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Well there is already engineer for the latter to a degree.
Possibly. And if you change "not mech related" to "don't get/need a mech" then definitely yes.
Speaking of, he's the Circuitbreaker now, and as soon as I finish the section on technological tattoos, he'll get that stuff (probably in place of those floating options he has right now).
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Just added the Eclipse Dread archetype.
So I understand that the mech pilot feat exists, but wont the mech be very fragile? Seems like the mech would end up getting damaged and broken very quickly.
Possibly... It's going to depend on the class picking up the feat to a certain extent. The mech does have Hardness (which as you may recall works particularly well against energy effects) and damage is split evenly between the mech and pilot, so I don't think it will be any more fragile than a Ranger's animal companion, and arguably more useful in its own way. I think it's in about the right place for the cost/benefit returns, but I'm open to hearing what people's experiences are on the matter.
Aaaannnndd..... The quote I was responding to disappeared. Huh.
While I've always been a huge fan of Dreamscarred products, this is enough to make me pick up the technology guide in preparation. I'm already planning an encounter based on the Archetypes already featured in the next month or two, and will definitely report back how that goes.
The eclipse's low action economy and the small HP of aerial mechs make it seem like it'll be a very vulnerable archetype.
Yeah I deleted it since I realized I should probably make a character who actually pilots using said feat before making that statement. Going to build a level 7 Cryptic using the archetype and the Mech Pilot feat and see how that looks.
If your mech has both DR and Hardness, how does that work?
I quite like the paradigm from the Technologist feat. In a Golarion level setting its a barrier to a realm of things, and when I asked about it I was told that its perfectly reasonably to make it free for everyone if the setting called for it. Although there was no sidebar in the book, that was the stated intent on the product thread from my recollection. Currently I just give it for free and a bonus technological feat for classes that already get it.
I'm going to presume that the Power Rangers/Kamen Rider parallel is on purpose. (You get a device that interfaces with your mech and even has a personality. If you have a mech that's the same size as you, you can even morph.)
As I said before, I genrally prefer a situation where mecha are vehicles as opposed to being feat or class feature locked, but I have some mecha rules so I'm not terribly sore from it, especially sinc Ssalarn mentioned some mundane mechs (I imagine much weaker and more static than psi ones.) but the biggest thing to me is that it requires a psicrystal OS, which means that to make it a Akashic, Magic, or technological mech the only thing that would change would be the OS, so a Stave or Veil or motherboard would be sufficient. (If that happens may a reccomend exclusive enhancements for each OS type. Or better yet, let the base form be static and mundane vehicles and the OS responsible for the outlandish enhancements and growth progression.)
There will definitely be non-class feature locked mechs, but generally they won't be as good or customizable as the ones gated behind class features (unless they're classified as technological artifacts and locked more into GM purview). There's also going to be a few different non-psionic mech options.
There's actually a section I'm working on about refluffing Akasha as technology and essence as bio-battery points that will include some refluffed existing veils and a selection of new ones, including archetypes and base rules for using these with mechs.
I can live with non-advancing mechs not being as good as class feature locked ones. That's basically what's going on in my game because the Tinker and a few other classes can reasonably make a mech or tech-suit. They mostly amount to some armor with a few magic items on it or a vehicle that walks. But since this playtest brings up psicrystals as basically a power source/OS my brain immediately fell in love with the potential to have other OSs. I can imagine a bonded item or a magic item for a magical OS but I'm not sure what item is thematically tied to a veilweaver. Then of course there's a battery and motherboard ones but that can be saved for the mundane mechs. Since I mentioned Kamen Rider I'd like to point out that in one series there was a magical, biological and mechanical Kamen Rider in the same show so its not that far fetched in terms of concept.
On to practical things, and speaking of henshining/morphing; one thing about the Cavalier that cause people to just not take the class is that you can't bring a horse through a lot of places. Any plans for rules to summon mechs? While still impractical for large and larger mechs, the ones that are your size would be nice to summon. Plus you get that nice henshin effect.
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Actually, a size changing suit or a Matryoshka doll style mech enhancement would be pretty cool and also very much something commonly found in mecha dating as far back as the 70s and 80s.
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If your mech has both DR and Hardness, how does that work?
