Creative Director
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An aside, I know, but does a flesh golem that becomes self aware gain a soul?And is that soul separate from any it might already have running around inside it (from the trapped elementals powering it), or is it made up from them?
And is there some way to 'kill' a golem by using a dismissal spell to exorcise it's elemental power source, or does the golem's body block line-of-effect? Can one use protection from X to prevent the golem-maker from commanding the elemental spirits to make the golem attack?
Golarion needs some sort of fantasy Jesuits to get all up in this theosophical discoursifying.
"How many lantern archons can dance on the head of a pin?"
"Depends, is it mithril or adamantine?"
Nope; you can't "kill" a golem by dismissing or exorcising its elemental power source soul thingy. Not without researching and creating a specialized unique spell to do just that.
If you COULD do this with any old dismissal type spell...we would have included that as a special weakness for the golem subtype.
An android is exactly a robot built like a human. The "androids" that the PCs can play as are more akin to "test tube babies jacked full of nanites".
You mean robots? :D
An aside, I know, but does a flesh golem that becomes self aware gain a soul?And is that soul separate from any it might already have running around inside it (from the trapped elementals powering it), or is it made up from them?
And is there some way to 'kill' a golem by using a dismissal spell to exorcise it's elemental power source, or does the golem's body block line-of-effect? Can one use protection from X to prevent the golem-maker from commanding the elemental spirits to make the golem attack?
Golarion needs some sort of fantasy Jesuits to get all up in this theosophical discoursifying.
"How many lantern archons can dance on the head of a pin?"
"Depends, is it mithril or adamantine?"Nope; you can't "kill" a golem by dismissing or exorcising its elemental power source soul thingy. Not without researching and creating a specialized unique spell to do just that.
If you COULD do this with any old dismissal type spell...we would have included that as a special weakness for the golem subtype.
Defensive Qualities: The golem gains immunity to single type of energy: acid, cold, electricity or fire, as appropriate to the elemental spirit animating the golem.
Weakness: An unstable golem animating spirit is vulnerable to dismissal, banishment and similar effects that expel extraplanar entities back to their home plane. Whenever exposed to such effect the unstable golem becomes staggered for one round and has to roll a Will saving throw against the spell or effect. On a failed saving throw the unstable golem becomes stunned for 1d4 rounds and starts to leak elemental energy dealing 1d6 points of energy damage (of the type associated with animating spirit) per two CR at the beginning of each of its turn to all creatures and objects within its reach. After that time the golem has either 50% of collapsing completely inert or exploding with a wave of elemental energy dealing 1d6 points of energy damage per CR within burst equal to twice the golem's reach. A successful Reflex saving throw (DC 10 plus half the golem's HD) halves the explosion damage.
Special Attack: An unstable golem gains following special attack.
Leaking Energy: Elemental power leaks out of the unstable golem's core adding 3d6 points of energy damage to all of the golem's natural attacks.
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Come on, you totally want to see shambling robot corpses. ;)
Mass Effect flashbacks...
I hope there will be alternate racial traits that will allow players to customize the type of android they have, back and forth a little on the continuum between robot and humanoid, rather than all androids being *exactly* in the one and same spot of the spectrum. I know I'd like to have a more Data-like android than a replicant, and I can live with not having high stat mods, but fluff-wise I'd really like to be closer to Data than Blade Runner. I'm not asking 100% Data, but a few bones thrown to let some androids go a little more in that direction.
Were is that template from Drejk?
Hopefully there will be variant androids like we got for dhampirs, aassimar, tiefling, etc.
I prefer the idea of a Bladerunner type Android myself....just can't see one of them becoming undead or a lycanthrope either ;)Why, may I ask?
They were such convincing synthetics that you had to use a psychological test to tell the difference. Arguably, more human than a Numerian android.
Correct...they are very convincing "synthetics".
They are not organic organisms.I can mix Karo, some chocalate powder, and red food coloring...and create a very convincing blood.
Do you think a vampire could sustain himself on it ?
