Hello, everyone! The Tinker base class just rolled over to 40 sales in its second week, so I'm doing my part to fulfill my promise to produce prestige classes if sales are strong.
For those of you who haven't been exposed to the SQUAD COMMANDER, he's right here. The Tinker
I have three halfway finished ideas for prestige classes to present here. None of them have been balanced and everything is on the chopping block should a particular train of thought be too difficult to balance. Simply vote for the prestige class you want to see - if sales continue to be strong, I'll end up making all three. As it is, I'll write the prestige classes at 50, 100, and 150 sales of the base class, in order of popularity.
Prestige Class #1: The Innovator (10 levels)
Concept: Fighter meets Tinker
Required: 3rd level inventions, exotic weapon
Stats: Full BAB, Good Fort, bad Ref and Will, 2+int skills
Invention Progression: Half
Special:
You build an exotic weapon only you are proficient with. You gain weapon focus, greater weapon focus, weapon specialization, and greater weapon specialization with your weapon.
Further, at every even level in the prestige class, you add an invention to the weapon. There are three classes of invention: alchemical, construct, and magic. Each class has four tiers. For example, at level 2, you select the first tier of your choice of the three. At level 4, you either select the second tier of the class you picked at level 2 or select the first tier of one of the remaining two. So, one innovator could be alchemical 4 / magic 1, while another is alchemical 1 / construct 3 / magic 1.
Alchemical focuses on powerful effects with finite ammunition.
Construct add arms and whatnot to the weapon.
Magic lets the user slot in a wand and crack it off once per round when an attack lands. The wand allowed slowly gets more powerful.
Prestige Class #2: The Steelsinger (possibly Steamsinger) (10 levels)
Concept: Tinker meets Bard
Required: Inspire Courage class feature, The Alpha class feature, Perform (any) 8 ranks, ability to spontaneously cast 2nd level spells
Stats: 1/2 BAB, Good Will, Bad Fort and Ref, 4+int skills
Invention Progression: 8/10
Bard Magic Progression: None
Bard Music Progression: Full, no new songs from Bard base class, inspire courage keeps getting better
Special:
Access to a number of special inventions that use a new Directive.
Play - The automaton plays its musical instrument. (Expect more crunch when it's actually worked out.)
These inventions create a small pool of bardic music that the automaton can feed its master. A fully built automaton can fuel music for three rounds before its master begins to use its own music again. This allows for all sorts of spam music.
Duet - The Alpha can play bardic music, thus allowing the character as a whole to keep two songs going at once; however, the music the alpha plays only affects constructs and the music the 'singer plays only affects fleshies. At higher levels, this restriction vanishes. At level 10, the ability to select "fleshies", "constructs", or "both" is given.
New Songs - Most of these will be buffs; however, some offensive options will be present. Think of sonic AoEs that only affect living creatures, for example, and you'll see why the ability to exclude constructs at a later level would be considered so powerful. The 'singer will get access to 3 or 4 of these and there will be more than that many available, thus allowing for two 'singers to be different.
Prestige Class #3: The Mechromancer (5 levels)
Concept: Tinker meets necromancy
Required: Ability to cast animate dead, The Alpha
Stats: 1/2 BAB, Good will, bad fort and ref
Invention and Spell Progression: Full
Special:
Blue Screen of Undeath - The Mechromancer can raise a freshly destroyed automaton from the dead, making it an undead construct with the exact same stats as it used to have. It persists for 1 minute per level, does not get in the way of your automaton cap (because it's undead now!), but still requires and accepts Directives. Usable once per day, plus an additional time per day at 3rd and 5th.
Tainted Beacon - Your alpha has a permanent desecrate effect around it.
Grafts - All of your blueprints can have one graft on it, with the exception of the alpha. It eventually gets two. These grafts range from the ability to be healed by negative energy to dealing negative energy damage instead of fire when performing a Kamikaze to improved fortification.
If the Tinker somehow hits 200 sales, I'll be making a giant fighting mecha prestige class for when everyone wants to get drunk and do a one-shot involving a statue of Sarah Palin carved out of Mount Everest rampaging in Gotham City.
Voting begins now :)
Right. If Mechromancer ties for second, I'll just fudge it for your sake.
Mechromancer.
How about Tinker Bell? The faerie?
To be fair, the idea of mixing the fae and steampunk would work very, very well, but more along the lines of an adventure gone horribly wrong.
Once I find a map program I like, you may very well see some adventures from me. It'd be a lovely change of pace if the generic crunch starts to get difficult to do.
Well, the Innovator is handily winning thanks to input from the RPGnow crowd. I'm beginning work on the class: here's a sample.
