Power Armor/Mechsuits in 3.P

[Extra Anchovies]

What classes can we refluff to fit the concept of a character with a suit of power armor who improves it gradually as they gain levels? The two which spring to my mind are:

1. Totemist, with the different Soulmelds and Chakra Binds representing components of the suit, and Essentia shuffling representing the reallocation of power from one component to another (e.g. "full power to shields" = moving essentia to Ankheg Breastplate). (credit to this thread for the idea)

2. Synthesist Summoner, refluffing the Eidolon as the suit.

3. The Armor Bonded prestige class; this one isn't quite as power-armor-ish as the others, though.

What else is there? I'm probably going to be joining a steampunk-themed game relatively soonish and want to have a mech-suit

[Seerow]

The Aegis is practically made for this sort of thing. Like the entire class is about getting psionic armor that is always on that you get to customize and improve as you level up.

[Snowbluff]

Construct Armor in PF. Depending on what you make it out of, it can be spell proof. I use Elder Eidolons from Lords of Madness. It's expensive, but is crazy as buefowaeirpgoydhjktvysfiulxftagn.

[Extra Anchovies]

Construct Armor in PF. Depending on what you make it out of, it can be spell proof. I use Elder Eidolons from Lords of Madness. It's expensive, but is crazy as buefowaeirpgoydhjktvysfiulxftagn.

Oh man, Elder Eidolons are hard core (literally, with all that DR). I love them, and not only because they're purple non-Euclidean beasties

The Aegis is practically made for this sort of thing. Like the entire class is about getting psionic armor that is always on that you get to customize and improve as you level up.

Thank you for directing me to this class; this seems to have literally everything I'm looking for. How much optimization/system mastery is necessary to make them viable? It looks like they run on essentially their own subsystem, which is something I always find fun, but I am wholly new to PF psionics so I won't be aware of any of the particularly good combos.

[Snowbluff]

Oh man, Elder Eidolons are hard core (literally, with all that DR). I love them, and not only because they're purple non-Euclidean beasties

Being non-Euclidean helps their AC, and they are immune to most spells. Not to mention that they repair themselves, saving you a ton of money between fights.

[Seerow]

Thank you for directing me to this class; this seems to have literally everything I'm looking for. How much optimization/system mastery is necessary to make them viable? It looks like they run on essentially their own subsystem, which is something I always find fun, but I am wholly new to PF psionics so I won't be aware of any of the particularly good combos.

They seem to be a solid Tier 4, with most of their customizations being changable given some downtime, so it shouldn't take much in the way of system mastery to play it competently.

If you're interested in some homebrew intended to bring it up to tier 3 I made some tweaks at the start of this year.

[The Glyphstone]

Oh man, Elder Eidolons are hard core (literally, with all that DR). I love them, and not only because they're purple non-Euclidean beasties



Thank you for directing me to this class; this seems to have literally everything I'm looking for. How much optimization/system mastery is necessary to make them viable? It looks like they run on essentially their own subsystem, which is something I always find fun, but I am wholly new to PF psionics so I won't be aware of any of the particularly good combos.

Luckily for you, the Aegis by default can't actually manifest any psionic powers. He gets a very small pool of Power Points, but the only use he has for them is temporarily augmenting his suit with extra abilities. The class is entirely self-contained in that manner, the only subsystem you need to familiarize yourself with is the Customization Points for the suit itself.

[Darkweave31]

Clockwork armor for completeness...

[Feint's End]

The aegis is very solid t4 with little investment. Grab power attack and go strength based and you are good to go. In mid op games you can even go ranged with the suit options if that is your thing.

Very liberal application of the power stone repository and shards can actually bring you to low t3 but that is very dm dependant. You definitely want a power stone of hustle sooner than later for swift action movement.

let us know if you need any help building one. If you tell me your general concept I could even build you a simple aegis in like 10 min.

[Extra Anchovies]

Hm... would a TWF aegis be at all viable? With the right customizations, I could really lay on the damage:

Greater Extra Arms (lets me wield a two-handed weapon as a one-handed weapon)
Powerful Build (lets me wield weapons one size larger)
Augmented Weapon (increase damage by one size)

TWFing with the equivalent of Huge greatswords means seven attacks for 4d6+Str each. Unless Greater Extra Arms lets me add 1.5*Str to each one, in which case this would be awesome.

ETA: Regarding full builds, I don't think I'll need too much help; I found a handbook, and am generally familiar with the standard beatstick feat chains. If I do want advice, though, I'll request it here or in another thread.

[Seerow]

Unless Greater Extra Arms lets me add 1.5*Str to each one, in which case this would be awesome.

