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Some Background Information
So after we finish up our Mummy's Mask game we were thinking of playing Iron Gods. A friend of mine running it, some of us were discussing character ideas and I liked the idea of running an engineer type character with a robot pet similar to Gaige from Borderlands 2. So working on this idea I originally thought just to take a summoner and change the eidolon to a construct, but after working with my friend I kind of came up with this revised class.
Some notes about it
I originally started with the summoner as a base idea and went from there. A few big changes.
- The eidolon I changed from outsider to construct (robot) (welcome any different ideas on the name for the pet)
- I swapped for the Magus's spells per day and made Intelligence the casting stat
- I removed the summon monster ability and added a pool ability
- Modified the eidolon affecting abilities
- Modified the spell list
- Gave bonus feats to help ensure abilities at every level
Why I'm posting it
Basically looking for any ideas or insights on it, any exploits/loopholes that exist on it, and just balance concerns. At this point four people have looked at it, and we're not sure we've covered everything.
The big things I'm looking at right now are a capstone for the class, any changes to the spell list, the bonus feat list, and thematically appropriate modifications (what I renamed evolutions to). Enjoy!
I don't really have anything to comment on the class just yet, as I totally read your title wrong. I read it as Macramancer (macramae) and was wondering what a magic user based around using knot-work textiles would look like.
That'll teach me to to try and read without my glasses.
The massive number of blanket immunities it starts with would be sufficient for me to request a rewrite if one of my players submitted this to me, and I'm a fairly lenient GM, overall. The summoner is widely considered extremely overpowered. This version of the eidolon ramps it up. For example, vulnerability to electricity is meaningless if you give them some way to bypass it and in no way compensates for all the immunities it gets.
I can't see any of the modifications for some reason. My phone may be the issue, however. I'll look more later when I'm feeling better.
My opinion, mind you.
Cool! A few observations:
This robot has formed a link with the mechromancer as it's creation requires the mechromancer to infuse a bit of his soul into his creation.
This description fits a golem better than a robot. I would leave it out if I aimed for the robot-feeling.
Maybe name the robot pet an automaton?Many of the conjuration spells on your list don't fit the theme for this class; transmutation and evocation are probably a better match. I would go through the spell lists asking myself each time if I could imagine a technological device replicating the spell effect. If yes, than it should belong on your spell list.
Most of the eidolon evolutions should fit the robot as well, though you might want to reflavor some of them.
I am not sure the bonus feats are really necessary. Also, the flux-mechanics are somewhat boring - most effects can be replicated by spells. Repairing the robot probably shouldn't be that easy, considering the inability to heal damage is typically a construct weakness.
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Mech-romancer? Well, to each one his or her own fetish... ;)
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The massive number of blanket immunities it starts with would be sufficient for me to request a rewrite if one of my players submitted this to me, and I'm a fairly lenient GM, overall. The summoner is widely considered extremely overpowered. This version of the eidolon ramps it up. For example, vulnerability to electricity is meaningless if you give them some way to bypass it and in no way compensates for all the immunities it gets.
I can't see any of the modifications for some reason. My phone may be the issue, however. I'll look more later when I'm feeling better.
My opinion, mind you.
The modifications aren't listed at present as I've basically just used the Eidolon list at the moment, reflavoring as needed. There's a few I'd like to include but would rather get a working base and add on additional ideas later.
The blanket immunities were one issue I saw early on. An initial draft I had thought of early on was to have any time the Mechromancer impaired it would also impair the robot. My initial draft seemed very clunky though and I ended up dropping it. Too many variables and what was deemed 'impaired'. For example daze is daze, and dazing the mechromancer makes the robot dazed. But hold person? Blindness/deafness? And how would freedom of movement impact it? Just too many variables that I kept adding to.
I could attempt to get rid of some of the base immunities, though might take a bit on how/why. The immunity to fatigue/exhaustion I suppose could be representative of it not being the most mechanically stable creation. I'll take some time to look at those.
Thank you for the advice!
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Cool! A few observations:
This robot has formed a link with the mechromancer as it's creation requires the mechromancer to infuse a bit of his soul into his creation.This description fits a golem better than a robot. I would leave it out if I aimed for the robot-feeling.
Maybe name the robot pet an automaton?Many of the conjuration spells on your list don't fit the theme for this class; transmutation and evocation are probably a better match. I would go through the spell lists asking myself each time if I could imagine a technological device replicating the spell effect. If yes, than it should belong on your spell list.
Most of the eidolon evolutions should fit the robot as well, though you might want to reflavor some of them.
I am not sure the bonus feats are really necessary. Also, the flux-mechanics are somewhat boring - most effects can be replicated by spells. Repairing the robot probably shouldn't be that easy, considering the inability to heal damage is typically a construct weakness.
The description was actually part of answering "So why wouldn't the mechromancer build an army of these?". I can see where you're coming from on it though.
I definitely like the name automaton better. Well, I do like robot but as it has actual game meaning was wanting to try to shy away from it. Might change that on a later rewrite.
Going through the spell list is a must. I like the idea of going through transmutation and evocation for it. Admittedly I was kind of lazy about it and just copied the Summoner list, removing the overtly poor matched spells. I am a little leery of adding too many blaster type spells to it as the damage I would hope to come from the robot itself.
When I first started I intended for this to be a Summoner/Gunslinger hybrid and Flux was what I was doing for Grit instead. Then I increased the pool size when I made it the main source of healing for the robot. But honestly looking at some of the spells available, I don't think it will be that great an issue at lower levels (maybe make a first level repair spell for the robot). As far as making the mechanics of it less boring, hmmm. I'll ponder that.
Thanks for the advice!
