Player/NPC Race: Robots, Cyborgs, and Androids [PEACH]

[Ghost Nappa]

Please pardon me while I add-in the formatting which I couldn't copy from where I wrote everything originally, and where several of my foot-notes and reasons will thus be missing.

Spoiler: Introduction

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Throughout much of fiction comes to us the ideas of humanoid robots or robotic human beings. Individuals whose behavior, physical presence, or presentation appears to blur the lines between man and machine. Characters like Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Data and Lore, Tales of Graces F’s Sophie Lhant, DC Comics’ Cyborg, Tales of Symphonia’s Colette Brunel, Presea Combatir, and Tabitha, and Dragon Ball’s 8, 17, 18, 19, and 20 are amongst the inspirations behind this concept.

The multiple “sub-races” amongst the Androids are a bit of a misnomer as Androids are capable of moving between them based on the condition of their hardware. Androids can withstand a great deal of punishment over their life-time but require specialized training and talent to maintain.

Spoiler: Main Race Features

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Alignment. Androids tend to have a Lawful Neutral alignment and are generally uninterested with morality so long as their methods achieve their ends. Androids are easily capable of Lawful Good and Lawful Evil alignments however. Chaotic alignments are usually indicative of conflicting programming or of hardware damage in Androids.

Age. Due to the magi-technological nature of Androids, they are capable of living for eternity so long as they can maintain their hardware. Androids do not die, but they can be damaged immensely or even beyond repair.

Size. Androids can be built of any size but are typically the size of a human. Your size is your choice of either Small or Medium.

Speed. If you chose to be Medium sized, your Speed is 30 feet. If you chose to be Small sized, your Speed is 25 feet.

Languages. You are fluent in Common and any one Language of your choice. This language is typically indicative of the android’s creator. For example, a Tiefling might teach the android how to speak Infernal so as to have a secret language to give it commands.

Limited Reach. You have disadvantage on any Intelligence (Arcana) check you make to attempt to repair yourself.

Living Construct. You are considered to be a construct for the purposes of spells and effects. You are immune to disease. You do not need to eat or breathe, but you can ingest food and drink if you wish. Instead of sleeping, you enter an inactive state for 4 hours each day. You do not dream in this state; you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.

Soulless. Due to the nature of your creation, you lack a mortal soul. The effectiveness of healing spells on you is halved. You cannot be raised by Raise Dead, Resurrection, or True Resurrection. Additionally, you can not use Astral Projection.

Thermal Venting. Androids release most of their exhausted energy as heat. As a result, you possess a weakness to Fire damage, but are resistant to Cold damage.

Subrace. Android sub-races are not static like mortal races but their current state of being. Androids may become more advanced as they acquire new parts and technologies or regress into simpler states as they become damaged. New characters are advised to pick at or below a Tier 2 sub-race.

Spoiler: “SM - Shuffling Scrap Metal (Tier 0)"

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As an android’s hardware and maintenance is neglected or after significant wear, wires become exposed, joints stagger, and power sources leak. A machine on its last legs is not pretty to behold and become a bit of a liability in most situations.

(Sidebar: These half-broken robots are not intended as a default starting race and are meant to aid DMs for creating NPCs and to encourage players to not ever reach this state.)

Ability Score Increase. The robotic and computerized nature of Androids means that they’re particularly quick witted and a desperation for survival and awareness of the inevitable drives the android into a survivalist state. Your Intelligence score increases by 1 and your Wisdom score increase by 1.

Ability Score Decrease. Androids lack some of the force of will and creative personality of living beings due to the strict natures of their programming and when created are often made to be disposable obstacles out of fear of rebellion against their masters. Additionally, your exposed circuitry and damaged state lowers your durability. Your Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma scores decrease by 2. Your Constitution score decreases by 2.

Low Reserves. An android constantly suffers the effects of three levels of exhaustion in this state.

Desperate Repairs. If any individual (yourself included) is capable of making an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 16, they can repair you over the course of a Long Rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of your repairs, your sub-race changes to “Robotic Companion.”

Unfixable. If you fail three death saving throws, you become permanently inoperable and cannot be repaired. You can only be restored with a Wish spell.

