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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide

Gears Characters

Source Guns & Gears pg. 12 2.0
In the world of Golarion, technology moves at its own unusual pace. The widespread use of magic advanced the ability for certain developments and discoveries, as spells provided a natural way to discover new data or solve a technological issue that required generations of innovation on Earth. However, magic has been equally a hindrance in the development of other technologies, as the relative advancement and availability of low-level magic meant it simply wasn't worth the development cost and time it would take to devote resources to expanding other technologies whose benefits were easily replicable by magic.

Another influencing factor in the development of technology has been the many horrific cataclysms that have befallen the planet of Golarion as a whole, and various regions and nations in turn. Sometimes, a technology discovered in ancient times is lost to Golarion for millennia, only to resurface much later. For instance, Xin, the first emperor of the ancient empire of Thassilon, mastered the creation of clockworks over 10,000 years ago, only to see his palace sink to the bottom of the ocean and his discoveries lost to the ages.

Across much of Golarion, the options presented in this chapter are uncommon at best, and some of them, like Stasian technology, are rare or even unique in the world. If you're playing in a different setting than Golarion, your group should decide if some or all of the technologies in this chapter are more widely available, or if they aren't available at all.

Construct Companions

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
A construct companion is a loyal semi-sentient construct who follows your orders obediently and is roughly as intelligent as an animal. Your construct companion has the minion trait, and it gains 2 actions during your turn if you use the Command a Minion action to command it.

If your companion is destroyed, you can spend 1 day of downtime and attempt a Crafting check with a high DC for your level. On a success, you rebuild your companion. You can have only one construct companion at a time, and you can have either a construct companion or an animal companion, but not both.

Riding Construct Companions

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
You or an ally can ride your construct companion as long as your construct companion is at least one size larger than the rider.

Prototype Construct Companions

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
The following are the base statistics for a prototype construct companion, the first construct companion most characters get. A companion has the same level you do. As you gain levels, you might make further adjustments as your companion grows more powerful. Construct companions calculate their modifiers and DCs just as you do, with one difference: the only item bonuses they can benefit from are to Speed.

Construct Trait

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
A construct companion has the construct trait. It's not a living creature, nor is it undead.

Proficiencies

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
Your construct companion is trained in its unarmed attacks, unarmored defense, all saving throws, Perception, Acrobatics, and Athletics. Construct companions can't use abilities that require greater Intelligence, such as Coerce or Decipher Writing, even if trained in the appropriate skill, unless they have an ability that allows it.

Size

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
Your construct companion is either Small or Medium, chosen by you when you first gain the companion.

Strikes

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
Your construct companion has two kinds of melee unarmed attacks. Its first unarmed attack deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage. Depending on the shape of your construct this could be a fist, tendril, or other similar unarmed attack. Its other unarmed attack deals 1d6 slashing or piercing damage (choose when you first gain the companion) and has the agile and finesse traits. Depending on the shape of your construct, this could be a spine or spike, jaws or fangs, a retractable blade, or other similar unarmed attack.

Ability Modifiers

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
A construct companion begins with base ability modifiers of Str +3, Dex +3, Con +2, Int –4, Wis +1, Cha +0.

Hit Points

Source Guns & Gears pg. 32 2.0
Your construct companion has 10 Hit Points, plus a number of Hit Points equal to 6 plus its Constitution modifier for each level you have.

While constructs are usually immediately destroyed at 0 Hit Points, your construct companion is a little harder to destroy than other constructs are. When your construct reaches 0 Hit Points, it becomes broken and begins sparking and might be destroyed if you don't Repair it. This works the same as the normal dying rules and determines if your construct is destroyed, with the following two changes. First, most effects that end the dying condition don't work to save a construct companion, but a construct can be stabilized using the Administer First Aid action, using the Crafting skill instead of Medicine. Second, instead of gaining and tracking the wounded condition, if your construct becomes broken in this way more than twice within a 10-minute period, it's destroyed, and you'll need to reconstruct it by spending a day of downtime.

Immunities

Source Guns & Gears pg. 33 2.0
Because it's a construct, your construct companion is immune to bleed, death effects, disease, doomed, drained, fatigued, healing, necromancy, nonlethal attacks, paralyzed, poison, sickened, and unconscious. Because the construct isn't a living creature, effects that heal living creatures can't help it recover Hit Points. Restoring Hit Points to it requires using the Repair action or other means that can restore Hit Points to objects and nonliving creatures.

Senses

Source Guns & Gears pg. 33 2.0
Your construct companion has precise vision, imprecise hearing, and vague touch senses, but no sense of smell or taste.

Speed

Source Guns & Gears pg. 33 2.0
Your construct companion has a Speed of 25 feet.