I believe you'd apply Hardness, and then DR, since Hardness is the broader effect.
The eclipse's low action economy and the small HP of aerial mechs make it seem like it'll be a very vulnerable archetype.
Potentially. I'm waiting on feedback before I juice the action economy up though. We playtested it with it being able to command one mech as a free action right from level 1 and then needing to spend actions to command subsequent mechs, and it got a little bonkers.
Kneejerk says that's too durable, but I'll decide that after testing it against my party. Nice thing about DMing is a captive playtesting audience.
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Kneejerk says that's too durable, but I'll decide that after testing it against my party. Nice thing about DMing is a captive playtesting audience.
But they weren't durable enough just a few posts ago!!!!
That's why we hammer things out in playtest like this :)
If anything, I think I might drop the DR options entirely and just replace them with options to give boosts to the Hardness, but I'm going to hold off on doing anything like that until there's more feedback in. Given the fact that the mechs are actually going to have relatively low AC and hit points, I think the current system does a good job of giving them their own particular brand of durability.
And now for something not related to mecha defenses!
The Eclipse evokes some amazing imagery. It controls that squadron of fighters screeching overhead and creating mayhem. Also, it was quite unexpected, since I was expecting this and got this.... The second image is intended to look impressive, but google lacks good pictures of the subject.
With that said, it and the Squad Leader's mechs do not get the pilot's feats when being controlled remotely. This feels like it harms the Eclipse in particular since it's mech is pretty focused on the ranged game. Also the Squad Leader's remote control ability still lacks the BAB language.
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And now for something completely different!
Fixed.
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MF stiletto had it's crit multiplier dropped to x2 (this was an error on my part, as I thought the chainsaw had a x3 multiplier).
The initial damage calculations presented do not account for the fact that the stiletto breaks whenever a 1 is rolled - this drastically alters the presumed math, and is unavoidable when the weapon becomes available as you cannot have masterwork versions of technological weapons, so the initial numbers are incorrect on that point as well. The chainsaw actually has a much better "take off" point. Given the feats required to get the mf stiletto's Dex to damage, the chainsaw's power dependency should not be factored against it; those same feats the stiletto user is using just to get Dex to damage will allow the chainsaw wielder to obtain a core to power his chainsaw.
The stiletto is also not meant to be able to lose the downside of the fragile property - this has been noted in its entry. Not including that to begin with was largely my fault as well; I didn't think the clarification was necessary since I had it in my head that the masterwork conversion was what offset the fragile property, and since you can't have masterwork tech weapons and the weapon is crafted with the fragile property, it didn't seem necessary to call out.
Also worth noting, is that the chainsaw has both the deadly and distracting properties, which can be reasonable boons to characters built to take advantage of those, though are situational enough that it's reasonable not to try and account for them in flat damage sims.
Other little tweaks-
The Reactor Knight's Rocket Punch Overdrive has been updated with verbage clarifying that it does not stack with the damage multiplication of a lance, Spirited Charge, or other similar effects.
In case anyone missed it, the dread archetype the Eclipse had some adjustments made allowing it to use Wings of Devastation from range. Let me know if any playtesting is done with this, I think Wings of Devastation may require that we trade in the 2nd level terror to help balance things back out a bit.I'm okay if the Eclipse is a little bit stronger at low levels, that's just something you kind of have to live with when it comes to "pet" classes. What I don't want is it being absolutely ridiculously more powerful. I've also added the "Iron Nightmare" ability to the Eclipse to try and help reduce his action economy strain a bit, allowing him to command mechs within 10 feet of an enemy suffering from the shaken, frightened, or panicked conditions as a free action. I may look at having this ability come online a little earlier depending on feedback.
Still freaks me out that Rocket Punch doesn't fly off independently then come back.
How about Boost Punch?
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Sorry, I've just been watching old mecha shows since I was a wee laddy and I'm used to having rocket punch represent a forearm or hand litterally fly off like a rocket, punch a fool, then fly back and reattach.
Incidentally the very first use of the phrase Rocket Punch was about 50 years ago in the manga Mazinger Z, so the association between said image and the word Rocket Punch runs pretty deep for anyone serious about mecha.
