Classes, part 3
THE BORG
To get the joke out of our system
So here we are at last. I put this one off because it's just so many and they experiment so much. Take the Cogmorph from above--the class grants the power to combine artificial limbs into bigger artificial limbs, so they can access different bonuses and steam power combinations sort of on the fly. It's a neat thought, but not quite worth the PrC (cool as the idea is) and probably shouldn't take so long to explain. But when you read it, you can tell Goodman Games was experimenting and thinking and I guess that counts for something.
My personal favorite Borg class in here is the Ghostgear, the sneakyborg. Entry requirements are surprisingly light (you need 4 ranks in different skills, a BAB of +4. and the Power Source feat or a steam engine from being a steamborg, so a Stalker could go into this easily). They get full BAB, +3d6 Sneak Attack over ten levels (which is surprising in conjunction with full BAB), 6+Int skill points, a big skill list, steam powers, and a couple of stealth bonuses--later on they get a +4 to Move Silently, but right out of the gate they get this:
Still Gears (Ex): The ghostgear can sit perfectly still as long as he wishes, until he passes out from exhaustion or hunger after several days. While sitting still, he gains a +5 circumstance bonus to Hide and Move Silently checks. (Even though he isn’t moving, he may still need to make an opposed check against a nearby enemy.) The ghostgear can shut off his smokestack for 10 minutes before he must emit the exhaust or begin to suffocate.
I mean, yeah, it's underwhelming compared to some SRD classes but it's a lot more than some get. This is one of the classes I would gladly play myself, it just feels cool.
Also, the character art looks a little like the Hellboy movie Kroenen, and I like that.
Experimentation doesn't always go well, though. They put in a class called the Hissing Psiborg which gets Psychic Warrior caster levels, artificial parts, steam powers, and a special psionic power called Attune Artificial Part. Which is pretty swanky flavor, as far as it goes.
Attune Artificial Part
Telepathy
Level: Psion 2, Psychic Warrior 2
Display: Material
Manifesting Time: One hour
Range: Touch
Target: One artificial part
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: Willing only
Power Resistance: No
Power Points: 9, XP, M
You attune one artificial part so that it can store and regain power points as if it were flesh and blood. This creates a fundamental change in the materials the artificial part is made of — it becomes living metal. The subject loses any invulnerability to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and necromancy effects, but her artificial parts heal as if they were organic, and they receive the full benefit of magical healing.
If the subject has other artificial parts which have not been attuned, she still suffers the power point penalty for them, and 10% of her hit points, per non-attuned artificial part, do not heal naturally but must be repaired.
XP: 1,000 XP
Material Component: 1,000 gp worth of aspecially treated living plant spore
But it's still a psionics-based character and not that great.
Also, the richness of that droll! Doh ho ho ho ho, it's a cyborg with psionics so it's a psiborg! Delicious drolleries abound!
The next class is something really new--the Lunarborg. There's a rock called moonstone that can be burned like coal, but it gives off side effects. The Lunarborg burns moonstone (which is 5 GP a pound and the Lunarborg needs at least a pound of it a day or suffers withdrawals. They also can't take levels in other classes without having to roll to beat the addiction, once they become a Lunarborg). Special note is you have to have 13 Wisdom or lower to take the class.
Kids! Don't do drugs, and eat your vegetables, or you turn into this guy!
They can turn moonstone smoke/gas into a 1/day con damage (1d6, since you ask) poison cone. It incidentally auto-kills normal plants and does double damage on magic/animated plants. At level 4, they can use the power to turn coal or other fuel into moonstone, so they become more self-sufficient and, I suppose, can also go into business as a moonstone merchant.
Or at least hook their friends up with all the moonstones they want to evolve their Nidorinos
Later on, their physiology has converted enough that lunar creatures consider him to be one of them, and won't attack first (no, this doesn't work for the rest of the party), and eventually they get the lunar traits, like resistance to mind-affecting effects.
The Mech Symbiote is a step past the Assimilated. Using a feat called Arterial Node, they coax their body to spread and grow through the mech, and the border between living flesh and cold metal blurs until there's no difference--their veins and nerves run through the whole thing, they get several boosts to mech piloting, and they can bud and move their body around the mech for whatever reason.
These guys look at assimilated and go 'amateurs'
It's more of an NPC class, and exploring a Mech Symbiote on a big mech would be a hell of an adventure. If rather squicky.
