tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10940780176568124752024-03-07T20:48:50.575-08:00Oddbit's PageA blog covering anything I feel needs to be covered, but most likely pertains to gaming.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-31786357509468619392022-01-16T16:56:00.001-08:002022-01-16T21:19:24.425-08:00AUTHENTIC ADVENTURES TEACHING CONTEST<p>Link: <a href="https://tao-dnd.blogspot.com/2022/01/launching-contest.html">https://tao-dnd.blogspot.com/2022/01/launching-contest.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>In an effort to ensure my last blog post is relatively recent, I am broadcasting the existence of a contest I will be judging in. I highly recommend keeping an eye on the contest, as hopefully we see some impressive work.</p>Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-16159478756940352942016-04-26T15:03:00.001-07:002016-04-26T15:03:40.964-07:00Tinkering with the Tinker: Level 10 (Sort of)<b style="font-weight: normal;"><div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-cbf35f3e-5497-73eb-c05a-1f65c1894c4e" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sadly, gameplay in my Tinker game has slowed. I have switched off into GMing my own game on alternating nights. This makes progression half speed, which combined with the slower leveling at the moment has caused me to only reach level 10 last session.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My love/hate relationship with the Tinker has begun to solidify a bit. Admittedly a large portion of it is due to playing a 3rd party class (which I recognize) but I'm starting to be able to form some words around it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The class really needs to figure out what it is. Some of the prestige classes seem to try and address it, but for the most part I feel like they just spin off into something completely different. It needs to stop excluding vast parts of the game, there are things like aquatic adventures that the Tinker is royally screwed with. Finally there are tons of taxes, little things you have to buy and do to even have a viable minion.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 17.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Figure Out What It Is</span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Minion Master</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Tinker does a poor job of being a minion master, as it doesn't address the complete lack of danger each individual (or mass of) minions poses. A simple Dr 5/Anything will take most of the damage away from your crew, with an alpha potentially breaking through. Given that their primary damages are Fire/Electric with little to no customizing of this, any flexibility to avoid resistances/immunities doesn't exist. Furthermore said opponents with those abilities generally also have DR. Their base stats also suck, so they're pretty much subject to destruction once anyone glances at them so long as they don't have immunity. (after lvl 5ish, their hp pool is huge at low levels)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Furthermore, it takes a standard action for each minion to target a new target. You can take a Greater Innovation to make them all ATTACK the same target IF you hit said target with a touch attack as a standard action. There's also an innovation and an Alpha ability to help with this, but in the long run it’s VERY costly. You'll find you spend whole turns just stopping minions from attacking corpses. Or, since you activated an invention, you'll have to re-command them to attack an enemy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A wizard or sorcerer with Summon Monster can probably outpace these guys pretty easily, with the added flexibility of some powerful spells. A Cleric's Spiritual Weapon out damages a regular minion by being force damage AND can summon. The only superiority they get is having buckets of HP sitting around on the battlefield impeding movement. If your DM determines enemy targets by rolling a die this is great. If it's by combat effectiveness, you can forget it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Caster (Weird Effects Maker)</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Tinker does a poor job of having caster abilities. Their fireball is just plain worse in every way. Their potential stun ability in electroshocker is thwarted by any decent DR to electric, it’s a fort save effect (undead/constructs) and failed attack rolls (until around level 14ish it seems). They also have a severe lack of scaling and variety. You can basically sum up their powers to 'poor fireball', 'Ok single target Daze', 'overly expensive heals' (can inject potions). There is one main exception to this, which is the fly speed combined with saddle, which is just 'game breaking' in many cases. I guess it's arguable that the amount of times you can cast said spells is potentially huge (level fireballs a day and level x3 +3 shocks a day), but given you get only so many standard actions per turn and the situational nature of the spells, the value per Tinker action is pretty low in general. Oh and the only invention that scales without having to invest more Build Points is the Kamikaze. As anyone who plays a caster knows, that sucks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An oracle or sorcerer blasts them out of the water they can’t even get a swim speed for.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maneuvers</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This could technically go under Minion Master, but it's worth noting separately as there are MANY inventions that deal with it. The only minion with any chance of being good at maneuvers is the Alpha until around level 10, then if you focus, you are still worse than the fighter, which means it wasn't worth the effort. At around 15 you get an ability that makes you superior. The main issue you're fighting with (heh) is that regular automatons are small and have shitty stats, meaning you will pretty much never beat the CMD on a meaningful opponent. It takes a standard action as a Tinker (or alpha) per maneuver taken. At around level 10, you get medium sized automatons as a greater innovation, which still isn't enough to keep up, but around 15 there is an invention that lets you use a maneuver on as an area effect which makes you FINALLY superior. Since there's no real loss to buying inventions later, you can basically ignore maneuver inventions till 15 and just take them once you get said area effect invention (costs cash, but just like scrolls - scribing cost). Of course, at this point the wizard is reshaping reality, so maybe tripping, sundering and disarming over an area isn't as cool.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fighter, Barbarian, Casters, they all have better maneuvers than you until a single invention is obtained. Getting two per turn means nothing when the fighter has 3+ attacks per turn.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Crafting</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With a class ability, and a set invention line, crafting should be a huge focus for the Tinker. That said, crafting in Pathfinder (and previous editions of DnD) sucks. What you don't see is the Tinker fixing this. Instead of a crafting speed bonus like the Alchemist, you get a bonus to crafting. Instead of minions getting decent crafting skills, they get HD to crafting (which is LOW). Since there's no caster level for a Tinker, you get no magic item creation, and the automatons DO get creation (Only brew potion and Wondrous Item) but with some heavy restrictions (cannot increase DC to ignore restrictions being the biggest) and using said terrible skills (spellcraft is not an option).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anything with a caster level is better than you, and you will need them for your own crafting anyhow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 17.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Stop Excluding</span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Terrain</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Skills and Actions</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is the biggest one. Let's go ahead and say that the ability to fly is off the table (still some concerns ON said table). It's in expansion content and requires an innovation (in other words a feat). Your minions cannot use skills without A: having the skill or B: the Tinker taking a standard action. Some fun facts: swim checks made every round are impossible for minions without swim skill, and with said swim skill, requires the Tinker tell them to swim as a standard action each round. Climb checks are similar. Once you get the skills (around level four) the minion's skills will probably be at +2, which means they aren't likely to succeed on any of them. At 10, I can get those movement skills up to a hearty +11 for 8 build points (hint, I only get 10 build points, so this is an unarmed minion until I spend the next 2). That said, why would I? I would have to sacrifice a standard action every turn. This pretty much excludes climbing and swimming adventures for your minion, and your alpha is going to have to sacrifice a lot of points to be viable.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sea</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ok, so let’s ignore how stupid the minions are. Let's follow up WITH said movement innovation allowing for flight. (Note, minions will fall out of the sky the second they have to make a fly check) Aside from flight there are two other inventions you are granted. One makes your minion into a boat, this DOES give them a swim speed, but it can only travel on the surface, and shorts out if it goes into the water. Note: There is nothing that says minions normally short out in water. Going underwater isn't a thing until level 13, when they have limited diving ability in a very long description. Given you can have flight at 7th level, this is kind of ridiculous. The shorting out mechanic also doesn't make sense if you have elected that your minions are running on "the power of friendship" one of the suggested power sources.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Quite recently I had to dive into the underwater rules, and compare them to automatons. Firstly, since automatons use mundane fire, none of it works. Ever. So I hope you invested in customkaze, I elected for force dropping my 7d6 (additional blast charges) to 3d6. Note: All inventions that add damage to kamikaze denote a specific damage type, this means that that additional 2d6 damage is fire and therefore would be negated in water. Secondly, the aforementioned swim speed/skill issues. Finally, all the swim speed/freedom of movement buffs to counter negative effects from swimming appear to be single target, meaning you can look forwards to not getting their benefits for your minions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Land</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In theory this is what minions are built for. With a strong 20ft movement speed, they're already lagging behind in most engagements. But whatever, it's just another disadvantage and calculation to add to the pile. But this isn't about the overland movement. Thanks to that cool innovation, now your minions can have a burrow speed! I have never taken this, I won’t take it ever, and here's why. Firstly, the burrow is only for soil. No stone, wood, and so on, so any really cool tricks won’t work. Secondly, let’s break down how directives work. Command a minion to do X, it does it, then waits for another order. So the most viable command would be an attack order, followed by the opponent BURROWING THROUGH SOIL. The automaton always takes the direct path, which would indicate burrowing would probably be the less likely choice. So let's say this happens. Now the minion has lost direct line of sight to the master, causing some fun effects. Effect 1, you cannot issue orders including but not limited to Halt! to make them come back and idle, and any other order to make them stop chasing the opponent. Effect 2: They lose the benefit of Master's Presence, turning them into a rather useless piece of fragile weaponry. Given it will be the only opponent, it will be swatted and life goes on. Fun fact, minion cannot actually see through said soil, so arguably they would not be able to pursue anything through it. So let's just ignore this invention some more then. Maybe if it could burrow through a wall it might be useful, but I dunno about that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Magic Item Creation</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Already mentioned, we gave the minions terrible skills and then made an even more crippling exception. We don't need this. Either choose to make it viable or don't. Minion gains craft wondrous item feat. Let them make whatever.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 17.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Taxes</span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Invention Tax</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here's an example of an invention tax, to have a minion fire a bow, you need to give it arms a quiver and martial weapon proficiency bow. This means you've invested 3 points and put down 3 lines to be able to use said bow. This basically makes it so ranged attacks are unavailable until level 3. And at that point you will have a small minion firing a large crossbow once a round for 1d8 damage (maybe). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The arms tax is the most egregious, but there are other taxes as well, without scaling inventions, many inventions require you buy an additional invention in addition to the original invention just to keep amping up the power. For instance craftsbot inventions, tools, arms, skill points, and class skills are all different inventions. And for a really shitty skill, it’s similar for all the skills. One invention to rule them all that levels up would do the job just fine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Gold Tax</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Remember that bow firing minion? Yeah you gotta supply it with arrows. Same for alchemy throwers, potion injectors and poison applicators. Instead of just giving them a default low level effect and the OPTION to add more, you have to supply all of it. Since you can't do arrows until level 3 maybe it’s not so bad, but it's definitely been prohibitive for me regarding even considering alchemy effects... which would still be at normal damage so not too useful in mid to late levels. Now there is an invention that allows you to get a couple alchemy items for free... For 3 build points. At level 10 this is a huge amount of points to get two alchemists fire or smokesticks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is of course, not including the price of the alpha, which is grossly overpriced compared to a familiar.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 17.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Alright So What?</span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I am currently in a brainstorming phase of coming out with a fan expansion for the Tinker. After I decide I'm running dry on ideas, I'll start writing up potential characters with each invention set in some useful form (comparing it to level appropriate challenges), if I can't think of one, I'll nix the invention and move on. I'll be looking at each invention both at obtainment and later on. I’ll probably start this process this weekend.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I think I'll also consider working on an optional redo of some Tinker stuff, kind of an unofficial rewrite with a potentially more generally useful or focused Tinker ability. It will probably do away with or rewrite a number of Tinker inventions and hopefully tweak things to make them more playable. There might be some more unbalancing combinations, but I think I’ll break some stuff down that I have experienced or been told about.</span></div>
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Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-73926502423267888442015-11-13T15:42:00.000-08:002016-04-26T15:28:46.104-07:00Tinkering with the Tinker: Levels 1-9 the RetinkeringSo now that I've gotten the general overview of the class down, here's where I consider doing some redesigning in house rules to make it more playable and/or interesting. The class has TONS of interest, but the success at low levels was painful to achieve.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Basics</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Honestly, I really wouldn't change much here. I color myself very satisfied. Potential to grow in any direction. At maximum I might just convert the knowledge section to all knowledges, but it's entirely unnecessary. The Tinker is much more an inventor than a generalized scholar.</span></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Abilities</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Mostly this is going to be about innovations, Craftsman, and the Swarm. Inventions are a HUGE swath of content that will be a chunk in itself, and the base bots and their interactions probably needs another section.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Craftsman</span></strong><br />
This one is easy. Crafting sucks in pathfinder, and having to be beholden to the same rules everyone else does when you spontaneously create clockwork automatons from a sack on a level per day basis is strange. Obviously you cannot just pull complete items from the same sack as that would be way too much.<br />
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I propose something in-between swift alchemy from the alchemist and master alchemist the feat. Or more specifically gradating from one to the other. Instead of a +1 per 2 levels to craft checks, multiply your progress in coinage by 2 at 2nd, 3 at 4th, 4 at 6th and so on. This puts your progress at Master Alchemist at 20th level, and Swift alchemy at second.<br />
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This doesn't allow you to beat higher DCs, it doesn't let you make things cheaper and it doesn't fix everything wrong with crafting, but gives you a chance to viably craft while on the move. It also gives you an edge in long term crafting.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Power Source</span></strong><br />
This is a footnote in the Tinker creation process. A great piece of fluff that never gets mentioned again. It makes me sad. I feel like the creator had the intent to do something meaningful here, but when the class got so complicated it was removed for simplicities sake. I laugh at that idea and propose an archetype. THE POWERED TINKER. Essentially it just trades its second innovation for a mandatory power based on the category of power type. Rough drafts below. Possibly could be specific inventions for different power types.<br />
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<strong>Elemental</strong><br />
Gets Kamikaze at 2nd level, but the element responds to the power source. <br />
Possible Options: Fire, Cold, Electric, Acid (fire is redundant, and arguably my position as the default power source. more on Kamikaze later)<br />
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<strong>Positive Emotions and Negative Emotions</strong><br />
As Elemental, but positive and negative energy damage also D4s instead of D6s so as to not stomp all over cleric territory.<br />
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<strong>Creation and Destruction</strong><br />
Destruction: Get Kamikaze, Automaton Combat maneuvers get +2, Automaton Craft checks get -4<br />
Creation: Cannot Get Kamikaze, Automaton Craft checks benefit from Craftsman (modified version would be best)<br />
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Obviously there is a lot more potential, but you could sum up positive emotions as the power of friendship and baby puree as Destruction or negative emotions.<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Swarm</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Just as a quick look at the swarm, I forsee some decent roleplay opportunity for the mage hand and Fabricate being an occasionally useful option. Now if we reworded the Fabricate section to override the single material limitation then we could be cooking with gas.</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Innovations</span></strong><br />
