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DapperReaper
2018-05-17, 01:21 AM
Hello! finally had time to make edits to my mad scientist class so thought I'd get around to posting it, didn't want to necro my original post so making a new one, if interested you can check the original out here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?529298-Mad-Scientist-Class) (thanks again to aimlessPolymath for the initial feedback)
so I started writing this class to accomplish a few different things, the primary 2 are to have a specialized crafter that doesn't require spell casting and to flesh out the technology stuff, once I had that I thought "that's basically a scientist/inventor type deal, why not make them a zany mad scientist" so yeah, here are the results, I welcome feedback :3
Edit: made some changes based on the feedback of Quarian Rex
Edit2: moved many innovations to tech advancements under master inventor, also moved some stuff for formatting, but effect unchanged

pathfinder class mad scientist

this class uses the optional sanity rules (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/sanity/)

hit dice: d8
alignment: any
Starting Wealth: 5d6 × 10 gp (average 175gp.) In addition, each character begins play with an outfit worth 10 gp or less.

skill points: 6 + int


level
bab
fort
ref
will
special


1
0
0
0
2
Inherent Madness, Mad Genius, Ingenuity


2
1
1
1
3
Innovation, Swiss army wrench


3
2
1
1
3
bonus feat, Master Inventor+1


4
3
1
1
4
Innovation


5
3
1
1
4
combat crafting


6
4
2
2
5
Innovation, Laboratory


7
5
2
2
5
bonus feat, Master Inventor+2


8
6
2
2
6
Innovation, combat crafting


9
6
3
3
6
Mad Scientist Laboratory


10
7
3
3
7
Innovation, Master Inventor+3


11
8
3
3
7
bonus feat, combat crafting


12
9
4
4
8
Innovation


13
9
4
4
8
simplicity of complexity


14
10
4
4
9
Innovation, Master Inventor+4, combat crafting


15
11
5
5
9
bonus feat


16
12
5
5
10
Innovation


17
12
5
5
10
Master Inventor+5, combat crafting


18
13
6
6
11
Innovation


19
14
6
6
11
bonus feat


20
15
6
6
12
Innovation, Master Inventor+7, combat crafting , Grand Inventor


class skills: appraise, bluff, craft(all), disable device, escape artist, fly, handle animal, heal, intimidate, knowledge(all), linguistics, perception, profession, ride, sense motive, survival, use magic device

mad scientists are proficient with simple and technological weapons, and light and technological armor

Inherent Madness
at first level the mad scientist gains a madness chosen randomly from the lesser madness table, this madness is never dormant and cannot be cured, even by wish or miracle, however the mad scientist never suffers penalties to rolls from any madness, all other effects from madness apply as normal. Additionally, the mad scientist may choose to take 3 sanity damage to reroll a failed roll

Mad Genius
The mad scientist can come up with new and inventive ways to deal with problems, this is represented by 2 pools, one of genius points, and one of madness points. The genius pool has a max equal to his intelligence modifier while his madness pool has a max equal to his charisma modifier. The genius pool recovers 1 point each round per madness affecting him, while the madness pool refills by 1/6th of a point for each point of sanity damage he has. By spending a point from his genius pool a mad scientist can add 1d4 to any d20 rolled value, multiple points may be spent to add multiple d4 to a single roll, however the mad scientist may never spend more points per roll than half his intelligence modifier(min 1). By spending a point from his madness pool a mad scientist may lower the DC(or AC if an attack roll) for a roll by 1d4, like genius points, multiple points may be spent to reduce the DC by a further 1d4, however the mad scientist may not spend more madness points on a single roll than half his charisma modifier(min 1). He also gains technologist and prodigy as bonus feats. Additionally, when the mad scientist would take ability damage or ability drain to intelligence, wisdom or charisma, he may instead take an equal amount of sanity damage. Finally the mad scientist can take an amount of sanity damage(max sanity score) and add an equal amount to a skill check as a competence bonus

Ingenuity
At first level the mad scientist can make something out of almost anything, he gains a +2 bonus to all craft rolls and an additional +1 for every 2 levels possessed and reduces the base DC of all craft rolls by 1 for every 3 levels possessed. Additionally the mad scientist's level counts as her caster level for the purpose of meeting the prerequisites for item creation feats and can use those feats to craft magic items without any of the spell components(increasing the DC by +5 per missing component) and then increasing the DC by the amount of caster level you are missing. Additionally it is worth noting that while the things crafted by the mad scientist may replicate magical effects they are not magical, they are counted as technological even if crafted by normally magical means. Finally the mad scientist receives 1 bonus skill point each level, however these bonus skill points may only be put into craft skills

Innovation
at 2nd level and every 2 levels after the mad scientist comes up with a new innovation, selected off the list below. Additionally, if the mad scientist ever gains a new madness, he may gain a new innovation, however if that madness is cured the associated innovation is also lost. Unless specifically stated otherwise within the description, each innovation may only be taken once

100% of the time, it works 50% of the time
when you craft something you may reduce the cost by 25% but if you do, the item you craft is considered broken and timeworn and the DC to repair it is twice as high as normal

Adrenaline injection
by spending 2 genius points you can pull out a syringe and inject a target with pure adrenaline as a standard action, this forces them into a rage, as the barbarian class feature with the added benefit of fast healing 2 for its duration. this rage lasts 4 rounds and the target is fatigued afterward. using this ability on a barbarian does not consume her rage rounds, however she gains the full bonuses as if she had entered rage herself, additionally she may spend rage rounds to maintain it when it would end

asinine assassination
you slowly walk up and attack your enemy, it’s so unexpected there’s nothing they can do, at least that’s what you think in your mind, what actually happens thematically may vary(GM discretion) what does happen is you determine the DC to stealth up to a target unseen and you take that much sanity damage, but then can attack the target’s flat footed AC and do sneak attack damage as if your mad scientist levels were 2/3 as many rouge levels. The target must be within attack range within 1 move action of your current position. Using asinine assassination is a full round action

behold!
you can reveal one of your creations in an overly dramatic fashion, doing so provides a bonus to impress people via charisma based skill checks equal to your level. Additionally, NPCs you manage to impress with this ability gain +1 step improved attitude toward you.

beyond repair? no such thing!
you can repair destroyed items, by expending 30% of the items material cost, you can restore the remains of the destroyed item to a broken state from which it can be repaired normally, the DC to do so is the same to make a normal repair check on the item, repairing destroyed items in this way restores the lesser of the mad scientist’s intelligence score or half the items hp

bio-engineering
requires: knowledge engineering 5+, knowledge nature 8+, heal 4+
you have learned to augment living things, this allows you to apply eidolan evolutions onto others(or even yourself you can use up to your combined genius and madness point pools in evolution points and the effects last for 8 hours. the process of applying the evolution takes 10 minutes and requires a craft check DC 10 + 5 times the total evolution point cost

brilliant!
increases max genius pool by +2, may be taken multiple times, effect stacks

cardiac reset
requires: heal 6+
when a living being would die due to loss of hit point within half your normal movement, within 2 rounds you may spend a swift action to rush over to them, and then a full round action to resuscitate them by making a heal check DC 20 + target's total hit dice, this sets them into a stable condition 1 hp away from death. if you fail the check but are still within 1 round of the death you may expend another full round on your next turn to try again with a +2 circumstance bonus. Resuscitating the same individual more than once per day increase the DC cumulatively by +10 each time

chemical cooker
requires: brew potion feat
you can use craft(alchemy) to craft alchemist extracts, the DC to do so is 20 plus 5 times the extract level. You may craft up to 3 extracts per day. Chemical cooker may be taken additional times, each additional time increases the number of extracts you can make per day by 3

compact design
requires: craft cybernetics feat
you can implant multiple weapons into a single arm or cybernetic arm, up to 2 weapons in a normal arm or 3 weapons in a cybernetic arm, doing so increases the DC by the number of weapons your installing beyond the first. Additionally you can implant weapons into legs and cybernetic legs, up to 2 weapons into a leg or 3 weapons into a cybernetic leg, these implants have the same cost and DC as their arm counterparts

