Pricing Constructed at 10RP means most other things in the Race Builder are under priced. Meaning a Dwarf should be at least 15RP.
+4 saving throw bonus against mind-affecting effects, poison, stun and paralysis and immunity to fatigue, exhaustion, disease and sleep? Dwarves come nowhere near this.
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I'm actually thinking up a Racial Archetype for Android Barbarians right now. It replaces Rage with Overclocking which forces a cooldown period when you exit it, and replaces the morale bonuses with either an untyped bonus, or an "Overclocking Bonus". It's still, obviously, a work in progress, but once I've gotten something put together, I'll put it up on the homebrew board, see what people think of it.I'm not really big on a trait to get around what is supposed to be a major handicap for a race. Will the game suffer that much if you can't have Android Barbarians?, which is about the wonkiest concept I've seen tossed up here in recent weeks.
Wonky doesn't bother me. But I agree with you. I want to see the finished product, but a racial archtype that 'gets around' a racial limitation bothers me.
OTOH, if I can get one in PFS, I already have plans for an inquisitor of Brigh. :-)
@Drejk: That is just it The bonuses should be seperate. Adding those prebuilt in to the Constructed Trait is foolish. It is an example of Never-Look-Back Game Design.
What I am getting at is if Constructed is worth 10RP, which would make it one of the highest if not the highest racial trait, makes the rest of them underpriced.
Hell (yes I am actually using hell), Constructed negates one of the major bonuses in the game. I would make it a 1RP stand alone trait or even a -1 or -2 trait.
If it had a work around that allowed them to use morale bonuses and suffer the penalties of Rage and such abilities it might be worth 2RP.
Also, Dwarves get a +2 against Poisons, Spells, and Spell-Like Abilities. Something a bit more potent.
@Drejk: That is just it The bonuses should be seperate. Adding those prebuilt in to the Constructed Trait is foolish. It is an example of Never-Look-Back Game Design.
My favorite system is GURPS which has traits (advantages, disadvantages and zero point traits) and meta-traits, which are pre-built packages of advantages, disadvantages and features (sometimes attribute modifiers as well) that are expected of certain types of creatures. I assure you that there is nothing foolish in creating fixed packages of certain abilities for specific purposes. I agree that it would be good to list the costs of individual components of such a package, however.
Hell (yes I am actually using hell), Constructed negates one of the major bonuses in the game. I would make it a 1RP stand alone trait or even a -1 or -2 trait.
Bless, good hope, heroism and Rage/rage. While they are very good bonuses to have I would not call them major — enhancement, luck and competence are more important in Pathfinder.
Also, Dwarves get a +2 against Poisons, Spells, and Spell-Like Abilities. Something a bit more potent.
I think we can count 1 point for immunity to fatigue and exhaustion, 3 points for immunity to disease and bonus to saving throws against poisons (which is better than 2 point healthy trait), at least 2 points for fear immunity (which is better than 1 point fearless trait), 1 point for saving throw bonus against paralysis and stun and at least 4 points for bonus against mind-affecting effects and sleep immunity (which is much better than Elven Immunity which costs 2 points). This leaves place for hidden -1 RP penalty for lack of morale bonuses. Possibly more as I might underpriced some of the component traits.
The immunities and bonuses should be separate not rolled into the Constructed Trait.
And you forgot Bardic Performances, Paladin Auras, Cavalier Banner, & some Cavalier Challenges.
And you forgot Bardic Performances
I did not.
Inspire Courage: competence bonus to attack rolls and weapon damage rolls, morale bonus to saves against fear and charm effects. Android is already immune to fear and has decent bonus to saves against mind-affecting effects.
Inspire Heroics: +4 morale bonus to saves and +4 dodge bonus to AC. Ok, it would be nice to have but Android already has some decent advantages in saving throws department over other races and bards often have other performances to maintain.
Paladin Auras, Cavalier Banner, & some Cavalier Challenges.