Anyone with a similar backround as me will see Rocket Punch, think Mazinger/Gaiking/Nadesico/ect, then read the rules text and say "that's not a rocket punch"
Apologies if I'm being nit-picky.
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Has anyone brought up the idea of a biomechanical or biological mech, something like Juushin Liger or even something like Escaflowne (whether it be using the pilot's blood to initially start-up the mech in the series, or where the mech feeds directly from the pilot like in the movie)? It'd add a whole other flavor to the mecha besides neural linkage. I could easily see a vitalist piloting a bonded biological mech.
I was under the interpretation most of these mechs were loosely defined enough to be anything lol
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Couple big changes I'm looking at-
Swapping mechs from a natural armor bonus to an armor bonus.
Separating the Mech Piloting feat from the Psi-Core Upgrade feat. Anyone, regardless of access to a PP pool, will be able to grab a mech, but having a psi-core in mainframe mode will give you some bonuses to piloting.
I'm running a couple formulas and looking at how to address the way technological weapons interact with base assumptions of the game, and how to make that scale better. Basically, chainsaws are great when there's one, but really scary when there's one in every garage. I want to excise that increased rocket tag element without taking away fun toys or forcing new math, so I'm kind of thinking the best thing to so is to introduce better technological armors, and then create a sliding scale for pricing- basically, the cheaper and more affordable technological weapons are in your setting, the cheaper and more affordable technological armor will be, so the two always exist in balanced opposition. That also means that if you live in a world where the garbage man has a mech for picking up the trash, the barbarian mercenary is probably going to have ready access to techno-armor that allows him take a chainsaw or laser rifle blast to the chest about as well as he currently takes a bolt or arrow.
Let me know what your thoughts or concerns are with these changes. Also-
There needs to be a sliding scale included in the supplement's assumptions, to adjust costs and prereqs according to your world. If you've got mech piloting trash guy, technological weapons should be cheap and the Technologist feat should either be a free bonus feat or waived entirely. If there's basically one tiny part of your world where a space station crashed and that's the source of all technology, tech should be more expensive, the Technologist feat should be required for most tech prereqs, etc.
Where do you guys feel you'd like that sliding scale to start? Do you think it's better for price and prereqs to assume a standard setting like Paizo's Golarion, where there might only be 1 mech piloting PC in the whole world, or do you want it to automatically assume that mechs are going to be everywhere?
The current design assumption, and my personal preference, is that things are priced and gated for a lower tech world where technology is exceedingly rare, and then the sliding scale would allow you to make technology cheaper and more accessible the farther you moved away from that assumption.
On Mech Armor
Mechs applying a normal armor bonus but still functioning with natural armor and deflection granting items feels like the right way to go. Right now, with mechs providing natural armor and not functioning with normal AC boosting gear, they're in a weird place where wearing a mech replaces the need for those pieces of equipment (saving large chunks of wealth), but puts you behind on AC in the long run unless you can manifest inertial armor, in which case you end up slightly ahead of par. Moving them to an armor bonus that scales up to roughly the level of top-end armor like +5 full plate or whatever tech equivalent you go with makes logical sense, is simpler in play, and doesn't exacerbate the virtual bonus wealth provided by non-stacking benefits (like the current enhancement bonuses to ability scores).
Psi-Core
Seems fine either way. I was under the impression the mechs were intended to be mostly a psionic thing, but it's really not an issue either way and you can tell more stories with mundane characters having access to mechs as well.
Tech Equipment vs. Standard Assumptions
I'm iffy on this subject. If tech weapons and defenses involve straight increases in standard attack and defense (higher accuracy, damage, AC, and DR) you're probably going to run into issues.
If they're of limited availability, you're still going to run into the problem where their existence as an expensive option pushes the ceiling for damage output and defense higher for people that have it as an option. For example, there's only so many items you can dedicate to pushing more damage in Pathfinder, but each time a new option like, say, chainsaws or monofilament stilettos are added, the maximum amount of character options you can dedicate to pushing damage is higher (to say nothing of points in gameplay where time becomes a more important resource than wealth and you can basically assume access to everything below a certain price, like after fabricate becomes an option). This naturally leads into tech equipment being less of a setting gated element, and more of a level gated element, as characters of a certain CR band that can afford it basically need it to keep up.
