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They don't have to be Colossal or anything (but it would be nice to be able to fight Kaiju face-to-face. But for technology and even some lost magic/magitech, a few giant mecha would be awesome.
Imagine something like the Cybuster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mh9aVO_cZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ey1pfOhNQ
A mech possessed by a powerful elemental spirit. As cool as it may be as a machine/artifact/treasure, it provides some awesome adventure hooks. If magic is lost an mysterious, finding out how the machine is powered is a great way to start an adventure. Or what if, instead of an elemental, it's an Archon, or a Prothean? What if it's an Emperyal Lord or Archdevil? Could it be freed? Is that the best course of action?
How bad could it be? Consider this roughly Emperyal-level being in a sci-fi game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ5dkkSQO6Y
Note how her strongest attack involves her stepping out of her machine first.
I am sure mecha will be available and if Paizo doesn't do it, I know LPjr is planning on doing something with them.
I've said this before in another thread but I kind of hope there are no mecha. Mostly because giant robots are bigger than normal, badder than normal and the stakes get really high along with power levels and destruction potential. Which means that its a late level thing or a class feature that takes til level 12 to get really awesome. Also it runs the risk of being the center of attention when you have a whole party to deal with and it has the potential for being more cumbersome for adventuring than a Cavalier's mount.
I'd much rather see it handled by a third party company or at best Starfinder's version of Mythic Adventures-The point where power levels, stakes and carnage gets up there and everyone gets involved. Sure I would love class features where you build a personal connection with a huge sized robot as an option but once you're running a game with huge mecha then you're running a mecha game. Wizards are piloting walking spellcannons, giant monsters are on the table, and the whole setting gets insane. And that's the kind of thing that should be happening at level 1 if you're going to go full blown with it.
We do need giant robots. That is obvious.
The question is whether or not they will be super side or real side.
I want gundam wingfinder. Make it so says I.
I don't think they even necessarily need to be enormous. Just something large-huge sized with decent firepower would be enough for me.
Maybe a pilot class that has the ability to use mechs as well as ships.
Being a man obsessed with giant robots, I would absolutely love it.
I would imagine owning a mech would be hard. Not only that, the mech would have to have something like a character sheet due to the constant maintenance, repairs, and upgrades.
If Paizo chooses not to have mechs in Starfinder, we would definitely have starships like in Cowboy Bebop. Can't effectively fight space monsters that can move freely in space. ESPECIALLY if they cut your air supply.
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We shall contact the Gnomish Association of Mecha Enthusiasts.
I think one possibility is to have robots with four man crews whose functions can be performed mostly untrained.
So, every round, one person can fire from one arm weapon, one person from a second arm's weapons, someone else can fire rockets or shoulder mounted weapons, and a fourth person can pilot (to move) or run sensors (to boost others) or use whichever of the two were not used by the third person. Thus, everyone can have an attack action every round or can possibly take partial control as support to give bonuses instead.
So, everyone is a part of each combat.
My worry is that balance problems occur like in Rifts.
I'd like a system that allowed me to play in a "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" type genre. Airships, giant robots and WW II aircraft for the win.
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Giant Robots needs to be it's own sourcebook.
Like Ultimate Mecha or something
The thing is there are lots of different ways to do Giant Robot stories and a lot of Campaigns that can center around giant robots
On the one hand they could just be an extra type of equipment. A sort of automated armour battle suit.
You have war campaigns where legions of mass produced robots do battle.
You get heroes in Specially designed custom robots who rise above the masses.
Then you have the Legendary Super Robots. Unique and incredibly powerful machines that stand alone against Alien invasions.
Then you can add in things like
Magic
Psionics
Demon Possessed
Bio-Titans
etc...
There is a huge amount of material that can be covered just on Giant Robots.
It's practically a hardcover on it's own
There needs to be giant robots and giant mecha.
Then there needs to be Fighter/Barbarian archetypes that let you fight them on foot. Like Titan Fighter on steroids.
There doesn't really need to be a specialist thing for this. Fighting giant robots on foot is just called 'being high level.'
Which is the problem with the d20 system and things like giant robots. It sets up a series of bad choices:
-You've got people in the party that have 'em, and at low levels you aren't playing the same game with people that don't
-They're balanced to low level play (so they suck)
-All sorts of ridiculous exceptions (Rifts style, like immunity to assorted spells and basic damage)
And on and on.
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Magic + Tech => Voltron!
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Voss summed this up pretty well.
