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

[kopout]

I hope he is ok.

[Omnicrat]

In an effort to not let this thread die (at least until kellus finishes updating it), what do people think the final two PrCs will be?

I, personally, can see not method in the selection process kellus is using, other than the Contractor (for Solomon) and Graughtsman (for obviouse resons). Arcanodynamics might have an ability to no longer need wood transformers, but beyond that I don't know, and Immachination will probably be something based around truth, if the black-themed kalidomatics are any indication.

[Amechra]

Homebrewers can necro their own threads without consequence.

So I don't think you need to keep the thread open; someone just needs to PM him when he comes back reminding him (and thus making us all look like creepy stalkers anyway.)

Arcanodynamics will be based of feng shui, and Immachination will be based off of politics.

[Kellus]

I hope he is ok.

I'm just fine, I'm sorry to stay out of the forums for a while. School is crazy busy, and I'd rather have a high gpa than a high post count

I'm really super happy that people are enjoying this so much, and I will be finishing it when I have the time; this is basically my favourite project ever, and there's plenty more to do with it; I'm just way too busy to split my attention right now. I'm very sorry for the wait and the radio silence, and I'm so glad that you're all pumped up about this project too!

For those interested, the arcanitect is a structural mechanic who builds things out of abstract thoughts and feelings, while the sidhengineer is an indentured civil engineer for a fae court.

[The Shadowmind]

Our DM is having trouble figuring out the cost of things. Is there any any simple formulas to help with pricing?.

[Omnicrat]

Our DM is having trouble figuring out the cost of things. Is there any any simple formulas to help with pricing?.

The following is copied from the front page.

Pricing Gramarie

This is a really interesting topic. How do you price something made out of gramarie? The answer depends very much on the technology level of your setting, and the gramarie-tech that's already out there. That being said, when you get right down to it, gramarist is a job. It happens to be a very well-paying job, but then, so is manufacturing walls of iron as a wizard or binding efreeti in your spare time. Gramarists have to make a living somehow; the primary resource for a gramarist, as you may have noticed, is time. They can make a lot of really awesome stuff, but it takes some time, and in some cases that amount of time is ludicrously large. The only stuff that they will be able to churn out in fast production cycles are small-scale personal equipment, like rayguns and jetpacks. Large-scale engineering projects are going to require massive investments of time, large teams of gramarists working together, or preferably both.

When you buy something made of gramarie, you're essentially buying a set of principles that have been prepared on your behalf, and you're buying the raw materials. Every principle that has been used has a value of anywhere from 1 to 9. Every principle starts at a value of 0 for price. Principles that have been prepared multiple times are treated as separate principles for pricing.

Factor Value
Baccalaureate Principle +1
Magisterial Principle +3
Doctorate Principle +5
Baccalaureate Tech-Level Setting +2
Magisterial Tech-Level Setting +1
Doctorate Tech-Level Setting +0
[Specialist] Principle +2

Once you establish the value of each principle that went into the thing you're buying, check this chart for the price of purchasing it:

Value Price
1 3 gp
2 9 gp
3 27 gp
4 81 gp
5 243 gp
6 729 gp
7 2,187 gp
8 6,561 gp
9 19,683 gp

Now, this means that in most settings, gramarists (even at 1st level) can make a pretty decent wage. If you're going to include gramarie at those levels, you're going to have to get used to that reality. Gramarists do awesome stuff for the setting, and they get rewarded for it. If you have an aversion to this kind of economic power, feel free to place things like tariffs on gramarie profits, taboos against comissioning it, political reasons they can't sell their work, and so on. But seriously, making money is not as big of a deal as most people feel like it is, because any adventurer can make money if they decide to start up a business or farm for a hundred years or something. Please consider allowing people to make money in your game and buy stuff with it that people actually do buy with money, like land, property, people, and bling.

