Weapon inventor ideas.

[aobst128]

Share some unique weapon modification concepts/combos/ideas.

[nick1wasd]

It's not unique, in fact it's the opposite of that. But in my efforts to build Nero from DMC as an Inventor with Red Queen as his Innovation, I've come up with

Scimitar as the base weapon
• Dynamic Weighting as the Initial modification since he switches between 1h and 2h for some of his moves
• Manifold Alloy for the Breakthrough Modification, since he is a Devil Hunter (but not the LEGENDARY devil hunter, that's his uncle)
• Revolutionary Modification has 3 options I'm not quite sure about:
  Attack Refiner; Enhanced Damage; Impossible Alloy.
  I don't know of many things that care about any sky metal sans Adamantine, so I don't see MUCH use in using Impossible Alloy atm, but that could always change. As to AR or ED, not really sure which to pick out of those two since both fit.

I also want to eventually take a flintlock musket, and turn it into something that resembles modern weaponry, but that seems hard with the current modifications on the table.

[Captain Morgan]

Nero as an inventor is a pretty cute idea.

[Thaliak]

With Complex Simplicity, an Air Repeater can become a revolver. At level 7, the wielder learns to craft silver bullets for werewolves and vampires. At Level 8, taking Manifold Modifications for Blunt Shot adds rubber bullets to the arsenal. At level 15, more aerodynamic bullets increase the revolver's range or stopping power.

With Entangling Form, any weapon can gain the ability to trip or grapple. Personally, I like to picture a nature-oriented inventor wielding a wooden staff he's so in tune with he can telepathically command it to grow and wrap around enemies. Level 7's Tangle Line could represent particularly long growth, while Level 15's Extensible Weapon could represent the staff getting larger as it ages. Alternately, perhaps the wielder is simply better at judging how far he can extend it without weakening it.

Have you ever wanted to play a wizard–I mean, inventor–who uses a wand to fling magic at enemies? Take the aforementioned Air Repeater and slap Complex Simplicity on it to boost the damage! If you ever need to reload, fluff it as gathering ambient magic into the wand.

When you're outnumbered, use Mordenhan's Hall Clearer–I mean, Megavolt–to thin the enemies' ranks. If the survivors decide to flee, stop them with Deep Freeze or one of the spells you've doubtless gained from your study of more traditional magic.

[aobst128]

Complex simplicity is definitely intriguing since, as of right now it's the only way to bump simple weapons without being a cleric or champion. And it works on all simple weapons. My favorite combo for it so far is the clan dagger. Make it a d6 and give it sweep at 7th level and tank it up with clan's edge and protective sheath. Give it reach or forceful at 15th. Agile, sweep, and forceful are a particularly powerful combination.

[Parry]

I know that a lot of people have been thinking about the ever-elusive shield inventor. Here is my take. Note, this is not a super great build, it might not even crawl up to mythic Good, not Great levels, but I think it is fun.

Ancestry: Android, Artisan (heritage is mostly for flavour, but you get speciality crafting and an extra skill). The most important part of this is Nanite Surge, +2 to a skill check once per hour. Something to help with those crit overdrive attempts.

This inventor is a weapon innovation build. It will not do a lot of damage because our choices for a shield are: 1) shield bash (just the shield): 1d4, 2) shield boss (1d6 B) or 3) shield spike (1d6 S). No matter what you are going to only get up to a d6 ( you could use dynamic weighting on the shield, going up to d6, but not the boss or spike, since they are attached). You will have to live with the d6.

The issue to always keep in mind is that RAW, your shield and your innovation are probably different, unless you are going with a the d4 shield bash. As you level, I think this difference becomes less of an issue, but of course your mileage may vary.

My choice is a shield boss, initial modification is entangling form.

As far as other innovations, I would focus on versatility as opposed to damage. More traits make you more of a nuisance to the enemies.
Now, this turns you into a support melee, the most hated of all classes (due to its lack of the only reasonable metric for RPG success, DPR). You are going to raising athletics whenever possible. We are going to be tanking with our shield, and tripping and grappling to help the rest of the party.

For class feats, at level 1: Tamper is always a fun choice to give you another action during a turn. If you go with the base shield as your Innovation, rather than the boss or spike, Haphazard Repair synergizes well for some quick repairs. I love all the 1st level inventor feats, and if you don’t get caught up on choosing the best, any are great.

Fun class feats: Again, there is not special synergy here, but using these feats with a shield seems like it would fun. Megaton Strike is a great option for a little extra oomph. Megavolt is always fun, shooting lightening from your shield.

