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

[Eldan]

Well, given that Atlantis in our world is mentioned has having extensively used Orichalcum, it would explain what happened to them.

[Amechra]

Does anyone else have ideas for Understandings? I'm thinking that they should at least be powerful enough that they give any city-state that has exclusive access to them will be able to easily overcome any city-state that doesn't have super-tech.

Hell, maybe if I restricted the setting to E8 (so that Magisterial Principles would be the pinnacle of technology, only being able to be used by the best Grammarists, or through Blueprints), then Doctorate Principles would basically become Understandings, since they allow downright weird things.

And I'm visualizing Understandings as being kind of a slotless artifact; they are pathways burned into your brain, that are nigh-impossible to communicate to others.

This could potentially lead to a Commoner 1 getting the ability to transmute Planetary metals into their superior versions imprinted into his memories, erasing some less important things in the course of the alteration.

I have no problem with this; it could actually lead to the Commoner becoming a Grammarist of surpassing skill, for ****s and giggles.

I personally wouldn't let a player start with a Doctorate-level Understanding (or any of the others, for that matter...), but
DM's have the final say.

And as for the gods... Mulletmanalive had a pretty neat start to a small gods "template", which I think will see a lot of use...

[Eldan]

Hm. Heuristic Understanding. True Intelligences that can learn and grow (basically, take class levels). Intelligences with souls.

Perhaps the giants of Eberron had an Understanding of that kind which lead to the creation of true warforged.

Vitalism. Make an unliving material be treated as alive for all magical and gramarical (gramatical? gramaristic?) purposes.

[Kellus]

Those could be some wicked-awesome plot hooks or elder secrets to spice things up. I like!

Also, the first prestige class is now published, the prime mover.

[Amechra]

I like the Prime Mover, and I eagerly wait for the rest.

And I just had a cool idea (at least in my head); casters produce Ebb with every heartbeat, at a rate of 1 ER/ECL, up to a maximum of an ER equal to their caster level.

Of course, you need to get the heart out of them, and somehow keep it beating... or, if you have the proper Understandings, you can literally just reshape the Mage into a generator...

Then again, this is only really worth it once you get into higher level spellcasters, which are higher level spellcasters. I don't think I need to elaborate further.

You know, I might need to homebrew a Bioengineering equivalent (Biosynechdicism, maybe?) set of Principles, to function as Understandings (and because I kinda want to be able to make a bioengineer with this system.) Maybe have it set to mesh with the grafting rules a bit?

Maybe when I have time...

[Eldan]

I like the Prime Mover, and I eagerly wait for the rest.

And I just had a cool idea (at least in my head); casters produce Ebb with every heartbeat, at a rate of 1 ER/ECL, up to a maximum of an ER equal to their caster level.

Of course, you need to get the heart out of them, and somehow keep it beating... or, if you have the proper Understandings, you can literally just reshape the Mage into a generator...

Heart of Stone, Spell Compendium. You take out your still beating heart and replace it with a rock, to gain damage reduction. Your heart is then stored somewhere.

[Kellus]

I like the Prime Mover, and I eagerly wait for the rest.

And I just had a cool idea (at least in my head); casters produce Ebb with every heartbeat, at a rate of 1 ER/ECL, up to a maximum of an ER equal to their caster level.

Of course, you need to get the heart out of them, and somehow keep it beating... or, if you have the proper Understandings, you can literally just reshape the Mage into a generator...

Then again, this is only really worth it once you get into higher level spellcasters, which are higher level spellcasters. I don't think I need to elaborate further.

You know, I might need to homebrew a Bioengineering equivalent (Biosynechdicism, maybe?) set of Principles, to function as Understandings (and because I kinda want to be able to make a bioengineer with this system.) Maybe have it set to mesh with the grafting rules a bit?

Maybe when I have time...

I'm sorry, I am working on the last discipline, which deals with living things and bio-machines, and it does in fact use grafts for one of the 300-level principles. If I'd known how in-demand bioengineering was going to be, I'd have waited to publish until it was done!

Putting the finishing touches on the second prestige class now, and then I'll get back to it.

[Eldan]

Hm. I just read your DMing for Gramarie section. Seems my etherworld setting is already Magitek Renaissance, it has most of the things on your list, though most count as just magical items with handwaved explanations on how they are made.

[Amechra]

Yippee!

I get bioengineering! Please tell me that you can make Grafts hereditary; it would make me ever so happy.

