The Gaming Den

To avoid the complexity of the Warforged and make a mechanical race more portable to various settings I'll attempt the following:

1. Either make the race a LA+0 template or a feat. The feat won't scale.

2. No "living construct" bullshit. That's mostly the whole mess right there.

3. The mechanical race requires 8 hours rest/cooldown/actual sleep, so as to avoid the "I'm always awake"/"forever a nightwatch" dilemma of Warforged.

4. No stupid name like "Warforged".



Mechanicals
[Racial Feat]
This feat is taken at Level 1. It determines the creation and nature of a golem-like android of the same size and appearance as the race it imitates.
The character gains the Construct subtype while retaining its original type.
• Unliving Body: The character’s Constitution score is for some purposes effectively “-“ whenever beneficial, which means some Fortitude effects such as poison, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, and physical ability score damage won’t harm you, but you still retain a Constitution score to represent the variable toughness of machines that can be improved over time. The character is not truly alive or organic, composed entirely of a non-ferrous shell filled with nonliving components, but they do have a mind and can use magic, which also makes the character vulnerable to paralysis, dazing, stunning, and sleep (the mind simply shuts down).
• Construct Type: The character’s starting HP is 20 for size Medium characters (10 for Small) with no bonus from your class or CON bonus, unless the total HP provided by your class and CON bonus results in a higher HP total, in which case use the latter.
• Slam Attack: The character has a Slam attack that deals 1d6 +1 ½ STR bonus damage.
• Metallic: Positive and negative energy do not harm or heal you. You can not heal normally with rest. A DC 20 Craft (Armor) check recovers all of your HP within an hour, or you can use certain spells to recover HP.
• Cooldown: Mechanicals require 8 hours of sleep, but not to actually rest; they need to cease their internal motions to allow their components to cool. This still counts as going unconscious. Going a day without sleep deals 10 Fire damage at the end, which can’t be healed until sleep is achieved, and an increasing amount of +10 additional Fire damage as each successive day passes without sleep. Fire Immunity is the only way to ensure protection from this internal overheating.
• Mechanicals do not need to eat, but do have other requirements to sustain motion and thought, as by their variant.
• Mechanicals do breathe but are unaffected by the difference between water or air. They use this respiration to cool their insides and can go without breathing for 1 hour before they take 5 Fire damage and 5 more Fire damage for each previous hour as they overheat from inside.
• Mechanicals age as humans do, with the wearing of time on their metallic parts represented by aging penalties on their ability scores (the only thing that can affect their physical ability scores, actually). Buying new limbs and internal parts costs the same as buying a suit of full plate to remove aging penalties, and the character must be repaired by someone with at least as many Craft (Armor) ranks as the construct has levels.
• Broken: If reduced to 0 to -10 HP, the character is Staggered and has -2 to all checks but is still active. They do not bleed.

There are variants of Mechanicals;
• Gearborn: This variant requires a windup every 24 hours as a 1 minute ritual. The Gearborn can wind itself up but the ritual takes 1 hour instead. Without a windup the Gearborn becomes Fatigued for the next day, then Exhausted for the day after that, then falls unconscious at the end of the third day.
• Steamborn: This variant runs on steam, which requires drinks of water just like living beings do. They emit a burst of steam constantly and at least once every hour, which can be suppressed for one hour at a time. Going without water for a day Fatigues and Exhausts the character in the same way a Gearborn goes without a windup.
• Gemborn: This variant constantly emits magic, which is contained and embedded within its body with special gems that emit light out to a radius of 10 feet. Attempts to detect magic always detect the character.

You missed

5. No stupid "made of metal and stone" nonsense.

6. None of this ridiculous "built, not born" jibber-jabber.

Okay, that was a bit hyperbolic. I actually approve of #1 and #4, and I'm sure there's a more elegant type possible than Living Construct for a robot, but #3 makes me very worried about where you're going with this.

If you're going to return mortal needs to a mechanical race, of the four basic ones as defined by D&D, "sleep, breathe, ingest, age", sleep is the one that real robots care about the least.

Done. That was fast, probably a new record for me.

EDIT: Woops, forgot about breathing and aging.

Thanks Fox. Got it.

Is it me or does having Protection From Energy/Resist Energy cast at the "end" of the day partially or completely obviate the need to sleep? Not that I care, at all. I don't think that being able to get around the need to sleep is like a big deal.

