On my continued exploration of the the new playtest classes released by Paizo for Pathfinder Second Edition, I wanted to build an inventor this time around. There were quite a few options I was considering for this - I had looked into maybe doing something from MtG such as Urza or a character from Kaladesh - but had a sudden desire to try to build Iron Man. Was the fact that this is such a well-known and beloved character a factor? Absolutely. There are tons of other inventor type heroes I could have gone for and still might - this just seemed like a fun build that I wanted to try out with the inventor's armor innovation.
With that, suit up and check out the build for Tony Stark - the Iron Man!
IRON MAN
CHARACTER Anthony 'Tony' Stark
SOURCE Marvel
GOAL A superhero hailing from the Marvel universe, Anthony ‘Tony’ Stark is a genius inventor who owns Stark Industries, a tech company that his father started. After being kidnapped, Tony built a suit of armor to escape and then upgraded that armor using his resources and intellect to become the heroic Iron Man. The armor is equipped with a wide array of functions and armaments, ranging from repulsor rays, flight, highly developed sensors, and lasers. Certain suits of armor bear specific functions, but for this one, I’m gonna be looking at a more general set of it.
LEVEL 1 In a move that should surprise no one, we start with the ABCs – ancestry, background, and heritage. Tony is a human that we’ll give the versatile heritage to, granting him an extra general feat at 1st level. Our two free boosts from being human will go to Intelligence and Strength. That general feat we get will be Toughness, giving us some extra HP so that we have less ability scores to focus on. For our ancestry feat, we’ll pick up Natural Ambition, which feels appropriate for Tony and gives us an extra class feat down the line.
There were a couple options for background, but I liked the idea of royalty for Tony, representing the wealth and affluence of his family. The first boost goes to Intelligence while our free one goes to Strength. This focus on Strength might seem a bit weird, but there is a reason for it. We automatically become trained in Society and gain the Courtly Graces skill feat.
For this build, we’ll be using the inventor class found in the playtest for Guns and Gears Class Playtest since it’s a perfect fit and I want to play around with it a bit. Right off the bat, we’re going to select the armor innovation with the thermal insulation modification, granting us resistance to fire and cold damage as well as giving us a nifty suit of armor to represent Tony’s suit. From being an inventor, we get a boost to Intelligence. We then get four more boosts that we’ll socket into Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 16, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 12). This isn’t a class that I consider to be terribly MAD, but Tony as a character kind of is and there’s a lot of ways you could’ve gone with the configuration of his ability scores. I wanted to make sure that he could wield his armor without issue, which is why I put so much into Strength. We automatically become trained in Crafting, and will also picking up the trained proficiency in Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Diplomacy, Medicine, and Occultism. From our class features, we gain the Inventor skill feat and then for our class feats, we’ll take Explosive Leap, allowing us to bound great distances until we can fly, and Tamper, to wreak havoc with our foes equipment.
LEVEL 2 Our first skill feat that we get to pick will be Quick Repair, letting us fix stuff quickly and mid-combat eventually. We also grab the Transform Armor class feat, letting us transform our armor into a compact, carrying form (such as a briefcase) that we can quickly don.
Gear: everburning torch
LEVEL 3 As is I feel appropriate for an inventor, especially one like Tony, our first skill increase will go to Crafting to give us expert proficiency in it. Since comic books have demonstrated that it is very difficult to kill most of the characters in them, we’ll pick up Diehard as our general feat, making it so that we don’t die until we reach Dying 5.
Gear: +1 gauntlet, everburning torch, ring of discretion
LEVEL 4 With the Magical Crafting skill feat, we can build magical equipment, replicating some of Tony’s high tech creations. Tony’s suit vastly increases his strength and we’re able to demonstrate that with the Megaton Strike class feat, doubling our weapon’s damage dice for two actions.
Gear: bracers of missile deflection, +1 gauntlet, brooch of shielding, everburning torch
LEVEL 5 The four boosts we receive at 5th level will go to Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 19, Wis 10, Cha 14). Our skill increase here will boost Diplomacy to expert proficiency – as much as a genius he is, Tony is also a highly charismatic and successful businessman. For our ancestry feat, we’ll take Clever Improviser – Tony has wielded a wide range of skills in his adventures, even ones that he doesn’t practice often.
Gear: +1 striking gauntlet, bracers of missile deflection, bracelet of dashing, brooch of shielding, everburning torch, ring of discretion
LEVEL 6 With the Group Impression, we can Make an Impression on two creatures at once. The Visual Fidelity class feat helps us mimic the sensor array that Tony has packed into his suits though it mostly gives us low-light vision, darkvision, and the ability to barely make out invisible creatures.