There are a bunch of these, but I'm going to hit a good chunk of em. For these and the greater innovations I'll be sticking to the core content, but there are plenty of very good innovations in the expansion content.<br />
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<strong>Aid Another Directive</strong><br />
I feel this should be wrapped up with Support Programming. Aid ability can be pretty great when you specialize into it, or stack it up with many allies, but the tinker is basically getting a 'remote' aid at best for the cost of one of these cool abilities.<br />
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<strong>Centralized Investment</strong><br />
Maybe it's just me, but this is totally worth it. Maybe not at early levels, but right now I have at least 2 deploys left at the end of the day AND I have this ability. The biggest cost is increasing the HD of your alpha which results in more GP loss if he dies.<br />
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<strong>Designer</strong><br />
Another amazingly worth it invention. Took this as early as possible to take a bit of the edge off of early level point limitations. Wont put a sword in your automaton's hand, but it effectively makes the rotor a 1 cost invention.<br />
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<strong>Direct Uplink</strong><br />
If you use your alpha for remote operations frequently it's a must. It also opens up a really great looking greater innovation for a special blueprint with an int score and magic item crafting. I made the hard decision to pass for more combat ability.<br />
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<strong>Extra Charges</strong><br />
No comment till I actually get swarm<br />
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<strong>Extra Inventions</strong><br />
You can learn inventions by spending gold. Feats are MUCH more limited. I would pass. But I understand the addition, it's a classic option for most classes like this.<br />
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<strong>Heavier Construction</strong><br />
Supposedly there's a span where you don't have enough HP on your minions until you can increase their size. I can't really speak to that due to the fact mine almost never get attacked. With the exceptional amount of deploys you will gather to replace any lost minions, I'm not certain the 5-8 HP you will eventually get will be worth it.<br />
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<strong>Heavy Construction</strong><br />
Three hit points. If you don't want strength and dex, but want designer, this is the one. That said, I think you want strength and dex.<br />
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<strong>Improved Construction</strong><br />
Part of the pre-req for designer this is the choice I chose and I don't regret it. At early levels instead of a 10 the minion starts with an 11, combined with stout design you can have a 12 str 10 dex minion for better slam attacks.<br />
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<strong>Kamikaze Directive</strong><br />
I feel like this should just be one of the big iconic trait of a Tinker. A minion running in and exploding into fiery shrapnel death. It scales, both in save DC and damage, has tons of support inventions, doesn't occupy a slot and is an area effect. There's nothing I don't like about it. Should either be a freebie or drop an innovation for it.<br />
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<strong>Master Plan</strong><br />
I think perhaps tinkers who specialize in support might need more blueprints. I do not. I have a ranged, a melee, an exploder and a spare. I didn't take this, probably wont. Especially if I take mega and giga droid.<br />
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<strong>Not Again!</strong><br />
Evasion for a specific ability who's deployment you have control over. And not even improved evasion. I don't think I'll be taking this. Could be useful if you take Contingent Kamikaze. I do not recommend taking Contingent Kamikaze.<br />
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<strong>Overwhelming Presence</strong><br />
I sincerely regret not having a 13 Charisma for this innovation. I get it, we can't have everything, but this is something I would really like. More maneuvering power. At ninth level you can be up to 90ft away from your minions! Needs a boost to range of directives too though.<br />
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<strong>Overzealous Execution</strong><br />
Do it. Getting bonuses to damage and hit are key for your little automatons. This will help them hit and inflict large amounts of pain. Especially will help you overcome damage reduction with +2 damage on your damage rolls. Combine with Paint Target to give your enemy a very bad day on turn 1.<br />
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<strong>Permanent Fixture</strong><br />
This looks pretty good. I've been tempted to take it multiple times, but haven't quite figured which one to go for. Considering choosing the paint buckets from Happy Little Automatons as there's no updating necessary and then my alpha can paint all my minions. Only downside is it can only primer once a day, while I could deploy minions to primer more than once.<br />
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<strong>Potion Injection</strong><br />
On the surface seems pretty terrible. Standard action to use a potion isn't SO bad. But if the minion dies while holding a potion, the potion is destroyed. Higher level inventions make this much better by increasing caster level of used potions and using more than one potion at once. Combined with support programing, the bot will deploy multiple potions with improved caster level on a single target automatically. With the magic item crafting you can even make the potions with the help of the cleric or wizard.<br />
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<strong>Preferred Blueprint</strong><br />
One blueprint getting +1 HD. Doesn't seem like much but if used on your most common blueprint it will basically improve everything that blueprint does. HD are pretty much the foundation of everything an automaton does. Very basic, but still good.<br />
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<strong>Rapid Orders</strong><br />
Basically next on my list to get. Probably before I have 3 minions. Early levels will let you be like a normal adventurer with a sidekick for a few rounds. Later levels will allow you to redirect your whole force quickly, or let your alpha kick butts instead of giving orders for a few turns.<br />
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<strong>Self Defense Programming</strong><br />
To be honest, not sure how I feel about this. It makes sense, it shores up a deficiency in automatons. That said, if they're not attacking I generally having them defending the ally most prone to being attacked. Could possibly be an invention instead?<br />
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<strong>Support Programming</strong><br />
Actually seems to make the minion pretty smart. Need some guidance as to what extent they interpret needs though. At least an aside just saying you don't need to give orders to make them do what you want them to in regards to those actions.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Greater Innovations</span></strong><br />
Unlike the previous, these cannot be taken with feats. I feel like you should want all of them, but be perfectly effective without any one of them. If you need a specific one of these to succeed, maybe the core needs some review.<br />
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<strong>Bigger and Better</strong><br />
On first glance it seemed amazing. More HD for all my minons! I mean it's not bad, but it doesn't particularly make your minions more dangerous, just more durable. Sure you could get one or two attribute points, but I think there are some more dangerous things to be had here.<br />
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<strong>Efficient Reconstruction</strong><br />
Makes a bad thing less bad. And gives your alpha more HD. I think the whole alpha rebuild should be brought more in line with the wizard bonded item replacement. 200gp per level instead of HD based. Mechanically more in-line with existing stuff, not horribly crippling, and if you can't handle so many HD for so little, consider that most HD stuff is really about doing better with less or the same materials anyhow.<br />
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<strong>Giga Droid/Mega Droid</strong><br />
I was originally shooting for this. I think I may have changed my mind. While the automaton is huge and can spike damage better, there is only one. This shoots your action economy in the foot. None of your fire or electrical damage increases with size, and there's a limit to the number of offensive inventions, so the actual damage bonus might not be that great. On the good side, you get more blueprints so it doesn't soak up anything existing and is just another option. Considering the implications for combat maneuvers and reach though. For anyone confused by the level requirements, they are the points when you would actually be able to use the ability, not obtain it. Yeah, I know, but maybe there's an archetype or something.<br />
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<strong>Independence Script</strong><br />
This one I really wanted. It follows a chain for magic item crafting and gives you a free intelligent bot. With a RP heavy game, or one with enough non-combat stuff going on you can put this one to really good use. I will probably be passing due to the size of my party though.<br />
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<strong>Paint Target</strong><br />
If you can shoot relatively straight, this might be a lifesaver for action economy. One standard action to order up to 3 automatons. Not good for particularly agile targets. Probably not a good combo for Giga/Mega Droid<br />
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<strong>Prismatic Strike</strong><br />
The creator vouches for the horrible implications of this. I'm seeing a potential +2 damage per attack per minion. There's some gross things that could potentially happen at high levels, but at level 5 it will more likely than not be around +1 damage per minions, 10 +2, and maybe start paying off around the 12+ level. Needs to be reworded more specifically. "Whenever the tinker or one of it's automatons deals damage, for each source of fire or electrical damage deal one more point of that damage." I stand by my stance regarding resistances, but I yield it's better than first glance. Maybe even better if you count the residual burn from an attack, or splash damage. Otherwise I would suggest some kind of minor boost like changing elemental types or to hit to push it further into greater territory. Or perhaps only applying to automatons and moving it into a regular innovation.<br />
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<strong>Rebuild Alpha</strong><br />
I would never take this. Ever. Should probably be a regular innovation. Losing a feat is bad enough, but a Greater Innovation is just terrible. I'll suck up a bad feat selection thank you very much.<br />
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<strong>Superior Materials</strong><br />
I regret not choosing this instead of bigger and better. If I don't go Giga Droid I will probably get this and paint target. The strength and dex basically mean more damage, better combat maneuvers and so on... And a little icing of some HP doesn't hurt either.<br />
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<strong>Swap Out</strong><br />
I have thought on this one a lot lately. If it weren't for how many deploys I generally have each day. Should my minions be more threatening and deploys less plentiful, this might be useful. Probably not good for someone with Mega/Giga Droid.<br />
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<strong>Weaponized Swarm</strong><br />
No comment till I get the swarm.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Ideas</span></strong><br />
So of course I have a few ideas on some innovations I would like to see.<br />
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<strong>Programmed Directive [greater]</strong><br />
Prereq: Know Engineering 8<br />
You can create a single special directive for each blueprint which is a series of directives. There can be up to a number of directives equal to your intelligence bonus and no more than one target creature and one target location per series of directives. The Tinker can command this directive as a standard action. The automaton will perform these directives in order using the given target and location whenever relevant and will skip any directives that are impossible. The directive can be interrupted with the Halt directive or a new directive being given.<br />
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example: the Tinker has an intelligence bonus of 4. It commands a Programmed Directive for it's automaton picking a target thief and a ground location.<br />
The directive appears as follows.<br />
<ol>
<li>Move to location</li>
<li>Shoot target with electroshocker</li>
<li>Shoot target with electroshocker</li>
<li>Attack Target</li>
</ol>
If the automaton only had 1 charge of electroshocker they would move to the location on turn 1, shoot at the thief with an electroshocker on turn 2, and on turn three begin attacking the thief normally.<br />
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Tweaking areas can be making it a full round action, losing turns with invalid directives and the number of possible directives.<br />
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<strong>Notes:</strong><br />
Doesn't stack with target painter, but allows for action saving should the enemy last longer than a few rounds. Should make action management easier especially if you tend to do the same thing every round.<br />
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<strong>Chemical Warfare [greater]</strong><br />
Prereq: Customkaze, Alchemy 8<br />
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When designing a blueprint you can elect for all inventions or directives that normally deal fire damage to deal acid damage or all inventions or directives that normally deal electricity damage to deal cold damage or both.<br />
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<strong>Note:</strong><br />
Fire and electric damage are notorious for being resisted. Still somewhat thematic with the burning/halting movement.<br />
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<strong>High End Supplies [normal]</strong><br />
Prereq: Craft Weapon 5<br />
When automations spawn with equipment it is of a higher grade than normal dependent on your level. Treat the equipment as having the following qualities if they are equal to or less than the Tinker's level. Valid equipment is weapons and shields.<br />
5th: Silver<br />
10th: Cold Iron<br />
15th: Adamantine<br />
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Helps bypass mundane weapon Damage Reduction.<br />
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<strong>Last Minute Planning [greater]</strong><br />
When an invention has a choice that must be determined while placing it into a blueprint, that choice can be set during the deploy step instead. Choice examples, Customkaze damage type, skill suite skills, mobile crafting stations simple weapon proficiency and so on.<br />
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<strong>note:</strong><br />
This assumes the current system for inventions. Weapon proficiencies should be exempt from this innovation should my proposed weapons system be adopted (arms, quivers, reloaders would not be required). <br />
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<strong>Martial Programming [normal]</strong><br />
When calculating an automaton's bonus to CMB or CMD use the tinker's level instead of base attack bonus. Furthermore instead of replacing the CMB add it.<br />
<strong>note:</strong><br />
The last line could be removed if it proves too powerful. Optionally, it could be removed from the alpha and only granted to automatons without an intelligence score.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><br /></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Inventions</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">For the sake of sanity I'm going to keep this to the core as I did with innovations. That said there are some pretty good inventions in expansion content that should not be ignored. Tinkering 201 and Happy Little Automatons stand out.</span><br />
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<strong>Level 1</strong><br />
<strong>Additional Blast Charges</strong><br />
A must have for Kamikaze driven bots. Brings you closer to dice = to level damage as you go through levels.<br />
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<strong>Arms</strong><br />
I feel like this should just be a given. There's few times I would NOT take this. Something like "The automatons have up to two arms as desired by the Tinker." Or some such. This is one of those tax inventions.<br />
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<strong>Brute / Precise Design</strong><br />
Before flight these are great tweaks for those Design points you have. Keeping in mind they only apply to certain attacks. I still use them when my automaton needs more damage or only needs to hit (for instance thrown grenade like weapons). Perhaps these could scale like Power Attack?<br />
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<strong>Compartment</strong><br />
Haven't used this yet. Its the most efficient space to point ratio, but slowest access unless you fill it with all the same stuff. That said, I doubt I would put different things in a compartment. I've done theorycrafting with it, but haven't found myself in a useful position for alchemical lobbing. Early levels it's effective but expensive, late levels I don't have bonuses like the Alchemist to boost the damage. With the cost of losing a compartment's contents, it might not hurt to have a high capacity compartment, or improve the base capacity.<br />
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<strong>Endearing/Intimidating Design</strong><br />
Effectively gives the automaton a skill at +3. Not sure what they would do with Diplomacy, Intimidation has limited combat application. Regardless both total skills is too low for use unless swarms of bots trying to intimidate gives a bonus. Thematically cool, perhaps some non-skill bonus as well?<br />
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<strong>Potion Injector</strong><br />
See the innovation. This is a gateway to cooler things.<br />
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<strong>Quiver</strong><br />
Another tax, furthermore the requirement to supply ammo is almost meaningless even at 1st level, so we might as well remove it. Only potential benefit is giving automatons ammo with special materials.<br />
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<strong>Reloading Winch</strong><br />
This costs 1 point. Arms costs 1 point. Unless there's a good reason for not taking arms, perhaps this should be removed.<br />
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<strong>Repair Kit</strong><br />
If I were a warforged, and/or once you get your alpha this is useful. Until you can afford the Scavenger's Stone. Will stay useful if there isn't a lot of magical repair in your game.<br />
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<strong>Responsive Programming</strong><br />
A must have for a front lines disruption bot. I have no problem with automaton's not getting attacks of opportunity. Keep in mind it only works for the automaton's current target.<br />
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<strong>Saddle</strong><br />
I need more information on this. It's amazing for the alpha no matter what. However, it's effectiveness on normal automatons is in question. If I have to take a standard action to tell it to move it is poor. Otherwise it is a good invention. Especially once you get the next version if you are medium sized. Combine with Rotor for great effect.<br />
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<strong>Simple Weapon Proficiency</strong><br />
Keep in mind that automaton's slam is pretty good already compared to simple weapons. (1d4 for a small automaton.) Getting one of these should mainly be for things like reach, ranged, two handed or other side benefits. There are some weapons that can boost it to 1d6, but that's getting about 1pt of damage for 2 points of build points (arms).<br />
