She Blinded Me with Science! (Magitek That Doesn't Make Me Cry Myself To Sleep)

[Quester]

Red filters could be used to melt and solidify metal, or anything, extremely quickly, making molding much more time efficient.

If you made a red filter box with a removable top and poured molten metal into it, wouldn't the metal solidify instantly upon being cooled after it passes through the filter, in effect make a metal box in the shape of the filter?

What happens if two red filter boxes with radically different internal temperatures passed through each other's space? My thoughts are that either they couldn't, they'd just bump into each other as two solid objects would, or the universe would implode.

Being submerged in lava causes 20d6 damage (according to the dungeon master's guide), so if you dropped an ice input in lava (with protection from red filters of course) it would (if my understanding is correct) accrue any were from 3 to 20 ebbs per round. That combined with using red filters to make habitable rooms in even the most extreme temperatures makes a volcano lair so much more feasible.

Also what counts as a container for the purpose of most filters? Could you use a pipe or tubing or even some form of tap to remove matter from a reservoir contained by filters?

By freezing water, applying ALCH 202, and melting it you can produce flammable water, that is all.

[Amechra]

"Why won't the fire go out? I keep hitting it with water, but it won't stop burning!"

Better yet, you can make water magnetic; that way, you can sculpt it with magnets into cool shapes.

That's... actually a decent solution to the problem of "security doors"; just make a thin layer of Magnetic Acidic Water, and then just keep it in the shape of a rectangle, slotted into an acid-proof door.

And the thing about an Ice transformer is that it would cause the lava to harden to stone upon contact with the bubble (it causes a reduction to 20 degrees, which is cold enough that the lava just stops being hot. Consider that, unlike Phlogistan, Lava does not generate its own heat. Meaning that an Ice Input would simply cause it to cool.)

My theory is that, when an Ice input overlaps with a Red-barrier-encased space, the input simply cools the area inside the Red barrier, as it just converted it into energy.

[Quester]

And the thing about an Ice transformer is that it would cause the lava to harden to stone upon contact with the bubble (it causes a reduction to 20 degrees, which is cold enough that the lava just stops being hot. Consider that, unlike Phlogistan, Lava does not generate its own heat. Meaning that an Ice Input would simply cause it to cool.)

I think you're underestimating the heat of lava, lava is liquid at any where from 700 to 1,200 degrees Celsius, so I don't think dropping the temperature by 20 degrees would cause lava in a volcano to solidify.

Random question time, can you add a graph using a principle to the descendent of a of a hand made chassis? and How close do you have to be to something to prepare a principle on it? Right now, unless I'm missing something, there's no limit to the distance and you don't even need a line of sight or effect.

[Morcleon]

I think you're underestimating the heat of lava, lava is liquid at any where from 700 to 1,200 degrees Celsius, so I don't think dropping the temperature by 20 degrees would cause lava in a volcano to solidify.

Not by 20 degrees. To 20 degrees. Slight difference there.

Question! Could gravity fluxes allow for a sort of "landing gear" on starships, if placed and oriented correctly? Would they need to cover the entire ship?

[Silva Stormrage]

Noticed an error, both the Prime Mover and the Lode Bearer don't have heal as a class skill.

[Quester]

Not by 20 degrees. To 20 degrees. Slight difference there.

Ah, my bad. I guess you'd need some form of conveyor belt to bring lava to the input then drop it back into the volcano

Question! Could gravity fluxes allow for a sort of "landing gear" on starships, if placed and oriented correctly? Would they need to cover the entire ship?

Heck, the whole engine could be an area of gravity flux, well on earth or in orbit at least.

Thank you so much, you made me realize that Gramarie gives you everything you need to make a space ship, from space age materials to C02 scrubbers to just about everything else. Orcs in space.

[radmelon]

Conveyor belt? Heck, just use carefully placed and oriented gravity fluxes.

[Amechra]

Alright, what principle do you think altering how much friction/adhesion a substance has?

