Dreamscarred Press Presents: "Arcforge: Technology Expanded"

[tekevil]

Probably having difficulties with questions like

"How do I keep someone from being a colossal mech hovering 15 ft above the battlefield with Golden Lion stance/other aura stances affecting a 50+ foot radius area?"

or "What's two size categories larger than Colossal on the weapon damage chart when a colossal mech has Primal Warrior Stance?"

or my personal favorite "Colossal mech in Anchoring Spirit Stance, thus a incorporeal colossal mech. How do we do this?"

[Tuvarkz]

Probably having difficulties with questions like

"How do I keep someone from being a colossal mech hovering 15 ft above the battlefield with Golden Lion stance/other aura stances affecting a 50+ foot radius area?"

or "What's two size categories larger than Colossal on the weapon damage chart when a colossal mech has Primal Warrior Stance?"

or my personal favorite "Colossal mech in Anchoring Spirit Stance, thus a incorporeal colossal mech. How do we do this?"

Damage die keep scaling
1d8>2d6>3d6>4d6>6d6>8d6>12d6>16d6>24d6 and so on, just keep adding die as appropriate.

[Mithril Leaf]

Damage die keep scaling
1d8>2d6>3d6>4d6>6d6>8d6>12d6>16d6>24d6 and so on, just keep adding die as appropriate.

In case the pattern is less than evident, you double ever other time.

[unseenmage]

A suggestion if I may, how about some non-artifact technology laboratories?
Am currently playing through the Iron Gods adventure path and so far we've stumbled across at least two partially functional technology laboratories. They're both cobbled together versions of true tech labs and both have as yet unknown difficulties with their operation.

In pondering which direction our DM will go with these difficulties it occurred to me that one-use, inefficient, or even cursed versions of tech labs could be a neat addition to this project.


Basically one would price them like any other craftsman's laboratories, perhaps even using the pricing for the various crafting rooms from the Downtime rules as a starting point. There could be several versions, a one-use tech lab which has to be re-built after it produces one tech item. An inefficient one that costs twice as much time or gp or materials or a combination of those to use.
Or even a "cursed" version where the materials are shoddy or the programming is corrupted that produces tech items that have a chance to be effectively cursed or that is itself effectively cursed with a list of potential mishaps for utilizing such an obviously damaged laboratory.


Even if this information only got included in a sidebar it would make technological items much more approachable. As is that tech artifact label on tech labs makes tech items as a whole unappealing in a lot of ways.
Don't get me wrong, I get the why and the how of their existence. just as both a player and a DM I prefer to have options be open rather than closed. "You can only find it if the DM is handing out free stuff" is a helluva label to slap on an entire in-game industry. Makes players hesitate to try playing with those toys and it even makes DMs hesitate to allow them to be played with IMHO.

[Ssalarn]

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days- I think I caught a wicked cold while visiting family in the hospital (that is, I know I caught a cold, I suspect it was from the hospital).

Anyways, a few things-

There will be armor options for mechs, but I've letting them get some play time so I can get some input on how those should scale. Mechs provide a couple layers of non-standard defenses like Hardness and bonus hit points, so they don't need to and shouldn't provide as much straight AC. At that point, they may as well just be power armor.

Comparisons between the mechs and wood or other materials with various levels of Hardness really aren't apt; you could cover yourself in wooden armor, with a wooden shield, and it does nothing to benefit you beyond the usual AC bonuses. You could plate yourself in adamantine, and while it might get you some DR, it won't have the same benefits as even a 6th level mech. Having the mechs gain their own Hardness and pool of hit points allows them to act almost like a middle ground between standard defenses and the Armor as DR alternates, only in a way that actually works. This allows for a dynamic that lets big-ass mech weapons and mechs fighting big-ass monsters work without cracking the game open.

Monofilament dagger is fine. As a weapon that acts as a finesse counterpart to the chainsaw, it does what it needs to do, and while you can't have masterwork versions of technological weapons, I did update it nearly a week ago to include the line that it doesn't lose the drawbacks of the fragile quality since it can't be enchanted.

The supplement will continue to be compatible with the Paizo Technology Guide; we're adding DSP options to an existing system and introducing some new things to proc off that system, not completely rewriting it. This is important to appeal to our entire fanbase, and to remain consistent with Dreamscarred's reputation for presenting balanced materials that belong in the same shelf as your CRB.

I'm revisiting a few pricing items- generally speaking, the weapons will continue to be priced right around where they are, since most technological weapons will be equivalent to a magical medieval weapon, but items like the Psychic Energizer will probably see a reduction in price (in the case of the Energizer, probably to about 1/2 its current cost, more consistent with a "slotless" item of its type). Pricing will obviously continue to be a point that we revisit, as technological weapons in a game whose pricing structure revolves around a magical medieval economy has a few hinks even when keeping as tight to WBL as possible.

