The Campaign: When Your Magic Armor Is Ten Times Your Size

(Following from yesterday's post.)

Introduction

The Vision of Escaflowne (along with other mecha stories like Zentran armors in Macross, the Gundams of Mobile Fighter G Gundam and Appleseed's Landmates as well as prior RPG art such as Exalted's Warstriders (which are Escaflowne's Melfs/Guymelfs with the serial numbers filed off)) depict the pilot controlling the mecha as if it were a suit that the pilot wears. We shall refer this as "wearing" for simplicity and clarity purposes hereafter.

While real-world engineering of such things is a pain in the ass, in terms of game design this makes things a lot easier to handle.

Why Giant Robots? Because Giants Exist

Because this scheme is nothing more than wearing gear scaled up, what we should do is consider this to be a form of magic armor. Specifically, this should be considered no less than Plate Mail; for those using Unearthed Arcana you can add Field and Full Plate as bases for higher-grade units.

Like we see in the Dungeon Master's Guide, this imposes an exotic material component to the unit's creation should the unit want as good an Armor Class as possible. Like a Golem, this is going to take thousands of gold pieces as an abstraction of material costs as well as mandatory downtime (i.e. Time Jail) to construct it. There is, however, one other require I find reasonable to impose: at least one Engineer specialized in automata ("Engineer-technician" would be how the DMG formats it), akin to needing an Alchemist for potion creation.

At the Referee's discretion, that number of Engineers can be expanded, smiths and carpenters can be added, and a Sage specializing in the same can be added. Remember that we're looking at something at least as big as a smaller Giant or top-sized Ogre; the bigger ones (like Escaflowne) are about 20 feet (appoximately 7 meters) tall. Further, remember that (a) we're building a machine and not just animating a statue or stiched-up construct made out of corpse parts; all those fiddly bits need to be precisely crafted and hand-fitted, which greatly adds to the time required.

How long should it take? About that of an equivalent siege engine or ship. Assuming that the Magic-User is ready, all materials are ready, a Manual (like that for Golem construction) is at hand, and the necessary Hirelings are ready then it should take 6 months to a year. During this time, a pilot should be designated. The Referee should demand that the Magic-User go above and beyond to make the mecha capable of allowing spell-casting, akin to what is needed for Elfin Chain Mail to do so.

From Super Robot Wars T, where X's protagonist and Hero Unit make a guest appearance.

Using It At The Table

"That's great. How do you play with it?"

The character that seeks to pilot it must train with it, which is impossible during its construction. The would-be pilot, therefore, should be put into Time Jail for some mandatory downtime to learn how to use it. For a control scheme of this sort, where the idea is that it's a suit of heavy armor writ large, putting it into the hands of a Fighter (or sub-class thereof) is the obvious choice.

In play, the effects are increased size (like that of a giant or greater) with the mass to go with it by default. Unless the specifications call for it, it cannot fly, swim, or transform. The pilot's normal arms and armor are not counted; only the Armor Class and Attack Modes of the mecha. (If you want it to fight Sword & Board, that's going to cost extra in both time and materials; if you want it to fly, better add that to the Required Spells list for construction.)

In an encounter, this is explicitly a hard counter to giant-sized creatures: ogres, giants, titans, dragons, and so on. If hitting them with weapons won't work, you're the same size so just grapple them. You need only worry about your man's Hit Points if the mecha is seriously damaged, or it imposes some form of symbiotic bond that makes you share the pain (meaning that when it takes damage, you do).

It also means that smaller targets are either a nuisance or a threat, depending on circumstances, and if you think your Fighter can't take on some guy in a giant robot then you don't know Balgus.

18/00 Strength in action.

This Doesn't Sound Like Typical Treasure

I would hope not.

Even in a campaign where such mecha were mass-produced like ships and siege engines, or routinely done like castles and keeps, they are not something to be rolled up on a Random Treasure Table. Because their presence can change how the campaign turns out thereafter, they should be treated like encounters with powerful locations or entities.

As Escaflowne (and other series like it) show, the dynamics of a milieu and thus a campaign within such are going to be markedly different. I would mark the appearance of such a thing as an event more important to playing the Faction level of campaign play over dungeon delving or wilderness exploration.

The military and engineering applications are obvious.

Given the game-changing (literal and metaphorical) nature of their development, someone's going to figure out how to mass-produce them (as much as such can be). Once someone figures it's easier to make them something you drive instead of wear, that's going to come on faster- and that is tomorrow's post.