Maybe as an additional Baccalaureate principle?

[Eldan]

Aside: I have now decided that the Skype Gramarie campaign I'm running will be set in our world, in the year 1517. The players are disgraced nobles (and one slave escaping from the Turk conquest of Egypt) who are leading the first Spanish expedition to the American Mainland. They will run into the Aztec Magitech empire. (While armed with magitech themselves. One of them is also a priest).

[Quester]

How do you resolve bull rush attempts against objects? I'm thinking about magnetic polar arcane fluxes, I would assume it would be like repel metal or stone effect but I'm not sure.

[ArkenBrony]

you know, i only just realized that all the quotes for this class are from Xkcd

[jojolagger]

I know that people have been requesting feats for this and that Kellus dislikes feat tax feats.
Solution
A mastery feat for each principle.
IE

ALCH 101 Mastery
Prerequisites: ALCH 101, Diplomacy 4 ranks
Effect: ALCH 101 takes half the time to prepare if the object in question already has ALCH 101 applied to it.
Now, it doesn't have enough of an effect to make everyone with ALCH 101 take it, but makes hardening walls easier, and makes applying all four ALCH 101 effect to an object take 1.25 hours instead of 2.

Now, it's not a feat tax, because not all alch 101 users will need the time saving, and there will likely be other options worth considering. Further more, there are 5 principles per discipline, and 8 disciplines. The average level 20 grammarist will have 12 feats, not even enough to master all the principles they know.
Also, an races with a bonus feat gain nothing, from these, because you need the principle to take the mastery feats, and you can only have 1 principle at first level.

[Amechra]

you know, i only just realized that all the quotes for this class are from Xkcd

They aren't; off the top of my head, the Alchemetry one is from Babylon 5, the Heuristicism one is from War Games, the Arcanodynamics one is a famous quote about the laws of thermodynamics, and the Eldrikinetics one is from some 19th century poet (can't remember which.)

Now, XKCD might actually have those quotes somewhere in its archives; doesn't mean that they originated there.

[radmelon]

Well, the imachination one is, and alchemetry one is from Carl Sagan, if I'm not mistaken.

[Matar]

Hey Kellus, for YGGD 212 it says that you have to pick one property to incur inside the space.

Could we then treat it again with YGGD 212 to get both properties?

If we can't, what about tying something magnetic and something gravity together? Would both effects take place?

[EdroGrimshell]

Quick question, what would happen to the eldritch blast damage if you gestalted this with Warlock? Do the two stack or overlap?

[Omnicrat]

Can a lightningleap engine with 100 epr make 10 jumps per round, or only one?

[Kellus]

Hey, awesome questions everybody, a little under the weather but will put up another prestige class tonight. Meanwhile:

You know what prestige class should be adapted to this system? The Madspark Eccentric.

Oh, that's really cool! I saw it when it was first posted, but I've never really gotten into Girl Genius. If there's anyone that is familiar with the source material that wanted to do a conversion or homage, I'd be more than willing to work with them for it!

It also occured to me, that a red filter box of hot vaccuum could be used as a simple, one-shot poor man's battery, way before you get orichalcum. Just be sure to enclose the box of red filters in a cage of real matter, so that someone doesn't put their hand through it, and lose the hand.

Yeah, that was pretty much what I ended up with, too. You can get the box pretty damn hot, but it's not like phlogiston where it just perpetually maintains a temperature. You would have to heat it up again before you could use it again. Still has some fascinating applications, though...

Also what counts as a container for the purpose of most filters? Could you use a pipe or tubing or even some form of tap to remove matter from a reservoir contained by filters?

Anything fully enclosed, including things like boxes and flasks and people, but not drinking straws, for instance.

Random question time, can you add a graph using a principle to the descendent of a of a hand made chassis? and How close do you have to be to something to prepare a principle on it? Right now, unless I'm missing something, there's no limit to the distance and you don't even need a line of sight or effect.