Spoiler: “RC - Robotic Companion (Tier 1)"

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A no frills basic android is both highly versatile and easily upgradable. They are often used as servants by the affluent as a cheap, reliable bodyguard and all-purpose servant. Androids are often created as a Robotic Companion and then outfitted later to suit the needs of their creators, masters, or owners. They do not possess any distinct features or abilities.

(Sidebar: These robotic allies are not intended for player use and are presented to help DMs create NPCs and to encourage players to avoid reaching this state.)

Ability Score Increase. The robotic and computerized nature of Androids means that they’re particularly quick witted. Robotic skeletons and frames are typically built to last and tend to have some solid construction to support them. Your Constitution score increases by 1 and your Intelligence score increases by 1.

Ability Score Decrease. Androids lack some of the force of will and creative personality of living beings due to the strict natures of their programming and when created are often made to be disposable obstacles* out of fear of rebellion against their masters. Your Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma scores decrease by 1.

(Sidebar: Robotic characters like Data or KOTOR's HK-47 are often portrayed struggling with social interaction as they are often more curt and direct with their words and conversation, seemingly unaware of any harm their speech might wrought.)

Advanced Protocols. If any individual is capable of making an Intelligence (Arcane) check of DC 20, they can improve you over the course of a Long Rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of this time, your sub-race changes to your choice of “Warforged” xor “Spellforged.” If an Android is re-upgrading to a Tier 2 sub-race, they may choose a different one than the one they previously selected.

Damaged Core. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 12 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Shuffling Scrap Metal.”

Spoiler: “WF - Warforged (Tier 2)"

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Prerequisites for becoming a Warforged:

• A Robotic Companion must be at least level 1 in order to be upgraded to a Warforged.
• The Android must currently have the “Robotic Companion” sub-race
• Someone must succeed at a DC 20 Arcana check to upgrade

The Warforged were made as the ideal soldiers to serve in the devastating Last War. Although they are constructs, they have much in common with living creatures, including emotions and social bonds, and perhaps even souls.

(Sidebar: This version of the Warforged is a slightly tweaked version released in the 2015 pdf found here: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downlo...erron_v1.1.pdf

Among the changes, Warforged receive +1 INT and a Fire Weakness.)

Ability Score Increase. The robotic and computerized nature of Androids means that they’re particularly quick witted. Robotic skeletons and frames are typically built to last and tend to have some solid construction to support them and your design has been reinforced for combat. Your Strength score increases by 1, your Constitution increases by 1 and your Intelligence increases by 1.

Composite Plating. Your construction incorporation of wood and metal gives you a hardened exterior granting you a +1 bonus to your Armor Class.

Soul in the Machine? Even though you are a construct, you are a living creature. This replaces the “Soulless” feature and all of its effects.

(Sidebar: The decision to include this here was made simply to be as consistent as possible with the material released in 2015 for Eberron.)

Systems Failure. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 16 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Robotic Companion.”

Damaged Core. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 12 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Shuffling Scrap Metal.”

Spoiler: “HK - Hunter-Killer (Tier 3)"

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Prerequisites:

• A Warforged must be at least Level 11 in order to upgrade to this sub-race
• Someone must succeed at an Arcana check of DC 25 to upgrade the Warforged over a long rest.

An advanced warforged repurposed as a commando. Hunter-Killers are typically used or hired as Assassins or Bounty Hunters by others.

Ability Score Increase. The robotic and computerized nature of Androids means that they’re particularly quick witted. Robotic skeletons and frames are typically built to last and tend to have some solid construction to support them and your design has been improved to handle the deadliest of scenarios. Your Strength score improves by 1, your Dexterity score improves by 1, your Constitution score improves by 1, and your Intelligence increases by 1.

Composite Shielding. Your construction incorporation of wood and metal gives you a hardened exterior granting you a +2 bonus to your Armor Class.

Soul in the Machine? Even though you are a construct, you are a living creature. This replaces the “Soulless” feature and all of its effects.

Skill Proficiencies. You gain proficiency with Strength (Athletics) and Wisdom (Perception). If you are already proficient with both, you may instead select 1 Skill Proficiency of your choice.

Thermal Shielding. Your hardware has been improved to better handle fire attacks. As a result, you no longer have a weakness for Fire damage. You retain your resistance to Cold damage. This replaces the “Thermal Venting” feature.