A bigger concern for me is the 20 HP at first level. Honestly, in a very low level game where these things are available, I don't know why anyone would play anything else for this reason alone. Your chance to survive to Level 2, measured in hit points, is equaled only by a Barbarian with Con 26. 20 HP at Level 1 is a big deal. It makes you five times more likely to not die than the average Wizard.

Mending healing half hp makes it THE BEST 0TH LEVEL SPELL EVER, by a margin of HOLY SHIT. It also makes the "Repair" line of spells completely fucking worthless...er.

I used the MM guide for Construct type bonus HP:
I suppose that could be changed, but if you make any Level 1 Construct using the RAW you end up with the same thing.
I tried to dampen that bonus by not allowing it to heal normally, but I remember vaguely something about Eberron and those Repair spells.

Perhaps I made Mending and Make Whole too powerful. I'll rectify that so players must use the Repair series or fix out of combat.

sigma999 wrote:2. No "living construct" bullshit. That's mostly the whole mess right there.

that is a BIG part of it and the other big part that makes golems "monsters" to begin with is what prevents golems form being a race at all.

a race of creatures must be able to propagate. How does a golem, some lifeforce put into some artificial body, or whatnot, breed?

IF all the organs work of a flesh golem, can two make babies? When this baby is born, will it resemble the parents and be a golem, or just be a single creature based on the reproductive organs of the parents?

this is the whole thing about a race vs golem/construct. a race must be able to continue itself. Artificial lifeforms

Data from ST:TNG was an artificial lifeform and recognized as such, but even creating a "daughter" in sort of an asexual reproduction, he/they were never considered a race. his daughter was more of a clone, that a merging of two parents. likewise the Borg would product offspring that resembles the biological parents. they would not be born with implants.

a quadriplegic with mechanical limbs today would give birth to a human, not a bionic race.

you would have to redefine "race" in order to allow for golems to be considered a race, and that may no be very widely accepted. however, that is the first step that must be taken, and the biggest hurdle you must overcome.

for others that just see "race" as a game term, then warforged, golem, etc are easily accepted as a race because it is a gamist term meaning just a "type of creature".

warforged works for race as a gamist term, but isnt overcome by those who think of race as the term in the real world.

it would be better to just call it a more gamist term to remove real world connotation, rather than try to define or redefine the real world term. use "creature type" instead.

Elf:

what race is it? Elf

what type of creature is it? Elf

both of these work, but one carries heavy connotations with it, while the other does not.

i would accept a warforged or golem as a "creature type" but not a "race"; because there has been no definition of race that can work both int h4 game and the real world that allows them to be included.

so just remove the term "race" and replace it with something more JUST FOR the game, and all should be fine.

shadzar wrote: a race of creatures must be able to propagate. How does a golem, some lifeforce put into some artificial body, or whatnot, breed?

They make more of their own kind with their hands and bits of metal.

D&D doesn't go into the specifics of reproduction but it sure does cover the outcome a lot (half-fiend, half-dragon, etc), so I'm not going to detail how Mechanicals make more of their kind.

Assume it's a year long crafting ritual or something.

sigma999 wrote:

shadzar wrote: a race of creatures must be able to propagate. How does a golem, some lifeforce put into some artificial body, or whatnot, breed?

They make more of their own kind with their hands and bits of metal.

here we hit a problem again with the term "race".

2nd PHB wrote:Race--a player character's species:

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

D&D doesn't go into the specifics of reproduction but it sure does cover the outcome a lot (half-fiend, half-dragon, etc), so I'm not going to detail how Mechanicals make more of their kind.

again... disagree (see Half-orc = product of rape)

Assume it's a year long crafting ritual or something.

i can accept that a a game term for creature type, but not ANY definition of race i would accept. i envision the warforged like *Batteries Not Included... but i wouldnt consider those little "living" flying saucers a race anymore than the little robot in Flubber.

1 year mimics a good human gestation period, but still it is made by a machine shop and could be made by 30 golems at once, not just two. how many would take part in the ritual?

again, i can accept just about EVERYTHING your creation has so far, except them being called a race.

hell the game even says as quoted above.. the word race doesnt mean race, but species.... but putting Species on a character sheet wouldnt give much towards the Tolkien-esque and medieval feel. sounds more modern or sci-fi.

so i would probably go through the entire game and reword "race" to "creature type"... problem solved. though i dont like warforged, but would accept them or golems as a PC "creature type" more than a "race".

the term "race" should be blamed on Dave and Gary for using it, and Tolkien for "races of man", "races of elves", etc that got carri4d over into D&D.

unless i missed it, you might want to include that "how many" to take part of the ritual/construction for the ecology of the golem "race" so the "offspring" has clearly defined "parents", unless you want a more community breeding kind of thing and the "parents" are just the previous generation or "version" like in the movie Screamers.

