Mechanik's Heaven: The Cast

In my last article I talked about the online game being run. Today we'll talk about what we've got.

So first off, we have a group that has very little experience with the Iron Kingdom's world. But with lots of experience as Role Players. We also have a group that tends to be more passive personalities, but who love a good role play session. And a group that likes humor more than dark humor. And we all love big robots.

So this lead to a concept, as we started going through character generation of the fact we all like robots.. Why not an entire group of Field Mechaniks. A 'Jack for everybody and everybody for the Jacks! The starting rules were that players could swap starting abilities out for other abilities, starting weapon levels for other weapons, and same with skills. All have to stay within the original career, but using the rules as laid out in the core IKRPG. Given the fact that the folks were all generally not as familiar with the world setting everybody also went as a human.

So on to the cast of Mechaniks in the group:

Finnegan Kilbride('Jack Lucky) - Group Lead - Intellectual Knight/FM - Played by Me
Emma Bartley('Jack Taltos) - Skilled Bounty Hunter/FM - The Wife!
Andrew('Jack Andrew 'Jackson) - Gifted Warcaster/FM - The Quiet 'Ninja'
Dimitry('Jack ) - Gifted Arcane Mechanik/FM - The Engineer

For a detailed break down I'll give you me(Shared GM so every person has a PC as well as potentially GMing).

Finnegan Kilbride - Knight/Field Mechanik

While I talk about my character first(possibly only), he was actually the last one created. And it came down to a desire to take a combination that was a little different. But as I'm making him to him Jack's are the continuation of the traditions of the Knights. Fighting beside them, against other Jack controllers is the new ideal. Not being familiar with the Knight Orders I still have to resolve that one, but Finnegan started from this idea of the warrior who also has a bit of a mechanikal bent. I also know I have one of the strongest personalities in the group. Given the passive nature of our group it would be natural and easy for me to play the group leader, in terms of taking the lead. It also leads to hilarious(for my friends and wife) situations where I am talking and arguing with myself.

Archetype: Intellectual - (Genius)

The nature of our team also meant that I knew we'd have lots of people who can improve the 'Jacks during the fight and outside of it, so I decided to concentrate on the leadership role. To that I took Intellectual as my archetype and the bonus of Genius, after all this guy has gone and gotten into Jack's. Has to be a reason why. He just really likes these things. This leads into an interesting idea of a story where Finnegan was always a bit of a bookish young man but his family had expectations. "You will be a Knight. All of our family has done that. This 'Jacks thing is just a phase, you'll grow out of it." So we have a young man who spent time with an order of knights, learning and training to be one but whose first love is 'Jacks and who finds a way to do both.

Weapons: Great Weapons 1, Pistol 1, Shield 2

He's a knight! Going to definitely enjoy using a great big weapon, and in fact I know just the weapon. While the Jack Wrench is that big weapon it's not quite what i had in mind. Something similar but nearly as good, while still being one handed is the Warhammer! Also useful for breaking loose those stuck parts at -1 attack and POW 5 it's one of the most powerful one handed great weapons. Only the Storm Glaive and Iron Fang Pike are stronger(or equal). The one handed nature of it also means I can use a shield.

Shields are rather nice as well. The extra armor bonus really makes this character survivable in the complex nature of melee. To get to 2 we had to agree that the rules that allow you to swap out starting abilities(knight gets great weapon, shield and hand weapon) for something else on the list would allow us to swap one handed for shield. Not an unreasonable approach. In addition moving to Field Mechanik's options this knight has a bit more of the modern in his area of interest so Pistols seemed like something he'd enjoy using.

Abilities: 'Jack Marshal, Ace Commander, Drive: Ancillary Attack, Cleave, Precision Strike

This character is about running a Jack in a fight and then adding it. Standing beside it and really doing a number. So to me it seemed the best option was to maximize the damage output my Jack could do, and then control where my damage could do the most good, whether that meant putting the damage against multiple small guys through cleave, or in dropping specific attributes on other jacks or creatures through the use of Precision Strike. Both gave me some flexibility to keep my jack and I moving through the battlefield.

Skills: The Defaults
Here I didn't make any changes. The different skills just stacked up nicely together and I left them as they were.

Overall I'm happy with Finnegan and his jack and I'm looking forward to the first session, which you'll hear about shortly.