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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Mechamancer - Arcane Tradition (WIP Minionmancer 5e)



Scarce
2015-05-21, 08:25 PM
As a Dungeon Master, I hate minionmancy classes. The party's necromancer can go straight to hell after he starts extending combats by an hour each, simply because his class relies on a dozen weaker creatures swarming the grid. Moreover, 5e seems to agree with me: summoning spells are higher level, and the action economy of minionmancers, like the Beast Master subclass and the Pact of the Chain warlock , have been tweaked to make it difficult for both the master and his summons to attack on the same turn.

However, I also recognize players love these classes, and I do too when I play. So, I've been working on a class that is fun to play, balanced for power, and doesn't consume the action economy: the Mechamancer.

Quick note: By all that is holy, tear up this class. While I tried my best to make sure that the balance of the number of type of constructs one could have is balanced, I have no idea how well this will work in practice. The only mechanics I'm tied down on here is the Construct Points being linked to proficiency bonus, and possibly the action economy bit (though I'll chance either of these if I'm convinced they're the source of the problem.)


School of Mechamancy

Mechamancers depart from the traditional realm of the scholarly book-smart mages, in favor of an hands-on mechanical approach to their magic. Experts in tinker's tools and engineering, practitioners of the School of Mechamancy use their magic to imbue mundane parts with animation, creating totally obedient constructs that can be repaired and disassembled. With these constructs under their control, Mechamancers can reside some distance away from the dangers of adventuring, while their creations handle the mess.

Engineering Savant
Beginning at 1st level, you can create constructs that you can command. You can have a total number of Construct points equal to your proficiency modifier. Creating a construct requires using your Tinker's tools and a supply of mundane parts (kept with your tools) to build the mechanical body of the construct, investing the required number of construct points in it, and expending a spell slot to transform it from mundane parts into an obedient construct. Once you have expended a spell slot to make a construct, you may not regain that slot until the construct is disassembled or destroyed. You may repair your constructs a number of hit points per hour equal to your wizard level using your Tinker's tools or you may disassemble any construct in 1 hour.

Your constructs act on your turn, though they don't take actions unless you command them to. You may expend your move or action to mentally command one or all of your constructs to move or act in a way in which they are capable. You may expend your reaction to allow one of your constructs to make a reaction if is capable.

The connection to your constructs is taxing, and you may not magically summon nor command any creatures while any of your constructs are active.

Mechanical Spiders
Beginning at 2nd level, you can create mechanical spiders, requiring 1 hour of work and expending a spell slot. Each mechanical spider requires 1 Construct Point.

Mechanical Spiders are spindly and frail, and never sustain more than one hit before requiring repair.

Automatons
At 6th level, you can create weaponized automatons, requiring 2 hours of work and expending a spell slot of at least second level. You must supply a simple, mundane, light weapon or a light crossbow to construct this construct. Each automaton requires 2 Construct Points.

Automatons are short and walk on two stubby legs. They do not have arms capable of manipulating objects, and have instead a single weapon which takes up the bulk of their form.

Construct Empathy
Beginning at 10th level, your connection to machines is second-nature. You gain advantage on Intelligence checks relating to understanding machines.

Clockwork Knight
At 14th level, you may create a humanoid clockwork knight, which can walk and wield weapons as humans do, requiring 24 hours of work and expending a spell slot of 5th level or higher. Each clockwork knight requires 4 Construct Points.

In addition, when you create a clockwork knight you can expend additional spell slots to grant your knight greater power. For each spell slot expended, your Knight has 10 additional hit points. For each two spells expended, your Knight gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and armor class. You may expend a maximum of 6 additional spell slots when creating your Clockwork Knight.

Clockwork Knights are tall and powerful masterpieces of machinery, capable of taking damage and crushing your foes.

http://i.imgur.com/OPVyydZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ZnNEMEU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/iJtjHZg.jpg

Wartex1
2015-05-21, 09:57 PM
I love the concept.

It seems really weak though, and I mean reaaaaaaally weak.

Constructs have low durability, minimal damage, and don't really seem to do much in general.

CantigThimble
2015-05-21, 10:18 PM
Mechanical spiders are usually going to be less useful than mage hand and a simple scrying spell.

Autaumatons are going to be worthless by the time you can make them. Is it going to be worth it to use your action to make a weapon attack for 1d6+2 damage instead of firebolting? They can tank one hit and are going to be hit by basically anything. So there's basically no point.

The knight... he seems alright, just because you can buff him up so much but even that is super costly and will result in something that STILL does less damage than your cantrips.