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<strong>Stout/Nimble Design</strong><br />
Great at levels when your automatons have odd Strength and Dexterity scores. You can push them towards another +1 to strength based rolls or +1 to dexterity based rolls. This can actually be pretty large for the little guys.<br />
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<strong>Weapon Mount</strong><br />
Because you for some reason REALLY don't want arms. Or are worried about someone disarming your crossbow. Could be removed.<br />
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<strong>Level 2</strong><br />
<strong>Acceleration Unit</strong><br />
I used this pre-rotors a lot to get my automatons up to the standard 30ft move. As I am human it was very important. This could stack to make for a VERY fast ground mount later on.<br />
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<strong>Armored Armadillo</strong><br />
This doesn't seem so useful to me. If you have an automaton on the field doing nothing and consuming a standard action each turn to do so, then it better be an amazing wall or something. Superior responsive programming might help. But this feels like it should be a gateway to something awesome. Like an obstruction directive where it gains a size category, cannot move and acts like a wall in it's space.<br />
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<strong>Bulky Design</strong><br />
Pretty much has to be combined with Acceleration unit to be usable for grounded automatons. Doesn't reduce the speed of a rotor based automaton though. I've stopped using it as my automatons either are crushed by attacks far over their AC or ignored.<br />
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<strong>Craftsbot</strong><br />
This allows for your bots to do that 24 hour crafting I mentioned. Great for games with plenty of downtime. Not so great for on-the move games unless maybe if you get your own Independence Script bot. Keep in mind the base bonus isn't great on low level bots. Hiring some unskilled labor working in shifts could help. I personally had my alpha assist one bot.<br />
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<strong>Custom Robosaddle</strong><br />
Now gnomes aren't the only ones who can ride small automatons. Enjoy! <br />
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<strong>Disarmer/Sunderer/Tripper</strong><br />
Maneuvers are rough for small sized automatons with low base stats. If it didn't take a standard action every time you initialized a maneuver maybe it would be worthwhile from the sheer tenacity of the bot. Not recommended. Might be ok on a tricked out alpha once they have martial weapons. Could also probably stand to be 1 build point instead of 2.<br />
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<strong>Expanded Repair Kit</strong><br />
Same story for repair kit. Not excited about this. Maybe if we could boost the amount repaired it would make Repair Kit more exciting.<br />
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<strong>Faulty Overclock</strong><br />
Here's your first chance at some elemental damage. It's one point of the most resisted form of elemental damage, but it's also only one build point. Later it will become more powerful. Apply liberally to all enemies.<br />
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<strong>Flaskapult</strong><br />
The minimum cost to make this work is 4 points and however much gold for the alchemical supplies. It's got a nice boost to range, but the benefits don't sell me. Maybe if there were more alchemy boosting inventions, something to increase their base damage. Perhaps a whole alchemy invention block?<br />
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<strong>Grappling Hook</strong><br />
Remember, your automaton's are stupid. Good luck explaining ladders to them. With a saddle I can see this working out pretty well. Assuming you aren't already flying.<br />
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<strong>Heedless Design</strong><br />
Just as a note, I am assuming this causes automaton's to charge whenever valid for attack directives given that there's nothing I've seen so far that suggests they would. If so, this looks alright for when you need an extra boost to damage. I have not used it.<br />
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<strong>Improved Compartment</strong><br />
Be sure to note the increased cost in build points. You lose one item vs two regular compartments.<br />
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<strong>Improved Reload Routine</strong><br />
Crossbow automaton's can benefit greatly from this.<br />
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<strong>Mobile Station</strong><br />
A necessary +2 for those crafting bots.<br />
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<strong>Physical Skill Programming</strong><br />
Now you can tell your automaton to climb, or swim, or whatever physical skill seems appropriate. Given Directives are spoken this might not be great for automatons without an int score. I highly recommend it anyhow as it will stack with later inventions.<br />
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<strong>Poison Application Device</strong><br />
Automatons are immune to poison, you may or may not have craft alchemy. This works great together should you be able to gather yourself a good supply of poison.<br />
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<strong>Potion Lab</strong><br />
Requires someone to input the spells, but allows your friends to not have to take brew potion.<br />
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<strong>Shrapnel Compartment</strong><br />
Great for Kamikaze, I guess you can store some alchemy in there too. DMs with low foresight and high RP may have already allowed you to store small magic items like amulets in a compartment. Here is where you get them to reverse said decision with a necklace of fireballs.<br />
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<strong>Singed Earth Module</strong><br />
Bigger boom is always warranted. This boosts your scaling attack and in other words is a good place to put some BP on one blueprint.<br />
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<strong>Skill Specialization</strong><br />
Great for all skills, like fly, craft and physical skills such as the ones you also unlocked at this level. The +3 may even be larger than your automaton's HD making this more valuable than the ranks themselves.<br />
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<strong>Slow Repair Module</strong><br />
I guess you could put this on the alpha. Otherwise I don't see much use to it. You could get it if you still haven't gotten the Scavenger's Stone mentioned in the Repair Kit entry and don't mind giving up build points on your alpha. Also a candidate for scaling.<br />
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<strong>Stabilizing Gyros</strong><br />
If someone is spending their maneuvers on your minions, you are doing something VERY right and/or they are doing something VERY wrong. Instead of watching your automaton sit there on their ass, put another one out and laugh at the enemies feeble attempts to stop you. After you Kamikaze the fool who is trying to grapple your minion of course.<br />
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<strong>Static Shield</strong><br />
Two points is costly for 1d2 damage against enemies that hit you. That said, you could lay out a lot of 1d2 damage if you could draw enough attention. Best taken for the later implications of some inventions. I threw it on my alpha once it became an attack of opportunity powerhouse. I think a later invention only costs 1 build point, was this a typo?<br />
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<strong>Streamlined Design</strong><br />
This stacks with things like Accelerator Module. Get your minions moving really fast on the ground! The AC loss could actually be meaningless depending on if your minions can draw DM ire.<br />
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<strong>Switcheroo</strong><br />
For when you have not enough arms and too many weapons? Doesn't help for drawing alchemy items so the use is pretty specific. Not recommended outside special cases such as Simple Weapon Mastery.<br />
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<strong>Thick Armor</strong><br />
1 build point for 1 AC. Not useful to me as rarely are my automatons attacked. If they were, it's not a bad investment.<br />
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<strong>Twin Vial Injector</strong><br />
You started down the path, this is where it leads. It's common sense, take it.<br />
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<strong>Two Weapon Flailing</strong><br />
For when your enemies AC is low or you need 20s to hit.<br />
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<strong>Level 3</strong><br />
<strong>Augmented Dexterity/Strength</strong><br />
Strength is great for melee, Dex is good for ranged automatons, and even better for the alpha. Watch the Build Point cost though, this is nothing like the ability score designs from earlier.<br />
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<strong>Augmented Structure</strong><br />
I have yet to have wished my automaton's had 2 or 3 more hit points. I feel like the build points spent on defense increase defense two-fold. Firstly they actually boost defense stats, secondly they make your minions less of a target as they are less likely to be dangerous. Would rather have a minion go down in a blaze of glory than flail uselessly.<br />
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<strong>Customkaze</strong><br />
I have not used this yet. I should, but I haven't. Keep in mind it changes only the base damage and none of the improvements such as Extra Blast Charges. Some of the damage types can help you bypass the terrible damage types the Tinker generally uses. Fire and Electricity are bound to be resisted by the big baddies.<br />
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<strong>Electroshocker</strong><br />
One of the big two at this level. This invention scales as far as the effect goes, and is devastating against flying opponents. One thing to watch out for is electricity resistant enemies. If they don't take damage, they don't take any other effects. I put this on as many automatons as I can.<br />
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<strong>Extra Languages/Speakers</strong><br />
Speaker should be 0 points. Extra Languages is ok I guess. At this point you probably have someone with tongues, comprehend languages or you've used your Linguistics skills to great effect.<br />
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<strong>Flawed Overclock</strong><br />
Take it if you can. It's just more damage and who doesn't love more damage?<br />
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<strong>Grafted Tentacle</strong><br />
This is the second of the big two. I put this on my Alpha with as many other modifications to boost it as possible and it works wonders. Should be used with Superior Responsive Programming. My alpha has taken Combat Reflexes and it just spells a bad day for anyone who approaches me. (I'm riding my alpha on a saddle.) Would be nice if the stats for the tentacle were just spelled out instead of using whip information though, just to make things perfectly clear.<br />
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<strong>High Yield Charges</strong><br />
More boom. Yes take them.<br />
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<strong>Inflammable Citrus</strong><br />
I dunno. This sounds handy if you would ever do something like this. I don't think I will. It seems like the creator had something specific in mind, but I can't quite divine what it is. Probably something to do with sunder or disarm.<br />
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<strong>Kinetic Transference Device</strong><br />
Assuming the same thing as heedless design. Also, stack on some speed for this one.<br />
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<strong>Manufactury</strong><br />
Take a careful read, one compartment, 3 goods, 2 build points. If you are super committed to lobbing alchemicals and have none of your own, this might work for you. I don't recommend it as you'll need all the build points you can for things like accuracy, Inflammable Citrus, and the 3 other points just to put a catapult arm on the thing. I may experiment with trying to make this work on my spare blueprint. Probably will require NOT using rotor. Keep in mind, you're only getting one to one and a half rounds of shots from each of these.<br />
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<strong>Martial Weapon Proficiency</strong><br />
Yes please. Greatswords, rapiers, maneuver bonuses, crit ranges... They're all in the martial category. Including but not limited to Composite Longbows. Nothing like strength damage to ranged attacks.<br />
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<strong>Mechanical Monkling/Mechanical Ninja</strong><br />
Depending on how you're managing initiative/if your automatons are attacked often will determine the choice here. It's not BAD, but I definitely would consider carefully if you want 2 points for +20ft movement speed. If you're maxing out speed for something like the Kinetic Transference Device then you know what to do.<br />
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<strong>Obsidian Construction</strong><br />
Your automatons are already nigh immune to everything but damage spells. The penalty seems a bit much for the benefit.<br />
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<strong>Point Blank Programming</strong><br />
Not bad, but I think most folks take point blank shot just to unlock other abilities. Still bonus to hit and damage is never bad.<br />
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<strong>Rapid Fire Programming</strong><br />
And here we are. This is the one you really wanted. More damage at the cost of accuracy. Similar stance here as with Two Weapon Flailing.<br />
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<strong>Shield Proficiency</strong><br />
Same stance as Thick Armor except now you're sacrificing a two handed weapon or dual wielding for the bonus. I'm probably not going to use this.<br />
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<strong>Simple Weapon Mastery</strong><br />
So from the rule of cool, this is VERY cool. You know have all the simple weapons strapped to ONE minion. This gives you damage type options, but doesn't really give you the awesome weapons like from Martial Weapon Proficiency.<br />
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<strong>Slow Burn</strong><br />
Sounds great. But at the level you can first get this you can only use Alchemists fire to achieve this burn. Recommend waiting unless you have already started lobbing.<br />
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<strong>Skill Suite</strong><br />
Now you can have all the skills. Or at least one per selection of this suite. Stacks with previous skill bonuses for "superior" crafting and other skills. A 2 build point cost will probably keep you pretty focused in your automaton's functions though.<br />
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<strong>Static Eruption</strong><br />
With static shield costing 2 Build Points I couldn't reason spending 3 for 1d2 damage. Maybe later when I either have more points or static shield has upgraded damage.<br />
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<strong>Static Sheathe</strong><br />
See Static Eruption, but now I'm paying 4 Build Points. This one is key to the writer's Prismatic Strike combo.<br />
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<strong>Superior Responsive Programming</strong><br />
Take this for all your attack of opportunity needs. Now your minion is like everyone else, and great for threatening those foes. Assuming of course the minion is dangerous in the first place. No point putting it on a heal bot.<br />
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<strong>Triple Vial Injector</strong><br />
Finally! You improve potions just by giving them to your minion. Enjoy the fruits of your labor and anticipate the rewards to come...<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">More Inventions</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I feel like some inventions around improving damage and perhaps accuracy of minion might be worthwhile, especially looking into things that scale rather than do set damage. Furthermore, a lot of the intent in design seems centered around the later game.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Automatons</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This section will cover the two main types of automatons I have used. The Alpha and the standard Automaton. Note that these are two very distinct types of automaton due to their sizes, their special abilities and their ability scores.</span><br />
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<strong>Automatons</strong><br />
The previous review covered most of it, but the main points I think that need to be improved for these little guys is their Combat Maneuver traits. They need a bump to have a chance for their maneuver inventions to work.<br />
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Their Wake Up Call could stand to have a mechanical effect. It's a great note, but might as well be trappings that can be changed for each time the Tinkerer is played. Perhaps a personality trait bonus based on blueprint? <br />
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Their Can We Help? ability should clarify if it's a normal aid check, or if they can aid for any check.<br />
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Their HD might be able to be accelerated a little bit. This might allow for earlier attacks and better skills. Might be fun to have an innovation or invention that grants one combat feat.<br />
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<strong>Alpha</strong><br />
The cost is too damn high. If it dies, it should be more like the cost for a Wizard. 200 per Tinker level.<br />
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Alpha feats are great. You have to pick and choose from the list, but you can find some pretty good feats. I currently have mine using Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard for some bonuses to my defense as well as my allies, and when combined with the Grafted Tentacle the attacks of opportunity go a long way.<br />
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Drill Sergeant is also great. As you get more minions you need more commands. One the first round of combat I can get all my automatons in order due to this ability alone.<br />
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With all the boosts you can get for the alpha, they can become much more dangerous in ways the regular automatons could never be. Most of said bonuses are in the ability scores, my alpha is up near 22 strength and 20 dexterity, my regular automatons are lucky to get 16. I'm not sure what could, or should be done about this, but I do have concerns about higher levels being even worse.<br />
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I regret not playing a gnome for two reasons, one is the ability to ride small automatons easily, the other is not getting the Build Points for my alpha.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion</span></strong><br />
I don't think a TON of major tweaks, but I can see how the class could be greatly improved by some tactical changes. The creator has mentioned in a few public posts they were considering some of the rules for the class, and there is a lot of extra content on their blog and in expansions. It's enjoyable, but not amazingly effective.<br />
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<br />Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-22136578710173530742015-11-09T23:10:00.001-08:002015-11-13T23:36:04.334-08:00Tinkering with the Tinker: Levels 1-9On April 25, 2014 I started building my Tinker for a Pathfinder adventure path. As of the time of writing this post, I have achieved level 9 from level 1. The adventure's player guide calls the adventure path "Serpent's Skull" I feel like it should have more to it in the naming, but I have not made an effort to look up the adventure as I am still playing it.<br />
