Is the Android race overpowered?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

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Is the Android race from People of the Stars more powerful then the Core PC races?

We know from the Inner Sea Bestiary (p. 3), that they weigh in at 16 race points, but we know that the ARG's race builder doesn't tell the whole story?

So, people who have seen one in play, how powerful are they?


Well, they are immune to fear, exhaustion, fatigue, sleep, and disease, and they have the ability to add 4-23 to any d20 roll 1/day. They also get a rather large +4 bonus against mind affecting effects.

The only downsides is that they cannot get morale bonuses and they are bad at sense motive. So no savy barbarians, and a few buff spells do not work on you. It still sounds like a good deal overall.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

lemeres wrote:

Well, they are immune to fear, exhaustion, fatigue, sleep, and disease, and they have the ability to add 4-23 to any d20 roll 1/day. They also get a rather large +4 bonus against mind affecting effects.

The only downsides is that they cannot get morale bonuses and they are bad at sense motive. So no savy barbarians, and a few buff spells do not work on you. It still sounds like a good deal overall.

I know. And there is now a feat of page 7 of People of the Stars that gets the access to Morale bonuses.

Emotionless can be difficult to role-play, but I doubt that is enough of a hindrance.

Sovereign Court

Yes. They're not as good as Tiefling/Aasimar overall (they have stats for any class) but for classes where their stats are beneficial - they're somewhat OP. They won't break your game or anything - but yes.


Lord Fyre wrote:
lemeres wrote:

Well, they are immune to fear, exhaustion, fatigue, sleep, and disease, and they have the ability to add 4-23 to any d20 roll 1/day. They also get a rather large +4 bonus against mind affecting effects.

The only downsides is that they cannot get morale bonuses and they are bad at sense motive. So no savy barbarians, and a few buff spells do not work on you. It still sounds like a good deal overall.

I know. And there is now a feat of page 7 of People of the Stars that gets the access to Morale bonuses.

Emotionless can be difficult to role-play, but I doubt that is enough of a hindrance.

I know that this is pretty much the whole shtick with them, but I still felt it needed to be said.

I would say that empathy is not worth it. Besides the fact that it needs a huge amount of CHA for a -2 CHA race, it also removes your defenses against fear and mind affecting effects. I did not focus on that since the trade off is a bit too much in my mind. It is a feat that mostly just seems to be for android bloodragers.


I don't think they are OP. If you build a class with an android it won't be significantly better, if it is better at all, than a core race.

Warforged(3.5) had more going for them than androids, and people did not say they broke games.


Compared to humans and 1/2 orcs, they seem fine. Just look at the FCB's. The android loses out on 20 spells for most casters, or 3 (combat feats/slayer talents/rogue talents), or 5 (ki, grit, panache, arcane pool) or the default 20 skill/hit points.

Now add the normal things that humans/1/2 orcs get like +2 all saves (with fates favored of course) or an extra feat plus the HUGE amount of racial options. If anything, android might be getting the short end of the stick.

Overall, android is a nice race for the right build, for instance it can help shore up an investigators poor fort save, but aren't OP.


graystone wrote:

Compared to humans and 1/2 orcs, they seem fine. Just look at the FCB's. The android loses out on 20 spells for most casters, or 3 (combat feats/slayer talents/rogue talents), or 5 (ki, grit, panache, arcane pool) or the default 20 skill/hit points.

Now add the normal things that humans/1/2 orcs get like +2 all saves (with fates favored of course) or an extra feat plus the HUGE amount of racial options. If anything, android might be getting the short end of the stick.

Overall, android is a nice race for the right build, for instance it can help shore up an investigators poor fort save, but aren't OP.

Androids might not be that bad if you are playing a fort/reflex race, since their resistance to mind affecting effects shores up their will save.


lemeres wrote:
graystone wrote:

Compared to humans and 1/2 orcs, they seem fine. Just look at the FCB's. The android loses out on 20 spells for most casters, or 3 (combat feats/slayer talents/rogue talents), or 5 (ki, grit, panache, arcane pool) or the default 20 skill/hit points.

