Characters
In which we're spared the indignity of a 'what is a role-playing game'.
I don't know what they're like
now, but Goodman Games strikes me as some decent people; at least at the time. If you want to read along, they actually have this chapter up for download
here.
It's eighteen pages and covers the races, classes and the variants, but leaves off the back half of the steamborg and the PrCs. And you can squint at this three-column layout along with me.
I don't know about you, but I like the art. Except the steamborg's expression; he looks high.
Hey, dudes, guess what? This smoke isn't coal smoke!
Races
The characters chapter starts off with a rundown of how the various races are faring with the collapse of their previous civilizations. I would like to state I don't like the rap humans get. They were nomads, so they were 'uncivilized'. It even puts quotes around 'civilization' when referring to their old culture.
Not gonna lie, Joe Goodman. Dick move.
Anyway, humans have gotten a charismatic leader and he's created the Legion, which claims it's not wallowing in racism against non-humans, it's just really pro-human, honest!
Yes, your reaction to that claim is shared by everyone in both the real universe and this fictional one.
The dwarves are supposed to be the real powerhouses of the setting; they had their underground cities and so forth, so they only had to deal with refugees and not regular rains of red-hot boulders and what a friend calls lunar rapeapes.
I can't find a point of inaccuracy that would sway a jury.
But the dwarves did take horrible losses in the wars with refugees and you know, I feel that's basically about right. I don't know how everyone wasn't wiped out in the first good lunar meteor storm (maybe it's a regional thing, like rain bands), but this conflict sounds plausible to me.
It notes the dwarves apply their craft bonus to mechs, and dwarves raised in mechs, or, I suppose, have spent extensive time there, lose stonecunning and gain +2 to Mech Pilot. The authors are on record saying they didn't want this to be human-centric, and dwarves get the master-race card this time, I suppose. They have a confederacy built another five city-mechs that each patrol adjacent territory, as well as a lot of their old holdings. They're supposed to be the political movers and shakers, with the humans trying to follow their lead in making a mech-based nation-state and the elves being focused on the elves.
Elves are both emo (the forests have eroded and they can remember was it was like before! Waaaaaaaaah!) and get elf-wank. Their mechs are pretty much golems with a pilot, crafted out of wood and magically animated so it's still alive and can take root (which, indeed, it must). It says their mechs are the most powerful, despite mechs being 'invented by dwarves and developed by humans.' Of
course they are.
This is the single elven city-mech. It was magically shaped and animated from an entire forest.
It is almost half a mile tall. It bristles with wands.
The citizens know how to use them.
Even the dwarves admit they can't come close to this accomplishment.
HAIL THE MASTER RACE.
At least it ends on a good note; living for seven hundred years means they figure they have time to beat it, and they're looking for old artifacts, cutting deals, make alliances, and try to find magic solutions to the problems. My money's on the magic over the tech, for reasons I'll explain later.
You go, girl.
Gnomes had the problem of the dwarves: They suddenly had prime real estate. They lacked the dwarf solution: They didn't have a siege mentality. So gnomes got screwed and run out of their homes. But now suddenly they're technology wizards (despite no bonuses to reflect this, like the dwarves get) and valued where they are. They also joke a lot, in a laughing-on-the-outside, crying-on-the-inside sort of way.
Half-elves and half-orcs are actually adjusting to the changes fairly well--society's been remade anew so they have a means to fit into it now. Hell, I think I read a mention of some breeding population of half-orcs is in here somewhere, and how they have a name for themselves that's not 'half-orc'. Except, of course, half-orcs are only riding the changes so well because they had no pride in the old world to start with.
Sigh.
Halflings also came out well. I guess this is a good time to be half-something, right? Anyway, they could find shelter from the new threats where others couldn't, and there's now a mech-adapted subrace called Coglings, who grow up in the engines of mechs. They're valued because, well, short dudes are good for getting into tight spaces. There's some note about halfling not becoming mech pilots, despite being able to more comfortably pilot Large-sized mechs (yes, mechs are found as small as 10 feet tall), and having the Dex bonus which the piloting skill is predicated on. I'll talk about this fluff/mechanics divide later.
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Classes in the world
Next is how classes adapted to the new circumstances.
