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

[Kellus]

Out of curiosity, how does imbuing an object with Mercury even work?

Does that mean that you could melt a sword, and have it still behave as a sword?

Does it mean you could take, say, an Immovable Rod, and have it stay in one place when molten?

Weirdly enough, yes. A sword crafted with energy from a mercury transformer really does still work as a sword if it's melted down, and you could basically make immovable liquid if you're at super-high temperatures (which when I think about it is much more useful than an immovable rod!).

[Omnicrat]

Did you jump through the hoops (posting in the threads you're supposed to post in)? They've had major spambot problems, and those keep the bots away.

I don't get activation emails. Am I supposed to post somewhere before activating my account somehow?

addendum: Kellus, could you please spoiler that opening picture? It throws off the formatting for the whole page.

[sirpercival]

I don't get activation emails. Am I supposed to post somewhere before activating my account somehow?

addendum: Kellus, could you please spoiler that opening picture? It throws off the formatting for the whole page.

PM sent. We'll get you sorted out.

[QuidEst]

Weirdly enough, yes. A sword crafted with energy from a mercury transformer really does still work as a sword if it's melted down, and you could basically make immovable liquid if you're at super-high temperatures (which when I think about it is much more useful than an immovable rod!).

My thoughts on sword-in-a-can and immovable liquid:
Liquid sword is sharp all over. Handling it is like handling a sword. You can do it gently without injury, but if you poured a can of molten sword over somebody from high up, they would get burned and cut.

A molten immovable rod is still an immovable rod because the liquid won't move from where it is. However, if you make the strength check to move it, you are instead moving parts of the liquid, allowing you to reshape it. So you could hammer it into whatever shape you wanted!

Also, I love the Arcanitect! It gives lots of cool options and works well with regular crafting. (And it helps mitigate the dumb XP cost.)

[Necroticplague]

It seems rather odd that the special ability of mercury is to allow something to function as a liquid, yet it explicitely itself doesn't have this power. Which, interestingly enough, means you pretty much need preternatural fluids and alch101 if you want to work with mercuryIns,because you want to move a mercuryIn from a hot place to a cold place, so you'll need to raise its melting point by about 300 points (-273->20) for it to be of any use at all. Of course, now I have the idea of using mercury out to provide power for making grafts, which then continue working when melted (like a puddle of...stuff that seems to randomly shoot eye beams out of it at the command of some random person [the guy its technically grafted to]).

[Amechra]

You think too small!

Who was it who wanted liquid creatures?

You can technically wrangle that now...

[Kellus]

addendum: Kellus, could you please spoiler that opening picture? It throws off the formatting for the whole page.

Sorry, which picture?

[ShadowFireLance]

The Walking Tank thing, I just Hide Sidebar...Though, It does mess my screen up as well.

[Lateral]

so you'll need to raise its melting point by about 300 points (-273->20) for it to be of any use at all

...Mercury's melting point is -39 C. Not -273.

[sreservoir]

–273 °C would be close to zero.

[Omnicrat]

Sorry, which picture?

The Alchemitry one. Its really big.

[Kellus]

The Alchemitry one. Its really big.

Already done, I realized that was the most likely one to be causing problems. Why didn't anyone say something earlier?! I keep my browser zoomed out pretty far, I'm sorry for inconveniencing anyone trying to read it!

[Amechra]

–273 °C would be close to zero.

More accurately, that's the freezing point for the universe.

[Morcleon]

More accurately, that's the freezing point for the universe.

Nah, absolute zero's more like -273.15. That's close, but not quite there.

[Amechra]

Shhh...

Don't let them know the secret...

[Kellus]

Nah, absolute zero's more like -273.15. That's close, but not quite there.

Well, I'm pretty sure that mercury would indeed be frozen at that point.

ANYWAY, guess what! Amechra wrote some excellent material on platinum poles, and because of that we now get to build cities with geoccultism! Go check it out!

[Omnicrat]

Already done, I realized that was the most likely one to be causing problems. Why didn't anyone say something earlier?! I keep my browser zoomed out pretty far, I'm sorry for inconveniencing anyone trying to read it!

Now that you mention it, that fey imacination picture is pretty big too...

