The Gaming Den

I was going to polish this a bit further before I posted it, but I've been busier than I expected, and won't be refining it any further for a while. This idea is unfinished, and I could use some opinions on what I have so far and/or suggestions for changes or additions.

Fantasy Powered Armor in D&D

Objectives:

1. Allow for the creation of customizable suits of armor at least vaguely reminiscent of what you'd see in a mech game such as Armored Core 3 or Cyberstorm.
2. Make characters spend resources other than just character wealth in order to fully utilize their armor / use better types of armor.
3. Avoid creating something that dramatically changes the way the rest of the world acts (i.e. by making powered armor something everyone will want to use) or adds consistently undesirable levels of complexity.
4. Require that some downtime be spent on maintenance, tweaking, and repairs, similar to a caster's spell recharge time.
5. Make the system fairly easy to port to Tome magic item rules or from Tome magic item rules to normal ones.
6. Create a number of weaknesses that the armor can be given to partially offset its strengths.

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Conceptual potential tradeoffs
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Potential Advantages:

Physical ability score boosts
Increased speed
Additional weapons (possibly using the rules for secondary natural weapons)
New or upgraded movement modes
Resistance to certain attack types
Hardness / damage reduction
Extra HP
Reduced armor weight/encumbrance

Potential Disadvantages:

Reduced speed
Reduced initiative
Extra damage from certain attack types
Status effects in response to certain attack types
Extra armor weight/encumbrance

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New Medium Tome Armor: Clockwork Armor
Clockwork Armor counts as a Magic Item (if not using Tome magic item rules, it has a base cost of 5000 GP)

At its most basic, Clockwork Armor provides an Armor Bonus of +5, a max DEX bonus of +3, an Armor Check penalty of -5, and an Armor Stealth Penalty of -5. An addition -3 nonproficiency penalty is applied to its Armor Check Penalty if the wearer doesn't have the Clockwork Armor User feat. The thing that sets Clockwork apart from other armors is its extreme customizability. Clockwork armor has a number of augment slots equal to the creator's ranks in Craft at the time it was made (With the Clockwork Armor User feat, someone can set themselves as the armor's creator with an hour of work and access to appropriate tools. This can be done even if they were the ones who originally made it, and it resets the augment slots to equal the new creators ranks in Craft). Augments can be things such as built-in weapons, enhanced physical capabilities, or magical items. Different augments require different numbers of slots. Some require other augments in the armor already, and others require the creator to have a certain number of ranks in Craft to make and install them.


Clockwork Armor User
You have trained with and studied clockwork armor.
This is a skill feat that scales to your ranks in craft
Craft Skill Ranks:
0: You are proficient with Clockwork Armor
4: You may customize Clockwork Armor, allowing you to add and remove items from from its augment slots.
9: You may treat weapons attached your armor as Secondary Natural Weapons, allowing you to use them all in a full attack. You may still use them as regular weapons, and there are no restrictions on how frequently you can use them in either role..
14: You may upgrade Clockwork Armor with twice the normal amount of augments.
19: Whenever you use Clockwork Armor, it gains the Magical Shields augment for free. The shields have Fast Healing equal to your character level and only stay down for 1d4 rounds once breached.

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Basic Augments (4 or more ranks in craft):

Spear Gun (0.5 augment slots): treat as a built-in repeating heavy crossbow with 10 bolts to a clip that does not need to be held to be shot. Up to 4 may be added to a suit of clockwork armor.
Leg Extensions (1 augment slot): Add +10 feet to base speed. You may wade through shallow pools without touching the water with your real legs.
Arm Extensions (1 augment slot): Add +5 feet to reach. You gain a natural slam attack that does normal damage for your size.
Minor Energy Resistance (0.5 augment slots): Gain 5 points of resistance to a standard energy type. Stacks, may be picked up to 4 times.
Fire Thrower (0.5 augment slots): Treat as an Extraordinary Burning Hands SLA that ignores Spell Resistance and uses Character Level to determine Caster Level. Activating it is an Attack Action. Up to 2 may be added to a suit of clockwork armor. Reloading is a full-round action.
Spring-loaded legs. (1 augment slot): Treat as an Extraordinary Jump SLA. Activating it is a Swift Action.
Heavy Plating (1 augment slot): Increase the clockwork armor's Armor Bonus from +5 to +8
User-Friendly (0.5 augment slots): Reduce the clockwork armor's Armor Check Penalty by 2. May be picked a second time to set the ACP to 0.