Ok, here you got me. When I was considering Paladin-android relationship I only thought that their immunity to fear already overlap and hadn't considered cavalier's interaction with android at all.
Hence why I say it should have an allowance for them to benefit from their own Morale Bonuses.
As it stands Android Synregizes completely with 5 of the 11 Core Classes (No Archetypes).
Rogue, Wizard, Monk(Really weird on that...), Fighter, & Ranger.
Nearly every other Race Synergizes completely with at least 8 of the 11. Dwarves are the lowest with 7 of the Core Classes having complete Synergy.
What ones they don't Synergize completely with they can at least be Passable at.
This is something the designers I know and myself look at when designing Races.
Also don't a lot of Bard Archetypes & Masterpieces use Morale Bonuses?
Sorcerers? I would deem them more synergistic with Bards than with Sorcerers - both classes are hurt by Charisma penalty but Bard tend to get more use of Dexterity and Intelligence than Sorcerers.
I'd also say that they synergize with Ranger as much as with Fighter if not more.
Yeah I meant Ranger but I am bouncing between this thread, another Forum, and building 12 Dwarven Rangers.
They shut down one of the earlier Bard Powers for themselves.
Not gonna lie, saw all the talking about androids and emotions and immediately thought Reploids from the Mega Man X series. >.>
I'm glad to see Pathfinder has its own variation of the sentient robot race, it's been a long time coming.
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Hence why I say it should have an allowance for them to benefit from their own Morale Bonuses.
As it stands Android Synregizes completely with 5 of the 11 Core Classes (No Archetypes).
Rogue, Wizard, Monk(Really weird on that...), Fighter, & Ranger.
Nearly every other Race Synergizes completely with at least 8 of the 11. Dwarves are the lowest with 7 of the Core Classes having complete Synergy.
What ones they don't Synergize completely with they can at least be Passable at.
This is something the designers I know and myself look at when designing Races.
Also don't a lot of Bard Archetypes & Masterpieces use Morale Bonuses?
That is a valid concern when creating base races, but the androids are a niche race. So them being appropriated only for some classes isn't a problem.
Creative Director
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Also, keep in mind that there's only so much we can do with a race like androids in the space of a single page... especially when that single page requires us to spend a significant chunk reprinting some information so that it's easier to use them as characters (be they NPCs or PCs).
Fortunately... I have no intention of leaving this as the final word on androids, or on the various types of feats and racial traits and other things that they might be able to gain at some point. It may just be that I made sure to include androids AND robots in this book for a specific reason...
And in fact, making androids immune to morale boosts and thus making them poor choices for barbarians might almost be said to be a specifically deliberate choice.
Still, they have 5-6 immunities costing only 4 RP for the package, a bit cheap, unless there is a reason given.
(this is a problem with the Construct, Half-Construct, Half-Undead and Undead types in the ARG, almost none of their stuff has a listed RP cost)
James, don't tease so. You already know I'm way too excited this week due to Rasputin Must Die!
I think if you look under the individual racial traits you can build those packages.
& on the cover of RoW: RMD on PathfinderWiki am I the only one that thinks of Jace, The Mindsculptor?
Monk(Really weird on that...
You can pass off pretty much the entire Monk class as "Super Android Powers". What's not to love about an Android who can run like the wind, punch holes through walls, turn aside blows with his bare hands etc...
If anything it's the archetypal Android class.
Monk(Really weird on that...You can pass off pretty much the entire Monk class as "Super Android Powers". What's not to love about an Android who can run like the wind, punch holes through walls, turn aside blows with his bare hands etc...
If anything it's the archetypal Android class.
Hence why I said it was weird.
Hence why I said it was weird.Monk(Really weird on that...You can pass off pretty much the entire Monk class as "Super Android Powers". What's not to love about an Android who can run like the wind, punch holes through walls, turn aside blows with his bare hands etc...
If anything it's the archetypal Android class.
When you say "weird", all I'm hearing is "awesome".
