Hey everyone! I have a question for the IK Requiem rule set (though experienced GMs from the other versions are welcome to chime in ).
I’m running a Requiem campaign that has a PC playing a warcaster. I just wanted to know your thoughts as to when/how they should acquire a steamjack. They just hit level 3, and will be ending one arc of the campaign and beginning another. The party does have some money saved up, but not enough to outright buy a steamjack.
Do you have any advice for me, or should I just have a merchant give them a deal, or provide them a steamjack to adopt/steal? Are there any pitfalls to giving a 3rd-level party a steamjack?
Look since its a merchant he probably has a selection, since i dont have experience with reuiem cant recomend a specific one, do you want to give them a jack? If yes, let them roll for a discount, or a trade off, like a quest for a “discount” that may be used to justify a weird mission to break the style of the campaign, i have a mission coming up in my campaing where my plyers are gonna do the job of matchmakers for a rare upgrade weapon
this is screaming for someone offering them a high risk job stealing something with a “and you can keep the warjack(s)” offer, like the person offering the job wants to steal (valuable) info, or they just want the cortex (so the group has now a “need a 2nd hand cortex” issue), or they want to kidnap a warcaster and the problem is to deal with the warjack.
This last one has a fun angle, as they want to disable the warjack(s) in the less damaging way possible. Also this has potential to generate recurrent enemies for later in the campaign.
You could always offer them an “excellent deal” to purchase a stripped-down second-hand light laborjack. you could take the crappiest 'jack in Requiem, even give it a penalty or two (such as lower AC or damage) to begin with, with an option to upgrade it later. This is also a good opportunity to give them a 'jack with a personality quirk or two, rather than a blank, factory-reset automaton.
This way you can give the warcaster a 'jack to play with (because let’s face it, the point of being a warcaster is running warjacks) without the risk of making all other characters obsolete. Once you and the players get some field experience with the jack and its capabilities (or lack thereof), you’ll have a better idea about how to upgrade it to make it useful without making it overpowered.
In 5e, 3rd level is usually where the “final” decisions on the character’s advancement are made, as most classes pick their subclass at this point. That’s why I think it’s also a fine point to give the party a 'jack, as long as you start small.
If your players don’t want to spend all their cash on a walking doorstop, you could give them one as “salvage”; they would need to defeat a group of enemies with a 'jack, and after beating them up they could pay a lesser sum of money to reset the cortex and repair the damage they inflicted upon it during the battle.
One of the warcaster subclasses lets them start with a clapped out jack, the party im running has it and it is fine (in fact its damage output is pretty low) the stat block is in the class section for the warcaster, it has no price on it but it might make a nice “find” or reward.
Definitely at third level! I would recommend a Forager light labor jack that’s a fixer-upper. It’s a CR 2. For comparison, a Warlock can have up to half their level in challenge ratings for warbeasts. From a parity standpoint, that’s 1/2 a CR higher, but if it’s damaged in some way or has an inconvenient quirk, that’s reasonable. Make sure it’s a thing that isn’t just 8 hours and a skill check to fix. Missing an arm, it has these hard-to-find pieces to reattach. Place is miles away, shop closed die to owner dying in the Claiming, tracking down a business partner, etc. Maybe it’s like a cat that likes knocking stuff off of shelves - but it’s ‘stuff on shelves’ are people on horses. Something like that.
I think the warcaster in the game I’m running was 5th when he got his first jack. They’re 17th now so my memory on the exact level may be off. They found a broken down labor jack during a mission and basically got the chassis for free. They still had to buy weapons and a cortex but I made sure some money was floating around.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I’ve been a reader of IKRPGs since the beginning, but this is my first time adventuring in Western Immoren, so the help is greatly appreciated.
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