I think of most fictional giant mecha that must fight on a planetary surface, and then I think of a 4-man party of 16th-20th level D&D/PF characters, and the latter would smoke the former every time. Spellcasters causing earthquakes and meteors to rain from the sky (nevermind piles of Extended, Maximized, and/or Quickened Fireballs), Fighters destroying them with anti-construct weapons, Barbarians raging and just cutting through them (or wrestling them down), etc, etc.
High level PCs are functionally no different from superheroes, after all.
But... that's where my agreement ends.
Using Mecha in D20 doesn't set up bad choices, it merely requires making good ones. The examples Voss gives are indeed rather bad ones.
Fortunately, having done a D20 Mecha campaign before (using D20 Modern + D20 Future), I've had some time to think on this.
The main problem is defining how the mecha works.
Near as I can tell, going by sci-fi movies and anime, there are two different kinds of mecha--the Hard Suit and the Booster Suit.
WARNING: MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT IN SPOILER SECTION!
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The first is what I call the Hard Suit. It's a system that the pilot climbs into and controls like a vehicle. It doesn't matter how strong he is or how fast (in speed terms), the Mecha has its own muscle-equivalents and set speeds. This tends to be the most common Mecha in Western fiction, although there are plenty of examples on both sides. Anything from Battletech to Voltron to the Imperium's bigger machines in Warhammer 40K go here. The smallest example would probably be the Power Loader from Aliens.
Advantages of the Hard Suit is that, since it replaces most of the character's stats, it helps set an 'even' level for everything, and balance is fairly straightforward. In addition, it lets you treat the mecha as a giant pile of gear, and it's not too hard to set a 'price'. Finally, the character's investment is minimal... aside from inherent things like BAB which you can't change, most of a Hard Suit's abilities would be based on the skills and feats of the pilot. Some equivalent to a Pilot skill along with perhaps a Proficiency gained by a class or Feat, and the character is good to go. Thus, the entire party can participate in mecha, going on a joyful rampage of destruction, and then go back to their old characters when that part is done. Might even give them some options for playing something 'a little different' in a campaign.
Disadvantages including making it a bit difficult to adjudicate mecha VS non-mecha fights. IN addition, as mentioned, sufficiently high level characters or monsters will utterly trash suits suitable for 'lower levels', or all suits for that matter if they aren't balanced. Usually, this results in more work for the GM, as they need far more of them (or at least an expandable skeleton template) for the campaign. Personally, I balanced these by making 4 'tiers' similar to the power levels of the characters: Civilian (or Industrial), Military, Advanced, and Prototype. These correspond to the 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, and 16-20 level brackets of the characters. It works... but obviously I had to do a bit of work for it to function.
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The second is the Booster Suit. The pilot doesn't so much climb into it as it is 'attached' to the character. It's basically a suped-up power armor. Whereas the Hard Suit has its own stats, the Booster Suit primarily enhanced the stats of the wearer. Put a low-level janitorial schlub in it, it's not going to be useful in a fight (although might be good for a comedy scene). This tends to be more common in Eastern fiction, but you never know. You have small stuff like a Guyver suit on one end, while on the other end of size you have the Gurren Lagann (which wins a special award as its power level is decided by CHARISMA and Wisdom). Western examples range from Tony Stark's Iron Man armor for the 'normal' sized, to the slightly larger mecha found in Avatar, then all the way up to the Jaegers of Pacific Rim.
Advantages of the Booster Suit is that the character can now go against challenges much greater than they could before. Level balance is more-or-less respected within the same category so long as similar suits are worn... and if not, you just use the 'extra WBL by level' rules already existing in the game. This makes the mecha-vs-not fights a little easier to adjudicate. The characters being played are functionally the same characters, but with bigger numbers, so it's almost like they get to be 'higher level' for a short time while the mecha fights last. Furthermore, this one's fairly easy to price, too, as you're basically putting together a bunch of magic items into one. Lastly, the armor auto-scales for level, as it's just boosting stats, so the high level party fighting a lone high level guy in a Booster Suit can be a decent fight.
Disadvantages include things like 'defining the requirements to use them'. For the Hard Suit, this is the skill or proficiency. In the Booster's case, it can be more complex. In most such fiction, there's a reason such wearer's are rare. In some cases its because you must have enough of a certain stat (Strong enough to control it, Dextrous enough not to hurt yourself, etc), your mind must work a certain way (min Int or Wis), you must have belief in yourself or your cause (Cha). In other's it's because you have to have some physical gene or quirk to be able to use the special equipment. Or, sometimes, the suit just has to be able to 'recognize' you as a valid pilot (Tony's suit has security so only he can use it, you have to be 'related' to the Eva to pilot it, the Big must judge you morally worthy, etc).