[Necroticplague]

You think too small!

Who was it who wanted liquid creatures?

You can technically wrangle that now...

That was me. Still doesn't actually work. The essence of arcana only applies to magic items made, while my things are made entirely via grammary. They're "made" (technically grown, since they're made by applying a while lot of grammaric mods to brassbrush) by a geomantic pole, fresh every day (or if I'm willing to wait and don't have a high-output ebb generator, then I plant them outside, and wait a week instead). So sadly, it's not working. And if it did, that would add another requires specialist (requires one BIOY for instinct, one ALCH for phlogistan, one GEOY for brassbrush, this would make it require one ARCD).

Although really, all that was me getting carried away. The initial point is how Brassbrush allows you to simply GROW things that think. You could just as easily make the things that popup sentient, complete with soul.The moral rammification of doing so are up to you, though (I've hear devils will give decent trades in either items or semi-specified favors).

Also, do biostructures feel pain? What if it's given sentience? Talking about trading in their souls makes me think of similar material:liquid pain.

...Mercury's melting point is -39 C. Not -273.

–273 °C would be close to zero.

Whoops, my bad, that brings it down to a much more sane dc 59 to be useful. Of course, given the way mercuryIn works, higher is always better. If you ever have a spare hour, just see if you can't raise by at least 10 for 1 more ebb. Of course, then you run into the problem up setting up the bubble to the higher temperature.

[davethebrave]

Well, I'm pretty sure that mercury would indeed be frozen at that point.

ANYWAY, guess what! Amechra wrote some excellent material on platinum poles, and because of that we now get to build cities with geoccultism! Go check it out!

I love it, it's stellar work on Amechra's part!

[radmelon]

And in reply to the biostructures and pain thing, can they pray? Because, with sufficient biollurgy use, you could contruct a city of meat and use it to fuel a huge platinum input to contruct some sort of huge doomsday device. Not the most efficient way, but possibly one of the most awesome.

[Kellus]

And in reply to the biostructures and pain thing, can they pray? Because, with sufficient biollurgy use, you could contruct a city of meat and use it to fuel a huge platinum input to contruct some sort of huge doomsday device. Not the most efficient way, but possibly one of the most awesome.

Biostructure is a mindless semi-organic semi-metallic structural material. It has mental ability scores of — and thus is unable to take any mental actions. More specifically, without a Charisma score it is unable to discern what is "it" and what is "everything else", and is thus unable to understand the nature of pain as it applies to its own body. Similarly, lacking the Intelligence to understand the nature of faith and the Wisdom to hold a belief, it cannot pray.

It's masonry that breathes.

[Draconas1]

Hi, total noob here and gained an account mainly for this thread, so apologies in advance if this is stupid.

Would an Alchemtry density increase apply to a geoccult poles' metal consumption?
How do you control Biollurgical chassi with only BIOY 101 & BIOY 228? Handle Animal, Ride, or you just plain can't?
What level would a Biollurgical chassis graft that grows soft, marrowless bones out of it’s back for fuel for a ballistic engine be?
Would it be possible for there to be a magic item or artifact(if magic item probably requires fabricate and/or wish and/or true creation to build) that allows one to halve spectroconstruction work/hours in order to use it for Grammarie?
What is the power scaling each size of creatures give for crystal inputs?(Maybe each size double previous just like carrying capacity modifier?) And since biostructure is stated to have raspy, loud breathing would it generate more?(I basically just want to make several trees into a big hunk of biostructure and use it to power a geoccult pole)
Edit: Also, you never added the multiple pieces of whisperreeds allowing group chat thing.

[radmelon]

Biostructure is a mindless semi-organic semi-metallic structural material. It has mental ability scores of — and thus is unable to take any mental actions. More specifically, without a Charisma score it is unable to discern what is "it" and what is "everything else", and is thus unable to understand the nature of pain as it applies to its own body. Similarly, lacking the Intelligence to understand the nature of faith and the Wisdom to hold a belief, it cannot pray.

It's masonry that breathes.

Yes, but using further biollurgy to make it a chassis can remove said restraints. You'd have to find a way to feed it all, but that can be overcome. Also, the platinum geoccultism stuff is the best thing I have read today. Possibly all week. I don't have anything else to say on the matter, I am at a loss for words.

