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Deth Muncher
2008-05-10, 08:44 PM
Just giving the heads up, I did NOT include this in my other thread entitled "Oh, the things I get myself into sometimes..." seen here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80158 because it goes off on a bit of a tangent and is not exactly pertinent to the discussion therein.

Now. Currently, I'm a 9th Level disembodied spirit of a Sorcerer, and I was thinking, "You know, my body is a little squishy. Perhaps if I were somehow, ionce I regain my body, to invent some sort of thaumaturgical construct suit that I could be in, one armed with all sorts of spells equipped as weapons on the suit so that I wouldn't suffer from ASF, then I might remain alive a little longer. Preferably one in gold with hotrod-red."

See where I'm going with this? Do you think it's possible for me to make an Iron Man suit in a D&D setting? Obviously, not quite the same, since the technologies used would be primarily thaumaturgical instead of mechanical, but with some serious amounts of effort, do you think it's possible to make this?

UserClone
2008-05-10, 08:48 PM
start with a shellcraft mannikin from ghostwalk. Make it out of mithral instead of wood. Yay!

Deth Muncher
2008-05-10, 08:51 PM
start with a shellcraft mannikin from ghostwalk. Make it out of mithral instead of wood. Yay!

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. WHOA.

What?

EDIT: Or, to be more clear, "What is this Ghostwalk of which you speak? I've never heard of such a thing! Perhaps some interweb-goer could direct me to it?"

Da King
2008-05-10, 10:16 PM
Who needs a suit? Try to find a way to possess a Warforged or golem of some sort. Don't just be coated in Metal, be MADE of metal.

Collin152
2008-05-10, 10:20 PM
My thoughts turn involuntarily to Full Metal Alchemist.

Deth Muncher
2008-05-10, 10:21 PM
My thoughts turn involuntarily to Full Metal Alchemist.

Mine did too, but then I realized that'd be too silly.


And my DM says no Eberron things, so no possessing a warforged. Although he said I could get into a golem...

TheLogman
2008-05-10, 10:23 PM
Its a book/setting that's all about ghosts, manifestations, possession, all that fun stuff. Here's the wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwalk).

Now, ahem, onto input.

You could accomplish the following:

Full Plate (Actual Suit) With some enchantment or something that allows you to still cast. There are a rather large number of homebrew classes that allow casting in light or even medium armor floating around, most of them called Armored Mage. Can you spend a feat? You may be able to convince your DM to make Armored Mage a Feat for you.

If your armor is made of Mithril, you could use medium armor with Light armored Mage for no spell failure, or use heavy armor with Medium Armored Mage for no spell failure.

As for the weapons you could mount Crossbows onto your arms, and have them be Spell Storing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#spellStoring)Crossbows. When they hit, the spell stored activates. There is a level cap of 3 on the weapons, but since all the best blasty spells are level 3 anyway, thats not a problem.

Admiral Squish
2008-05-10, 10:38 PM
Wouldn't the best iron man build be a warforged warlock with mithral body, fell flight, all-seeing eyes, etc...?

Deth Muncher
2008-05-10, 10:42 PM
Yeah, I was thinking something to the effect of, the suit has X amount of spells, each at Y amount of times per day, or, even, if the spells used drained the power from me (ala Tony Stark's arc-reactor). So, say the suit shot a Fireball, it would drain the spell from me.


I was thinking as possible madoodads:
-Fly
-Fireball
-Scorching Ray
-Magic Missile
-True Strike
-All of the stat-boosting spells (Fox's Cunning, Owl's Wisdom, etc) as ALWAYS ON abilities.
-Lightning
-Shocking Grasp
-etc.
I realize this would not be a cheap suit, by any means.

Deth Muncher
2008-05-10, 10:43 PM
Wouldn't the best iron man build be a warforged warlock with mithral body, fell flight, all-seeing eyes, etc...?

Actually, on that, I was actually reconsidering the base metal as Adamantine, because isn't it superterrific and such?

And yeah, the Warlock thing actually makes sense, what with the eldritch blasts

Norsesmithy
2008-05-10, 10:47 PM
Telekinesis seems thematically appropriate.