[Reserved for shifting the original post over if/when I get a finished system]

So right off the bat, it seems like the most effective setup is probably a flask rogue with 4 spear guns. Sneak in with your giant suit of clockwork armor and its minuscule skill penalties and alpha strike for 4 extra ranged sneak attacks.

With the natural weapons ability and the huge number of weapons a character can get at higher levels, most users will end up as absurdly over-equipped weapons platforms. Currently, a 6th level character 9 augment slots, and maxing out on the weapons that currently exist (for a total of 7 attacks) will cost only four of those. You can bet that if you add more weapons, people will use them in preference to all else.

Ah. Yes, sneak attacks. It looks like I may need to rewrite the rank 9 bonus, change the number of augment slots available/used for weapons, or put a hard limit on the number of weapons. Thank you.

Yeah, I did a similar trick in the WoW D20 Tinkering rules.

You can make guns have more than one d6 of damage per round, but they cost more and more to make, on a sliding scale.

Or, you can simply strap several low level guns together and fire them with a single trigger.

Now, the big-damage weapon is better vs a creature with DR, but against most targets, 10 1d6 attacks is usually the same as a single 10d6 attack; especcially if you can actually buy somwhere along the lines of 20 1d6 attacks instead of buying a single 10d6 attack.

My goblin tinker built a very shooty gyro-copter gunship for the tauren and troll characters to ride and shoot from. That was after 1 session. and we didn't get monty haul treasure either. We did blow the whole reward on the gunship though, so it was 3 level 1 adventure treasures put together to build it.

After doing some thinking, it seems like the easiest way to avoid precision damage/projectile spam abuse would be to cap the number of extra secondary attacks you can make based on BAB, then say you can only use precision damage with one mech weapon at a time.

Avoraciopoctules wrote:After doing some thinking, it seems like the easiest way to avoid precision damage/projectile spam abuse would be to cap the number of extra secondary attacks you can make based on BAB, then say you can only use precision damage with one mech weapon at a time.

Do you mean that a BAB 20 fighter will get only one normal attack in a full-round action, plus as many secondary 'natural' attacks as she can pack into the mech? And that a level 20 rogue will get just as many attacks but only deals SAD once?

Here are two alternative options:
1) Cap the total number of extra secondary attacks by BAB. If you use full BAB (rather than some multiple) things will still get pretty crazy, but the long and short is that a fighter's armor will carry more weapons.
2) Give a static number of slots and make the power of the add-ons scale to the number of craft ranks.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Do you mean that a BAB 20 fighter will get only one normal attack in a full-round action, plus as many secondary 'natural' attacks as she can pack into the mech? And that a level 20 rogue will get just as many attacks but only deals SAD once?

I'm currently thinking something more like the following:
BAB 20 Barbarian makes a full attack with his primary weapon, dealing rage dice damage with it when he hits. His BAB lets him use 5 sub-weapon actions. He sends out a pulse of energy that Slows adjacent enemies who fail saves (a sub-weapon that takes up a magic item slot and counts as 2 attacks.), takes 2 additional 5-foot steps, and fires an electrified wire net from his net gun at another enemy (treated something like a +1 Shock combat net, needs to be reloaded after firing).