[Kellus]

Hi, total noob here and gained an account mainly for this thread, so apologies in advance if this is stupid.

No problem, let me see if I can answer them for you!

Would an Alchemtry density increase apply to a geoccult poles' metal consumption?

Yes! A geoccult pole's consumption is based on weight, and thus if you use Alchemetry to make metal heavier the volume will be consumed more slowly!

How do you control Biollurgical chassi with only BIOY 101 & BIOY 228? Handle Animal, Ride, or you just plain can't?

After BIOY 228 is done with it, a biollurgical chassis is classified as an Aberration. You can try to Ride an aberration, although you would probably take a -5 penalty to Ride checks for having an unsuitable mount, as described here. Handle Animal, appropriately enough, applies only to Animals normally, but you can also attempt to use it on creatures with Int 1 or 2 which are not Animals, but the DC of all checks increases by 5, as described at the bottom of the page here. So... Yeah! Go crazy taming your biollurgical monstrosities!

What level would a Biollurgical chassis graft that grows soft, marrowless bones out of it’s back for fuel for a ballistic engine be?

Oo, awesome idea! I really need to come out with a suite of grafts related to gramaric purposes. I'll add this idea to it, but off the top of my head that seems like a reasonable 2nd level graft!

Would it be possible for there to be a magic item or artifact(if magic item probably requires fabricate and/or wish and/or true creation to build) that allows one to halve spectroconstruction work/hours in order to use it for Grammarie?

Probably not unfortunately. Time is the one thing that really gives gramarists trouble, and it's one of their primary resources. The main axiom is that a gramarist can do just about anything, with enough time and supplies. There are very, very few things in the system which provide more time to the characters; if it's an artifact specific to your campaign it might be reasonable, but certainly not as a manufacturable wondrous item.

What is the power scaling each size of creatures give for crystal inputs?(Maybe each size double previous just like carrying capacity modifier?)

This should follow the basic guidelines set out in the description of ghost sound

There aren't many data points, but here's what we can piece together:

{table=head]Source|Number of Effective Humans
A human running and shouting|1
A horde of rats|8
A roaring lion|16
A roaring dire tiger|20[/table]

The record breaking scream of a human is 128 decibels, although that seems a little extreme; most humans can't scream that loud. More relevantly, a lion's roar is roughly 114 decibels. That would place an average human's shout at 102 decibels, which sounds about right. Getting back to your original question, what you need to decide is how many times a given creature is louder than humans, or decide their loudness in decibels and convert. For example, a jet engine is only Large-sized, but it's 150 dB. This is about the noise from 64,000 humans shouting. As you can see, it's all relative!

And since biostructure is stated to have raspy, loud breathing would it generate more?(I basically just want to make several trees into a big hunk of biostructure and use it to power a geoccult pole)

Unfortunately, I'd probably only rule that a 5ft. cube of it only produces the noise of one human. Remember, the baseline is a human shouting, not breathing heavily!

Awesome questions! If you have any others, I'd be happy to try to answer them!

[Kellus]

Yes, but using further biollurgy to make it a chassis can remove said restraints. You'd have to find a way to feed it all, but that can be overcome. Also, the platinum geoccultism stuff is the best thing I have read today. Possibly all week. I don't have anything else to say on the matter, I am at a loss for words.

Yes, absolutely true! If you can make an intelligent biollurgical chassis, of course it can feel pain and pray. A basic animal level intelligence and charisma is certainly sufficient to feel pain, but I think we can all agree you need to be truly sentient to be able to hold a religious faith.

Edit: Also, you never added the multiple pieces of whisperreeds allowing group chat thing.

I'm sorry, let me fix that!

EDIT: There we go!