It's really not a biggy for me. I'll just houserule that their synthetic forms are not compatible with things like undeath, lycanthropsy, breeding, etc.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor
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See, in Blade Runner, they were organic organisms. True synthetic life. Google the script, read up on the argument with Tyrell. It's a bit after the words "I want more life".
That's why you couldn't just draw blood to tell someone was a synthetic. They even had DNA.
See, in Blade Runner, they were organic organisms. True synthetic life. Google the script, read up on the argument with Tyrell. It's a bit after the words "I want more life".
That's why you couldn't just draw blood to tell someone was a synthetic. They even had DNA.
Then to my mind, that just makes them humans with a non-biological birth.....like test tube grown humans.
Doesn't strike me as the least bit interesting.Maybe the androids from Aliens is more along the lines of what I am thinking.
Synthetic beings that are built to "appear" human...but are not.
Their parts are still all artificial. Their flesh doesn't rot when they die, it just sort of gets crumbly like old cheap plastic and rubber. And when you cut them open, it's obvious they're not human on the inside; their blood's a different color and their entrails are less realistic than their outsides are. They live a lot longer than the Blade Runner replicants, but otherwise comparing them to the replicants is pretty on-par, frankly. And comparing them to the androids from Alien and those movies is even closer, since that's their primary inspiration. Data is NOT one of the inspirations; he's more on the obviously not human side of android and he's way smarter and stronger than a human—if we were to put something like Data into the game, we'd call it something else (if only "greater android") and give him MUCH better stat mods and resistances and the like... and as such, he'd be entirely inappropriate as a PC.
I guess I feel like I'm getting mixed messages.
Everything in James post is spot on to what I would hope for.BUT...from all of that, I can't see any logical reason to think they could become undead or lycanthropes.....it's just doesn't make any sense.
They are created in the Silver Mount and emerge as adults...so I just don't see them as being able to procreate (via sexual relations) either, especially with other races.
The fact that an android can become a werewolf honestly strikes me as making a whole lot more sense the fact that androids can have sorcerer bloodlines, and that's been clearly stated since they were first introduced.
It make more sense if we had a tech based sorcerer bloodline. We also could use a clockwork and inevitable sorcerer bloodlines.
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Frankly my dear, I don't care what you were in life, now it's just the magic talking! What's the difference between bones of bone and bones of steel? Well other than what breaks them of course.
Oh who cares! Let's get our shambling on, ladies and gents! Aaaahahahahahahah!!
Were is that template from Drejk?
I just wrote it.
Hopefully there will be variant androids like we got for dhampirs, aassimar, tiefling, etc.
I hope so, as well. Different variants grown from templates designed for different purposes.
With bonuses to Dex and Int, I would suspect that the basic android "model" is explorer/technician.
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The fact that an android can become a werewolf honestly strikes me as making a whole lot more sense the fact that androids can have sorcerer bloodlines, and that's been clearly stated since they were first introduced.
Just as words like 'android' and 'evil' and 'good' and 'atheist' have definitions in-game or in-setting that aren't 100% in line with dictionary definitions, I suspect that's a problem less with Golarion's androids, and more with the choice of the term 'bloodlines' to describe different sorcerer flavors.
It's entirely possible that an abyssal bloodline sorcerer has absolutely zero relatives that boinked demons in the past, and comes through their sorcerous power because of growing up in the demon-tainted worldwound eating demon-tainted food and drinking demon-tainted water and breathing demon-tainted air, or because they were possessed by a demon once, and some of it 'got left behind.' Similarly, an undead bloodline sorcerer might not be even a little bit 'Twilight,' and be the survivor of ghoul fever, or someone whose mom got touched by a wraith once and left a little bit of darkness behind in her unborn child, etc. In 3.X, it was even suggested that a sorcerer could become such through magical experimentation, drinking dragon's blood during a special ritual or falling asleep on a fey mound as a child and waking up 20 years later with some fey talents leftover.
