The Machinesmith is a fun class. Really all you need in a magi-tech artificer is right here and covers a lot of bases that I could think of and that I desired to play.

It does hit on a few pet peeves. It gains 'prototypes' of six levels that function like spells and it makes me have to explain why this class gets technology and others don't. Balance-wise it makes sense that a mechanic class only has technology that functions for itself the same way that a caster cant grant the ability to cast spells to someone else (wands and scrolls withstanding) but with Paizo's Technology guide it became easy to dismiss what the machinesmith does as personal magitech and leave it at that. There are some points in the font however where its hard to tell where a list of selectable options ends and a new class feature ends but that only required one double take. Also this class feels like it doesn't have a real place outside of campaign that uses high technology in general.

With my nitpicking out of the way, the class itself is balanced, fun and has a lot of options. Whatever you want out of an artificer this class has it. There are also some feats to support it, some archetypes a prestige class and spells that are also compatable with other spell lists.

If you got the print copy like I did you'll be surprised to see two extra goodies. There are the Fleshwraith and Host classes. The Fleshwraith is less machinesmith and more bioengineer. it seems to be missing it's hit die though but I assume it's a d8. The Host, also missing it's hit die, is a symbiote possessed class that gains eidolon evolutions as mutations from the creature living inside him.

Overall the product gives a lot of bang for the buck and the hit die and font problems aside it is my second favorite engineering class. Its easy to understand and varied in it's execution and a lot of fun to play so I'm giving it five stars.

This product introduced a class whose concept is that it combines magic and technology. In concept it reminds me a lot of the Eberron Alchemist, but the execution is very different. I have not played the class nor I have I seen it played, so I am not going to comment on who well or nor the mechanics work.

The write-up was done very well and the editing and layout were top notch. The pages flowed nicely and I did not notice any spelling or grammatical mistakes. The artwork was superb at conveying the concept of the class.

I fully intent to use this class in my home games.

I've been curious about this class for a while, and finally decided to drop the $3.00 to see it for myself.

Gotta say, I'm pretty impressed. This is at the very least nearly on par with Paizo's own base classes, and is a very well thought-out tinkerer/artificer type class -- kind of a rarity.

CLASS BREAKDOWN Machinesmiths do Crafting, Prototyping (IE spellcasting), and Combat, and they have a series of tricks that support each of these subgroups, as well as a Greatwork item -- basically a super-special-awesome signature gadget that continually upgrades and becomes more powerful. In this text they cover Mobius Weapons (an enhanced/bonded weapon option), Analyzers (multipurpose sensing/divining instrument), and Mechanuses (eidolon-like pets). Between each of these plus the usual feat allotment, the Mechanicus offers a lot of versatility within a well-focused concept. If you favor control, you could take a Mechanus and some crossbow turrets and camp out behind the front lines; if you favor up-close and personal, take the Bull's Strength prototype and a melee Mobius Weapon -- you're on the d8 hit die/+15 attack progression, so with all the enhancements it's very reasonable. It's an easy class to build around, as well, as the only real requisite for anything is a solid Intelligence score.

In the end, though, the Machinesmith always comes back to being a SUPPORT character above all else -- whether as a support fighter, a support caster, a support archer, a pet summoner, et cetera. You can rest assured that you'll be reliable in whatever it is you do, but you won't necessarily overpower other classes. It's more akin to a Bard in many ways than to other spellcasters. Unlike the Bard, who accomplishes support through performance, though, your party maintenance comes in the form of outfitting the group with superior gear, sending out drones, using Prototypes and leveraging whatever flexibility your Greatwork grants in order to adapt to your situation.

And adaptability is absolutely the name of the game. As a few examples: -Prototypes work most closely to wizard spells, with Machinesmiths preparing them out of a book of Blueprints as needed, and they can be prepared a good deal quicker than wizard spells of equivalent level. -Mobius Weapons offer the ability to switch a set of feats on and off, turning you into exactly the kind of support fighter you need to be to suit the situation at hand. -Machinesmith Tricks can either augment your Greatwork, provide passive bonuses, or give you new gadgets; alternatively, Combat Trick is always an option. -Machinesmiths get all the major knowledge skills; coupled with an Analyzer, they can be masters of information.

All in all, I dig the heck out of this class. I think it's very well-designed, and as balanced as anything Paizo themselves has made. It fills the same role as a Bard, and offers a more "hands-on" approach to support with a few more options than passively switching performance off and on -- however, it doesn't displace a Bard's role or importance in a party, in that it doesn't have as many skills and isn't quite as reliable for buffs; the key being that nothing Machinesmith does adds morale bonuses. Meanwhile it won't displace a Wizard either; if anything, it benefits greatly from having other casters around to collaborate with, particularly with Collaborative Crafting.