cybernetic conversion
requires: craft cybernetics feat, craft construct feat, knowledge engineering 10+, heal 10+
normally implanting cybernetics is limited by implant value, however you can overcome that limitation in a very unique way, when you want to implant beyond a subject's normal implant limit you may make a knowledge engineering and a heal check, both having a DC equal to 20 plus the subject's total hit dice, success on both checks successfully installs the implant and adds the half construct subtype to the subject, they become half construct half their normal race, this causes them to gain a +2 to saving throws against disease, poison, mind affecting effects, and effects that cause exhaustion or fatigue, they no longer need to breath, eat or sleep unless they want to gain some benefit from doing so, however they can no longer be raised or resurrected. After this you may continue to install implants however if the subject's total implant value exceeds twice their normal implant limit they become a full construct, losing their con score as well as any racial effects they had that didn't come from being a half construct, once the subject is a full construct they retain all their implants but any further implants becomes impossible

cyborg time!
requires: craft cybernetics feat
you add half your level to craft checks to make cybernetic implants and to the heal check to install them

divine inspiration
you gain access to the artifice cleric domain or one of its sub domains(chosen when this innovation is taken), you do not gain the associated spells, but the abilities treat your mad scientist level as cleric level for the purpose of their potency and duration. These effects count as technological for all purposes

demolition man
requires: chemical cooker
you can craft alchemist bombs at DC 20 + 15 per effective alchemist discovery affecting it. Unlike normal alchemist bombs, these can be stored and then used later by anyone, however they only do their base damage unless you spend 2 genius points when you use them, then they treat your mad scientist levels as half as many alchemist levels

don't do drugs, except when you take all the drugs!
requires: craft pharmaceutical feat
you can bind or mix pharmaceuticals together so that multiple kinds may be taken simultaneously, combining 2 pharmaceuticals in this way takes a move action

dye dye dye!
by expending 2 genius points, you can pull out a vial of colored dye and toss it at someone as a swift action, this marks them and grants a +5 bonus to track them, it also causes them to incur a -2 penalty on all disguise checks

efficient brewery
requires: brew potion feat
you can brew 1 additional potion simultaneously per day, may be taken multiple times, each allowing an additional potion to be brewed

efficient repair
when you repair something you may either reduce the material cost by 50% or increase the amount you repair the item by 50%

electrician
requires: knowledge engineering 6+, laboratory
you've fine-tuned the wiring in your lab, this reduces the necessary energy expenditure to progress in your technological labs by 25%, electrician may be taken 3 times, the second time increases the energy expenditure reduction to 50% and the third time increases it to 75%

evolution in a bottle
requires: bio-engineering
you can distill eidolon evolutions into serums, these serums may be injected with a med-lance. Distilling an evolution is much like brewing a potion, using the evolution point cost as the spell level. These serum effects last only 1 minute

expedience
requires: combat crafting
when crafting you may make a craft check every hour, add half of each result to your craft roll for the purpose of making progress that day

F@#king condos
requires: laboratory
adding additional living quarters to your laboratory costs half as much as normal, however they don't provided any additional bonuses from improved laboratory or count toward the limit on expansion bonuses

fixer
you are unusually adept at repairing things, the base DC for you to repair things is 4 less than normal, this innovation may be taken multiple times, each additional time further reduces the base DC to repair things by 4

fool! that will never work!
by expending 3 madness points you may make a ranged touch attack against an object within 30 feet, if successful, that object gains the broken condition

get the ax
requires: bio-engineering
the max number of evolution points you can apply with bio-engineering is double normal

hold this for me
you can make a diplomacy check and spend a madness point, success compels someone to hold something for you for a minimum of 1 round per 5 you beat the dc (minimum 1 round). They can choose to not do so, but if they do they take your roll in sanity damage

I am 1 can short of a 6 pack!
increase max genius pool and madness pool by +1, may be taken multiple times, effects stack

I built this place from the ground up!
by expending a genius point, your bonuses to craft from ingenuity now also apply to a knowledge(engineering) check

I built this town
requires: laboratory, total bonus technology level 2+
your technology spreads to the surrounding area, improving its technology level by half your increased technology level, granting the reduced bonus to inhabitants exposed to the area for at least a month, this effect spreads from your laboratory +50ft per mad scientist level, +5ft per non mad scientist level, and +300ft per mythic tier. once this bonus raises technology level by more than +1, an additional iteration spreads out from this radius granting 1 less bonus technology level than the previous radius(a level 14 mad scientist would have a 700ft radius around her lab of technology level +2 and a 700ft radius beyond that of technology level +1)

I can build anything!
requires: master inventor +1
increase your technology level bonus from master inventor by +1, additionally reduce the base DC of all craft checks by 2. This innovation may be taken multiple times, its effect stacks

Illogical argument
By spending 3 madness points, you may use your combined intelligence and charisma for a diplomacy check. If the roll succeeds the target may still reject the result, but if they do, you may transfer all of your sanity damage to them

insane productivity
every point of sanity damage you have reduces craft check base DCs by 3, craft DCs may still be increased to increase the amount of progress gained for a given craft check

it’s a trap!
you gain a +6 bonus to craft and arm traps, you can also disarm traps as if you had trap-finding

it’s gonna blow!
requires: demolition man
you can craft timers for explosives with a craft check DC 30, attaching a timer to an explosive requires a craft check as a standard action with half the DC of that needed to craft the explosive, timers may be set in minutes, hours, or rounds, up to a maximum of 72 hours and a minimum of 1 round

let’s experiment
when you fail a knowledge check, you can take 1 point of nonlethal damage and try again, gaining a +1 competence bonus, this bonus increases by +1 for each successive failed attempt. Additionally you also gain the scholar feat

like clockwork
requires: craft mechanical 12+
when you craft something technological, increase your bonus to craft mechanical by half the DC of the item you’re trying to craft

math
you gain a +1 bonus to knowledge engineering checks per skill point you have in knowledge engineering, this bonus is doubled while in your laboratory

measure once, cut twice
each point in a craft skill you have provides a +1 bonus to knowledge engineering checks for schematics or mad scientist laboratory

mechanism
requires: craft mechanical 6+
you've learned to more efficiently use your resources, you gain a pool of mechanism points, max equal to twice your level, by spending 1 mechanism point you can supplement 10gp worth of crafting materials on a craft mechanical check, you may spend up to half your craft mechanical rank in mechanism points on a single check. Each point of mechanism spent gives you 1 point of sanity damage. Mechanism points refresh after 8 hours of rest

mechanist
the base DC to craft constructs is reduced by 1 per 4 levels you have and the time it takes you to craft constructs is half normal, additionally you gain a +4 bonus to repair constructs and repair them by 50% more than normal. these bonuses are enhanced for constructs of the clockwork and robot sub-types, reducing the base craft DC by 1 per 2 levels you have, taking 1/4 normal construction time, granting +8 to repair and repairing by 100% more than normal

mind like a steel hay stack
you are more adjusted to madness than most, when you would take sanity damage, you take half as much, additionally your sanity score is double normal

moment of mad inspiration
when you take sanity damage, you gain the benefit of the investigator's inspiration class feature for a number of rolls equal to the total sanity damage incurred, or 1 minute, whichever comes first

monologue
in traditional mad scientist fashion, you can spout off exposition about your plans and what you intend to do as a full round action, doing so restores 1 genius point and 1 madness point per turn spent doing so, however you must truthfully express your plans to gain this benefit and there must be someone else present to hear you. You can try to bluff a fake monologue to mislead enemies and get a +2 circumstance bonus to do so, however you recover no genius or madness points if you do. this ability is language and sound based

muwahaha!
increase maximum madness pool by +2, may be taken multiple times, effect stacks

my time space manip--
requires: combat crafting
you can bend reality to finish projects faster but with great risk, by expending your entire genius pool you can instantly make 6 craft checks to progress crafting something, however there is a 50% chance afterward you will be frozen for 1d4 hours, as though by temporal stasis

Non-intrusive implants
requires: craft cybernetics feat
when crafting cybernetics, you can increase the material cost by 10%, this also increases the DC of required heal check to install the resultant device by 2, but it reduces that items implant value by 1, to a minimum of 0. You can further increase the cost and reduce the implant value, but the implant value may never be reduced below 0

oh my gawd!
when a plan of yours would go wrong or one of your inventions would cause something bad to happen, you realize right before it happens, and by expending 5 genius points you can make a full round worth of actions before things go bad

over time!
requires: combat crafting
you are no longer limited to 8 hours of work a day for crafting, you may craft for up to 20 hours in a given day, making the appropriate progress, however working more than 8 hours causes you to become fatigued until you rest for 8 hours

physics
you can spend a full round action to calculate positioning of a target and trajectory angles, by making a knowledge engineering check DC equal to a target's AC your next attack within 4 rounds gets a bonus to hit equal to +1 per 5 you beat the check by. physics may be taken additional times, each additional time reduces the time it takes to make the check (full>standard>move>swift>free)

power bond
requires: craft construct feat, craft technological item feat
you can add templates off the following list to constructs you create at the cost of 1000gp per CR adjustment