If it's cheap enough for everyone to access it in a certain setting, things stay roughly the same as they are now- just characters being caught without some equipment is more lethal, and you have a similar game with slightly higher scale math involved in resolving it. Which, honestly, is totally fine.
From a gameplay standpoint ideally you'd present tech equipment as being more versatile and sustainable than non-tech equipment, with lots of lateral options but similar raw number output such that you can justify pricing it higher without creating more points for defense and offense to be amplified, but that kind've downplays the superiority of shooting someone with a rocket compared to an arrow and can damage suspension of disbelief. I'm not really sure how you'd resolve this. Trying to have a world where tech equipped characters and non-tech equipped characters can reasonably exist side by side seems like it's going to have problems to matter what route you take, it's a matter of picking which one is least damaging to gameplay.
Personally I'd like the assumption to be something close to Golarian then sliding to more and more common.
I was actually going to suggest something similar for the armor bonuses when I got home today too.
With Mecha wielding great swords, trebuchets, cannons, and other low tech items I ended up imagining a world similar to Warmachine. Here's a bipedal mecha of the large variety
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Can't really weigh in too much about the whole sliding scale business, simply because no campaign I have played in had taken place on Golarian. But I do feel like the baseline should probably be based on the assumption that mechs are slowly becoming more common. After all, there are already massive constructs and golems and such, and I personally feel a massive construct serpent with sentience is more technologically/magically impressive then what amounts to a big golem shell that you need to make move from inside.
That aside, is it too much to hope that there is going to be some way of getting what is roughly an Ironman suit? Im having a huge desire to try and fit my punch magus character with either a sort of "bio" armor (We need a toned down Magus-Synthesist/Aegis hybrid class) or some sort of mechanized summon armor, and the Swift Girding spell isn't quite doing it for me.
Well aside from the difficulty of getting armaments rushing a size enhancement for an aerial suit then using further size enhancements to up dex and HP instead of size would getcha the suit itself.
If its allowed maybe the Psion archetype would let you blast Psionic style and that could emulate Iron Man pretty well.
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Well aside from the difficulty of getting armaments rushing a size enhancement for an aerial suit then using further size enhancements to up dex and HP instead of size would getcha the suit itself.
If its allowed maybe the Psion archetype would let you blast Psionic style and that could emulate Iron Man pretty well.
Slower flight is also available to the non-aerial suits, so there's probably a few ways you can "Iron Man" already. You could Biped Iron Man with slower, clunkier flight, then swap to an aerial mech when you can afford a medium sized one.
I played and am running in situations where things from the technology guide are fairly common and less expensive. Against advice we tried technology at 10% the normal cost as if they were firearms. Results were mixed. Introducing more technological armor and other defenses meant a good avoidance rate, but with some things, when you get hit, you get hit hard. This has less to do with technological firearms which any sort of energy resistance can help out but I made an effort to try to keep melee weapons relevant and it backfired a bit. Basically Vital striking with a chainsaw is already 6d6. It was cool at first but at low levels it gets old fast due to the crit range generating a lot of one-shots. making it a 270gp weapon didn't help either. It makes sense for it to be like that, its not like fight that involves a chainsaw just ends with a boo-boo on your shoulder but still. It also makes sense that its not that hard to get your hands on.
Personally I would keep pricing on the Pathfinder Golarion scale. If I want to change it, I'd rather change everything by the same standard than have to deal with two standards I have to sort through. Making new technological weapons and armor that fit the same general item but is a much weaker and thus cheaper version is probably a good way to go. The reason why I lowered prices for technological items was to make them common and the norm to use. But the fact of the matter is that wonders of science is going to trump pointy metal stick because that's just logical.
What I wound up doing was making cheap versions of personal force fields. Basically defense and offense were up but the thing that stayed low was HP which made things lethal. So with cheap force shields they PCs have a 10-50 buffer of temporary HP that replaces itself between fights. It was easy for me because I had to worry a bit less, it seemed logical for most space warrior people to have them, and it is not complicated to just slap some bonus HP.
The downside is that players have a second track of self healing HP to track. Which isn't hard or unappreciated but its an added complication nontheless.
The hardest part of making Ironman is honestly the weapons.
