Mechanic ideas

So... I am new here. Yes. At the same time, I notice things. About the Engineer in particular, I notice three things.

- SF2 totally needs to have a Mechanic class - something int-based that's all about being Jut Plain Better at Doing Tech Stuff than everyone else in some meaningful way. This is an action-adventure soft sci-fi setting (plus fantasy aspects). It needs this. It doesn't necessarily need to have that name specifically, but it needs to be that thing.

- It seems like there's not a really satisfying idea of what that class would look like in SF2. How does "really good at tech" translate into getting your share of awesomeness at the table?

- It's not one of the initial 6 classes. That means that Paizo isn't really working on this one yet, and that means that this is a pretty solid time for us to toss out ideas and churn on them and maybe give the folks over at Paizo some more grist to work with when they do come around to working on the mechanic (or engineer, or whatever it winds up being called).

I'll start.

First, they're on a basic martial chassis. You can't be Awesome At Technology if you can't pick up your awesome souped-up gun and Shoot Good. Also, mechanics have this Thing with wrenches. So we're talking about a martial here. Everything else they get is the bonus stuff that you pile on top of a martial chassis to make it worth playing.

past that, I see the following ideas for Cool Things.

- Widgets. Having a bunch of random tech bobbins and whatnot that you can pull out of the many pockets on your overalls to help handle the situation at hand is very much a mechanic thing. Either you just happen to have them on you (and know how to tweak them to make them Do The Thing) or you MacGyver them up on the spot to serve the needs of the moment. Regardless, this winds up looking an awful lot like the alchemist stuff from PF2, just with useful tech widgets rather than alchemy. I feel like Starfinder having alchemy-like Useful Tech Widgets is probably a win anyway.

- Personal Gear. There is absolutely a trope about the person who's totally into the tech and absolutely loves their gun/motorcycle/drone/computer/whatever and gives it the kind of maintenance and upgrades that people who aren't so into the tech simply don't have the time, dedication, or know-how for. Basically, they'd be able to pick some number of pieces of their own gear and give them upgrades... upgrades that would only work properly in their hands because, of course, they know exactly how to use their heavily modded whatever-it-is in a way that no one else really does.

- Proper Maintenance. There are also advantages to having a truly dedicated mechanic on the team. Essentially, this allows the Mechanic to hand out limited versions of the Personal Gear buffs to other people. Possibly some combination of "general check-up" stuff that gives small but meaningful general buffs around reliability, and more focused attention that offers noticeable improvements to a small number of pieces of party gear- like lesser versions of Personal Gear buffs that other people can enjoy. The idea here is to capture that moment where the Soldier finds out that there's going to be a mechanic in the party and starts getting that happy look.

....and, honestly, I think you could make it mostly that. Like, for the drone companion, anyone can get a drone companion by spending the feats for it, but a Mechanic can then pick their companion as one of their pieces of personal gear, and crank up the awesome a notch or two. Bonus points if there's a viable way to apply Proper Maintenance buffs to an SRO party member.

So... who else has ideas? Or things to say about these ideas? Those are good too.

I hate to bring this up because I know not everyone wants to hear it but... everything you've brought up is exactly what Pathfinder's Inventor does.

It has a feat line for gadgets, your random tech bobbins to pull out as quick consumables for you and your allies. It has your bespoke invention in the form of a weapon (gun), companion (motorcycle/drone), or armor, with unique traits others can't replicate. And it has limited versions of its personal buffs to hand out to the team via feats to share offensive boost or its overdrive feature.

Which is to say, you've hit the nail on what makes this sort of character fun! And I think one of the reasons we aren't immediately seeing a mechanic in SF2e is that, cross-compatibility aside, SF2e is working hard to not make their classes just a space fantasy redress of Pathfinder classes. Which means a mechanic needs a more unique space from the inventor.

I hate to bring this up because I know not everyone wants to hear it but... everything you've brought up is exactly what Pathfinder's Inventor does.

It has a feat line for gadgets, your random tech bobbins to pull out as quick consumables for you and your allies. It has your bespoke invention in the form of a weapon (gun), companion (motorcycle/drone), or armor, with unique traits others can't replicate. And it has limited versions of its personal buffs to hand out to the team via feats to share offensive boost or its overdrive feature.

Which is to say, you've hit the nail on what makes this sort of character fun! And I think one of the reasons we aren't immediately seeing a mechanic in SF2e is that, cross-compatibility aside, SF2e is working hard to not make their classes just a space fantasy redress of Pathfinder classes. Which means a mechanic needs a more unique space from the inventor.

Broadly speaking? Sure. The issue is that I don't think the inventor did some of this stuff particularly well, and there's some real devil in the details stuff on top of that.