Advanced template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/advanced-creature-cr-1)
Crystal creature template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/crystal-creature-cr-1)
Haunted construct template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/haunted-construct/)
Hero killer creature template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/hero-killer-creature-cr-5/)
Hivemind swarm template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/hivemind-swarm-cr-special/)
Life spark construct template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/lifespark-construct-template/)
Metal clad template(choose a metal) (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/metal-clad-creature)
Mighty template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/mighty-cr-5/)
Timebreaker creature template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/timebreaker-creature-cr-3/)
Transforming construct template (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/transforming-construct-cr-1/)


presentation
by expending 2 madness points you can make a craft check instead of a performance check at the same DC

put it back!
when you succeed on a perception check to notice a theft in action(such as someone trying to pick pocket you), you can issue an ultimatum to the thief, if they continue with their theft you can spend 3 genius points and 2 madness points to cause them to provoke 3 attacks of opportunity from you, these attacks of opportunity don't count toward your normal per round limit

Quick! To the science mobile!
you gain a robotic steed or other form of mechanical transportation, this functions statistically as a normal heavy horse with a number of hit dice equal to your mad scientist level. You may also select an upgrade off the list below. Quick! To the science mobile! May be taken multiple times, each additional time lets you select 2 upgrades off the list below. Each upgrade to your science mobile increases its size by 1 square. If your science mobile is destroyed, you may construct a new one, using 1,000gp worth of materials, plus an additional 800gp worth of materials for each upgrade to it

armor plating
your science mobile gains armor plating, granting it +4 DR/- and granting its passengers partial cover as well as half its total DR value, this DR counts as twice as much hardness against sunder attempts. This upgrade may be taken multiple times, each additional time beyond first grants an additional +2 DR/-
amphibious!
your science mobile gains a water speed equal to half its land speed
auto-repair
Your science mobile is equipped with an auto-repair system and can recover from damage, this system repairs 4 hp worth of damage each round, this system continues to function even if your science mobile becomes broken, but stops working if it is destroyed. Auto-repair may be taken multiple times, each additional time increases the hp restored each round by an additional 2
drink holders
your science mobile gains robotic arms to hold your beverages, while using your science mobile the action required to drink a potion is reduced by 1 step and requires no skill check, even if moving at high speed
full speed ahead
increase the speed of your science mobile by 10ft, this upgrade may be taken multiple times, its effects stack
rocket science
requires: craft technological item feat, knowledge engineering 10+
you've discovered the secrets of rocket science, you can attach rockets to your science mobile, this gives it the ability to activate a once per rocket burst of speed, as a swift action you can activate the rockets to grant +100ft move per rocket for 1 round to your science mobile. The DC and cost of each rocket is the same as that for a rocket launcher.
shield matrix
Your science mobile gains a force field, the force field has a strength of 20 hp and recovery of 4. This force field also protects the occupants of your science mobile and absorbs attacks against them. Shield matrix maybe taken multiple times, each additional time increases the shield strength by 10 and the recovery by 2
side car
your science mobile gains some extra room for passengers and luggage. This functions statistically as a horse pulling a cart
spaaaace!
requires: take to the skies! rocket science
you've begun to pioneer space travel, you can fly your science mobile to the stars at its normal fly speed and can travel thru the void of space at its normal land speed. additionally your science mobile gets an advanced air filter that can keep the air breathable for 1 week
sub-nautical
requires: side car, amphibious!, travel in style
your science mobile gets an air supply and can travel underwater, it can remain underwater 8 hours with 1 passenger, 4 hours with 2 passengers, or 2 hours with 4 passengers, the air supply takes 5 min to refresh above water. this innovation can be taken multiple times, each additional time provides an additional iteration of air capacity(with 1 passenger, taking it 2 times allows 16 hours, 3 times 24 hours, etc, reduce as normal for multiple passengers)
take to the skies!
your science mobile gains a fly speed equal to 1/3 its land speed(round up to nearest 5ft increment)
travel in style
requires: side car
your science mobile gains a roof and comfort for traveling, this functions statistically as a carriage
you think you can stop me?
requires: 5+ upgrades to your science mobile
your science mobile gains a combat mode, as 2 full round actions you can transform it into an automated steam giant, this functions statistically as a normal steam giant except it can be piloted by a single individual instead of requiring the usual 4 man crew, the extra space may be used for additional passengers or luggage. The automated steam giant receives full benefit from any upgrades your science mobile has



Relaxing work
Nothing helps you unwind like tinkering with your inventions, crafting counts as resting for the purpose of healing sanity damage or ability damage to intelligence, wisdom or charisma. Additionally, your charisma modifier counts as twice as high as normal for the purpose of healing sanity damage

remote control
by expending 2 genius points, you can manipulate a device you created that normally requires direct input from 30 feet away. Remote control may be taken multiple times, each additional time taken triples the range

remote laboratory
requires: mad scientist laboratory with rapid transit upgrade
you can have a secondary off site laboratory, its bonuses and that of your main laboratory are tracked separately, however your rapid transit system from your main laboratory connects to it at half its normal capacity. Additionally, if you've taken the improved laboratory feat, you may grant different bonuses to your remote laboratory from it. Remote laboratory may be taken additional times, each time allows you to designate an additional remote laboratory connected to your main laboratory by your rapid transit system(or one of your other remote laboratories if it has its own rapid transit system)

remove memory
by expending 3 genius points you can lobotomize memories out of people by making a heal check DC20, this also has the side effect of curing sanity damage, removing 2 sanity damage for every 5 by which you beat the DC

reverse engineering
add your bonus to knowledge engineering to your disable device checks

sabotage
your disable device checks gain a bonus equal to your craft bonus to make the relevant device(you would add your craft mechanical bonus to disarm a mechanical trap, etc)

schematic
you can make a schematic to help when you craft, making a schematic requires a knowledge(engineering) check DC equal to craft DC of the thing you want to craft. Referencing a schematic when crafting something provides a +2 bonus for you and a +1 bonus for anyone else trying to use it. When making the schematic, every 10 you beat the DC improves the schematic causing it to provide an additional +1 bonus. Bigger projects can use multiple schematics according to the following table


total extra schematics allowed
total gp cost


1
1000


2
5000


3
10,000


4
20,000


5
50,000


6
100,000


+1
+100,000



surgery
requires: heal 9+,knowledge nature 4+
your knowledge of biology and anatomy extends beyond that of normal doctors, you add half your level to all heal checks

tech marvel
requires: craft wondrous item feat
you can increase the craft DC by 50%(min+1) so you can create a wondrous item with an effect normally exclusive to a different slot(such as a belt with +2 int or boots with +1 natural armor) these bonuses are still considered enhancement bonuses and similar bonuses do not stack with each other

there's a chance, this will work
for craft and knowledge skill checks there is a chance to auto succeed on a natural 20 even if the total roll doesn't meet the DC of the check, you may spend a genius point to apply this effect to a different skill check

toxic residue collection
requires: brew potion feat
for every 10 potions you brew, you can collect 1 dose of a random poison

toxicological enhancement
whenever you deal acid damage, you may spend 2 genius points to expend a dose of poison you have on you and apply it to the target of the acid damage, the poison must normally be administered thru touch or injury and its save DC is increased by half the amount of acid damage done(min+1) if the acid damage was aoe, you may spend 2 genius points and a dose of poison for each target hit

Utterly demented
As a swift action you can take any amount of sanity damage(max your sanity score), increase the attack and damage of your next attack by the same amount

Vial of vile fluid
Requires: craft(alchemy) 12+
Poison you craft is particularly potent and hard to resist, its base DC is triple normal, the duration is double normal, and the required number of saves is increased by 2

Vial of vile viral
Requires: knowledge(nature) 12+, vial of vile fluid
Your poisons are contagious, if someone comes into physical contact with someone under the effect of one of your poisons, they become exposed to the poison and must make the appropriate save or become poisoned as well

why is this connected here?
add half your level to disable device checks. Additionally the DC on disable device checks for you is 1 lower for every 3 levels you have

work darn you!
you can shoddily repair things quickly, by expending 2 genius points you may use jury rig as a supernatural ability, using your mad scientist level as caster level to determine effect potency and duration



Swiss army wrench
at 2nd level, you can merge crafting tools together to make them more compact, easier to carry around and generally easier to use. By making a craft check DC 20 you can combine 2 tools, the resulting tool retains the functionality of both original tools, and the resulting tool weighs half of the combined weight of the 2 original tools, and is worth half the combined gp value.

