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A Synthesist Summoner gets the job done and let's you play Iron Man from Lv 1.
I was gonna say, Synthesist Summoner or homebrew a Warforged Alchemist and just fluff chugging mutagens as donning his armor. Look at the 3pp crossbow arm (warforged can integrate one into their arm in 3.5, and just replace it with the Launching Crossbow that can sling potions/bombs, and you've got your Tony Stark right there.
Fluff takes care of most of that. Summoning the armor can be describe as pulling the armor to or out of you. This has been the go to way for Iron Man to get his armor on for years. Examples are the Extremis Armor, Bleeding Edge Armor, and various armors from the movies. Not having time to properly put on his armor has even been a traditional weakness, so that works nicely as well.
Jarvis is replicated by the eidolon being a creature. Many of the suit's abilities can be replicated through evolutions. Replicating different suits can by handled through Transmogrify. And magic items(wands for repulser blasts) can cover any deficiencies.
Sure you won't be able to have an army of suits. But Iron Man has a messiah complex, he needs to do everything himself. This is cemented by the fact that things always go horribly wrong when he tries to get automated suits to do the whole Iron Man thing for him.
Not only all of this, but you can start this all off at lv 1. You don't have to wait until 16th level and spend ridiculous amounts of gold to pull it off.
Hate to parrot Corrik, but Synthesist even works just as, if not better than, good as the Barbarian for The Hulk.
Not to knock your golem approach, golems are neat, but I'd rather hit my stride LONG before level 15.
The CL requirement can also be bypassed by adding +5 to the crafting DC. The only requirements you can't eschew are crafting feat requirements. For an 11th level wizard (able to cast animate objects and haste) you're probably looking at a DC 38 Spellcraft check to make a mithral golem, which is actually pretty easily doable. Int is around 30-32 (assuming they've done some binding for their inherents and made a +6 Int item with their infinite wealth from fabricate), so +11 from ranks, +10 from Int, +3 from class skill, +2 from masterwork tool puts them at +26 for Spellcraft checks. A +2 competence bonus to spellcraft checks item (costs 400 gp, 200 gp to craft) would let them hit it by taking 10. A +7 item (4,900 or 2,450 gp) would let them increase the DC by 5 to rush it in half time.
The biggest constraint is time; it's going to take either 250 or 125 days to build the thing. A 17th level wizard can make a demiplane with the Time trait to do this pretty much instantly, but lower than that it's gonna be rough.
The absolute earliest you could pull it off would probably be 9th, since that's when you get fabricate and can actually afford all this. It'll take some more investment in skill boosting items though.
@Comments: Yeah... not feeling Synthesist. The Cha focus for your abilities doesn't really fit with being a genius, and Synthesist is much better equipped for slugging things out in melee than it is for laying waste with spells.
Fabricate doesn't instantly solve the wealth problems. You don't just get to create a big pile of gold ore and go "there". You have to make the stuff. You then have to actually sell it, which now puts you in the realm of DM control. And once you actually do get the spendable wealth(after the gods know how much time and shenanigans) you then have to start actually making everything. And in the meantime, the rest of the party is off running around and actually playing the game.
So we have a build that relies on fabricate exploitation, requires DM discretion, still doesn't come online until 9th at the minimum, and then requires a rather lengthy period of time to actually get a single suit.
This just doesn't seem like a very viable way to play as Iron Man.
With the Synthesist your physical abilities are covered by the suit, so you should be more than able to have enough CHA and a high INT score. Also, Iron Man mostly does slug things out in melee, with some repulser blasts thrown in.
Just also thought that you could use summons to replicate having additional suits running around. Summon whatever, fluff as whatever.
There really isn't any DM discretion involved. You can sell trade goods for full value and everything else for half value- period. Fabricate allows you to perform mundane crafting incredibly quickly, for example allowing you to gather/buy a bunch of uncut gems and triple their value. I also explicitly mentioned that it takes a really long time to actually make the suit, which is a hindrance.
And Iron Man isn't a low level character anyway, he's pretty far beyond what a normal human is capable of, which puts him solidly at 6+ at the very bare minimum. Slugging it out in melee is one of his options, but it's not his best option- the same as it is for a wizard.
There really isn't any DM discretion involved. You can sell trade goods for full value and everything else for half value- period. Fabricate allows you to perform mundane crafting incredibly quickly, for example allowing you to gather/buy a bunch of uncut gems and triple their value. I also explicitly mentioned that it takes a really long time to actually make the suit, which is a hindrance.
