Xefas
2017-04-26, 04:11 PM
Links
General Mythos Rules + The Swordbearer Base Class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?522575-5e-Mythos-General-Rules-Swordbearer-Base-Class)
The Cynosure Base Class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?522905-5e-Mythos-The-Cynosure-Base-Class)
The Adversary Base Class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?524003-5e-Mythos-The-Adversary)
The Mechanikos
The world is a bounty of resources for those who can see them, and the Mechanikos is he who exults in exploitation of the mundane and fantastic towards that most pure and divine act of Creation. In copper and iron and fire, they usher alien wonders into the sky and beneath the earth; their story is anachronism incarnate, the disrespectful violation of the stagnant, medieval world the gods have wrought.
To inherit the Mythos of Invention, one must be a builder of things in one capacity or another. The moment of ignition is a defiance of what the world considers reasonable - coalesced into a construction that blurs the line between technology and magic. The impossible is a goal, not a line.
An old clockmaker's heart is failing. As he considers that today might be the last birthday that he sees, his eyes shift slowly to his workbench and he begins to envy the perfect order of gears and springs that will run eternal with proper maintenance. If only he could trade his weak flesh for a mechanism of replaceable parts. If only. And then he begins to ponder why it could not be done.
An architect looks over the outlandish designs he'd scrawled in the fever that had nearly taken his life only days ago. He wonders if perhaps his right mind has not yet returned, because this series of apparatuses that would absorb, distill, and contain heat in the summer in order to warm the city in the winter - saving countless lives - it all seems perfectly, outrageously mad. But... doable.
They said it couldn't be done, but the glassblower proved them wrong. It was the dead of night outside, but daylight shone brightly in the little cottage. Bottling lightning - the fire of the gods! How impossible! And yet the proof hummed brightly on the table. One triumph felt incredible, but the humble craftsman felt humble no more, and the world beyond sprawled outward before him like a canvas waiting for paint.
Class Features
As a Mechanikos, you gain the following class features.
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d8 per Mechanikos level, +10d8
Hit Points at First Level: 60 + [(your Constitution modifier) x 11)]
Hit Points at Higher Levels: [5 + (your Constitution modifier)] per Mechanikos level after 1st
Proficiencies
Armor: All Armor, Shields
Weapons: Simple Weapons
Tools: One Artisan Tool and a second Artisan Tool, Gaming Set, or Musical Instrument of your choice
Saving Throws: Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom
Skills: Arcana, plus any three of your choice
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background.
(a) a simple melee weapon of your choice or (b) a simple ranged weapon of your choice and 20 ammunition for it
(a) a set of armor of your choice and travelers clothes or (b) a small workshop that doubles as a living space and common clothes
(a) two sets of Artisan Tools of your choice or (b) one set of Artisan Tools of your choice and 50gp
(a) an equipment pack of your choice
(a) Arcanotech Tools and 200gp worth of Techscrap
Arcanotech Tools
This set of tools is a unique invention of characters possessing the Mechanikos class. Each character creates their own a little differently, but in general these are an array of strange implements that measure and make adjustments to esoteric forces that no one outside of another Mechanikos (or an Arcanotechnician, explained later in the class) would understand.
A Mechanikos requires a set of these tools in order to build their Arcanotech structures and devices. And, barring a special ability that says otherwise, they simply cannot do so without them. Constructing a new set requires using the Crafting downtime activity and 25gp of raw materials (usually taking 5 days). Only a Mechanikos has the intuition necessary to make them, and all members of the class are automatically proficient with them.
Techscrap
By spending some time shopping, a Mechanikos can accrue an innocuous pile of widgets, doodads, odds, and ends that look like nothing so much more than a bag of refuse to the common person. This stuff is abstracted as "Techscrap", and in any settlement larger than a village, a Mechanikos can usually convert just about any amount of gold pieces they would like into this nebulous junk. 100gp worth of Techscrap typically weighs about 5lbs.
Because of its seemingly garbage-like nature, selling Techscrap back to anyone other than another Mechanikos is usually a losing proposition. If anyone will take it at all, it will be at a significant loss.
Level
Proficiency Bonus
Features
1st
+4
The Maker's Resonance, Minor Invention, Major Invention Schematization, Major Invention Construction, Visionary Teacher Of The New Era
2nd
+4
Enlightenment From The Machine, Ability Score Improvement
3rd
+5
Think Fast
4th
+5
Enlightenment From The Machine (II)
5th
+5
Enlightenment From The Machine (III)
6th
+5
Enlightenment From The Machine (IV), Ability Score Improvement
7th
+6
Unimaginable Miracle-Assembling Brilliance
8th
+6
Enlightenment From The Machine (V)
9th
+6
Enlightenment From The Machine (VI), Ability Score Improvement
10th
+6
Prime Invention
Saving Throws
Unless otherwise noted, when one of a Mechanikos's abilities requires a saving throw, the DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier.
The Maker's Resonance
At the end of a Long Rest, if you feel as if you have done one of the following since your last Long Rest, ask your fellows players and GM if they agree. If the majority do, gain one Inspiration. You may only gain one Inspiration in this way per Long Rest.
You used an invention to solve a problem in a clever way.
You helped a party member complete or progress a personal goal by being very smart or by using an invention.
