Love the idea of the Omega Protocol, makes a good character background where the android is unaware of the programming left inside it or that it can't remember what happens when the Omega Protocol is in effect.
Even if you don't use that idea, I can see an android coming to a logical conclusion that it can gain an edge in battle by overclocking its functions. It can't redline for long, but it may be enough to gain victory.
I love it. Wonderful concept that may lead me to reading your blood.
EDIT: blog i meant blog. But the visual is too funny to delete.
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Wait, is this "androids can only take levels in a few classes" a thing?
Do people actually think race should define character class, especially with PCs?
Wait, is this "androids can only take levels in a few classes" a thing?
Do people actually think race should define character class, especially with PCs?
Unfortunately, yes. Some people have a very narrow view of how races and classes in RPGs work, and what character concepts they should be allowed to pursue. Anything that doesn't fit into that narrowly defined box is unacceptable.
Mind you that this race/class combination stems from the very roots of D&D. It's not some MMO-generation's illusion. In the first editions, a race DID define the class, sometimes vice versa. It's not a 'new thing'. You played an elf if you wanted to be magic user, or a dwarf if you wanted a heavily armored fighter, or the like. Can't remember the specifics, but it's there, in the history of our games.
Anyway, to be honest, Pathfinder took a wrong turn on the entire racial favored class issue. As some of you guys might not be familiar with 3.5 D&D it might be fair to explain my point (of view). In 3.5, a favored class was very defining aspect of character creation. Most races had only one class with which they were naturally drawn towards to, and with which they would be better in a way. For Dwarves, it would be fighter. In 3.5 you could make any combination from any race, but favored class mattered if or when you multiclassed. A dwarf wizard could multiclass into fighter easily, without suffering penalties to gaining experience. a dwarf wizard, on the other hand, multiclassing into a rogue would, because dwarves in general were usually fighters. Other class traditions were unorthodox. Not impossible,just rare.
From that perspective, the point is in those racial traditions. Certain races were good at certain careers, period. I'm fine with the new system with not slowing down the experience gain if you multiclassed in an unorthodox way. But I would rather not give favored class bonus benefits for all classes, but only a select few.
Wait, is this "androids can only take levels in a few classes" a thing?
Do people actually think race should define character class, especially with PCs?
This is sort of a real mechanical thing. The android's racial trait that prevents them from benefiting from Morale Bonuses does lock them out of from excelling at classes that revolve around buffing themselves with Morale Bonuses such as Bards and baseline Barbarians.
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This is sort of a real mechanical thing. The android's racial trait that prevents them from benefiting from Morale Bonuses does lock them out of from excelling at classes that revolve around buffing themselves with Morale Bonuses such as Bards and baseline Barbarians.
This is incorrect. There was a feat published in People of the Stars for Androids specifically:
Empathy
You have learned to experience emotion.Prerequisite(s): Cha 13, android.
Benefit: You lose the emotionless racial trait. You can gain morale bonuses, and can be affected by emotion-based effects and fear effects. You lack the +4 racial bonus on saving throws against mind-affecting effects.
Due to the 13 cha requirement it actually works better for bloodragers than barbarians but it makes them very good choices due to being immune to fatigue. Had a character planned for this so I know, though never got a chance to play them to my disappointment.
I like the idea of playing an Android that's a Wild Rager Barbarian, he's "malfunctioning".
Android PCs have been pretty popular, and I love the idea of being allowed to play one. A lot of the gamers I've spoken to, however, feel that androids should only be allowed to take levels of certain classes. That's why, for this week's Table Talk installment, I decided to set forth the details of my idea for an android barbarian.
I'm not gonna go into the mecanical details, but only from a concept view here.
Androids should be able to take any classes their wish. They just need a good... reason to explain certain features.
- A Barbarian's rage could be an overclocking setup.
- A Sorcerer's bloodline could be a set of nanites exposed to arcane residual energy
- A Cleric's faith could be... anything really.
- An Oracle's curse could be a malfunction
- A Kineticist's specialization could be a battery.
Everything can be explained via a gadget or setup :P
I actually think think that the opposite view makes more sense in this discussion. By getting away from the idea that certain races are better at certain things we focus more on characters as individuals, and we don't burden them with a bunch of "well, all elves/dwarves/half-orcs are just good at this thing" preconceptions.
I don't want to call it a prejudice, but by determining your favored class based on your race we are pigeonholing certain races into certain areas. 3.5 gave half-orcs barbarian as a favored class, but why would that make sense for a half-orc raised in a human population? Or who was adopted by a wizard? Or who was part of a smaller, ethnic community in a big city? Yet you were penalized if you wanted to make a fighter/rogue half-orc because you had to satisfy their level requirements.
Race grants changes to attributes, and those changes often influence choices in class (halflings are more likely to be rogues because of the stealth bonuses, whereas dwarves increases to constitution and wisdom make them powerful monks and clerics). 3.5 punished you for building multiclass characters who didn't fit the preconceptions of their race by forcing you to build in ways that made no logical sense. After all, a reformed half-orc burglar who enlists in the army may have 1 level of rogue, but why would he gain more levels of rogue if he's been actively getting away from that life and training in favor of becoming a fighter?
