Grease Rat

Grease rats are at home amongst gears and tools. Never acquiring formal schooling, they learn the language of repair by trial-and-error. In a pinch, none is better than he to keep a damaged device limping along. Grease rats tend to have a variety of skills; sometimes these skills are similar to an engineer’s, but a grease rat’s forte is repair done in the heat of action, when there is little time to craft a formal solution to a technical problem. Dirty, blistered hands and a sense of adrenaline set the grease rat apart from other mechanical savants.

Weapon Proficiency

In addition to the normal rogue weapon proficiencies, a grease rat is proficient with the light hammer and warhammer.

Demolishing Blow (Ex)

Constant trial-and-error while tinkering with mechanical devices, objects, and vehicles has given the grease rat a knack for their destruction, lending insight into weak points in their construction and the perfect location to ‘toss in a wrench’. When sundering an object or attacking a vehicle (including a vehicle’s engine), the grease rat deals his sneak attack damage. When he makes a sneak attack against a construct creature, an object, or a vehicle, he uses d8s to roll sneak attack damage instead of d6s. For sneak attacks against all other creatures, he uses d4s instead of d6s.

This ability is identical in all other ways to sneak attack, and supplements that ability.

Crack Mechanic (Ex)

At 2nd level, the grease rat can make any Craft check untrained when repairing an object or vehicle, and adds half his rogue level to all skill checks made to repair objects or vehicles, and to all Disable Device checks. If the grease rat has the trapfinding class feature, he adds his full rogue level to Disable Device checks made to disable traps.

Furthermore, the grease rat gains Vehicle Mechanic as a bonus feat, even if he does not meet the feat’s prerequisites.

This ability replaces evasion.

Jury-Rig (Ex)

At 4th level, the grease rat gains Field Repair as a bonus feat, even if he does not meet the feat’s prerequisites. In addition, the grease rat can make temporary repairs to broken technology on the fly. Jury-rigging a broken object (including a vehicle’s driving devices or engines) has a Craft DC equal to the Disable Device DC to disable a device of the same complexity, and requires the same amount of time; the Craft skill for this check must be relevant to the object being jury-rigged. If the check is successful, the object is relieved of the broken condition for up to 5 minutes. If a jury-rigged object takes any damage, it regains the broken condition. A jury-rigged object cannot benefit from this ability again until it has been repaired.

This ability replaces uncanny dodge.

Master Mechanic (Ex)

At 8th level, the grease rat becomes fully experienced in the art of quick repairs and mechanical tinkering, even under pressure. The grease rat can always take 10 on his jury-rig check or when using Disable Device, even when under adverse conditions. In addition, the grease rat can make repairs or disable a device with masterful speed. He can make repairs on an object or vehicle in half the normal amount of time (repairing double the normal amount of damage per day of work).

Furthermore, Simple devices can be disabled as a standard action, Tricky can be disabled in 1d2 rounds, and Difficult and Extreme devices can be disabled in 1d4+1 rounds. A grease rat with the Fast Picks rogue talent can open a simple lock as a swift action, a tricky lock as a standard action, and a difficult or extreme lock as a full-round action.

This ability replaces improved uncanny dodge.

Rogue Talents

The following rogue talents complement the grease rat archetype: combat trick, fast picks, firearm training, getaway artist, quick disable, and quick trapsmith.

Advanced Talents

The following advanced rogue talents complement the grease rat archetype: frugal trapsmith, getaway master, improved evasion, and skill mastery.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Pure Steam Campaign Setting. Copyright 2012 ICOSA Entertainment, LLC; Author(s): Brennan Ashby.

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