The Obedient Battlefield | Fantasy Hazard Generated by CharGen

The hazard

The control panel is the encounter's battlefield brain. It reads movement through the grated floor and steers the room's defenses with abrupt, unnervingly deliberate precision. Its mechanisms do not distinguish between friend and foe, and it treats anyone in its control zone as a hostile unit to be corrected.

Complex
Mechanical
Electricity
Uncommon

Stealth: (expert) to notice the active targeting system before it acts; the console itself is obvious.
Trigger: The hazard rolls initiative when a creature enters its 30-foot control zone, touches the console, or attempts to alter its controls.
Disable: A creature adjacent to the console can Disable the hazard with Thievery or Engineering Lore . Two successful checks are required, and each attempt takes 2 actions. A critical success counts as two successes. A critical failure causes the hazard to immediately use its Pulse routine action against the acting creature. Alternatively, severing both remote power junctions or destroying the exposed relay disables the hazard.
Initiative: Stealth +22, or Perception +20 if the hazard has already been detected
Routine: The hazard uses Correction Pulse once per turn, targeting one creature in its 30-foot control zone. It prioritizes a creature adjacent to the console, then a creature bearing its Targeting Sigil, then the nearest creature. If no creature is in range, it instead rotates its targeting vanes and takes no other action.
Reset: The hazard resets automatically at the start of each of its turns while active. If disabled by severing both power junctions, it remains disabled until power is restored. If its relay is destroyed, it cannot reset.

Damage

Immunities

critical hits, object immunities, precision damage

Resistances

physical 5, except adamantine

Weaknesses

electricity 10

Effects

2

Correction Pulse
DC 29
The panel selects one creature in its 30-foot control zone. The target must attempt a Reflex save. Critical Success: No effect. Success: Half damage. Failure: electricity damage and the target is pushed 10 feet in a direction chosen by the hazard. Critical Failure: Double damage, the target is pushed 20 feet, and it falls prone. A creature pushed into a solid obstacle takes an additional bludgeoning damage.
Targeting Sigil
A creature that critically fails a save against Correction Pulse is marked by a crawling blue sigil until the end of its next turn. During that time, it cannot benefit from lesser cover against the hazard's effects, and the panel prioritizes it as a target if it remains in range.

Special rules

Control Zone.The hazard can affect only creatures within 30 feet of the console that it can detect through the grated floor or its visual sensors. Total cover blocks its line of effect.

Tactical Selection.At the start of each of its turns, the hazard can choose to target a different creature than its usual priority target if doing so better protects the console or an active battlefield objective.

Spotting it

Discovery

The panel's glass screen briefly displays the room from above whenever a creature enters its 30-foot control zone.

Perception

+20

Stop it

Signs of dangerThe glass screen shows a top-down image of the room, but its figures move a fraction of a second before their real counterparts. · Copper vanes swivel to follow creatures even when the console is unattended. · A thin blue line briefly links the panel to a nearby metal railing or weapon before a pulse strikes.

Countermeasures

DC 29A creature adjacent to the console can Disable the hazard with Thievery or Engineering Lore . Two successes are required; each attempt takes 2 actions.
DC 27A creature can use 2 actions to sever a marked power cable at either of two junction boxes, each requiring Thievery or Crafting . Severing both junctions disables the hazard.
The exposed relay has AC 29, Hardness 15, and 40 HP. Destroying it disables the hazard.
DC 29A creature can use an Interact action to lock the console's targeting vanes with a successful Thievery check . On a success, the hazard cannot target that creature until the start of its next turn.
Leaving the console's 30-foot control zone prevents the hazard's pulse from targeting a creature, though the floor and nearby machinery remain dangerous terrain.

In short

The hazard can be disabled at the console with skilled Thievery or relevant Lore, shut down by cutting power at two distant junctions, or temporarily suppressed by breaking its exposed relay.

Its story

What it looks like

A waist-high console of black ceramic and brass rises from a grated platform.

Why it is here

To control a battlefield by steering intruders into exposed positions and punishing anyone who approaches or manipulates the command console.

Who made it

The Brass Synod, a military engineering guild that believed a battlefield could be made obedient if every soldier, weapon, and wall were connected to one command station.

Lore

The panel's screen is not a viewing device.

Where it is found

A fortified control room, military foundry, command deck, or arena battlefield with a central console, exposed machinery, grated flooring, and power lines leading to distant junctions.

Variants

A siege model replaces Correction Pulse with a volley of shrapnel, dealing 4d10 piercing damage and knocking the target prone on a failed Reflex save.

A command-linked version shares sensory information with nearby soldiers, allowing them to use the panel's Targeting Sigil as a tactical signal.

A damaged prototype occasionally targets the nearest creature regardless of cover, but its pulse also strikes one random metal object or creature adjacent to the target.

Plot hooks

The panel is still following a long-dead commander's battle plan, and the objective the party needs lies inside the formation it is trying to preserve.

A rival faction wants the control panel intact because it can coordinate an entire fortress's defenses.

The console's false battlefield image includes an extra figure who appears in no physical reflection, suggesting a second intelligence is using the system.

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