Mecha Subtype should explicitly state that it is destroyed when negative hp = destruction threshold.
Will do.
Any reason to have Mechas be creatures instead of Gear?
Several reasons.
- In theory, it should make it easier to have mechas acting autonomously. Whether the mecha itself is alive and active in some form or another or is just being run by a dedicated AI or autopilot, it may well be fighting on its own without a pilot per se, in which case you can straight up use the mecha's stat block.
- I want mecha to be more than just a suit of armor that upsizes you. Fighting as mecha pilot should be distinctly different from the same character fighting on foot. Much of the time, you won't be able to use a lot of your personal abilities, relying on the capabilities of the mecha instead. Your own strengths and level should influence how well you pilot a mecha, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor.
- The mecha is fighting, not the pilot. The pilot is just piloting. That's an important distinction. If the mecha gets hit with a death effect, for example, it's the mecha that gets destroyed, not the pilot. Being a distinct creature helps keep that distinction.
- A couple of other reasons that I was thinking about over supper and unfortunately forgot. I'll edit them in or something if they come back to me.
Can mecha be done as just really fancy equipment/objects? Yes. Lots of people have done it that way. It might even be easier. It's certainly worth considering, at least. I don't think that mechas as gear quite captures the distinction I'm looking for, though.
The ability score section is a little complicated.
It is. And that's after paring it down from its original complexity a couple of times. Still more room to reduce complexity, though.
The goal is to let the parts of your ability scores that are wholly you still matter. If you have an 18 Strength because you rolled an 18 or you put your 16 points to buy it at character creation, the mecha's effective stats should reflect that when you're piloting it. That way, the stats a mecha cares about don't become dump stats for a pilot and remain important.
The size adjustments add a significant amount of complexity on their own, I think. The goal for that is separating out the parts of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution that just come from being very big. The mecha is already very big, so it already gets a bunch of modifiers baked into its ability scores (baked into racial modifiers) as a result of that size. Of course, those conceptual components are never called out as distinct things, so I need to identify them on the spot so they don't count double.
An 18 Str human (size Medium) piloting a Colossal mecha should add more to the mecha's Strength score than an 18 Str ogre (size Large) piloting the same Colossal mecha after normalizing for size, since the human is really really strong for a Medium creature, but the ogre is only a little above average for a Large creature. An 18 Str size Colossal creature would even be giving a penalty, since for its Colossal size it's an extremely weak creature.
For feats: why not just have the mecha use the pilot's feats (if the pilot is non-proficient can't use feats), and if the mecha has feats itself they are only usable by the machine spirit? Then maybe have some PrC/feat/whatever to let you use the mecha's feats. Seems easiest (and less like feats are a complete waste in a mecha game).
Sounds good. I had feats transferring over in earlier drafts. I think I took them out of this one because I found some loopholes with double dipping on things like per-day limitations, and due to some oddities with the more magical feats that are a lot more personal and inherent than a learned skill. Thinking on it more there's also issues with racial feats and feats that the mecha itself wouldn't qualify for. I think I have some appropriate rules wording that should account for all of that, so I'll put feat sharing in once I can get it typed out.
As a side note, feat sharing to mechas means that you can pilot a mecha with a mecha. I don't think that comes up much in fiction, as the only instance of it I can think of is in The Simpsons's parody of Avatar. I wouldn't be surprised if Megas XLR or Gurren Laggan did it, too. Either way, it certainly sounds like a cool concept, in theory. It might take some adjustments or ruling so you don't get to stack things up with each layer to a ridiculous extent so that it becomes far and away the optimal play to have your larger robots just be nesting dolls.
For sizes past colossal, I'm AFB but have you looked at the existing Colossal+ sizes in Draconomicon?
I don't have Draconomicon, so I'm not familiar with them. What's the story with Draconomicon's take on it?
The only official size category above Colossal I'm aware of is Colossal+ for epic dragons in the ELH, and that's more of a pseudo-category since, if I remember correctly, only some of the size-based parameters change, and the dragon's space, reach, and attack and AC penalties actually stay the same.
Distance Scaling for Very Large Creatures feels clunky, especially when you're talking about subject vs caster size.
Yeah, I can probably explain that clearer. The high concept goal is to let distances scale up with the creatures using them, so that you don't need a whole new slew of spells just to deal with the larger scale that mechas will work it if you're a spellcaster casting your spells through the mecha you're piloting. The more specific intent is for scaling to apply based on the size of the most relevant creature. A Large spellcaster would make a 30-foot Solid Fog instead of 20-foot radius, because they're bigger than the norm and they're producing the effect, so the only creature that part of the effect actually cares about is the caster. The part of the fog relating to impeding movement is, in my mind, more a factor of the creature pushing its way through the Solid Fog. If you're twice the size, with twice the reach and twice the speed (and, I dunno, around 6 times the mass and volume 'cause square cube law means you have to grow less vertically to not collapse on yourself or something I've never bothered to fully understand), shouldn't you be pushing through it twice as fast, too?
When the combatants are scaled up by a factor of 10, so should their effects. The issues seem to relate to when not everyone's scaled up the same way (say, some of the combatants are only scaled up by a factor of 5). What parts of each effect should scale up based on the attacker, and what parts based on the defender? That's a pretty tricky question. I tried to sum it up there in one or two sentences, but while that might be plenty enough to remind myself of what I intended, it's obviously woefully insufficient to actually explain and define it.
I never pay attention to spot and distance penalties so I don't see a problem with the adjustment but I don't know if I would spot an existing problem.
Well, normally it's -1 per 10 feet, but size categories are +/-4 to Hide checks per size category, so if you can't see a 4 foot tall thing hiding 1000 feet away, you can't (assuming sizes double every 2 size categories) see a 1000 foot tall thing hiding 1640 feet away. Real world logic says that something might be a little fishy about that. Also, you know, all of those numerous internet arguments about D&D rules saying you can't see the sun.
A couple of notes to myself I'm thinking of here:
- Initiative: Instead of the mecha using the pilot's initiative which includes all of the mecha's modifiers, the pilot just uses the mecha's initiative. This removes the need for the pilot's initiative to be the only thing that the mecha's modifiers are shared over to the pilot.
- Modifiers: Instead of only specific modifier types (insight, morale, etc.) being shared with the mecha, all modifiers except for those resulting from the pilot's size get shared with the mecha.
- Ability Scores: If I go with the above of letting all non-size-based modifiers carry over, ability score adjustments can simplify a little.
Edit: Also need to filter out armor, shield, and natural armor bonuses. Probably also deflection and alchemical. I definitely need to take another look. I'm going to add in enhancement bonuses, at least, I think.
- Spot/Listen w/ Distance: Once I figure out exactly what the size category scaling rate is (double size per category or per 2 categories or what), adjust the Spot/Listen penalties by distance formula. It's currently tuned for doubling every size category (-4 per doubling of distance).