Breakthrough: At 1st level and every 2 innovator levels thereafter, the innovator successfully upgrades his signature weapon with a brand new invention. An innovator's breakthroughs are broken up into three categories: alchemical, construct, and magic, each of which have four tiers. Whenever the innovator gets a new breakthrough, he can select the lowest remaining tier in any of these three categories. As such, it is perfectly possible for one innovator to be alchemical 4 / construct 1, while another innovator is alchemical 1 / construct 2 / magic 2. The innovator's selection of breakthroughs is final and cannot be changed even if the innovator replaces his signature weapon.
Construct:
Tier 1 - Mounted Mini-Crossbow (Ex): The innovator mounts a small crossbow on his signature weapon. Whenever the innovator deals damage with his signature weapon, the crossbow fires, dealing an additional 1d4 points of piercing damage. The crossbow reloads automatically, but only does so at the beginning of the innovator's turn.
Tier 2 - Kinetic Conversion Kit (Ex): The innovator's mounted mini-crossbow breakthrough now reloads immediately after firing, causing it to have a bolt ready to fire whenever the signature weapon deals damage. The enhanced velocity of the kinetic conversion kit increases the damage die of the mounted mini-crossbow to 1d6.
Tier 3 - Armed and Dangerous (Ex): The innovator installs a robotic arm on the hilt or stock of his weapon, where it won't get in the way too much. This arm is proficient with the weapons with which the innovator himself is proficient, as well as small and large shields. If the arm holds a shield, the innovator gets the shield's bonus to AC if he is wielding the signature weapon, but he also takes armor check penalties associated with wielding a shield. If the arm holds a weapon, it can make a single attack per round at the innovator's highest attack bonus with adjustments for the difference between the enhancement bonus of the signature weapon and the enhancement bonus of the weapon held by the robotic arm. (In other words, if the innovator has a +20 to hit with a +4 signature weapon, then the robotic arm has a +18 to hit with a +2 longsword.) The robotic arm does not receive any bonus to damage that depends on the innovator's ability scores or feats, though abilities that affect both the innovator and his automatons, such as the Prismatic Strike greater innovation and several of the Masterpiece class features, do benefit the arm. Note the robotic arm can make this attack even if it has been dropped by the innovator. Finally, if equipped with nothing, the arm can generally get in the way of enemies, granting the innovator a bonus to CMD equal to half the signature weapon's enhancement bonus, rounded down. Changing what an arm wields is a standard action, though the arm can simply decide to drop what it is carrying as a free action. Should the innovator's weapon ever leave the radius of his master's presence class feature, the arm ceases to function.
Tier 4 - A Hello to Arms (Ex): Given how great the first arm went, the innovator installs a second robotic arm on the hilt or stock of his weapon. Each of these arms can hold something different, following the rules of the armed and dangerous breakthrough above, with the following exception. Should both arms be unarmed, the CMD bonus granted to the innovator is equal to the enhancement bonus of the signature weapon rather than half.
The robotic arms can work in tandem, allowing them to cooperatively wield a two-handed weapon, such as a longbow, greatsword, or crossbow. If a weapon that requires reloading takes a move action to reload, then the arms can do so without losing a turn. If a weapon requires a standard action or a full-round action to reload, then the arms do not fire for a round as they reload the device. If ammunition can be found on the innovator's person, the arms will find it and use it as part of this reload process. The Rapid Reload feat applies to the arms, as the innovator constructed them with his own dexterity in mind. Finally, both arms together can carry a tower shield and be treated as proficient with it. While the arms are holding a tower shield, the innovator finds it impossible to use his signature weapon properly; it takes everything he has to hold onto the suddenly-unwieldy thing, let alone attack with it. The arms can plant the shield, granting the innovator total cover. Given the innovator did not use his own actions doing so, the innovator can run, attack with an offhand weapon, or otherwise act from behind his shield wall. That being said, the innovator takes the standard -2 penalty to hit, as well as the armor check penalty and other penalties associated with a tower shield, because he's wielding something that itself is wielding the tower shield.
Signature Weapon: At 1st level, the innovator selects an exotic weapon with which he is proficient and goes about altering it to make it more effective, complex, and utterly incomprehensible to anyone but himself. Given the extra gizmos and doodads added to its structure, only the innovator himself can ever be proficient with it. This extends to magic that would normally be able to grant proficiency with exotic weapons; magic finds the innovator's signature weapon so complex that it gives up. Proficiency is required to make use of any breakthroughs on the weapon. Finally, the innovator may enchant his signature weapon as though he had the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat.
Should the innovator's signature weapon ever be lost or destroyed, it must be rebuilt. The process of rebuilding a signature weapon requires a masterwork or magical copy of an exotic weapon with which the innovator is proficient and takes three days and 2,000 gp per breakthrough to be placed on the weapon. An innovator's breakthrough loadout cannot change, though the weapon type of his signature weapon can.
Well, there's 50! The polling results are as follows:
50 sales: The Innovator
100 sales: The Mechromancer
150 sales: The Steelsinger
I really must say, this is quite fortunate. They're ordered in increasing difficulty to write!
That being said, The Innovator is ready to go! Enjoy!