BAB 15 Rogue uses his electrified claw weapon (a weapon that takes up a magic item slot. Not a sub-weapon) to make melee touch SAs that deal Lightning damage (if he beats normal AC with his attack, the damage is half physical and gets an extra 2d6+STR). In addition to this full attack, he gets 4 sub-weapon actions. He uses his 2 smoke generators to give himself decent concealment from ranged attackers and fires 2 poisoned darts at a target (negligible physical damage).

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Here are two alternative options:
1) Cap the total number of extra secondary attacks by BAB. If you use full BAB (rather than some multiple) things will still get pretty crazy, but the long and short is that a fighter's armor will carry more weapons.
2) Give a static number of slots and make the power of the add-ons scale to the number of craft ranks.

1. Certainly a good idea. I'm definitely implementing this.
2. There is a cap on the number of augment slots, but I was hoping to encourage that outdated augments be traded out for better ones.

"Guy in powered armor" might be more a class than a feat; I don't see someone being so much Powered Armor Gal and a Barbarian, or Powered Armor Guy and a Samurai, or a ninja in powered armor; it seems like it might be more its own class.

Alternately, the clockwork armor might be a tome-polymorph thing: you give it as a monster/template that takes the hit dice of the wearer and then replaces everything else (maybe some abilities for their primary melee weapon can be kept). This would solve the problem of unexpected synergies (like sneak attacking with a salvo of secondary weapons).

Oh hey, someone actually stickied this thread. My. I guess I'd better share some of my more recent work for the R.U.P. campaign I haven't put up a thread for yet, then. Currently, powered armor is a mix of stat replacement and normal mods. Much of the system is Magical Tea Party, particularly customization. We do have a sort of hard system for some aspects, and I have a mostly complete write-up for a low-level adventurer clockwork armor suit. I think the description is pretty much finished, but I'm probably still going to have to tweak it a bit over the next couple of minutes. I'll also add a tentative stat block for Clockwork Men almost directly ripped from Rise of Legends.

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Lumite 15

The Bertram & Foulkes "Lumite 15" Adaptive Light Exoskeleton is a highly customizable suit of clockwork armor that sacrifices protection and carrying capacity for speed, ease of maintenance, and energy-efficiency. The pilot is visible and exposed to the elements, though elevated several up feet into the air by the control seat. Much of the pilot's torso is covered by the frontal chest plate and control rig of the A.L.E., and the rest of the body is offered a measure of protection by the metal framework used to hold the pilot in place and mount secondary controls.

This A.L.E. is particularly prized by adventurers, long-range scouts outside of active warzones, and any others who need a powered suit that is both relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain and customize. The Lumite 15 is quite customizable, compatible with many off-the-shelf components available in most Raillemont cities of significant size. However, the lack of armor and inability to mount the heaviest weapons or easily accommodate exotic upgrades usually causes those who expect serious combat to look for a sturdier purchase.

The Lumite 15 hearkens back to the early days of powered armor, when industrial exoskeletons were modified slightly to turn city militia into a serious military threat. In fact, the Lumite 14 is an industrial model still sold on the open market. This lacks the reflexes and responsiveness of the Lumite 15, and it uses conventional clockwork for power. This prevents compatibility with most lightning guns and many other primarily electric components and mods.

[Image in sblock]

(originally from DeviantArt, link here: http://galiford.deviantart.com/art/Old- ... h-42536487 )

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Properties (Generally, the Lumite 15 is inappropriate for PCs at level 3 or less):

The Lumite 15 requires Powered Armor Proficiency and 1 Magic Item slot to operate. A second slot can be expended to apply an Enhancement Bonus to the Armor Class of the Lumite 15 and to attacks made with its arms.

- DR 5/-

- Grants Powerful Build (if you use a weapon that is sized for a creature smaller than you, -1 recoil penalty to attacks per size category)

- Boosts speed by +15 ft. to 45 ft. base for a human (30 ft. if slowed down by the Armor Check Penalty)

- Sets Strength to 18

- +5 Base AC, Max Dex +2, -4 Armor Check Penalty, -8 Armor Stealth Penalty

- Called Shots can be made to ignore the armor bonus and DR of this suit. Unless the wearer refrains from moving at all for a full round, these called shots can only be made in melee.