Gen 1 is the parents of Gen 2.
Gen 2 is the parents of Gen 3.

and this might actually work better with communal "offspring" than having just two parents.

If you want to define a crafted-golem species under the usual definition, the trick is to make golem-crafting a ridiculously complex lost art and to go with parthenogenesis. Even the golems themselves don't know how they work; the only way to make a new one is to spend a year or so copying another, and only a golem knows itself well enough to produce a functional copy. This gives you everything you need for a "species", as ill-defined as that word is. Mutations, population drift, population variation, everything.

I've been designing a golem race from an almost purely flavor perspective, for use in a non-D&D game. The golem is supposed to seem 'technological' rather than 'magical'. I'm not sure how relevant this is to you, but here is the short non-mechanical (heh) version.

[*]The golem has a furnace in its belly. This means that it can eat wood, charcoal, oil, leaves, etc. Hey, it even gets to shit out ashes!

[*]The furnace is used to power a steam engine (almost certainly turbine), because that's a straightforward simple external combustion engine. This means that the golem drinks water. The harder the golem works, the less effective its heat sinks are for re-condensing the water, and steam will start venting. Golems that work hard get thirsty.

[*]The steam is primarily use to generate electricity, which is semi-mystical in the setting and is used to power most of the golem's functions. This means that the golem can survive for short periods of time when its furnace is out, e.g. underwater. The steam also adds pneumatic power to the golem's movement, which has the side benefit of radiation/condensation.

The image of a golem, then, is a potbellied metal and ceramic humanoid. In combat steam starts venting from its ears, sparks fly from its joints, and the air fills with the roar of its engine.

Aside from the obvious, golems talk without opening their mouths, don't have to sleep (sorry about that--doing so does benefit their modest self-repair systems), and reproduce by putting a significant quantity of their powered soul circuitry into an expertly crafted "empty" body.

The image of a golem, then, is a potbellied metal and ceramic humanoid. In combat steam starts venting from its ears, sparks fly from its joints, and the air fills with the roar of its engine.

So Gonzales from Chrono Trigger.

Leress wrote:

The image of a golem, then, is a potbellied metal and ceramic humanoid. In combat steam starts venting from its ears, sparks fly from its joints, and the air fills with the roar of its engine.

So Gonzales from Chrono Trigger.

Seconded. Although, I thought he/it was magic and steam powered.
And the name was Robo.

sigma999 wrote:

Leress wrote:

The image of a golem, then, is a potbellied metal and ceramic humanoid. In combat steam starts venting from its ears, sparks fly from its joints, and the air fills with the roar of its engine.

So Gonzales from Chrono Trigger.

Seconded. Although, I thought he/it was magic and steam powered.
And the name was Robo.

No, I am talking about the robot you beat up for silver points at the fair. Robo was straight up technology.

Leress wrote: No, I am talking about the robot you beat up for silver points at the fair. Robo was straight up technology.

Ohhhhh THAT robot! Gato.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqD8wwTLCSc

CatharzGodfoot wrote:I've been designing a golem race from an almost purely flavor perspective, for use in a non-D&D game. The golem is supposed to seem 'technological' rather than 'magical'. I'm not sure how relevant this is to you, but here is the short non-mechanical (heh) version.

[*]The golem has a furnace in its belly. This means that it can eat wood, charcoal, oil, leaves, etc. Hey, it even gets to shit out ashes!

[*]The furnace is used to power a steam engine (almost certainly turbine), because that's a straightforward simple external combustion engine. This means that the golem drinks water. The harder the golem works, the less effective its heat sinks are for re-condensing the water, and steam will start venting. Golems that work hard get thirsty.

[*]The steam is primarily use to generate electricity, which is semi-mystical in the setting and is used to power most of the golem's functions. This means that the golem can survive for short periods of time when its furnace is out, e.g. underwater. The steam also adds pneumatic power to the golem's movement, which has the side benefit of radiation/condensation.

The image of a golem, then, is a potbellied metal and ceramic humanoid. In combat steam starts venting from its ears, sparks fly from its joints, and the air fills with the roar of its engine.

Aside from the obvious, golems talk without opening their mouths, don't have to sleep (sorry about that--doing so does benefit their modest self-repair systems), and reproduce by putting a significant quantity of their powered soul circuitry into an expertly crafted "empty" body.