I understand that you're trying to prevent this from being broken, because it easily could be but this is too weak.

In addition, everything takes AGES to do, hours and hours between each fight, that's just a HUGE slowdown on the adventuring day and straight up makes them useless in some adventures.

I think a good change to make is have each one require one spell slot to power every day, or one spell slot to fully repair and reactivate. Have them scale abilities depending on what level of spell slot was used to activate them. And make sure they're worth the spell slot.

Scarce
2015-05-22, 12:46 AM
Mechanical spiders are usually going to be less useful than mage hand and a simple scrying spell.

I figure mechanical spiders can get in the way of an enemy, and each absorb one hit. At high level, six of them will still absorb six hits, even from the taarasque. They're scouts, retrieval machines, and attack sponges. I figure at higher levels, they basically won't be used. How would you recommend I change them?

Same with automatons: I figure with two or three of them attacking on one round, you can basically multiattack with your different machines, rather than using firebolt. And again, each of them takes one hit that would otherwise go into your HP. I'll have to think over how to buff the damage based upon expended spell slots.



The knight... he seems alright, just because you can buff him up so much but even that is super costly and will result in something that STILL does less damage than your cantrips.

More damage? I can agree with that. How much do you think?



In addition, everything takes AGES to do, hours and hours between each fight, that's just a HUGE slowdown on the adventuring day and straight up makes them useless in some adventures.

I'll speed this up for sure. How about "You can fully repair all your constructs to full hit points during a short rest"?



I think a good change to make is have each one require one spell slot to power every day, or one spell slot to fully repair and reactivate. Have them scale abilities depending on what level of spell slot was used to activate them. And make sure they're worth the spell slot.

Good thought. I'll need to think over the exact implementation.

Scarce
2015-05-22, 01:02 AM
Alright, here's a super general question: How much do you think a spell slot of a particular level is worth in HP and damage for a minion?

The player's handbook seems to think that a level 3 spell like animate dead is worth a Zombie, meaning 22hp and 1d6+1 damage, or 85 hp and 2d8+4, if you get an ogre corpse. I'm not really sure what to make of this.

CantigThimble
2015-05-22, 01:34 AM
I figure mechanical spiders can get in the way of an enemy, and each absorb one hit. At high level, six of them will still absorb six hits, even from the taarasque. They're scouts, retrieval machines, and attack sponges. I figure at higher levels, they basically won't be used. How would you recommend I change them?

Same with automatons: I figure with two or three of them attacking on one round, you can basically multiattack with your different machines, rather than using firebolt. And again, each of them takes one hit that would otherwise go into your HP. I'll have to think over how to buff the damage based upon expended spell slots.


Well, the spiders are harmless, any intelligent enemy will realize that quickly and start ignoring them. Some ideas might be to let them deliver touch spells or taunt enemies to give them disadvantage against other targets. I suppose they have some usefulness already if they can take the assist action. Assisting 3 party members at a time is cool and all but that's a BIG chunk of your spells gone for a neat trick that dies to AOE for free, and anything else pretty easily. They probably need 18-20 dexterity and evasion. Higher level spell slots could give them higher AC, and/or some kind of poison attack.

The thing about the automations is it takes a long time to get more than one, one isn't going to cut it over a cantrip and by the time you get two even the multi attack isn't going to be better than your boosted firebolt. (or just, casting actual spells)

I think the main problem is them using up an action to attack. What about an EK style effect where you can activate some of them when you cast cantrips?

A general baseline for spell levels I'd say is the base stats as is for a 1st level spell slot (maybe a little AC, 10 is just so low, maybe 12 for automatons) +10 HP +1 AC +2 damage per spell level past 1st. And give the ability to choose a ranged weapon or a melee weapon and +2 AC I'd say. So a 6th level wizard popping out his first automaton can give up one of his two fireball/haste/flys for the day to get a 30 HP AC 16 meleebot dealing 1d8+6 damage if he spends his action attacking with it. That's not a great tank for that level but not terrible either, it's damage is about the same as his firebolt, which means its unlikely to be used for much besides AoOs. (which is nice at least)

That seems approximately balanced.

I think the trick for using them as tanks is making them dangerous or annoying enough for the average orc to care about attacking them.

A random suggestion is letting you choose a 'mode' for your automations every day. Such as:
Relentless: You may activate half your construction points worth of automatons as a bonus action each turn.
Guardian: Allies adjacent to your automations have +1 AC.
Defensive: Any automations not commanded to take an action will take the dodge action.

