Mechanic mechanics? *badum tsss*

Hey there Starfinder Community! *waves*

I come to you with a question. Well questions! A few... A plea for help to be honest. Yeah, lets go with that.

A short introduction first! I am a "seasoned" Pathfinder player, as in I am not a rookie to the system. Played a few P&P campaigns, although short ones and am currently rolling with the Pathfinder: Kingmaker PC game. I played Starfinder once, although as a Solarian. I am also actively playing D&D 5e on a weekly basic as a player and more rarely as a GM. Now with that out of the way...

I come to you seeking assistance in understanding the cogwheels of the Mechanic Class, as I am a bit puzzled by it. I read a couple of guides, but they mostly touch on what is the best/optimized choice as you level up, what weapons to focus on and the like. And I have a more basic questions regarding the class, as some mechanics are not fully clear to me.

1. Drone Mechanic starts with a Drone, duh... But I am a bit confused regarding what the Combat Drone actually has on itself on this poor first level. From the descriptions, it would seem as if it starts with: Reductive Plating, two Weapon Mounts that can be either melee or ranged, one proficiency Mod and one free mod slot? So if I understand it right, you can grab a Longarms Proficiency Mod and Heavy Weapons Proficiency feat?

2. Combat Drone has 14 Str and 12 Dex. Is there any reason to not make it a Melee Drone on that starting levels? I mean its difficult to outfit both the Mechanic and Drone with ranged weapons, so it would make sense, no? That being said...

3. You can swap mod on a drone when you level up, but one per level or as many as you like?

I am preparing a Mechanic Skittermander with a Combat Drone, thus my questions here. With the starting 1000 Cr I am struggling to get anything decent for the Drone and my character. The simplest pistol is like 250? At least one spare magazine for each and armor for the mechanic and I am scrathing the 990 Cr already. Not to even mention if I wanted to get a Laser Rifle for the Drone or myself. I just struggle to make this work.

1)The proficiency mod still requires pre-reqs, and your drone doesn't count as having BAB +1 for feat pre-reqs until level 3 (which is stupid, it has BAB +1). Also, long arm & heavy weapon proficiency are not on the list of drone feats (page 76). So, you could get small arms proficiency with the free mod, and longarm proficiency with the basic mod. Or small arm & basic melee, or basic & advanced melee at level 1.

2)Melee combat drones are probably easier and cheaper to make work. Melee combat also tends to be higher risk. Luckily it just takes 24 hours uninterrupted work (including a 8 hr rest) to rebuild your drone from scratch, so it's not too bad to lose it to a pack of robot guard dogs.

3)I'm not seeing where you can swap a mod on level up (I may just be blind), but you can spend that 24 hours uninterrupted work on level up to completely rebuild your drone. Swapping all mods, skills, ability scores, feats, changing the chassis, etc.

At first level, it's fine to leave your drone slightly underequipped. Every pre-written path I've seen has you fighting humanoid enemies at first. Each of those enemies tends to have a level 1 ranged weapon and a level 1 melee weapon on their person, with spare ammo.

You might want to ask your GM if you'll be stranded in the middle of nowhere without supplies, fighting unarmed zombies, but that's not the default assumption of the setting.

I'm not seeing where you can swap a mod on level up

.

every time you gain a mechanic level, you can rebuild your drone from scratch with the same amount of work, allowing you to change any or all of the choices you made for your drone (including ability scores, chassis, feats, mods, and skills).

So it is the part I was reading. It isn't one mod, it's rebuilding the drone entirely from scratch. 24 Hrs of uninterrupted work.

Okay, so on level up you have to rebuild the whole drone from scratch? Damn that's a bit time consuming, although believable.

So... If I rolled 17, 16, 15, 14, 12 and 8, and am picking the Roboticist Theme on a Skittermander... What would you propose? Like from my experience so far and the way I understand the bonuses working in Starfinder, I have went with:
Str 12
Dex 16+2
Con 14
Int 17-2+1
Wis 15
Cha 8+2

But I am absolutely clueless what to do with the drone. I can buy... If my math holds up: Azimuth Laser Rifle and Battery for 425+60, a Azimuth Laser Pistol for 350+60 and a Stationwear Flight Suit for 95. Which leaves me with 10 Cr and 20 shots on my Mechanic and the Drone. Considering I can grab Longarm Proficiency for level one feat.

EDIT:
Maybe it would be better to grab a Hover Drone on level 1 and rebuild it on level 2 when I loot some more weapons? We are going to start of as a break out from jail so maybe even a Stealth Drone with a Camera... Decisions, decisions...

EDIT2:
I just noticed that the chasis have predetermined Ability Scores that get improved. It there really no way of influencing it? Combat Drone has Str and Dex, which means it will be always geared towards more Melee combat than Ranged, as it starts with 14 Str and 12 Dex. Hmm... Still tempted to make it a mount for the Skittermander to ride on into battle...

But I am absolutely clueless what to do with the drone. I can buy... If my math holds up: Azimuth Laser Rifle and Battery for 425+60, a Azimuth Laser Pistol for 350+60 and a Stationwear Flight Suit for 95.