Free archetype options: Since I love ALL the inventor feats, I doubt I can see myself taking any dedications without this. But I love this rule so let’s get to it.

A) Bastion, obviously. I mean, it doesn’t add a lot, but reactive shield is a great option for action packed, reaction starved set ups.
B) Sentinel is a nice vanilla choice to get you more AC and you can dump dex and be a block up front.
C) If we want to get REALLY crazy, and trust me, we do, we can go Soul Forger! This requires some stat shenanigans to get your 14 wis (so, a 14 14 10 18 14 8, which isn’t super great) but who cares because: you can THROW YOUR SHIELD NOW. Take bounding spirit on your boss and it takes your shield with it! this gives Thrown to your weapon so a strong argument can be made for Tangle Line (if you need it, I have no idea if an item with trip is thrown if you can actually trip with it). Later on you can take Soul Arsenal at level 6 and get a soul shield as well and have resolute defiance with for a little extra shielding.

[aobst128]

Shield inventor is fun. Potentially breaking your innovation from blocking is a tough sell though. Question is, what should you hold in your other hand? I kinda wish there was an option to have 2 one handed weapon innovations as a class feat option.

[Ventnor]

Harmona Gun with the Blunt Shot, Rope Shot, and Enhanced Damage modifications.

You have a d12 gun that has versatile damage, can deal nonlethal damage, and can trip enemies if that's what you need.

[Perpdepog]

Man, now I wish you could turn yourSterling Dynamo into your weapon innovation.

[Parry]

aobst128 wrote:

Shield inventor is fun. Potentially breaking your innovation from blocking is a tough sell though. Question is, what should you hold in your other hand? I kinda wish there was an option to have 2 one handed weapon innovations as a class feat option.

Excellent question. I am not sure. Having a permanent free hand can be useful, for things like battle medicine. One could either go with gadgets and throw mines out, or alchemist dedication and throw more accurate bombs than an alchemist! (ouch).

Trick magic item and have a wand or staff, or take a spellcasting dedication to sue them.

[Ventnor]

Parry wrote:

aobst128 wrote:

Shield inventor is fun. Potentially breaking your innovation from blocking is a tough sell though. Question is, what should you hold in your other hand? I kinda wish there was an option to have 2 one handed weapon innovations as a class feat option.

Excellent question. I am not sure. Having a permanent free hand can be useful, for things like battle medicine. One could either go with gadgets and throw mines out, or alchemist dedication and throw more accurate bombs than an alchemist! (ouch).

Trick magic item and have a wand or staff, or take a spellcasting dedication to sue them.

I'd say that a free hand would be a good choice, because the Haphazard Repair feat sounds like an especially good feat for a shield inventor to have.

[Red Griffyn]

Because explode and especially megavolt have the fire/electricity traits, I think the Wishblade with the 'conductive trait' can be a good base weapon for both armour/weapon inventors. Throw in the haste gadget and now you can reposition, megavolt, strike with some bonus damage. Otherwise you can megavolt and strike twice.

In terms of what innovations to use as a weapon inventor, I think:

1. Hefty Composition (Melee Only) - for versatile B
2. Inconspicuous Appearance (Melee Only) - For backstabber/versatile P
3. Enhanced Damage or Rune Capacity - for 1H-1D8/2H-1D12 base damage or another rune.

#2 + Conductive can give you a fairly consistent + 1-5 extra flat damage per attack if you're using Megavolt first (note it doesn't have the attack trait so you're still striking at full MAP).

[rnphillips]

These would all be cool if Inventor didn't have -3 to hit and -1 ac relative to a fighter.

[Red Griffyn]

rnphillips wrote:

These would all be cool if Inventor didn't have -3 to hit and -1 ac relative to a fighter.

Step 1 - Don't compare normal martials to the fighter strawman. Why play a Barbarian, Champion, Monk, Swashbuckler, etc. because they're all -2 behind a fighter?

Step 2 - A starting 16 is -1 vs. normal martials from levels 1-4, 10-14, and 20. Otherwise it is on par.

I agree a starting 16 is very unattractive. But as such I'm only looking to play an inventor from L5-9 and L15-19. There are one off modules that cover those kinds of level spans and you can always have your PC die or 'go on a 5 level sabbatical' once you grow out of the good level ranges.

[SuperBidi]

rnphillips wrote:

These would all be cool if Inventor didn't have -3 to hit and -1 ac relative to a fighter.

The Inventor is one of the classes that can compete with a Fighter quite well.