IDK, I'm spitballing there.

Flashy
2015-05-22, 02:11 AM
The minions need adjustment to keep them in line with the existing minion progression. Using the monster creation guidelines from the DMG the Automaton is at best a CR 1/8th creature (The AC and to hit modifier are rated for a CR 0 creature, the HP is correct for a CR 1/8th creature, and average damage is correct for a CR 1/2 creature) and the Clockwork Knight is probably somewhere around CR 1? This is much harder to pin down since it has AC for a CR 0 creature, HP for a CR 1/4, a to hit modifier for a CR 17 creature (the probable +10 is huge for a monster), and the average damage of a CR 2 creature.

Ideally the creatures from the 6th level ability should be CR 1/4 (for parity with Animate dead) but the problem is that Automaton require only a second level slot to create. I'm theoretically okay with it, since that's the only thing this subclass does, but what prevents the Mechamancer from using necromancy spells to supplement the automatons for huge numbers of minions? All the other non-necromancy summons require concentration, which prevents too much minion spamming. This would allow a 6th level wizard to use all their second level slots for automatons and all their third level slots for Animate dead, for six total minions a day.

EDIT: Major edits for formatting

Scarce
2015-05-22, 02:23 AM
Ideally the creatures from the 6th level ability should be CR 1/4 (for parity with Animate dead) though I'm not sure how I feel about Automatons using a 2nd level to create. I'm theoretically okay with it, since that's the only thing this subclass does, but what prevents the Mechamancer from using necromancy spells to supplement the automatons for huge numbers of minions? All the other non-necromancy summons require concentration, which prevents too much minion spamming. This would allow a 6th level wizard to use all their second level slots for automatons and all their third level slots for Animate dead, for six total minions a day.

The last sentence of Engineering Savant reads: The connection to your constructs is taxing, and you may not magically summon nor command any creatures while any of your constructs are active.

Flashy
2015-05-22, 02:30 AM
The last sentence of Engineering Savant reads: The connection to your constructs is taxing, and you may not magically summon nor command any creatures while any of your constructs are active.

Ah, totally missed that then. Sorry!

In that case this is wildly inferior to the necromancer. Apart from Construct Empathy, which is a ribbon, each of the abilities is essentially an archetype unique spell rather than alteration of the way the wizard casts magic. Even if the constructs were pegged to the CR of the animate dead line the necromancer would have more minions of better quality simply because their archetype features improve existing spells rather than granting them new ones.

Scarce
2015-05-22, 02:33 AM
A general baseline for spell levels I'd say is the base stats as is for a 1st level spell slot (maybe a little AC, 10 is just so low, maybe 12 for automatons) +10 HP +1 AC +2 damage per spell level past 1st. And give the ability to choose a ranged weapon or a melee weapon and +2 AC I'd say. So a 6th level wizard popping out his first automaton can give up one of his two fireball/haste/flys for the day to get a 30 HP AC 16 meleebot dealing 1d8+6 damage if he spends his action attacking with it. That's not a great tank for that level but not terrible either, it's damage is about the same as his firebolt, which means its unlikely to be used for much besides AoOs. (which is nice at least)

That seems approximately balanced.


These stats don't look bad.

I'll play with the math in detail tomorrow, but are these proposed stats still solid when you have two or three automatons? Are two of these going to be less powerful than the Clockwork Knight, if we give it a similar progression?

Flashy
2015-05-22, 02:40 AM
A general baseline for spell levels I'd say is the base stats as is for a 1st level spell slot (maybe a little AC, 10 is just so low, maybe 12 for automatons) +10 HP +1 AC +2 damage per spell level past 1st. And give the ability to choose a ranged weapon or a melee weapon and +2 AC I'd say. So a 6th level wizard popping out his first automaton can give up one of his two fireball/haste/flys for the day to get a 30 HP AC 16 meleebot dealing 1d8+6 damage if he spends his action attacking with it. That's not a great tank for that level but not terrible either, it's damage is about the same as his firebolt, which means its unlikely to be used for much besides AoOs. (which is nice at least)

This creature works out at about CR 1/2, which is an upgrade on the similarly leveled animate dead spell but costs a full action instead of a bonus action. That's probably reasonable.

Scarce
2015-05-22, 12:48 PM
Update:

Mechanical Spiders
Beginning at 2nd level, you can create mechanical spiders, requiring expending a spell slot. You can create any number of mechanical spiders in a short rest. Each mechanical spider requires 1 Construct Point.