Disabled Functions. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 20 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Warforged.”

Systems Failure. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 16 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Robotic Companion.”

Damaged Core. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 12 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Shuffling Scrap Metal.”

Spoiler: “SF - Spellforged (Tier 2)"

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Prerequisites for becoming a Spellforged:

• A Robotic Companion must be at least level 1 in order to be upgraded to a Spellforged.
• The Android must currently have the “Robotic Companion” sub-race
• Someone must succeed at a DC 20 Arcana check to upgrade the Android to a Spellforged.

Ability Score Increase. The robotic and computerized nature of Androids means that they’re particularly quick witted. Robotic skeletons and frames are typically built to last and tend to have some solid construction to support them. Your Constitution score increases by 1, your Intelligence score increases by 1 and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Analytic Artes. An extremely precise understanding of magic gives you solid understanding of when and how to better optimize the effects of a spell. Whenever you cast a spell that makes you roll for its efficacy (like Divine Favor, Ray of Frost, Fireball, Regenerate, or Sleep), you may choose to use the average value (rounded down), even after rolling.

(Sidebar: To Clarify, this feature does not affect rolls that occur as a consequence of a spell messing up like the self-damage from a botched Dimension Door, nor does it allow you to change the result of a target's saving throw. The value of 8d6 fire damage from a Fireball is a valid choice for this ability; an enemy's saving throw to take half damage is NOT.


Soul in the Machine? Even though you are a construct, you are a living creature. This replaces the “Soulless” feature and all of its effects.

Systems Failure. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 16 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Robotic Companion.”

Damaged Core. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 12 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Shuffling Scrap Metal.”

Spoiler: “MC - Mystic Conduit (Tier 3)"

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Mystic Conduits typically serve as attendants to Archmages and powerful Sorcerers, providing fonts of knowledge and consistent and reliable aide in research and spellwork.

Prerequisites for becoming a Mystic Conduit:

• A Spellforged must be at least Level 11 in order to upgrade to this sub-race
• Someone must succeed at an Arcana check of DC 25 to upgrade the Spellforged over a long rest.

Ability Score Increase. The robotic and computerized nature of Androids means that they’re particularly quick witted. Robotic skeletons and frames are typically built to last and tend to have some solid construction to support them and a more responsive and complicated AI improves awareness and intuition. Your Constitution score increases by 1, your Intelligence score increases by 1, your Wisdom score increases by 1, and your Charisma score increases by 1.

Analytic Artes. An extremely precise understanding of magic gives you solid understanding of when and how to better optimize the effects of a spell. Whenever you cast a spell that makes you roll for its efficacy (like Divine Favor, Ray of Frost, Fireball, Regenerate, or Sleep), you may choose to use the average value (rounded down), even after rolling.

(Sidebar: To Clarify, this feature does not affect rolls that occur as a consequence of a spell messing up like the self-damage from a botched Dimension Door, nor does it allow you to change the result of a target's saving throw. The value of 8d6 fire damage from a Fireball is a valid choice for this ability; an enemy's saving throw to take half damage is NOT.


Skill Proficiencies. You gain proficiency with Intelligence (Arcana) and Wisdom (Perception). If you are already proficient with both, you may instead select 1 Skill Proficiency of your choice.

Soul in the Machine? Even though you are a construct, you are a living creature. This replaces the “Soulless” feature and all of its effects.

Thermal Shielding. Your hardware has been improved to better handle fire attacks. As a result, you no longer have a weakness for Fire damage. You retain your resistance to Cold damage. This replaces the “Thermal Venting” feature.

Disabled Functions. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 20 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Spellforged.”

Systems Failure. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 16 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Robotic Companion.”

Damaged Core. If you fail three death saving throws, you enter a deactivated state resembling unconsciousness. You cannot exit this state unless someone makes an Intelligence (Arcana) check at DC 12 to repair you over the course of a long rest. (An individual who fails this check cannot re-attempt it for one year.) At the end of these repairs, your sub-race changes to “Shuffling Scrap Metal.”

[Bharaeth]

Hey, these are great. I particularly like the inclusion of flaws as well as the positive traits.