Assuming you're talking about grafts, I don't believe there's any rule about having to "own" a chassis to work on it. The principle that grows the grafts just specifies a target of "a chassis".

Range is more interesting, and should be addressed. In general it's assumed you're within touching range of whatever you're working on over the duration of the preparation.

Noticed an error, both the Prime Mover and the Lode Bearer don't have heal as a class skill.

Thank you, will update for biollurgy.

Alright, what principle do you think altering how much friction/adhesion a substance has?

Oo, interesting! That's a material property, so I'd expect Alchemetry would be appropriate, but I'm not at all sure that it's worth a full principle in its own right. I think that might work best as an augmentation that you can apply with ALCH 101, or maybe Preternatural Fluids, since that one's a little sparse right now. The main problem with implementation is that friction isn't defined at all in the rules, which makes it very hard to write ways to modify it. Let me think about it!

Aside: I have now decided that the Skype Gramarie campaign I'm running will be set in our world, in the year 1517. The players are disgraced nobles (and one slave escaping from the Turk conquest of Egypt) who are leading the first Spanish expedition to the American Mainland. They will run into the Aztec Magitech empire. (While armed with magitech themselves. One of them is also a priest).

This is just too fantastic for words.

I know that people have been requesting feats for this and that Kellus dislikes feat tax feats.
Solution
A mastery feat for each principle.

That's not a bad idea, and would give gramarists something to burn their bonus feats on. I'm still a little worried about the feat tax, since I have a feeling these would become the new "default" principles in peoples' minds, making everything vanilla underpowered by comparison. I don't think straight-up power-ups is the way to go for them, but instead orthogonal versatility. Things like:

Alchemetric Apprenticeship [Mastery]
You've completed a basic study into alchemetrics, and have a better grasp on the fundamentals of the field than some people ever achieve.
Requirements: ALCH 101, Knowledge (nature) 4 ranks
Benefit: You have a new option for an ALCH 101 modification. Add the following choice to your list of modifications that can be applied with the principle.

• Friction: The friction coefficient of the target can be increased or decreased by a factor of 2. This means that depending on which version of this modification you prepare, the body requires either twice or much or half as much effort to move. Any bull rush or other push or pull on the object has the distance the object moved multiplied or divided by 2 before resolution based on your selection. This change only applies if a surface would normally resist the movement of the body.

Something like that, anyway, where you don't just get a simple power-up but a small new use of the principle entirely. I do really like the idea of the mastery feats, though! Food for thought!

you know, i only just realized that all the quotes for this class are from Xkcd

They're not; they are, in order, Carl Sagan, thermodynamics, a song I like, John Gillespie Magee, War Games, xkcd, André Gide, and David Eddings.

Hey Kellus, for YGGD 212 it says that you have to pick one property to incur inside the space.

Could we then treat it again with YGGD 212 to get both properties?

Yes! In fact, that's the only way to apply a gravity and magnetic flux trait at the same time.

Quick question, what would happen to the eldritch blast damage if you gestalted this with Warlock? Do the two stack or overlap?

Again, I'm not an expert on gestalt, but I believe that the faster rate of accruement of the same class feature is the one you use.

Can a lightningleap engine with 100 epr make 10 jumps per round, or only one?

Activation and steering of an engine is a standard action, but with enough puissance, yes, it can make multiple leaps per round.

How do you resolve bull rush attempts against objects? I'm thinking about magnetic polar arcane fluxes, I would assume it would be like repel metal or stone effect but I'm not sure.

Objects gain a size bonus to their bull rush 'resistance' essentially, as well as a bonus for being particularly stable (since they're, you know, inanimate). They don't make any kind of opposed Strength check, since they don't have a Strength score. So the difficulty to push them would be 10 + size modifier + 4. Looking at the principle now, I need to put in a note about the effective size category of the flux for this purpose; I'll also clear it up a little for future askers.

Anyway, great questions people! I need to go lie down now as my head feels like splitting open, but prestige class in a few hours!