When you say "weird", all I'm hearing is "awesome".Hence why I said it was weird.Monk(Really weird on that...You can pass off pretty much the entire Monk class as "Super Android Powers". What's not to love about an Android who can run like the wind, punch holes through walls, turn aside blows with his bare hands etc...
If anything it's the archetypal Android class.
Oh it is Awesome. It is just Weird to see a Race Synergize almost perfectly, if not completely, with the Monk in both Mechanics AND Fluff.
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By my count that should only bring it up to a total of 10RP. I am wondering if the 16RP is a typo or am I missing something?There is something incorrect about the android, but it isn't the 16 RP. That part is accurate. When showing the RP costs in these entries we only showed the values for the new race abilities, and unfortunately, the constructed ability should be higher. Constructed should be 10 RP. In development when we were assigning the values, things like its various immunities and its +4 saving throw bonus were broken out separate from the constructed race ability, which is why it only shows as 2 RP.
Here's the breakdown from my development notes:
Humanoid type: 0 RP
Medium size: 0 RP
Normal speed: 0 RP
Standard Ability Scores: 0 RP
Linguist: 1 RP
Darkvision: 2 RP
Low-Light vision: 0 RP
Skills +2 Perception: 1 RP
Emotionless: –1 RP
Constructed: 2 RP
Saves +4 vs paralysis, poison: 4 RP
Immune fatigue, exhaustion, disease, sleep, fear, emotion: 4 RP
Nanite surge: 3 RP
I am particularly interested in the immunities point costs. I get where the "+4 saves vs. foo" point cost comes into play, but when I search my PDF of the Advanced Race Guide, I do not find anything but race/elemental specific immunities. Is there a guideline for building new race immunities, or just use the existing race immunities as a guide?
I am just curious if immune to fatigue or emotion would be considered worth more than immune to poison or disease. For example, Androids get immunity to "fatigue, exhaustion, disease, sleep, fear, emotion" for only 4 RP. How much more would immunity "poison, sleep, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, effects that cause sickened and energy drain" cost?
Also, a number of races have does not "breathe, eat, or sleep" in their traits. What is the point cost associated with this trait? I can't seem to find it in the Advanced Race Guide.
Huhuhuhuhu. And i just saw Episode 1 and thought of making an andoid race or using constructs as such silly druids somehow. They would make awesome foes in numbers^^
FYI : IMHO, androids shouldn't get strength bonuses for special abilities. Now, a Barbarian archetype that replaced Rage with 'Overclock' as was suggested should instead boost Dex/Speed, not Str/Damage. Just my 2 cents.
@James Jacobs
Glad to hear you are going to do more for android/robotic races, and looking forward to them. May I suggest a 'races of' type book instead of tacking them into a setting book?
Constructed (EX) For the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as a ranger's favored enemy and bane weapons), androids count as both humanoids and constructs. Androids gain a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison and stun effects, are not subject to fatigue or exhaustion...BARBARIAN ANDROID OF DEATH... wait...
Well that is reasonable... and quite useful for a "SpaceFinder" campaign I am working on. Neat.
, and are immune to disease and sleep effects. Androids can never gain moral bonuses, and are immune to fear effects and all emotion-based effects.
Yeah, I've been playing a Distant Worlds campaign and these are just what the Dr. Who rip-off I've got as a benefactor for my PCs ordered.
Everyone covered the Race Creation Guide was where the RP cost comes from, right? Good.
Now consider this: a TRUE NEUTRAL Android Necromancer with a Paracletus Aeon familiar. BAM.
Constructed (EX) For the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as a ranger's favored enemy and bane weapons), androids count as both humanoids and constructs. Androids gain a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison and stun effects, are not subject to fatigue or exhaustion...BARBARIAN ANDROID OF DEATH... wait...
Well that is reasonable... and quite useful for a "SpaceFinder" campaign I am working on. Neat.
, and are immune to disease and sleep effects. Androids can never gain moral bonuses, and are immune to fear effects and all emotion-based effects.
Yeah, I've been playing a Distant Worlds campaign and these are just what the Dr. Who rip-off I've got as a benefactor for my PCs ordered.
