Class Feature Friday: Redirection Faculty (Nanocyte Faculty)
(art by Aberiu on DeviantArt)
(As an aside before we start, it is so hard to find good art of characters with symbiotic nanites that aren’t just super soldiers or wearing shapeshifting armor. So we’re stuck with art of a lightning gun because it’s tangentially related.)
Nanites and nanotechnology in general is, by all accounts, very, very small. It’s literally in the name.
And while collectively nanites can do many wondrous things, the fact that they’re so small means that applying mass times acceleration, or force… is not usually one of their strong suits.
But much like how ants overcome obstacles by working together, nanites can overcome this hurdle, and not just express great force, but manipulate it.
Today’s subject revolves around nanites that are specialized in doing just that. Whether they’re equipped with microthrusters, able to project magnetic fields that allow them to move and act more strongly as a collective unit, or some more esoteric process, nanites with the redirection faculty are good at two things, expressing surprising force on their surroundings, and redirecting other forces through them. The collective AI intelligence of these machines naturally is very good at on the fly calculations to do so.
As we’ll soon see, the result has shocking control over their opponents and of firing lines, so let’s take a look at how they achieve that!
At the start, these nanocytes can direct their nanite cloud to target a foe within or adjacent to it, causing their attacks to be subtlely guided towards that target, stabilizing the path of bullets, weapons, and energy blasts. This could be creating a mirrored tunnel for a laser weapon, gently pushing bullets and melee weapons back on course, or any number of a myriad of ways.
The cloud can instead be directed to exert surprising force on a foe within, pushing them around or tripping them.
As they master redirecting their attacks, even cover is reduced, and with a surge they can even bend the path of a ranged attack or line around cover or to catch different foes using the cloud alongside one of their nanite-created weapons.
On a more defensive note, their nanites can punish attackers by redirecting some of the force of a successful attack against them into projecting spikes or projectiles of nanomaterials back out at the perpetrator.
Finally, true masters are able to push multiple foes at once, though it is tricky to do so unless they spend a surge.
What we end up with is a nanocyte that blends ranged combat maneuvers with the ability to be especially accurate against foes stuck in their nanite cloud by ignoring concealment, reducing cover, and whatnot. Naturally, you should build for ranged combat and combat maneuvers as a result. As a fun aside, being able to spend a surge to bend their shots can make line weapons especially effective for them. Definitely worth considering, but otherwise your strategy here is to set up your cloud and a gear array weapon and keep foes trapped in the cloud to set up a kill box where you can hammer them with attacks and manipulate them with maneuvers.
With the complex math required to push foes and redirect weapons with trillions of tiny nanites, there is definitely a heavily analytical side to this option, though how much of that is the character and how much they rely on the nanites for such things can vary a lot by the character.
Reluctantly accepting the nickname “Dr. Haze”, Doctor Iklu Whiteblossom is one of the foremost experts on nanomachine-assisted ecological repair, and the tiny raxilite is no slouch when space pirates or rival corporations come calling looking for a quick buck off his research, as he is a crack shot with his plasma pistol, made more so by nanite assistance.
Cruel and exploitative, Captain Rekksha has taken to using a powerful dawn beetle core-diver as the primary muscle of her pirate crew, letting it rip into enemy vessels before her crew move in to mop up. If the beast ever needs prodding in the right direction, she uses her nanites to carefully redirect her stun gun to send painful shots in the proper motivating direction.
Sinister and ever-changing, the Reverse Tower of Molkelran Ruins is essentially a giant pit in the ground divided into various floors, all armed with traps and guardians all the way down, but rumors persist of some sort of treasure at the bottom. The party’s employer is less concerned with such a treasure as they are with the mechanisms themselves, which involve nanites akin to those used by redirecting nanocytes to help protect the structure from permanent damage in addition to refreshing, repairing, and rearranging the hazards in it’s depths.