[Silva Stormrage]

Activation and steering of an engine is a standard action, but with enough puissance, yes, it can make multiple leaps per round.

What if you had multiple people manning the engine?

[Omnicrat]

That's not a bad idea, and would give gramarists something to burn their bonus feats on. I'm still a little worried about the feat tax, since I have a feeling these would become the new "default" principles in peoples' minds, making everything vanilla underpowered by comparison. I don't think straight-up power-ups is the way to go for them, but instead orthogonal versatility. Things like:

Alchemetric Apprenticeship [Mastery]
You've completed a basic study into alchemetrics, and have a better grasp on the fundamentals of the field than some people ever achieve.
Requirements: ALCH 101, Knowledge (nature) 4 ranks
Benefit: You have a new option for an ALCH 101 modification. Add the following choice to your list of modifications that can be applied with the principle.

• Friction: The friction coefficient of the target can be increased or decreased by a factor of 2. This means that depending on which version of this modification you prepare, the body requires either twice or much or half as much effort to move. Any bull rush or other push or pull on the object has the distance the object moved multiplied or divided by 2 before resolution based on your selection. This change only applies if a surface would normally resist the movement of the body.

Something like that, anyway, where you don't just get a simple power-up but a small new use of the principle entirely. I do really like the idea of the mastery feats, though! Food for thought!

Kellus, maybe it's just me, but that seems a lot more feat taxy than Mastery feats... I mean, this can basically double push of ground vehicles

Activation and steering of an engine is a standard action, but with enough puissance, yes, it can make multiple leaps per round.

So, my inter-city mass instant transit system will work? Excellent!

[Omnicrat]

What if you had multiple people manning the engine?

I figured an intelligent heuristic circuit could just do it. Even a contingent one maybe...

[Amechra]

You know, there actually is a good model of friction in the rules...

You know, Grease? Just add a little bit of somethin', and it should work.

[Kellus]

You know, there actually is a good model of friction in the rules...

You know, Grease? Just add a little bit of somethin', and it should work.

I thought about it, but there's not really a lot of mechanical overlap. Grease is essentially just an ongoing area-based SoS, whatever the SFX are. It represents a frictionless area, but there's nothing to play with there to represent having degrees of greater or lesser friction. You just cast it, and everyone in the area starts falling down. It's not a physics implementation, it's slapstick.

I do really like the idea, although I agree, Omnicrat, that that particular feat is not a good way to implement it. I mostly jotted it out to show what I meant by 'extra capability' feats instead of 'number boost' feats. And that just goes to show why such narrowly specific feats with a tiny niche audience that will always want them is such a bad idea, just like the binder feats from Tome of Magic that every binder ever takes, just like Natural Spell that every druid ever takes, just like Font of Inspiration, and so on. It's well-trod ground, and I don't really like the model.

I'll think about it, I'm sure I can come up with something for feats that are appealing but not necessary.

What if you had multiple people manning the engine?

Yes! If you can get around that problem, whether with multiple operators, programming, or an EI running the show, you can have really really fast lightning jumps with it!

[Quester]

Does a Gramarist have any special control over a chassis he makes? I had always assumed so but can't find any text to support it. I guess you could teach it tricks with handle animal.

Also I'm really curious as to what happens if two red filter boxes with different internal temperatures try to go through each other.

I can't believe I haven't said it yet, but this is the best piece of home brew I've ever seen.

[Omnicrat]

I can't believe I haven't said it yet, but this is the best piece of home brew I've ever seen.

This is closer to a whole new game than a homebrew. Gramarie changes everything.

[Kellus]

Does a Gramarist have any special control over a chassis he makes? I had always assumed so but can't find any text to support it. I guess you could teach it tricks with handle animal.

Nope, not by default. Although you could certainly teach it tricks (although note that it's an Aberration) or instill instincts in it like "follow my directions".

Also I'm really curious as to what happens if two red filter boxes with different internal temperatures try to go through each other.

