Eclipse – Androids and Constructs

Do you have anything less… sparkly?

Android (30 CP/+0 ECL Race)

You are a spirit bound to a body that has never lived at all – a thing animated by purely mortal craft. A form both terrible and wonderful, a body lacking the subtlety of divine craftsmanship but gaining the cold beauty and brute strength of a machine that has no need to grow from infancy or to repair itself from the inside. It doesn’t much matter if you’re a brain mounted in armored casing, a neural pattern transcribed onto computer chips, a spirit bound into a robot, a golem of clay and magic, an animated suit of armor, or what-have-you. The important part is that you’ve basically undergone a full-blown reincarnation. Anything that came with your race before – instinctive abilities, special powers, and so on (as well as much of your ability to relate to normal people) – is gone, wiped away along with the body and brain that once shaped so much of your consciousness.

You may be called an Android, Abomination, Golem, Talos, Cyberzombie, Soul-, Neuro-, or Full Conversion Borg, or by various other names – but regardless of you’re called, you have the following racial template:

Android bodies are not alive and have no constitution score. They are simply constructs, and whatever force anchors their spirit is neither positive nor negative energy – although they do gain hit points for their size category (normally +20 for being medium-sized). They normally use Con as a “Dump Stat” during character creation – although (if using point-buy attributes) they may not “sell it back” for more points. Sadly, this is Specialized and Corrupted; Androids may not employ the Body Fuel (no suitable body), Deep Sleep (no sleep), Shapeshifting (no appropriate environmental patterns to draw on), Timeless Body (they don’t age anyway), or Witchcraft (they have no appropriate energies to tap) abilities at all and may not use Self-Development to increase their physical attributes since their bodies have no growth potential to develop (4 CP). Thanks to this they…

• Cannot be Raised or Resurrected and are instantly destroyed at 0 HP – or if someone, somehow, breaks or overrides the effect holding their spirit in their body, even if this does normally require very special measures indeed.
• Are immune to damage or drain to their physical abilities.
• Are immune to positive and negative energy effects and to effects requiring Fortitude saves unless they work on objects. They are thus immune to conventional healing, and must be repaired if damaged.
• Do not tire, sleep, or age. They may thus move, work, or remain alert indefinitely and are immune to sleep, paralysis, stunning, and subdual damage.
• Have no metabolisms, and so need no food, air, or water and are not subject to more-or-less mundane diseases – although they thus also cannot smell, taste, eat, breed, or heal naturally.

Since they have not purchased an appropriate immunity, Androids are subject to Critical Hits. Presumably their complex internal structure also has “vital spots”.

While an Android’s BODY is a Construct, it’s MIND is not. They are subject to damage and drain directed against mental attributes, to mind-affecting effects, to being “held”, and so on, unless they purchase an appropriate immunity.

Skill Programming: Androids gain Adept in four skills of choice and +6 Skill Points to spend on those skills, although no skill may be increased by more than +4 as a racial bonus (12 CP).

Attribute Modifiers: Androids may select either +2 Strength or +2 Intelligence. This is Specialized/any transmutation-effect physical boosting spells or items must be especially designed to work on them, as opposed to actual living bodies (6 CP). In worlds where the half-price attribute rule is in play, simply add both bonuses.

Androids are Ungradable, gaining Siddhisyoga with the Fey upgrade, Specialized/employing this option requires access appropriate equipment for modifying their robotic bodies and sources of appropriate components and skills (6 CP). Note that, in combination with the Pathfinder Package Deal, this lets them improve themselves relatively readily.

Gain their choice of a two physical enhancement abilities worth 6 CP each. Common choices include celerity, “natural” weapons, sensory enhancements, power outputs for minor secondary devices (Shaping, powering their versions of Charms and Talismans), limited self-repair systems (Grant of Aid), emergency boosters (Berserker), and Inherent Spell (representing various devices) (12 CP).

Androids do suffer from three racial disadvantages, reducing their racial cost by (-10 CP):

• They are fundamentally Irreverent. Souls are meant to be anchored into the material world by positive or (rarely) negative energy. Voluntarily binding yourself there in another fashion defies the will of the gods and the structure of the universe.
• They are Incompetent when it comes to social skills. Like it or not, the body shapes the mind – and only living things are really sociable.
• They start off with some major Obligations. An Android body, and whatever procedure spell, or ritual got your spirit into it, is incredibly expensive. Somebody expended some serious favors, cash, or other resources to buy you life – or at least a close approximation thereof – and you owe them.

Every so often someone wants to play a character like this – so why not?

With a total cost of (40 – 10 Disadvantages) = 30 CP, Androids are a +0 ECL Race.

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