Greater Extra Arms should definitely let you get 1.5*str on mainhand, and the increased power attack damage from a two hander. But I'm honestly not sure how the str bonus for a 2 hander works with the offhand by RAW. If there is even a RAW answer for that.

[Taveena]

My friend's playing an Aegis/Soulbolt/Metaforge in an upcoming game.

We call him 'Psiron Man'.

[Fax Celestis]

PF soulknife also has the armored blade and shielded blade archetypes, which can make your soulknife basically manifest all their combat equipment.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Metaforge (mentioned at least once already) is basically a 50-50 PrC for both the Soul Knife and the Aegis.

Flavor liberally with archetypes and you'll be able to tailor your build to be ANYTHING you'd like.

[Petrocorus]

Alternatively, you can do that with an Artificer, a lot of downtime, and a lot of bookkeeping.

[Thiyr]

Clockwork armor for completeness...

And a link just in case you need it. Then, yea, artificer. Hardening on it, toss on appropriate energy resistances, and enhance it as normal. Then eventually "upgrade" it into an apparatus of the crab. with mounted turrets.

[Alex12]

Also note that with the right enhancements and gear, the Aegis can fly around in his power armor and fire laser blasts from embedded power stones, fuelling the laser blasts with your own power points. If you go forgeborn, you can also have a glowing crystal in your chest which you can easily fluff to be the source of your power. Yes, it's trivial to make Iron Man in Pathfinder.

[Feint's End]

Metaforge (mentioned at least once already) is basically a 50-50 PrC for both the Soul Knife and the Aegis.

Second meta forge for even more flexibility. The greatest thing is that Ultimate Psionics introduced feats which are essentially practised manifester for mindblade and astral suit.

An aegis 6/ soul knife 4 (take the 4th past level 16 so you can get improved enhancement) / metaforge 10 with those feats can get the astral suit of a level 20 aegis and the mindblade of a level 18 soulknife (which is a +9 weapon ... add crystal hilt for a +12 and metaphysical weapon for +16).

You are now a powerful mix of both classes.

Edit: You can also trade out 1 level of aegis for 1 more level of soulknife so you get a +10 weapon.

[Extra Anchovies]

Hm. Metaforge looks awesome. I need to try that build out sometime. However, the DM is unfamiliar with psionics (and thus hasn't built it into his game world), and I don't want to try to get two base classes and a PrC allowed when I could get by with just one base class. Thanks for directing me to it, though; next game I'm in where DSP's psionics are part of the system, I will very likely be playing a Metaforge.

[Deadline]

Person_Man's Magitech Templar may be of interest as well.

[Extra Anchovies]

Now that I've gone over the class a bit more, how would this be for an Aegis 20:

Race: Human
Abilities: Str 15, Dex 18 (after racial bonus), Con 14, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 10; level 4 increase goes into Dex, all others into Str
Feats:
1st: Two-Weapon Fighting, Double Slice
3rd: Power Attack
5th: Combat Reflexes
7th: Improved TWF
9th: Stand Still
11th: Greater TWF
13th: Two-Weapon Rend
15th: Improved Critical
17th: Psionic Weapon
19th: Greater Psionic Weapon

At early levels, I'll just fight normally with a Large greatsword or a Large lucerne hammer, relying on Powerful Build to wield it, and adding Augmented Weapon at 6th level to up its damage to 4d6. At 8th level it really kicks in, because I can nab the full Extra Arms chain, Powerful Build, Augmented Weapon, and Reach to wield both and get four attacks, at +9/+9/+4/+4 after Strength but before magic bonuses, for 4d6+4 each, or at +6/+6/+1/+1 for 4d6+13 each. Two of those attacks have a 5-10 ft reach, the other two have 10-15 (or would they have 15-20? I'm not sure how Large reach weapons wielded by Medium characters would work).

[Illogictree]

Here's a question I have about the metaforge - in the aegis' class features, the astral suit gains free augmentations and changes what type of armor it counts as depending on level (e.g. at level 7 an astral juggernaut upgrades from splint mail to plate mail, and a level 12 astral skin gains improved evasion).

Now, the metaforge states that it's treated as gaining a level of aegis for the purposes of customization points and DR - nowhere does it mention anything about these base customization improvements.

Am I reading this wrong, or does that mean an aegis 3/metaforge 4+ is left with an astral juggernaut that counts as splint mail?

On a somewhat related note, does soulbolt 3 count for qualifying for metaforge? It seems to be somewhat of an oversight, but the Enhanced Mind Bolt feature doesn't seem to note whether it alters or replaces Enhanced Mind Blade.