You ranted like a brain-addled mad scientist, a bright-eyed visionary with hope for the future, or a cynical old man.
The ignorant masses lashed out at you for fear of your super-science, or something you invented was turned against you.
You found or experienced something that inspired you, and you created a Major Invention Schematic designed to use or interact with it.
When using your World-Shaping Demiurge Authority, you have dominion over engineering, machinery, tools, craftsmen, craftsmanship, and esoteric arcane power sources.
Minor Invention
Once, there was a boy who was stuck on the ground...
A Minor Invention is a relatively small device that inefficiently channels the cosmic forces that you work with, inevitably burning out its unstable components in short order. It is, however, still a miraculous feat of mythical engineering.
Building or modifying a Minor Invention takes about 1 hour, requires a functioning set of Arcanotech Tools, and can be completed as part of a Short or Long rest without extending the amount of time those rest activities require. Because of the exhausting mental effort required to cobble them together, a Mechanikos can not usually make more than (Intelligence modifier) Inventions between long rests - just ask a painter to sit down and churn out a half-dozen inspired, never-before-seen, genre-redefining masterpieces in a day and see how that works out (you can't force genius) - and a Minor Invention typically burns out after 12 hours of existence (or until you finish a long rest).
To build a Minor Invention requires 100gp worth of Techscrap. Once the Minor Invention expires, if you have Arcanotech Tools with you, you may make a proficient Intelligence check (DC 15). If you succeed, you manage to salvage 70% of the Techscrap used in its construction. If you fail by 4 or less, you manage to salvage 50%. If you fail by 5 or more, you only manage to salvage 30%. If you succeed by 5 or more, you salvage 90%. In the event that a Mechanikos happens upon the broken remnants of a Minor Invention somewhere, the DM may deem it viable to salvage in the same way.
When building a Minor Invention, you may build a weapon, a shield, or a gadget.
Weapon
You are proficient in your invented weapon and it deals 1d10 (slashing, piercing, bludgeoning; pick one) damage. If your invented weapon is two-handed, bump the die up a size. (The progression of dice is 1d12 - 1d10 - 1d8 - 1d6 - 1d4)
For each of the following things that are true, bump the die down a size, to a minimum of 1d4.
Anyone proficient in simple weapons is proficient with it. (The "Easy To Use" property)
It has the Finesse property.
It has the Reach property.
Its damage is considered the best of slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning.
It's a ranged weapon with the Ammunition property and a range of (80/320)
If it has the above modification that makes it a ranged weapon, its range is instead (150/600)
Now, add a special property to the weapon. Examples will follow the class, but are not comprehensive. Generally speaking, this extra property should be some physical feat of engineering that circumvents a narrow problem, provides a small benefit in a wide variety of situations, or a large benefit in a narrow field of situations. The DM should work with you to find a balance point, and may stipulate a single drawback or quirk the Invention has if necessary (making an Invention weirder is a small price to pay to see your vision realized in its full glory).
Shield
Your invented shield is, at its base, a shield like any other. It provides the normal +2 to Armor Class and anyone proficient with shields is proficient with it.
As with an invented weapon, you may add a special property to the shield with the same stipulations, and the DM make likewise add a drawback or quirk to it.
Gadget
A gadget can take many forms, but its function is one of the following:
It grants a significant bonus to a narrow purview of a Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom skill.
It provides a new way to use a Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom skill.
It does something similar, but not covered by an existing skill.
As with invented weapons and shields, examples will be given, but some balance will have to be done in play, and the DM is encouraged to find a flavorful drawback or quirk to add.
When you modify an existing Minor Invention, you keep its base functionality the same, but tweak it in a significant way, or a few minor ways to make it notably different. For example, if you've invented a metal crossbow that absorbs ambient heat from the air to generate and throw bolts of fire at your enemies, maybe you could modify it to absorb invisible particles charged with elemental electricity from the air and launch those as a stroke of lightning instead. Or perhaps you could modify the same fire-thrower to instead weaponize its absorption, providing nothing else but a large bonus when fighting Fire Elementals and similar creatures - a much narrower focus, but useful if you know what you're about to go up against.
Major Invention Schematization
...and who looked ever to the sky.
Whereas Minor Inventions compose a Mechanikos' everyday problem-solving kit, Major Inventions are enduring wonders that change the world. Sometimes in small ways, sometimes in large ways, sometimes in ways truly massive.
Before a Major Invention can be created, a schematic must be made.
The first step of creating a schematic is to vet the broad idea of the invention, in a general sense, to the rest of the gaming group and decide whether it's something that a Mechanikos should even be able to do (at least for now). There are times in a campaign when an orbital death ray is totally fine, and there are other times when such magnificence will only serve to steal the show from everyone else and run the game into the ground. At the same time, making crazy stuff is your primary schtick, so the group should be mindful that you deserve the spotlight too sometimes. Often, other party members will even be able to help in the process.
The second step is determining the future invention's Power and Scale. Power is a measure of how incredible the invention's function is, and Scale is how large an area or how many people it affects. You cannot draft a schematic for, or build, a Major Invention with a Power or Scale higher than your Intelligence modifier.
Power
P1: Something convenient. Potentially indirectly life-saving in an aggregate sense. Example: A machine that provides central heating in a temperate dwelling. A refrigerator. A lightbulb.