The Necroborg is a neat idea--over ten levels, they transform into an undead who runs on blood and coal and steam, and can make lesser undead. The capstone's a little underwhelming--getting claws that do 1d4 Con damage on a failed save. It'd probably be better as a 5 level class, all in all, but the abilities are something I can see people wanting. One neat bit is that losing the Con score means the Necroborg can take as many artificial parts as he can gets points for, instead of being limited by his constitution.
Does make you look grumpy, though.
The Steam Monster is a neat flavor; they get special Monster Parts that give bonuses and can be taken again for increasing bonuses. If they sink all three Monster Part points into Aquatic, for example, they can stay underwater indefinitely and get pretty fast swim speed. If they take Four-Legged Twice, they become a sort of robo-centaur. Or being able to make webbing and get a climb speed.
There's a whole page of devoted to all the different monster themes and I'll go over them if someone asks, but none strike me as being amazing--climbing is probably the best, what with the climb speed and making rope, in a dungeon-crawling or mech-crawling game but even that's just because of the utility.
His favorite band is Steel Panther.
Our second-to-last PrC is the Steelbound Soul. Their whole shtick is they're packing in artificial parts and powers faster than even a steamborg deems safe, and at level 8 they have to pass a DC 20 Fort Save or die. But he's a Steamborg-based class, which has Con as their key ability, and the class itself has a good Fort Save, so he's already packing a fort save of around +14, and that's without save and stat boosters. You get Steampowers and artificial parts at a slightly faster rate; the one nifty bit is getting Ageless at class level 5. So if you ever wanted a character to get immortality, you can score it around character level 11.
The last PrC I'll cover is the Unborg. They're a steamborg who gives it up and begins removing their pieces. In exchange, they get some of the druid class features by trading in artificial points. They can also regenerate their lost limbs, as long as they worship a deity and go through a ceremony once they've removed a prosthetic.
Flavor text is nice, though.
The Unborg wrote:“I’ve got my hands back. I can feel the nails growing out of my flesh. They are warm and soft and they hurt when I bang them carelessly against things. I can go back and touch my wife and she won’t recoil from these hands. I have my hands back and although I can’t do a thing with them, not even bend steel, it is the most wonderful thing in the world.”
Now, at last, the book gives its one Core Class--the Steamborg Mk. II. They trade in the sheer amount of stuff the Steamborg gets, in exchange for being able to pick exactly what they get every other level--more artificial parts, more steam powers, or a steamborg feat from the book. One could take just an engine and a ton of steam powers if they so wanted, or shoot for specific PrCs or builds. Whatever. They still get Medium BAB and good Fort and Will.
Neat art, though.
At the very end of this section, it lists variant Steamborg power sources. The kinetic engine has less installment requirements, but makes you eat and sleep more the more you use your powers. A Blood engine runs, you guessed it, off blood and can be made by adding a Blood Pump steam power onto a steam engine. Last, a Necrotic engine is...well, I'll let the book explain it.
Necrotic Engine: A necrotic engine is composed of animated dead matter. A spellcaster can use animate dead to create a necrotic engine if he has 5 ranks in Craft (mechcraft). Creating the engine is the same as creating an undead with the same Hit Dice as the steamborg or mech. If the steamborg gains a level, or the mech gains a Hit Die, a new engine must be made, so it is a good idea to create an engine that can support a few extra Hit Dice, especially for a steamborg who gains levels.
A necrotic engine is harmful to the living. A steamborg with such an engine takes one point of permanent Constitution damage each week until he dies, at which point he rises as an undead. He can spend levels to
come back as a specific undead, otherwise he becomes an intelligent zombie and gains the undead type.
A necrotic engine requires water just like a steam engine, but it charges the water with negative energies to power the artificial parts and steam powers. Everything in a mech or steamborg with a necrotic engine is built with a backwards flow, as the machine is driven by cold and suction.
Parts built for any other kind of engine must be converted to function with this one. This costs 25% of the item’s total value. The cost is the same to convert a part made for a necrotic engine to another kind.
The necrotic engine heals (harms) itself and other necrotic parts. Every 24 hours, it heals a number of hit points equal to the Hit Dice, or
character level or the device, mech or steamborg.
In a living creature, it instead causes hit point loss, but this ability can be turned off. Necrotic engines radiate a negative aura that the living find uncomfortable, and they are considered evil for the purpose of detect evil.
As Meikle just pointed out to me, you could get straight mechanical power with just skeletal limbs in a box, so it seems a bit pointless, but whatever.
That's the Steam Warriors classes.
Next up: Equipment. Lots and lots of equipment.