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This is a review of the <a href="http://paizo.com/products/btpy8yja?The-Tinker-Master-of-Modular-Mechanical-Mayhem#tabs">Tinker </a>class, made by Interjection Games.<br />
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If you have not played it, and wish to avoid spoilers, I will not be intentionally providing spoilers, but I will not be holding back if it sacrifices my review of the class. Also, if you have played the adventure path, and notice anomalies, it's because the DM has a habit of greatly modifying the base adventures as he sees fit. Basically, don't assume any adventure references will apply to your DM's running of the adventure path. This warning applies to all future reviews for this adventure.<br />
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Here is a link to a character sheet snapshot for interest in statistics and choices.<br />
<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rp3ByGZKwwJn0SkBequhOd7FuJlgOj_FXJ4XOLIi9o8/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rp3ByGZKwwJn0SkBequhOd7FuJlgOj_FXJ4XOLIi9o8/edit?usp=sharing</a><br />
Please excuse the mess, it's a living document since 2014.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Party</b></span><br />
Our initial party consisted of a ranger with bow focus, a paladin with an intimidation focus and myself for a total of three adventurers. We most commonly took an NPC cleric with us when adventuring and still do. Though we have built him to also be a magic item crafter.<br />
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Our paladin was forced to leave, and we are trying to get a replacement character started. The latest class he's played was a Cavalier, but previously he tried a Wizard and was disappointed with the results.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Basics</b></span><br />
While playing the tinkerer, I have had no complaints about the core traits. Skills, Hit Dice, Base attack progression. It all seems pretty in-line with a utility character type not focused on combat, but near the front lines. It also gives you some useful skills and allows you to be a trap finder should that be your thing. As I mentioned into the Intro to the Tinker, the Use Magic Device, Perception and Spellcraft all are really handy.<br />
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I've investigated the potential of improving the armor class of my character via feats for greater armor proficiency, but have not been targeted enough for that to be worthwhile and my strength isn't too conductive to heavier armor. Mostly I have spent my feats on more innovations. I'll go into more detail on that later.<br />
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As for the ability scores I chose, I am only a bit unhappy about my charisma. It is inhibiting an improvement to the range of Master's Presence. Aside from lack of strength for carrying, it's not so bad.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Core Abilities</b></span><br />
<b>Building Automatons</b><br />
If you look at the character sheet I've linked, there is quite a bit of madness in there. When it comes down to it, I created an easy method for me to create and utilize my automatons. Without it, I think I would have had a VERY hard time building and managing my minions. This is NOT a class for someone disinterested in doing paperwork for the campaign. I build and rebuild minions by filling in the Blueprint Calculations tab with inventions and anything else that affects the statistics of an automaton. Using these sheets helps me break down where every bonus is coming from and helps me recalculate should some basic trait be altered. For instance Preferred Blueprint, size category changes or improved construction. This data is then totaled at the bottom and in the weapons section (orange) and sent to the Blueprints/Automatons sheet. There it displays the full information in short hand and calculates the Master's Presence.<br />
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Feel free to steal the sheet should you wish to make a tinker, this is a LIFE SAVER. Roughly put instead of calculating a small size automaton, and its hit dice effects over and over, I can copy paste data between blueprints, just add or replace inventions and otherwise manipulate the sheet with little trouble. The only real issues I have are with hooking up a new blueprint which is a careful process of copy pasta and adjusting.<br />
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With all the exceptions, requirements and math involved I must reiterate this is not a class for lazy people. I find this kind of work entertaining and enjoyable so it's actually one of my favorite parts when I'm not rushed. Tweaking and rebuilding my minions.<br />
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<b>The Good</b><br />
You actually get to build your minions. I love it. I like picking their weapons, their special abilities and even their color with one of the expansions. (Remedial Tinkering: Happy Little Automatons) I have not had a lot of time with the paint in Happy Little Automatons, but I think I would have loved it earlier in my tinker career. Your end result is a custom built Crafter, Vendor, Assault Bot and so on. The point system is logically straight forwards, and with only a handful of blueprints, it's not overwhelming once you get going.<br />
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With the invention book working just like a spellbook, as long as your wallet holds out you can learn everything. You can't INSTALL everything on the same bot, but you can KNOW everything.<br />
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<b>The Bad</b><br />
There are a lot of unnecessary taxes. You have to buy your automaton's arms. If you want it to speak there's another point. Your bow will need a quiver by the way, and it doesn't come stocked. Even minor tweaks cost a point or two. Some costs can be reduced by taking Designer or Permanent Fixture, but I think that a few of these critical and sometimes redundant inventions and complications could stand to be removed.<br />
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Scaling is few and far between. As someone who plays a wizard, if it isn't all powerful, and doesn't scale, then you're probably not going to take it. The basic automaton doesn't even have multiple attacks on the chart. That implies that once you reach level 20, you're probably still only going to have a base attack bonus of six on your minions. Your alpha will probably get a second attack around 15. <br />
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This isn't even looking at inventions. Most inventions have a set amount of damage that will never increase. The primary exception being the Kamikaze, this ability manages to be trailing behind a wizard's fireball in perpetuity, with it's closest approximate being my current level nine equivalent doing a blistering 7D6 + 1 + 1d4 to an area 15ft in radius as opposed to the 20ft 9D6 of a fireball. Last level the top was actually two less with 5D6 + 1d4. I give special exception to the Electroshocker. This weapon is not really used for it's ability to do 3d4 damage, but for it's devistating ability to Daze the opponent. Fortunately, effect DCs DO scale. One expansion introduces fireworks, lots of complication for a couple dice of damage and minor effects, but nothing to call home about.<br />
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Many inventions need some clarification. For instance, how is the saddle used? Can you use ride checks or do you need to command the minion to move with a standard action? What does the diplomacy even do for endearing design? Why would anyone take weapon mount instead of arms? If minions try to assist you in crafting and they don't have the skill, can they even grant a bonus? How should you handle initiative? Do automatons ever 'run out' or can you save them overnight? What attacks are magic and which aren't against incorporeal foes?<br />
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<b>Using the Automatons (combat)</b><br />
First off, always have your full allotment already deployed. There's nothing saying they die overnight, so you can start of with a crew AND have a full allotment of summons. Even if they're on their last legs you can use them for a Kamikaze. Which I'm assuming you took because its one of the few attacks that scale. Second, the tinkering 201 introduced flying minions, so if you haven't strapped a saddle to your alpha and are aerial right now I hope you aren't level yet for both flying and saddles (level 4, requires one innovation and a point in ride, 4 points for infinite flight minion). Finally, forget ever having standard actions. In the rare case I find time for standard actions, I realize I have an allying shovel in one hand and a shield in the other therefore I spend another move action on something else. Also, something I learned late in the game, use your alpha up front, it takes very few innovations (feats) to turn them into an attack of opportunity fiend and a brutal two handed wielder.<br />
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As with building automatons, you have to be with it. You have to pay attention, plan during other players turns, and have a set of actions ready to go when it's your turn. Bonuses ready, dice rolls noted, stat blocks handy. You're effectively playing four characters now, even though one is mostly just telling the others what to do. If you've got a sane DM, he'll let you shorthand your actions once he's used to your minions. For instance, at this point I pretty much denote who has the allying bonus, who has +2 vs which target (<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Combat Advice)</span>, what order I give, and then roll all the attacks. It helps that the DC is always the same (22).<br />
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You need Buffers. Not spaces between things, you need someone to cast haste, or mass bull's strength, or mage armor. Without it, your minions lose out on some important benefits to damage, defense or even in some cases utility. Personally I created myself a couple magic items for the job with permission from the DM, but with so few standard actions it makes it hard to use. Mage armor can be done pre-fight if I remember, but the haste kazoo has to be used mid-fight and those standard actions are like electrum. Still, giving all my automatons and some allies bonuses to speed and an extra attack (that they'll probably never get otherwise) and a little dodge is pretty great for a single strong opponent.<br />
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<b>The Good</b><br />
When things go well I'm doing what I wanted, commanding an army of minions who run around causing chaos and occupying squares. I may be performing few personal actions, but I'm far from lacking things to do. I always wish I had just one more action. The flair of it all is amazing too, aerial combats harassing ground combatants or dueling flying opponents. Zapping things into control with my tasers (electroshockers) or sending minions in to obliterate with fire and shrapnel.<br />
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Minions are constructs. No mind effecting abilities, no fort saves that wouldn't affect objects, darkvision and the lot. It's amazing to have that, and when one of them can give your other minions orders? It doesn't matter if the fleshy party is enthralled by the enemy, they're going to keep kicking ass and taking names.<br />
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<b>The Bad</b><br />
When things don't go well, my minions are always missing. They're essentially crit fishing or bouncing off damage reduction (fire and non-magical damage have that issue). Sure they're durable, but that doesn't really matter if they can't HURT anything. Even the electroshocker has to actually deal damage to daze (less common but still common DR). Very few things have the ability to brute force their way through DR (alpha is the only candidate worth mentioning) and special materials aren't a thing till level 3 inventions (in an expansion book) and that's only for slam attacks. You CAN equip the minions with ammunition, potions and alchemical weapons, but if they die they are destroyed. At level 4 inventions a way to bypass specifically magic damage reduction is available for 1 point, but by this time I've been ignored by enough foes to expect opponents to ignore me.<br />
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Using inventions sucks. Special inventions that is. Assuming you don't have to re-order your minions every turn, you will if you want them to activate special weapons such as electroshockers, repair kits or combat maneuvers. Activating ANY invention requires a standard action unless it is activating a support item and you have commanded the minion to support a target. This can be someone mitigated early fight with tactical use of Defend commands, and are two innovations that can help, but otherwise you may find yourself in between using your alpha to bypass DR or having it order a minion to attack a foe.<br />
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The innovation needs are REAL. You've probably seen it throughout this review so far. You are crippled unless you take this innovation, or that innovation. I think there are a handful of innovations that should be downgraded to inventions, some in greater innovations that could be dropped to regular innovations, and maybe some things you just shouldn't have to pay for (I'm looking at you speaker). As you can see in my character sheet, I've pretty much burned every feat in the book on innovations with the exception of Combat Advice. Fast learner is essentially chosen as a potential 3 innovations instead of one. With all of the innovations I've chosen, I still have issues even making my minions look threatening when they're not exploding (though when they are their bite isn't as impressive as the bark.)<br />
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The concept of a character not personally taking part in a fight seems almost alien to Pathfinder (and DnD in general probably.) It's hard to find magic items and feats that are well geared towards mastering these minions. Without them being able to use magic items, and without me actually doing anything direct, I've had to come up with weird and exotic equipment just to keep them running. For instance allying weapons so they can have magic bonuses or haste kazoos. Feats are also tough. Most Teamwork feats aren't all that useful and would only apply for the alpha. Also be sure to pay attention to special wording that might invalidate mindless constructs as targets. (say... enlarge PERSON.)<br />
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Let me tell you the story of the Tinker who's alpha died at level 5 in the middle of the jungle. No seriously, it cost 4000g to replace at level 5. My DM took pity on me and let me rebuild it for a fraction of the price at the next town. It's just ridiculous that the most melee capable minion you have will set you back a +2 magic armor, or +2 int item, or any number of great things.<br />
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<b>Using the Automatons (Non-Combat)</b><br />
If you look at my choices, you'll notice I went a particularly martial route. With three members of the party there was no room to stray to sweep up the magic item crafting. This was a REALLY difficult choice. But I can roughly imagine the result with item crafting. Remember, a caster needs to sit with the person who is doing the crafting for the full duration if they are providing a spell, so potions probably not a good choice, and I would likely be disappointed with the amount of items that used Weapons, Armor, Bow or Alchemy for their crafting component (can only make minions with craft skills you have).<br />
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<b>The Good</b><br />
For mundane crafting you are SET if you would normally have time to craft. Your minion does essentially triple the work you do in a day. It also can provide assists for anything you might need and comes with it's own set of tools. This doesn't really hit extremely useful levels until at least 3rd level inventions when you scrape up the last of the skill bonuses, since it's based on HD and automaton HD doesn't increase much you need all you can get. I helped mitigate this by a magic item with Crafter's Fortune 2x a day +5 to target till their next craft check for the win.<br />
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Did I mention INFINITE FLIGHT? Also, by putting saddles on the little automatons your friends get free rides too! One build point for giving your allies flight that you were already giving your minions is GREAT! The whole setup costs 4 build points, but it's like getting +10 speed, flight and mounts. Since rotor is a design it tallys up those two design points from designer nicely.<br />
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Even if you don't use infinite flight, there's a cool grappling hook ability, and you can make your minions go 50ft for their base speed (60ft for alpha) with a few low level design inventions, some of which that improve in later invention levels. There's no shortage of design options!<br />
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The alpha makes for a pair of hands that can be where you're not, or where you cannot go. Doesn't breathe so it can check out underwater pretty easy. Doesn't suffer from hallucinations or any number of poisons or diseases. It might fly, dig, float or even run way faster and way better physically than you probably can, so let it.<br />
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<b>The Bad</b><br />
Remember those standard actions for inventions? Yeah, that includes perception skill sets. And should you think sense motive is a good idea that too. Oh and since the skill bonuses are based on HD prepare to be disappointed in the highest achievable skill. Easier just to ignore physical with the flight invention. No point in even thinking about a diplomacy bot until speaker at level 4 inventions and even then with no int score I can't even imagine how they could use diplomacy for anything. At that you would never give it to an alpha as wasting those precious points on your biggest damage potential is a terrible idea.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Other Abilities</b></span><br />
<b>Innovations</b><br />
There's a lot to want here. That's great! I think it's a good sign that you want things from a pool of cool abilities. There's also necessary stuff here. That's not so great. I feel like if the character pretty much needs to take something to be useful/competitive, you might as well just give it to them. And with the tinker usually being easily ignored by most foes, perhaps a bit of an edge might not hurt. For necessary options see: Kamikaze and Designer. Kamikaze at least should be stock. Designer just makes it playable early game. When compared to things like Not Again! and Aid Directive it's no contest.<br />
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<b>Greater Innovations</b><br />
Rebuild Alpha, Swap Out, Prismatic Strike, these really shouldn't be here. I'm aware the creator has a bit of a love of Prismatic Strike, but just no. A level 1 invention gives +1 to all weapon attack damage, but we need a greater innovation for a +1 to energy weapons? I might consider it for a regular innovation should I run out of choices. If it weren't for Efficient Reconstruction's +2 HD I would put it in the same boat. Oddly enough it counteracts itself by increasing how much you have to pay should your alpha die by increasing it's HD again. Also, Contingent Kamikaze is just a liability, if the party knew you CHOSE that feature... I mean really, that is invention material if I ever saw it, maybe we can replace speaker with it, and make speaker 0 cost.<br />
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<em>Edit: So I did some careful shorthand math using an example from the writer for Prismatic Strike. At level 14 (level at which half the starting gold for a character can afford a +6 weapon as described) a tinker getting a full round attack with a burst rapier scoring all crits while all of his minions attack foes, using the most abusive interpretation of the wording can score an additional 42 damage in one turn from 12 attacks.</em><br />
<em>Using the least abusive interpretation its 15 additional damage per turn from 12 attacks.</em><br />