P2: Something life-saving from everyday maladies. Examples: A machine that inputs contaminated water and outputs pure water. A machine that disinfects wounds. A prosthetic leg about as good as a real one. A machine that can heat a tundra environment to something comfortable.
P3: Something miraculous that makes life possible where it otherwise wouldn't be. Examples: A machine that creates water in the desert. A machine that can combine the genetic material of any two humanoid creatures and produce a viable offspring. A machine that grows crops underground.
P4: Something that enhances or manipulates what is already there beyond what it could normally be. Examples: A powered exoskeleton. A firearm. A weather machine.
P5: Something that subverts natural or fundamental forces. A permanent gate to another plane of existence. A cage for souls. A dead-magic bomb.
Scale
S1: It's meant to affect one person. One refrigerator, one prosthetic leg, one firearm.
S2: It's meant to affect a small group. It changes the lives of a small village, a neighborhood, a mercenary band, etc.
S3: It's meant to affect thousands. A town, an army, etc.
S4: It's meant to affect hundreds of thousands. An entire city or city-state area.
S5: It's meant to affect an entire country (or more).
The third step is to pay for your hubris. Add the schematic's Power and Scale together. This is the future invention's Complexity. The DM can add up to (Complexity) Complications to the future invention, with your input to make sure they're thematic to your vision.
Some possible Internal Complications (not exhaustive):
Infrastructure: You need one or more other Major Inventions for this Major Invention to rely on. Example: Providing light-exuding machines to a city's population might require a central power source and relay stations to be set up around the city.
Materials: You need something rare and exotic to make your thing work, or you need a vast amount of something mundane to the point where the cost of the mundane material is not the prohibitive factor, but rather that it's troublesome to simply acquire that volume at all. Example: Your robot arm needs wires of a special refined mithril alloy to properly connect to your nervous system.
Maintenance: The invention is fragile and prone to breaking down even over the short term. If you're not around to maintain it, you're going to need to train and employ a certain number of Arcanotechnicians to work it for you in your absence. Example: Your power plant has a tendency to holocaustically meltdown if you, or a team of three Arcanotechnicians, aren't there to service its core regularly.
Unreliability: The invention always works. But sometimes it doesn't work in exactly the way you wanted it to. Example: Your giant robot achieves sapience and goes berserk if the wrong person tries to pilot it.
Weakness: The invention has a weakness that depowers, subverts, or destroys it, but is usually either easy but non-obvious, or obvious but very difficult. Example: Your orbital death ray has a small external exhaust port that leads directly to its solid-explodium energy core.
Some possible External Complications (not exhaustive):
Help: You're a genius, but you're not a genius at everything. You need to find someone with proper expertise to either aid in the construction of your invention, or just to help design the schematics. Example: This device that creates an invisible, necromantically resonant frequency that dilutes and dissolves pools of gathering negative energy so that corpses in the area cannot rise as undead and pre-existing undead are weakened requires a knowledge of the magical arts you do not possess. You require a high-level necromancer to work with every construction of the device, to tune its frequencies precisely, or else it won't function properly.
Labor: The construction of your invention requires a large amount of skilled or unskilled labor to complete in any reasonable timeframe. Example: Your sword factory is, in fact, a big-ass factory, and you're going to need a lot of people just to lay bricks and pour cement for your fancy machines to have a place to work.
Mundane Attention: There are people interested in the kind of thing that you're planning on making, and their interest will be inconvenient to you. Example: A peasant sees you toast an orc with your new flamethrower. He tells the local magistrate. The magistrate tells the baron, the baron tells the count, the count tells the duke, the duke tells the king. Now the king wants flamethrowers for his army and he's prepared to send his army to get some.
Supernatural Attention: Your creation is so glorious that folk beyond the mortal plane have taken notice. Example: Bel, Lord of Avernus looks down on your world and sees a city of mortals with heated jacuzzis. He begins to wonder why he's still bathing like some chump in a tub and demands that his infernal agents discover the mind behind this invention so they can be acquired and made to do some home renovations in Hell. Hilarity and suffering ensues.
Consequence: The invention works, but has an unintended side effect. Example: An automated logging operation doesn't last forever. Eventually it will deforest the entire area it was designed to operate in. Some people consider this a bad thing.
The fourth step is to make a weird description of what your invention actually looks like and how it does what it does. Your power is derived from the Mythos of the Maker, whose legend requires function over form. It favors gears, pistons, vacuum tubes, wires, tubes, pipes hoses, coils arcing with electricity, valves, chains, and other things, and it despises beautiful flourishes and artistic considerations.
It is neither technology nor magic, but should resemble both. It cannot make a modern, realistic gun. It cannot make a wand of scorching rays. But it can make a metal crossbow with a gear crank that takes an attached cannister with a fire elemental bound inside and, when fired, shaves a disk of the elemental's essence from it with an internal rune-inscribed blade, and then launches the screaming, whirling blade of pure fire at its target. It cannot make a coal power plant or a perpetual motion device, but it can make a reactor that siphons the very soul of the planet from its core and converts it into safe, usable energy.
This description should incorporate all of the invention's Complications such that they make sense.
Major Invention Construction
One day, he built an amazing machine to soar above the clouds...