Barbarians have been more common than fighters, and in the hard times bards are in high demand and, according to the fluff, immune to suspicion in most communities because they can do their bit to keep morale up.
So you keep a bard in a sack, and just keep him filled up with whiskey so he doesn't cause trouble until you need to trot him out to get you in somewhere.
Now comes the clerics: There's a general crisis of faith, and the lunar gods are fighting their own war against the old gods, so clerics have to make a DC 6 Wisdom check every day after they do their hour of prayer for their spells. If you fail, no spells for you* and the DC goes up by 2 for the next day. If the cleric wins a victory against the aliens, the DC goes down by 2. If the cleric manages some major accomplishment, the DC goes down by 1.
They can also attempt to cast any spell spontaneously, as long as it's against the forces of the moon (or healing the effects of their actions), by succeeding a DC 20 Wisdom check. It basically means you get a free spell.
Sometimes.
Druids: What with everything getting the burning sandpaper effect, there aren't many unsullied forests or what have you, and Druid numbers are much reduced.
Actually, why is it always forests? Or, sometimes, swamps. For the sake of variety, I'd like to see a druid of plains or high mountains or the arctic. Or, how about a druid of deserts? A dried-up leather-skinned, heavy-browed wildman who makes the bugs leave him alone except when he need a crunchy snack and drinks a jackal for breakfast every morning.
I digress; Druids are just about gone, but the ones who remain make up for it by being psychotic about the whole 'protecting nature' thing. It also specifically requires druid players to come up with a backstory as to where they learned their stuff.
Fighters are fighters, blah blah blah, no one cares about them.
Monks are still around and some nomadic mech clans like them and apply monk combat techniques to mech combat. Sounds nice and all, but, well, monks.
When your foot is over his head, his fist is on level with your crotch.
Paladins are more numerous, thanks to people trying to man up and fight the good fight (of which I approve, if only Paladins were more capable of fighting the good fight than a good cleric or wizard), but have the same spellcasting gimp as clerics, except they're a lot less like to pass the wisdom check. MAD, yo.
Rangers basically have the same fluff as druids, rogues have come through just fine (and have a tech-focused variant called the Stalker), Sorcerors are more common and some of them are showing a lunar or astronomical theme to the special effects (the example is magic missile now producing little meteorites instead of little balls of force).
Wizards are also in-universe reduced in number. Except for, you know, PCs.
Classes
The first 'class' is the Clockwork Ranger variant; they're specialized for the giant engines inside the really big mechs. They can use Handle Animal on constructs, some different skills, a somewhat different spell list, and a different animal companion list, themed around the critters in the gear forests. Yes, they're called that.
The first
real class introduced is the Coglayer. These guys are your tech-variant of the wizard. They get the build-your-own-device parts, proficiency in the tech weapons, and their class level as a bonus to Craft (Mechcraft), K (mechs), and K (Steam engines). Because fuck the RNG. But as a nice touch, you can build steam-based weapons. So you can kit out the party if you really want to, and the steamgear is usually nice.
I'm going to break off here and talk about Steam Powers, which are elaborated on later in the book.
The build-your-own device powers are called Steam Powers. Basically, you have a list of a bunch of parts, can build/maintain a number of them based on your class level and your Int modifier, and can use them to build more complex devices. Individually, they're useful for something, but the utility really comes in combining them. One of the devices is the Iron Arm--it's a mechanical arm, by itself worn on a shoulder rig and operated by a little control device, with 18 Str. Cool by itself, but you can combine it with, say, a few other powers to so it'll attack upon receiving a vocal command. Or you hitting a button on a remote control (they have basic radio tech in here).
I
really like these. They're something every steampunk game should include: A means for the players to interact and get inventive with the established setting tech.
They're mostly not as powerful as spells; you can make some effects better than sucky spells. There is a force-field generator that by itself makes a little Shield (like the spell), but can work up to making walls of force and 'uniform shapes' (however you wanna define those) by combining it with another gadget, the amplifier (a staple in about any complex collection of devices). These aren't force like the magic version--it has AC 10, hardness 10, and 10 HP per inch thick, so you can hack through it (a FAQ Ruling from Goodman said after it's been hacked through, it closes up, like the T-Rex stomach bullshit).
If you can't think of plenty of uses for a floating, shapeable, self-repairing iron-like substance that you can turn on or off as you will, well, I'm sorry for you.
