Goodman Games

Reading Steam Warriors brought up some interesting topics in my head. Do steam borgs require repairs? I read over the class description throroughly, and could not find anything that specifically mentioned their mechanical parts required repair seperate form the healing of their organic components.

Logically... SOME kind of repair would be necessary, especially if you're dealing with a prestige class like the Steel Soul, but I couldnt find anything. The Tik'Tok require repair, so one could extrapolate, but is it necessary?

Some feedback/thoughts on that subject would be helpful

Creating rules for a PC that needs two separate kinds of healing is more work than we want to ask the casual player for. As an optional rule, for those of you who want more realism in a setting where steam-driven mechs fight dragons from the moon, how about this...

OPTIONAL RULE: STEAMBORG REPAIR
Every steam power or class ability possessed by a steamborg accounts for 2 HP. These HP, once lost, can only be regained by repair. To repair this damage, the Craft (blacksmithing) skill must be used. The DC of the skill roll is 10 + the total mechanical damage suffered.

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DragonMech line developer, freelance writer, tall guy named Matt.

i know it seems a bit cumbersome but what started my thought process was this from steam warriors, with regards to the "steel soul" prc

[[If his hit points drop below zero, he is
considered dead and loses a level, although
repairs will restore him to life.]]

now this doesnt mention healing, so at what point does the steel soul stop accepting normal healing and start processing repairs? i thought to myself.

hence the question.

Hmmm. I wish I'd been that clever when I was editing entries for the book... the default rule for steel-bound souls and their ilk is the same as it is for steamborgs: they heal and are healed like other characters. The optional rule suggested above would work for those of you who want a more accurate representation of the way a steamborg-type character would work. It would be an interesting addition to a game that explores the Steam Displacing Magic theme.

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DragonMech line developer, freelance writer, tall guy named Matt.

alright, let's work with that. Let's say for example my steamborg player has just hit 4th level. He now has 2 artifical parts, and a steam engine. will integrated steampowers count towards this total? i'm not counting 'lose self' as an ability here since its not really relevant.

with a con of 16 and some decent HD rolls he has 40 hp (or so). based on the above quote he has 3 abilities, accounting for 6hp out of his 40. (pending clarification on steam powers)

which are suffered first? does the steamborg choose when taking damage if its flesh or metal? just some food for thought.

I'd say that yes, integrated steam powers definitely count. I'd also add to the optional rule an amount of time, such as "the skill use requires one minute per point of damage repaired". Oh, and the Blacksmith has the option of repairing some of the damage...they don't necessarily have to repair all or nothing.

As a default, I'd say the repair damage is lost first. Most steamborgs in combat would probably try to get hit in the metal parts because A) they don't feel pain on the metal parts, and B) with the exception of their steam engine, the metal parts aren't essential to their continued life; they won't bleed to death or anything if their mechanical arm gets messed up.

As another option, you could simply say that 25% (or some other arbitrary percent) of damage taken needs to be repaired rather than healed. That way you just know that if your steamborg has taken 20 points of damage, 5 points need to be repaired.

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Dieter Zimmerman
Drunk & Sailor

the first way makes sense to a point but... if all the 'artificial' hp are lost first, would the artificial parts and steam powers attached to them cease functioning? that could be extremely detrimental.



i like the second option better, it's simple, straightforward, still represents the fact that steamborgs are increasingly artificial as they gain levels. i'll put that forward to my group and see how they feel about it along with the optional repair rules.

OH... a few other thoughts on that subject would there be a gp cost associated witht that? would this result in the average steamborg carrying around a mass of spare parts? how heavy would replacement parts have to be per hp repaired?

am i overthinking this?

I think you're overthinking it. In my campaigns, I'd just leave it at that if we decided to use the rule, but some people like more detailed rules.

I'd say that a lot of the repairs wouldn't necessarily require any spare parts. They could simply be a matter of reconnecting this thingamajig, or hammering out some dents, or pulling arrowheads out of intake valves...that sort of stuff.

As an optional addition to this optional rule, you could say it costs something like 1gp or 5gp pr 10gp or some other arbitrary number like that per hp, and each pound of spare parts will heal 1hp or 2hp or 5hp or some other arbitrary number like that. But I'm thinking that this sort of damage is in many ways cumulative cosmetic damage that doesn't seriously affect the operation of the steamborg's systems and as such doesn't really require any expensive specialized parts. I think to damage a steam power or artificial part enough so it doesn't function would require a specific attack such as sunder.

As sort of a compromise between the "no cost/no spare parts" version and the "cost/spare parts" version, you could say it's possible to jury-rig repairs in the field for no cost and no spare parts (you can temporarily fix the damage by cutting out the frayed part of the cable and duct taping it back together, for example)...then make them pay the GP cost when they get back to town to get permanent repairs.

Then if you wanted to do something really cool for steamborgs who run around all the time with jury-rigged repairs, instead of having them lose the hp again after a certain amount of time, you could come up with some disease-like rules where they start making saves and losing stats.

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Dieter Zimmerman
Drunk & Sailor

I point and jump up and down at the "mending" serries of spells which heals constructs. Clearly a steamborg should be able to benift from that.

The Mechanical Soul ability was along the lines of another set of rules I wanted to implement where a percentage of the Player's hit points would be mechanical based on how many artificial parts they had installed. I would probably make it 5% of their hit points per artificial part and steam power. These hit points would not heal but need to be repaired (with the Repair skill) or mended with spells.

Mark Charke

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Thinking Outside the Box
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the concern that has been voiced by others with regards to the "repair" spells is that they could eliminate some of the cost issues behind mechs too easily. part of the idea is that mechs are big and expensive and the repair spells makes that wholepoint moot. up to the DM of course but in my games i have those spells ONLY repair magical constructs, not normal items or nonmagical machines. this gives magically animated mechs an edge of course, but they already have that pesky DISPEL problem so i dont feel too bad about that.