Everyone covered the Race Creation Guide was where the RP cost comes from, right? Good.
Now consider this: a TRUE NEUTRAL Android Necromancer with a Paracletus Aeon familiar. BAM.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/android
also, this is where you can get the skinny on androids.http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/arg-creating-new-races
aaaand this should explain some issues surrounding RP
Does an android have a soul? Can it be resurrected?
Does an android have a soul? Can it be resurrected?
Yes & Yes.
Does that mean they have artificial/synthetic souls?
That would open a certain can of worms.
Or maybe they have repurposed souls acquired through some unsavory means?
And if the soul is just a mote of positive energy then maybe their creators learned a method of tapping the positive energy plane to produce new souls?
It means they have actual souls. The implications of which are complicated and not something I am ready to reveal now. Have patience!Does that mean they have artificial/synthetic souls?
That would open a certain can of worms.
Thanks for the explanation.
In order to make a convincing case that robots or otherwise artificial beings would inevitably lack souls, you would first have to convincingly demonstrate exactly how souls get into organic beings and why this process wouldn't apply elsewhere.
The question is not, and has never been, "why would they have souls?" but rather, "why wouldn't they?"
Also, keep in mind that there's only so much we can do with a race like androids in the space of a single page... especially when that single page requires us to spend a significant chunk reprinting some information so that it's easier to use them as characters (be they NPCs or PCs).
Fortunately... I have no intention of leaving this as the final word on androids, or on the various types of feats and racial traits and other things that they might be able to gain at some point. It may just be that I made sure to include androids AND robots in this book for a specific reason...
And in fact, making androids immune to morale boosts and thus making them poor choices for barbarians might almost be said to be a specifically deliberate choice.
I think this might be a hint of a future Numeria campaign. I heard alot of rumors around so I will just say it, There is a strong possibility of a Numeria campaign starting in Feb 2014. We know it will happen, the question is when will we start seeing the goodies on Androids, Numeria, and high-tech.
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Creative Director
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Can we have some Ghoran love as well? And some fluff to go with our crunch for both? Like how long each race lives? Are both effectively immortal?Also, keep in mind that there's only so much we can do with a race like androids in the space of a single page... especially when that single page requires us to spend a significant chunk reprinting some information so that it's easier to use them as characters (be they NPCs or PCs).
Fortunately... I have no intention of leaving this as the final word on androids, or on the various types of feats and racial traits and other things that they might be able to gain at some point. It may just be that I made sure to include androids AND robots in this book for a specific reason...
And in fact, making androids immune to morale boosts and thus making them poor choices for barbarians might almost be said to be a specifically deliberate choice.
The ghorans are Erik's invention; he's the one to ask for more flavor there, alas, and he's really busy, also alas.
As for lifespans... my preference would be that both androids and ghorans live about as long as humans do.
If Androids are sterile, that could count for RP reduction.
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If Androids are sterile, that could count for RP reduction.
If you get experience points for having kids then yes. If not then its just a storytelling element.
I was thinking of making an Android fighter or Monk based on Roy Batty. But all those memories will be lost, like tears in rain...
If you get experience points for having kids then yes. If not then its just a storytelling element.If Androids are sterile, that could count for RP reduction.
There are Race Point cost for sillier things.
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Publisher, Chief Creative Officer
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I'm guessing you're going to say go bug Erik again, but how does a Ghoran's self reincarnate ability (Ghorus Seed) interact with it's lifespan? Does it start again every re-planting?
It's certainly my intention that the self-reincarnate ability of the Ghorus seed allows the ghoran to essentially "start over" his life span. In this way a single ghoran could, theoretically, live forever.
So I've been wondering about android sorcerers. Here's how I think they come to be. We know that the giant murder-spider-bots now and then take bodies away for some reason. So I'm thinking they use the bodies as base mass in android creation. So sometimes they kill dragons/outsiders/snakes etc and take the bodies and that's where android blood lines come from.