Fizban
2008-05-10, 10:52 PM
Start with Clockwork Armor (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070212a) for the powered suit feel. Then make it into a giant runestaff (a a staff that allows you to cast it's spells using your own slots, but has no charges, and you can only use one at a time, requiring a day to switch, costs a lot less too), adapting the rules from the Magic Item Compendium by multiplying the full price of the runestaff by 1.5 since you're adding it to another item (it's still taking up the armor slot instead of the "hand" slot, so it's only x1.5 instead of x2). The runestaff will hold various spells that your suit will do, drawing on your own energy, and the rules don't actually require any theme, so you can put whatever you want in it.

Now the only problem we have left is casting in that monstrosity (which will be required to activate the runestaff unless we specifically allow it, which will cost more). I suggest applying still spell to all the spells in the runestaff. Now you have a huge powered suit that can draw on your spell slots, allowing you to shoot fireballs and fly around, but you can't use your normal spells in it.

Or, if you don't want to deal with powered armor, here's what you do next: start with fullplate. Add mithral, githcraft, thistledown padding, and +1 and twilight enhancements, dropping the arcane spell failure to 5%. Then add the runestaff functionality and you're golden.

Edit: I just noticed that the Clockwork Armor doesn't list any normal spell failure, only the one for lack of heavy armor proficiency. Take a fighter dip or find an enhancement that give you free armor proficiency and you can pull that off with full spellcasting. Casting the spell Heroics three times could do it, but only for 10 min/level.

Also: I might suggest adding a pair of spiked gauntlets with wand chambers (complete scoundrel), so you can keep a pair of wands ready at all times. The verdict's out on weather or not the gauntlets count as filling your hands as far as I know, but as a weapon, you can add a wand chamber. Yay powergloves.

Animefunkmaster
2008-05-10, 11:06 PM
Do you have, by any chance, access to the Dragonmech Campaign Setting.

A starting point could be there: Hydraulic or Construct Armor (which are both actually wondrous items).

Then the easiest way to accomplish this is to find someway to cast in it (You are allready a Sorcerer no?). Lets start with Prestige Bard (Since Knight's Phantom is out with Eberron), Battle Caster, and Mithril (allowing you to wear mithril heavy armor).

And now the best part the Weapons:

FLUFF.

You could be a builder in story and not really a sorcerer... but mechanically you are a sorcerer. Somatic Components could be you activating your suits weapon (aiming or pushing buttons), and the verbal might be some sort of command word so only you can activate the weapons of your suit. While it doesn't match exactly (Counter spells are a little wierd, but your weapons are most assuredly magic), I feel it follows the rules pretty well (with respect to grapple, combat casting, antimagic fields, and spell craft) and can fit in without having to change your class.

Edit: An Alt for Prestige Bard:
Spell Sword 1
Mithril
Twilight
Gyth Craft.

Deth Muncher
2008-05-10, 11:09 PM
Start with Clockwork Armor (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070212a) for the powered suit feel. Then make it into a giant runestaff (a a staff that allows you to cast it's spells using your own slots, but has no charges, and you can only use one at a time, requiring a day to switch, costs a lot less too), adapting the rules from the Magic Item Compendium by multiplying the full price of the runestaff by 1.5 since you're adding it to another item (it's still taking up the armor slot instead of the "hand" slot, so it's only x1.5 instead of x2). The runestaff will hold various spells that your suit will do, drawing on your own energy, and the rules don't actually require any theme, so you can put whatever you want in it.

Now the only problem we have left is casting in that monstrosity (which will be required to activate the runestaff unless we specifically allow it, which will cost more). I suggest applying still spell to all the spells in the runestaff. Now you have a huge powered suit that can draw on your spell slots, allowing you to shoot fireballs and fly around, but you can't use your normal spells in it.

Or, if you don't want to deal with powered armor, here's what you do next: start with fullplate. Add mithral, githcraft, thistledown padding, and +1 and twilight enhancements, dropping the arcane spell failure to 5%. Then add the runestaff functionality and you're golden.

Edit: I just noticed that the Clockwork Armor doesn't list any normal spell failure, only the one for lack of heavy armor proficiency. Take a fighter dip or find an enhancement that give you free armor proficiency and you can pull that off with full spellcasting. Casting the spell Heroics three times could do it, but only for 10 min/level.