If Androids are made of matter, organic or inorganic, that matter could be tainted by infernal or abyssal or undead or draconic or elemental forces, and allow that android to discover sorcerous potential in those areas, or the sorcerous potential could show up later, as part of an encounter with fey, or surviving ghoul fever or energy drain, or being exposed to possession or blessed by celestial/fiendish intervention.
There's plenty of ways an android could be manufactured with sorcerous potential, or gain sorcerous potential long after 'birth,' just as there are many ways a human, dwarf or elf could become a sorcerer, without it involving cross-species sexy fun time.
'Bloodline' certainly implies sexy fun time, but since some of the creatures that one can derive sorcerous potential from *don't even have blood,* it's safe to assume that the word isn't a strict mechanical limiter, so much as, just, a word. (Just as 'Barbarians' can be perfectly civilized, and 'Rogues' can be law-abiding.)
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Their parts are still all artificial. Their flesh doesn't rot when they die, it just sort of gets crumbly like old cheap plastic and rubber. And when you cut them open, it's obvious they're not human on the inside; their blood's a different color and their entrails are less realistic than their outsides are. They live a lot longer than the Blade Runner replicants, but otherwise comparing them to the replicants is pretty on-par, frankly. And comparing them to the androids from Alien and those movies is even closer, since that's their primary inspiration. Data is NOT one of the inspirations; he's more on the obviously not human side of android and he's way smarter and stronger than a human—if we were to put something like Data into the game, we'd call it something else (if only "greater android") and give him MUCH better stat mods and resistances and the like... and as such, he'd be entirely inappropriate as a PC.I guess I feel like I'm getting mixed messages.
Everything in James post is spot on to what I would hope for.BUT...from all of that, I can't see any logical reason to think they could become undead or lycanthropes.....it's just doesn't make any sense.
They are created in the Silver Mount and emerge as adults...so I just don't see them as being able to procreate (via sexual relations) either, especially with other races.
Undeath -- and life -- isn't a matter of the body, it's a matter of the soul. In the Pathfinder cosmology, as with the D&D cosmology before it, YOU CAN HAVE BOTH LIFE AND UNDEATH WITHOUT ORGANIC/BIOLOGICAL BODIES. THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE. There are any number of undead without physical bodies, of course. There are undead elementals. An artificially created body is nothing to the forces of life and undeath.
Likewise, lycanthropy, although its effects are modeled after diseases, is not a disease but a supernatural effect. It's highly unlikely that you could ever have a natural (born) android lycanthrope, as that would require two infected android lycanthropes somehow having a child, but there's no reason at all that the curse couldn't take hold in an android. The curse is not a life-form.
Undeath -- and life -- isn't a matter of the body, it's a matter of the soul. In the Pathfinder cosmology, as with the D&D cosmology before it, YOU CAN HAVE BOTH LIFE AND UNDEATH WITHOUT ORGANIC/BIOLOGICAL BODIES. THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE. There are any number of undead without physical bodies, of course. There are undead elementals. An artificially created body is nothing to the forces of life and undeath.
Likewise, lycanthropy, although its effects are modeled after diseases, is not a disease but a supernatural effect. It's highly unlikely that you could ever...
So...an undead Iron golem is perfectly acceptable in your opinion ?
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So...an undead Iron golem is perfectly acceptable in your opinion ?Undeath -- and life -- isn't a matter of the body, it's a matter of the soul. In the Pathfinder cosmology, as with the D&D cosmology before it, YOU CAN HAVE BOTH LIFE AND UNDEATH WITHOUT ORGANIC/BIOLOGICAL BODIES. THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE. There are any number of undead without physical bodies, of course. There are undead elementals. An artificially created body is nothing to the forces of life and undeath.
Likewise, lycanthropy, although its effects are modeled after diseases, is not a disease but a supernatural effect. It's highly unlikely that you could ever...
Why the hell not? Let's give it a whirl! Let the good times roll!
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In all seriousness, an undead (of certain kinds) Iron Golem is perfectly legit by the rules.
Let's have a look at the Zombie template for starters:
“Zombie” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead), referred to hereafter as the base creature.
Iron Golem is a corporeal creature.