- A sensor array in the "nose" of the chest plate allows the pilot to "see" in a 60 foot cone in front of the A.L.E.. Mech weapons can be targeted at anything within this cone without penalty, even if the pilot isn't holding and sighting with them personally (especially useful if additional weapons are installed on the shoulder mounts). These sensors can be augmented to acommodate darkvision, blindsight, or similar visual enhancements and/or augmented with certain divination effects. The sensor array allows you to see even in a sealed cockpit (though this is generally irrelevent unless this mech is given such.).

- The pilot takes a -4 penalty to Initiative

- Capacitors projecting from the back of the mech aid in energy storage and provide a measure of protection from electricity, granting 10 Lightning Resistance.

- The Lumite 15 is powered by electricity or winding (which produces electricity). Absorbing 100 points of Lightning damage or an hour of total winding is necessary to fully charge the suit, allowing it to operate for up to 8 hours. Many pilots take breaks every half or full hour and wind up the suit for a few minutes, allowing the suit to operate indefinitely barring wear and tear that would requisite more active maintenance. This makes some methods of exhausting the unit viable and renders some conventional ones irrelevant.

- The Lumite 15 has 2 arms and 2 mod slots on the shoulders which can be combined to accommodate a single heavy weapon system (within reason).

- The Lumite 15 is fairly customizable with standard mech mods. Since mech customization is mainly Magical Tea Party, this doesn't mean much right now unless you are playing a gearhead or taking the alternative feat package for the Mecha Knight.

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Standard Lumite 15 Arms

Gun Arm:

The standard weapon arm has a somewhat complex lightning gun system that utilizes two barrels and at least two attached canisters of compressed alchemical gas to fire a coherent blast of electricity with fair reliability and effectively limitless ammunition, at least in the context of a single battle. If heavily used, the canisters may need to be replaced daily. The lightning gun can be periodically overcharged for a more powerful attack that covers a wide area immediately in front of the A.L.E., but needs some time to recuperate in between overcharged shots. The weapon can be salvaged into something usable by an unaugmented human,

Lightning guns have very little recoil (-1 per extra shot beyond one in a round, rather than -2, and this applies to all shots, (Recoil penalties apply to all shots, including those you get from BAB, Rapid Shot, etc., which is why people still use bows)), and the design of the mech eliminates what remains. However, this model of lightning gun takes

Standard Shots:
Hits everything in an 80 ft. line on a ranged touch attack, make one attack against everything in the line
3d6 + Level + Magic if guns are enhanced

Overcharge (may be fired once per minute/encounter):
30 Foot cone, Reflex Save for half damage and no stun
4d6 Damage + Level x2 + stunned for 1 round

Gun Slam
1d6 base damage


Pincer Arm

The Pincer arm is what some view as the standard mech arm. It may not be as effective a weapon as some arms, but it allows for limited grasping and carrying, which provides a versatility many pilots can appreciate. This can also be used to grab and hold enemies in battle.

Treat as a 1d8 Primary Claw Attack with Improved Grab and a +4 to grappling if performed with Improved Grab immediately after hitting with a claw attack (note that I am assuming Tome grappling ). If holding a target with your pincers, you may constrict for 2d8 base.