Once you have the schematic for a Major Invention, you may construct it as a downtime activity. The base cost of materials and construction time is determined by the invention's Power.
Base Cost and Time
P1: 100gp and 5 days
P2: 200gp and 20 days
P3: 400gp and 60 days
P4: 800gp and 120 days
P5: 1,600gp and 240 days
Then the base cost and construction time is multiplied based on the invention's Scale.
Scale Multiplier
S1: Cost x1, Time x1
S2: Cost x10, Time x2
S3: Cost x100, Time x5
S4: Cost x1000, Time x8
S5: Cost x5000, Time x12
Visionary Teacher Of The New Era
...but the fire of the sun threatened to turn his wonder to ash.
When you serve as someone's instructor while they use the Training downtime activity rules, you divide the amount of time it takes for them to learn a language or tool proficiency that you have by (your Intelligence modifier, minimum 1). If you organize a structured class of multiple students to teach simultaneously, you may train up to (your Intelligence modifier x 10) students at a time.
Furthermore, when you teach someone to be proficient with Arcanotech Tools, they become a certified Arcanotechnician. This allows them to be useful for the Maintenance Complication that many Major Inventions have.
Enlightenment From The Machine
So he let it.
Choose one of the following three abilities to acquire. Each time you gain this class feature, you may pick a different ability. The same ability may be chosen multiple times.
Spark of Genius
Choose one Intelligence skill. If you're not proficient with it, you become proficient. If you are already proficient, you become an expert and add double your proficiency bonus on checks made with it. If you are already an expert, you may not pick the skill again.
Brilliance-Integrating Compulsion
You are struck with a mad impulse to modify yourself. The next time you take a long rest, you build a Minor Invention and permanently add it to your body. Your body is strangely accepting of this modification, as if its obsolete flesh and bone were eager to be discarded for something better. You are not injured by this otherwise grisly act. The integrated Minor Invention does not burn out like others of its kind and does not count against the limit you can make in a day.
The Flesh Is Weak
You come to an odd realization, and perhaps a shift in perspective. Your mind and soul are what you are, and what you are is something more than human. Your body is human - wrong and grotesque - and it ties you to a flawed existence. Each time you take this ability, you unlock the next of the following Machine Body tiers. Once you've unlocked a given tier, you must consume 100gp worth of metal Techscrap. Your body will process it and begin converting itself to a higher existence. Expect to vomit any obsoleted organic components shortly after. Because the Mythos of Invention anchors these changes to your soul, they become metaphysically as much a part of you as anything else - so, for example, a True Resurrection spell would restore you to life with all of your Machine Body intact.
Machine Body Tiers
Tier 1: A few of your internal organs have been replaced with superior mechanical components. You have Advantage on saving throws versus disease and poison.
Tier 2: Your major internal organs, other than your brain, have all been converted to machinery. You can no longer eat, drink, or breathe, and are immune to disease and poison (the condition and the damage).
Tier 3: You are a machine with an organic brain and a meat casing around it. You do not bleed, you are immune to fatigue, and you have darkvision out to 120ft. Your Strength and Constitution increase by 1.
Tier 4: A metal carapace bursts from your useless organic husk and you emerge a perfect being. You are a Construct. You have Resistance to psychic damage, as well as non-magical slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage. You are immune to the paralyzed and petrified conditions and your need to sleep is replaced by a "powered down" cycle that functions much the same, save that your senses remain active and aware. Your new shell need not look like your old self, but it must exhibit the aesthetic legend of the Maker, just as your Major Inventions do.
Think Fast
Once per long rest, you may create or modify a Minor Invention as a bonus action, rather than taking an hour.
Unimaginable Miracle-Assembling Brilliance
"I have taken flight." he said.
Choose one of the following three abilities to acquire.
A New Dawn From The Dust
The Titans rose an age of glory from conceptual nothing - how much more fortunate are you, that you have rocks and twigs to bang together? When you construct a Major Invention, its final cost in gold pieces is reduced by 20%.
Productive Hurricane Mien
The whole of your schema is emblazoned on your mind, and your thoughts race faster than your hands can cope with. How frustrating the separation of the self and the world is, that your perfect designs cannot just spring fully-formed from your brow. When you construct a Major Invention, its final construction time is reduced by 20%.
Diligent Flaw-Eliminating Eye
In the paradigm of 'fast, cheap, or good', you excel in the last even over other supernal craftsmen. Among miracle workers, your work is still yet more miraculous. When you construct a Major Invention, negate one of its Complications of your choice.
Prime Invention
"I will burn in the sky before I ever touch ground again."
After accumulating countless lessons from the many wonders you've constructed, your mind and soul have become primed to enact their magnum opus. This singular piece of technology will go unsurpassed for all time, and will stand as a monument to your greatness for all the world to see.
In terms of material cost and construction time, building your Prime Invention is equivalent to building a Power 5, Scale 5 Major Invention (without the bonus from Unimaginable Miracle-Assembling Brilliance), but its true Power and Scale surpass even those. It's effective Complexity is 12.
A Prime Invention can affect, alter, uplift, protect, or threaten on a planetary scale. An orbital space station (with weapons arrays), a psionic nexus that grants world-wide empathic telepathy, a control tower that can open and close army-sized teleportation gates anywhere in the world, etc. The artifice of gods pales before you.