<em>I am of course assuming the tinker got paint target so as to most effectively allow themselves to maximize attacks with their rapier. That said, I have strong doubts they'll ever get a full attack action as they will probably need to change targets every round should they be successfully hitting non-resistant targets in this fashion.</em><br />
<em>Fire resistance 10 would wipe almost half the benefits away, fire/electricity resist 10 pretty much all of it. A quick survey of the presented monsters in the PSRD (avoiding dragons) at CR14 show 7 of 15 had both, 4 had one and 4 had no relevant resistances, 2 of the four that had neither had a vulnerability.</em><br />
<em>I can break down the math at earlier levels, but given this was the earliest the ideal circumstance can arrive I think the concerns are obvious and relevant.</em><br />
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<b>Master's Presence</b><br />
This is okay it definitely adds some flavor to commanding and incentive to work as a squad. It feels like it could be better for Combat Maneuvers as they quickly lose pace, and some passive boost to damage would help.<br />
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<b>Craftsman</b><br />
This is that +1 to all craft checks for every two levels. I could just as easily not had this. It's tallied up to a cute +4, but at my level I just made a 40 rolling a 5. It's fluff, as hitting craft DCs isn't all that hard, and when you combine it with a huge inability to do anything QUICKLY, it's nigh worthless. See Swift Alchemy and Master Alchemist for attempts at making crafting not suck. This isn't even worth as much as a feat by level 10. For someone who makes intricate almost living creatures level times per day you'd think they could at least make a longsword in a jiffy.<br />
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<b>The Swarm</b><br />
This isn't so much a review as a prediction. Until able to be used for disintegrate, this will be a gimmick. The Fabricate ability should be looked at closely, for most crafting projects it's not useful as only one material can be used. Might be useful for impromptu doors, small mundane supplies like walking canes and chairs, sabotage and moving 40 lb objects. (Most of these things already doable easily).<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Finally</b></span><br />
I'd say this is a very interesting idea. A lot of the stuff here is pretty awesome. There's a lot of potential. That said, I have some gripes. The class IS playable. In fact, I am playing it now (with some minor house rules) and I am not doing great. I'm not doing poorly, but my little automatons aren't doing much with their meager base stats. They aren't fearsome enough to draw enemy fire, putting the alpha, myself and the party members on the line instead of the disposable assets.<br />
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Outside of combat they help crafting greatly... When I have a month of free time, which was once ever in the campaign.<br />
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If it weren't for such a flexible DM, I would have lost a lot of hope in this class. I have a couple custom abilities to make up their deficiencies, such as a scaling acid attack. They've also allowed me to use my craft skills in less time consuming, but less mechanically helpful ways (RP stuff).<br />
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But I just can't get enough of trying to rebuild to solve the problem. I don't think I can do it within the system, so in my next post, I'm planning on seeing if I can improve the system. It's not that I don't like the class, but at this point I have regrets for picking it as others might help the party better. If I really didn't like the class, I wouldn't take the time to write about it. I'd say I love it... except it could use some touch ups.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-19892681401072034572015-11-09T15:59:00.001-08:002015-11-17T09:31:48.961-08:00Blueprint for a Tinker, An Introduction To TinkeringCommanding an unstoppable force of unrelenting automatons in devastating waves against your foes isn't how you will start out as a tinker. As with all adventurers, a humble beginning is in order. Wizards have their cantrips to change the flavor of food, fighters have their second hand swords and armor that ISN'T plate, and clerics eye scrolls longingly for those extra utility spells to negate the strange and wondrous afflictions they may encounter. You start out with a chunk of metal and legs. But let's start at the beginning and break down the numbers. Mostly this review will cover numbers and mechanics, because to be honest, anything else is just trappings. The specific appearance and manifestation of your mechanical army will probably be as various and interesting as the imagination of the player running the tinker.<br />
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This is a Pathfinder Class created by Interjection Games<br />
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Link to SRD: <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/interjection-games/tinker">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/interjection-games/tinker</a><br />
Link to Buy: <a href="http://paizo.com/products/btpy8yja?The-Tinker-Master-of-Modular-Mechanical-Mayhem#tabs">http://paizo.com/products/btpy8yja?The-Tinker-Master-of-Modular-Mechanical-Mayhem#tabs</a><br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Base class information</span></strong><br />
Average hit die of d8, 4+Int skills, Cleric Base Attack Bonus, Reflex is the high save. Their armor is light their weapons are simple and they have basic shield proficiency<br />
This is all pretty ordinary stuff. It seems about on par with things like the alchemist or wizard. The class is intelligence based, so 4+Int (which is low) isn't particularly crippling or anything. The skills that are class skills for the tinker include Use Magic Device, Linguistics, Perception and Disable Device as some noteworthy options. Also noteworthy, the Tinker only suffers arcane spell failure chance for armor they are not proficient with. So if you are proficient in heavy armor, you do not have a chance of failure.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Basic Tinker Gameplay</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The tinker main focus is summoning automatons. These start out as small sized constructs with a size based slam attack and a pretty fair amount of Hit Points out of the gate. You can summon an automaton once per level per day. You have a maximum number of standard automaton's summoned based on your level, starting at 1 and topping out at 3. There are abilities that allow you to summon special automatons bringing you up to a total maximum of 5. However there are also abilities that allow you to summon more powerful automatons but have a lower maximum deployed.</span><br />
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Summoning an automaton is a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity. When they are summoned they start with an order (referred to as a directive). Generally this will be to attack a particular enemy, but there are multiple base directives and some special unlockable ones. Giving a new order is also a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity. Orders are given in a special language that acts like spellcasting.<br />
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Basic automatons are small sized mindless constructs. They have 10s in their strength and dexterity which are the only stats they have. These stats will improve as you level. They have a 1d4 slam attack and move at a speed of 20ft. <br />
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Basic Automaton Stats: <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/interjection-games/tinker/tinker-automatons">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/interjection-games/tinker/tinker-automatons</a><br />
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These automatons are extremely basic and not particularly impressive at level 1. That said, their pool of hit points is far from inferior at this point, and anyone with a 1d4 basic attack can contribute at such an early level.<br />
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An example round for a level 1 tinker might go like this.<br />
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Move Action: Move to advantageous location.<br />
Standard Action: Deploy automaton with attack order against a target.<br />
Automaton Move: Moves to target.<br />
Automaton Standard: Attacks target.<br />
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Some important points to note. Automatons are stupid (no intelligence score), they continue their order regardless of anything else going on. They will attack corpses, they will stand idly while they are attacked, they wont use special abilities of their own accord and they don't by default get attacks of opportunity. If a target dies, you will have to order the automaton to attack a new target, which is another standard action. Fortunately you do have the ability as a free action to order all your automatons to stop what ever they are doing.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Customization of Your Bots</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This is the fun part. The automatons by default are bland, boring and will quickly become ineffectual without the true flavoring for your meat and potato minions which is inventions and innovations. Inventions are the special parts, gizmos and traits you give to your minions. Innovations are powerful effects that usually apply to all of your automatons. There is also another effect which improves your minions, the Master's Presence ability. This ability gives a passive bonus to all your minions attacks and defenses while they are within 30ft of the tinker.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Inventions</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Every automaton has a blueprint. A list of all the inventions cobbled together to turn your minion into the Frankenstein's monster of finely or poorly tuned destruction and creation. You start out with one blueprint, plus one more for every three points of intelligence bonus. It doesn't seem like much, but you will unlock more as you level up, and since you are an intelligence based class, a 16 is a very likely score you will be using. With a 15 you're probably also fine. At first level, you probably wont end up using more than one of your blueprints anyhow.</span><br />
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Each of your blueprints has a maximum build points total. This total is equal to your level. Each invention has a build point cost. The bulk of the early inventions are going to cost 1 build point. Later on the average cost will rise to about 2 build points with special and powerful inventions being 3 or more.<br />
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Each invention gives your automatons a new ability or trait. Some level one inventions are things like; arms, the ability to wield simple weapons (and a free simple weapon when deployed), the ability to be ridden like a mount and tweaks to accuracy at the cost of damage or visa versa.<br />
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An example level 3 automaton might have the following inventions.<br />
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Arms 1bp<br />
Simple Weapon Proficiency (longspear) 1bp<br />
Stout Design 1bp<br />
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This gives you an automaton wielding a longspear who's strength has been increased by 1 point and dexterity reduced by 1.<br />
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<strong>Innovations</strong><strong><br /></strong>
Innovations are abilities that really define what kind of tinker you are. You cannot change them like inventions and they apply to all of your automatons. Your first innovation is gained at level 2 and you proceed to get another every fourth level (2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, 18th). This seems rather limited, however there is a feat to grant you an extra innovation. This allows you to scoop up other great innovations and really focus on your automatons.<br />
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Some of the innovations are basic boosts to all your minions, like Improved Construction which gives all your minions +1 strength and +1 dexterity. Some apply to specific minions like preferred blueprint which gives a single blueprint of your choice +1 HD. A few give the tinker abilities like Rapid Orders which allows the tinker to give directives as a swift action twice per day. And there are some that give the automatons new abilities, like my favorite, Kamikaze which turns your minions into self destructing mini fireballs.<br />
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Most innovations have requirements. Some are level requirements, some are invention requirements, and even some are ability score requirements. Be sure to check for those when planning your tinker's path to world domination.<br />
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<strong>Master's Presence</strong><strong><br /></strong>
An basic automaton without it's master is about as dangerous as your common lawn ornament. With a master's orders they can take up arms and march against their foe. But for really getting your minions going, you need to stay close and provide the encouragement only a personal touch provides. Master's Presence is an ability that gives your automatons a bonus to their attacks and defenses based on your Base Attack Bonus and Saves. Without it, most often your minions will be swinging their swords/bodies/tentacles ineffectually and inaccurately. Not only that, but given you can only give orders to minions within 60ft, staying close gives you the ability to maneuver and order more easily.<br />
An example of the effects of master's presence at level 5 using a minion with no inventions or other bonuses.<br />
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Minions Normal Attack Bonus: +2<br />
With Master's Presence: +5<br />
AC without: 11<br />
With: 14<br />
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There are similar bonuses for saves and combat maneuvers, but lets not clutter this page with stat blocks. Needless to say, stay close, but don't get caught in the fire of your latest Kamikaze.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Other Stuff</span></strong><strong><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong>
There are a few other cool things the Tinker gets later on in their career. Special automatons like the alpha, a bonus to crafting and greater innovations.<br />
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<strong>The Alpha</strong><br />
At level 4 they get an extra special automaton, the Alpha. This automaton has more build points in it's blueprint, has an intelligence score of 10 (so it doesn't require orders), gains feats and is larger than it's inferior counterparts.<br />
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However you must be more careful with this powerful automaton. Firstly, should it become destroyed it is VERY expensive to replace. Secondly, it's inventions can only be changed when you level up. Finally, you can never change it's feats after they are chosen (without taking an innovation to do so).<br />
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<strong>Craftsman</strong><strong><br /></strong>
The tinker makes life (or the semblance of such) with his own two hands on a daily basis. This also happens to cross over into more mundane tasks. For every two levels the tinker gets +1 to all craft checks. This gets fun when combining it with minions specialized for assisting with crafting as it helps you to make more goods faster. Never underestimate the power of an industrial machine that doesn't sleep, eat or sweat.<br />
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<strong>Greater Innovations</strong><br />
Greater Innovations are innovations that are in every way better than normal innovations. These innovations cannot be taken with a feat, and are only granted at the levels 5, 10 and 15. They have powerful effects from granting all your minions large bonuses to their attributes, to allowing you to deploy another intelligent minion capable of doing activities independently while the master attends to more important (or safer) business.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Sum of the Parts</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">The tinker is a highly customizable and unique class with a multitude of recombinant possibilities. Each tinker can go in with the same set of inventions and come out with a vastly different result. It gives you the opportunity to make your own summons. Beyond just the stock items you can find on the SRD there are a handful of supportive rules as well to expand the number of innovations and inventions available to your Tinker.</span><br />
<br />Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-40478853704756182602015-11-09T12:37:00.004-08:002015-11-09T13:28:47.622-08:00Planned Review:Tinkering with the Tinkerer from 1 to 9.Long time no blog.<br />
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So I have decided that I absolutely need to do a review of a 3rd party class I've been playing in Pathfinder. It's called the Tinker and made by Interjection Games<br />
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We're doing an 'adventure path' (a set of adventures tied together in an arc) that should take us from level 1 to level 20.<br />
Seems like it should be a great method to run through the paces with the class.<br />
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Not only do I plan on doing the review, but I also plan on re-tinkering the class back to something more playable and enjoyable. Once done, I intend to post the review on the book itself/send it to the maker.<br />
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Admittedly we've already house ruled some stuff to make it playable, and the DM is VERY flexible with the adventure path (injects some logic and flavor in areas apparently lacking). It still generally will come down to the mechanics of playing a character and working through them.<br />
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The first review should be levels 1-9. This is due to my character currently being level 9 and the fact that level 10 is a special level where many new abilities unlock. I predict this will require a level or two to test and balance and therefore it makes level 9 a great point to cut off for the first review. The second perhaps taking place around level 14, and the last one or two being at 19/20.<br />
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It seems like it would be fun. I complain so much about aspects of the class I can put my "time" where my mouth is and go for it. Review and potentially fix the lot of it.<br />
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Oh I forgot.<br />
Link to the class for easy access.<br />
<a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/interjection-games/tinker">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/interjection-games/tinker</a><br />
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I have also purchased all the digital splat books for the class and will be referencing inventions in those books too.<br />
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As a rough overview, it's a complicated minion summoning class. You build minions with points then you can summon them and use them to fight your foes. I'll get more into how it actually plays out in the review, but there's a lot of pre-calculation to be done when playing the class, but if you have the stat blocks prepared when you sit down to combat it's potentially simpler than a summon monster spell for dealing with stat blocks.<br />
One more edit.<br />
After taking a look at my notes, I think an introduction to the class is in order prior to any reviews.<br />
Current review plan.<br />
<ul>
<li>Intro</li>
<li>1-9</li>
<li>10-14</li>
<li>15-20</li>
</ul>
Meatiest content will probably be introduction and 1-9 as they will cover basic tinker gameplay as well as the unlocks for each levels 1-9.<br />
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<br />Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-10598411472657605942015-01-20T13:26:00.001-08:002015-01-20T13:28:19.706-08:00Possible Future ProjectsWell it seems like my energy levels are starting to rise again. Might as well harness the energy while it lasts.<br />