Gear: +1 armor rune, cloak of repute, +1 striking gauntlet, bracers of missile deflection, brooch of shielding, belt of good health
LEVEL 7 We plug another skill increase into Crafting since we can now achieve master proficiency in it. With our general feat, we snatch up Hireling Manager – Tony runs an entire company and knows how to make the most out of the people working for him. We do get a final choice in the form of an offensive boost, a unique class feature offered by the inventor. My first instinct is to choose jolt, which adds electricity damage to our attacks, but momentum wouldn’t be a bad choice either with the extra bludgeoning damage being flavored as us boosting our attacks with the suit.
Gear: ring of the ram, +1 armor rune, diplomat’s badge, +1 striking gauntlet, bracers of missile deflection, bracelets of dashing
LEVEL 8 While Tony wouldn’t get a lot of personal use out of this feat, the Bon Mot skill feat feels very appropriate for him, allowing him to hurl insults at foes to throw them off-balance. If you want a skill that he could make more use out of, I suggest Alchemical Crafting so he can make bombs and the like. For class feat, we look to upgrade Megaton Strike with Gigaton Strike, which launches foes back when we use it now, like a physical blow amplified with a little repulsor ray.
Gear: boots of bounding, vaultbreaker’s harness, ring of the ram, +1 armor rune, +1 striking gauntlet, cloak of repute
LEVEL 9 This time we’ll put a skill increase into Society to give us expert proficiency in it. For our ancestry feat, we’ll take Multitalented to get a multiclass dedication – in this case, the Wizard Dedication. This may seem a bit odd, but this allows us to mimic some functions of Tony’s suit, particularly the long range options, through spells. I picked wizard in particular because they are essentially the scientists of the fantasy world, doing research to master forces beyond the understanding of most. We receive a Breakthough Innovation at this level, which we’ll use to gain layered mesh, giving us resistance to piercing damage. I chose this in particular because one of the first things that we see Tony’s armor being resistant to is bullets.
Spellbook: electric arc, produce flame, read aura, shield
Gear: +1 resilient armor rune, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II), ring of the ram, diplomat’s badge, +1 striking gauntlet
LEVEL 10 This set of ability boosts go to Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 20, Wis 10, Cha 16). With our increased Intelligence, we become trained in Nature and also gain another language. We take the Connections skill feat to give us an array of people we can reach out to for assistance and gives us some other royalty for connections thanks to our background. The Manifold Modifications class feat gives us another initial armor modification. We’ll pick metallic reactance for this one, granting us resistance to acid and electricity damage.
Gear: greater bracers of missile deflection, +1 resilient armor rune, thundering weapon rune, boots of bounding, ring of the ram, +1 striking gauntlet
LEVEL 11 Since we’ve started delving into the Wizard Dedication, we’ll use a skill increase on Arcana to get up to expert proficiency with it. The Prescient Planner general feat lets us have an object that we might need, which helps with the idea of Tony’s armor and its huge array of gadgets.
Gear: +2 striking gauntlet, greater bracers of missile deflection, greater cloak of repute, +1 resilient armor rune, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II)
LEVEL 12 Another skill feat gets us Quick Contacts, allowing us to reach out to our contacts quickly. For our class feat, we’ll start making use of our dedication to pick up Basic Wizard Spellcasting, granting us spells and spell slots from 1st to 3rd level.
Spellbook: 1st – magic missile, shockwave; 2nd – heat metal, invisibility; 3rd – haste, pyrotechnics
Gear: +2 resilient armor rune, +2 striking gauntlet, ring of wizardry (type II), greater bracers of missile deflection, thundering weapon rune, Cordelia’s construct key
LEVEL 13 This skill increase will also go to Arcana to give us master proficiency in it. For our ancestry feat, we’ll build off of Clever Improviser to get Incredible Improvisation, increasing our bonuses to skills that we aren’t even trained in.
Gear: +2 greater striking gauntlet, +2 resilient armor rune, bag of holding (type III), ring of wizardry (type II), greater bracers of missile deflection, greater cloak of repute
LEVEL 14 We’ll make use of the Quick Identification skill feat to quickly identify magical items, which again, treating magic as a sort of stand-in for technology in settings where its prevalent, feels appropriate for Tony. With our increased proficiency in Arcana, we can grab Expert Wizard Spellcasting, increasing the effectiveness of our spells, and providing us with more spells and spell slots.