Also: I might suggest adding a pair of spiked gauntlets with wand chambers (complete scoundrel), so you can keep a pair of wands ready at all times. The verdict's out on weather or not the gauntlets count as filling your hands as far as I know, but as a weapon, you can add a wand chamber. Yay powergloves.

Ye gods man! That's quite brilliant! And possibly, I can make some modifications so that it doesn't DIE when a cold spell hits me...perhaps a permanacied Resist Elements?

And as to the Heavy Armor Prof, can't I just take that feat?

nargbop
2008-05-11, 12:36 PM
I wanted to play the Illusionist Who Was Never There but D&D isn't really built for it. It would require significant houseruling. Unless! you play as a Tiny optimized gnome illusionist in a HOLLOW iron golem with significant upgrades... Or some similar thing - I'd want to physically look like something a wizard would identify immediately. An inevitable is a bad idea because they're always moving towards their goal, and cannot dally. A regular iron golem is a bad idea because they're dumb. This idea would take some more manipulation.

Anyway idea was : physically look like an awesome intelligent robot. I'm hiding inside so true-seeing people don't see me but only see the robot. THEN put illusions all around me, so that ordinary people see me as an ordinary person. My illusionist would have multiple failsafes.

Admiral Squish
2008-05-11, 02:05 PM
Now I have to go build iron man...

Ecalsneerg
2008-05-11, 02:21 PM
Ye gods man! That's quite brilliant! And possibly, I can make some modifications so that it doesn't DIE when a cold spell hits me...perhaps a permanacied Resist Elements?
How about you have an item which gives you immunity to fire, then have a trigger item which flames you?


And as to the Heavy Armor Prof, can't I just take that feat?
Not recommended. You need to take light and medium first, as a sorcerer (like you said in your OP). If you did it with a different character (artificer, duh. You're Iron Man), it's 1 feat, with the one in the OP it's 3 feats. Painful.

Fizban
2008-05-11, 03:04 PM
I tried to post this last night, but then the server went down, so....

Edit2: heck, let's price that runestaff. We want: magic missile, true strike, scorching ray, bull's strength, fly, fireball, and lightning bolt. That'll cost 9,200gp by my calculations. That's not too bad, so let's add false life (hp to burn) and eagle's splendor (for a little DC boost), and bring the total up to 10,800. There's plenty of other stuff you could do (agannazar's scorcher for flamethrowers, arcane sight to "scan" things, golem strike to sneak attack/crit other contructy guys, and so on, but this is getting spendy, and while there's no hard limit, we're already pushing the number of spells). So: 10,800x1.5+27,250= 43,450gp. That'll give you +8 AC, +4 str and dex that stacks with pretty much anything, and the ability to "burn" spell slots to increase your strength, hp, or casting power, "lock on" to a target, shoot lazers, rockets, and bigger wide beam lazers, and machine guns, and fly. All you need to do is get heavy armor proficiency. Your speed also goes up by +5' from the clockwork armor, so you're faster too.

Fullplate version: the armor shouldn't cost more than 7,500gp. It'll still have a -3 ACP, and without medium proficiency, you'll take a -3 on attack rolls because of it. Adding the runestaving, we get 23,700gp, with a 5% ASF, and -3 on attack rolls without proficiency. Your land speed is reduced to 20' by the medium armor. You won't have super special awesome mechanically pumped up strength, but it's a lot cheaper and more practical, to the tune of 20k and less non-book material.

Final note: essentially the easiest way I can see doing Iron Man is taking a suit of nifty armor, piling on effects to reduce the penalties, and adding a runestaff to let the wearer, if an arcane caster of great power, use the additional powers of the suit. This also makes it a lot safer, since Joe Average can't just hop in and wreak havoc, but also less impressive.

Now, with regards to cold damage freezing the armor: how about a wand of fireball in one of those wand chambers? It only requires a command word, so you can ground zero yourself and melt your way out, if you survive. And you will survive, because you're adding resist elements to the runestaff part of the armor, for a net cost increase of 1,200gp, for a grand total of 44,650 or 24,900gp.