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I was rereading some old blog posts and found the Abstract project I was working on. I think I may want to look into it again and begin some work on it.<br />
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I've also been thinking about building a "universe" builder for my space game. Essentially it would generate a universe, populate the areas of interest and then highlight the interactions.<br />
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I think both will need some administrative work before they could begin, but for the second I actually have a volunteer who would help me work on it.<br />
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<strong>Work to be Done</strong><br />
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<strong>Abstract Project</strong><br />
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<li>Gather existing data</li>
<li>Assess direction and compare with recent learning</li>
<li>Establish goals of system</li>
<li>Attack project</li>
</ul>
<strong>Universe Generator</strong><br />
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<li>Build Design Doc</li>
<li>Establish landmarks of project</li>
<li>Assess actual manpower</li>
<li>Pre-Establish formulae plans</li>
</ul>
As a general update...<br />
<ul>
<li>I was forced to end my space game due to players dropping out or being absent. (Employees being let go and such)</li>
<li>In a pathfinder game playing a third party class (potential writing material here)</li>
<li>Still working with the guys from Rust Devils games on Zed or Alive (A wargame with a campaign system focused on zombie apocalypse and small squads)</li>
</ul>
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Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-46087699798457032402014-12-17T21:30:00.001-08:002015-01-20T13:27:05.980-08:00A Practiced VoiceI've been stressed lately. Lots going on at work, called into and serving Jury Duty, girlfriend doing grad school, and... well a lot of artificial stress. Resulting in migraines and illness and whatnot. Just a personal update before the meat of things. Since it's been a while.<br />
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The space game has been cancelled due to one of the players in our skeleton crew getting fired in unfortunate circumstances. My live group played for the first time in forever, but as usual new game new characters new premise... It gets a bit repetitive. Maybe I should insist on continuing something next time. My Google Hangouts group IS doing a long arc game. I say long arc as I know it will end and we'll end up starting over again. I haven't done nearly enough work on any personal projects, what with the new employees at work and everything combined with my reaching another low point in my ever roller coastering mood, I haven't had the energy.<br />
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I still have ideas, ideas I could execute and some which I think would actually make it easier and quicker to prototype. But that's neither here nor there right now. Right now this post is about something else.<br />
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Lately I have been thinking about when I sought professional help for depression. I've done it twice in my life and both times left me feeling... Well not better, that's for sure. Right now I feel like I'm functional, I know my mood rises and falls like the tides (on longer cycles I think), but in some exceptional cases, I just felt so down I never thought I'd rise out again. That nothing was going to get better, there was nothing *I* could do. Not how I am. So I went out into the world for help. For real solid help on what I was missing what I needed to know and understand to control and improve myself, to keep myself from being in this place in the future and drag myself out of the deep hopeless... I would say pit, but imagine it more like being at the center of a great hollowed out planet. A pit you could walk around the bottom, or grab onto the sides and climb. In the hollowed out hole, there is nothing... nothing you can do. Nothing to grab, no down or up or even if you could wrap your head around the center BEING down and everything else being up, it would be admitting that THIS was it, the lowest you would ever be and there was NO escape, no easy direction.<br />
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So with this feeling I went to a professional. I went to a location where they said, "Come here for help." Help is an interesting word. I wonder if those people knew what it meant. Or if perhaps my impression of help is too high a bar for a professional to meet. The first time I did this, was after breaking up with my first girlfriend. I have a hard time with transitions, between jobs, between schools, between homes. They always set me into a bad mood. It's not something active, I just get angry. When I graduated from High School, the person who walked next to me was very upset I ruined her graduation pictures with my foul frown. But such is me.<br />
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Anyhow, so I went to the college health center, following up on all the recommendations that freshmen are given (I was a sophomore, but it's irrelevant really) They plopped me in front of some faceless person who listened to me say two sentences then passed me a trial bottle of anti-depressants and told me to see if they help before shooing me out.<br />
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What do you do with that? Isn't the first step to helping listening? Isn't it asking questions and honestly wanting answers? Isn't it finding the root of the problem and helping to solve that?<br />
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This wasn't really what got a rock in my craw recently and made me want to write though. It was a doctor I spoke to recently about my migraines that got me itching to post. To post about another occurrence over a year ago when I visited a doctor about depression.<br />
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After another event that drove me to pretty extreme emotions, I visited my Kaiser medical facility following up on a specific section covering depression. This time I came a bit more prepared (I'd since learned that just shutting up and listening is apparently a terrible idea if you really want to get anywhere in life), and went in being more specific and talking clearly and elaborating with the doctor. He nodded, and looked right through me. Not at me, but in the direction of my face with vacant eyes. He reached into a drawer grabbed a pamphlet from the top and handed it to me. And then began to talk to me in a slow, methodical and altered tone. At the time I thought it was a patronizing tone, but after my recent encounter I can only conclude, it was supposed to be a sympathetic (or empathetic, there is a difference) voice. But all his physicality, the falseness of the whole thing was like a slap in the face.<br />
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Since then, I don't know if I could go back to that kind of professional for help with depression again. I think I'd rather pay someone to chain me up in a dark room and feed me through a straw for a few months until I missed my old life desperately enough that the depression had all but left me.<br />
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No, it's experiences like this that taught me that structured society has no place for people with issues like me. People with issues that don't just disappear with a pill. Or at least people who refuse to use that as the perpetual treatment of symptom. Me, I can cope. I have friends and family who will help me when I'm down. I don't even need to say depressed, I can just go to them and talk or whatever. But what about the people who can't even do that? After the doctors spit in their face a few times and they realize they are truly and hopelessly alone, where does that leave them?<br />
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I'm not surprised there's so many people out there who can't take it and fold. I'd rather talk to someone who doesn't know what to do but listens than listen to that damn practiced voice.<br />
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Anyhoo, sorry to be a downer, I just had to get that out.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-54687394564934279102014-04-06T17:43:00.001-07:002015-01-20T13:26:41.537-08:00Progress 4/6Though lack of blog updates is evident, I have actually still been working on the project.<br />
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I'd concluded enough changes had occurred that a reprint was necessary, and even since then have done more work.<br />
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This has included writing down some abilities for the science and engineering roles, recording damage effects, upgrading the ship sheets for the engineer and creating one for the pilot, expanding on travel and making notes about critical failure during damage.<br />
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I'm adding more about how characters can get damaged on a ship.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-71318148668026732202014-03-19T18:58:00.002-07:002014-03-19T18:59:28.564-07:00MoraleNo update for this week, but I do have a thought I'd like to try and expand on.<br />
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I got an email from a video game website called Gamasutra. It was an advertisement on behalf of a book claiming to be able to improve the reader's writing skill in things such as quests, missions and puzzles. This line alone sent me thinking. So I'll set it up with an example of a very noteworthy experience in MMO gaming I had. Specifically a Quest/Mission/Puzzle. A Quest/Mission/Puzzle that ruined me forever in the world of Quests, Missions and Puzzles.<br />
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The setup for the mission was rather simple. The player didn't have to seek out a quest giver, they all had it already and decided to do it on their own. However, the quest didn't have a defined destination and furthermore the ACTUAL destination was one of those ones that moves around. In this game there was a HUGE world to explore and the destination could pretty much be ANYWHERE. Finally, there wasn't any mission text associated with the quest. It was just kind of a known thing that had to do something to get the reward. Strangely enough most people just knew the basic idea of what they needed to do.<br />
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The execution for the mission was a bit more tough. Depending on the amount of tools you had you could use expensive expendable items to narrow down the search to about one of 20 giant zones. If you didn't, you had to play a game of hot and cold on each of the zones and compare the best 'hot' result between all of them to find out which spot was the actual reward. Anywhere else would be a lesser reward which might be acceptable for lower tier players, but at the upper echelon would simply not do. Each of these giant zones could take a day to explore in any reasonable manner as well and were populated by extremely dangerous enemies at times.<br />
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The difficulty was compounded by the fact that the reward could be claimed by another player preventing you from claiming it yourself if you were too slow.<br />
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This reward was not something a few people were seeking every once and a while. I guarantee you were in competition with at least 30 or more people at any one time. The task was cutthroat.<br />
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And even if you spent the time and found the reward, it wasn't something useful to start with. Firstly you had to have expensive and specialized equipment to claim the reward. It wasn't instantly gained, it could take hours before you saw ANY of the reward. Once you claimed the reward it wasn't worth anything but what other players would pay for it. It, in and of itself was worthless. It wasn't a weapon, armor or consumable. It had to be converted to something useful. This usually required searching for THE SAME KIND OF REWARD AGAIN. Possibly several more times. If you didn't, it might have well been some shittier version of the reward.<br />
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After that, you had to have developed super high quality skills, purchased amazingly high quality tools and work with other people who have done the mission as many times as you, and have similarly high quality tools and skills to turn the reward into something useful. Did I mention to get these skills you had to develop your character to have them from the beginning? Furthermore odds are, this useful item was worthless to you and you would have to SELL IT TO SOMEONE ELSE or give it to another very high skill character of yours to use.<br />
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And it was amazing. It was beautiful. It was the best Quest/Mission/Puzzle I had ever done and would ever do. It ruined me for every Quest/Mission/Puzzle I had ever done. And do you know why? Because there was no written story. Nobody had taken the time to come up with the plot for this. This was the highest tier of crafting for a game called Star Wars Galaxies. The people who were able to complete these quests played as a class called the TRADER. They literally had a class for crafting. A class that had no quests past the first starter quests. The most elite would complete this 'Mission' and be widely known as the one with the best blasters, armor or lightsabers or whatever it was their specialty was. Because you couldn't even do everything!<br />
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This sounds like a horrible mission, but it wasn't, because the people who surveyed whole planets looking for the best metal did it willingly. They did it to be the best and succeed at far greater skill than anyone else. They had to level up BY CRAFTING to get to that point. Monsters gave no XP to Traders. They enjoyed it because it was the path they had chosen. Not because it was shoved down their throats by someone who thought we would want to save the Jawas by fetching them 3 idols of Jabba the Hutt after killing twenty Gammorians.<br />
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So why the hell would I buy a book about writing great missions, when the greatest mission I ever pursued had no writing? I just can't keep my morale up while grinding through the 30th Gungan.<br />
<br />Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-61698070746918812972014-03-10T11:16:00.002-07:002015-01-20T13:26:32.235-08:003/10 UpdateNo game last week, cancelled due to lack of players.<br />
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Spent more time working on a Wasteland Weekend costume upgrade and my other team's project (coming out soon to a kickstarter near you).<br />
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I should have tried to do more, didn't end up doing it.<br />
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I did however confirm a group for scenario playtesting eventually (just repeat combats with minimal context)<br />
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I think I should have worked more on setting lore since I'm waiting on rules for another pass attempt to see which direction I should take it.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-66959524302179077892014-03-02T17:58:00.001-08:002014-03-02T17:59:20.974-08:00Progress Update 3/2Need to ensure I have one running between each of these posts.<br />
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Addressed most issues from last post. Hopefully ready for next running.<br />
Going to try and only print out necessary sheets for next game.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-53342634425030732752014-02-27T09:38:00.001-08:002014-02-27T09:39:01.071-08:00Delayed Update for 2/22Was supposed to be a very busy weekend.<br />
Had three games planned and had to get the system playable for Monday.<br />
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<br />
Two games cancelled and one downgraded to online resulting in having a lot more time, but also resulted in me forgetting about posting. Should set an alarm or something...<br />
<br />
<br />
ANYHOW<br />
<br />
<br />
The first game with the system in use went much better than expected. The players caught on quickly and the system went through a functional combat. I need to come up with a pilot sheet and maybe some counters to shift around to make things easy, but I think it's looking good.<br />
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Areas that need development. Warp, aside from needing a new name needed to be written down and jump delays evaluated.<br />
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Salvaging needs minimal functioning rules.<br />
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Cargo space needs to be developed into minimal functioning rules.<br />
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Chases need to be developed into having slightly less bias towards ship agility and more bias towards skill. I think I've already got a handle on this.<br />
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Player morale is good, I think they're looking at exploring their options.<br />
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Damage effects NEED to be written down.<br />
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I need to take better notes during play.<br />
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Gotta figure out why Google Docs didn't have the most up to date doc on another computer (the one with a printer) <--- VERY IMPORTANT<br />
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Formations 'worked'. Haven't tried with PCs in a formation.<br />
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Game started off with a crit fail on a warp check followed by a crit fail on a notice check. This was amusing but had us start with a pirate ambush.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-9070394596671460462014-02-19T20:53:00.001-08:002014-02-19T20:54:24.948-08:00Positive IntrospectionI'm procrastinating again. The moment I have a deadline for my setting project I just collapse. I can guarantee I'll have something passable by Monday (my deadline), I can work on Thursday and take notes Friday evening during game, and even maybe do some brainstorming over the weekend, my Sunday group is a bunch of lightweights, so I'm sure I'll have hours in the evening and morning.<br />
<br />
But the procrastination isn't really what this post is about. Perhaps it is the initial spark, but as I was perusing the blog, checking my old comments, I read the last one. It was a long time back talking about things I carry with me always, and very personal. Reading the end, I think now is a great time for a follow up. Probably one of the last paragraphs. Right now it's 8PM so I'm well before the damn 2AM depression/insomnia window.<br />
<br />
I put down many things I might talk about at the end of the post. But I think I would like to talk about my successes. As usual, a stream of consciousness, but it's going to get personal, and specific. <br />
<br />
I think if I look backwards, far far down the line, some of my favorite memories are of games. Playing computer games with my father, I was proud to do so. Of doing the jumping part on Super Mario Brothers that the baby sitter's daughter couldn't do when we hung out (she probably could, but also probably was boosting my young ego as some do. Keep me involved and whatnot.) I can remember when I first beat Oregon Trail, just as they called me in to collect my birthday pencil in elementary school. I can also almost remember the proud moment when I pieced together a 386 that was my first computer. Although that was well past elementary school. And then there was when I made my own cyberpunk system for playing with my neighbor in a tent in his back yard, and he enjoyed it. <br />
<br />
I knew it was crap, as I had played a full fledged D20 system who's name I cant recall at the moment and the neighbor would follow me into a den of hungry bears, but it is one of those strong memories. It was games that stuck with me. I played sports, but I never had much pride in it. Sure there was stealing home and winning the game when the coach told me not to run, and there was playing a goalie in soccer and scoring goals every once and a while, but they didn't stick. For me, the big victories were in games, in sharing them, beating them and building them.<br />