If what someone wants is to be Ironman with a Long Bow, then that's easy.
Additionally I just wanna say that the Chainsaw was a development mistake. Tech firearms are at most a slight upgrade over a musketmaster Gunslinger. Meanwhile the Chainsaw is better than any melee weapon.
Thank you both for that. Yeah, I guess its true that there are a few ways to do it already. I think the part I left out was not so much the flight and the laser blasts, but it was more the idea of having the armor in some way... form around the character when required, kind of like how in later movies the armor could be called quickly and form up around him.
Maybe you want Aegis DHAnubis?
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Maybe you want Aegis honestly?
Dread (Eclipse) is currently the only one who can call his mechs to form around him instantly putting him in the driver's seat, but that's kind of different and kicks in late game. I was looking at some additional options to kind of enable that trope, but I wanted to finish the class options first.
Maybe you want Aegis honestly?Dread (Eclipse) is currently the only one who can call his mechs to form around him instantly putting him in the driver's seat, but that's kind of different and kicks in late game. I was looking at some additional options to kind of enable that trope, but I wanted to finish the class options first.
Highly debated trying to fit a couple levels of Aegis into the Mindblade Magus build, but yeah, good suggestion Dragoon.
And that sounds promising! Yeah, class options definitely come first, I was just wondering if there would be a general option for that kind of thing later one.
I think pricing everything as if it were for Golarion is the best bet, just because that is what most people will run.
I am a big fan of the sliding scale though, and would love a "tech everywhere" setting. If you are worried about tech weapons being too strong for the cheap price, perhaps have the weapon's price scale down at a different rate. So that when everything else is 10% of base cost, the weapons are 15% or 25%.
As for mecha armor, I think the armor bonus works out for the best.
I don't think prices should be increased or decreased based on setting any more than magic items are, since they are meant to be priced based on the same guidelines. Technological items don't cost any extra compared to magic items in the Technology Guide, just look at things like the cybertech that gives the bonuses from the big-six, they are equal to the prices of their magical counterparts.
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I don't think prices should be increased or decreased based on setting any more than magic items are, since they are meant to be priced based on the same guidelines. Technological items don't cost any extra compared to magic items in the Technology Guide, just look at things like the cybertech that gives the bonuses from the big-six, they are equal to the prices of their magical counterparts.
Not strictly true- most technological weapons are much stronger than non-tech weapons, and have much higher prices as a result. That's kind of what I'm referring to; how common is (for example) a chainsaw, and when should something like that, and appropriate defensive items to balance it, come online?
It would be weird for a world more advanced than our own to price chainsaws outside of the reach of the commoner lumberjacks who are most likely to use them, so looking at assumptions like that and giving guidelines for how to integrate them is really what I'm talking about.
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I don't think prices should be increased or decreased based on setting any more than magic items are, since they are meant to be priced based on the same guidelines. Technological items don't cost any extra compared to magic items in the Technology Guide, just look at things like the cybertech that gives the bonuses from the big-six, they are equal to the prices of their magical counterparts.Not strictly true- most technological weapons are much stronger than non-tech weapons, and have much higher prices as a result. That's kind of what I'm referring to; how common is (for example) a chainsaw, and when should something like that, and appropriate defensive items to balance it, come online?
It would be weird for a world more advanced than our own to price chainsaws outside of the reach of the commoner lumberjacks who are most likely to use them, so looking at assumptions like that and giving guidelines for how to integrate them is really what I'm talking about.
Have you considered that these two things are not mutually exclusive? Adventurers are much, much more wealthy than the world around them, as a general rule. Pricing for access-by-level - that is, pricing for player balance - will generally lead to the material being rare for the common man simply because the common man can't afford what adventurers buy. If you want it more common in the setting, make the setting more wealthy (or flood the market, but that's getting into other factors modeled poorly by PF's economic guidelines).
A tech everywhere setting has profound implications...such as the obsolescence of primitive siege weapons and weaponry. The standard classes pretty much need to be remade the way D+D 3.0 classes were for Dragonstar. Golarion is what it is because what high tech that does exist is tethered to power sources that are not portable, and beyond the ability of the Technic League to duplicate. Removing that chain, has vast implications for the Inner Sea and Golarion as a whole in the long run.I think pricing everything as if it were for Golarion is the best bet, just because that is what most people will run.