Bonus feats
at 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th and 19th level the mad scientist may select an item creation feat he qualifies for as a bonus feat. For the purpose of this list, gunsmithing, master alchemist, craft technological item, craft pharmaceutical, craft technological arms and armor, craft cybernetics and dragoncrafting are considered item creation feats

Master inventor
you are a genius born before your time. At 3rd level your technology level is considered 1 higher than normal. This bonus increases by +1 at levels 7, 10, 14 and 17 and by +2 at 20th, each mythic tier provides a further +1 technology level. Each increase in technology level provides a +1 to craft, knowledge, and linguistics checks related to technology as well as reducing the time it takes to craft technological items by 5% and every 3 increased technology levels reduces the material cost to craft technological items by 5%. Additionally, you may add your intelligence modifier to attack rolls up to a limit of the total increased technology level. Finally, befitting a genius, for each of your increased technology levels you gain a tech advancement off the following list

biological warfare
requires: brew potion feat
whenever you make poison, you can increase the DC of that poison, the increase is equal to +1 per 5 you beat the craft check to make it
can do attitude
you can craft sealed storage containers to extend the life of perishable materials, a sealed container requires 12 cp worth of materials per cubic foot of storage it can hold, perishable items in the sealed container last 50 times longer than normal
cheapen
you may reduce the cost to make technological items by 10% but reduce the item's max hp by 20, cheapen may be taken up to 9 times, its effects stack. You cannot cheapen an item below 1 max hp.(i.e. if adding 5 stacks of cheapen would reduce an item below 1 hp, you may only use 4 etc.)
compact design
requires: craft cybernetics feat
you can implant multiple weapons into a single arm or cybernetic arm, up to 2 weapons in a normal arm or 3 weapons in a cybernetic arm, doing so increases the DC by the number of weapons your installing beyond the first. Additionally you can implant weapons into legs and cybernetic legs, up to 2 weapons into a leg or 3 weapons into a cybernetic leg, these implants have the same cost and DC as their arm counterparts
efficiency
you can spend genius or madness points to supplement the material cost of a craft check, 1 genius point can supplement 1gp worth of materials, while 1 madness point can supplement 10gp worth of materials. Points must be spent at the beginning of the craft
injection master
requires: craft technological item feat
nanite hypo-guns and med-lances you create have twice as many charges or uses as normal. when you use a nanite hypo-gun or med-lance you use half as many charges or uses as normal(do not round fractal charges/uses)
irregular weaponry
requires: craft magical arms and armor feat or craft technological arms and armor feat
you can craft some strange and sometimes absurd weapons, such as a gun that fires tacos instead of bullets, doing so increases the cost of the weapon by 10% but also treats its enhancement bonus as 1 higher than normal for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction
lasers!
requires: craft technological arms and armor feat
laser weapons your create have 4 times as much charge as normal and deal 100% more damage with each shot
nanite redesign
requires: craft technological items feat, knowledge engineering 10+
nanite canisters you create hold 50% more nanites than normal, resulting in 50% more uses per canister.
Non-intrusive implants
requires: craft cybernetics feat
when crafting cybernetics, you can increase the material cost by 10%, this also increases the DC of required heal check to install the resultant device by 2, but it reduces that items implant value by 1, to a minimum of 0. You can further increase the cost and reduce the implant value, but the implant value may never be reduced below 0
pill factory!
requires: craft pharmaceutical feat
unlike potions, pharmaceuticals have no limit on how many can be crafted each day, you've used this freedom to learn how to maximize your efficiency when making them, when you make pharmaceuticals your production time is 1/10th normal
power saver
requires: craft technological item feat
batteries you create are exceptional, they can hold 4 times as much charge as normal batteries and recharge twice as fast as normal. Additionally the chance for them to break when recharging is only 5% instead of the normal 10%
reliable fire arms
requires: gunsmithing feat
fire arms you craft are more reliable than normal, reducing their miss fire chance by 3. This effect cannot reduce misfire chance to 0, but is applied before effects that can
robotic mass production
requires: craft construct feat, craft mechanical 10+, knowledge engineering 10+
you are well on your way to making a robotic army of sorts, when you would craft a construct, you may craft additional constructs of the same kind at no additional cost or time, the number of additional constructs you can make this way is equal to the lower of your intelligence modifier or your charisma modifier. Robotic mass production may be taken multiple times, each additional time increases the number of additional constructs you can create simultaneously by an additional iteration of the lower of your intelligence modifier or charisma modifier
Scope
Requires: gunsmithing feat or craft technological arms and armor feat
You can add a scope to your ranged weaponry, this reduces the penalty for shooting beyond your range increment by half, and when looking thru a scope, penalties to perception due to distance are also halved. Making a scope requires 250gp worth of materials. A scope can be upgrade to a masterwork scope for an additional 300gp worth of materials and halves the relevant penalties again. A masterwork scope can be upgraded to a high end masterwork scope for an additional 1000gp worth of materials, a high end masterwork scope increases the range increment and distance at which perception penalties are incurred by 50%. A high end masterwork scope may be upgraded to an ultimate scope for an additional 3000gp worth of materials, an ultimate scope adds the user’s character level to all attack and sight based perception rolls while using the ultimate scope
sweet holy mother of tesla
whenever you craft something that has an electrical property(such as the shocking weapon property, or the charge for shots on a futuristic laser weapon) that property is twice as powerful as normal
superior design
requires: craft technological arms and armor feat, knowledge engineering 10+
you can surpass normal tech designs, by expending 5 genius points at the start of each day when you begin to craft a technological item, you may increase the items base cost by 10%(round up) to select one numerical stat or value the piece of equipment has and increase it by 10%(min +1), this can be anything from AC bonus, max dex bonus, to max charges, to DC of an effect the item has, to hardness of the item or its hp, or even a weapon's damage. You may further increase the cost to increase more aspects, but increasing the same aspect has diminishing returns; increasing the same aspect by another 10% increases the cost by an additional 15% then by 20% for a third time, increasing the base cost by an additional 5% each additional time the same attribute is increased by another 10%, however increasing separate aspects by 10% will only increase the cost by 10% each(increasing 2 aspects by 10% will increase the base cost by 20% total)
tech marvel
requires: craft wondrous item feat
you can increase the craft DC by 50%(min+1) so you can create a wondrous item with an effect normally exclusive to a different slot(such as a belt with +2 int or boots with +1 natural armor) these bonuses are still considered enhancement bonuses and similar bonuses do not stack with each other
ultimate plate
requires: craft technological arms and armor feat, total bonus technology level 5+
you can craft the powered armor technological artifact, doing so requires 15,000gp worth of materials, must be made in a military crafting lab and has a craft DC of 50. the suit may be fitted to an individual for an additional 1,000gp worth of materials and doing so removes the armor check penalty and raises the max dex bonus to +8 when worn by the tailored individual
upgrade!
by making a craft check you can convert an item to a masterwork version of the same item, the DC of the craft check is the same as the DC to make a masterwork of the original item