Whisperreeds: Whisperreeds are just like normal cat-tail reeds, except that they transmit sound across huge distances. When two whisperreeds are cut from the same stalk (after it grows back the following day, obviously) any sound or vibration which affects one of them will instantaneously affect the other, as well. This allows the transmission of area effects that deal only sonic damage; if one reed is inside of the area, the effect spreads out from the second reed as if it were the originator of the effect. Sonic damage can only be channeled once like this before it degrades to harmlessness. This is a form of quantum entangling, and thus is not limited by the speed of light. Multiple reeds cut work in the same way, transmitting an equal amount of sound from all of them. However, the total sound level is distributed between all of the extra receptors, dividing it up accordingly. For example, one reed being used to talk to three others would have its transmitted sound level reduced to one third of its original intensity. Whisperreed costs 200 lb per 5ft. patch, and otherwise works like normal cat-tail reeds.

[Silva Stormrage]

Hey, two comments, one where can I find the cost of planetary metals in cubic foot? I can't seem to find the price of some of them by cubic foot or weight. I can find some here. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm

You might want to add their cost next to their weight on the alchemestry table.

Also I think that the apogineer's 2nd level precipitous ability is a bit too strong. It effectively lets them make a daze attempt with every attack. Personally I would try to not use maneuvers and just attempt to daze everything to death. I think it should be limited to 1/round.

Also when do the prestige classes gain magistral principles? Right now it seems that the apogineer gains doctorate principles without getting Magisterial principles

[Draconas1]

Probably not unfortunately. Time is the one thing that really gives gramarists trouble, and it's one of their primary resources. The main axiom is that a gramarist can do just about anything, with enough time and supplies. There are very, very few things in the system which provide more time to the characters; if it's an artifact specific to your campaign it might be reasonable, but certainly not as a manufacturable wondrous item.

Yeah, I figured even if it was a magic item it was not only going to be incredibly high level and hard to make(quite possibly epic), but also so precious to grammarists that it would be easier to just have someone on your party make one.
Also, I have quite a few more, cause I haven't exactly been writing these things down and have been having these ideas for a while.
Would the joint biollurgic and geoccultic 400 principle allow you to create and control terrain-appropriate creatures?
Are deadsnow zombies restricted to their geoccult biome of origin or can you just only command them from it's pole?
A zeitgeist, since it is an exotic intelligence limited to the geoccult pole, can make logical decision for the pole, right? Also, it's mindsight doesn't have a range of it's biome.
If you use alchemetry to alter biostructure's durability, you're basically altering it's con score by your diplomacy result right?(since it raises or lowers the hit points per inch by half your con score)
While I figure nothing(except skeletons) would be able to move if they were entirely converted to biostructure, you can just convert the skin of whatever it is into articulated plates right?(I plan on doing that to the deadsnow zombie workforce of my city so they look somewhat better and are tougher, even if it will probably only be just an inch counting subcutaneous tissues)
Do deadsnow zombies just have to have been from dead bodies that were left in deadsnow at the stroke of midnight, did they also have to die in deadsnow, or did this have to have been the first midnight since they died?
Can you make a geoccult pole any shape?(I plan on having my character make them into chairs so he can just sit down in them while he messes with them)
Can bizarchitecture be put over the geoccult pole?(I plan on making it so only my character and those he allows can access it)
Since ancient oaks are sentient, can they control Arcanodynamic outputs and Heuristical Circuit control points attached to them?(hooray turrets!)
If you lower the topographical level under, say, an acid bog, does it get deeper?(possibly enough for full submersion)

[Kellus]

Hey, two comments, one where can I find the cost of planetary metals in cubic foot? I can't seem to find the price of some of them by cubic foot or weight. I can find some here. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm

You might want to add their cost next to their weight on the alchemestry table.

This is a perennial suggestion, but the problem that I keep running into, unfortunately, is that it's too campaign-specific. Some metals are common in one setting and not in another. Iron is everywhere in core, but it's still not clear exactly what it's worth; a wall of iron spell can produce huge amounts of metal, which ALCH can transform into other metals. If you need a price, go based on that; otherwise, it's an issue to work out in-game and in-setting.

Also I think that the apogineer's 2nd level precipitous ability is a bit too strong. It effectively lets them make a daze attempt with every attack. Personally I would try to not use maneuvers and just attempt to daze everything to death. I think it should be limited to 1/round.