Neat. It deals with most of the problems from integrating robot PCs into a regular party. Tempted to use something like this if a player asks to play a construct in a future game.

Honestly, I was just trying to come up with something plausible that hit as many steampunk robot cliches as possible.

External combustion lets them use a wide variety of fuels. Steam turbines are pretty much the most efficient way to generate electricity from a heat source. Electricity lets them 'hold their breath', and is easier to repair than clockwork. And that's enough to give you fire, sparks, steam, and smoke.


And yes on this "Robo" fellow.

Except the boiler would be internal. Otherwise it's too much of a weak point.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Honestly, I was just trying to come up with something plausible that hit as many steampunk robot cliches as possible.

Ironically, that's why I made this thread.

Feel free to use what I made. I feel that the overheat dilemma should remain a valid threat, otherwise sleepless intelligent constructs would be too much of a good thing (see: Warforged laborers)

sigma999 wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Honestly, I was just trying to come up with something plausible that hit as many steampunk robot cliches as possible.

Ironically, that's why I made this thread.

search the net and see if you can find Mage Knight factions info specifically Black Powder Rebels on how they made their Steam Golems, or Atlantean for their magically powered automatons. they might give some fluff that could inspire something.

Looks interesting, but why the aversion to not sleeping? IME, that's the kind of cool thing people look for in a mechanical race. And it's hardly "broken" - the Ring of Sustenance is a low-level item. And, you know, Elves.

Ice9 wrote:Looks interesting, but why the aversion to not sleeping? IME, that's the kind of cool thing people look for in a mechanical race. And it's hardly "broken" - the Ring of Sustenance is a low-level item. And, you know, Elves.

Level 1 Warforged get the no-sleep without expending gold. They all have it. It's their racial thing.

It's fair enough when a character can afford Rings of Sustenance. I do it with my characters whenever possible.
The same allowance should be provided for mechanicals, a race that overcomes their own inherent rest problems if they can afford it (fire resistance, that is)

As for elves, fuck elves. 4 hour trances were not in LOTR. What do they do, 4 hour trance and sit around for another 4 hours to get their spell slots back, or actually force themselves to sleep for the whole 8 hours?

Level 1 Warforged get the no-sleep without expending gold. They all have it. It's their racial thing.

Well yeah, but - that's pretty much what racial abilities are. Things you get for free that other characters would have to pay for if they even can. Like Darkvision. Or SLAs. Or all those racial skill/save bonuses.

sigma999 wrote:As for elves, fuck elves. 4 hour trances were not in LOTR.

It kind of is, just not super-explicitly:

'Legolas already lay motionless, his fair hands folded upon his breast, his eyes un-closed, blending living night and deep dream, as is the way with Elves.'

'Aragorn and Gimli slept fitfully, and whenever they awoke they saw Legolas standing beside them, or walking to and fro, singing softly to himself in his own tongue...'

Also, 'sleeping' while actually walking:

'...and he could sleep, if sleep it could be called by Men, resting his mind in the strange paths of elvish dreams, even as he walked open-eyed in the light of this world. '

The 'four-hour trance' isn't a terrible interpretation for game purposes.

What do they do, 4 hour trance and sit around for another 4 hours to get their spell slots back, or actually force themselves to sleep for the whole 8 hours?

Hm, the PHB says that a Wizard 'must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time by getting a good night’s sleep and spending 1 hour studying her spellbook.' The PHB also says 'Elves do not sleep, as members of the other common races do. Instead, an elf meditates in a deep trance for 4 hours a day. An elf resting in this fashion gains the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.'

Of course, Clerics don't even need a good night's sleep, they're just on a countdown, so it's not even an issue for them.

I don't see any reason the elf doesn't just get an extra four hours of wakefulness and a faster ability refresh if a Wizard. Was that FAQ'd at some point?

edits: formatting, spelling, clarification; damn you, sleepiness.

angelfromanotherpin wrote: I don't see any reason the elf doesn't just get an extra four hours of wakefulness and a faster ability refresh if a Wizard. Was that FAQ'd at some point?

The light sleep trance racial ability seems to heavily favor arcane spellcasters. It makes them better arcane spellcasters than other races, although Warforged might have them beat.

[url wrote:http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview ... erruptions[/url]]If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, she still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.

It seems I can't use modified url names inside the quote start tag.

So, no at-will casting for Warforged.