<br />
One of the oldest games I 'made' that I can remember never saw multiplayer. I would take Jenga blocks, RISK and monopoly and make them into soldiers that fought each other, and you had to buy the blocks and soldiers based on your performance. Simple, but it still had structure, form and customization.<br />
<br />
Another great success in my life was my being nominated for a big event in Texas called the Youth Technology Leaders Summit. In retrospect I know the reason I went was because the prior kids couldn't afford it, and somehow my parents could, I still will never know how. They supported my education throughout my life and I owe a LOT to them. It was an even where many different 'kids' got together and shared their skills and attended seminars. The culmination of the event is to solve some world problem. It was pretty amazing, and after 9/11. The towers were downed and we were bundled inside and hidden from the terrorists, even then I knew it was bullshit, but fear is fear.<br />
<br />
There were other small successes, a smart trick in Boy Scouts during a one sided camp game, a pinewood derby car simple but efficient, a science project of a spinning atom, a catapult that bent 1/4 steel rods that had to be replaced after multiple shots, going from the worst unreal player in my class to dominating everyone... Lots of small things, nothing stands out much in that period.<br />
<br />
College however opened up a lot of opportunity for successes with meaning to myself. For one thing, graduation. High school graduation made me angry, college, knowing I had to fight for it made me relieved, and lost. But it was a hard fought victory. Incompetent and self absorbed teachers were rampant, and good ones were always there to help. My poor memory skills brutalized me in GE and Art History, but I still prevailed. <br />
<br />
It may not have gotten any GE requirement, and most people wouldn't understand, but my D in human anatomy is the grade I am most proud of. That class was the epitome of everything I am weak at, but I put in the hours and beat out 50% of the 50% of the class that DIDN'T drop the class. Had they all stayed that probably would have been a pretty damn good grade.<br />
<br />
I am proud of standing up against two of my incompetent professors, one publicly in front of the whole class. By building a polished sculpture of a hand flipping off the viewer. Specifically facing the professor who ruined two of my projects.<br />
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I am proud of the time I came to the office hours of the shitty programming professor and told her that I had come to her office hours every week for the last 2/3 of the class and not gotten a straight answer on why the program I made that the entire class was based off was not working for her and did for me. I am also proud of the final project I made despite the issue, the project I put in my portfolio for getting a job.<br />
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I am proud of knowing when to swallow my pride with the logic and critical thinking teacher who remembered me 4 years later when I came to talk about that one assignment he had refused to grade as I had apparently insulted him in it.<br />
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I am proud of taking the reins on my final game design project and making it happen despite 1 of my two partners was completely incompetent. <br />
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I am proud of how well I eventually drew still lifes and figures in hand drawing, and how well I actually painted in painting.<br />
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I am proud of doing black and white photography in a dark room by hand. I am proud of the art that came from it.<br />
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I am proud of having attended regular events at the local comic shop and befriending the owner.<br />
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I am not proud of what may be one of my greatest successes, accepting my partner of 9 years' proposition of getting together. I am proud of the results, but honestly I was betraying a friend who was interested in her.<br />
<br />
College was good for me. But there was more yet to life. I still had to find a job, and that came with new opportunities. I spoke of my previous job when I was still at it. When it had rotted and become fetid with neglect pending a buyout by a larger company. These were dark times and did not make the last post any brighter, but they had many bright times too.<br />
<br />
I was chosen to be hired for one. That was a great success as at the time jobs were hard to find, and competition for the spot was actually existent. I was station 13, I was proud of my work and I worked hard. There were times I even slept on site because the train stopped running when we got off, then I started work again the next day.<br />
<br />
I managed to be picked for a particular project. Getting chosen for this project actually was going to change my life forever. One of the leads advised all the testers to learn a skill called Compliance Testing. I was the only one to do it. I am proud of this, it opened a gateway to save the day on another project when the normal Compliance Testers were out. This I am very proud of as it got me a permanent job as a Compliance Tester.<br />
<br />
During my job I got sent to Microsoft in Seattle, decreased the submission rate to 1:1 (submission to passes) and was the gatekeeper to ensure that a multi-million dollar company did not miss deadlines or pay fees on a 2-3 year project that all hinged on a short one week process. I did this many times before I got my last position on an unreleased project for the company.<br />
<br />
I became an assistant lead. Technically it was a demotion, but as there were few projects and even fewer positions available, I watched as many other testers, some I was good friends with, were let go. I even had a bit of survivor's guilt, but was kept on. I am not as proud as I should be perhaps, but I still haven't seen most of those people since.<br />
<br />
I took up a position where I learned new skills, made new processes, forged new ground and established new guidelines. I built a level for the game, I consulted on the design and had meaningful talks with VERY important people on the project. I am still in communication with the creative director on it (hopefully he'll be in my Sunday game). AND I still did compliance work. It was the most important I've ever been at work. I touched everything and without my hands, everything would have been off schedule and everyone would have been hindered, from the designers to the producers to the programmers. I even eventually got my own employee (minion) to manage.<br />
<br />
I type slowly now, fondly remembering the time with nostalgia. It did fade and rot as it became more and more clear the game would never be released. I am proud I stood my ground and did everything in my power to ensure it still did and was ready should it be given it's chance. Still sadness remains at what never was. Years of many people's lives lost.<br />
<br />
But enough of that. I am proud I sought work with a strong morale and purpose. I am proud of how many people wanted me to work for them. Especially of one friend who's opinion I greatly value, and of how his co-workers greatly desired me to work there and even asked about me (I had turned it down previously as I was still employed at my job and felt it would be wrong to leave when they needed me.)<br />
<br />
I'm proud that I have friends who at least tolerate my presence. I am proud they still wish to stay in touch with me and value my opinion. I care about them. In all honesty that is in my mind now. I don't know if they feel the same way, but I honestly care about them. I fear that I may seem to distant and cold.<br />
<br />
I am proud of some parts of my new job. I still have doubts that it is what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I am proud they value my opinion there. That they value me enough to pay more significantly more than minimum wage. That I have taken charge on a development tool and improved it greatly. That I am learning new things and managing outsource testers and taking on new roles and skills I never have before.<br />
<br />
And now I am here. I am proud I have a group of players who want to play my game. So much so that on their Monday off, they want to spend it with me. Playing in my world. I'm actually tearing up a bit right now. But that might just be from the emotion thing in that <i>other</i> post.<br />
<br />
Oh and I'm very happy tonight as my partner is coming home with In-N-Out. Maybe she'll even play Magic with me if I'm lucky. Sometimes it's hard not to feel how wonderful my life is. Sometimes it's the opposite.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-57174186222701376202014-02-18T07:51:00.003-08:002014-02-19T20:54:02.687-08:00Quick UpdateAfter an unintentional total party kill when some skeletons apparently rolled really well and had perfect timing with a troll, my party decided (with no prompting of my own besides listing space with about 8 other genres) that they wanted to start a space game.<br />
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<br />
Therefore, I offered up my space setting. So now I have to get it at it's basest level functional by Monday.<br />
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I guess there is going to be a LOT less video game time this week. Also because I'm in two different day long games on Saturday and Sunday. Time is not my ally this week, so I need to manage to play through one entire combat session by Thursday night.<br />
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<br />
We'll see if I can deliver.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-54256663766068155142014-02-15T12:00:00.000-08:002014-02-15T12:01:06.673-08:00Progress 2/15Got myself a bunch of yellow notepads.<br />
I love them, I can fit them in my back pocket and take em anywhere.<br />
Great for spontaneous notes. Now I just have to figure out that car ride home issue.<br />
<br />
Started reworking my concepts of technology in the setting. This was apparently a huge sticking point from one player who had to have realism inserted into a setting made for a cinematic game. Anyhow, while I wont be going into Newtonian physics for him, I'm putting more thought into the hows and whys.<br />
<br />
Got a good start on the hows and whys of faster than light travel, and how the tech behind it generally is what makes up most of future tech. I'm working on the power source technology now too.<br />
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I also decided to add a group temporarily named 'spacers' to be all the rough survivalist folks living in shitholes in space.<br />
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Ruleswise I added a lot for Formations in ships. Basically benefits and drawbacks for flying in formation. In general it should be more advantageous to fly in formation if you are skilled pilots, but if you aren't you are going to lose a lot of options in combat for some defensive and offensive bonuses anyhow.<br />
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Formations also extends to escorts offering defensive benefits for the escorted ship.<br />
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I broke out a lot of the stats into averages for ship sizes and added more listing for ship equipment and the limits of upgrading ships and ship parts.<br />
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I'm looking at stepping through a sample combat sequence to understand where I'm lacking. To be honest I should have been doing that from the beginning. It's just playtesting 101.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-25411754911010557872014-02-08T15:02:00.000-08:002014-02-08T15:02:15.628-08:00Progress 2/8/2014Made more progress.<br />
Roughed out some general ideas for interesting new character weapons.<br />
Expanded on ship equipment and damage effects (hull breach, fire, malfunctions)<br />
Expanded on some of the Chase vs Dogfight rules.<br />
Started gathering resources for ship character sheet.<br />
Started sketching out thoughts for the ship combat map.<br />
<br />
I'm beginning to think I should actually start mocking up combat rounds. Possibly starting with fighters (super simple and easy to draw up) then moving to mid range craft which will likely be piloted by a full party as a crew.<br />
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From there I need to start investigating the effects of subordinate extras on wildcards manning stations.<br />
<br />
I think I should also start considering the idea of 'extra' space ships and what that means in this combat system. As it stands I think there might just be a base guideline of size ratio difference being an automatic extra or wildcard as far as damage is concerned and a guideline for true wildcards as getting the bennies while effective wildcards don't.<br />
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The problem arises that wildcards in fighters will be VERY vulnerable to a single or even two steps difference in ship size. This hazard drops some when going up a size or two, but is still pretty harsh. Perhaps I will suggest only extras pilot fighters. That said, if you need to do a trench run, I want a decent fighter as an option.<br />
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If you haven't caught on yet, the majority of the work on this system is effectively replacing the vehicle system Savage Worlds uses (which I hate) and replacing it with my own 'fast, furious, fun' system.<br />
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Furthermore the fact that I use two Google accounts for this blog is really a pain. Maybe I can hook this one up with Google drive and share it so I can work on the doc with either.<br />
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It doesn't sound like much work to me. I feel like I could do more, but I console myself with the thought that I am doing any work at all. Given I'm in 2 'live' games, 3 online games, a project on a team of cool people and trying to spend time with my significant other, I think I'm doing alright. Though maybe after she get's through grad school I can take a LOT of time off just to work on this project... Assuming it isn't done in 3-4 years. Which I hope is NOT the case.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-17595157660426946392014-02-01T10:20:00.001-08:002014-02-01T10:20:20.971-08:00Little ProgressHeld up by a bout of depression this week.<br />
Will try and get rolling again next week.<br />
Weekend should be a good boost to mood due to finally getting to hang out with my live gaming group again today.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-29906629233352992872014-01-25T15:48:00.000-08:002014-01-25T15:48:48.541-08:00Progress ReportI've decided weekly progress reports to keep up with the work might help...<br />
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Still digging up random files, putting everything in one place synced with a cloud seems to be a VERY good idea now. I'm using google docs which will let me work on my computer and it shall update automatically.<br />
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I rebuilt the edges, outlined some gear, moved in the ship stats, and added ship parts. Not as much work as I honestly would like, but I only have myself to blame for that one. My plans for the next week include more fleshing out of basic ship stats, developing the ship activities further and perhaps tackling some outlines for the actual setting portions. It would also be nice to be done digging up numbers and have them all converted to the new document, but I have to go about dealing with converting one note files to a readable format. I SHOULD be able to do that, but we'll see...Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-41831157388542269852014-01-17T20:42:00.000-08:002014-01-17T20:42:40.603-08:00False StartsI've done quite a few false starts in the interim. Tried to cover the various exploits I've pursued, explain my distractions.<br />
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Hardly really matters if nothing gets posted.<br />
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After many false starts I've decided to work on a complete work and submit it. Finally design something, finish it and submit it.<br />
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As such I am pursuing making my spaceship rules for Savage Worlds into a setting. I think the biggest difficulty will be maintaining the steam, but we shall see.<br />
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I don't promise to do continuous updates on progress, but wish I could say I will.<br />
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Right now I'm at the beginning. I'm recovering and covering old ground and putting it into one single document separated as one would an actual book. I intend to keep all the ship rules, the general universal and social structure and the character rules.<br />
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After I get the rules into a playable state I intend to make working character/ship sheets as necessary. Then I will be looking for viable play test scheduling. I'm actually part of a group that is working on getting another Savage Worlds product out there and has a record of succeeding at those, so I'm hoping if they have a gap in their schedule I can mix things in. Furthermore they probably have resources for art and advice. This is looking pretty far into the future however as we have a lot of things to do on the old project and some fun activities as a 'just hanging out' group we like to do too.<br />
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I've also done one vital thing. I'm using Google docs to back things up. I have a bad history of losing hard drives at inopportune times. Furthermore I have a vague concept of a special method of play testing that could be augmented with Google docs.<br />
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<br />
As shorthand for the rest of life...<br />
<br />
I got fired from LucasArts over a year ago, got a new job that isn't really games anymore and am sad.<br />
Rethinking my future path and how to go in that direction.<br />
Played a lot of video games.<br />
Still play pen and paper when I can, but mostly just <a href="http://www.taoscampaign.blogspot.com/">here</a>.<br />
Also play on RPOL, but it's generally shit games.<br />
Ran a superhero game on Skype and bombed it. (Rules good, GMing bad[big ego hit])<br />
Attended <a href="http://wastelandweekend.com/">Wasteland Weekend</a> and met awesome people and did awesome things (huge ego boost)<br />
Finally cleaned off my desk.<br />
<br />
So yeah, life and stuff.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-6276621996432484902013-03-05T23:14:00.000-08:002013-04-04T14:55:54.654-07:00SubtletySo as I have decided I would like to try and do some more player centric posts until either I determine them useless, offend a GM who may or may not read my blog, or until I can get some REAL content. Bear with me, these posts are going to have stories and anecdotes and references to rulings or whatnot. I'll try and be quick about mentioning the rule set in advance so nobody gets confused.<br />
<br />
This post is going to be on subtlety. I hope my GM doesn't mind my picking apart something even he admitted was not a success (perhaps not for the same reasons as myself). Especially given it may have a long standing effect. I'm fairly certain his players don't read this content.<br />
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The system is Savage Worlds, but mainly I would like to deal with story telling. In particular my GMs attempt to create a low magic setting. A setting where magic and supernatural are uncommon if not rare. It at it's base was set near the gold rush period in western US.<br />
<br />
I gave this GM a piece of advice before we started. If you want to ensure the players believe in a low magic setting if they are surprised by magic and it becomes a special or rare thing, first and foremost you need to have mundane adventures. Preferably multiple mundane adventures. Furthermore, I feel like you should just lie. Just straight up lie to the player's face. No, no there is no magic.<br />
<br />