Is the pet able to stay up all night? The summoner had the conscious clause so they would have a weakness. Namely, no eidolon while they were asleep.
I don't have a lot to say on this. It looks like you have a lot to fill in still. Will there be more flux abilities? One specific comment I have concerns line #63. Becoming destroyed at a negative number of hit points equal to 10 + Int mod seems like an unnecessary complication. I would either use the convention method of a negative number equal to the robot's constitution score, or the mechromancer's intelligence score.
Also, if this is based on the MM's ability score, and that score takes damage or drain, what happens to the robots destroyed number? It doesn't make logical sense to be easier to destroy if the the MM gets feeblminded. This is why basing off of one of the robots ability scores is easier.
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I don't have a lot to say on this. It looks like you have a lot to fill in still. Will there be more flux abilities? One specific comment I have concerns line #63. Becoming destroyed at a negative number of hit points equal to 10 + Int mod seems like an unnecessary complication. I would either use the convention method of a negative number equal to the robot's constitution score, or the mechromancer's intelligence score.
Also, if this is based on the MM's ability score, and that score takes damage or drain, what happens to the robots destroyed number? It doesn't make logical sense to be easier to destroy if the the MM gets feeblminded. This is why basing off of one of the robots ability scores is easier.
The only thing I didn't have were the modifications (evolutions) and that was part me not thinking about adding them and me being too lazy too (which I'm working on rectifying). Except for the changes I'm thinking of doing now to it!
I do see the issues with basing the stat off the mechromancer's Int. It was a thought to make it have a bit bigger buffer before being destroyed, making it on par with a PC (though honestly a bit more since the Mechromancer would probably have a high Int). I'm thinking of just making it 10, since they don't have constitution scores anyway.
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So I've made some modifications from the original. I've updated the spreadsheet in the original post to be the v1.1 of the Mechromancer, and will post a link to v1.0 and v1.1 here.
Updated version (currently v1.1 but will be updated if I make another round of revisions)
Mechromancer v1.0
Some highlights
- I renamed robot to automaton. Since 'robot' actually is a game term I wanted to separate it.
- Removed flux mechanics. While I liked the idea behind flux, I began to feel it was just adding on more needlessly. I ended up replacing it with bonus teamwork feats.
- Revised the spell list. The spell list has been heavily edited. I think I cut more than I added, so that's a concern. I also feel like there should be a first level repair spell, might add that at some point.
- Numerous changes to the automaton. I added the ability worn down to make the automaton vulnerable to numerous conditions constructs are normally immmune to. I also modified link so that under various conditions the mechromancer is unable to act, the automaton is also affected. It still has quite a few immunities, but I believe the harder to heal aspect should counter this.
- Added modifications. I actually added a modification tab, including making up a few and cutting a few that didn't feel thematic.
- Removed the mechromancer's bonus feats. Since I added the teamwork feats, felt it should be fine.
Please let me know what you think!
Ooh, this looks similar to the early tinker design. Very excited about how this gets built! Would you be open to doing some design work for me if this project flags you as compatible with the insanity of the Interjection Games brand?
The revised spell list looks good. I like that you added some electricity-based evocation spells but held back on more powerful spells like fireball.
Adding some weaknesses with 'worn down' and offering the possibility to remove these weaknesses later on via evolutions is a smart solution.
I am not entirely convinced of the teamwork bonus feats, but I guess it works. Unfortunately, I have no proposal what a good alternative mechanic for flux might be (which I quite liked as a concept, despite my criticism).
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The revised spell list looks good. I like that you added some electricity-based evocation spells but held back on more powerful spells like fireball.
Adding some weaknesses with 'worn down' and offering the possibility to remove these weaknesses later on via evolutions is a smart solution.
I am not entirely convinced of the teamwork bonus feats, but I guess it works. Unfortunately, I have no proposal what a good alternative mechanic for flux might be (which I quite liked as a concept, despite my criticism).
The spell list I also like better now. I think it could still do with some work of course, but I doubt I'll ever be 100% happy with it. Trying to find the right thematic fit is difficult. I might still tweak it a bit if I do a v1.2.
Using modifications to make it more construct like just seemed to hit me as I started removing immunities and actually helped me figure out which ones to get rid of. I still think there's plenty of room for more modifications but I wanted to get a base list going first.
I was working on the Flux mechanics and seemed to keep hitting the same walls. Some of my ideas I had came up with included an ability to let spells originate from the automaton instead of the mechromancer, an ability to let a mechromancer use his ranks with the automaton (kind of like guiding it), and the brawler ability for feats only as long as the mechromancer concentrated. In the end I kept seeming to hit a dead end on designing things 'new' and ended up doing the teamwork feat as kind of a copout. I still like the idea of Flux but would need to spend a great deal of time working out more flux abilities and seeing how to do them. It's another idea to think on for a v1.2.
The thing on a lot of the flux ideas is that it seemed I was removing the action economy from the mechromancer/automaton match up and using the mechromancer to make the automaton better somehow. For example the spell ability would be the mechromancer spending a point of flux to 'guide' the automaton to casting the spell instead, using both of their actions. It almost seemed like I was trying internally to balance this aspect of the summoner base. Food for thought I suppose.
Thanks for taking another look!
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Ooh, this looks similar to the early tinker design. Very excited about how this gets built! Would you be open to doing some design work for me if this project flags you as compatible with the insanity of the Interjection Games brand?
I appreciate the kind words!
As far as design work, I must be honest. While I don't mind working on something like this every now and then, I mostly do it as a way to relax. If I were to start being paid for it I'd look at it differently and I'm not sure I'd still get the same kind of enjoyment out of it. Sorry!
On the other hand I did just look at the tinker and I'm going to download that now and take a look at it.