I'd love some additional playtest feedback on how mechs are performing at various levels of play. Psybomb and I ran some numbers on his "chainsaw unicorn" Reactor Knight build, and the big thing we learned is that chainsaws are crazy. Other classes, like the Eclipse, seem really well balanced in play but could stand some more table time feedback.

Now that I'm starting to feel better, I'll ve working on getting the next batch of updates out over the course of the next two days.

Thank you for your support and feedback everyone!

[Kiton2]

You'll want to update the google doc at some point - the fragility "upgrade" isn't in there at the moment.

Will playtest mechs when the archetypes or customizations I can retrain/reconfigure to are available; for now can only theorize.

[khadgar567]

Is there a chance we might get cortana like support race to our mechs( since vanila biped is nearly makes us master chef)

[Taveena]

... Paizo's decision to not give Technological weapons the benefits of Masterwork is a very odd choice.

[Kiton2]

Anything to screw with gunslingers, really.

as for AI races, we should probably see about coming up with those 'free' psicrystals. Sure they're a bit less "holo-girl" and a bit more "oh gods there's a crystal spider tank crawling up your pantsleg" but hey, holo-girl had to have a neural-net somewhere!

[Taveena]

What type would a hard light hologram even be? Ooze?

[Halae]

It wouldn't be a creature type in itself - the core that's generating it would likely be a robot, and the hard light hologram would be more akin to a summon.

[Taveena]

Given the projection would almost always be on, I think it'd make more sense to have that be the default stats and have the deactivated state be some kinda alternate form ability. (Tiny immobile creature with hardness? Iunno.)

[Kiton2]

What type would a hard light hologram even be? Ooze?

what, with the BSc and SSc subtypes?

[MilleniaAntares]

What type would a hard light hologram even be? Ooze?

Construct.

[Mithril Leaf]

Construct.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner. It's like they've never seen Stephen Galaxy.

[twas_Brillig]

Ding ding ding, we have a winner. It's like they've never seen Stephen Galaxy.

I'm going to assume you mean Steven Universe?

[Kiton2]

And here I thought 'ooze' was a reference to someone whose name has been said to rhyme with 'scum'...

[Mithril Leaf]

I'm going to assume you mean Steven Universe?

That is correct.

[MilleniaAntares]

Either way, I personally don't see much of a point in a hard-light race, unless you want the insanity that comes with having at-will Astral Seed inside your body or anything like that.

[Taveena]

The main problem is that the Construct type, in Pathfinder, isn't as amorphous as it is in 3.5e.
But I guess they have the vulnerable core anyway.

[Halae]

By the way Ssalarn, something you may wish to be aware of is the Construct Modification Rules. One of the modifications works specifically off the base price of the construct being modified, but Bonded Mechs don't have a base price, as they're a class feature rather than something you build later on in the game; at the current point, a little rundown of how this stuff interacts with mechs:

Armor Modification: This isn't a problem, as it costs the same for a given bonus regardless of the cost of the original mech. It's also a decent way to customize the enchantments on your mech, so that's nice. Essentially, it just lets your mech count as a suit of armor for the purposes of enchanting it.

Hit Dice Modification: Here we encounter our first problem. To find the cost of adding new Hit Dice, you divide the cost of the construct my its original hit dice - except Bonded Mechs are free, and thus you could add up to 50% of a mech's HD on as extra with a day of work free of charge. This is interesting though, since Mechs use basically all your stats outside of HP, that this is basically just free HP for the character but not the massive enhancements an actual construct companion would get (for example, the Promethean Alchemist's homonculus)

Weapon Modification: Here's our second problem. Weapon modification basically bypasses the weapon slots of existing mechs, allowing them to have extras added to them, for the cost of the weapon and its enchantments.

Ability Score Modification: Gain untyped +2 bonuses to any and all stats for 5,000 gold apiece. There's nothing stopping you from stacking this until you run out of gold, either, and due to some subsystems like Downtime and Monty Haul GMs, this could well result in characters with absolutely egregious stat boosts. This is more a problem inherent with the modification subsystem, of course, but it's never had the chance to be applied to player characters before, outside of that extremely obscure construct race (Wyrwoods, I think?).

None of the complex modifications seem to be a problem, as they're all either one-off effects, something the player already has access to, or simply doesn't work for a mech in the first place. Still, addressing how Mechs interact with this stuff, particularly the HD increase mod, is probably important.

[Kiton2]

The HD boost could simply be given a light "effective base cost" to multiply from, keeping in mind that there's plenty of existing sources of HP and THP (ironbody cloaks are pretty decent) when pricing it.