Advanced Construct Companions

Source Guns & Gears pg. 33 2.0
To advance a prototype construct companion to an advanced construct companion (usually a result of one of your class feat choices), make the following adjustments.
  • Increase its Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom modifiers by 1.
  • Increase its unarmed attack damage from one die to two dice (for instance, 1d8 to 2d8).
  • Increase its proficiency rank for Perception and all saving throws to expert.
  • Increase its proficiency ranks in Intimidation, Stealth, and Survival to trained. If the construct is your innovation and it was already trained in those skills from a modification, increase its proficiency rank in those skills to expert.
  • You can change your companion's Size, if you want, to either Small, Medium, or Large.

Incredible Construct Companions

Source Guns & Gears pg. 33 2.0
To improve an advanced construct companion to an incredible construct companion, make the following adjustments.
  • Increase its Strength, Dexterity, Constitution and Wisdom modifiers by 2.
  • It deals 2 additional damage with its unarmed attacks. Its attacks become magical, allowing it to bypass resistances to non-magical attacks.
  • Increase its proficiency ranks in Athletics and Acrobatics to expert.

Paragon Construct Companions

Source Guns & Gears pg. 33 2.0
To improve an incredible construct companion to a paragon construct companion, make the following adjustments.
  • Increase its Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom modifiers by 1.
  • Increase its proficiency rank for unarmed attacks and unarmored defense to expert.
  • Increase its proficiency ranks for Athletics, Acrobatics, saving throws, and Perception to master.
  • Increase its unarmed attack damage from two dice to three dice, and its additional damage with unarmed attacks from 2 to 4.

Related Rules

Animal Companions and Familiars (Source Core Rulebook pg. 214 4.0)

Gears Character Options

Source Guns & Gears pg. 36 2.0
Golarion is a world of fantasy, one that is incredibly vast and diverse. This means that numerous reflections of the genre, in all its permutations, can be found somewhere the world, as long as you know where to look. The Shining Kingdoms are a land of knights and chivalry similar to those imagined in the legends of King Arthur, the Saga Lands remain home to fierce vikings and time-displaced wizards, and the High Seas embody the spirit of exploration and the fearsome naval combat of the age of piracy.

Fantasy has more to offer than just knights in shining armor and wizards in tall towers. Ingenious goblins and ratfolk cobbling together technology from half a dozen different disciplines and schematics, industrious dwarves smithing intricate technological marvels, and humans meticulously assembling clockwork creatures and weapons piece by painstaking piece all have their places within the genre of fantasy and in the world of Golarion. For the automatons of the Jistka Imperium, their place in the world remains complicated. They represent the last remnants of an ancient society that mastered magic and machines in equal measure, then left them behind after the society fell as a relic of their lost nation's greatest achievement. For trick drivers and their trusty vehicle mechanics, their place might be almost anywhere, though they're unlikely to learn their craft outside of port cities like Absalom, or countries where technology grew at a steady pace alongside magic, like the continent of Arcadia or the nation of New Thassilon. Meanwhile, trapsmiths and their cogwheel snares find a home in Absalom, with its Clockwork Cathedral; in the gritty Grand Duchy of Alkenstar or their dwarven allies in Dongun Hold; or in Arcadia or New Thassilon as well.

Even characters whose classes typically represent the embodiments of classic fantasy and high magic might have a spark of technology hidden away somewhere, perhaps waiting for just the right moment to reveal the ace up their sleeves. The old wizard, his body failing but his magic strong, might choose to replace a failing heart with a clockwork organ rather than succumb to the temptation of undeath. A construct might successfully seek out a soul and life as a living creature to start anew and attain a different perspective about the world. Even an elven archer in a forest far away from any center of technology might create devices that are entirely new to their culture, such as scopes and eyewear that use the scientific power of crystals and lenses to see hidden targets and enable otherwise impossible shots. In all these cases, players should work together with their GMs to build context and story behind these ideas and ground the character in the world.

Fantasy is as broad and deep as human imagination. Let the ancestry, backgrounds, and archetypes that follow take your imagination even farther down the road of what a such a world can be.

Variations on a Theme

The inventor class, automaton ancestry, new backgrounds, and other elements located in this book give players ways to embody different aesthetics that infuse mechanical concepts or fantastic science into their character designs. The degree to which you combine these elements is something that can help you impact the development of your character and the tone and feel of your game in a variety of ways.

An automaton character with a Pathfinder Core Rulebook class like fighter or monk can be an interesting twist on a classic idea. An automaton inventor with the Disciple of the Gear background who multiclasses as a cleric of Brigh, goddess of invention, can be the focal point of an entire campaign arc themed around the spread of technology and the search to understand the mortal soul. A gnome vehicle mechanic who maintains and makes improvements upon a single vehicle can serve as an unusual character whose existence begs the question of the prevalence of technology throughout the world, or as an established member of a robust mechanics' guild that creates and maintains a small fleet of vehicles used for a particular purpose by a city or civilization.

The way that you combine the elements presented in this section can enable you to tell a vast array of different stories. The extent to which magic and technology coexist in your fantasy setting is up to you. Players and GMs should work together to discover how their respective ideas can influence each other as they explore how much influence technology has on the world, as well as discuss methods they might employ as the campaign unfolds to demonstrate its importance, or lack thereof.