DapperReaper
2018-05-17, 01:22 AM
combat crafting
the mad scientist uses their experience on the battle field to come up with new mundane modifications to weapons and armor, at 5th level and every 3 levels there after the mad scientist my learn one of the following mundane modifications, applying multiple of these mundane modifications to a single item increase the crafting cost by 50gp per modification after the first. Additionally at 5th level you gain the disposable weapons feat and field repair feat as bonus feats

absolutely deadly
you've found a way to really up the lethality of a weapon, at the cost of 950gp you can increase a weapon's critical damage multiplier by 1, this bonus stacks with similar bonuses, but may only be applied to a given weapon once

articulate control
by increasing the craft time by 300%, you can better articulate and enhance the joints in armor, this reduces an armor’s armor check penalty by 2(min 0) and increases its max dex by 1

calming shape
at the cost of 1200gp you can turn a weapon into a monk weapon

extending
you can activate an extending weapon with a flick of your wrist to increase or decrease its reach as a free action. Every 250gp spent on this modification extends the weapons maximum reach by 5ft

fine edge
you can get an edge so fine that the material will strain to maintain it under impact, this gives the weapon a +1 to critical threat range, but also gives it the fragile quality, if applied to a weapon that already has the fragile quality, increase the roll on which the weapon breaks by 1. this modification increases material cost by 700gp and can only be applied to slashing weapons, if applied to a keen weapon, this increase is not doubled but added at the end

grooved barrel
at the cost of 400gp worth of materials and doubled crafting time, you can make spiral grooves on the inside of your gun barrels for greatly improved accuracy, this doubles the range increment of the gun and grants a +1 attack bonus to attacks made within the guns original range increment

high caliber material
you've perfected the refinement process, removing more impurities from your materials. Applying this modification doubles the material cost of the item but also doubles its hp and hardness

hollow points
you’ve made your bullets disgustingly lethal, by increasing the craft time by 500% per bullet you can make that bullet have a hollow point tip. Bullets with hollow point tips inflict 6 bonus bleed damage(multiplied on a critical hit), however every 2 points of AC from armor the target has reduces this bleed by 1. Additionally the DC to stop the bleed from hollow point tips by a heal check is increased by 10, and magical healing will not completely stop it but halves it(once the bleed is reduced to 1 magical healing stops the bleed as normal)

murderous intent
when you craft a weapon, you can increase the material cost by 300gp to give it a murderous intent, this causes the weapon to deal +1 damage and gain a +3 to critical confirmation rolls, these bonuses stack with similar bonuses, but may only be applied to a given weapon once

reverberation lines
a weapon with this modification has lines etched in its surface which allow it to vibrate and more easily shatter harder materials, ignoring 5 points of hardness and dealing +3 damage on sunder attempts. This modification costs an additional 100gp and can only be applied to bludgeoning weapons

shield flaps
you can add spring loaded flaps to a shield that, when activated as an immediate action, grant the wielder partial cover and increase the shield’s AC bonus by +2, but reduce movement by 20ft due to being unwieldy and difficult to see past. Shield flaps can be retracted by an additional immediate action. Shield flaps on a tower shield grant total cover when activated and increase the AC bonus by +4 instead, but reduce movement by 30ft. Adding shield flaps to a shield costs 520gp worth of materials and increases the weight of the shield by 20%

spiral penetration
you can give a tip a spiral edge to let it cut thru defenses better. A weapon with this modification costs an additional 500gp, but ignores 2 points of damage reduction. This modification may only be applied to piercing and ballistic weapons

spring loaded
at the cost of 430gp you can make a one handed or light weapon spring loaded, this lets you draw the weapon as a free action or launch it at an opponent within 20 ft against their flat footed AC, chosen when making the modification

stripped down design
you strip a weapon down to its bare essentials, this cuts the weight of the weapon in half and reduces its hit points by 75%(min 1), but reduces the penalty for wielding it in your off hand by 2

thick plate
when making armor you can fuse extra plates to the armor to reinforce it, this doubles the cost of the armor and increases it's AC bonus by 50%(round up), this also increases the armor check penalty by 2 and reduces the movement by 10ft

weighted striking points
you’ve added extra material at key locations across the weapon so that hitting it at just the right angle or spot will do boosted damage, adding weighted striking points to a weapon increases the weight and material cost by 50% and increase the penalty to off hand the weapon by 4, but if your attack roll beats the target’s AC by at least 10, you gain an extra iteration of weapon dice damage(1d6 becomes 2d6, 1d8+1 becomes 2d8+1, 2d4 becomes 4d4, etc.). Damage that would be replicated on a critical hit, such as strength modifier and power attack, are not replicated by this effect

laboratory
at 6th level, you can designate one area as your laboratory, it has your equipment, research notes, and materials you need to be a mad scientist, while in your laboratory all dice you roll gain a +1 circumstance bonus, all knowledge checks except knowledge(arcane) have their DC reduced by 10, and you recover 1 madness point every time you consume a meal worth of food. Others who enter your laboratory must make a DC 15 con check or become nauseated by fumes, additionally they must make a fortitude save every minute DC 15 + level or be afflicted by a random poison or disease, you are immune to these effects due to prolonged exposure. Additionally your lab counts as a production lab with a generator capable of producing 50 charge each day for the purpose of building technological items. If you wish to change or otherwise move the location of your laboratory, doing so takes 3 days and all bonuses are lost during the move. if you wish to pay the cost of doing so, you may manually construct new sections of your laboratory at 1000gp per 5x10x5ft section added; up to 2 rooms(15x10x15ft area per room) can be added in this way per level beyond 6th, each additional room gained this way provides 2 benefits from the improved laboratory feat, you can increase the cost of the room by 50% for it to provide a 3rd benefit from improved laboratory. most laboratories have a base size similar to a small cottage, if you choose a larger structure for your base laboratory you may treat any additional rooms as manually constructed extra rooms(against your normal limit)

mad scientist laboratory
at 9th level, you can improve your laboratory to make it truly worthy of a mad scientist, you can make up to 3 knowledge(engineering) checks a day to modify your laboratory, these checks starts at DC 10 and go up based on the type of modifications you want to make, choosing the same modification multiple times stacks the benefit but also further increases the DC, the DC increase of a given bonus is listed in parenthesis next to it
-add a secret room(1)
-increase DC to find secret room by +2(2)
-add a lock to something(1)
-increase DC to pick a lock you have on something by +2(1)
-add 10 cubic ft. of storage room(1)
-add a mechanical trap that only you can auto bypass(3)
-increase DC of all traps in lab by +2(2)
-+2 bonus to make constructs(3)
-+2 DC of fumes(1)
-+2 DC of ambient poison/disease(1)
-add storage area for test subjects(4)
-+1 horrid assistant(4)
-+1 competent assistant(10)
-+1 excellent assistant(15)
-+2 DC for others to navigate around your lab(1)
-+1 effective technology level inside lab(20)
-add a sealed room that contaminants/energy cannot escape from(17)
-add a rapid transit system to your lab that can transport up to 50lb(10)
-increase the maximum capacity of a rapid transit system by 10lb(2)
-add draft room, which lowers the DC of all knowledge engineering checks by 2 and provides a +4 bonus to make schematics(8)
-add cold storage area, perishable items stored inside have triple the normal life span(7)
-add garage for robotic steed/mechanical transport, routine maintenance increases their move by 5ft(6)
-add collection vat that collects all manner of liquids that seep from your experiments, each day providing 1 dose of a random potion or poison(4)
-add drainage to prevent flooding, reduces the DC increase of collection vat by 2 (5)
-automate 1 process thru machine equipment, such as brewing a potion every day or performing maintenance on equipment(10)
-add a specialty room that lets your lab count as a medical lab(30)
-add a specialty room that lets your lab count as a graviton lab(30)
-add a specialty room that lets your lab count as a cybernetics lab(30)
-add a specialty room that lets your lab count as a military lab(30)
-add a specialty room that lets your lab count as a nanotech lab(30)
-upgrade/add lab generator to provide 20 additional charge(10)
these 3 knowledge checks may be made once a day, but the work takes the entire day and other actions are not available, making new knowledge checks beyond the 3 active ones override the oldest bonuses with the new ones. if you manually constructed additional rooms, every 3 additional rooms provides 1 additional knowledge check per day. bonuses gained from mad scientist laboratory are inactive until the work from all your knowledge engineering checks is finished


simplicity of complexity
at 13th level, the crazy insight of the mad scientist can sometimes provide simple solutions to complex problems, by taking 2 sanity damage, you can reduce the complexity of an item you want to craft by 1 step(reducing the base craft dc by 5 and crafting time by half), for every 2 additional sanity damage you take, you can further reduce the complexity by 1 step