Obviously not in single target damage, as it's the main Fighter asset. But the extra damage from Overdrive compensate partially your low hit rate and you have AoE attacks that the Fighter doesn't have, making the Inventor a better choice if you have to face groups of enemies.

[Lightning Raven]

nick1wasd wrote:

It's not unique, in fact it's the opposite of that. But in my efforts to build Nero from DMC as an Inventor with Red Queen as his Innovation, I've come up with

Scimitar as the base weapon
• Dynamic Weighting as the Initial modification since he switches between 1h and 2h for some of his moves
• Manifold Alloy for the Breakthrough Modification, since he is a Devil Hunter (but not the LEGENDARY devil hunter, that's his uncle)
• Revolutionary Modification has 3 options I'm not quite sure about:
  Attack Refiner; Enhanced Damage; Impossible Alloy.
  I don't know of many things that care about any sky metal sans Adamantine, so I don't see MUCH use in using Impossible Alloy atm, but that could always change. As to AR or ED, not really sure which to pick out of those two since both fit.

I also want to eventually take a flintlock musket, and turn it into something that resembles modern weaponry, but that seems hard with the current modifications on the table.

Serrating Rune is a Must Have. It fits perfectly with the visuals.

[Dubious Scholar]

I feel weapon inventor is on par with other options but doesn't feel like it. There's value to being able to have a weapon with Versatile BPS, or grappling+trip on a 1d10 reach weapon, etc, but a lot of the power is less obvious than Armor just saying "resist everything" eventually, or "cloaking device". It's not as splashy.

Inventor has standard martial damage boosts. Overdrive starts at +2 damage, +4 on crit. You get a bonus 1d6 of energy at 9 with Offensive Boost. It's a lot of fairly unconditional damage on your main weapon.

And then yes, you get Explode which is basically free Fireball level damage every fight, at level 1, which is amazing for usability. Megavolt is basically Electric Arc and once per fight Lightning Bolt. Both of these can be reused if you're lucky and eventually become twice per fight baseline.

Weapon Inventor also gets that ridiculous late game feat to just strike everything everywhere at zero MAP. (Come to think of it, Inventor overlaps some with Barbarian in what kind of things they can do).

[Jokey the Unfunny Comedian]

Dubious Scholar wrote:

I feel weapon inventor is on par with other options but doesn't feel like it. There's value to being able to have a weapon with Versatile BPS, or grappling+trip on a 1d10 reach weapon, etc, but a lot of the power is less obvious than Armor just saying "resist everything" eventually, or "cloaking device". It's not as splashy.

Inventor has standard martial damage boosts. Overdrive starts at +2 damage, +4 on crit. You get a bonus 1d6 of energy at 9 with Offensive Boost. It's a lot of fairly unconditional damage on your main weapon.

And then yes, you get Explode which is basically free Fireball level damage every fight, at level 1, which is amazing for usability. Megavolt is basically Electric Arc and once per fight Lightning Bolt. Both of these can be reused if you're lucky and eventually become twice per fight baseline.

Weapon Inventor also gets that ridiculous late game feat to just strike everything everywhere at zero MAP. (Come to think of it, Inventor overlaps some with Barbarian in what kind of things they can do).

It makes sense if you think about it. Barbarians deal damage by working out their arm muscles. Inventors deal damage by working out their head muscle.

[Squiggit]

Dubious Scholar wrote:

I feel weapon inventor is on par with other options but doesn't feel like it. There's value to being able to have a weapon with Versatile BPS, or grappling+trip on a 1d10 reach weapon, etc, but a lot of the power is less obvious than Armor just saying "resist everything" eventually, or "cloaking device". It's not as splashy.

That's how I feel too. The static damage bonuses end up being nice in the end but the innovations are weirdly uninspiring and don't make you feel like you've designed a crazy custom weapon. Especially if you aren't investing in athletics.

[PrismaticPandaBear]

This idea would require some DM buy in and the free archetype variant, but I don't think it's too much to ask :3

How about an inventor that uses a pair (x2) of gauntlets and takes Dual-Weapon Warrior Dedication.

Initial: Complex Simplicity
Breakthrough: Manifold Alloy or Aerodynamic Construction
Revolutionary: Impossible Alloy or Momentum Retainer

Offensive Boost: Fire or Electricity

(I just watched the first three episodes of Arcane last night >_>)

[rnphillips]

SuperBidi wrote:

rnphillips wrote:

These would all be cool if Inventor didn't have -3 to hit and -1 ac relative to a fighter.

