Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 solomani Aug 28, 2014 22:51:35	Hi all,   This isnt really a 5e question its more an "all editions" question.  Has D&D in some source book at some point had a pet class outlined with the pet being a robot?    Looking at giving this as an option for my homebrew science-fantasy camapign and wondered if there was any historical source material for such a class.   Thanks in advance.
#2 Macv12 Aug 28, 2014 23:07:13	Well, a pet bot wouldn't be fundamentally different from any other pet. You could use a bear or wolf or something, and call it a robotic version of that animal, or say it's a humanoid thing that just has the same stats. Any creature is basically just a name and some stats, so change the name and bam, it's a different creature. You could maybe Frankenstein some features from different creatures to give the pet the specific abilities you wanted. So maybe make a beastmaster ranger, flavor their bow as a gun, and give them a bot for a "beast." Let them repair it instead of "bonding" with a new creature. You could trade out an old pet for a different one and call it "modifying" the bot.   I think in the past you could make some wizard builds that centered around golems, or summoning in general. There was definitely a route for this in 4e. A golem is basically a mech held together with magic instead of bolts. I don't think 5e would support this with just spells, though. You could maybe make a custom wizard school that revolved around maintaining a single "pet" golem.   IIRC 4e had some familiars that were specifically meant for the artificer, but they generally didn't approach the realm of full "pets," like a beastmaster has. And the artificer seemed like more of an alchemist anyway, rather than a machinist. Don't know much beyond that.
#3 solomani Aug 29, 2014 2:58:09	Excellent, thanks.  Ranger was what I had in mind as an example (or just adding a mechromancer archetype to the class for example). Do you recall what source material the 4e pet classes existed in?
#4 Arawn76 Aug 29, 2014 3:44:54	I recall there was a wizard variant in the Shairs handbook (Al Qadim) in 2e that had mechanical creatures.
(Reply to #3) Macv12	solomani wrote:
#6 crimfan07 Aug 29, 2014 14:09:12	solomani wrote:
#7 Captain_Kobold Aug 29, 2014 16:01:39	"Robot"; not that I know of. They don't really exist in official D&D. Eberron 3.5 had homunculi as a companion to their Artificer, and even semi-construct PCs, but that was all magic-based rather than mechanical. I'd assume that robots would also count as constructs. 4th Ed Artificers didn't have a permanent pet like the shaman, but summoned/activated temporary ones as powers.   A couple of thoughts spring to mind however, dependent upon what you actually want from the class:   1: Pet class. Beastmaster Ranger or Chain pact Warlock or similar. Change the pet's type to construct and give it robot traits.   2: Minion master class. Necromancer wizard, reflavour Animate Dead and similar spells as creating robots from mechanical components rather than undead from bones. Mechanically (heh) undead are probably the closest type to constructs, so hopefully less rebalancing will be needed. (Although I'd guess balance is already different due to your setting.
#8 solomani Sep 04, 2014 18:46:53	Thanks all for the great replies.  Will check them out.
#9 Xenuite Sep 04, 2014 19:01:34	If you are considering 3.5/Pathfinder-based play, check out the Summoner. The Eidolon could easily be reflavored as a mechanical servant.
#10 solomani Sep 10, 2014 2:49:31	Xenuite wrote:
#11 Captain_Kobold Sep 10, 2014 9:58:49	If you wanted a cyber-skull, wouldn't a reflavoured Flameskull be better?
#12 solomani Sep 18, 2014 3:31:38	Captain_Kobold wrote:
#13 Captain_Kobold Sep 18, 2014 4:50:03	solomani wrote:
#14 solomani Jan 19, 2015 16:08:25	So coming back to this after playing with this modified ranger.  It works pretty well.  But I want to give the "ranger" a way to upgrade his pet.  I think that works thematically.  You can see I have an upgrade list there.  My issue is that trading an ability increase to upgrade the characters bot seems excessive (or my options dont have enougth umph).  So looking for a different way to do this.     Open to suggestions!