Magical Steam-powered Machine-Golem - use Fatigue or not

[DemiBenson]

One of my PCs, mentioned here, is a magical steam-powered machine-golem - animated by magic, but still requires ingestion of organic matter and water every 8 hours. That 8 hours of power is NOT from a continuous engine, but from a “meal” of organic matter and water that takes about 30 minutes to consume and store as energy.

Complicating detail:
The player wants this magical robot to have a power-take-off (like a tractor) to supply power to hot-swappable tools in the PCs tool-arm. These tools would drain even more power from the reserve than regular operations.

So my question is: Should I allow the usual machine meta-trait which includes the no-fatigue-use feature? Or since this character build is approximating an energy reserve, should I just declare that it is effectively using fatigue and prohibit some of fatigue-uses that meat-people have access to?

[WingedKagouti]

As a general rule, if you go with the Machine trait and use ER to power abilities you will end up with a lot less ambiguity about what the energy can be used for and what affects it.

If you just use Fatigue, there is potential for a lot more "should the character be able to use this option" and "should this attack/hazard affect the character" type of scenarios.

My personal recommendation would be a relatively low amount of Special Recharge ER and only use it for the tools. Unless you and the entire party are willing to deal with a really heavy golem that can't move, it's probably for the best that you think of the ER as a sort of spare power bank that doesn't interfere with normal operation.

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

As a general rule, if you go with the Machine trait and use ER to power abilities you will end up with a lot less ambiguity about what the energy can be used for and what affects it.

If you just use Fatigue, there is potential for a lot more "should the character be able to use this option" and "should this attack/hazard affect the character" type of scenarios.

My personal recommendation would be a relatively low amount of Special Recharge ER and only use it for the tools. Unless you and the entire party are willing to deal with a really heavy golem that can't move, it's probably for the best that you think of the ER as a sort of spare power bank that doesn't interfere with normal operation.

Yes, this seems right to me.

[Anthony]

Alternately, just use fatigue and give it all the advantages and disadvantages of having fatigue.