[Volthawk]

The problem is more that a lot of the principles require cubic feet of particular materials, and getting the prices for those materials isn't quite so straightforward, which is a bit of a pain in the arse. I brought it up a while ago, actually, and explained the issue a bit more:

Could you put a list somewhere of how much all these materials cost per cubic foot? Even for the materials that have a cost per pound (iron, copper, silver, gold and platinum) need you to go to the DMG to find the cost, go here to Alchemetry to find density, and then work it out, so having the cost per cubic foot would be convenient. As for the rest...well. Adamantine, cold iron and crystal, although they have writeups, all only work out their costs based off usage in weapons and armour, not for other items or just chunks of the stuff. And the rest of the materials needed (like lead, mercury, diamond and tin), we don't have any pricings, only density for most of them (but some like diamond don't even have that). So yeah, knowing how much we're supposed to pay for the materials to make all the gramarie stuff would be useful.

[The Shadowmind]

The problem is more that a lot of the principles require cubic feet of particular materials, and getting the prices for those materials isn't quite so straightforward, which is a bit of a pain in the arse. I brought it up a while ago, actually, and explained the issue a bit more:

Yeah the material costs is what is being hard to find/figure out. For metal I was just using a 8 cubic feet or iron as a base then apply ALCH 286 to turn it into another metal, followed by dividing the result 8 to get the cost per cubic feet.
But cost for Ice, Wooden, Crystal, Flesh, Bone, Blood, and etc. is still missing.

[Omnicrat]

Yeah the material costs is what is being hard to find/figure out. For metal I was just using a 8 cubic feet or iron as a base then apply ALCH 286 to turn it into another metal, followed by dividing the result 8 to get the cost per cubic feet.
But cost for Ice, Wooden, Crystal, Flesh, Bone, Blood, and etc. is still missing.

I'm working on a master chart (just finished diamond) to help.

You're method doesn't work. 8 cubic feet are not 8 one foot cubes. 8 cubic feet are 512 one foot cubes.

Also, for stuff like blood and bone, based on BoBD pricing, just give it the same as iron. Ice should be free, or too variable between campaigns and even places in campaigns to be given a price.

[The Shadowmind]

I'm working on a master chart (just finished diamond) to help.

You're method doesn't work. 8 cubic feet are not 8 one foot cubes. 8 cubic feet are 512 one foot cubes.

Also, for stuff like blood and bone, based on BoBD pricing, just give it the same as iron. Ice should be free, or too variable between campaigns and even places in campaigns to be given a price.

Are you sure?
To get volume is W*H*L,
Cube of 2ft on each side is 2ft*2ft*2ft=8ft, thus 8 cubic feet.
Taking the cube root of 512 is 8, thus a cube with all sides being 8 has a cubic foot 512ft. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=8+foot+cube
I think you are getting an 8ft cube mixed up with 8 cubic feet which is a 2ft cube.

[Omnicrat]

Are you sure?
To get volume is W*H*L,
Cube of 2ft on each side is 2ft*2ft*2ft=8ft, thus 8 cubic feet.
Taking the cube root of 512 is 8, thus a cube with all sides being 8 has a cubic foot 512ft. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=8+foot+cube
I think you are getting an 8ft cube mixed up with 8 cubic feet which is a 2ft cube.

You are correct. My mistake. Also, I've been doing alchemetry wrong...

edit: this mistake hasn't effected any of the math for the master chart

[Lateral]

For the damage of an eldrikinetic projectile, I've been using the table for improvised weapons at the very end of Complete Warrior. Is that the correct one, or is there something else that I should be measuring by?

[Morcleon]

For the damage of an eldrikinetic projectile, I've been using the table for improvised weapons at the very end of Complete Warrior. Is that the correct one, or is there something else that I should be measuring by?

Indeed you have. Remember to double damage for pointy things!

[Lateral]

Indeed you have. Remember to double damage for pointy things!

Hmm. That table isn't really a great way to adjudicate damage- it's for improvised weapons, so it takes all weapons as if they were going at the speed of somebody hitting someone with them. A bullet going at 20,000 feet per round ought to do a lot more than 1d3 damage, even if it does ignore armor and dexterity.

[Morcleon]

Hmm. That table isn't really a great way to adjudicate damage- it's for improvised weapons, so it takes all weapons as if they were going at the speed of somebody hitting someone with them. A bullet going at 20,000 feet per round ought to do a lot more than 1d3 damage, even if it does ignore armor and dexterity.

It actually deals a whopping 4d3. Double for pointyness, double again for Mach 3.