The second the GM mentioned that magic existed, one of the players jumped on the possibility of magic and immediately began attempting to create a character that could use it. Then when denied, a character that could use it in the future. And so on and so forth for much longer than it should have gone on.<br />
<br />
This felt like a poor start to me. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think the effect would have been better achieved with a lie, or a lie of omission or something to that effect. This problem was compounded about half an hour into our first adventure. A mundane adventure by my advice. Around when the army of cultists (obviously cultists) surrounded our inn, started burning it down and asked us for a 'something' that is clearly a reference to a religious item.<br />
<br />
Personally I would have gone with a cave in. Or a search for a kidnapper. Or perhaps surviving a train robbery? They're all pretty epic if done right, AND mundane as hell. In fact, perhaps after several mundane adventures a gang of ruffians with matching tattoos shows up. Then things start to get strange. Just strange enough it could be edge logic. Swamp gas and whatnot, then bam, almost undeniable magic for one scene if possible, then gone, out like a light with the climax you have hopefully achieved.<br />
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It's not easy, and the GM agrees the adventure didn't go as well as he would have liked. And it is his game so perhaps he didn't really want mundane.<br />
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There you have it, a player post. Hopefully if anyone was looking for one of these I could get some feedback on how I could improve.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-74372316816921467352013-02-08T23:45:00.003-08:002013-10-17T12:41:01.712-07:00An IntrospectiveI am a very introspective person. I take a lot of time to think about why I am, how I am and how I act. Sometimes I wonder how I got to where I am for a while. Not so much in a regretful, 'what I would have done differently.' But more of a consideration of what it says about me.<br />
<br />
I have already decided on my greatest public fault and have fears about my greatest private one. I think these traits have defined my path in life. They have limited me and put me in the position I am in now. Escapism through games, distancing myself from many social situations, stagnant.<br />
<br />
Even now, I'm almost fighting the urge to stop typing. To not just express publicly my faults. Perhaps because it would establish them as more real? Or their own self preserving characteristics are trying to limit me.<br />
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I think that if I could develop my self expression further it may help me develop. It may help me grow and perhaps even improve my life. It's my fault I'm not very good at it. I use sarcasm and jokes. I do everything in my power to be witty or 'charming' or silent. I excuse everything I do, and sabotage my own air of confidence with loopholes and escape routes in my text and speech. Even simple things I'm confident about I can subvert almost unconsciously.<br />
<br />
Here I guess is as good a place as any to admit a few personal things about myself. With a regular readership probably numbering 2 due to my own lack of activity, it is a good place to start. Test the waters. Here I likely wont get any readers I know (regardless of my advertising to friends.)<br />
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For all my introversion, I don't know who I am. It's the easiest admission of coarse. I hear it's quite common, especially in my young age. I've been working five years at a job (note terminology, not career, job) that I'm sure I'm appreciated at... unofficially. I don't like what I do. I'm not bad at it, I'm not great at it, better than 95% of the people there for sure. But I don't know where I really want to go, or how to get there, or even if this industry is right for me.<br />
<br />
I know I wasted 5 years at college, that's for sure. Half the new hires that get paid as much as I do have no college education, or completely irrelevant one. Most of them look to me for knowledge that I don't have and I ask myself if I even deserve to be where I am. I give a snarky answer, point them towards someone else and go on my life and feel like I hope I wont get caught in some kind of weird lie. I feel guilty.<br />
<br />
I wake up in the morning and hurriedly put out the alarm feeling guilty that I may have woken my partner. I then proceed to put on some clothes and turn on the computer. I then feel guilty I spend time on the computer rather than make breakfast for me and my partner. Then, at the last second I make a quick lunch and feel guilty about all the crap I stuff in my backpack.<br />
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Some days I give a ride to my partner and feel guilty I only drop them off half way since they're downtown. I get to work and feel guilty I don't do an earlier shift. It's not necessary for my job, but there's still other folks doing it that need to. I start my day by checking emails and feel guilty about what I didn't realize would be a problem, or about getting some more hot water for tea or whatever. Eventually the end of the day comes, and as I'm feeling guilty about all the work I didn't do (but was of coarse not asked of me or even scheduled) I feel guilty about the game I am attending, or about to attend on Wednesdays or Fridays. That or I feel guilty that I hope when I get home my partner will not be there and I can have half an hour or an hour to myself.<br />
<br />
If I do get time to myself, I feel guilty about the masturbation, or the not preparing dinner in advance, or whatever I do or don't do. Then during the time we have together I feel guilty that I play video games, or don't talk enough, or hold hands enough or am clean enough, or don't clean enough... Finally I go to bed thinking about me, and how I ended up here and how I feel guilty that I can't get over my issues.<br />
<br />
Guilt isn't a problem though, it's a symptom. Just like my depression. I know depression, I've felt it a lot before. A long time ago I was even borderline suicidal. It is an interesting and unique feeling looking at the concrete support of an overpass and wondering how it would play out to hit it at oh... 100mph. I used to take 3 hour drives bi weekly back in those early college days.<br />
<br />
That depression was triggered initially in a low grade form by generic acne medication. This was compounded by my first girlfriend's desire to join the military. She was not very stable mentally I feel, but that might be my bias. This made me angry, sad and confused. That's why she broke up with me. That made me reached my lowest of low.<br />
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That's how I know I'm depressed. It's mild, slightly compounded by stress and guilt. Not that any of you would worry, but it's not that bad yet, nor do I think it will get that bad. I don't ask myself what I give to the world, or list who would miss me in my mind as I go to sleep... or well, try.<br />
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I don't know how to deal with real emotions. Every time I feel something other than amusement, like at a movie, or a book, it feels like the only response is to cry. It seems so pointless, and as I was raised, wrong. It wont solve anything will it? But what is there to solve?<br />
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I wont cry because I want to be strong. I've felt that way since my brother died, while watching them lower the casket, holding in one hand my father's hand, and one hand my mothers hand. I felt like one of us needed to be a rock, and they were so torn up like frothing waves that I should be that rock. It's all so damn hard though. Trying to take up this role stuck with me, and now the only people I feel safe enough to talk about it to is the anonymity of the internet. Sort of.<br />
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I'm too damn stubborn inside. I seem so wishy washy outside, but looking at it now, inside I'm stubborn. I dunno, that's not what I thought my private fault was.<br />
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I thought it was that I feared failure. I feared looking weak or showing fault. 'We were all teased as kids. I was no exception.' I put that in a single quote after writing it. It's cliched and wrong. It's a weak line and doesn't convey things properly. Using someone else's words so completely isn't right. I was hurt as a child. By other children who were probably hurt by someone else. I may have hurt other children too. If I were wrong, or showed weakness, or lack of knowledge in some area it would immediately be jumped on. I think that learning stuck. Didn't help I spent more time at home with legos or three different board games thinking up games recombining their elements for me and my teddy bear to play, than outside with other kids around my home.<br />
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I think it may be a common fault. All the new stuff going around work says that that fear is a sign I will not succeed in life. But what is success? There's no reward other than dying in life. So I may not succeed in my job. Or maybe once I get a career in that either. I guess this realization is supposed to make me seek out self help books and go to more work seminars.<br />
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My public fault is that I am too easy going. I'm too accepting of inconveniences. Of the things in life that successful people get so irritated about that they do something about it. But since I'm so easy going, it doesn't bother me enough to do anything about it.<br />
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For the longest time I didn't want to make this blog personal. Just games. But games replicate life. Or help us escape it. Where are we escaping from? Where are we escaping to? I hope it's nice getting this off my back. Maybe just for a little while. Maybe in the future I'll talk more. We could touch on my furry inclinations, or maybe my poor memory. Or maybe I wont be depressed and I can do a post on my greatest successes, as minor as they may be, or the things I like, love and care about.<br />
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Or maybe I'll rethink a midnight post and delete this a few days down the road. Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-17245782690256697582012-12-27T09:07:00.000-08:002012-12-27T09:07:27.842-08:00Good FortuneNow that I am finally on a rather large break from work, (My workplace has a VERY long winter break due to standard release schedules) I have an opportunity to sit back, relax and let everything fall into perspective a bit. Being so close to work all the time, the frustration at certain higher ups and how the bigger picture seems to be lacking me (at least for the last four weeks) and all that.<br />
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It helps that I have a piece of technology added to my toy box that I thought I would never own. Through a fortuitous turn of events an iPad has managed to fall into my lap. This immediately got me to thinking about all the wonderous and amazing things I could do with an iPad. First I started considering it's potential for 'pen and paper' gaming. Then I got distracted by all the iPad games I thought I'd never get to play. Now I am returning to the potential of mobile pen and paper gaming.<br />
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As of now I have installed Skype to the device for my online game, but until I get a dice roller app I am happy with and build a decent character sheet in any kind of app, I don't think it beats my PC yet. I am however looking forwards to using it to have video as well as be able to talk as loud as I want in the other room while my girlfriend sleeps in the bedroom. Furthermore the ability to talk to anyone with Skype will be super fun.<br />
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I installed an app called Numbers made by apple themselves (I figure if Microsoft makes one of the leading spreadsheet apps for PCs then hopefully Apple can make a good one for Macs, or in this case an iPad.) This looks like it has a lot of potential for use as a decent character sheet system. Easily duplicatable sheets, very customizable charts and graphs. It probably sucks for professional work, but for what I'm doing I think it's going to be perfect. Never again will I need to have a million pieces of scrap paper everywhere! I hope..<br />
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As far as dice rollers go, I've scouted out the basic free rollers and am a bit disappointed. I should really get off my ass and see what it would take to make my own. Just to be sure the programming isn't biased ;). From the ones I saw, there was one that biased the numbers, and another that didn't have quick rolls.<br />
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Eventually I would like to get a drawing app on the device. Draw character pictures, maps, sketch out plans and such. This is kind of a stretch goal, not necessary by any means, and I've only done extremely light research into it. Hopefully I'll find something. <br />
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I was talking to a co-worker at work about gaming on the iPad, and he and I both agree there should be an Ultimate <System> Companion. Just think, a whole suite with map generators, character sheets, inventory and magic items, dice rollers... Someone could EASILY sell it for 15$ a pop. I just hope someone goes in and does it. I would buy one for each system I actually use if they make it thorough enough.<br />
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Anyhow, I'm feeling a bit better than last post. Here's wishing everyone health, happiness and Good Fortune.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-8941272154412747692012-08-08T00:28:00.000-07:002013-04-04T14:59:55.892-07:00An UpdateIt is probably a terrible idea for me to post after midnight. A long time ago I determined that was a bad idea, therefore I'll try not to revert to my young adult ways of painful whining and cheap emotion. I've considered a new blog for such things, but don't know if it would be worth the pixels it would be displayed on for me or anyone else and I'd definitely not post it here. I feel this blog should at least pretend to be more... Professional?<br />
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The space game has ended. I've concluded the overall experience was at best a marginal success. At worst a grand failure. I am not entirely sure what the failing was specifically. However, I would be willing to easily submit that it was a combination of things including; the medium (Skype/Maptools), the players, and of coarse myself.<br />
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Towards the end, I wasn't into it. The players would not consistently show up, therefore the main plot could not continue. Furthermore, I guess I had no player trust. This I believe was a result of the players previous experience and perhaps the situation I had established. At every turn they were just waiting for me to steal their ship. Or short them some stat, or balance the game out of their favor (god forbid I create a challenge.) Also one player didn't seem to be 'into' the science role. They assumed it was a doctor, and not that they would man any real station. Finally, the whole thing was just to test the space combat, and the thing the players were determined to do? Avoid space combat. I did however get the opportunity to tweak the chase rules (AKA marginal success).<br />
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The players would not retain attention or attendance. Even during character creation and past campaigns even the best players would be browsing the internet, drawing, or at the worst, playing a video game! There were mixed expectations, conflicts of vision and so on... Some expected, but perhaps a tad heavier than overall expected.<br />
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Finally the medium... Nothing matches live. Not really. Nothing ever will. There's a certain accountability, lack of anonymity and... ceremony involved in the process. It feels like a good half goes out the window digitally. Not just GM respect, inter-player as well. For instance, the previously mentioned attentiveness. Grabbing and altering another players materials, pushing other players around... tracking resources.<br />
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Anyhow, to avoid the content mentioned in the first paragraph I'm stopping here. Perhaps someday this game will make it to the live table and more things can be noted, grown, developed. Now I just need to rebuild the steam to push onwards for other projects.<br />
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Oh, by the way, I joined a Pathfinder game at work. It's pretty cool, they have all their content online for <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/">free</a>, so I didn't need to buy a book. The GM is... interesting. It's a bit slow right now as we basically have two newbies. The rules are just far enough from 3.5 I find myself assuming too much.Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1094078017656812475.post-84606934488319257282012-05-27T17:00:00.001-07:002015-01-20T13:28:42.526-08:00Space GameIt's been a long time since I've GMed a game. But recently I have officially gotten into it again. I've modified Savage Worlds vehicle combat to make a space game. I'm three sessions in, but haven't tested the space combat, as the players are not familiar with Savage Worlds yet, therefore, I am trying to introduce them to the various systems session by session.<br />
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The first session was character creation, I introduced the world, the expectations, the disclaimers that things may change due to the experimental nature of the game, and the coming up with rules for things they want their characters to do, but don't have specific or particularly accurate rules for. Mainly this was an OCD engineer and a few other hindrances. Mainly as basic versions may not be hindering enough or perhaps even too hindering.<br />
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The second session was to introduce skill checks and to get the players their ship. This used a series of skill checks to scan some information, gather some hard to find supplies, gamble with the rabble on board, and then get into the ship. The ship itself was mainly random, they got some bonus rolls for some earlier skill checks, and had a chance to get less rolls if they did poorly on said skill checks. In the end, the party was, believe it or not, vocally disappointed the ship wasn't more of a wreck. I don't know if this is the case because I listed off a few bonuses they were getting, or if it was because they don't understand how many awesome things there are out there. Finishing up, they chose their destination, then headed off to the next station. After this there were complaints about no combat or 'great escape' with the ship. But I wanted to put off ship combat to it's own period of time.<br />
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The third session was introducing some person to person combat. I tried hard to keep the party from splitting, but even as I was going I saw it happening. I really didn't want it to happen, but so be it. There was a lot of social exchanges rather than fighting at first, but then at the end as things were wrapping up, the players actions caught up with them and there was a shootout. It was the most fail shootout ever, the players just couldn't roll for shit. On the bright side, neither could the opponents. I think I also tuned the enemies defenses a bit too high, so I'm going to drop that down a hair next time. This was person to person, which isn't homebrew at all, but it's just inexperience with GMing the system I think.<br />
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The fourth session is coming up, I have plans, but right now things are still in the works. Waiting on next Friday hopefully when things come together.<br />
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Outside the game I spend most of my time figuring out how best to display the space combat, and efficiently convey all the data from it. I'm hoping things go well when the time comes.<br />
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<br />Oddbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12091924105175846386noreply@blogger.com0