And yes, the armor proficiency is painful. You should be doing this with artificier, since that way you can actually make it yourself, but then you can't do it with runestaff effects, and it'll cost even more. If you can't muster the armor proficiency, go with the fullplate version, and abstain from attack roll spells, or pump your attack enough to beat out the -3 penalty (on top of -4 for shooting into melee).

Deth Muncher
2008-05-11, 03:43 PM
Well, see, here's the thing guys.

I'm very close to being allowed to get a cohort. And conceivably, I could make said cohort an Artificer. Thus, we solve all the issues here of "If you were an Artie you could make it, but you need Sorc for the spells."

But there's an inherent flaw in this whole thing: My DM doesn't really want to bring Eberron into our campaign. Thus, I lose the clockwork armor idea, as well as the Artificer. I do think he's going to go for it though, just because it's funny.

So, assuming it works, I'm going to need to make one of those Runestaves. That's fine, and I actually have the cash for that base version. (i.e. Mag. Mis., Tru. Str., Scor. Ray, Fly, F.Ball and L.Bolt.) As to the whole thing of taking feats to do these things...What if I just took the feats at levels I get feats? I'm not going to have enough money for this any time soon, so I think in the...oh, 6 levels it'll take to get through all the proficiency feats, I should have the money built up for the super advanced idea, as detailed by Fizban. And if I have an Artificer as my cohort, the price should go down, shouldn't it? Oh..but that's another feat. Perhaps I should try to find more flaws?

Fizban
2008-05-11, 05:50 PM
Well, the other thing to realize is that while it's totally cool, it's not very powerful. You're basically just buying a very limited runestaff and a suit of armor, at a slightly marked up price. It's not going to make you much better, and is definitely not worth 3 feats to do. You get more levels than feats, and while Thou Shalt Not Give up Caster Levels, the metamagics/spell foci/whatever that you can do with 3 feats is probably worth more than 1 spellcasting level. Therefore I recommend the fighter dip, and while you're at it, set your self up for a full gish build with Abjurant Champion, a level of Spellsword (-10% ASF at no real cost is great), and probably just straight Eldritch Knight to finish. You won't be as powerful casting-wise, but you'll be able to make better use of the increased AC, which is what this mainly does.

As you level up you should add more spells to the runestaff part (assuming your DM doesn't enforce the suggested limit), such as higher level buffs. Choose long lasting buff spells that you wouldn't want to waste sorcerer slots on, to mitigate the 3/day limit and maximize it's usefulness. Good spells include Heart of Earth (4th level, basically a swift action, 1 round/level stoneskin, good for the invicibility feel), Ruin Delver's Fortune (4th level, immediate action "oh crap I'm screwed" spell that pumps your saves and mitigates the failures), Greater Heroism (+4 attack/saves/checks? yes please), Bite of the Wearbear (8th level, you'll need to refluff it, but it gives you +16 strength and other bonuses for 1 round per level), and so on. Tenser's Transformation is worthless for a gish, since they're supposed to have high BAB anyway.

You might consider Iron Body, for maximum Iron Man-inity, but it's not as good as the lower level Stone Body (spell compendium I think), since it drops your dex a ton and gives you 35-40% (depending on reading) ASF. That'll give you DR/adamantine with no hp limit, though by that point DR 10 isn't much.

Now, right now the biggest problem I'm seeing is hp/DR. Since fullplate is far from invicibility, (it's basically the minimum to survive without miss chances), so you'll need to find a spell that either grants a ton of temporary hp or a ton of DR. The only ones I know of are False Life, Vampiric Touch, Stoneskin/Heart of Earth, Stone/Iron Body, and the polymorph subschool spells. Vampiric Touch can get mean, but it's not the right style, polymorph defeats the purpose, and the others don't provide much protection. Anyone else know some good invicibility spells?

Edit: oh, and on level of availability: runestaffs require Craft Staff, which requires 12th level to take, so if you want it earlier you'll definitely have to commission it.

FlyMolo
2008-05-11, 08:17 PM
A fighter dip is way smarter for heavy proficiency, if retrofitting an existing character.