I am a big fan of the sliding scale though, and would love a "tech everywhere" setting. If you are worried about tech weapons being too strong for the cheap price, perhaps have the weapon's price scale down at a different rate. So that when everything else is 10% of base cost, the weapons are 15% or 25%.
As for mecha armor, I think the armor bonus works out for the best.
A tech everywhere rule would have to be for GMs homebrewing a setting. It wouldn't even touch Golarion. Remember that Ultimate Combat has the exact same thing. It has a sliding scale of firearm commonness. Guns everywhere on that scale would ruin Golarion too, but it was not written for Golarion.
A tech everywhere rule would have to be for GMs homebrewing a setting. It wouldn't even touch Golarion. Remember that Ultimate Combat has the exact same thing. It has a sliding scale of firearm commonness. Guns everywhere on that scale would ruin Golarion too, but it was not written for Golarion.A tech everywhere setting has profound implications...such as the obsolescence of primitive siege weapons and weaponry. The standard classes pretty much need to be remade the way D+D 3.0 classes were for Dragonstar. Golarion is what it is because what high tech that does exist is tethered to power sources that are not portable, and beyond the ability of the Technic League to duplicate. Removing that chain, has vast implications for the Inner Sea and Golarion as a whole in the long run.I think pricing everything as if it were for Golarion is the best bet, just because that is what most people will run.
I am a big fan of the sliding scale though, and would love a "tech everywhere" setting. If you are worried about tech weapons being too strong for the cheap price, perhaps have the weapon's price scale down at a different rate. So that when everything else is 10% of base cost, the weapons are 15% or 25%.
As for mecha armor, I think the armor bonus works out for the best.
Yeah, and the gun rules are also a gigantic mess, with cost being a large part of that mess. How might things have been different if they'd been written from an access perspective, with Golarion materials then saying, "Guns are [this rare], so increase their costs by [that much] in [regions]."?
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When the psi-core is in mainframe configuration and is connected to the psi-mech suit for those who have to use the Mech Piloting feat, does the share powers ability now include the suit as well? My gut says yes, but I didn't see anything asked about this in previous posts so I figured I would ask.
Also, if you select the Thrusters mech enhancement and didn't have a fly speed previously, does the mech have a fly speed of 10 ft. with clumsy maneuverability or a base fly equal to the wearer's movement with clumsy maneuverability? Again, my gut says fly speed 10, but some clarification couldn't hurt as it's not exactly clear.
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When the psi-core is in mainframe configuration and is connected to the psi-mech suit for those who have to use the Mech Piloting feat, does the share powers ability now include the suit as well? My gut says yes, but I didn't see anything asked about this in previous posts so I figured I would ask.
Yes. I'll get that clarified.
Also, if you select the Thrusters mech enhancement and didn't have a fly speed previously, does the mech have a fly speed of 10 ft. with clumsy maneuverability or a base fly equal to the wearer's movement with clumsy maneuverability? Again, my gut says fly speed 10, but some clarification couldn't hurt as it's not exactly clear.
10 feet, unless the wearer already had a fly speed, in which case it would be that plus 10 feet. I'm looking at making a few tweaks to those rules though- it makes sense for a medium character in a medium mech to be able to fly if he could before, but a medium flying character facilitating flight in a huge or larger mech... Little weird.
The Cryptic archetype doesn't even get a mech?!?
Not every archetype needs to give you a mech.... Not every archetype needs to even link to mechs (though circuitbreaker still does).
Flight at first level is... Bad.
That completely changes the dynamics of challenges and trivializes most low level encounters.
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Eh, I haven't had any problems with it, and my group's homebrew setting has two races with natural flight. Especially if you keep in mind that taking any damage while flying forces a Fly check (which is DC 15 plus or minus, easily a 50/50 or less chance of success at level 1 even with racial or other bonuses for flight speeds and/or size) or the character falls a bit.
One archer or slinger or even a goblin with a rock can ruin a low-level flier's day.
I haven't had any problems with Strix.
So the "mechs" start out more like powered armor suits, then you can increase their size later into more of a battlemech?
