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View Full Version : Pathfinder Steel Steersman [Cavalier Archetype]



Milo v3
2015-01-23, 09:15 AM
Steel Steersman (Cavalier)

Instead of riding atop a steed of flesh and blood, a Steel Steersman commands an automaton of metal.

Class Skills: A steel steersman loses Handle Animal as a class skill, and gains Knowledge (Engineering) in it's place.

Mount: A steel steersman constructs their mount rather than bonding with one. In addition to the normal traits of being the steel steersmans mount, the animal gains the Half-Construct subtype, counts as two effective druid levels higher for the purpose of determining natural armour, and starts with an intelligence score of -, causing it to possess the mindless quality. This mindless mount cannot learn tricks, possess skill points, or take feats and does not normally take action. While a steel steersman is riding his mindless mount, he may direct the actions of the mount as a free action, causing it to spend it's actions during his turn.

When the mount would gain the opportunity to advance one of it's ability scores, the steel steersman can choose to advance the mounts intelligence score as if the score was 0. This removes the mindless quality, bestows skill points and feats as appropriate for the animal and it's HD (though it does not get the Light Armour Proficiency cavalier mounts automatically gain), the mount is affected by Knowledge (Engineering) checks as if they were Handle Animal checks, and normal Handle Animal checks are not effective on the mount.

Finally, the appearance of a steel steersman's mount is much more mutable. It may appear as a mechanical vehicle, a half-golem version of the animal, or a fully robotic version of the animal, as long as the appearance fits with the mounts statistics. This modifies the mount ability of the cavalier.

Upgrade (Ex): At fifth level, the steel steersman becomes capable of upgrading his mount's body. All of the mounts primary natural attacks can be improved into masterwork quality weapons through Knowledge (Engineering) checks as they were Craft checks, though only the masterwork component is crafted, and the mounts natural armour can be improved to masterwork quality armour in the same manner.

In addition, you gain the benefits of the Craft Magic Arms and Armour feats, but only for enhancing the masterwork natural weapons or masterwork natural armour of your mount, the skill used for the crafting is always Knowledge (Engineering), and you have an effective caster level equal to your class level. This replaces the expert trainer ability of the cavalier.

avr
2015-01-23, 10:10 AM
What does the half-construct subtype do? Is it anything like the construct type?

dragonjek
2015-01-23, 11:17 AM
What does the half-construct subtype do? Is it anything like the construct type?

You can find them here.

avr
2015-01-23, 11:42 AM
Oh, right. In that case the archetype is largely fluff - in mechanics the big change is that you lose a lot of the tricks used to order your mount around when you're not riding it (assuming you raise the Int ASAP) amd light armor prof., and it gains +2 to mind affecting, disease & poison saves. Whether it's fair or not it's just not enough to be a big deal.

Being able to enchant the mounts natural weapons/armor is nice but since you have no spells and are unlikely to have an amazing k(eng.) skill, and normal cavalier mounts (you can't take this and beast rider) aren't combat monsters it's fairly self-limited.

Almarck
2015-01-23, 11:47 AM
Hm, so question.

Does upgrading the weapons and armor of the mount treat the "Engineer's" caster level as his ranks? Since caster levels are important as without them the spells cant be cast in the first place.


Also, does the Steersman follow all of the other rules for crafting? Mostly, I am wondering about the fact that the steers man is unlikely to have spells, and thus, well suffer big crafting DC increases later on. (+5 for each missing spell or other prerequisite)

Milo v3
2015-01-23, 06:43 PM
Can't believe I forgot the caster level :smallredface:

Either way, it is mainly flavour but I wanted someway to have a motorbike mount and the hybrid class I was planning would take longer to write up, so thought I may as well write this small thing now rather than later.