A warforged artificer otherwise.

Deth Muncher
2008-05-11, 10:44 PM
I'd love to be a warforged artificer! But I can't. DM says no Warforged.

And aren't there bad things that happen when you multiclass?

Waspinator
2008-05-11, 11:23 PM
One of the things that I love about the Warcraft d20 books is that it has a class basically just for this, the Tinker.

Goblin Shredder FTW!

Chronicled
2008-05-11, 11:28 PM
My thoughts turn involuntarily to Full Metal Alchemist.

Which reminds me of when I made a BBEG who was fond of the psionic power True Mind Switch, and while in the body of a warforged, was going to swap with a PC. (If only I'd had time before semester's end... :smallfrown:)

Fizban
2008-05-12, 02:18 AM
One of the things that I love about the Warcraft d20 books is that it has a class basically just for this, the Tinker.

Goblin Shredder FTW!

How the heck to you make sense of those rules? Is the thing armor? vehicle? item? How does combat work in it? How does it protect you? How does it attack? How do you price anything but a straight up weapon with no guidelines besides the very specific items they've already made? And that doesn't even count how abusable the weapon statting was...

I liked the premade stuff, but I couldn't see how anyone could play a tinker at all.

Solo
2008-05-12, 09:08 AM
Ye gods man! That's quite brilliant! And possibly, I can make some modifications so that it doesn't DIE when a cold spell hits me...perhaps a permanacied Resist Elements?


So, how did you solve the freezing problem? :smallamused:

Deth Muncher
2008-05-12, 01:41 PM
So, how did you solve the freezing problem? :smallamused:

I wonder if I can get the person who makes it to use some gold-titanium oxide with the suit...

SamTheCleric
2008-05-12, 01:46 PM
I wonder if I can get the person who makes it to use some gold-titanium oxide with the suit...

A little ostentatious, don't you think? :smallwink:

Deth Muncher
2008-05-12, 02:56 PM
A little ostentatious, don't you think? :smallwink:

Ah, Iron Man. Great piece of movie, that is. And also...

holy effing crap Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury AAAAAAAAAAAGH!

But. Basically, my plan is I'm going to talk to the DM about perhaps at some point, once I have cash, get an artificer cohort and get him working on the clockwork armor. Once he's done, I'll have gotten the feat Craft: Staff, so I can make a Runestaff. From there...heck. I won't have armor proficiency. But wait, if I'm using the Runestaff to cast the spells, the 90% ASF won't apply, right? And it'll still give me all the goodies, like +8 AC, +4Srt and Dex, and the +5', yes? Yes?

holywhippet
2008-05-12, 04:33 PM
See where I'm going with this? Do you think it's possible for me to make an Iron Man suit in a D&D setting? Obviously, not quite the same, since the technologies used would be primarily thaumaturgical instead of mechanical, but with some serious amounts of effort, do you think it's possible to make this?

Am I the only one who remembers the special golem armour you could get in the Baldur's Gate 2 expansion? Admittedly it required an item you could only have gotten in the original game (or console it in), and another item you may well have missed in BG 2 itself. It made the wearer into something akin to a adamantium golem in appearance and gave you the immunities of one IIRC.

D Knight
2008-05-12, 07:51 PM
i am makeing Iron Man right now. this might be helpful or not because its ebberon stuff but it can be reworked. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79283&highlight=iron
if you have any idea how to improve it please post i would like to hear it.

Ninja Chocobo
2008-05-12, 09:49 PM
Now the only problem we have left is casting in that monstrosity

Not neccessarily a problem. One can just be a Dwarf and dip into Runesmith (RoS), which gives free Silent Spell to all your spells, with no lost caster levels.

And has cool (presumably) glowing runes, to boot.

Deth Muncher
2008-05-14, 11:12 AM
Well...I'm a human, so I can't exactly...dip...dwarf. But!

I do need to make a spell list for this Runestaff. And, actually, also, I saw someone saying somewhere Warlocks get artificer-like abilities? I kinda want a Warlock as my cohort, so...can I get a warlock to help me make the armor and such? I'd be greatly appreciative if someone could run numbers on a reduced price Runestaff and such.