Now add the normal things that humans/1/2 orcs get like +2 all saves (with fates favored of course) or an extra feat plus the HUGE amount of racial options. If anything, android might be getting the short end of the stick.

Overall, android is a nice race for the right build, for instance it can help shore up an investigators poor fort save, but aren't OP.

Androids might not be that bad if you are playing a fort/reflex race, since their resistance to mind affecting effects shores up their will save.

True, the will saves that really suck ARE the affecting effecting ones. So I guess it can shore up another set of saves. SO no help if you need REF.

Hmm... It could help those poor classes that have only REF as a good save. (poor bastards)

Silver Crusade

I don't think they're over powered, especially when compared to aasimar. Androids are better in certain situations, but so are many other races.


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Apart from the fact that they can get rage cycling at level 1 at the cost of a feat, they aren't overpowered at all.

Sovereign Court

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Everyone keeps bringing up Tiefling / Aasimar as proof that Androids aren't overpowered. The OP didn't ask to compare them to Tiefling / Aasimar - he asked in comparison to the core races.

In comparison to the core races all three are overpowered. As I said in my previous post - they're not game-breakingly overpowered, but they are more powerful than the core races.


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Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Everyone keeps bringing up Tiefling / Aasimar as proof that Androids aren't overpowered. The OP didn't ask to compare them to Tiefling / Aasimar - he asked in comparison to the core races.

In comparison to the core races all three are overpowered. As I said in my previous post - they're not game-breakingly overpowered, but they are more powerful than the core races.

Humans still are more powerful due to their opinions alone. Virtually any good feat is a human exclusive or something you can pick up through Adopted Trait or Racial Heritage. It costs sure but its simply the only option in most cases.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Man in the Iron Mask wrote:


Humans still are more powerful due to their opinions alone

So true.... just one post can set the entire Internet aflame.

Sovereign Court

Drow noble is the only race that I would even bother to call OP in Pathfinder, but to be fair with some clarifications from the authors, it was supposed to be a race that you can only play at APL 2+. All races are rather tame and many of their benefits (RP) don't do much compared to the core races.

Android are okay.


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Eltacolibre wrote:

Drow noble is the only race that I would even bother to call OP in Pathfinder, but to be fair with some clarifications from the authors, it was supposed to be a race that you can only play at APL 2+. All races are rather tame and many of their benefits (RP) don't do much compared to the core races.

Android are okay.

Since when was Drow Noble a player race?

Having a "Characters" block in the monster manual entry DOES NOT imply a player race. Non-player Characters are characters too. All this denotes is that the race typically advances with class levels rather than monster hit dice.


Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:
Eltacolibre wrote:

Drow noble is the only race that I would even bother to call OP in Pathfinder, but to be fair with some clarifications from the authors, it was supposed to be a race that you can only play at APL 2+. All races are rather tame and many of their benefits (RP) don't do much compared to the core races.

Android are okay.

Since when was Drow Noble a player race?

Having a "Characters" block in the monster manual entry DOES NOT imply a player race. Non-player Characters are characters too. All this denotes is that the race typically advances with class levels rather than monster hit dice.

The original debate was when using Monsters as Player Characters section in the Bestiary. People were not correctly caclulating the CR of the Drow Noble leaving some people to think it was base CR 0 which has no mod as compared to a CR 1 which would (using those rules) only be available at level 2+ and cost you a class level.

IMHO, which along with $1 will let you buy a cup of coffee, a drow noble is fine in a mixed party as long it is one level behind others players. It MAY be stronger at level 1-3... but will probably be a little weaker at mid to high levels (especially if a pure caster on levels where it has to wait the extra level for new spell levels).

If your group uses the "Using monsters as Player Characters" optional rule great have fun, if it does not great have fun. There is no wrong way :)


I currently have three androids in my game, and I have not found them over-powered as a race. The only issue I've come across is they managed to avoid a really cool drug addiction effect I had planned (due to their disease immunity), but that's more of a gripe with my own attraction towards the concepts rather than actual mechanics.