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Clockwork Man

Size/Type: Large (Tall) Construct
Hit Dice: 6d10+30 (70 hp)
Initiative: –1
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 12 (–1 size, –1 Dex, +2 natural, +4 armor), touch 8, flat-footed 12
Base Attack Bonus: +4
Attack: Magic Gun Slam +10 melee (1d6+8) OR Magic Lightning Gun +5 ranged touch (3d6+5) OR Claw +8 (1d6+4 and Improved Grab)
Full Attack: Magic Gun Slam +10 melee (1d6+6) OR Magic Lightning Gun +5 ranged touch (3d6+5) AND Claw +8 (1d6+4 and Improved Grab)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Lightning Blast
Special Qualities: Construct traits, damage reduction 5/magic or adamantine, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +1, Will +1
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 9, Con —, Int 4, Wis 8, Cha 5
Skills: Climb +5, Jump +5, Spot +5
Feats: —
Environment: Any non-dusty or highly humid
Organization: Solitary or Squad (6 + some kind of Magical commander who can make them use intelligent tactics)
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: Vaguely salvageable lightning gun and clockwork components
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
Clockwork Men are a fairly recent invention. They are intelligent automatons designed for battle primarily. They are vaguely intelligent, but are only barely competent unless actively commanded by a compatible mage or other suitable commander (Anything CR 6, including Fighters and other low-overt-magic types).

COMBAT:

Lightning Blast (Ex): Every other round, the Clockwork Man may overcharge its lightning gun to fire a 10 foot cone. All in the area of effect take 4d6+5 damage and are Slowed for 1 round. A Reflex Save (DC 16, Strength-based) halves the damage and negates the status effect.
Windup (Ex): Clockwork Men must be regularly wound to function. This does not require any special training or magical skill, but takes 10 minutes every day. If not wound for 2 days, a Clockwork Man deactivates and must be wound for 30 minutes to restart. In a typical military unit, the time of the controller of the Clockwork Men is seen as too valuable to waste winding them, and this task is relegated to musketeers.

No Feats (Ex): For some reason probably having to do with a lazy creator, normal Clockwork Men do not have feats. And probably some other stuff too.

Construction:Clockwork Men can be and usually are produced in batches. A graduate mage or other individual of some personal power trained in magical item creation is necessary for the various stages that involve enchantment, but most of the actual work involves the mechanical components that make up the body. The cortex that allows for rudimentary intelligence is wholly magical, the "eyes" are partially so, the lightning gun is magical, but can be made by a less powerful mage, and the magical cog that must be wound to give animation to the body is mostly magical. Putting the magical components together using a fully-equipped workshop generally takes about 8 hours for a competent artificer.

The amount of time required to produce the body is much more variable, but a small factory can generally produce a squad of 6 in about 3 days given adequate materials and components.
CL 6th; creator must be at least 6th level; Market Price: 1000 gp; Cost to make: 500 gp.

EDIT: Based on a quick skim, I think things look alright now.
EDIT 2: Changed formatting for Clockwork Men and filled in an ability.

Clockwork Men

I have wanted clockwork men for a very long time.

...

Not like that.

Looks like "windup" got cut off:

Windup (Ex): Clockwork Men must be regularly wound to function. Sufficient numbers of

Also, you could simplify "gun slam" to just stating that it grants a slam attack. Although I question the wisdom of repeatedly smacking somebody with a couple of canisters of unstable alchemagical gas.

I'll do some editing before too terribly long, but am about to go to sleep now.

Here's a link to a picture of the Clockwork Men I am using as inspiration.
http://www.giantbomb.com/rise-of-nation ... 51-590576/

Also, I've got a text file with a mostly-finished steam tank I'll post after I edit the Clockwork Man entry a bit.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Also, you could simplify "gun slam" to just stating that it grants a slam attack.

Yeah, but then it couldn't be used for iteratives and applying an enhancement would be kind of weird.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Although I question the wisdom of repeatedly smacking somebody with a couple of canisters of unstable alchemagical gas.

Generally, you try to hit them with the metal part, but yes. Delicious glowing weak points. Maybe I'll write or steal a malfunction table for critical and/or called hits.

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I'm heading into the desert for a week in less than a day, so I'll just post the contents of my text file here. Obviously unfinished, but suggestions and comments are still welcome. Not sure how frequently I'll update this once I get back, but I do intend to finish these in time for them to be used in the game.

