We, Robots

Yes, there are Robots already. But they aren't a real race, just a wacky unbalanced template, so I decided to create a proper race for robots.

Robot - Non Pony Race

Equestria Extraordinary Entranet - 2/day
You may use this Utility whenever you make a knowledge check to take 19 in lieu of rolling,

Power To The People
All robots run on some form of energy. This could be literally anything, from magic to cabbages to coins, as long as it has a monetary value. No robots powered by gravity or sunlight, folks. There should think of a reason why yours runs on what it does, and keep it campaign suitable. Nuclear fuel is NOT available in the Middle Neigh-ges as a rule of thumb. If your robot can not obtain it's particular type of fuel for a day, then it can't use any of it's other Racial or Utility Talents until the fuel is obtained.

Computers Always Win - magic
If you roll a critical failure, you can turn it into a critical success by spending a magic point.



The idea behind this race is that it should be flavoured to the setting. In a normal game it might be a magic powered thing, all light and delicate looking, or in a more modern one, a clunky diesel-fuelled warbot. There are tonnes of possibilities. I also thought of some utility talents unique to them.

Heavier than Steel Flight
Your robot is equipped with a device, whether wings or rocket jets, that allows him to fly with poor maneuverability ( -10 to agolity and precision in flight), and you may take flight talents that improve flight up to good manoeuvrability.

Morphic Resonator
Your robot has a very unusual ability - it can mimic ponykinesis! It might be a high-tech gizmo or magic well inserted by a wizard, but whichever way, it works.

I approve wholeheartedly with this. Also, double topic.

Let me add in a Utility Talent

3 Laws Compliant
You're robot follows Asihooves 3 laws. You start with an extra magic point.
1)A robot may not injure his friends or through inaction, allow his friends to come to harm.
2)A robot must assist his friends when they require help.
3)A robot must prevent its own destruction.
Failure to comply results in the robot needing to make a Knowledge check to reconcile the situation at DC20, or shutting down for 1D4hrs. If the robot shuts down, it loses any memory of what caused it to shut down. If reminded, the robot doesn't need to make the check again or shutdown.

Thats a great one!
Incidently, this race is totally not being home brewed specifically so I can play as a Robot in a neat campaign. Totally.

But 'protect its existance' seems too vague. Prevent it's own destruction is less ambiguous.

Appkes wrote:Thats a great one!
Incidently, this race is totally not being home brewed specifically so I can play as a Robot in a neat campaign. Totally.

But 'protect its existance' seems too vague. Prevent it's own destruction is less ambiguous.

Ok, I changed it. What do anyone think about the check if violating the 3 laws?

It seems good to me.

I say "Computers Always Win" should say: "Computers Always Cheat!" XD

I really like all of the robots stuff. I espeially ike the utilities you made for em!
A slight note though, races aren't really supposed to have any combat things. Maybe instead of 45 hp, they go the route of Minotaurs and give them an extra training to Mechanics or endurance?

I gave them extra HP because I wanted to emphasise their toughness in a better way than just slapping Resist X on there and calling it a day.

I get that, and it would be awesome, it's just that you can't connect a race to anything combat related, sadly.

Mmm. The problem is, I honestly ran out of fun ideas that would make Robots unique after Computers Always Win, so I'm loathe to scrap it. I know exactly why you say that though.

How about instead of that, something like "System Reboot", allowing the robot to stop a skillcheck they make before any ill effect occurs? Or the raining Idea I put above?

System Reboot is good, but they already have a roll affecting Racial, and two out of 3 is a bit naff. Think of something strong, something unique - robots have a big penalty in Power Ro The People, give them something stellar to boost!

The Equestria Expounding Enternet: Robots can forgo a Knowledge check 3/day and treat it as though they rolled a 19?

LoganAura wrote:The Equestria Expounding Enternet: Robots can forgo a Knowledge check 3/day and treat it as though they rolled a 19?

I like it.

Equestria Expounding Enternet - 3x Day
In place of a knowledge check, a robot may take a straight 19.

Do you mean instead of a roll? Instead of a check would basically make the talent useless except for super easy DC

Cardbo wrote:
I like it.

Equestria Expounding Enternet - 3x Day
In place of a knowledge check, a robot may take a straight 19 in lieu of a D20 roll.

Sound better?

Sure. I'll toss it on the pile add it to the post

I meant they treat the roll as though it was a 19.
Say they have a +18 in heal
They would use one of their uses of EEE to treat the roll as a 19
Therefore, the pony gets 19+18=37

Yeah, we already reworded it.

Criticism mode... ACTIVATE!

I am going to compare this to other races:

Switching a fail to a success with a magic point: Reasonable. Magic points are valuable. A 1/day talent does it for cutie mark skills, I would put this as just slightly more useful than that, so it's 1.1 utilities.

Auto-19: Earth Ponies have Freaky Knowledge, which puts their skill check in two knowledges at +5. But seriously, how many times a day will you be using your knowledge skills? This, in effect to me, will be used on 100% of knowledge checks. The average roll, as we know, is 10.5. Freaky Knowledge is restrictive, and only gives very limited skillsets, but gives +5. This, in effect, gives a permanent +8.5 to the check, a far cry better. I'd say its worth, due to generalness and bigger bonus, two utility feats (though really it's probably closer to 2.5).

