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One thing I'd love to see added either by class features or feats is more inventive solutions to problems in and out of combat. Gadgets if you will (I want a batman style utility belt). Ideally something that allows flexibility rather than very specific feats.I like the idea of temporary gadgets. Let us be inventive. I'd like to be able to quickly build things such as...
*Self deploying Caltrops: Caltrops with a movement speed of 20 ft.
*Retractable climbing gear
*Scope: increase the range of firearms by 20ft
*Extendo arm: Give reach, cannot be used to make a strike or attack
*Duel Talisman Slot: slot up to 2 talismans to your weapon
*Stucko: +1 to next grapple attempt
*Sudden Boom: distract your foe with a sudden burst of sound, causing them to be flat-footed to your next strike this turn.
*Marble deployment: +1 to your next trip attack this turn
Thoughts, other ideas?
Yes absolutely. My primary gripe with the class is that a given inventor is probably only going to have one unique invention. Even though others are alluded to through flavor text (like the gizmos that engage overdrive), the inventor basically takes a bunch of exploding whirligigs and welds them to a pole or a breastplate or a clock so you end up with this inexplicable thingamabob. I found myself struggling on the first session to improvise how my weapon was managing to bend and flex and stretch and grapple and trip and stab and explode from moment to moment.
Don't get me wrong though. I like my stretching shrinking exploding ranseur with the whippy bits. I just wish I had a gumball machine or something to go with it.
It should be worth noting that Mark actually said that a "gadget pool" is already something they wanted to do, and they didn't include it for the sole reason that they wanted to test the chassis without the variability of gadgets.
Imo, the weapon mods already do a decent job replicating many of these; built in tools can be a climbing kit, ensnaring could be a marble deployer or sticky substance for grappling, extra talismans are well in theme for a breakthrough, etc.
That said, I would absolutely welcome a pool of small, consumable gadgets, but I think I'd rather them be more focused on solving out if combat problems then be mostly extra weaponry. My fave part of playing an alchemist now is using elixirs for problem solving and party buffs rather than tossing bombs
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It should be worth noting that Mark actually said that a "gadget pool" is already something they wanted to do, and they didn't include it for the sole reason that they wanted to test the chassis without the variability of gadgets.
Imo, the weapon mods already do a decent job replicating many of these; built in tools can be a climbing kit, ensnaring could be a marble deployer or sticky substance for grappling, extra talismans are well in theme for a breakthrough, etc.
That said, I would absolutely welcome a pool of small, consumable gadgets, but I think I'd rather them be more focused on solving out if combat problems then be mostly extra weaponry. My fave part of playing an alchemist now is using elixirs for problem solving and party buffs rather than tossing bombs
That's fantastic, now that you mention it I do remember seeing something about Mark saying they were going to add a "gadget pool" of somekind. I must have missed it last night when I was looking. Now that I think about it, they probably will have a lot of gadgets in the book and the feature will be similar to the alchemist with his/her elixers. So without the larger material, the feature didn't make sense to playtest.
I'm also in agreement that having mostly out of combat gadgets is the way to go. I don't know that I like spending a feat for an option like "build in tools" for a lot of these things, but a pool is great. My examples are limited as my brain was tired when I wrote it, but you're absolutely right. This class is really looking to be interesting!
I do actually wonder how much gadgets will change the class. Atm, my main issues with it is that overdrive feels a little underpowered, and that they need more out of combat options, but if they get an alchemist style gadget pool.
I can easily see that in of itself patching the out of combat utility issue, seeing as my alchemist now is actually really good (and most importantly, fun) out of combat, and only has issues on the battlefield, where she's basically only spectacular if she crits a blight bomb or something.
Quick edit: I think though, for a gadget pool, I'd like to see something more akin to the alchemical science's investigator vs the alchemist's reagent prep. Something that lets you build int mod number of gadgets on the fly as an action, and have feats the let you build more or expand what you can make. The modifications and fast retraining, alongside feats like searing restoration and megavolt give enough consistent "main gadgets" that I think getting a ton of gadgets if you prepare them a little superfluous, and quick alchemy, and similar features are honestly a lot of fun, and are satisfying to use
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From the survey
In the playtest, the inventor is a solid martial character. For the final version, we currently plan to add a light feat-based option for the inventor to create a few temporary clockwork devices each day, akin to the alchemist's advanced alchemy items but much more limited in scope and quantity. Which of the following do you prefer?
I prefer you stick with the solid martial abilities of the playtest version with a light feat-based option to make some clockwork devices for inventors who want to focus on that.
I prefer to moderately reduce the inventor’s martial abilities to make the small number of daily clockwork devices a non-optional built-in class feature
I prefer to significantly reduce the inventor's martial abilities to strongly focus the class on creating the daily clockwork devices with an expanded scope and quantity, akin to the alchemist.
So the current one with solid martial the clockworks would be feat based, and not in the chassis, I guess that would be similar to the ranger snares feats.
Tbh, I think I'd rather them swap out explosion as the baked in feat and add the temp gadgets, and make explode a feat.
I'm working on a couple inventors, and while explode is amazing fun for the melee inventor/wizard and inventor/barbarian I made, it's really bad on my inventor alchemist, who uses a ranged weapon and really doesn't want to be close enough to actually use explode.
In the playtest I'm running, 2 of the 3 inventors dont really want to use explode either; the construct user uses her buddy as a mount, and her playstyle is riding her construct, shooting both her own gun and her constructs gun, meaning that even if the construct explode had a friendly fire check, she wouldn't want to use it super often, and the other inventor has the weapon innovation, but uses a gun, and runs into the same issue.