General Mythos Rules + The Swordbearer Base Class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?522575-5e-Mythos-General-Rules-Swordbearer-Base-Class)
The Cynosure Base Class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?522905-5e-Mythos-The-Cynosure-Base-Class)
The Adversary Base Class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?524003-5e-Mythos-The-Adversary)
The Mechanikos
The world is a bounty of resources for those who can see them, and the Mechanikos is he who exults in exploitation of the mundane and fantastic towards that most pure and divine act of Creation. In copper and iron and fire, they usher alien wonders into the sky and beneath the earth; their story is anachronism incarnate, the disrespectful violation of the stagnant, medieval world the gods have wrought.
To inherit the Mythos of Invention, one must be a builder of things in one capacity or another. The moment of ignition is a defiance of what the world considers reasonable - coalesced into a construction that blurs the line between technology and magic. The impossible is a goal, not a line.
An old clockmaker's heart is failing. As he considers that today might be the last birthday that he sees, his eyes shift slowly to his workbench and he begins to envy the perfect order of gears and springs that will run eternal with proper maintenance. If only he could trade his weak flesh for a mechanism of replaceable parts. If only. And then he begins to ponder why it could not be done.
An architect looks over the outlandish designs he'd scrawled in the fever that had nearly taken his life only days ago. He wonders if perhaps his right mind has not yet returned, because this series of apparatuses that would absorb, distill, and contain heat in the summer in order to warm the city in the winter - saving countless lives - it all seems perfectly, outrageously mad. But... doable.
They said it couldn't be done, but the glassblower proved them wrong. It was the dead of night outside, but daylight shone brightly in the little cottage. Bottling lightning - the fire of the gods! How impossible! And yet the proof hummed brightly on the table. One triumph felt incredible, but the humble craftsman felt humble no more, and the world beyond sprawled outward before him like a canvas waiting for paint.
Class Features
As a Mechanikos, you gain the following class features.
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d8 per Mechanikos level, +10d8
Hit Points at First Level: 60 + [(your Constitution modifier) x 11)]
Hit Points at Higher Levels: [5 + (your Constitution modifier)] per Mechanikos level after 1st
Proficiencies
Armor: All Armor, Shields
Weapons: Simple Weapons
Tools: One Artisan Tool and a second Artisan Tool, Gaming Set, or Musical Instrument of your choice
Saving Throws: Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom
Skills: Arcana, plus any three of your choice
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background.
(a) a simple melee weapon of your choice or (b) a simple ranged weapon of your choice and 20 ammunition for it
(a) a set of armor of your choice and travelers clothes or (b) a small workshop that doubles as a living space and common clothes
(a) two sets of Artisan Tools of your choice or (b) one set of Artisan Tools of your choice and 50gp
(a) an equipment pack of your choice
(a) Arcanotech Tools and 200gp worth of Techscrap
Arcanotech Tools
This set of tools is a unique invention of characters possessing the Mechanikos class. Each character creates their own a little differently, but in general these are an array of strange implements that measure and make adjustments to esoteric forces that no one outside of another Mechanikos (or an Arcanotechnician, explained later in the class) would understand.
A Mechanikos requires a set of these tools in order to build their Arcanotech structures and devices. And, barring a special ability that says otherwise, they simply cannot do so without them. Constructing a new set requires using the Crafting downtime activity and 25gp of raw materials (usually taking 5 days). Only a Mechanikos has the intuition necessary to make them, and all members of the class are automatically proficient with them.
Techscrap
By spending some time shopping, a Mechanikos can accrue an innocuous pile of widgets, doodads, odds, and ends that look like nothing so much more than a bag of refuse to the common person. This stuff is abstracted as "Techscrap", and in any settlement larger than a village, a Mechanikos can usually convert just about any amount of gold pieces they would like into this nebulous junk. 100gp worth of Techscrap typically weighs about 5lbs.
Because of its seemingly garbage-like nature, selling Techscrap back to anyone other than another Mechanikos is usually a losing proposition. If anyone will take it at all, it will be at a significant loss.
Level
Proficiency Bonus
Features
1st
+4
The Maker's Resonance, Minor Invention, Major Invention Schematization, Major Invention Construction, Visionary Teacher Of The New Era
2nd
+4
Enlightenment From The Machine, Ability Score Improvement
3rd
+5
Think Fast
4th
+5
Enlightenment From The Machine (II)
5th
+5
Enlightenment From The Machine (III)
6th
+5
Enlightenment From The Machine (IV), Ability Score Improvement
7th
+6
Unimaginable Miracle-Assembling Brilliance
8th
+6
Enlightenment From The Machine (V)
9th
+6
Enlightenment From The Machine (VI), Ability Score Improvement
10th
+6
Prime Invention
Saving Throws
Unless otherwise noted, when one of a Mechanikos's abilities requires a saving throw, the DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier.
The Maker's Resonance
At the end of a Long Rest, if you feel as if you have done one of the following since your last Long Rest, ask your fellows players and GM if they agree. If the majority do, gain one Inspiration. You may only gain one Inspiration in this way per Long Rest.
You used an invention to solve a problem in a clever way.
You helped a party member complete or progress a personal goal by being very smart or by using an invention.