Weapon Modification should probably be allowable but limited. There's already a "2 max at a time" restriction, and as far as I can tell even having two weapons firing at once is a TWF affair and not some freebie alpha-strike (even though it's mechs) so allowing a hardpoint per base slot should probably not be an issue?

Ability Score upgrades could be limited and given a cumulative cost. CON only for pilot-affecting boosts, to a maximum of the enhancement bonus to STR/DEX? INT/WIS/CHA would be for remote/autonomous values only. Make the first +2 to a stat 5k, double the cost for another +2, double again for another +2...

[twas_Brillig]

Depending on how things work out, these might make Eclipse minimechs a little terrifying.

Ability Score Modification: Gain untyped +2 bonuses to any and all stats for 5,000 gold apiece. There's nothing stopping you from stacking this until you run out of gold, either, and due to some subsystems like Downtime and Monty Haul GMs, this could well result in characters with absolutely egregious stat boosts. This is more a problem inherent with the modification subsystem, of course, but it's never had the chance to be applied to player characters before, outside of that extremely obscure construct race (Wyrwoods, I think?).

Actually, as written mechs don't add their stat bonuses to yours, they add a fixed bonus to yours and use that to calculate their stats. So while it's still worth addressing, explicitly, whether and how mechs can be modified with these rules, the problem here is with buffing mechs acting under their own power. Also, since mechs never have constitution or intelligence scores and only "treat their Wisdom as 10 and their Charisma as 1", I don't think you can enhance anything but Strength and Dexterity this way--not that that isn't still a big buff for autonomous mechs, mind you.

EDIT: Bioconstruct Modification is really cool, and might be an interesting start for some biomech mechanics. It does mean that mechs should probably never count as golems for modification, because otherwise you can give them skills and feats for a flat (though moderately expensive) cost.

[PsyBomb]

Depending on how things work out, these might make Eclipse minimechs a little terrifying.



Actually, as written mechs don't add their stat bonuses to yours, they add a fixed bonus to yours and use that to calculate their stats. So while it's still worth addressing, explicitly, whether and how mechs can be modified with these rules, the problem here is with buffing mechs acting under their own power. Also, since mechs never have constitution or intelligence scores and only "treat their Wisdom as 10 and their Charisma as 1", I don't think you can enhance anything but Strength and Dexterity this way--not that that isn't still a big buff for autonomous mechs, mind you.

Yeah, things like an Eclipse doing unfortunate Dex-stacking on four mini-drones (which I will hearby call "Options") would possibly break things once their AC broke sanity.

[Taveena]

The weird thing about the Eclipse at the moment is that it seems like having 11 different drones once you hit level 11 is going to be just really... really good, while before then it's absolutely pointless.

[twas_Brillig]

The weird thing about the Eclipse at the moment is that it seems like having 11 different drones once you hit level 11 is going to be just really... really good, while before then it's absolutely pointless.

Hmm...and if I'm reading things right it's actually really annoying for an eclipse to shift from a smaller number of bigger mechs to a swarm all in one go. Like, you can only redistribute your class levels on gaining a level. (Sidenote: does this mean that Eclipses are uniquely screwed if they need to cobble together a replacement mech in the middle of a level?) You can't redistribute levels while a mech is active. So if you don't have a mech conveniently broken when you level up, you can't ever downgrade it...but if you do, you can potentially play more optimally (see: breakpoints for many minimechs being really good versus not being as good). It feels weird that you can...gamble? I guess? with your class features that way.

Also: I really like the image of an Eclipse bumming around with a swarm of Fantasy-Evangelions. So, sort of extraplanar, sort of organic, really alien, basically. Any idea what the odds are of having bonded mech archetypes, in the vein of the familiar/companion archetypes? It'd sort of explode the number of class/campaign concepts...which is both cool, and a nightmare to balance, I'm sure.

[tekevil]

How do you have the actions to power 11 mechs?

[PsyBomb]

How do you have the actions to power 11 mechs?

Free actions once if they are within 10 feet of an enemy that's under a fear effect, starting at level 11. Even if not, there is the multi-command ability gained at the same level if you can eat the penalties.

[tekevil]

So in practice that's far from 11.

Say you have 11 of them.

Combat starts, you spend a move action moving 2 up close to an enemy then your standard to fear them. Now the two withing range get standard actions and you have 9 little mechs just kind of chilling since they have no actions.

Also walking through a dungeon would be pretty awkward. It takes 12 move actions to move all of you.

[Taveena]

So make the enemies come to you, instead. Fear 'em with one of your sixty-quintillion fear effects and then have every one of your mechs suddenly smack 'em for 1d6+CL damage.