They still have to "rest" to recover spells and other abilities that require rest for normal mortals (one android character is role played so he stands in the corner and stares at the wall all night, while another one goes into "sleep" mode),

I am confused that they don't require sleep but they do require food and water. I mean, how do they process food and convert into energy? Wouldn't a battery pack be more feasible? Or solar energy? Seems they should have greater issues with being in contact with water and overheating rather than food and water. Perhaps they don't require sleep, but can only operate at full capacity for so long before occurring penalties (aka can only go so many rounds of combat or other high energy activities before gaining cumulative penalties).

Just thinking out loud here.. Nothing in concrete yet.


bookrat wrote:

I currently have three androids in my game, and I have not found them over-powered as a race. The only issue I've come across is they managed to avoid a really cool drug addiction effect I had planned (due to their disease immunity), but that's more of a gripe with my own attraction towards the concepts rather than actual mechanics.

They still have to "rest" to recover spells and other abilities that require rest for normal mortals (one android character is role played so he stands in the corner and stares at the wall all night, while another one goes into "sleep" mode),

I am confused that they don't require sleep but they do require food and water. I mean, how do they process food and convert into energy? Wouldn't a battery pack be more feasible? Or solar energy? Seems they should have greater issues with being in contact with water and overheating rather than food and water. Perhaps they don't require sleep, but can only operate at full capacity for so long before occurring penalties (aka can only go so many rounds of combat or other high energy activities before gaining cumulative penalties).

Just thinking out loud here.. Nothing in concrete yet.

Sleep is still not entirely understood in the real world, although one popular theory is that it involves write transactions and sorting for the brain and memories and such.

The idea with Androids is they are genetically engineered humans(ish) with nanites instead of or enhancing various bodily functions such as the immune system. They are flesh and blood, but designed and clone-grown.

As for "I don't sleep even though I'm a wizard," it's DM discretion, but the rules for warforged are a good base. Essentially they needed to not do anything strenuous or difficult. Simple crafts (like knitting, or whittling children's toys), keeping watch, reading a book. They also needed to do something ELSE compared to what they had been doing for the past 8 to 16 hours due to mental exhaustion.

In 4th edition warforged just had a fully-awake but completely unmoving state where they "rest." It causes problems if something sneaks up behind them, of course, but they can watch in one direction quite effectively.

Edit: The only real problem with Androids is there is a lot of fluff that would help with ideas and questions like the above (as well as RP value) that aren't answered. There's an android religion, but darned if you can find anything about it.


Androids can appear to be OP, but neither of ours have remotely dominated. The primary is a Bard and saves her uber-plus for the really dire circumstances, much to our GM's annoyances. Her fault, she crafted a half dozen nice little 'android' feats.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Charon's Little Helper wrote:


In comparison to the core races all three are overpowered.

I suppose if we ignore Humans and dwarves and elves and so on this is true.


Squiggit wrote:
Charon's Little Helper wrote:


In comparison to the core races all three are overpowered.
I suppose if we ignore Humans and dwarves and elves and so on this is true.

The strongest race in the game, Half-Elf is unhappy about it's lack of inclusion.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Anzyr wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
Charon's Little Helper wrote:


In comparison to the core races all three are overpowered.
I suppose if we ignore Humans and dwarves and elves and so on this is true.

The strongest race in the game, Half-Elf is unhappy about it's lack of inclusion.

I'm not quite sure why but I tend to forget that half elves exist a lot.


Anzyr wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
Charon's Little Helper wrote:


In comparison to the core races all three are overpowered.
I suppose if we ignore Humans and dwarves and elves and so on this is true.

The strongest race in the game, Half-Elf is unhappy about it's lack of inclusion.

1/2 orcs are unhappy you've forgotten thier +2 to all saves and access to a con based caster option.

Silver Crusade

graystone wrote:
Anzyr wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
Charon's Little Helper wrote:


In comparison to the core races all three are overpowered.
I suppose if we ignore Humans and dwarves and elves and so on this is true.

The strongest race in the game, Half-Elf is unhappy about it's lack of inclusion.

1/2 orcs are unhappy you've forgotten thier +2 to all saves and access to a con based caster option.

Based on pure observation human is clearly #1.


Humans have to burn their precious bonus feat if they want to qualify for Paragon Surge! And can't qualify at all in PFS!

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