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Sorry I haven't posted in a few days- I think I caught a wicked cold while visiting family in the hospital (that is, I know I caught a cold, I suspect it was from the hospital).
Anyways, a few things-
There will be armor options for mechs, but I've letting them get some play time so I can get some input on how those should scale. Mechs provide a couple layers of non-standard defenses like Hardness and bonus hit points, so they don't need to and shouldn't provide as much straight AC. At that point, they may as well just be power armor.
Flight is generally kept to the same limitations already seen in Paizo core materials- that is, small races can snag it relatively easily, the larger you get, the longer you have to wait for it to be meaningful.
Monofilament blade never loses the fragile drawbacks, and has been noted as such for some time (unless there's a link that's still going to the first playtest doc... But they all seem to work for me). Related but less relevant, you can't have a masterwork version of a technological weapon or armor.
I'm revisiting a few pricing items- generally speaking, the weapons will continue to be priced right around where they are, since most technological weapons will be equivalent to a magical medieval weapon, but items like the Psychic Energizer will probably see a reduction in price (in the case of the Energizer, probably to about 1/2 its current cost, more consistent with a "slotless" item of its type). Pricing will obviously continue to be a point that we revisit, as technological weapons in a game whose pricing structure revolves around a magical medieval economy has a few hinks even when keeping as tight to WBL as possible.
I'd love some additional playtest feedback on how mechs are performing at various levels of play. Psybomb and I ran some numbers on his "chainsaw unicorn" Reactor Knight build, and the big thing we learned is that chainsaws are crazy. Other classes, like the Eclipse, seem really well balanced in play but could stand some more table time feedback.
Now that I'm starting to feel better, I'll ve working on getting the next batch of updates out over the course of the next two days.
Thank you for your support and feedback everyone!
Was the Chainsaw Unicorn a Quadruped using a chainsaw?
I think maybe the base ability bonuses for the mechs are a bit high.
+6 str for Quadruped
+4 str +2 dex for biped
+6 dex for Aerial
In the case of the Aerial mech we'd expect to see a minimum of 18 AC based on size+dex bonus alone at level one and by level three they'd have a higher hit chance and slightly lower static damage than say, a 2 handed Slayer. This is before we get into classes, any major enhancements, or even Piranha Strike. Best option for size increases is to take the dex+HP bonus for staying the same size.
For Quadruped I already mentioned it in the other thread.
Biped seems to be closest to balanced right now, but I haven't had a chance to try and break it yet.
I'm in the process of planning some mech builds in the 7-10 range for my players to fight, but seeing the level one power and hearing about some upcoming changes I'm holding off. Also I really wanna see the Rogue archetype since I hear it's good for going enhancement crazy and I really wanted to test that.
One of my primary concerns is "Would a 1st level party be able to beat a level 1 Reactor Knight in combat?" and so far the answer is "unlikely unless they have multiple martials."
I really like a lot of concepts that this system is making available though :)
Shouldn't the Mech Rules come at the top of the Document, instead of the archtypes? And are all Psionic Classes going to get a Mech Archtype eventually? (Maybe including the Zealot?). Hell, having an Aegis archetype when you make your own mech out of pure pyschic energy is just. AWESOME.
Will need to give it a proper look over sometime, but currently, I love the concept, and I love the Psi-Core Upgrade. Its a small bonus, but I really like it. Lets you turn Magus with the Techno-Hilt, or a skill-monkey with a combo of the other two.
I love AP as well, especially modifing current firearms so that instead of point-blank ignoring armour and going for touch, you elimiante some, and not all of it... and crossbows have it as well! Not to mention it gives more power to flat enchantments by upgrading the AP.
Rocket Glove is awesome. Hoping to see a straight out sword-weapon instead of just the Monofilament Stiletto. The Stiletto itself is awesome, and I feel like you should get a bonus to Sleight of Hands to hide it, similar to the dagger, but it doesn't quite have the same impact as a lightsaber or vibrosword does imo.
... Chainsaws? Monofilament Blade? ... Sorry, am I missing something here? Neither of those are on either document.
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... Chainsaws? Monofilament Blade? ... Sorry, am I missing something here? Neither of those are on either document.
Chainsaws are in Paizo's Technology Guide.