Because it is a super-sized boost to a character, the player has to make more choices, and has to decide when they get class abilities if its good for them in normal mode, booster mode, or both. This either results in them being good in one or the other, or decently good at both but behind in the category another specialized in. Obviously, with little or no requirements, this isn't as bad of a problem.
A unique disadvantage to Booster Suits in fantasy games with Mecha is this: What do the Spellcasters do? This requires a bit of extra work, either making magitech items that convert spells into effects, or for working out some sort of system, both with lore and game mechanics, that lets the spells 'scale up'. Alternatively, allowing buffs and debuffs to have an enhanced effect on the mecha works, but then you have issues where some spellcasters without them might be at a disadvantage or build toward a style they don't want to play.
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As always, there are a few weird exceptions to the rules now and then, usually by the more extreme mecha examples.
Some work on an AI or are alive, and can pilot themselves if necessary (Eva's, Iron Man's "Iron Legion", etc). This can apply to either category, but requires a little bit more work on the part of the Booster Suit, as the controlling intelligence or program has to be statted out in more detail (the Hard Suit version is basically a BAB, saves, and a Pilot skil. It's lot more complicated for Booster Suits).
Usually these are also the same kind that can sometimes work against their own pilot if they do something the mecha 'disagrees' with. They may also act independently if their pilot is threatened somehow, even outside the mech!
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If Starfinder has mecha, these are the kind of problems they'll have to think of and solve. While each has advantages and disadvantages, people will argue for one over the other.
Personally, I prefer to go with both. Sadly, that's even more rules they'd have to write and try to balance.
As such, I kind of doubt we'll be getting them in the Core Rulebook.
That being said, I do hope they address an entire book for them (as well as one for Starships), as that would make me quite happy!
I'm also hoping for small giant robots, same size as or 1 size larger than the pilot.
That is a really good idea. It makes perfect sense and is similar to a system that they already have. If they take that approach, there's less clutter in the Core book, and it's still an entirely optional system.
Probably make it easier to work with SFS too. Don't have to worry about the mechs unbalancing a game they are normally not a part of.
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Vehicle and mecha issues may have an additional complication in adventure design. Usually stories with mecha tend to be stories about the mecha and their pilots, with everyone else in a supporting role (significant others, bridge bunnies, mechanics, and gruff mustachioned commanders). How are they handled with a kitchen sink game where they are just one option among the others?
Do you need a specific class or feat tree to make vehicles or mecha work? If so, some characters will take them. Can these classes pull their weight when not stomping about and kicking Hyundais around? When they are required, what do the other classes do? These questions are not new, since there have always been roles (face, blaster, archer, melee, skill monkey...), but they are magnified, since it is difficult to carry around a hardsuit or Marauder 'mech and pull it out only when needed.
Torbyne's idea is one solution. If there is a mystical component to the mecha, their spread and use can be controlled (perhaps they only work near ley lines or something). Mystic mecha could also be carried around as amulets (shield guardians) or conjured when necessary.
The last piece reminds be of Exalted. It had a couple of spells that created a warstrider (battlesuit) for you. It also had Hellstriders; warstriders imbued with an essence of a demon. Perhaps that is one solution. It takes an outsider to power the suit. Evil outsiders are plentiful and easily press-ganged by their superiors, so there is always something to fight. But a good or neutral outsider is less inclined to infuse with a suit, unless a mortal with a proper mindset is available.
You have been chosen by the Lion Amulet. You are the carrier of the Spirit of Voltron. You defend the Absalom Station from the Encroaching Darkness.
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Vehicle and mecha issues may have an additional complication in adventure design. Usually stories with mecha tend to be stories about the mecha and their pilots, with everyone else in a supporting role (significant others, bridge bunnies, mechanics, and gruff mustachioned commanders). How are they handled with a kitchen sink game where they are just one option among the others?
Do you need a specific class or feat tree to make vehicles or mecha work? If so, some characters will take them. Can these classes pull their weight when not stomping about and kicking Hyundais around? When they are required, what do the other classes do? These questions are not new, since there have always been roles (face, blaster, archer, melee, skill monkey...), but they are magnified, since it is difficult to carry around a hardsuit or Marauder 'mech and pull it out only when needed.
Torbyne's idea is one solution. If there is a mystical component to the mecha, their spread and use can be controlled (perhaps they only work near ley lines or something). Mystic mecha could also be carried around as amulets (shield guardians) or conjured when necessary.