You ranted like a brain-addled mad scientist, a bright-eyed visionary with hope for the future, or a cynical old man.
The ignorant masses lashed out at you for fear of your super-science, or something you invented was turned against you.
You found or experienced something that inspired you, and you created a Major Invention Schematic designed to use or interact with it.
When using your World-Shaping Demiurge Authority, you have dominion over engineering, machinery, tools, craftsmen, craftsmanship, and esoteric arcane power sources.
Minor Invention
Once, there was a boy who was stuck on the ground...
A Minor Invention is a relatively small device that inefficiently channels the cosmic forces that you work with, inevitably burning out its unstable components in short order. It is, however, still a miraculous feat of mythical engineering.
Building or modifying a Minor Invention takes about 1 hour, requires a functioning set of Arcanotech Tools, and can be completed as part of a Short or Long rest without extending the amount of time those rest activities require. Because of the exhausting mental effort required to cobble them together, a Mechanikos can not usually make more than (Intelligence modifier) Inventions between long rests - just ask a painter to sit down and churn out a half-dozen inspired, never-before-seen, genre-redefining masterpieces in a day and see how that works out (you can't force genius) - and a Minor Invention typically burns out after 12 hours of existence (or until you finish a long rest).
To build a Minor Invention requires 100gp worth of Techscrap. Once the Minor Invention expires, if you have Arcanotech Tools with you, you may make a proficient Intelligence check (DC 15). If you succeed, you manage to salvage 70% of the Techscrap used in its construction. If you fail by 4 or less, you manage to salvage 50%. If you fail by 5 or more, you only manage to salvage 30%. If you succeed by 5 or more, you salvage 90%. In the event that a Mechanikos happens upon the broken remnants of a Minor Invention somewhere, the DM may deem it viable to salvage in the same way.
When building a Minor Invention, you may build a weapon, a shield, or a gadget.
Weapon
You are proficient in your invented weapon and it deals 1d10 (slashing, piercing, bludgeoning; pick one) damage. If your invented weapon is two-handed, bump the die up a size. (The progression of dice is 1d12 - 1d10 - 1d8 - 1d6 - 1d4)
For each of the following things that are true, bump the die down a size, to a minimum of 1d4.
Anyone proficient in simple weapons is proficient with it. (The "Easy To Use" property)
It has the Finesse property.
It has the Reach property.
Its damage is considered the best of slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning.
It's a ranged weapon with the Ammunition property and a range of (80/320)
If it has the above modification that makes it a ranged weapon, its range is instead (150/600)
Now, add a special property to the weapon. Examples will follow the class, but are not comprehensive. Generally speaking, this extra property should be some physical feat of engineering that circumvents a narrow problem, provides a small benefit in a wide variety of situations, or a large benefit in a narrow field of situations. The DM should work with you to find a balance point, and may stipulate a single drawback or quirk the Invention has if necessary (making an Invention weirder is a small price to pay to see your vision realized in its full glory).
Shield
Your invented shield is, at its base, a shield like any other. It provides the normal +2 to Armor Class and anyone proficient with shields is proficient with it.
As with an invented weapon, you may add a special property to the shield with the same stipulations, and the DM make likewise add a drawback or quirk to it.
Gadget
A gadget can take many forms, but its function is one of the following:
It grants a significant bonus to a narrow purview of a Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom skill.
It provides a new way to use a Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom skill.
It does something similar, but not covered by an existing skill.
As with invented weapons and shields, examples will be given, but some balance will have to be done in play, and the DM is encouraged to find a flavorful drawback or quirk to add.
When you modify an existing Minor Invention, you keep its base functionality the same, but tweak it in a significant way, or a few minor ways to make it notably different. For example, if you've invented a metal crossbow that absorbs ambient heat from the air to generate and throw bolts of fire at your enemies, maybe you could modify it to absorb invisible particles charged with elemental electricity from the air and launch those as a stroke of lightning instead. Or perhaps you could modify the same fire-thrower to instead weaponize its absorption, providing nothing else but a large bonus when fighting Fire Elementals and similar creatures - a much narrower focus, but useful if you know what you're about to go up against.
Major Invention Schematization
...and who looked ever to the sky.
Whereas Minor Inventions compose a Mechanikos' everyday problem-solving kit, Major Inventions are enduring wonders that change the world. Sometimes in small ways, sometimes in large ways, sometimes in ways truly massive.
Before a Major Invention can be created, a schematic must be made.
The first step of creating a schematic is to vet the broad idea of the invention, in a general sense, to the rest of the gaming group and decide whether it's something that a Mechanikos should even be able to do (at least for now). There are times in a campaign when an orbital death ray is totally fine, and there are other times when such magnificence will only serve to steal the show from everyone else and run the game into the ground. At the same time, making crazy stuff is your primary schtick, so the group should be mindful that you deserve the spotlight too sometimes. Often, other party members will even be able to help in the process.
The second step is determining the future invention's Power and Scale. Power is a measure of how incredible the invention's function is, and Scale is how large an area or how many people it affects. You cannot draft a schematic for, or build, a Major Invention with a Power or Scale higher than your Intelligence modifier.
Power
P1: Something convenient. Potentially indirectly life-saving in an aggregate sense. Example: A machine that provides central heating in a temperate dwelling. A refrigerator. A lightbulb.