Iron Golem is a Construct, not an Undead.Legit for use with Zombie template.
Let's try another.
“Skeleton” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a skeletal system (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
Iron Golem is corporeal, not undead, but does not have a skeletal system. (However, an Android does). So no Golem Skeletons.
“Lich” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature), provided it can create the required phylactery.
Lich requires "living". So a bit iffy there. So no for the Iron Golem, but Androids are living creatures - even if their biology is artificial. So Androids are at least good for Liches.
“Worm that walks” is a template that can be added to any evil spellcasting creature.
If you can get yourself an evil golem that knows how to cast spells, it can become a Worm That Walks. Huh, cool.
That's all I found with a quick search of "undead template" on the PRD, but I'm sure there are more.
(Man, now I want to see some 3rd-party company run with this and do a thing on Undead Golems. That'd be awesome.)
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(Man, now I want to see some 3rd-party company run with this and do a thing on Undead Golems. That'd be awesome.)
[tangent]
I would prefer, rather than 'some dude cast animate dead on a flesh golem', for the 'undead golem' to be more 'built that way,' such as an iron golem beaten together from the platemail of dozens of skeletal knights or graveknights or just knights who turned into wights or whatever, so that the metal itself is infused with necromantic energy and 'undead affinity,' or a clay golem made from graveyard clay, or the clay used to replace flesh on ancient mummies, or a stone golem made from dozens of tombstones, or some Osirioni pharaoh's stone sarcophagus.[/tangent]
Man I'd take either option. I think you could get coolness out of both.
So...an undead Iron golem is perfectly acceptable in your opinion ?
The "elemental spirit artificially bound into a construct body" thing of golems is a bit of a gray area, I'll admit. But hey, bone golems, fossil golems, and flesh golems can all be said to have skeletal systems... :D
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Creative Director
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So...an undead Iron golem is perfectly acceptable in your opinion ?Undeath -- and life -- isn't a matter of the body, it's a matter of the soul. In the Pathfinder cosmology, as with the D&D cosmology before it, YOU CAN HAVE BOTH LIFE AND UNDEATH WITHOUT ORGANIC/BIOLOGICAL BODIES. THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE. There are any number of undead without physical bodies, of course. There are undead elementals. An artificially created body is nothing to the forces of life and undeath.
Likewise, lycanthropy, although its effects are modeled after diseases, is not a disease but a supernatural effect. It's highly unlikely that you could ever...
Not in my opinion... that doesn't make sense to me.
The difference between an iron golem and an android is that the android is actaully alive.
Not in my opinion... that doesn't make sense to me.
The difference between an iron golem and an android is that the android is actaully alive.
It may well be that a lot of my perceptions are based on philisophical elements that simply can not be addressed in a game sense.
I would probably prefer that Androids where described as living, but either "souless" or left to a grey zone where no body (including themselves) actually know's.
But then of course we would have to delve into the whole "what constitutes living"..."what is a soul" etc...etc...and I doubt any consensus would be reached on those topics ;)
I can pretty much assure you they won't be soulless as that gets into wonky territory with raise/resurrection/etc. type effects, death magic, and other such things that Androids currently are treated normally by.
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I would probably prefer that Androids where described as living, but either "souless" or left to a grey zone where no body (including themselves) actually know's.
But then of course we would have to delve into the whole "what constitutes living"..."what is a soul" etc...etc...and I doubt any consensus would be reached on those topics ;)
Any cosmology that includes an afterlife but in which some sapient beings are arbitrarily lacking in souls is a cosmology whose gods I want to punch in the face over and over and over again. It's certainly a cosmology I wouldn't want to game in. (It's bad enough that there are so very, very many ways to destroy souls or force them into unjust damnation. Makes me grind my teeth.)
To put it another way, as I noted somewhere upthread, we don't know the mechanic by which unborn souls "target" infant bodies, so there's no reason to think that a newly created android whose brain is capable of sapient thought shouldn't get one.
