I love this setting very much! You're at grandmaster rank +4 in Knowledge (setting design).
Thanks!
I've been keen on an Android/Robot/Construct race for ACKS for a long time - I wanted one to replace Dwarves in my take on Dwimmermount and (belatedly) thought it'd be a good race suggestion for Barbarian Conqueror King. I got as far as collecting all the previous 0D&Dish attempts at Robot/Construct online.
As I recall I started trying to convert the key abilities drawn from the list into ACKs racial abilities but I am quite the novice at rules stuff and then my second daughter was born so it's been on the backburner. If I get time I'll try and dig up my notes.
Anyway, I am not sure if it is helpful but here are the links to all the Robot/Construct class attempts I found:
The "Victorian Robot": http://theosrlibrary.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/weird-and-horror-races-for-victorian.html
The "Mechanical Bastard": http://bernietheflumph.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/mechanical-bastard-osr-class.html
Warforged (Dungeon Crawl Classics): https://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/warforged-dccified/
Robots (Anomalous Subsurface Environment): http://henchmanabuse.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/robots.html
Robodroids: http://encritgaz.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/labyrinth-critical-class-robodroids.html
B/X Basic Warforged: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?718434-B-X-Basic-Warforged
X-Plorers (Alien and Robot Design): http://www.rpgnow.com/product/118926/Alien--Robot-Class-Design
Warforged (for 0D&D & Labyrinth Lord): http://migellito.blogspot.com.au/p/osr-eberron.html
Warforged (for BECMI D&D - scroll down): http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=125
Warpforged (for ACKS) https://axesnorcs.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/warpforged-scifi-robot-characters-for.html
Droid (for Lamentations of the Flame Princess): http://metalvsskin.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/kalak-nur-droid-raceclass.html
Mechaborg: http://flamingoil.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/mechaborg-for-osr-based-japanese-themed.html
Warforged: http://rachelghoulgamestuff.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/new-school-race-as-classes-2-warforged.html
Warforged Race Ability (ACKS): http://www.autarch.co/forums/house-rules/hrclockworkwarforged-race-ability
Robot (White Star): http://www.rpgnow.com/product/148169/White-Star-White-Box-Science-Fiction-Roleplaying-Swords--Wizardry
Tinman (ACKS) www.bythisaxe.co/search/label/tinman
Wow! Thanks for the extensive list.
No worries - hopefully it is of some use.
So I found the notes I made after looking through what other people had done before, thinking about what the key elements of a robot/construct race would be. The consistent themes which made them standout were IMMUNITIES (e.g. to poison), VULNERABILITIES (e.g. to rust monsters - these varied a LOT :-) ), MECHANICAL HEALING (vs. std. recovery and magical healing), INBUILT ARMOUR (natural AC), NATURALATTACKS/INBUILT WEAPON, and LIMITED SOCIAL SKILLS.
However, there was a fair amount of variation in the way these were interpreted - I compiled the different approaches taken (as below):
IMMUNITIES (these varied widely but comprised some or all of the following - I liked the idea of all but this seemed very powerful)
- Immune to fatigue
- Immune to poison
- Immune to disease
- No need to eat or drink
- No need to breathe
VULNERABILITIES (necessary to offset immunities - but varied even more)
- Max damage from electricity (and stunned for 1d6 rounds) (though I think one example had electricity HEALING robots)
- Cannot consume potions
- Liquid attacks do max damage and cause to be stunned for 1d6 rounds
- Double damage from metal affected spells (heat metal)
- 2d8 damage / round from rust monsters
MECHANICAL HEALING (variants below)
- No natural healing allowed
- Half HP from magical healing only
- NO HP from magical healing
- Robot/Construct has ability to repair self – options included:
- heals 1d6 / 2 character levels
- Repair self 1 hp/level for 8 hrs
- 8 hr repair cycle – 1d6+1 repair (replaces sleep?)
- Robot creates healing salve – heals 1d6+1, costs 250 gp
- Robot heals by eating gold coins
- Healing – 1 hp / gp eaten, to a max of Con per day
- Or a combination of the above
- 10 gp / hp to self-repair, 1d3 hrs / hp in safe well lit repair space OR mechanic repair 15 gp / hp
INBUILT ARMOUR (pretty powerful for ACKS if taking Thrassian as model?)
- Tended to vary from +2 to +3 natural armour class (advantage)
- Some required special armour for further AC - suggestions were armour had to be custom built and cost 2-5x the cost (limitation)
- Some said NO further armour avail (limitation)
- Always considered wearing metal armour for magical effects, swimming etc (limitation)
NATURAL ATTACKS (this was a little less common)
- fists - 1d4 damage
LIMITED SOCIAL SKILLS (this one was pretty consistent and a nice, flavourful disadvantage)
- reduced encounter reaction with non-constructs
- increased encounter reaction with constructs (?)
Anyway, that was the consistent stuff which I thought would form a basis for the 'basic' construct race. Then there were other bits which could be used for 'race as class' differentiation later on. Honourable mentions I thought fun included:
- options to 'internalise' weapons/equipment (e.g. swords embedded in arms etc.)
- One of the products (White Star as I recall) had different builds for different types of construct - e.g. the War-Construct, the Diplomat-Construct and the Mechanic/Specialist construct which seemed like good models for class options
I didn't get much further than this other than to start trying to match the Construct/Robot abilities to existing ACKS abilities and build points - but this is really not something I have a lot of experience with - anyway below are the existing ACKS approximations I noticed:
IMMUNITIES
- Immune to disease [divine health – 1 custom power]
- Wholeness of Body: The character is immune to all forms of poison, including magical poisons. [1 custom power]
Not sure how to allocate points for not sleeping or eating...
INBUILT ARMOUR
- Scaly Hide: The character has a scaly hide which increases his unarmored AC to 1 or more. A heavy scaly hide may reduce the character’s base movement rate. [This custom power counts as 1 or more custom powers if selected, depending on the AC]. (3 AC = 3 pts., 60 ft. mv)
LIMITED SOCIAL SKILLS
- Inhumanity: The character suffers a penalty to the reactions, loyalty, and morale of humans and demi-humans.
And that's as far as I got :-)
Perhaps you’ll find my tinmen of some value: www.bythisaxe.co/search/label/tinman
Be sure to click “Older Posts” to see them all.
Also, they make a cameo appearance in D@W. So, we have an intelligent construct rule for D@W.
One word - awesome!
One word - awesome!
Thanks!
CharlesDM - your "Tinmen" take on the robot classes are great - and yes, most useful. Thank you. For completeness I'll add them to the list of Robto/Android classes above :-)