I'm sorry! That was very poorly worded and didn't really do what I intended it to do! Here's the revised version from my notes:

A Thousand Drops of Rain (Precipitous): When you strike a target they are battered from every direction by the uncatchable rain. Until your next turn, you count as if you were flanking the target for the benefit of your allies, no matter what direction their attack comes from. If a successful flanking attack from an ally strikes the target later in the same round, the enemy is dazed (Will negates). The flanking bonus you grant to your allies increases from +2 to the magnitude of your alignment with Spring.

It is strong, since you can effectively dazelock them, but remember that as soon as you shift either of your axes at all, you fall out of the styling. Also key to remember is that this is at... 9th level? 5th level spells just came online for spellcasters, including such gems as baleful polymorph, cloudkill, wall of force, and so on. Dazing is literally what spellcasters are throwing out as a 0th-level spell!

Also when do the prestige classes gain magistral principles? Right now it seems that the apogineer gains doctorate principles without getting Magisterial principles

Since you literally need two principles from the appropriate discipline to get into one of the classes, and there's only one Baccalaureate-level principle in each discipline, it's not a huge deal.

[Qwertystop]

Question regarding Geoccultism 101:

It says it subsumes existing natural features and works around artificial ones and creatures. Does this mean it creates a random assortment of the basic features one would expect to find in the new biome, as a one-time (non-replenishing) thing? Or does it just get rid of all the existing stuff and leave the area as an empty expanse of <appropriate terrain type>?

[Kellus]

Would the joint biollurgic and geoccultic 400 principle allow you to create and control terrain-appropriate creatures?

I'm not sure, I haven't thought too much about that combination yet! But it certainly seems like a reasonable idea.

Are deadsnow zombies restricted to their geoccult biome of origin or can you just only command them from it's pole?

You can control them using the pole as long as they're in the biome, but they're still zombies outside of it.

A zeitgeist, since it is an exotic intelligence limited to the geoccult pole, can make logical decision for the pole, right? Also, it's mindsight doesn't have a range of it's biome.

It can see everything that's happening in the biome (more specifically, it can see all of the information about the people in it). It can make logical decisions on behalf of the pole, but unless it's hooked up to a broader circuit it can't extend its control beyond that scope.

If you use alchemetry to alter biostructure's durability, you're basically altering it's con score by your diplomacy result right?(since it raises or lowers the hit points per inch by half your con score)

Effectively, yes, that's one way you could look at it, but that's only applicable while the biostructure is in its immobile form (more object-like than creature-like, when it still has hit points per inch of thickness).

While I figure nothing(except skeletons) would be able to move if they were entirely converted to biostructure, you can just convert the skin of whatever it is into articulated plates right?(I plan on doing that to the deadsnow zombie workforce of my city so they look somewhat better and are tougher, even if it will probably only be just an inch counting subcutaneous tissues)

Killer idea! That's very cool!

Do deadsnow zombies just have to have been from dead bodies that were left in deadsnow at the stroke of midnight, did they also have to die in deadsnow, or did this have to have been the first midnight since they died?

No, they just have to be in the snow at midnight, the corpse can come from anywhere.

Can you make a geoccult pole any shape?(I plan on having my character make them into chairs so he can just sit down in them while he messes with them)

Yes, as long as it follows the requirements it can look like whatever you like!

Can bizarchitecture be put over the geoccult pole?(I plan on making it so only my character and those he allows can access it)

Sure, why not?

Since ancient oaks are sentient, can they control Arcanodynamic outputs and Heuristical Circuit control points attached to them?(hooray turrets!)

No, they're not EI's, and they don't have Intelligence scores, all they can do is make Knowledge checks on your behalf.

If you lower the topographical level under, say, an acid bog, does it get deeper?(possibly enough for full submersion)

I would allow this, although another way of looking at it is that the acid bog sinks as well, to only be a few feet off the ground at that point. But I think it's a clever enough idea that it should be allowed!

It says it subsumes existing natural features and works around artificial ones and creatures. Does this mean it creates a random assortment of the basic features one would expect to find in the new biome, as a one-time (non-replenishing) thing? Or does it just get rid of all the existing stuff and leave the area as an empty expanse of <appropriate terrain type>?

The basic principle suppresses all of the normal terrain features around it, and puts out a blank canvas of the baseline terrain. They're still there though, and if/when the pole collapses, all the old terrain comes back!