Even so, some of the interactions are vague. You can make a lightning bolt shooter with a few gadgets and then just keep adding amplifiers on it. Amplifiers add another damage die (in this case, d4s) and doubles the range if you make it a ranged weapon. I seem to recall writing a mech-mounted weapon with a range over 13 miles or so. It depended on if the range doubled D&D critical style or like natural mathematics.
You can basically get away with whatever your character can pay for with money and materials and you can bullshit past the DM. Auto-targeting lightning bolt shooter? Why not?
I posted a little on the Goodman Games forums a few years back, and put up the idea for a Giant Arm (a large-sized Iron Arm with 24 strength made by combining two of 'em) and one of the devs was all "I never would have thought of that, that's pretty cool." So it basically is 'whatever you can explain away'
Back on subject.
Next up is a wizard class variant called a Constructor, who, you guessed it, has alterations to be more tech-fluffed, with altered skills, spell lists, and the ability to get a clockwork familiar. They're all members of the College of Constructors. I guess I'll get to them when their spell list comes up. Next!
The second real class is the Mech Jockey. They're the mech pilots. They get medium BAB by themselves, but Full BAB when they're piloting a mech. They can do a lot of things to make mechs go faster, push harder. They're explicitly likened to fighter pilots, and are basically the rockstars of the tech classes. So, of course, it says that most mech jockeys are humans.
Really need to decide if humans suck or rock here, guys. Thought this was not going to be a human-focused setting.
On a thoughtful note, their extreme coordination means they get Weapon Finesse and Quick Draw for free. Also a nice touch is they get very good spacial awareness and can just judge their mech's reach and size like it was their own. They also get reduced penalties for riding in a mech, which can give you seasickness because they're pretty clunky.
Cool for them, probably a bad sign for everyone else.
The next class is another variant: The tech variant of the rogue, the Stalker.
At last! People can play stalkers in a game and not weird out the rest of the table. They get the usual addition of some tech skills, and also two abilities that they
must take as their special abilities at level 10 and 13: At level 10, they get
contortionist, which gives them +5 to Escape Artist and lets them fit through some tighter spaces. At level 13, they get
That Piece Looks Important, which lets them take a Disable Device check against mechs to sabotage it in a non-obvious way. The length of time and DC varies from 1 hour for a large mech (with a DC of 16), to six months of study (DC 42) for a City-mech F. If it works, the mech in question comes to a complete halt in 2d6 minutes and the sabotage must be identified and repaired, which takes a length of time and DC half of what it took to break it.
Which is cool, but the increasingly long times of study required make it impractical for a gametime activity. But hey, you can do a campaign about screwing up the political balance of power by stopping a city-mech, and that's cool.
Last paragraph about it: "This ability is far more subtle than simply bashing in an important gear. It’s sabotage in the most inconspicuous possible manner. The stalker might remove a single bolt, cut a single wire, or file the edges of a gear by a single millimeter. This ability sums up the very motto of the stalker: cause maximum damage with minimum visibility." Okay, I'll give props for that.
The last class is the Steamborg.
I have a great fondness for these guys, not least because I played a level 8 Steamborg with 18 Con who got 84 HP out of a possible max of 96 (I'm usually lucky on HP rolls). So here's the deal: Steamborgs get a small implanted steam engine, which pulls water from their body (requiring them to drink a lot more), and it powers prosthetics. They're assumed to have 'enough' coal in the engine to keep them running for the foreseeable future, but if they run out, they lose use of their prosthetics; so a character will keep a natural arm or something.
They're a rare class with constitution as their main stat. They get some steam weapon proficiencies and tech skills (but notably not Mech Pilot, which is unusual for the tech classes. Last I checked, Mech Jockeys, Coglayers, and Stalkers all had it), medium BAB, good Fort and Will.
The Steamborg gets bonuses based on what prosthetics they're going for--arms can give strength, legs extra speed, eyes bonuses to attack rolls, that sort of thing. You can have a number of prosthetics equal to your con modifier (which is a really conservative way to do it, really), and they can make steampowers, too (just not as many as the coglayers).
They also have to make a check every day or act like a robot through a mechanic called Lose Self. Because getting a mechanical arm totally wounds your soul, amirite Street Samantha?
