Clark's Law Applied

In my last post I mentioned the possibility of wahoo character types. I'll demonstrate how this works We'll start by noting that the current game is 6th level, Pathfinder 20 point buy. A new player joins wanting to play a stranded space pilot kind of like a Colonial Viper Pilot from Battlestar Galactica named Hawk . The other players are fine with it and given that such thing do happen on Midrea, I OK it. The first thing we have to do is make an equivalent. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Given this guy is human and a fighter pilot and that he is not going to have access to his fighter, its pretty easy to do. Human, Fighter . Since he needs skills we'll use the tactician archetype. Stats are up to him, the player decides on ST 14 IQ 14 WS 10 DX 14 CN 12 CHA 14 Next comes traits skills and feats. As a general rule if it won't happen in game I don't charge for it and so while Hawk is an able pilot and gunner, he doesn't need to list them as they won't get used. Being weird does cost a trait (outworlder) so he selects that and one other (reactionary) skills feats are the same and so selects ones that make sense to him. The outworlder trait is mandatory but he'd take it anyway as it allows him access to a skill (offworld lore) ad to use tech items, he grabs 5 others and 6 feats, deciding on point blank shot, precise shot, far shot ,improved initiative, target of opportunity , shake it off and enfilading fire. These fit the flavor and are universal enough to work for most settings. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next comes the hard part, technical items. The player decides Hawk should have a combat jumpsuit, 2 comlinks, automed kit and a freeze pistol with a light mount (its tacticool) along with some space food, a food sterilizer and a solar powered vapor canteen This is where Clark's Law comes into play What makes this work is that each of these items can easily be transfered into a magic item equivalent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jumpsuit becomes magic studded leather The comlinks were a little tricky but I find a set of magic earings in the Magic Item Compendium thats a good fit (yes its 3.5 close enough) automed kit, treat as a box of potions (healing, remove poison, cure disease) space food, its just rations the canteen, after some thought it becomes a 1x daily create water item Food sanitizer 3x daily purify food and drink ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- last comes the freeze pistol , the mounted light is easy, its about as good as an Ioun Torch so thats that. But how do you make a freeze pistol ? Given that a gun is roughly the same as a wand I decide that the freeze ray ought to be modestly powerful, say a L2 spell. I go digging and pull up a wand of a 3.5 spell ice knife. That gives him a 2d6 cold attack (with dex damage and a burst option) I offer him a deduction of 20% cost for the need to be reloaded every 10 shots (4 magazines) or he can take a 20 shot with 3 magazines for full cost. Hawks players chooses the later and now he has a freeze ray with 2 extra clips. Later as the game continues and more treasure is found I simply repurpose some of the usual amount he'd get at each level into new tech items allowing him to keep the flavor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Viola, instant balanced space pilot ...