Oh, I'm sorry, I missed the question when it was asked earlier.

It's a good question, and I'm tempted to avoid confusion to just put in a blanket rule that filters of the same colour interact with each other as solid. I can't think of any situations where that would be an issue, and a couple, such as this or the gas filter, where it would solve some headscratchers like this. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!

I can't believe I haven't said it yet, but this is the best piece of home brew I've ever seen.

Thank you, I'm glad you like it!

Anyway, for anyone interested, the graughtsman is now up!

[jojolagger]

It's a good question, and I'm tempted to avoid confusion to just put in a blanket rule that filters of the same colour interact with each other as solid. I can't think of any situations where that would be an issue, and a couple, such as this or the gas filter, where it would solve some headscratchers like this. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!

When two boxes overlap, it could result in the space between both having 2 sets of temperatures at once. However, for those with the same temperature, the same inside would still only have one temperature, and not be weird.
Thus, I suggest that barriers of the same color with different settings count as solid to each other. So then, two red boxes containing equal temperatures can pass through each other, but red boxes with different temperatures collide.

[Quester]

And here I thought no prestige class could be as cool the Contractor.

Does Gramaric Graft allow non-specialists to prepare specialist principles and ignore requisite principles known?

It's funny I was just thinking one of these prestige classes would require magic ability, though I suspected it would be the Arcanitect (or which ever prestige class based on arcanodynamics).

Nope, not by default. Although you could certainly teach it tricks (although note that it's an Aberration) or instill instincts in it like "follow my directions".

Unless I'm mistaken a chassis that isn't sentient would be unable to understand you, so even if instinctively driven to follow your orders it wouldn't gain the ability to speak common. Oh well, a gramarist makes decent money and can afford to hire an animal trainer.

Also if you turn an arcanodynamic transformer into to biostructure would it still act as a transformer, what about turning into a chassis?

Please say yes, because then I can make and army of cattle who shoot fire balls when I zap them.

[Kellus]

And here I thought no prestige class could be as cool the Contractor.

Does Gramaric Graft allow non-specialists to prepare specialist principles and ignore requisite principles known?

Yes! I updated the text to be more clear on that point.

It's funny I was just thinking one of these prestige classes would require magic ability, though I suspected it would be the Arcanitect (or which ever prestige class based on arcanodynamics).

All it really requires is a caster level to take an item creation feat, which the gramarist technically has from his eldritch blast.

Unless I'm mistaken a chassis that isn't sentient would be unable to understand you, so even if instinctively driven to follow your orders it wouldn't gain the ability to speak common. Oh well, a gramarist makes decent money and can afford to hire an animal trainer.

True! I suppose you could give it an incredibly complicated set of instructions to follow specific commands and stuff, but it's probably easier to make it sentient and just give it commands to be perfectly obedient.

Also if you turn an arcanodynamic transformer into to biostructure would it still act as a transformer, what about turning into a chassis?

Please say yes, because then I can make and army of cattle who shoot fire balls when I zap them.

Yes! You can even turn them into the transformer after they're a chassis, since they still count as an object of their previous material! Also, you gave me an excellent idea for a new discovery for the graughtsman, genetic gramarie. Check it out!

EDIT

When two boxes overlap, it could result in the space between both having 2 sets of temperatures at once. However, for those with the same temperature, the same inside would still only have one temperature, and not be weird.
Thus, I suggest that barriers of the same color with different settings count as solid to each other. So then, two red boxes containing equal temperatures can pass through each other, but red boxes with different temperatures collide.

This is a good idea, but I think it might be a little too complex. It could also lead to some weirdness if you had two partially-overlapping boxes, and one of them started hearing up inside while the other didn't.

[Eldan]

Anyway, for anyone interested, the graughtsman is now up!

Want. So much.

You do realize you just gave me most of the tools to recreate Neon Genesis Evangelion in this system?

Have you considered the Living Construct subtype for your Biomech suits?