The Inventor is one of the classes that can compete with a Fighter quite well.

Obviously not in single target damage, as it's the main Fighter asset. But the extra damage from Overdrive compensate partially your low hit rate and you have AoE attacks that the Fighter doesn't have, making the Inventor a better choice if you have to face groups of enemies.

Overdrive costs an action every single turn to get what, 2-3 extra damage on a hit?

Edit: My bad, about 1 1/2 actions per fight. I'm just bitter because Inventor could have been so much more but instead it is a sub-par martial lacking almost all of the potential cool flavor and ooc utility it should have had. Just looking at all the pages wasted on the inventions and feats split among the three invention types...ugh.

[PrismaticPandaBear]

rnphillips wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

rnphillips wrote:

These would all be cool if Inventor didn't have -3 to hit and -1 ac relative to a fighter.

The Inventor is one of the classes that can compete with a Fighter quite well.

Obviously not in single target damage, as it's the main Fighter asset. But the extra damage from Overdrive compensate partially your low hit rate and you have AoE attacks that the Fighter doesn't have, making the Inventor a better choice if you have to face groups of enemies.

Overdrive costs an action every single turn to get what, 2-3 extra damage on a hit?

I believe you're meant to do that to fish for a critical success on the crafting check - if you do it lasts for 1 minute and then you don't need to spend that action every turn.

[aobst128]

By 7th level, your success is identical to a crit success for overdrive.

[aobst128]

The class is fine in my opinion for damage and support. The modifications could have had some more interesting options though. Armor specifically. A lot of it boils down to a bunch of resistances, and doesn't change how you play. Speed boost and stealth suit stuff is cool though.

[Dubious Scholar]

I think armor mostly doesn't change playstyle with some exceptions. The stealth boosting stuff obviously, but +20 speed enables hit and run combat very well.

Otherwise sure, it just makes you very hard to drop. (This isn't counting the feats for it, which can give you constant swim speed and underwater breathing at 4, and constant flight at 14)

[Red Griffyn]

rnphillips wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

rnphillips wrote:

These would all be cool if Inventor didn't have -3 to hit and -1 ac relative to a fighter.

The Inventor is one of the classes that can compete with a Fighter quite well.

Obviously not in single target damage, as it's the main Fighter asset. But the extra damage from Overdrive compensate partially your low hit rate and you have AoE attacks that the Fighter doesn't have, making the Inventor a better choice if you have to face groups of enemies.

Overdrive costs an action every single turn to get what, 2-3 extra damage on a hit?

Edit: My bad, about 1 1/2 actions per fight. I'm just bitter because Inventor could have been so much more but instead it is a sub-par martial lacking almost all of the potential cool flavor and ooc utility it should have had. Just looking at all the pages wasted on the inventions and feats split among the three invention types...ugh.

Are you really spending more than one action on overdrive a fight? A success lasts for 1 minute, its just at half INT vs. full INT.

[Xethik]

I like the idea of using the Integrated Gauntlet innovation with a one-handed ranged weapon. I think you would be able to reload it with your other hand occupied, and might enable some dual-wielding fun?

But maybe not. It seems a bit unclear how reloading works in that regard.

[aobst128]

Xethik wrote:

I like the idea of using the Integrated Gauntlet innovation with a one-handed ranged weapon. I think you would be able to reload it with your other hand occupied, and might enable some dual-wielding fun?

But maybe not. It seems a bit unclear how reloading works in that regard.

That should work as a free hand is a free hand. Nothing says it can't be the same hand as the one that's wielding the weapon. But thrown weapons with integrated gauntlet is my favorite. Wrist launcher d8 javelin.

[keftiu]

I'm still bummed there was no modification for dealing fire or cold damage.

[aobst128]

keftiu wrote:

I'm still bummed there was no modification for dealing fire or cold damage.

Weapon inventor can make the extra damage from overdrive fire by default or a different energy damage from variable core.

[Ventnor]

keftiu wrote:

I'm still bummed there was no modification for dealing fire or cold damage.

Isn't that covered by the Offensive Boost class feature?

[keftiu]

Ventnor wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I'm still bummed there was no modification for dealing fire or cold damage.

Isn't that covered by the Offensive Boost class feature?

Sorry, I was unclear; I meant early on, before the assumed level of a flaming rune.

[aobst128]

On a second look at variable core, it doesn't look like it would interact with weapon innovations fire damage. Seems like an oversight. Everything else about your weapon could be doing frost damage but regular strikes still have to do fire damage.