The last piece reminds be of Exalted. It had a couple of spells that created a warstrider (battlesuit) for you. It also had Hellstriders; warstriders imbued with an essence of a demon. Perhaps that is one solution. It takes an outsider to power the suit. Evil outsiders are plentiful and easily press-ganged by their superiors, so there is always something to fight. But a good or neutral outsider is less inclined to infuse with a suit, unless a mortal with a proper mindset is available.
You have been chosen by the Lion Amulet. You are the carrier of the Spirit of Voltron. You defend the Absalom Station from the Encroaching Darkness.
What if you carried it on a backpack and it folded around you as a full-round action, provoking attacks of opportunity?
I agree with Naal, which is why I've been leaning on the idea of Mecha (not hardsuits or large sized rideable robots) as some thing more like Mythic adventures. Mecha tend to have some bigger scale where it's the main attraction because the pure destructive power is over the top. Basically its everyone has a mecha or nobody has a mecha, otherwise the party is wildly lopsided.
I think one possibility is to have robots with four man crews whose functions can be performed mostly untrained.
So, every round, one person can fire from one arm weapon, one person from a second arm's weapons, someone else can fire rockets or shoulder mounted weapons, and a fourth person can pilot (to move) or run sensors (to boost others) or use whichever of the two were not used by the third person. Thus, everyone can have an attack action every round or can possibly take partial control as support to give bonuses instead.
So, everyone is a part of each combat.My worry is that balance problems occur like in Rifts.
That's not a problem, that's a feature. Giant robots do, and should, operate on a different power scale than dudes on foot unless Power Armor is involved. Even a basic mech is gonna have a CR of something like the Living Tanks from Reign of Winter.
The idea is to give players the means to punch above their CR on a limited basis. In most sci-fi settings, these means come in the form of Rocket Launchers, Plasma Cannons, and Mechs Of Your Own.
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I could see a 20 level class that is a take on the Synthesist Summoner. Call it "Mech Jockey" (or something more streamlined really :) ) but you could fix the issues that some have with the class and scale it nicely.
Honestly, I have done this in Pathfinder with the Synthesist Summoner. The eidolon was a biped but skinned as a steampunk-esque golem and a tinkerer gnome would "crawl into the chest compartment" and pilot it around.
It was powered by the gnome's magic and, if hit with a potent enough dispel (for example), it would fall to pieces and the chest compartment would pop open (thus being the same as a banished eidolon vanishing). The interface of the golem allowed for the gnome's magic to flow through it so, if the gnome cast grease, a grease nozzle would pop up and spray. Buff spells were the pilot's ability to enhance things "on the fly" (mostly buffs) since he made it, he knows the best way to get that extra boost without breaking it.
Later on, as the eidelon itself added powers, they were skinned as tech too (ex. breath weapon as a "flame thrower" or boot jets as flight). It would not take a long stretch.
If you folded in the new features of Starfinder into a class that worked like that, you basically could do scalable mecha class of a wide variety... size huge mechs, blasty mechs, flying mechs, and so on.
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Wasn't the game "White Knight Chronicles" based on a similar concept of being chosen by an outsider powering a mecha and then being able to summon it at will? It might be better modeled by a synthythist summoner though.Power armor options for pet based classes - that might be a place to start.
Although I want a 'Giant Robot Car.' And a slushie.
I second the motion!
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I want mecha in my Starfinder. Powered by sentient crystals that link with the pilot but nobody has really figured out the crystals are actually sentient. They just think the crystals are a super cool power source of energy.
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Maybe I should finish my 'Armiger' class: A 1-20 progression about wearing and improving an ancient Numerian battlesuit. I think it goes up to large size as it is currently written.
It's built for standard Pathfinder and not Starfinder, for obvious reasons.
Magic + Tech => Voltron!Voltron, originally was a holy knight that got too arrogant and was struck down by the goddess and split into 5 parts.
In the original series, it was the witch Haggar who was repsonsible.
In the original series, it was the witch Haggar who was repsonsible.Magic + Tech => Voltron!Voltron, originally was a holy knight that got too arrogant and was struck down by the goddess and split into 5 parts.
strange. I thought it was the goddess...
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I think the best way to treat them is as a high powered construct that any level of character (with the appropriate skill ranks) can operate. They would control the construct and provide the intelligence and wisdom scores, while the other scores would be from the mech.
Characters would only pilot mechs during big battles; they presumably would go on missions that don't involve giant robots and rely on there character abilities more (investigating derelict space ships, infiltrating smuggling rings, rescuing hostages, etc). This would mean that as PCs you might be dealing with some CR 2 thugs one game, and then the next game have to climb into your mechs to fight some CR 15 enemy robot. You would probably have to adjust XP in some fashion of course to deal with the range of CRs characters the characters have to deal with.