Spellbook: 4th – fly, globe of invulnerability; 5th – cone of cold, telekinetic haul
Gear: greater ring of the ram, ring of wizardry (type III), +2 greater striking gauntlet, +2 resilient armor rune, ring of wizardry (type II), cloak of the bat
LEVEL 15 This time around, we’ll use our ability boosts on Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 19, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 21, Wis 12, Cha 16). We’re at a level where we can now increase our proficiency in our skills to legendary, which is exactly what we’ll do with Crafting. We’ll also take Prescient Consumable so that now we can carry certain consumables when we use Prescient Planner.
Gear: +2 greater resilient armor rune, greater ring of the ram, ring of wizardry (type III), +2 greater striking gauntlet, bag of holding (type III), greater crafter’s eyepiece
LEVEL 16 With that increase to Crafting last level, we now have access to a feat that fits perfectly for a character who made his first suit of armor, as well as a power source for it, in a cave with a box of scrap - Craft Anything. We also get another very important feat at this level in the form of our class feat Soaring Armor, which gives us a Fly speed!
Spellbook: 6th – chain lightning, disintegrate
Gear: greater thundering weapon rune, ring of wizardry (type IV), +2 greater resilient armor rune, greater ring of the ram, +2 greater striking gauntlet, ring of wizardry (type III)
LEVEL 17 This skill increase will bolster Arcana, pushing it up to legendary proficiency. Meanwhile, our ancestry feat will be Heroic Presence – fitting for a superhero that has managed to lead and inspire others. As an inventor, we also receive a Revolutionary Innovation to further upgrade our armor. I debated on this one for a while before I picked physical protections, granting us resistance to all bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage – as well as bleed damage.
Gear: +3 greater striking gauntlet, dragonscale amulet, greater thundering weapon rune, +2 greater resilient armor rune, greater ring of the ram, ring of wizardry (type III)
LEVEL 18 Since we are trained in the skills for most other types of magic and because Tony is good at figuring out how stuff works, we take Trick Magic Item for our skill feat, allowing us to try to make use of magical items we otherwise wouldn’t be able to use. We’ll also round out are feats from the Wizard Dedication with Master Wizard Spellcasting, further increasing our proficiency with spells and giving us two final levels of them.
Spellbook: 7th – energy aegis, project image
Gear: diadem of intellect, +3 greater striking gauntlet, orange prism aeon stone, greater thundering weapon rune, +2 greater resilient armor rune, ring of wizardry (type IV)
LEVEL 19 The final skill increase we receive will go to Diplomacy so that we have master proficiency in it. We’ll also take Incredible Investiture – between Tony’s gear and all the equipment he can make, we might need to be able to invest in more magical items.
Gear: +3 greater resilient armor rune, diadem of intellect, clockwork helm, +3 greater striking gauntlet, greater thundering weapon rune, dragonscale amulet
LEVEL 20 This final array of ability boosts will get plugged into Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 20, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 22, Wis 12, Cha 18). Using this increase to Intelligence to become trained in Religion gives us access to all magical traditions with Trick Magic Item. The Shameless Request skill feat is a perfect fit for Tony who really does lack any shame when it comes to talking with other people. For our class feat, I had considered the Arcane Breadth feat from the Wizard Dedication to give us more spell slots, but I liked Full Automation better, which makes us permanently Quickened though the extra action can only be used to move.
Spellbook: 8th – antimagic field, polar ray
Gear: +3 major striking gauntlet, +3 greater resilient armor rune, inexplicable apparatus, diadem of intellect, orange prism aeon stone, greater thundering weapon rune
CONCLUSION With that, we are complete with ol’ Bullet-Head. We’re left with a savvy and strong individual who wears a powerful suit of armor outfitted with a whole array of gadgets. The Wizard Dedication helps create the effects of some of his more unique abilities and one thing I like about that in particular is that we can always add more spells to the spellbook. I’ve seen suggestions about using the Wizard Dedication to pick up a familiar to serve as the suit’s AI, which is a cool idea but one that I didn’t feel was imperative to the character. I do think the ranged armaments of the suit were the hardest to replicate, so hopefully the spells were able to capture that feel.
This was a fun build to try out. I'm not sure if I'm gonna try to keep playing around with these playtest classes or go back to full fleshed out classes - I do know that I have some ideas for when the Secrets of Magic book is released. Lemme know what you'd like to see and also tell what you think about this build. Does this build work? Does it represent the character? What would you change about it? Is it something you’d like to play?
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Have a Fantastic Friday!