Grand Inventor
at 20th level, the mad scientist can pull off some astonishing crafting, once per day as a standard action she may instantly craft or repair something as if the DC was 1/10th its actual value, and using 1/10th the normal amount of materials. If the mad scientist wishes to use this ability more than once per day she may do so at the cost of gaining a random madness off the greater madness table each time

favored class bonuses
human +1/5 innovation
dwarf +1/2 to a single craft
elf +1/4 max genius points
orc +1/2 max madness points
half elf +1/5 item creation feat
half orc +1/4 to repair checks
ogre +1 to hardness of items created
half ogre +2 to hp of items created

asimar -1sp cost to brew potions
tiefling -1sp cost to make poisons


new feats

bold new innovation
requires: innovation class feature
gain 1 additional innovation you qualify for. Alternatively, you can gain 2 new innovations and a lesser madness rolled off the lesser madness table

improved laboratory
requires: laboratory class feature
your laboratory is a lot more extravagant than normal, improved laboratory may be taken multiple times, each time you select a new bonus to gain off the following list, taking a bonus multiple times causes the bonus to stack
+3 bonus to repair checks
+2 bonus to a chosen knowledge check
+1 additional secret room, requires DC 10 + half level + int mod perception check to find and uses a complicated lock that cannot be picked
+1 simultaneous potions can be brewed
+3 bonus on checks to make schematics
+1 secret storage compartment
+1 secret passage connecting 2 rooms in your laboratory
+2 DC to find secret passage
+2 bonus to a chosen craft check
+10 charge produced from generator
+1 specialty room that counts as a medical lab
+1 specialty room that counts as a graviton lab
+1 specialty room that counts as a cybernetics lab
+1 specialty room that counts as a military lab
+1 specialty room that counts as a nanotech lab

visionary
requires: master inventor class feature,
double the total number of bonus technology levels you have

Quarian Rex
2018-05-19, 09:09 PM
Holy hell man, you have put a lot into this. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. This won't be a full PEACH but I'll just run down some of the things that stand out to me.

First, the sanity rules. You need to integrate this into the class without forcing the DM to use it in the campaign as a whole. Niche rules are just that, niche. It can be hard enough to get homebrew allowed in a game, restricting that to only those games that are already using the (highly disruptive) sanity rules is just shooting yourself in the leg. To be clear, using the sanity rules is fine, you just need some mechanic in the base class features that can cause sanity damage in a controlled manner so that the class can function in a non-horror game.

Skills seem to be off. Mad Scientists are generally seen as skilled individuals but the weirdly low number of skill points and lack of class skills show your class to be the opposite. Things like Bluff (dazzling people with technobabble so they don't question you), Escape Artist (extricating oneself from experiments gone wrong), Fly (who better to drive an advanced Sciencemobile?), Handle Animal (must teach those specimens how to be productive members of society), Intimidate (the main form of Mad Scientist social interaction), Linguistics (can't allow your Bavarian/Nexian/Elven/etc. rivals to hide their research), Perception (how else can one find a single flux capacitor in a pile of thermo-couplers?), Ride (who better to drive a non-advanced Sciencemobile?), Sense Motive (how else are you to keep your Igor honest?), Survival (what does Matt Damon do when stranded on Mars? He sciences the f*ck out of it), and Use Magic Device (what's the point of making pseudo-scientific gewgaws if you can't use them?) are all good options and should be strongly considered.

Skill points should be reconsidered as well. 3+Int is just a ridiculously small amount for a class like this. That could be spent just on the multiple Craft skills that the character would need. 6+Int is probably a better option, not as much as a Rogue but up there. Remember, despite the initial appearances, this is not an Intelligence focused class (there is virtually nothing that scales directly on Int in the class), it is a MAD class. You need Intelligence and Wisdom for Genius and Madness pools (respectively), Constitution for survival (as per normal), Strength and/or Dexterity to be useful (this class is essentially a crafting Martial, you need to actually use your shiny tools in combat, either melee or ranged), and even Charisma is useful for recovering sanity damage. A MAD skill-monkey (any skill-monkey really) needs more base skill points.

Mad Genius is the main feature of the class outside of crafting and it makes him really good at doing the thing (attack, maneuver, skill check, etc.) and goes a long way to making the class effective in non-downtime play. Too bad it's barely usable. You have extremely small pools for each ability (merely the ability bonus) and can only spend half the bonus (you need to specify a minimum of 1 here) on any roll and an absolutely horrible recharge mechanic. Saying that the Mad Scientist must maintain at least 5(!) active madness's to recover a single Genius point per round is insane (I meant to do that). Madness is not meant to be something that is trivial, it is meant to have a heavy effect on a character (both in RP and in mechanics) and you requiring (yes, requiring) a character to maintain as many as possible greatly diminishes their impact and is just bad design. Having a recharge rate of 1 Genius point per round per active madness is far more appropriate. Recovery is now something that makes the ability useful throughout combat (instead of essentially being an encounter ability) and maintains the impact of the characters actual madness. This also removes the mechanical uncertainty of fractional recovery (how do you handle 3/5 recovery per round? Which rounds do you have recovery and which do you not. You didn't put much thought into this aspect). Using Wisdom as the stat for Madness is probably a mistake as well. Wisdom is traditionally the defense against madness, not the measure of its strength. Perhaps consider changing to Charisma. It ties in better with the unmitigated ego of most Mad Scientists.

The recovery of Madness is more reasonable but not by much. While you can have a pretty large Sanity Score anything over your Sanity Edge is cripplingly risky so I would probably reduce the recovery requirement to 1 point per 6 Sanity points (or perhaps every 8 at the highest).

Innovations are the classes other core feature and they really have some issues. You only have 10 selections and, by my quick count, have @105 options (correct me If I'm wrong), something that needs to be trimmed down. You have a massive amount of useless chaff and tax options that need to be dealt with. I'll skim through some standouts.

- quick! to the science mobile! - and all the options based on it. Condense these, seriously. I like that you kept these options relatively simple (counts as a horse, counts as a horse and cart, etc.) but it requires so many selections to get something interesting that it is essentially a trap. You need to make each selection actually worth it. Seriously, the base ability provides you with a horse. A very expensive horse but that is it. Do better. Also, go to the trouble of stating it out. Use a horse as a basis if you want but specify the type of horse (light, heavy, etc.) and make its HP based on Mad Scientist levels. Do not leave such an investment with a measly 2HD. Consolidate all of the 'quick! to the science mobile!' child selections to options under the main ability. Have the first selection of quick! to the science mobile! provide a free selection and every time quick! to the science mobile! is additionally chosen as an Innovation they get to select another 2 options. Let the player get something interesting out of this without having to dedicate their entire progression to it.

- always on hand - yeah, this just doesn't work. There is no Robe of Wonders, it looks like you tried to bootleg a Robe of Components (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/robe-of-components) which doesn't directly correlate since spellcasting and crafting use GP value items in different ways and need appropriately different language for the mechanics to make sense. Providing GP/hour for a system that functions on a per week/day basis is jarring and nonsensical. Have the ability contribute x GP worth of crafting materials per day and be done with it. Don't confuse things.

- behold! - bonus to impress people? How? Performance check? Diplomacy? What? If you provide a mechanical bonus then you must say what it actually applies to. There is no room for ambiguity here. Also, why does this exist as a separate Innovation? Any other selection is better than this. That is generally a sign that you should get rid of the option or roll it into another Innovation.

- beyond repair? no such thing! - this is a trap. Repairing a destroyed object to Broken for 75% the item cost still requires it to be repaired normally, which costs 20% the item cost. What you have here is a 5% discount on item creation so long as you have a destroyed item of the same type for every item you wish to create. That is a crap option. Reduce the Destroyed->Broken cost to 30% (so that repairing a destroyed item fully costs 50% of the item cost) and you might have something vaguely worth it. Also, remove all reference to Genius/Madness points in downtime related abilities. Spending points that regenerate in rounds is a useless gesture. Just say that repairing a Destroyed item leaves it with the Broken condition and HP equal to the Mad Scientist's Intelligence score (yes, score) or half the items total HP, whichever is less. That provides a non-trivial repair that still leaves the item in the Broken condition.

- bio-engineering - again, Genius/Madness point expenditures on downtime activities doesn't work. Just say that you are limited to a number of evolution points equal to the total of your Genius and Madness pools. Making 10 checks for a single buff is crazytalk. Just say hat a single check is made, if it is failed then it cannot be retried on that target again for that day. Say that the Mad Scientist class levels count as Summoner levels for prerequisites. Any time you reference another system or such provide a link to the source.

- cheapen - 2%, WTH man? No, just no. Trivial benefit combined with mechanical penalty to the item? You should be ashamed. You should feel actual shame for this.