I can pretty much assure you they won't be soulless as that gets into wonky territory with raise/resurrection/etc. type effects, death magic, and other such things that Androids currently are treated normally by.
Oh I know, as James stated they have already determined what direction they want to go, and it's to late to turn back even if they wanted to.
I'm just expressing what I would have liked to have seen...and figuring out how they will be portaid at my table.
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In that case I am 100% with Kruelaid in my great distaste for any setting or houseruled table that has sapient creatures without souls.
To each their own I suppose.
(It's bad enough that there are so very, very many ways to destroy souls or force them into unjust damnation. Makes me grind my teeth.)
I did take note of this, and my homebrew setting has a deity specifically devoted to fixing this problem for that exact reason (in addition to her more general portfolio of redemption). For those playing in Golarion it's really something that should be an assumed given for Sarenrae, if not all good deities as a whole.
In that case I am 100% with Kruelaid in my great distaste for any setting or houseruled table that has sapient creatures without souls.
To each their own I suppose.
So no AI at your table ?
So no AI at your table ?In that case I am 100% with Kruelaid in my great distaste for any setting or houseruled table that has sapient creatures without souls.
To each their own I suppose.
Certainly AI, once my setting reaches the point in its timeline where that kind of tech is available. (We jump around the timeline a lot. My KM game is in a sort of renaissance age, while the Savage Tide game I'll be running next is deep into the Age of Steam and Magitek, almost 5000 years later.)
It'll just have a soul of some sort. How it'll get one, what it works like, and how it interacts with other souls and with the gods upon its death/destruction, these are questions mortals are not meant to know the answers to. And the First-Holder and Last-Taker answers not such things to them.
If it's at a point where it can be considered sapient, it'll have some sort of a soul.
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In that case I am 100% with Kruelaid in my great distaste for any setting or houseruled table that has sapient creatures without souls.
To each their own I suppose.
(It's bad enough that there are so very, very many ways to destroy souls or force them into unjust damnation. Makes me grind my teeth.)I did take note of this, and my homebrew setting has a deity specifically devoted to fixing this problem for that exact reason (in addition to her more general portfolio of redemption). For those playing in Golarion it's really something that should be an assumed given for Sarenrae, if not all good deities as a whole.
He does kind of look like me. I think we have the same goggles.
I was just looking at the "Half-construct" sub-type in the Advanced Race guide to see if that would come closer to what I was looking for...
Gotta say I'm a bit confused over the RP point pricing between it and the "constructed" ability of the Android (7RP vs 2RP).
Androids get a +4 save against mind effecting, paralysis, poison, and stun, are not subject to fatigue/exhaustion, and are immune to disease.
Half construct get a +2 against mind effecting, paralysis, poison...and fatigue/exhaustion, and disease (which the Andriods are immune to).
Half construct cannot be raised or resurrected, Androids can.
Half constructs do not breath, eat, or sleep (but can to gain the benifit), Androids, I assume do breath, eat , and sleep ???
These last two seem really wonky to me....a human with mechanical prosthetics can not be resurrected, does not need to eat or breath...but an artifically produced Android can/does ???
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In that case I am 100% with Kruelaid in my great distaste for any setting or houseruled table that has sapient creatures without souls.
...I really want to be able to import avatars. It'd help with the mistaken identity.
.... derp, sorry guys @_@
So I spent a good portion of the day looking into the background of "Androids" as represented in Bladerunner (Replicants) and Aliens.
As represented in Bladerunner, Replicants are basically bio-engeneered humans.
They are engineered to be superior to humans, but are organic for all intents and purposes.
The androids from Aliens are on the other hand, synthestic beings designed to approximate humans to an incredible degree...but are not organic humans.
Awsome video clip here.
I would have hoped for something more like this....then the Bladerunner Replicants.
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I wonder if all those victims kidnapped by the Annihilators aren't somehow being used to create Numerian androids?
Androids are actually in a space between those two examples. You can't go full-on Weyland android as a player race. I mean, heck, Bishop was pulled apart and was still conscious. You also can't get too replicant, because a 4-year lifespan is a terrible timebomb for a PC.