When you buy a weapon it comes with one battery or equivalent load of ammunition as part of the purchace price. Skip the extra battery and take them off defeated enemies if you really need to scrimp for credits.

Okay, so I did a few changes, after reading up and what you said...

I can take Longarms Proficiency on the Mechanic at level 1, as it only requires Smallarms Proficiency, which he has. Then my Skittermander can use the Azimuth Laser Rifle while wearing Stationwear Flight Suit and having a spare battery while I have a Stealth Drone with Climbing Claws, Reactive Camouflage, Weapon Mount and a Camera with the Initial Proficiency in Smallarms?

Okay, so on level up you have to rebuild the whole drone from scratch? Damn that's a bit time consuming, although believable.

You don't have to rebuild it, you can keep it as is and just add the new stuff.

Regarding first level gear, it'll probably be better to grab longarm proficiency, but then just use a cheaper laser pistol or semi-auto pistol at first level until you loot better/can visit the store with more cash.

If you feel like you really need to start with a more expensive weapon for the mechanic I would also point out that a situation where you aren't fighting people with modern equipment to loot is a situation where a combat drone with a 0 credit club works just fine.

Schanez wrote:

Okay, so on level up you have to rebuild the whole drone from scratch? Damn that's a bit time consuming, although believable.

You don't have to rebuild it, you can keep it as is and just add the new stuff.

Regarding first level gear, it'll probably be better to grab longarm proficiency, but then just use a cheaper laser pistol or semi-auto pistol at first level until you loot better/can visit the store with more cash.

If you feel like you really need to start with a more expensive weapon for the mechanic I would also point out that a situation where you aren't fighting people with modern equipment to loot is a situation where a combat drone with a 0 credit club works just fine.

So technically, after level up I can either build the droid anew, like fully change its chasis from Combat to Hover or Stealth? Or I can just swap any number of mods?

Can you please explain, what does it mean in the Drones description: "every time you gain a mechanic level, you can (...) change any or all of the choices you made for your drone (including ability scores (...))."? Combat Chasis has Strength and Dexterity listed as the Ability Scores gettign improved and the Drone table shows when they get an increase. Does it mean you have to pick one of the two? Do they increase the same way as PC's do? 10-16 by +2 and 17+ by +1? Or do they get a flat +1 to one of the two?

So technically, after level up I can either build the droid anew, like fully change its chasis from Combat to Hover or Stealth? Or I can just swap any number of mods?

Yep. It does take 24 hours straight to do so. That 24 hrs includes 8 hrs of sleep to avoid fatigue.

Can you please explain, what does it mean in the Drones description: "every time you gain a mechanic level, you can (...) change any or all of the choices you made for your drone (including ability scores (...))."? Combat Chasis has Strength and Dexterity listed as the Ability Scores gettign improved and the Drone table shows when they get an increase. Does it mean you have to pick one of the two? Do they increase the same way as PC's do? 10-16 by +2 and 17+ by +1? Or do they get a flat +1 to one of the two?

I believe it's a flat +1 to both of the two ability scores listed. Strength and dexterity for the combat drone, dexterity and wisdom for the other two.

Schanez wrote:

So technically, after level up I can either build the droid anew, like fully change its chasis from Combat to Hover or Stealth? Or I can just swap any number of mods?

Yep. It does take 24 hours straight to do so. That 24 hrs includes 8 hrs of sleep to avoid fatigue.

Quote:

Can you please explain, what does it mean in the Drones description: "every time you gain a mechanic level, you can (...) change any or all of the choices you made for your drone (including ability scores (...))."? Combat Chasis has Strength and Dexterity listed as the Ability Scores gettign improved and the Drone table shows when they get an increase. Does it mean you have to pick one of the two? Do they increase the same way as PC's do? 10-16 by +2 and 17+ by +1? Or do they get a flat +1 to one of the two?

I believe it's a flat +1 to both of the two ability scores listed. Strength and dexterity for the combat drone, dexterity and wisdom for the other two.

So how should I understand that part, where they speak of changing the Ability Score improvements when rebuilding the drone? Wouldn't they already change due to swapping the chasis?

So, if you started with a stealth drone, at level 7 it had:

S:12, D:14+2=16, C:- I:6, W:10+2=12, Ch:6

At level 8, you decide to make a combat drone. It's abilities change to:

S:14+2=16, D:12+2=14, C:-, I:6, W:10, Ch:6

Something to keep in mind is that a drone is *not* destroyed at 0 HP. Its just incapacitated. Its only destroyed, and thus in need to replacement, at. . . IIRC, if it takes a hit equal to its total HP when at 0 HP. Otherwise, all you need is any effect that would repair it to get its HP back into the functional range.

On the money, Mystical Magical Meta.

Like most constructs, a drone cannot recover from damage on its own. If a drone is reduced to 0 Hit Points, it becomes inactive until it is restored to 1 Hit Point or more. If a drone takes damage from a single attack equal to or greater than its maximum Hit Points while it has 0 current HP, the drone is destroyed.

Note that I would tend to interpret that to mean that, if a fresh drone were hit with an attack doing double its HP in damage, it would go straight to the scrap bin. This really shouldn't come up ever unless the players do something *remarkably* stupid, however.