Mechromancer: Magic powered machines and vice versa

[ScrapyardDragon]

Homebrew class: Mechromancer

Characteristics: Intelligence, Charisma, Willpower
Skills:Tech-Use, Arcana, Common Lore, Academic Lore, Ballistics, Weaponry, Drive, Crafts, Medicae, Command.
Magic Schools: Technomancy, Ferrokinesis, Fulmination
Sword Schools: Devoted Spirit
Gun Kata: Last Line
Completion bonus: +1 to attack rolls for spells with the touch or ranged touch keywords

Cyber psyker
Level 1
Prerequisites:  Arcana 2, Crafts 1, Tech-Use 2.
Feats: 
-Weapon Proficiency (Any)
-Luminen Charge
-Upgraded (Rare)
-Eidetic Memory
-Spell Might

*Tested

*Mechanicus Implants

Jack Marshal
Level 2
Prerequisites:  Arcana 2, Crafts 2, Tech-Use 3, Luminen Charge, any Magic at rank 1 or higher.
Feats:
-Ferric Lure
-Spell Focus
-Upgraded (Rare)
-Customized Robo
-Myelin
*Spell book
*Armor proficiency (light)

Mechromancer
Level 3
Prerequisites: Arcana 3, Crafts 3, Tech-use 4 Customized Robo, any Magic at rank 2 or higher.
Feats:
-Binary Chatter
-Upgraded (VRare)
-Spell Penetration
-Soulboost
-Arc node
*Spell book
*Armor Proficiency (medium)

Warcaster
Level 4
Prerequisites: Arcana 4, Crafts 4 Tech-use 5, Arc Node, any Magic at rank 3 or higher, another magic at rank 1 or higher.
Feats:
-Luminen Blast
-Upgraded (VRare)
-Greater Spell Focus
-Light Warjack
*Spell Book
*Armor Proficiency (heavy)

Legendary Mechromancer
Level 5
Prerequisites: Arcana 5, Crafts 5, Tech-use 5, Light Warjack, any Magic at rank 4 or higher, another magic at rank 2 or higher
Feats:
-Greater Spell Penetration
-Spell Mastery
-Upgraded (MRare)
-Interspersed outburst
-Heavy Warjack
*Spell Book
*Armor Proficiency (Extreme)

New Feats:

Arc Node: When casting spells you may change the point of origin to one of your Customized Robos or warjacks, if it is online. The choice to do so must be made before the focus power test and if psychic phenomena would occur the spell fails (though the phenomena still happens, centered on the Robo).


Customized Robo*: You've got a robot buddy/servant/puppet, congratulations! Create a level 1 construct using the monster creation rules (any gear purchased with inheritence is a part of the robot, and cannot be removed from it without destroying everything involved). Your Customized Robo operates under your control, but if it ventures more than your willpower*5 meters away from you (or while you are unconscious) it shuts down until you return to it. The robo's turn in combat is immediately after yours. If your Robo is lost or destroyed you may spend a day of downtime to rebuild it. You may also redesign the robo's stats with a day of work and a TN20 Crafts test. Your robo can never have the Customized Robo feat. If this feat is taken multiple times, gain a new level 1 robo for every time it is taken.


Interspersed outburst: Choose either a +2 or two +1 ranged weapon mods when you take this feat. When making an attack with your Luminen Blast you may apply those mods to the attack's profile by taking two points of fatigue.


Myelin: You gain aura equal to the amount of cybernetics you have, to a maximum of your level.
-Optional: If playing with Strain rules, change this feat's effect to: "The character does not suffer penalties to focus power tests from strain"

Soulboost: Once per session, you may spend a hero point to increase the characteristics of one of your robos by one each, and their attack rolls by +1k1 for a number of rounds equal to your willpower.

Heavy Warjack*: Your warjack has reached peak performance. One of your light warjacks becomes a heavy warjack, and its level is increased to level 3.


Light Warjack*: Your Customized Robo has been upgraded, huzzah. One of your Robos becomes a light warjack, and its level is increased to level 2.


*this feat may be taken more than once. If it has groups, you must choose a different group each time.

[ScrapyardDragon]

Finally ported it over. yay. Gonna reserve this post for changelogs.

11/23/2018: Fixed formatting

12/13/2020: edited the customized robo feat and warjack feats for what happens if its taken multiple times. tldr; you can get multiple robos, but only one gets upgraded at a time, and it has to be in order. The class itself doesn't offer any ways to get more instances, these changes are for compatability's sake for if anyone else decides to use the feats.

10/30/2021: changed completion bonus to "+1 to spell attack rolls". the old one used to be a +1 to technomancy rolls which I felt was too specific and forced the player out of using just core spell schools. customized robos no longer come with their own weapons, you have to supply those yourself.

[ScrapyardDragon]

minor edits for when multiple instances of feats come into play, as I noticed that Traskus' automata cypher field used customized robo a couple times so I decided to add some clarifications into the feats to stomp out any rules lawyering.

[Traskus]

Bold of you to assume anyone will ever use cyphers.

[Amanojyaku]

Idiot proofing is as good a reason for redundancy as any.

