Breakthroughs - Earlier, More Often

[Puna'chong]

At first glance, and after a couple more looks, I think there's a pretty big miss in how late the Breakthroughs come online.

First, level 9 is when casters get their 5th-level spells. Wizards are flying, possibly teleporting, banishing creatures, summoning dragons, conjuring walls out of thin air. The game is firmly in the middle of the campaign, and the effects the party are dealing with and deploying are becoming more esoteric, powerful, and incredible.

Second, the Breakthrough effects in the playtest for a 9th level character are, frankly, underwhelming. A breakthrough that increases AC by 1, or an extra 9 hp for your construct, or your customized weapon being cold iron and silver now--these are not exciting, though they might be useful. There are some good ones, and some that other classes would love to have, but they don't feel as wondrous as they could be at that level.

Third, outside of class feats, the Inventor isn't enhancing their invention, their raison d'être, from 1st level through 7th level. They aren't getting a specific "Eureka!" until 9th level. This feels wrong to me, and this is my primary pitch for why Breakthroughs should come at 5th level and every 4 levels thereafter. The Inventor, to me, should feel like they're constantly iterating on their invention. Even if these Breakthroughs are minor (like skills for your construct, or weapon traits, etc.) they still feel like a near-constant process of improvement.

I think more Breakthroughs and a set of earlier Breakthroughs will also make it easier to not only pick less flashy but useful Breakthroughs earlier on, while looking forward to bigger, more badass Breakthroughs, but also make it easier to design more interesting and level-appropriate Breakthroughs. For example, Flight Chassis (a level 17 Breakthrough) is pretty mediocre for 17th level. It's cool, but at that point dragon Barbarians have been flying (literally) into rages for five levels. With another set of Breakthroughs at level 13, temporary flight could be introduced and then improved later at level 17, should the player desire.

I think as a class feature, these Breakthroughs are nearly as defining as the Inventor's invention itself, and players should be able to look forward to them as milestones just like casters can look forward to new spell levels. I also think that dabbling in other inventions as Breakthroughs should be a thing, but that's another discussion.

[WWHsmackdown]

Here here. I want to go from 3 to 5 as well

[Puna'chong]

Five seems like a good number. With a lot of options you can have some pretty creative, pretty interesting builds, I think.

I thought a bit more about a sort of "Order Explorer" Breakthrough, too, which I think would be really cool. Imagine starting with your big pneumatic hammer invention, then later on instead of putting more work into it you also create some power armor. Both are still at their basic level 1 iterations, but man--doesn't that feel like an Inventor?

[OCEANSHIELDWOLPF 2.0]

I guess this correlates with my feelings that for the first three levels you aren’t doing a lot of tinkering, and then the changes you do get are slow to come and too few, and perhaps underwhelming. I can see Reconfigure being the kinda of...tinkering between encounters/during downtime, but still...

[Evan Tarlton]

Puna'chong wrote:

Five seems like a good number. With a lot of options you can have some pretty creative, pretty interesting builds, I think.

I thought a bit more about a sort of "Order Explorer" Breakthrough, too, which I think would be really cool. Imagine starting with your big pneumatic hammer invention, then later on instead of putting more work into it you also create some power armor. Both are still at their basic level 1 iterations, but man--doesn't that feel like an Inventor?

Agreed on all counts. The lack of some kind of "Order Explorer" option is the only real flaw I can find with the class. Adding more breakthroughs would make that a viable option. It would also allow those players who want to focus on one innovation to have more fun customizing their creation.

[Perpdepog]

It also gives a decent half-step between only focusing on inventing your singular thing, and suddenly being able to swap to any of the three with Infinite Invention later.

[Puna'chong]

You can pick up a construct pet as a level 1 feat, but I'd honestly like to see that feat gone and a general "Innovation Explorer" feat be introduced instead at like 4th level that gives you a fully-fledged second Innovation.

I think a counterargument to more Breakthroughs is that you can Reconfigure Modification feats starting at level 3. That argument might be that you can already basically retrain on the fly, or with about a day of downtime, and that makes your innovation potentially extremely modular. Which, if you go for something like Diving Armor, is a lot of utility.

I like the idea of using Reconfigure on Modification feats, and the idea that you can customize your Innovation with feats and Breakthroughs. I'm thinking, though, that some of the Modification feats work better as Breakthroughs, and look more like what you would consider a "Breakthrough." That would mean they don't compete with more general feats at a given level, and it could keep Reconfigure's pool of abilities confined to Breakthroughs.

It feels like a cleaner separation in my mind too--you can Reconfigure Breakthroughs, and Breakthroughs come at 1, 5, 9, 13, and 17. I do recognize that a lot of modification is already present if you opt for the opportunity cost of, say, skipping Megaton Strike for Diving Armor at level 4... (Edit: This would also mean that Breakthroughs could have a very defined, lower power level because they can be swapped out constantly, while class feats can be more powerful and not have to worry about Reconfigure crossover.)

[Alchemic_Genius]

Absolutely. The main draw of the class to me is that it's a martial class that lets you tinker with the rules of your gear, which is a unique ability, but waiting until level 9 is such a feelbad. I agrees with everyone here saying that 5 feels about right

[Puna'chong]

I’ve got a campaign at level 7 right now, and I’m tinkering with different Inventor builds around that level, and I am definitely feeling the lack of options that are specific to the Innovations themselves.

So a level 7 Construct Innovation, for example, is really not all that different from a level 1 Construct, outside of picking up Advanced Construct and the energy damage at 7th. Stats and 1d6 bonus damage, basically. Maybe if I grab Transform Construct I could have a robot backpack, but that doesn’t seem more useful than Searing Restoration or snagging Tamper/Explosive Leap that I didn’t grab earlier. There’s also really not a lot to Reconfigure Transform Construct into. And Transform Construct seems like a dubious benefit for the average adventurer.

Whereas, for the sake of argument, if the 9th-level Breakthroughs came in at 5th (and the power level actually seems pretty alright for me there, for the most part), my construct could be a climbing, projectile-flinging monkey-bot with a climb speed, or be 7 hp tougher, have a nastier weapon, or be pretty decent at Intimidation, Stealth, and Survival. I’d also be looking ahead at three more Breakthroughs with abilities that scale up in power and cool factor. None of that seems over the top, but all of it feels like I’ve been able to actually work with my Innovation, and by 7th I’ve potentially got my own thing going with the combinations I’ve picked.

Same goes for the other two Innovations. The Breakthroughs really have low power, overall. I’m finding myself looking at the builds and not really caring much about the Breakthroughs so much as the class feats, and that’s not a satisfying feeling. Is reaching 9th level and getting Sweep and Versatile S on my weapon... exciting? Not really. Is reaching 5th and getting those same bonuses, but knowing that I’ll get gradually more interesting and powerful options at 9th, 13th, and 17th exciting? Probably, depending on the Breakthroughs on offer.