That said, the PDF could use some work on the formatting and flow of information, and the Machinesmith Tricks list is a bit scant. Manageable, which is the upside, but scant. It would be nice if the text for how Prototypes work were moved to the section with the spell list and new spells instead of at the top of the PDF, for instance. Meanwhile, while the artwork is generally very good, sometimes the images aren't in exactly the most relevant places -- a picture of a Mechanus is on the page for Mobius Weapons, for example, and every so often there's just a random image with no relation to the current text, seemingly just to make the composition of the page more attractive. Certainly can't fault that, you work with what art you've got, and to their credit LPJ got good art. Other than that, it's very consistent with Paizo's own standard of printing.

This one gets a hearty recommendation, and I'll be picking up the expansion PDF, "Cutting Edge Machinesmith," as I'm dying to have more content. I sort of wish LPJ would take the two and collect it in one more clearly sectioned volume, though, so as to not have to jump between two PDFs.

Iron Nugget Succeeds

Oh Machinesmith, you had me at steampunk. For some reason, publishers are not interested in making a boat load of money and practically ignore the many fans out there who want a touch of steampunk in their Pathfinder. To satisfy our cravings, LPJDeisgns presents the Machinesmith, a meaty 22-page class writeup of a magical alternative class that uses a fusion of technology and magic to produce magical effects.

Having built two iterations of the class, the Machinesmith can hang right in there with the wizards and sorcerers. It even can take spellbooks and prepare spells from it, which means that the class will not be isolated like so many magic alternative classes. The Machinesmith is not just sitting back and launching prototypes though. Much like the alchemist class, the machinesmith design allows users to delve into three types of Machinesmiths. One type will alow the player to sit back in a traditional spell slinging roll, the other two allow players to get into the thick of combat. My favorite is the Morbius weapon.

Machinesmith does not just present one class, it gives a lot of bells and whistles for the class. Feats, spells and archetypes help make the class a little easier to integrate into a variety of campaigns.

Fail I wish the class was a little more tech and a lot less magical. The class comes off as a better written artificer than truly a mechanical genius from a flavor point of view, yet the abilities are clearly designed for a more tech described class. I also hated the prestige class included. It’s built only for the Machinesmith, which makes it useful as a prestige class. It should have been designed so current classes can get a piece of the tech tree. The Iron Word Machinesmith presents a great class for campaigns looking to institute a little more tech into their magical soup. It does not go all out with the tech, which will be a positive or a negative for some.

I really like this class. This is exactly what I was looking for to use in my Steampunk setting. One problem I have, though, is there's quite a bit of spelling mistakes. You even refer to the machinesmith as an alchemist. Other than that, it looks great and I plan to use it.

This pdf is 22 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 4 pages of advertisements, leaving 16 pages of content for the new, revised Machinesmith-class, so let's check this one out!

The Machinesmith is a new base-class that gets d8, 4+Int skills per level, proficiency with light armors, greatworks-weapons (see below), simple weapons and repeating crossbows, a special kind of spellcasting (again, see below) of up to 6th level and medium BAB as well as good fort and ref saves.

The spellcasting of the Machinesmith is tied to INT and works pretty much like a wizard's spellcasting, but with some tweaks - essentially, they create small devices from blueprints, so-called prototypes which duplicate spell-effects. These and other abilities of the class are powered by the machinesmith's inherent magical energy, the mobius energy. Machinesmiths can create blueprints from magical spells they encounter, but wizards cannot extrapolate spells from blueprints. Prototypes also use costly materials if the spells they're based on do so . Prototypes remain active for only a day and can exclusively be used by the machinesmith that created them. Making a prototype takes one minute and in contrast to wizards, a machinemsith can thus e.g. leave a significant part of his daily prototype-allotment uncreated and make them as the adventuring-day requires them. Additionally, a machinesmith creates a greatwork at first level, which improves over time. The machinesmith can choose from 3 different greatworks that automatically improve over the levels, with the first being the Analyzer: Most of its abilities work on a at-will-basis, while other use up charges. An analyzer has 3+Int mod-charges that automatically recharge every day and over the progression of the class, add progressively more sensorial enhancements to a machinesmith's arsenal. Starting with humble detect-spells, the analyzer get more and more divination-style-abilities. It should be noted that the analyzer has received a major overhaul - it now mostly uses charges (a godsend to DMs who don't want XYZ numbers of divinations to constantly track) and has gotten some neat new tricks, but more on them later

The second choice is the Mechanus, which could be considered an equivalent of the a summoner's eidolon. 4 base-forms are available (humanoid, aquatic, serpentine, quadruped/tracked/wheeled) and the Mechanus gets 15 HD over 20 levels, +15 BAB, +5 saves, up to +11 AC-bonus and a str/dex-bonus of +8 during the course of their progression. A mechanus also get 3 major upgrades which include a breath weapon-style cone at 15th level, which makes the mechanus devastating against minor foes. It should also be noted that the mechanus can be made larger and later changed. The mechanus now caps in size at huge. It should be noted that the destruction of the mechanus requires it to be recrafted and costs money. And that machinesmiths get the ability to use an improved version of mending via his/her repair-ability, usable 3+int-modifiers per day, thus potentially making the team Machinsesmith/Mechanus a deadly force.

