic repair, and so on. But these things are variable, so I’ll stick to listing the skills necessary to try and deceive a PC into thinking the android is human, since that’s likely to be a core function in a game. As usual, though, I will assume a ‘mook’ level, rather than a top-of-the-range spybot.
Although some other models differ, Kraal and Taran androids are not sentient – and the Doctor is perfectly willing to destroy them. However, they can effectively simulate sentience, which in most game systems is good enough; the relevant numbers do not change. However, in some systems, this may have an effect, such as specifically noting that they can be reprogrammed like any other machine.
5E - Android Duplicate
Medium construct, neutral
Armour Class: 10 (natural)
Hit Points: 30 (4d8+12)
Speed: 30 ft.
STR 10 (+0) | DEX 10 (+0) | CON 16 (+3) |
INT 10 (+0) | WIS 10 (+0) | CHA 10 (+0) |
Saving Throws: Wisdom +2
Skills: Deception +2, Persuasion +2
Combat Skills: Ranged +2, Melee +2
Damage Immunities: Poison, psychic
Condition Immunities: Charmed, exhaustion,
frightened, paralysed, poisoned
Senses: Passive Perception 10
Challenge: ⅛ (25 XP)
BRP - Android Duplicate
STR 3D6 (10-11) | CON 2D6+9 (16) | SIZ 2D6+6 (13) |
INT 12 | POW 2D6 (7) | |
DEX 3D6 (10-11) | CHA 2D6 (7) | |
Hit Points: 15 | Move: 10 | |
Base SR: 5 | Damage Bonus: 0 |
Armour: 0-point simulated skin
Skills: Fast Talk 40%, Persuade 50%, (others depending
on imitated profession)
Robot body: Androids are immune to poison and
similar agents that affect biological beings as well as psychic attacks or
illusions that affect organic minds.
GURPS - Android Duplicate
ST 10 | DX 10 | IQ 10 | HT 16 |
Thrust: 1d-2 | Swing: 1d | ||
Speed: 6.5 | Move: 5 | ||
Advantages: Digital Mind, Doesn’t Breathe, Extra Hit
Points +4, Machine, Unfazeable
Disadvantages: Electrical, Reprogrammable
Skills: Acting-14, (others depending on imitated profession)
Savage Worlds - Android Duplicate
Agility: d6 | Smarts: d6 | Spirit: d6 |
Strength: d6 | Vigour: d10 |
Skills: Persuasion d8 (others depending on imitated
profession)
Special Abilities: Construct, Fearless
Pace: 6 Parry: 2 Toughness: 7 Size: 0
STA - Android Duplicate
Control: 8 | Fitness: 11 | Presence: 8 |
Daring: 9 | Insight: 8 | Reason: 8 |
Command: 0 | Security: 0 | Science: 0 |
Conn: 0 | Engineering: 0 | Medicine: 0 |
Stress: 11 | Resistance: 1 |
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