[GuardianTempest]

Suggestion: Make ranks in Technomancy be the prerequisite since the completion bonus makes it mandatory. Either that or the completion should be "+1 to spells granted by magic schools from this class". Sure it's great value but you'll need to cough up the XP for it.

[ScrapyardDragon]

made a tweak; instead of it boosting one specific school your table may not be using, it instead boosts your accuracy with ranged/touch spells. That way even if you want to play the magic schools as all-core (which is a perfectly valid way to play imo) and are drawn here more for the gimmicky feats, it still provides a useful bonus.

addendum: edited customized robo so that you have to supply equipment yourself. wasnt comfortable with the idea that your pet robot could generate a free lascannon. might change it to just "weapons sold separately" if there is outcry, but i hold firm to the idea the player ahould have to provide the weapons

[ScrapyardDragon]

Hey I'm back with some tweaks made! Most of them upgrades but not all.

First, the big one that motivated me to do any of this in the first place: the class now gets martial schools, one each of ranged and melee, and both of them aid-another schools (Y'know, so you can use them to make your robot fight better). Last line because it lets you aid at a distance, devoted spirit because the protectorate of menoth is a thing in warmachine (and none of the other ones really fit).
Aside from that, I also tweaked the robo itself a bit. It CAN buy its own weapons now, but any equipment it spends BP on cannot be removed. Makes it easier to arm properly but patches the whole "just use the robot to get free gear" issue that was the whole reason it initially couldn't buy its own weapons in the first place. Also its turn is now always after yours, just makes things smoother for everyone. Also you control it with your mind, it would be weird if it could act faster than you can process the threat. also made it go offline if you get KO'd for the same reason. Geek the commander powering it and the big robot turns off and all that. Also you respec it with crafts now. that just felt more appropriate.

You may ALSO notice that soulboost is back! in a far simpler form granted, but it returns, and at level 3 this time! what gives? simply put, I bumped Myelin down to 2 so that cyber-casters could have an easier time in games using them thar accursed strain rules (but mostly because one of the levels having only four mandatory feats was bothering me) and plugged the new soulboost in to level 3. The old version used to crank the robot's level to 5 but mid-battle respecs were super annoying in playtest so I nuked it and moved on. This time around though its just a small, temporary, and limited-use boost to the robo's characteristics instead. Still a powerup, but one that doesn't cause nearly as many headaches as it used to. Plus it still allows every level to improve the robot's combat performance. technically arc-node was also doing that but thats more a boon to your own casting not the bot itself.

That said it isn't ALL improvements. Given that respecs use crafts now, from level 2 onwards I added crafts as a prerequisite in addition to everything else you had to invest in to advance, so now the class is a bit pricier to run through. Those martial schools may be nice to have access to but the new prereqs will make investing exp into them a little harder.

Aside from all of that, I do want to reward the phrasing of the class completion bonus since the longer I stare at it the more I feel that it has incorrect syntax. I don't want to change what it actually does, I just don't like the wording I went with but don't know how exactly to rephrase it.

[ScrapyardDragon]

I have increased the arcana prereq for level 1 from 1, to 2, to put it in line with other caster classes. That is all.

[ScrapyardDragon]

tweaks to mechromancer I am *considering*:

1- moving light warjack to level 3, for a smoother progression curve
2- making soulboost also give a +1k1 to attack rolls, since spirits have rather shakey hitrates, especially if they're melee spirits instead of gunners spamming full auto (problem is, it makes full-auto setups significantly stronger)
3- making progression requirements add a second school you have to level (a second school at rank 1 for level 3 access, rank 2 for L3, and rank 3 for L5)

If possible I'd like to hear people's thoughts on the class before I make ay of these official.

[GuardianTempest]

For Soulboost, maybe specify actions that don't increase kept dice? This keeps Full Auto and Supp Fire out.

[ScrapyardDragon]

Hrm, perhaps +1k1 to charge and standard attacks then? Though that leaves out fight defensively and the like, and it pivots the gunnery shenanigans from FAB'ing to accurate or scatter tomfoolery.
I *could* make it +1k1 to *just* melee attacks but now it makes soulboost feel completely pointless to gun robos.

[ScrapyardDragon]

Ok, went ahead and just had soulboost just give the +1k1 to attack rolls in general.

I also increased the prereqs for the class slightly again; this time mandating levels 4 and 5 invest a bit in a second spell school, and idiot-proofed interspersed outburst to indicate that your choice of mods is permanent.

[ScrapyardDragon]

somehow the class got every level of armor proficiency *except* light. Likewise I for some reason decided that letting a caster class get power armor proficiency was a good idea. both of these have been corrected; now it gets light->extreme.

note; if you want power armor proficiency you can just do a 1 level tech priest dip anyways.

[ScrapyardDragon]

I have removed the cybernetics as a prereq (it served zero purpose past first level since the class gives you them anyways) and instead increased the required crafts at each rank instead. It works out well since there are some characters who either can't take them due to their exaltation or are not entirely unlikely to lose them at some point such as wraiths, daemonhosts, and deathlords with how their "avoid dying" gimmicks work regarding getting a new body instead of the old one regenerating.