Her soul can't tie its shoes.
Another unusual touch is undergoing surgery to get some extras grafted in. The first time, it's getting metal plates grafted to their skin to give them a natural armor bonus, and the second time they can get their skeleton reinforced and replaced with steel to give them a con bonus. It takes money, recuperation time, and the services of someone with enough ranks in Heal, but it's pretty cool. If not really worthy of a class feature; why can't other people do this, given these are passive enhancements?
At level 19, they're so mechanical they become Ageless as long as they can keep themselves maintained and their steam engine running. And not crappy "You don't physically age but die of old age when your time's up." I mean "You get immortality as long as you keep yourself running." And that's pretty cool from a fluff standpoint. But it's level 19 and you don't care.
You don't get three or four prosthetics from the word go. You get Artificial Parts points, one every other level, and can use them on some of the aforesaid bonuses.
The bonuses are really underwhelming--+1 strength, +1 to melee and ranged attacks, +1 to Reflex or Fort, and so on down the list; I suppose the way to go would be to pick something like Strength or Attack Bonus and just go for that. A +10 attack bonus in addition to whatever you can score and you just won't care about medium BAB.
And so on until you get to "Natural Weapon". Which is cool and all, especially how you could scale it to crazy town if you -just- focused on that (what's 1d4 damage increased by size nine times?), but sort of underwhelming given how it lets you build weapons into your prosthetics.
Hey, if I had a prosthetic mechanical arm, I'd want a retractable shiv or a built-in gun in there.
The real crazy comes at the bottom when it says two Artificial Parts points can be swapped out for an extra HD.
Correct me if I'm wrong, because I've never seen that bullshit except for here, but I
think they'd get another Steamborg HD. D8, Good Fort and Will, and presumably extra skill points, but not class features.
They can also get an extra attack in exchange for three artificial parts points. That's right, gain pretty much nothing out of your key class feature for six whole levels in exchange for an extra attack at your lowest bonus.
God, I love that game design mentality. Don't you? Screw yourself now to get something later. And the something also sucks.
Steamborg is the soul and center of everything that's cool about Dragonmech, and everything that's wrong with it. It's got cool fluff. I like it quite a bit conceptually for the setting. I really ought to write a Tome Steamborg that gets feats based on their choices in prosthetics.
But it's extremely mechanically underwhelming (unless you like having the highest hitpoints of the entire party), and speckled with dumb mechanics. Extra HD? Sure, though we don't say how to handle that. Plenty of the classes in general have role protection via DC shenanigans (more on that later). or getting bigass bonuses to their class skills.
The game was written by conventional gamers and it shows throughout in how afraid it is to make changes. The new classes pretty much aren't as strong as the variants. Fluff is good in spots, but the new concepts have very conservative mechanics because Balance, while the monsters design probably doesn't indicate thinking like an optimizer: The lunar dragons are resistant to damage from air, fire and water spells (half damage, and none on a successful save) and take double damage from earth spells and effects.
What, are we going to have those Sand Dragons from It's Hot Outside save the world with their sandblaster breath? What other earth effects -are- there that do any kind of direct damage? As a
nice touch, they get a +10 to their save against mind-affecting effects, mind blasts, psionic powers, and detect thoughts because of 'alien psychology'.
Now, I bloody well
know a smart enough wizard is going to end-run those restrictions. A smart wizard isn't using Fireball on these bastards to begin with. Not when you have Solid Fog and that anti-dragon spell from It's Cold Outside.
With the reduced population, you can see why, in-setting, civilization started building mechs (which I'll get to eventually, I promise), but mechanically? You don't really -need- a mech except as a shelter from the rain, if you use the lunar weather rules (roll dice to determine the severity of your nightly sandblasting).
The tech rules are, at least, cool. But they're also overcomplicated (oh god, just try to build your own mech sometime using their rules, I dare you) and underwhelming when compared to stuff already in game (unless it's a mech). And that's a shame.
Anyway. That's normal classes. Next are the prestige classes.
I can (and do) bitch about Goodman Games' mechanical eptitude, but their marketing is pretty good. In all honesty, it's nice that they give out the free sample PDFs. There's more samples for the mech rules and the mech types. I'll link to them when appropriate.
*Thanks to Starmaker for reminding me that I didn't actually put this in.