You could see it as "no matter how fast it's going, it will only make a small hole"

Or you could ask your DM for some more speed damage rules.

[Lateral]

It actually deals a whopping 4d3. Double for pointyness, double again for Mach 3.

The doubling is in how it's treated for weight, not for damage. A tiny bullet is treated as double weight, which still only deals 1d3.

[Morcleon]

The doubling is in how it's treated for weight, not for damage. A tiny bullet is treated as double weight, which still only deals 1d3.

Oh. I must have read it wrong then...

D&D doesn't really have realistic rules for the magnitudes that gramarie deals with. If you're going to do damage with gramarie, it's better to use crystal and gold outputs.

[Amechra]

I've been thinking about Silver inputs, and I had an idea:

What if they used Kellus' Truenaming fix instead of spellcasting? It would have the advantage of using an already skill-based system, though we'd have to come up with a grammaric charge cost...

[Morcleon]

I've been thinking about Silver inputs, and I had an idea:

What if they used Kellus' Truenaming fix instead of spellcasting? It would have the advantage of using an already skill-based system, though we'd have to come up with a grammaric charge cost...

You mean silver outputs?

I skimmed the truenaming fix. Are you proposing that we use the utterances themselves as effects that can be placed into the transformers? Or am I missing the point entirely?

[Amechra]

Oops, typo.

And yeah, that's what I'm suggesting; I was thinking you can stick any of the vocalizations in there, with the people using them needing to aim them.

[Primal Fury]

Would a lot of work be necessary if i wanted to port this over to Pathfinder?

[jojolagger]

Would a lot of work be necessary if i wanted to port this over to Pathfinder?

Not really. Gramarist already lacks dead levels.
All you'd really have to do is alter the skills that need altering for pathfinder, and maybe change how the magnetic fluxes work because I seem to remember that Pathfinder did combat maneuvers differently.

[Primal Fury]

Something Kellus said has me thinking... The vast majority of what a Gramarist does seems to require them to remain within their workshop so they can... well... gramarize things; how would they fit in a "vanilla" party, with adventuring and whatnot?

[Morcleon]

Something Kellus said has me thinking... The vast majority of what a Gramarist does seems to require them to remain within their workshop so they can... well... gramarize things; how would they fit in a "vanilla" party, with adventuring and whatnot?

They don't. Not in the sense of dungeon crawl and all that. I suppose if the DM gives them ample time to prep combat devices between adventures and at level up, they might, but gramarie in general is supposed to change the world significantly, ala Tippyverse style.

[Grimsage Matt]

Eh, six words for ya.

Troll Gramirest with a Macheine gun.

[Lateral]

Eh, six words for ya.

Troll Gramirest with a Macheine gun.

Having tried to create a machine gun, let me tell you that it's ridiculously hard to get any relevant damage from a ballistic engine because of those improvised weapon damage rules that it uses. On the other hand, you can get pretty insane damage easily from arcanodynamic converters- it's really only limited by your UMD check.

[Morcleon]

Having tried to create a machine gun, let me tell you that it's ridiculously hard to get any relevant damage from a ballistic engine because of those improvised weapon damage rules that it uses. On the other hand, you can get pretty insane damage easily from arcanodynamic converters- it's really only limited by your UMD check.

You could make it a magic/fire/ice/lightning/sound/acid/force/disintegrate/laser machine gun.

[jojolagger]

Eh, six words for ya.

Troll Gramirest with a Macheine gun.

Pixie Gramarist with a Canterlock Helm.
Paladin with a Sun Laser Monocle.
Kobold Gramarist with a Compact Flamethrower.

[Omnicrat]

That should be an arcanodynamic prc bonus power for crystal (sonic) transformers, I think. Not a total replacement of spell inputs and outputs. Unless you ment as an additional ability. In which case I still think it works better as a prc bonus, be it for silver or crystal transformers.

edit: the was to the earlier discussion about truenaming. I have to refresh before posting...

[Primal Fury]

They don't. Not in the sense of dungeon crawl and all that. I suppose if the DM gives them ample time to prep combat devices between adventures and at level up, they might, but gramarie in general is supposed to change the world significantly, ala Tippyverse style.

Well that's a little disheartening, though I suppose I could try to find a way to make that work.