Utility Drone
Small, robotic, flying automatons, drones perform a wide variety of tasks. While some are built for combat or security purposes, others can perform reconnaissance, hack computer systems, or even administer medical aid. Drones are cheap to make, built en masse, and are generally considered disposable–most are able to follow verbal commands and communicate in a basic fashion, but they are not regarded as being sapient.
Most drones are linked to an accompanying device, typically a datapad or a wrist mounted data screen, that acts as the drone’s control device that requires the use of a free hand to operate. A creature wielding a drone’s control device can use a bonus action to command the drone to perform a simple action such as “attack”, “scout and report back”, or other easily processed tasks which it does to the best of its ability on its next turn in initiative which is always immediately after its controller’s initiative.
If a drone’s control device is destroyed (AC 14, 10 hit points) or the signal between a drone and its control device is jammed the drone becomes confused as per its malfunction feature.
Equipment, such as armor and drone ports, and some class features may alter the nature of a drone’s control, such as allowing for actionless verbal commands or other benefits or alterations to drone controlling. The statistics for all drones are detailed in Chapter 9: Alien Bestiary.