The final choice the Machinesmith gets is adding a mobius core to a weapon, thus creating a weapon of terrible destructive capabilities. On a basic level, the weapon comes with Int+0.5 x class-level charges and could e.g. utilize these charges to grant temporary access to a selection either melee or ranged feats while wielding the weapon. With the respective upgrades, the Machinesmith can add more feats to the respective feats available and choose multiple feats at the same time, as well as using charges to get luck bonuses and even expending charges to confirm critical hits automatically at higher levels. Machinesmiths, in case I've forgotten to mention that, are good at dispelling magic via their Axiom ability. That's not all, though: The Machinesmith gets more craft-feats and at 7th level, can transform prototypes into dispel magic-like effect. Also, the machinesmith gets access to a selection of gadget-tricks, some of which are augmentations for their greatworks and can only be taken by those having the respective greatwork. A total of 24 different gadgets are included in the deal and feature e.g. turrets than can be fitted out with different kinds of crossbows. The turrets can be further upgraded to have multiple ones and increase the magazine-capabilities of the individual turrets. Also included in the selection is the option to fire explosive ammo via mobius weapons, creating an invisibility cloak a magnetic grappler that can use telekinesis on metallic objects, the option to boost your mechanus into overdrive an even alchemist-fire-powered portable ornithopters! Especially the latter is an awesome gadget in its iconicity. I am happy to report that the analyzers have received a bit more love via these gadgets and may now steal spells they successfully dispelled. While I still prefer the Mechanus and the Mobius Weapon, now I can see someone taking the analyzer.

After that, we are introduced 14 new spells for the machinesmith, which includes tiny bladed drones the machinesmith can redirect to attack other foes. The tiny drones can be destroyed btw. Other examples include alchemist's fire clusterbombs, irritating guardian drones, force shackles and a music box that spits out tiny constructs each round. Thankfully, the utterly broken "Hand of the Marksman" has been replaced with better, new spells and the drones now have all the information necessary to run them, which makes these spells awesome! This section has seen massive revision and now ROCKS!

LPJr Design is not pulling any punches here: The last bits of crunch depict now 4 archetypes instead of the original 2, the Bombardier and the Technologist. The bombardier gets bombs like the alchemist instead of a greatwork and now comes with all necessary information. The Technologist capitalizes on the science vs. magic-trope and can, by explaining his disbelief, grant his spellcraft as a save to his allies much like the bardic countersong, but less limited. The technologist may also grant himself spell resistance by expanding his repair uses. The formerly broken automatic resistance of his creations has been nerfed by making the components illegible to being enchanted or the creation of magic items. but what are the new ones? The Arcanamechanist is an archetype exclusively for machinesmiths with the analyzer and represents a machinesmith searching for lost, arcane technology. To reflect this, he can use Mobius energy to enhance e.g. wands and staffs, apply metamagic effects to spells cast from wands by expending additional charges and later even to scrolls. I liked the archetype, no balance-concerns on my behalf. The second new archetype is the combat engineer - proficient with medium armors and weapon training, this archetype represents the frontline tinkerer and thus gets e.g. better initiative, and the option to quickly activate gadgets and greatworks, but also diminished prototypes and no axiom-ability.

Even better, we now also get a new 10-level PrC, the Transmechanical Ascendant, who gets full BAB, medium fort-saves, 9 levels of prototype progression) and who seeks to become a machine by implanting a mobius core into his body and slowly turn less human and more like the machines he seeks to emulate. The PrC is a nice metamorphosis-class and comes with 2 new machinesmith tricks and unfortunately also the only remaining, but rather major blunders I could find in the revised version of the Machinesmith: The PrC lacks information regarding its Hit Dice and its skills-per-level, which constitutes a major blunder.

The pdf closes with a description on how machinesmiths work in the world of NeoExodus.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting have been thoroughly revised - Jeffrey Erwin has done a great job and made the whole pdf clearer, more appealing and much more professional. Layout is beautiful, adheres to NE's full-color 2-column standard and the original pieces of full color artwork by Carlos Herrera Portilla are beautiful. The pdf now comes with extensive bookmarks, which is awesome. Clockworker/tinkerer-classes are notoriously difficult to do and the machinesmith, a kind of spiritual successor of HHG's Clockworker tries very hard to do it. Now, in the revised edition, I'm extremely happy to report that the pdf actually succeeds in bringing us all a tinkerer-class with rock-solid rules, iconic options galore and cool ideas. ALL of my major complaints have been addressed, the formatting glitches (italics etc.) have been purged, wording has been clarified AND new content has been added. Quite a lot of it, actually! And quality content to boot! In fact, now this pdf actually can be considered a must-buy among the classes out there and I'd immediately go 5 stars plus seal of approval - were it not for the lack of HD and skill-info in the new PrC, which cost this pdf a star for a final verdict of 4.5 stars. I hope to see more of Jeffrey's excellent work in the future and am quite impressed that the team of LPJr Design has managed to pull this class off in the revised edition!

Endzeitgeist out.

Like the class idea, and the art is very well done. Needs more proofreading though. I saw a lot of redundant text, in one case most of a paragraph was repeated. On the whole, quite happy with the purchase.