And Iron Man isn't a low level character anyway, he's pretty far beyond what a normal human is capable of, which puts him solidly at 6+ at the very bare minimum. Slugging it out in melee is one of his options, but it's not his best option- the same as it is for a wizard.
Indeed you can sell items at that value. In much the same way that you can kill a dragon, but that doesn't mean you do. The question is who do you sell them to? The NPCs and economy of the game are completely under his control. Any shenanigans you pull to get around that just gives him the option to pull even more shenanigans.
The Hulk is pretty solidly above what a normal human is capable of, that doesn't necessarily translate to class levels though. That just means the Hulk race/template is OP as balls.
Slugging it out in melee may not be his best option, but Tony Stark is hardly concerned with that until pressed. If he was, he wouldn't be trying to near single handily save the world with a robot suit. Like I said, Messiah complex.
You want an Iron Man that fits both crunch and fluff? You have to go back to 3.5, specifically Eberron.
The only base class in the game that has ever realistically represented Tony Stark in this game is the Artificer.
It's what he does, it's who he is, and it gives him all the necessary in-game components to fully recreate Iron Man in the fantasy version of the D20 system. Dip into the D20 Future rules if you want to make a strictly 'modern', no magic version. Which is clearly no fun HERE. ;)
The problem is that in Pathfinder there is nothing close to the Artificer. The other issue is having "Golem Armor" requires you to spend 38K+ on something that should, more appropriately, scale with the base cost (or Hit Dice) of the Construct itself. Which it doesn't. So buy the time you can afford this amount, you can't have reasonably strong armor and it'll get blasted in no time, and by the time you can afford a potent construct to convert into armor, you're 2/3rd through your adventuring career and are only JUST getting to be Iron Man.
Your version of the Hulk is pretty nice though, Neal.
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When I see stuffs like that, this kind of remind me of my favorite article of Dragon Magazine about converting characters from your favorite fiction. If your players are planning to play the Avengers, don't start at level 1, because they don't feel like the avengers, just make them start at higher level.
Same thing if someone wanted to play Harry Potter/Hogwarts like, they would start at level 1 because it is appropriate for the theme and learning how to cast spells and all that stuffs.
Yeah I know people always think of the standard progression but sometime depending of the theme of the campaign...you are better off just starting at different character levels.
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You should take a look at the Thunderscape setting. The mechamage is as close as you can get to an Artficer, is considered an alternate class of wizard, and starts with a construct companion that develops as the class does. I'm using it as the basis for my own Iron Man build in an upcoming campaign (think Reign of Winter meets Clinton Boomer's Pathfinder Marvels setting). But I would have never been able to pull it off had it not been for Neal's articles, so thanks for providing the inspiration, good sir!
Just as with my Hulk build from ever of days ago, I have re-written and re-published my character conversion for Iron Man. Perhaps the most popular of the Avengers, making an accurate Iron Man isn't easy. Anyone can play a sorcerer or a magus in armor... but how many people are wearing an iron golem while wrecking havoc on the battlefield?
Nice work Neal, that looks awesome.
I like how Tony retains his inventor/crafter spirit in your build as opposed to the Synthesist Summoner that seems to be so popular.
I'm looking forward to your depictions of all the Avengers. In particular Captain America :)
-MD
Wouldn't the Aegis class be a pretty ideal repersentation of Iron Man?
Take the Flight, Ranged Attack, Energy Blast, and Empowered Blast customizations as a baseline, and everything else is gravy. From level 5 on you are pretty much Iron Man.
Lets see, the movie Avengers:
Iron Man: Aegis
Captain America: Shield Champion Brawler
Thor: Thors more difficult, especially since he is something of a demigod, I think I would probably go with a high level Warlord from Path of War, focused on Primal Fury (for melee) and Solar Wind (for thrown).
Hulk: The Hulk is an interesting one, I would say the best way to handle him is he is an Alchemist/Wild Rager Barbarian, not multiclassed persay, rather both of those simultaneously, but with access to only one at a time. In human form he is an Alchemist, but when his mutation takes over he becomes a Wild Rager Barbarian, with completely different statistics, losing access to his Alchemist abilities, but gaining his Barbarian features (I would actually use two separate character sheets).
Hawkeye: Archer Fighter
Black Widow: Probably also a Brawler, multiclassed with either Rogue or Slayer.
Of coarse none of them would be less than 10th level.