All of this is true, I agree. But, in a fantasy world, set in an era very much alike to our world's middle-age-to-renaissance, people grow and live by traditions. I didn't want to go back allowing only one favored class per race, I just would rather them have more thematic set of favored classes.
It is like you said: for a half-orc raised in human (or otherwise civilized) community, it wouldn't make much sense for a half-orc steer towards barbarism. But since all half-orcs share a few things in common, among with their bestial looks and weapon proficiencies, it would make sense if a half-orcs at least gained as their favored classes some of the more martial classes, like barbarian, fighter, ranger and perhaps even slayer (now that there are more than Core classes).
Likewise with dwarves, their core rulebook description tells us that dwarves are very tradition-bound, and most are quite disciplined and pious, so it wouldn't be far-fetched to allow them cleric, fighter, monk and paladin as their favored classes.
I could go on with all the races, but I don't see why, because I really can't change how things are. However, what I meant, was that each race could have more than one favored class, not just one, but definitely not all of them, available. Furthermore, I'd rather see favored class bonuses granted only for those classes preset for each race. If you wanted to create dwarf barbarian, then go ahead, nothing isn't stopping you, you'll just have to kiss goodbye to favored class bonus altogether, because barbarism just isn't in dwarven nature.
That way favored class (and race!) selection would actually mean something, rather than being just extra candy from which to choose your best cookie-cutter choice, so to speak.
I don't see what's the point in allowing both dwarves and half-orcs get the same favored class bonus for barbarians, for example.
In fact, I see the favored class options as an additional background thing which may or may not give an extra edge, rather than just represent your individual focus on something.
To me it bothers more that the current concept of favored class has little if any of the former meaning left. I understand it's now more of an individual choice, and in truth there is nothing wrong with that. But is that really favored class in a sense of his or her background elements or more of a favorite class due to his or her decisions; there is a difference. It's a minor difference I admit, but it's still a difference. For someone like me, stuck in these silly old-school aspects and sentiments (pardon me being a bit semantic here), calling such an ability favored class is actually a bit confusing, since it used to mean the preconceptual background element for every race. By all means, I do encourage individuality, but don't do it in expense of stripping your heritage (or whatever serves the purpose) away.
Now, the system allowing all races to have any favored classes would make more sense if those racial bonuses were at least unique to each race, and not, for example the case with dwarves and half-orcs gaining exactly the same bonus for being a barbarian (= extra rage rounds per level). That's just lazy design. I'd like to see more compelling pull to choose ones race over another because of what they could have that others don't. I'm talking about the concept of racial archetypes, but brought more into the background than in actual changed class features in favor of that.
But let's go back to the original post. I like how you visualized the possibility an android could become and present his barbarian nature. With or without Empathy feat, an android barbarian would indeed be great and interesting to play, and I must admit I had never thought about what would happen to rage powers if you couldn't gain the morale bonuses. Actually, to make it even better for an android without the feat, you could make a Savage Technologist, which doesn't lose AC while raging, and still gets some pretty neat abilities while raging -- In addition to rage powers. And you could even take the feat afterwards. Maybe as a way to play out the character's organic development (if he didn't know at first he had the ability to rage, for example)
I feel like a big misconception concerning Androids is that everyone thinks they're robots. But they're not. At all. I don't have time at the moment to go into detail, but it's all right there in the Android Ecology article in Iron Gods #1. Although they're synthetic beings, their brains are organic. Although they have a hard time empathizing with other living creatures, they are not devoid of emotion. They simply do not feel emotion to the same heights as others. An android who takes the Empathy feat is an android who has found a way to feel as humans do. They don't have targeting sensors or protocols because they're not machines. They're living beings with souls.
I should do more research on the Savage Technologist... it keeps coming up.
Here, it's from Technology Guide, and luckily available through Pathfinder Reference Document :)
I feel like a big misconception concerning Androids is that everyone thinks they're robots. But they're not. At all. I don't have time at the moment to go into detail, but it's all right there in the Android Ecology article in Iron Gods #1. Although they're synthetic beings, their brains are organic. Although they have a hard time empathizing with other living creatures, they are not devoid of emotion. They simply do not feel emotion to the same heights as others. An android who takes the Empathy feat is an android who has found a way to feel as humans do. They don't have targeting sensors or protocols because they're not machines. They're living beings with souls.
Because the soul is located in the brain. You heard it here first, folks!
I feel like a big misconception concerning Androids is that everyone thinks they're robots. But they're not. At all. I don't have time at the moment to go into detail, but it's all right there in the Android Ecology article in Iron Gods #1. Although they're synthetic beings, their brains are organic. Although they have a hard time empathizing with other living creatures, they are not devoid of emotion. They simply do not feel emotion to the same heights as others. An android who takes the Empathy feat is an android who has found a way to feel as humans do. They don't have targeting sensors or protocols because they're not machines. They're living beings with souls.
Who says they can have those though? Organic brain or not, they are filled with itty-bitty machines and were created. Biological robots, in a sense, that have one program in them already: nanite surge