P2: Something life-saving from everyday maladies. Examples: A machine that inputs contaminated water and outputs pure water. A machine that disinfects wounds. A prosthetic leg about as good as a real one. A machine that can heat a tundra environment to something comfortable.
P3: Something miraculous that makes life possible where it otherwise wouldn't be. Examples: A machine that creates water in the desert. A machine that can combine the genetic material of any two humanoid creatures and produce a viable offspring. A machine that grows crops underground.
P4: Something that enhances or manipulates what is already there beyond what it could normally be. Examples: A powered exoskeleton. A firearm. A weather machine.
P5: Something that subverts natural or fundamental forces. A permanent gate to another plane of existence. A cage for souls. A dead-magic bomb.
Scale
S1: It's meant to affect one person. One refrigerator, one prosthetic leg, one firearm.
S2: It's meant to affect a small group. It changes the lives of a small village, a neighborhood, a mercenary band, etc.
S3: It's meant to affect thousands. A town, an army, etc.
S4: It's meant to affect hundreds of thousands. An entire city or city-state area.
S5: It's meant to affect an entire country (or more).
The third step is to pay for your hubris. Add the schematic's Power and Scale together. This is the future invention's Complexity. The DM can add up to (Complexity) Complications to the future invention, with your input to make sure they're thematic to your vision.
Some possible Internal Complications (not exhaustive):
Infrastructure: You need one or more other Major Inventions for this Major Invention to rely on. Example: Providing light-exuding machines to a city's population might require a central power source and relay stations to be set up around the city.
Materials: You need something rare and exotic to make your thing work, or you need a vast amount of something mundane to the point where the cost of the mundane material is not the prohibitive factor, but rather that it's troublesome to simply acquire that volume at all. Example: Your robot arm needs wires of a special refined mithril alloy to properly connect to your nervous system.
Maintenance: The invention is fragile and prone to breaking down even over the short term. If you're not around to maintain it, you're going to need to train and employ a certain number of Arcanotechnicians to work it for you in your absence. Example: Your power plant has a tendency to holocaustically meltdown if you, or a team of three Arcanotechnicians, aren't there to service its core regularly.
Unreliability: The invention always works. But sometimes it doesn't work in exactly the way you wanted it to. Example: Your giant robot achieves sapience and goes berserk if the wrong person tries to pilot it.
Weakness: The invention has a weakness that depowers, subverts, or destroys it, but is usually either easy but non-obvious, or obvious but very difficult. Example: Your orbital death ray has a small external exhaust port that leads directly to its solid-explodium energy core.
Some possible External Complications (not exhaustive):
Help: You're a genius, but you're not a genius at everything. You need to find someone with proper expertise to either aid in the construction of your invention, or just to help design the schematics. Example: This device that creates an invisible, necromantically resonant frequency that dilutes and dissolves pools of gathering negative energy so that corpses in the area cannot rise as undead and pre-existing undead are weakened requires a knowledge of the magical arts you do not possess. You require a high-level necromancer to work with every construction of the device, to tune its frequencies precisely, or else it won't function properly.
Labor: The construction of your invention requires a large amount of skilled or unskilled labor to complete in any reasonable timeframe. Example: Your sword factory is, in fact, a big-ass factory, and you're going to need a lot of people just to lay bricks and pour cement for your fancy machines to have a place to work.
Mundane Attention: There are people interested in the kind of thing that you're planning on making, and their interest will be inconvenient to you. Example: A peasant sees you toast an orc with your new flamethrower. He tells the local magistrate. The magistrate tells the baron, the baron tells the count, the count tells the duke, the duke tells the king. Now the king wants flamethrowers for his army and he's prepared to send his army to get some.
Supernatural Attention: Your creation is so glorious that folk beyond the mortal plane have taken notice. Example: Bel, Lord of Avernus looks down on your world and sees a city of mortals with heated jacuzzis. He begins to wonder why he's still bathing like some chump in a tub and demands that his infernal agents discover the mind behind this invention so they can be acquired and made to do some home renovations in Hell. Hilarity and suffering ensues.
Consequence: The invention works, but has an unintended side effect. Example: An automated logging operation doesn't last forever. Eventually it will deforest the entire area it was designed to operate in. Some people consider this a bad thing.
The fourth step is to make a weird description of what your invention actually looks like and how it does what it does. Your power is derived from the Mythos of the Maker, whose legend requires function over form. It favors gears, pistons, vacuum tubes, wires, tubes, pipes hoses, coils arcing with electricity, valves, chains, and other things, and it despises beautiful flourishes and artistic considerations.
It is neither technology nor magic, but should resemble both. It cannot make a modern, realistic gun. It cannot make a wand of scorching rays. But it can make a metal crossbow with a gear crank that takes an attached cannister with a fire elemental bound inside and, when fired, shaves a disk of the elemental's essence from it with an internal rune-inscribed blade, and then launches the screaming, whirling blade of pure fire at its target. It cannot make a coal power plant or a perpetual motion device, but it can make a reactor that siphons the very soul of the planet from its core and converts it into safe, usable energy.
This description should incorporate all of the invention's Complications such that they make sense.
Major Invention Construction
One day, he built an amazing machine to soar above the clouds...