Under this scenario, A GM would probably have to decide early on if he wants to incorporate Mech piloting or save it for a late game random encounter. The best thing about this idea is that if you have a group of folks who really really want to play a mech game, they could do so from level one with an entire team of mech pilots (which wouldn't be a class, and so open to any class). It would mean however that Starfinder would really need to put in a lot of ginormous high CR constructs and monsters to fight.
Mechs are such a strong flavor though that I think you would need to make them a major element of the game or barely include them. A Star Trek or Farscape style campaign would be a poor fit for Mech combat.
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strange. I thought it was the goddess...In the original series, it was the witch Haggar who was repsonsible.Magic + Tech => Voltron!Voltron, originally was a holy knight that got too arrogant and was struck down by the goddess and split into 5 parts.
In the original show Go Lion, it was the Space Goddess. *It was Haggar who was responsible for originally splitting Voltron into five components in the American version*, taken from the Voltron Wikia.
In the original show Go Lion, it was the Space Goddess. *It was Haggar who was responsible for originally splitting Voltron into five components in the American version*, taken from the Voltron Wikia.strange. I thought it was the goddess...In the original series, it was the witch Haggar who was repsonsible.Magic + Tech => Voltron!Voltron, originally was a holy knight that got too arrogant and was struck down by the goddess and split into 5 parts.
ah, my mistake.
I was talking about go lion myself.
You all are forgetting this fact: We dig giant robots
Grey,
Fine. But I did dig that thing. :)
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You all are forgetting this fact: We dig giant robots
:)
We have Kaiju in PF, and can likely bring those over, we get mech and we can run a Pacific Rim game!
Pathfinder already has a mech.
And that has actually been in the game since the very original Dungeon Masters Guide for AD&D. Originally it was known as the Apparatus of Kwalish but the various specific names applied to magic items and certain spells were stripped at some point when WotC bought TSR.
While I am not sure, I was told it had something to do with ownership of the characters whose names they were from or something being a legal thing more expensive than it was worth to pursue.
Names like Otiluke, Tenser, Nystul, Vecna and so forth all were the result of either being some of the original players actual names or the names of their characters or both and as such a lot were stripped off when 3.0 went live.
So the Apparatus got it's current name sorta like the Bigby 'hand spells' and the Otiluke 'sphere' spells got changed for example.
As for the OP and giant mecha, I would love to see such in a third party supplement or as optional rules with campaign support but not part of the core rules/setting and here is why:
Giant Mecha due to their size, power, expense and effect on their settings by their very nature have to be the focus of a game or campaign setting that features them.
No one makes a giant mecha show or game and then ignores the mecha completely to go dungeon delving for example.
By having them as part of the core setting such tech and the assumptions that go with it would have far reaching effects on the makeup of the nature of the setting and IMO might overshadow the possibilities of other story types being made.
I would love to see Starfinder be much like Pathfinder is now with Golarion: A uniquely flavored setting where many different story types can be told but where no one thing dominates the entire setting.
I guess my preference would be to see Starfinder become a unique entity unto itself rather than a jammed in mish/mash of every other possible sci fi trope type that will water down the flavor by trying to include EVERYTHING at once.
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Names like Otiluke, Tenser, Nystul, Vecna and so forth all were the result of either being some of the original players actual names or the names of their characters or both and as such a lot were stripped off when 3.0 went live.
?
My 3.5 Player's Handbook has Otiluke's freezing/resilient sphere, Tenser's transformation, Nystul's magic aura, and many other spells with Greyhawk-specific names. They were removed in Pathfinder, but several (with names intact) have survived all the way to 5e.
e: I agree that mechs would be better as expansion content, but disagree with the assertion that mashing together tropes weakens the overall setting. Golarion as it stands is an unabashed mashup of fantasy genres, and the other planets in its solar system represent a similarly diverse assortment of low-tech sci-fantasy themes (hopping from one planet to the next, you go from robot-ruled solar desert to verdant Eden of elves and insect people, and then skipping Golarion it's cold low-grav Martian wasteland with long rifles and rat people . . . let's not even get into the people zoos, transhumanist spacefarers, and space whales). The lesson I've taken from Pathfinder is that it's possible to mash this many themes into a setting as long as connections are drawn between them and explanations are made for why one sub-setting doesn't bleed over into another. While having mechs to defend Absalom Station would make sense, that technology needn't even be known in that solar system - it might be specific to some non-distant planet whose cultures closely guard the secrets of mech manufacture. There are a half-dozen other ways mechs could be present without being the deciding factor in every AP.