"Javan" Light Steam Tank / Transport
Size/type: Huge (Long) Construct (Steam Tank) (Magitek)
Hit Dice: 8d10+40 (80 hp)
Initiative: –2
Speed: 25 ft. (5 squares)
Armor Class: 12 (–2 size, –2 Dex, +6 Armor), touch 6, flat-footed 12
Base Attack Bonus: +4 or by gunner
Attack: 1 Fire Bolt +2 Ranged Touch 1d6+4 Fire
Full Attack: 2 Fire Bolts +2 Ranged Touch 1d6+4 Fire and Light Mortar +2 Grenadelike 5d6 (15 ft. radius blast)
Space/Reach: 15 ft. by 10 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Trample 4d6+16, Light Mortar (Cannot be targeted within 30 feet, 1 round to aim, max range of 300 feet.)
Special Qualities: Construct traits, damage reduction 10/adamantine,
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +0, Will +2
Abilities: Str 26 Dex 7, Con —, Int —, Wis —, Cha —
Skills: —
Feats: —
Environment: Any non-dusty or highly humid
Organization: Tank + 1 Gunner (Warrior 3), Pilot (Warrior 3 / Wizard 1), and Engineer (Warrior 3 / Wizard 1).
OR same +
OR small task force (2 tanks + crew + 16 Musketeers)
Challenge Rating: 5 (not counting passengers)
Treasure: Mechanical components, boiler, guns
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —

Deltadyne's "Javan" light transport tank is designed to carry small numbers of soldiers with decent protection and speed. It moves almost as fast as a person, and can operate in light combat for 2 full hours before exhausting its water supply.

Normally, most of the crew of the tank is given basic magical training, allowing them to make far more efficient use of the vehicle than otherwise. Raillemont magitech of this degree of simplicity is mostly usable by laypersons, but the heat rays, controls, and sensors are all much reduced in effectiveness if not currently bonded to a magically trained user. The conventional gun in the turret is the exception, and it is generally controlled by a passenger.

COMBAT:

Tank Facing Rules(Ex): Tanks move slowly and are big and cumbersome enough that they actually make use of facing rules. They can turn 90 degrees in exchange for 10 feet (2 squares of movement). A pilot with 9 or more ranks in [Drive] can turn for half the movement cost.

Passenger Space (Ex): This

2 people using firing ports, 4 people sitting relatively comfortably, or 6-8 contorted/packed and suffering from heat and air deprivation (6 will be fatigued, 8 will be exhausted).

Firing ports provide improved cover as arrow slits, but the AC bonus is +6 and and the saving throw bonus is +3. When adjacent to the tank, there is enough space to stick a melee weapon or grenade in through the firing port. Firing ports can be forced open from the outside.

Gun Turret (Ex):
provides cover
Fires every round, minimum range 10 feet, range increment 100 feet.
Can be accessed from inside the vehicle, getting in or out is a

Light Mortar (Ex):
Can be aimed with 1 full round of work from the engineer while the tank is stationary. If the tank moves, the mortar must be calibrated again to fire with any degree of reliability. Can fire over walls and other obstacles, does not require line of sight to estimate a target location.

Steam-powered (Ex):
This vehicle is powered by a boiler. For it to function, it needs to be tended and periodically refilled with water. The heat is supplied by enchanted copper rods, rendering the tank vulnerable to dispelling and antimagic. Additional water is carried in barrels, and is also supplied by engineers using conjuration magic when necessary.



Trample:
Reflex DC 22 half. The save DC is Strength-based.

No Feats (Ex): For some reason probably having to do with a lazy creator, normal Clockwork Men do not have feats. And probably some other stuff too.

Construction:


CL 6th; creator must be at least 6th level; Market Price: 6000 gp; Cost to make: 3000 gp.



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Deltadyne

Dedicated Combat tank

2 turrets, 1 a heavy cannon that fires every other round and the other a fast-shooting repeater that loads rounds from a clip.

1 light mortar,

heavier armor

Market Price: 8000 GP

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http://xadhoom.deviantart.com/art/Power ... -154326275
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg21 ... xarkes.jpg