Once you have the schematic for a Major Invention, you may construct it as a downtime activity. The base cost of materials and construction time is determined by the invention's Power.
Base Cost and Time
P1: 100gp and 5 days
P2: 200gp and 20 days
P3: 400gp and 60 days
P4: 800gp and 120 days
P5: 1,600gp and 240 days
Then the base cost and construction time is multiplied based on the invention's Scale.
Scale Multiplier
S1: Cost x1, Time x1
S2: Cost x10, Time x2
S3: Cost x100, Time x5
S4: Cost x1000, Time x8
S5: Cost x5000, Time x12
Visionary Teacher Of The New Era
...but the fire of the sun threatened to turn his wonder to ash.
When you serve as someone's instructor while they use the Training downtime activity rules, you divide the amount of time it takes for them to learn a language or tool proficiency that you have by (your Intelligence modifier, minimum 1). If you organize a structured class of multiple students to teach simultaneously, you may train up to (your Intelligence modifier x 10) students at a time.
Furthermore, when you teach someone to be proficient with Arcanotech Tools, they become a certified Arcanotechnician. This allows them to be useful for the Maintenance Complication that many Major Inventions have.
Enlightenment From The Machine
So he let it.
Choose one of the following three abilities to acquire. Each time you gain this class feature, you may pick a different ability. The same ability may be chosen multiple times.
Spark of Genius
Choose one Intelligence skill. If you're not proficient with it, you become proficient. If you are already proficient, you become an expert and add double your proficiency bonus on checks made with it. If you are already an expert, you may not pick the skill again.
Brilliance-Integrating Compulsion
You are struck with a mad impulse to modify yourself. The next time you take a long rest, you build a Minor Invention and permanently add it to your body. Your body is strangely accepting of this modification, as if its obsolete flesh and bone were eager to be discarded for something better. You are not injured by this otherwise grisly act. The integrated Minor Invention does not burn out like others of its kind and does not count against the limit you can make in a day.
The Flesh Is Weak
You come to an odd realization, and perhaps a shift in perspective. Your mind and soul are what you are, and what you are is something more than human. Your body is human - wrong and grotesque - and it ties you to a flawed existence. Each time you take this ability, you unlock the next of the following Machine Body tiers. Once you've unlocked a given tier, you must consume 100gp worth of metal Techscrap. Your body will process it and begin converting itself to a higher existence. Expect to vomit any obsoleted organic components shortly after. Because the Mythos of Invention anchors these changes to your soul, they become metaphysically as much a part of you as anything else - so, for example, a True Resurrection spell would restore you to life with all of your Machine Body intact.
Machine Body Tiers
Tier 1: A few of your internal organs have been replaced with superior mechanical components. You have Advantage on saving throws versus disease and poison.
Tier 2: Your major internal organs, other than your brain, have all been converted to machinery. You can no longer eat, drink, or breathe, and are immune to disease and poison (the condition and the damage).
Tier 3: You are a machine with an organic brain and a meat casing around it. You do not bleed, you are immune to fatigue, and you have darkvision out to 120ft. Your Strength and Constitution increase by 1.
Tier 4: A metal carapace bursts from your useless organic husk and you emerge a perfect being. You are a Construct. You have Resistance to psychic damage, as well as non-magical slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage. You are immune to the paralyzed and petrified conditions and your need to sleep is replaced by a "powered down" cycle that functions much the same, save that your senses remain active and aware. Your new shell need not look like your old self, but it must exhibit the aesthetic legend of the Maker, just as your Major Inventions do.
Think Fast
Once per long rest, you may create or modify a Minor Invention as a bonus action, rather than taking an hour.
Unimaginable Miracle-Assembling Brilliance
"I have taken flight." he said.
Choose one of the following three abilities to acquire.
A New Dawn From The Dust
The Titans rose an age of glory from conceptual nothing - how much more fortunate are you, that you have rocks and twigs to bang together? When you construct a Major Invention, its final cost in gold pieces is reduced by 20%.
Productive Hurricane Mien
The whole of your schema is emblazoned on your mind, and your thoughts race faster than your hands can cope with. How frustrating the separation of the self and the world is, that your perfect designs cannot just spring fully-formed from your brow. When you construct a Major Invention, its final construction time is reduced by 20%.
Diligent Flaw-Eliminating Eye
In the paradigm of 'fast, cheap, or good', you excel in the last even over other supernal craftsmen. Among miracle workers, your work is still yet more miraculous. When you construct a Major Invention, negate one of its Complications of your choice.
Prime Invention
"I will burn in the sky before I ever touch ground again."
After accumulating countless lessons from the many wonders you've constructed, your mind and soul have become primed to enact their magnum opus. This singular piece of technology will go unsurpassed for all time, and will stand as a monument to your greatness for all the world to see.
In terms of material cost and construction time, building your Prime Invention is equivalent to building a Power 5, Scale 5 Major Invention (without the bonus from Unimaginable Miracle-Assembling Brilliance), but its true Power and Scale surpass even those. It's effective Complexity is 12.
A Prime Invention can affect, alter, uplift, protect, or threaten on a planetary scale. An orbital space station (with weapons arrays), a psionic nexus that grants world-wide empathic telepathy, a control tower that can open and close army-sized teleportation gates anywhere in the world, etc. The artifice of gods pales before you.