- cybernetic conversion - half-construct is not something that actually exists in base Pathfinder. It was a potent option in 3.5 (thanks Warforged) but is has been nerfed into the ground (and sometimes buffed) in various ways by different 3PP books at different times. For the love of the babby jebus, link to the template you are using or just reprint the changes to be made in the Innovation description.

- expedience - crafting is done on a weekly/daily basis, not hourly. If you are using an alternate ruleset then make reference to it before you start adding buffs to it.

- I have an idea - this (and/or other Innovations like it) should be a base ability of the class (as I mentioned above) since you need a method to use the Sanity system when the DM isn't.

- improved laboratory - why is this here? This is covered, entirely, by the base Laboratory ability. All this does is bypass the normal skill check/GP investment with a permanent Innovation selection. It is yet another noob trap. For shame.

- insane productivity - yet another noob trap. Lowering the DC actually hurts your Craft progress, so much so that crafters usually deliberately increase their DC to make more progress. Either change this to a bonus on the check instead of a reduction in the DC or get rid of the Innovation altogether.

- lasers! - look at what you are modifying. Lasers are pretty crap weapon options with low damage overall. Providing a 25% damage boost to something so damn small is a troll move since the annoyance of having to work the math on every damage roll outweighs the actual benefit by a large margin. Just straight up double the damage. Even that is pretty trivial but at least it is noticeable.

- temporal manipulator - no. Kill this with fire. The effect breaks the game. You know this. The powerlevel doesn't fit with the class or even the game for that matter. Tying it to a ridiculous DC and an asinine GP cost (more than the combined wealth-by-level of over twenty 20th level characters!) is just an admission that this has no place in the game and invites players to break the game to get it. This sort of thing is the reason why homebrew gets a bad name. Just no.

- ultimate plate - yet another noob trap. I know that Powered Armor is supposed to be an artifact. It isn't. It is the equivalent mix of a mid-level adventurers standard kit and brings virtually nothing new to the table (other than a self-repair mechanic to counter enemy's attempting to sunder it, a problem that I've never actually seen in a game). Just price out what an equivalent item would be and price based on that. Enough with the abject stupidity of having a price tag of more than the combined wealth-by-level of over five 20th level characters. It only invites characters to try to break the game for something that isn't worth the price.


Just get rid of master craftsman in the bonus feats. The Mad Scientist already has this covered with Ingenuity, master craftsman add absolutely nothing and is yet another noob trap.

The attack bonus of Master inventor really should be tied just to Intelligence (sort of like a reverse Canny Defense). There is really no reason to limit this by Wisdom as well, this class is MAD enough.

Combat Crafting has some interesting options for a masterwork+ kind of option, that is until you get to Hollow Points. What. The. Hell. Man. 20 points of bleed damage is ridiculous and a guaranteed monster killer. Adding +30 to the Heal DC? DC 45? WTH man? And 1000 GP per round? Again with the stopping. Adding a stupidly large cost to a broken ability is not balance. Perhaps the most insulting thing is that you named this Hollow Point. The most mundane of ammo modifications does not cause a dragon to bleed out and it most definitely doesn't cost 1000 GP per round.

That's all I've got in me for now. Not sure how tone is coming across on the internet but realize that I do see some value in this class, it just needs a lot of polish.

DapperReaper
2018-05-20, 09:17 PM
Holy hell man, you have put a lot into this. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. This won't be a full PEACH but I'll just run down some of the things that stand out to me.

First, the sanity rules. You need to integrate this into the class without forcing the DM to use it in the campaign as a whole. Niche rules are just that, niche. It can be hard enough to get homebrew allowed in a game, restricting that to only those games that are already using the (highly disruptive) sanity rules is just shooting yourself in the leg. To be clear, using the sanity rules is fine, you just need some mechanic in the base class features that can cause sanity damage in a controlled manner so that the class can function in a non-horror game.

Skills seem to be off. Mad Scientists are generally seen as skilled individuals but the weirdly low number of skill points and lack of class skills show your class to be the opposite. Things like Bluff (dazzling people with technobabble so they don't question you), Escape Artist (extricating oneself from experiments gone wrong), Fly (who better to drive an advanced Sciencemobile?), Handle Animal (must teach those specimens how to be productive members of society), Intimidate (the main form of Mad Scientist social interaction), Linguistics (can't allow your Bavarian/Nexian/Elven/etc. rivals to hide their research), Perception (how else can one find a single flux capacitor in a pile of thermo-couplers?), Ride (who better to drive a non-advanced Sciencemobile?), Sense Motive (how else are you to keep your Igor honest?), Survival (what does Matt Damon do when stranded on Mars? He sciences the f*ck out of it), and Use Magic Device (what's the point of making pseudo-scientific gewgaws if you can't use them?) are all good options and should be strongly considered.

Skill points should be reconsidered as well. 3+Int is just a ridiculously small amount for a class like this. That could be spent just on the multiple Craft skills that the character would need. 6+Int is probably a better option, not as much as a Rogue but up there. Remember, despite the initial appearances, this is not an Intelligence focused class (there is virtually nothing that scales directly on Int in the class), it is a MAD class. You need Intelligence and Wisdom for Genius and Madness pools (respectively), Constitution for survival (as per normal), Strength and/or Dexterity to be useful (this class is essentially a crafting Martial, you need to actually use your shiny tools in combat, either melee or ranged), and even Charisma is useful for recovering sanity damage. A MAD skill-monkey (any skill-monkey really) needs more base skill points.

Mad Genius is the main feature of the class outside of crafting and it makes him really good at doing the thing (attack, maneuver, skill check, etc.) and goes a long way to making the class effective in non-downtime play. Too bad it's barely usable. You have extremely small pools for each ability (merely the ability bonus) and can only spend half the bonus (you need to specify a minimum of 1 here) on any roll and an absolutely horrible recharge mechanic. Saying that the Mad Scientist must maintain at least 5(!) active madness's to recover a single Genius point per round is insane (I meant to do that). Madness is not meant to be something that is trivial, it is meant to have a heavy effect on a character (both in RP and in mechanics) and you requiring (yes, requiring) a character to maintain as many as possible greatly diminishes their impact and is just bad design. Having a recharge rate of 1 Genius point per round per active madness is far more appropriate. Recovery is now something that makes the ability useful throughout combat (instead of essentially being an encounter ability) and maintains the impact of the characters actual madness. This also removes the mechanical uncertainty of fractional recovery (how do you handle 3/5 recovery per round? Which rounds do you have recovery and which do you not. You didn't put much thought into this aspect). Using Wisdom as the stat for Madness is probably a mistake as well. Wisdom is traditionally the defense against madness, not the measure of its strength. Perhaps consider changing to Charisma. It ties in better with the unmitigated ego of most Mad Scientists.

The recovery of Madness is more reasonable but not by much. While you can have a pretty large Sanity Score anything over your Sanity Edge is cripplingly risky so I would probably reduce the recovery requirement to 1 point per 6 Sanity points (or perhaps every 8 at the highest).

Innovations are the classes other core feature and they really have some issues. You only have 10 selections and, by my quick count, have @105 options (correct me If I'm wrong), something that needs to be trimmed down. You have a massive amount of useless chaff and tax options that need to be dealt with. I'll skim through some standouts.

- quick! to the science mobile! - and all the options based on it. Condense these, seriously. I like that you kept these options relatively simple (counts as a horse, counts as a horse and cart, etc.) but it requires so many selections to get something interesting that it is essentially a trap. You need to make each selection actually worth it. Seriously, the base ability provides you with a horse. A very expensive horse but that is it. Do better. Also, go to the trouble of stating it out. Use a horse as a basis if you want but specify the type of horse (light, heavy, etc.) and make its HP based on Mad Scientist levels. Do not leave such an investment with a measly 2HD. Consolidate all of the 'quick! to the science mobile!' child selections to options under the main ability. Have the first selection of quick! to the science mobile! provide a free selection and every time quick! to the science mobile! is additionally chosen as an Innovation they get to select another 2 options. Let the player get something interesting out of this without having to dedicate their entire progression to it.

- always on hand - yeah, this just doesn't work. There is no Robe of Wonders, it looks like you tried to bootleg a Robe of Components (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/robe-of-components) which doesn't directly correlate since spellcasting and crafting use GP value items in different ways and need appropriately different language for the mechanics to make sense. Providing GP/hour for a system that functions on a per week/day basis is jarring and nonsensical. Have the ability contribute x GP worth of crafting materials per day and be done with it. Don't confuse things.