Bonus Talent: As a non-pony race, this means they're getting 4 talents on creation. 3 for non-pony, and the bonus. That doesn't sound built to a purpose to me, but rather like a minmaxing god. Open a can of worms by giving it Pinkie's Brew and go wild on the unicorn Talent Show set. Still, a talent is a talent, +1 exactly. So they're working at somewhere between 4.1-4.5 talents worth of power in the race.

Compare Pegasi: Flight (worth 1 talent, established as such with the publishing of Talent Show), and Weather Control (Varied, but definitely not worth 3-3.5 talents).
Compare Unicorn: Bonus Talent (1 talent), and Ponykinesis (1 talent as you established below). Again, they're more than 2 talents worth of power short.
Compare Earth: You get basically the same deal. The Mane races get about 2-2.5 talents worth of power.

So the big question is this: Is your drawback worth Negative Two talents?

I'd say no. It's drawback is it only has access to 3 utilities instead of 7 or so, if it somehow doesn't manage to find rocks to run off of for three entire days. Heck, make it wind or lightning powered and the party pegasus can run it indefinitely. There's no drawback to this drawback. It is pure flavour unless the DM comes down like a depleted uranium hammer on the player, and DMs don't like being strict and mean as a rule. It's flavour.

Your race needs to lose about 2 talents worth of power, in my opinion. The power source thing is clever fluff, but not really a hindrance. Bring the auto-19 down to 1/session, and remove the bonus utility, and I think it's a solid and fair race, stats-wise.

RavenscroftRaven wrote:
Auto-19: Earth Ponies have Freaky Knowledge, which puts their skill check in two knowledges at +5. But seriously, how many times a day will you be using your knowledge skills? This, in effect to me, will be used on 100% of knowledge checks. The average roll, as we know, is 10.5. Freaky Knowledge is restrictive, and only gives very limited skillsets, but gives +5. This, in effect, gives a permanent +8.5 to the check, a far cry better. I'd say its worth, due to generalness and bigger bonus, two utility feats (though really it's probably closer to 2.5).

In my current campaign I must have at least made 6+ knowledge checks. All in the same day.

EDIT:Technically, in the same evening.

Fair enough, fair enough:

The way the trait is currently listed reads, to you then, as "50% of all knowledge checks required OF THE PARTY succeed due to the efforts of one player".

I still say that's way too powerful to be considered merely worth one utility when you look at the talents of Freaky Knowledge and Additional Training being contrasting points, As it stands currently, it's comparable in wording to "Gotcha!" or "Leggo!", (at +10 3/day, basically what this gives in a different form), but there are key differences:

1) Often a knowledge check is a party obstacle, with only one success needed to relay the information, while physical checks are very player-specific.
2) Those grant bonuses to not a single skill, but a very specific aspect of a skill. Aut0-win, on the other hoof, applies a bonus not to a subsection of a skill, but to AN ENTIRE ATTRIBUTE. That's 3 whole skills, not one single subsection of a skill that's a subsection of an attribute.

Put another way, would you want this race with this absurd benefit able to use Pinkie's Brew for reliable DC35 epic "grandmaster" checks with no magic point usage required? And not at level 10, but at character creation?

Give it Freaky Knowledge instead, flavoured as "pre-existing programming", if you think perpetual bonuses are more useful. That would, along with the removal of the free fourth utility, make the race even-ish as well. After all, who is to say the internet exists anyways?

Your comment on the auto 19 is slightly mistaken, raven. I agree that dropping it and making it a flat +10 might be better though.
A side note; Freaky knowledge is actually viable for ANY skill that is related for your Knowledge. Fluttershy's Freaky Knoweldge Sewing could help a heal check if she had to suture up a cut, or a persuasion when trying to explain a dress's beauty, or Perception to notice if a dress is brand name. It isn't just 1 specific knowledge roll.
Also, my party has rolled about... 10 Knowledge rolls over the course of 24 hours in game? Knowledge rolls are actually much more common than you'd think, especially in a RP heavy system.
I have to agree with you that the drawback isn't much of a drawback, but your classification by Racial Talents is a little....confusing to me. each race has benefits that can't really be compared to one another. Some people would prefer to be an Earth Pony because of the racial Utility talents, others would be a pegasi just for Weather Crafting, and a third (Me) might pick a unicorn just to get 6 everypony utilities. You can't put any numerical value on the races because each one has their own benefits and none of them are really comparable.

Of course. The only issue is that, at its core, in theory the three base races are equal. Their benefits might not perfectly compare (A free utility is worth more than Freaky Knowledge, if only because Freaky Knowledge could be picked with said utility if desired), but its a possible starting point that all three races have one absolute utility and then about a utility-and-a-half's strength of special actions on top of that, give or take a little bit. Additional power comes from their racial utilities and is what really separates them.

Which expands to in theory, the remaining races are equal as well. And it basically holds insofar as the Races of Equestria expansion goes. So the power level should be net equivalent. The entire point of this thread is not to create the concept of a robot, that's covered in the joke templates, but rather to make one that is balanced. I'm just trying to introduce some Fancy Mathematics into this , and note that as it stands, I feel this particular race is markedly stronger than most others on the general scale.

EDIT: I just realized that Living Legends, which is what Dan based Ponytales on, has a robot race.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zElHJAPn5hMJYGG7OkYTre7ZKyhiEA3PpidvPDV9BiI/edit

To quote AJ: Don't you be using your fancy mathamatics to muddy the issue. It just made it a bit confusing for me. I think dropping the Free utility is enough to balance it, maybe, and giving specific things for the robot to be powered by.