How do you foresee these playing in game? Does the upgrade system replace feats/ASIs or class features, or complement them? If it complements them, is there a danger of the race becoming too powerful, once someone has put in the work of high DC Arcana checks?

Also, I'm not sure if it is intentional or not, but on the higher Tier versions, the text includes what seems to me to be repetitions: 'Disabled Functions', 'Systems Failure' and 'Damaged Core' are all references to what happens when failing death saves. Does that means that a Tier 3 android can fail up to 9 death saves rather than 3, or were some of those traits hangovers from the previous level that should have been edited out?

[Ghost Nappa]

Hey, these are great. I particularly like the inclusion of flaws as well as the positive traits.

How do you foresee these playing in game? Does the upgrade system replace feats/ASIs or class features, or complement them? If it complements them, is there a danger of the race becoming too powerful, once someone has put in the work of high DC Arcana checks?

Also, I'm not sure if it is intentional or not, but on the higher Tier versions, the text includes what seems to me to be repetitions: 'Disabled Functions', 'Systems Failure' and 'Damaged Core' are all references to what happens when failing death saves. Does that means that a Tier 3 android can fail up to 9 death saves rather than 3, or were some of those traits hangovers from the previous level that should have been edited out?

The upgrade system does not replace feats or ASIs. It is an entirely separate system with no interaction. The features from the different sub-classes overwrite each other. So if you go from RC to WF, you lose all of the features associated with RC Androids and replace them with those from the WF.

The repetitions are deliberate because the DCs are different. I wanted there to be a way for Robot characters to recover from absurd injuries but be crippled by the experience.

Read it like this:

Character fails 3 Death saves -> Falls unconscious and becomes inoperable -> Someone attempts repairs
Repair Check >= 20 --------> Character drops to Tier 2
16 <= Repair Check < 20 --------> Character drops to Tier 1
12 <= Repair Check < 16 --------> Character drops to Tier 0
Repair Check < 12 -------------> No, the character is actually inoperable and dead.

As for the Tier 3 ones being too powerful, yes that is a bit of a concern. Half-Elves are one of the most powerful player races in the game for a couple of reasons but they have one of the largest stat bonuses out of any race, and get an impressive bonus to arguably the best caster stat in the game. I tried to mitigate this by introducing rather complicated entry conditions into it, but on paper it definitely looks more powerful than Vanilla humans. +2 AC, a cold resistance and 2 Skills are almost definitely more powerful than +1 WIS and +1 CHA. I've been wondering if there shouldn't be some sort of additional condition to that last tier, but I don't have a good idea of what to make it.

[Ghost Nappa]

Bump. Looking for additional criticism.

[Final Hyena]

Ignoring tier 3 It seems reasonably balanced.

What is the DC to upgrade a shuffling scrap metal to a robotic companion?

[Avigor]

Maybe make a pre-req for Tier 3 be that a magic item of some sort (weapon or armor for hunter-killer or a wand or staff for mystic conduit) be used as raw material, the item's former benefits being effectively sacrificed for the improved racial powers?

[Ghost Nappa]

Ignoring tier 3 It seems reasonably balanced.

What is the DC to upgrade a shuffling scrap metal to a robotic companion?

12.

Maybe make a pre-req for Tier 3 be that a magic item of some sort (weapon or armor for hunter-killer or a wand or staff for mystic conduit) be used as raw material, the item's former benefits being effectively sacrificed for the improved racial powers?

I like this kind of idea. But not all campaigns have magic items in them.

What if it was a gemstone of some kind that was embedded into the Android by a magic ritual of some kind?

[Final Hyena]

12.

Upgrade to
Scrap - N/A
Companion - 12
warforged - 20
hunter - 25

Repair to
Scrap - 12
Companion - 16
warforged - 20
hunter - N/A

Wouldn't having the upgrade to companion being a DC 16 make more sense to fit in with the warforged which has the same upgrade/repair DC?

[Ghost Nappa]

Upgrade to
Scrap - N/A
Companion - 12
warforged - 20
hunter - 25

Repair to
Scrap - 12
Companion - 16
warforged - 20
hunter - N/A

Wouldn't having the upgrade to companion being a DC 16 make more sense to fit in with the warforged which has the same upgrade/repair DC?

Good point. I wasn't thinking too much about that number when I wrote it. I'll adjust it.