So my proposal is that this is the core of the class. Basically, we start with the inventor. Then we strip out the overdrive thing entirely, and we let them take their "class damage buff" points in just making the gear better. We throw away the idea that it's a single invention that's the focus of all of their attention, and we make it something where they can spread the love around a variety of pieces of gear if they want - and even share a bit of that with others. We get rid of all of the inventor's "spend two actions to make an area-effect attack off of Class DC" tricks (just go buy a heavy weapon if you want that stuff), you make the gadgets more than just a feat line, you reduce the robot companion so it is just a feat line, and the result plays quite a bit differently.

Like, thematically, there's a difference because this Mechanic isn't inventing anything. They buy existing tech off the shelves and then they spend a lot of time reading hobbyist blogs and technical manuals and tinkering. They have different ways of upgrading a bunch of different kinds of gear, and when they do pony up the cash to switch from one gun to another gun, then their gun buffs just transfer over (and maybe swap around a bit) because it's a matter of time and attention rather than being one of monomaniacal devotion.

Practically, there's a difference because there's no offensive boost and there's no overdrive, and there's no explosions. There's buffs to assign, but they're not in the moment, and they're not decided carefully over the course of your career - all of them get applied at the beginning of the day, or maybe get fully rearranged with a bit of downtime. You have gadgets, but the gadgets are actually good, because you have the space in the build budget to make them good. You wind up being a martial whose gear is Just Plain Better than everyone else's, plus some party buff, plus gadgets for a bit of flexibility. That's... not really how the Inventor plays.

So yeah. There are connections between this idea and inventor... but I don't think there are any more than there are between Fighter and the new Soldier, or Rogue and the new Operative.

My idea for the mechanic is actually the opposite of yours. Drones were the mechanics shtick in SF1E, and were pretty iconic to the mechanic. Literally; the iconic mechanic used a drone. The other fields they had were pretty easy to replicate through buying augs, or tricking out your weapons or armor--though yeah, the mechanic could do the most there--but drones were terrible unless you played a mechanic.

My vision of the mechanic leans into that even harder. Their drone isn't treated like an animal companion. It'd be more of an eidolon, with the mechanic trading out the summoner's spellcasting and shared hit point pools for some more martial features, and their feats reflecting that as well, letting you mix it up in combat with your drone, perhaps trading the super efficient action compression of the summoner for more capability in combat or the like.
Or I could see the core of your class still being called an exocortex, and being more modular than what the inventor can do. Pulling your exocortex's drone body back to you and collapsing it into a weapon or suit of armor, melding with it, using it to overclock your augments while it's connected to you, etc.

I'd like to see Mechanics being able to swing their big narrative... wrench around. Having one in your party should be a bit like bringing civilization with you.

I imagine them meticulously and jealously assembling and caring for their personal engineering toolkit as essentially a personalized key to whatever the situation calls for, inside and out of combat.

A mechanic should be able to solve narrative problems that technology should be able to solve, without the party having to plan ahead or rely on begging NPCs for help. They should be able to quickly and easily convert UPBs into useful tools, and perhaps get some UPBs for free every day, so that they can always have an answer to the party not having the right tool for the job. From making an air conditioned shelter, to putting up a zipline, to building a permanent water harvesting system for a community, a mechanic should represent the kinds of power you'd normally get from utility spells in Pathfinder.

In combat I'd like to see Mechanics be able to do things unrelated to drones or modifying their own gear. Those things, I feel, should be pretty universally available options. I'd like it if they could do something more *sciencey*, possibly using their toolkit as a source of handwavium. Like spot welding enemy boots to the floor, generating a magnetic field that deflects bullets, welding a bulkhead door closed, creating an EMP wave, setting traps and snares, etc.

All in addition to being able to opt into computers/hacking, and naturally being able to use a gun.

I guess I kind of hope they fill more of a caster role in being able to solve problems and make flashy effects, but with the power of science.

I'd like to see Mechanics being able to swing their big narrative... wrench around. Having one in your party should be a bit like bringing civilization with you.

I imagine them meticulously and jealously assembling and caring for their personal engineering toolkit as essentially a personalized key to whatever the situation calls for, inside and out of combat.

A mechanic should be able to solve narrative problems that technology should be able to solve, without the party having to plan ahead or rely on begging NPCs for help. They should be able to quickly and easily convert UPBs into useful tools, and perhaps get some UPBs for free every day, so that they can always have an answer to the party not having the right tool for the job. From making an air conditioned shelter, to putting up a zipline, to building a permanent water harvesting system for a community, a mechanic should represent the kinds of power you'd normally get from utility spells in Pathfinder.

I'll say... I don't particularly like your idea of how they'd work in combat, but I do like this. At minimum, I feel like the ability to do this stuff should be something that mechanics could spec into relatively easily (and if you did it with a tree of class feats, then other classes could get basically the same thing at a lower level via archetyping).