- behold! - bonus to impress people? How? Performance check? Diplomacy? What? If you provide a mechanical bonus then you must say what it actually applies to. There is no room for ambiguity here. Also, why does this exist as a separate Innovation? Any other selection is better than this. That is generally a sign that you should get rid of the option or roll it into another Innovation.

- beyond repair? no such thing! - this is a trap. Repairing a destroyed object to Broken for 75% the item cost still requires it to be repaired normally, which costs 20% the item cost. What you have here is a 5% discount on item creation so long as you have a destroyed item of the same type for every item you wish to create. That is a crap option. Reduce the Destroyed->Broken cost to 30% (so that repairing a destroyed item fully costs 50% of the item cost) and you might have something vaguely worth it. Also, remove all reference to Genius/Madness points in downtime related abilities. Spending points that regenerate in rounds is a useless gesture. Just say that repairing a Destroyed item leaves it with the Broken condition and HP equal to the Mad Scientist's Intelligence score (yes, score) or half the items total HP, whichever is less. That provides a non-trivial repair that still leaves the item in the Broken condition.

- bio-engineering - again, Genius/Madness point expenditures on downtime activities doesn't work. Just say that you are limited to a number of evolution points equal to the total of your Genius and Madness pools. Making 10 checks for a single buff is crazytalk. Just say hat a single check is made, if it is failed then it cannot be retried on that target again for that day. Say that the Mad Scientist class levels count as Summoner levels for prerequisites. Any time you reference another system or such provide a link to the source.

- cheapen - 2%, WTH man? No, just no. Trivial benefit combined with mechanical penalty to the item? You should be ashamed. You should feel actual shame for this.

- cybernetic conversion - half-construct is not something that actually exists in base Pathfinder. It was a potent option in 3.5 (thanks Warforged) but is has been nerfed into the ground (and sometimes buffed) in various ways by different 3PP books at different times. For the love of the babby jebus, link to the template you are using or just reprint the changes to be made in the Innovation description.

- expedience - crafting is done on a weekly/daily basis, not hourly. If you are using an alternate ruleset then make reference to it before you start adding buffs to it.

- I have an idea - this (and/or other Innovations like it) should be a base ability of the class (as I mentioned above) since you need a method to use the Sanity system when the DM isn't.

- improved laboratory - why is this here? This is covered, entirely, by the base Laboratory ability. All this does is bypass the normal skill check/GP investment with a permanent Innovation selection. It is yet another noob trap. For shame.

- insane productivity - yet another noob trap. Lowering the DC actually hurts your Craft progress, so much so that crafters usually deliberately increase their DC to make more progress. Either change this to a bonus on the check instead of a reduction in the DC or get rid of the Innovation altogether.

- lasers! - look at what you are modifying. Lasers are pretty crap weapon options with low damage overall. Providing a 25% damage boost to something so damn small is a troll move since the annoyance of having to work the math on every damage roll outweighs the actual benefit by a large margin. Just straight up double the damage. Even that is pretty trivial but at least it is noticeable.

- temporal manipulator - no. Kill this with fire. The effect breaks the game. You know this. The powerlevel doesn't fit with the class or even the game for that matter. Tying it to a ridiculous DC and an asinine GP cost (more than the combined wealth-by-level of over twenty 20th level characters!) is just an admission that this has no place in the game and invites players to break the game to get it. This sort of thing is the reason why homebrew gets a bad name. Just no.

- ultimate plate - yet another noob trap. I know that Powered Armor is supposed to be an artifact. It isn't. It is the equivalent mix of a mid-level adventurers standard kit and brings virtually nothing new to the table (other than a self-repair mechanic to counter enemy's attempting to sunder it, a problem that I've never actually seen in a game). Just price out what an equivalent item would be and price based on that. Enough with the abject stupidity of having a price tag of more than the combined wealth-by-level of over five 20th level characters. It only invites characters to try to break the game for something that isn't worth the price.


Just get rid of master craftsman in the bonus feats. The Mad Scientist already has this covered with Ingenuity, master craftsman add absolutely nothing and is yet another noob trap.

The attack bonus of Master inventor really should be tied just to Intelligence (sort of like a reverse Canny Defense). There is really no reason to limit this by Wisdom as well, this class is MAD enough.

Combat Crafting has some interesting options for a masterwork+ kind of option, that is until you get to Hollow Points. What. The. Hell. Man. 20 points of bleed damage is ridiculous and a guaranteed monster killer. Adding +30 to the Heal DC? DC 45? WTH man? And 1000 GP per round? Again with the stopping. Adding a stupidly large cost to a broken ability is not balance. Perhaps the most insulting thing is that you named this Hollow Point. The most mundane of ammo modifications does not cause a dragon to bleed out and it most definitely doesn't cost 1000 GP per round.

That's all I've got in me for now. Not sure how tone is coming across on the internet but realize that I do see some value in this class, it just needs a lot of polish.
Thank you for the feedback! some of your suggestions I actually was considering already but wasn't sure how they would pan out balance wise so tried to err on the side "too weak can buff" rather than "too strong nerf" if that makes sense, I'll definitely work on changes to the problems you pointed out and try to post the results when I can :3

Quarian Rex
2018-05-21, 01:37 AM
Looking forward to it.

DapperReaper
2018-05-31, 09:47 PM
Looking forward to it.
Ok so quick overview of the changes I've made so far
cut point cost off of out of combat abilities(or tried to, if I missed any please point out and I'll fix)
all the abilities that lower craft DC I made specifically lower the base DC so that raising it for more progress can work properly(this was always the intended effect but guess my original wording didnt work >,<), again if I missed any please point out and will fix
I condensed the science mobile innovations into 1 that you pick upgrades off of each time you take it
I made the cost on ultimate plate something somewhat reasonable(may need to still tweek numbers but...)
changed the hollow point mundane modification to increase crafting time and nerfed the effect to something more reasonable
incorporated a few of the abilities that cause you to take sanity damage into mad genius
made suggested changes to skills and skill points
scaled cheapen up to 10% cost reduction but also scaled the subsequent item hp loss(need to check base item hp, may end up axing this entirely >.> if it doesnt play out how I'm thinking)
some other minor stuff too, but think that's the main bit of the changes, think I at least touched on all the problems Quarian Rex pointed out, may need more tweaks on some of them, but....
will post another update when I make some more changes

DapperReaper
2018-06-02, 11:11 PM
added a new innovation called "relaxing work" to help counter balance all the free sanity damage mad scientist can now give themselves, thinking I might move it to a base ability, but not sure what level yet

DapperReaper
2018-06-05, 11:06 PM
hmmm just had a thought, maybe I could take a bunch of the "enhance your inventions" innovations and make them select-able bonuses for each improved tech level you have, would make tech levels do something other than the small bonuses they currently have, or would that make the few ways to increase your tech level a little too strong? did a quick count, looking like ~20 innovations would be good candidates for that, if I do it. any thoughts? or maybe it would be better to leave innovations the invention enhancers and move the other stuff to tech level? think I'll wait till I get some kind of feed back on the idea(either here or from friends) before I decide.
Edit: consulted some friends, they seemed to think moving the "enhance your inventions" innovations to tech level would be a good idea, will consolidate the changes and then post them when I have time
Edit2: so with all my changes the number of innovations has been paired down from 105(Quarian Rex's count) to under 70, still lots of choice, but more manageable hopefully. I tend to get a little bonkers with my rouge talent-esque abilities since the barbarian have 120 rage power so yeah, sorry if that was overwhelming initially >,>

DapperReaper
2018-06-15, 10:49 AM
so I did something kinda silly, I made a github to track changes to my homebrew, probably unnecessary, but if wants to see other stuff I'm working on or have done thought it would be a good way to share it, I set up branches for different systems, pathfinder has the most atm but havent uploaded everything yet, will still update mad scientist here as I make changes updates, but if you want to check it out you can find it here (https://github.com/DapperReaper/Gaming-Documents) recently started a new project at work so not sure how much time I'll have to work on gaming stuff, but feel free to parooze and if you see something you like go ahead and use it in your games, and feel free to PM me if you have questions, just wanted to post this quick update while I had a moment, happy homebrewing everyone