LOL....I don't know.
If your android get's his head pulled off, and regains consciousness a while later...I don't mechanically see anything wrong with letting the head be conscious and talking while a companion carries it around in his backpack....could lead to some very enjoyable roleplay ;)| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Androids are actually in a space between those two examples. You can't go full-on Weyland android as a player race. I mean, heck, Bishop was pulled apart and was still conscious. You also can't get too replicant, because a 4-year lifespan is a terrible timebomb for a PC.
LOL....I don't know.
If your android get's his head pulled off, and regains consciousness a while later...I don't mechanically see anything wrong with letting the head be conscious and talking while a companion carries it around in his backpack....could lead to some very enjoyable roleplay ;)
Point. That could be an interesting roleplay experience.
Hmm, I wonder if we'll see a couple Android exclusive feats in that Android article/section? Perhaps a specific Technology based Oracle mystery or odd bloodline for them. We're dealing with potential robot gods and the like, so why not?
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Maybe an android could be adjusted so that between 0 and -Con, where others are unconscious and dying, they are effectively paralyzed but able to speak. Could even explicitly rule so that they can't use verbal-only spells either. I could see that not being too unbalanced, especially with the no-spells. They'd be killed as normal when they reach -Con, but basically they would be able to continue consciousness and discussion where other races would be unconscious.
In that case I am 100% with Kruelaid in my great distaste for any setting or houseruled table that has sapient creatures without souls.
Pathfinder is the only game I play where the concept of a soul is important or covered by rules.
I asked a question on what happened to the survivors of the crash and it was mentioned that it was a plot point.
Speculation: Maybe the Androids are the rebuilt survivors of the crash. That would explain why they are human in appearance and why they have souls. Their souls could of been "saved" by the ships computers (or other futuristic device) and then imprinted onto androids when they are built. How this would tie into the Iron Gods themselves, I do not know. Would be interesting to see an Android Cleric to one of the Iron Gods.
I think that was one of hypotheses that appeared in one of the Numeria/Silver Mount threads.
1st I really like the Android as a bio manufactured being like the Hyperion Androids. Will the article cover more on why Android were build and where they come from. I would love more distent world type content.
Speculation: Maybe the Androids are the rebuilt survivors of the crash. That would explain why they are human in appearance and why they have souls. Their souls could of been "saved" by the ships computers (or other futuristic device) and then imprinted onto androids when they are built. How this would tie into the Iron Gods themselves, I do not know. Would be interesting to see an Android Cleric to one of the Iron Gods.
Well, it's been stated that one of the ideas behind Iron Gods is exploration of the idea of faith and artificial intelligence, and some kind of (apparent) AI that is granting spells to followers, so I imagine that could very well be your tie-in right there.
Annihilators kidnap humans --> ship builds androids from physical bodies and technology --> re-imparts souls of survivors into android bodies (albeit perhaps not quite so effectively as it wishes; androids come back with very few memories and are essentially blank slates. One assumes the ship is trying to recreate its crew in whole.) --> ship begins viewing itself as a god in the image of the gods that are worshiped by the creatures of this new planet; and, seemingly, has some degree of mythic ability that allows it to grant spells. --> "real" gods get annoyed.
Faith meets Science.
They do not like.
(I'm actually reminded a little bit of C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy right now. Though it certainly isn't the only sci-fi/fantasy book to explore these themes and ideas.)
Hmm, I wonder if we'll see a couple Android exclusive feats in that Android article/section? Perhaps a specific Technology based Oracle mystery or odd bloodline for them. We're dealing with potential robot gods and the like, so why not?
I would also like to see Andriod specific traits, and drawbacks....
Meh, what is a soul?
Empirically it's the part that lets you be brought back from the dead, targeted by spells such as trap the soul and food/currency for various outer plains.
I guess humans/elves/orcas get them because of their innate human/elf/orca-ness or something but I'm not seeing as much interest in that beyond a tiny sidebar about souls in a larger thing.
"Orcas". Was that a result of spell-checker tyranny? :)