When you cast a spell with a range of touch, any one of your spiders can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell. Your spider must be within 100 feet of you, and it must use its reaction to deliver the spell when you cast it. If the spell requires an attack roll, you use your attack modifier for the roll.

Mechanical Spiders are spindly and frail, and never sustain more than one hit before requiring repair.

Automatons
At 6th level, you can create weaponized automatons, requiring 1 hour of work and expending a spell slot. When you expend a spell slot of 2nd level or higher to create your automaton, its maximum hit points increase by 10, its armor class increases by 1, and it gains a +2 bonus to damage on its attacks, for each slot level above 1st. You must supply a simple, mundane, light weapon or a light crossbow to construct this construct. Each automaton requires 2 Construct Points.

Automatons are short and walk on two stubby legs. They do not have arms capable of manipulating objects, and have instead a single weapon which takes up the bulk of their form.

- - -
Should I keep the same stat increase system for the Clockwork Knight? With the way I've worked construct points, it needs to be roughly as powerful as 2 automatons.

Steampunkette
2015-05-22, 01:43 PM
Slightly different idea.

Ditch the idea that it's a wizard subclass. Form a new class based on the class design that exists.

I'm gonna kick myself for saying this... Warlock.

Strip out the Spellcasting completely. You don't want this Minionmaster flinging Fireballs. You want her supporting her pets and being a badass leader.

Use the spellcasting of Warlock as a guideline for the minions. When their spellcasting improves quality, add a commensurate increase in minion power. When they'd get a new spell slot, add more minion availability. This will create natural breakpoints for you.

Then revamp the invocations, completely. Redesign them to improve your minion capabilities. Raising Hit Points, AC, Damage, or adding or improving other items such as reach or changing damage type.

Then shift the thinking on Minions from roving pets to walking walls.

Specifically: Fire Wall.

Any creature that moves through the squares a minion can attack takes X damage. Where X is a set number rather than rolled dice based on the minion's level, type, and invocations. Give the minions any kind of action except for attack actions and magic item use and allow the player full control over them. No action economy allows the player to grant attacks to their minions because they have no attacks. This leaves the player free to position their people and hold enemies at bay. Put in a general rule that human minions flee or are KO'd rather than killed and are ready to fight the following morning and give the minion-summoning ability a long rest.

Now you've got the basis for a whole character class that covers a niche not set upon by the current game: The Leader/Commander. Oh, sure, you can kind of do it a -little- with the Battlemaster, but it's not the same!

Have the Sub-classes define whether the character is Martial, Arcane, or Otherwise, and grant some combat/buffing abilities based on their style. I suggest 3 different subclasses.

1: Battlefield Commander. Snag some of the Battle Master abilities, add in an extra attack at 5, and give them medium armor and shields. Let them fight alongside their soldiers with the least amount of minion variety and the widest array of personal abilities as relates to combat.
2: Necromancer. Toss them a few spell slots, a narrow spell list, some cantrips, and the ability to Channel Energy to bolster, heal, or otherwise deal with undead. Slightly wider array of pet abilities, slightly narrower array of personal combat abilities.
3: Inventor. More pet variety, wider array of Invocations, and a bunch of exploration/utility abilities to allow them to act as backup rogues, make them act through their pets more than any other subclass.

And, of course, someone could easily reflavor the Necromancer into an Elementalist summoning fire elementals or something else!

New Playstyle without a truckload of dice-rolling, fairly unique combat capabilities in battlefield control, and reasonable Leadership stand-in for fluff/RP purposes.

Scarce
2015-05-22, 08:40 PM
Slightly different idea.

Ditch the idea that it's a wizard subclass. Form a new class based on the class design that exists.


I love the idea, and I like your implementation ideas. In fact, you have my full blessing to steal these mechanics and form an entirely new class from them (and I'll contribute as much as I can to that thread.) However, making an entirely new class is a little out of my wheelhouse. At my blog (link in my sig) I'm posting as many subclasses as I can feasibly make, so I need to keep the subclass train rolling on this one.

Steampunkette
2015-05-22, 08:44 PM
It's the Clockworker I've been making for my homebrew Clockwork Symphony, with a few flavor tweaks.

Scarce
2015-05-22, 10:18 PM
I think the only thing I'm missing is an idea of what to give the Clockwork Knight to make him more powerful than the automatons, if I use the same progression scale. More attacks (like two or three at 2d10 + 2 base damage)? Some type of AoE? The Protection fighting style? A different ability?