[Eldan]

Now I just had a nightmarish vision. I was a DM and allowed Gramarie in the Etherworld setting and the player maximized the control skill and got a huge vat of protoplasm...

And yes, I am quite excited for a bio discipline. A look at migh avatar might be a hint

[Kellus]

I get bioengineering! Please tell me that you can make Grafts hereditary; it would make me ever so happy.

I don't want to give too much away, especially because I'm still trying to think through all the loopholes and interactions before I publish it, but the last principle is called Eccentric Genetics and deals with reproduction and passing down traits and mutations.

EDIT: Also, blueprints are now a thing you can write. Excellent idea!

[Amechra]

Yay for Blueprints! And for altering genetics!

I swear, this stuff is just too perfect for my most devious campaign setting thoughts...

Hmm... gotta think of a Grammarie Patron (the ones who taught the arts to the races)... He Who Takes Faces as Payment may work, especially once the Bioengineering Principles are ready...

Gotta take those faces somehow, right?

[Orderic]

I have a little question.
How does the number of Preparations increase for bubbles?


Apart from that, I think that Airships would not actually be used very much. Only for exploration, war and because rich people like floating above everyone else.
The thing is, if an airship reaches an unexplored area, the first thing that should be done is setting up an yggdratectural portal. As soon as one is established, the airship is no longer usefull for transport to that portal and can travel on to other places.

[Kellus]

Good questions!

I have a little question.
How does the number of Preparations increase for bubbles?

It's cubic, based on how the volume of a sphere increases with the radius. A sphere with radius 5ft. has a volume of 523.5 cubic feet, while a sphere with radius 10ft. has a volume of 4,188.8 cubic feet. I make the assumption that every preparation can add 523.5 cubic feet to the volume of the bubble, and you get nice cubic relationship as 4*pi/3 cancels out.

Apart from that, I think that Airships would not actually be used very much. Only for exploration, war and because rich people like floating above everyone else.
The thing is, if an airship reaches an unexplored area, the first thing that should be done is setting up an yggdratectural portal. As soon as one is established, the airship is no longer usefull for transport to that portal and can travel on to other places.

I absolutely agree. Airships should definitely be for exploration, war, and luxury, because those are the things that I would want an airship for. Once you've found somewhere you want to move to, it's a million times more efficient to set up a permanent portal. It's a common theme in a ton of sci-fi, that the pioneering ships set up the jump gate or whatever back to the home base. But then, other people could sabotage the portal, stranding everyone on one side...

[Amechra]

You know what would be pretty cool? The ability to shape bubbles in distinct shapes! So you could have cylindrical bubbles, cubic bubbles, or even some in more esoteric shapes!

[Kellus]

You know what would be pretty cool? The ability to shape bubbles in distinct shapes! So you could have cylindrical bubbles, cubic bubbles, or even some in more esoteric shapes!

No problem! Whenever you make a bubble you can now choose to have it fill less of the volume than you want in order to make a specific shape, although you still need to meet certain benchmarks for the size of the field to play with in the first place.

Also, the lode-bearer is now up.

[Eldan]

You know, this thread makes me want and try to rebuild famous pop culture technology. Can we build a gravity gun? It would have to involve some fairly delicate push and pull, and I'm not sure if I can make it portable, really.

[Amechra]

Yay!

Nice reference, by the way (the enemy's gate is down indeed, Ender.)

Are you going to finish the bioengineering Principles before or after you complete more PrCs?

[General Patton]

I was thinking, for Principles that allow you to interact with or alter them by making a Key Skill Check that meets or exceeds the current value, it should probably be the current value -5 in some places. This gives a Gramarist some leeway in altering his work, otherwise rolling too good makes further changes impossible. Some of the Heuristicism stuff inspired this when I considered that understanding pre-existing code is easier than writing it from scratch.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

This gives a Gramarist some leeway in altering his work, otherwise rolling too good makes further changes impossible. Some of the Heuristicism stuff inspired this when I considered that understanding pre-existing code is easier than writing it from scratch.

I think the rules make perfect sense as-is. In the famous words of Brian Kernighan, "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."

[Kellus]

I was thinking, for Principles that allow you to interact with or alter them by making a Key Skill Check that meets or exceeds the current value, it should probably be the current value -5 in some places. This gives a Gramarist some leeway in altering his work, otherwise rolling too good makes further changes impossible. Some of the Heuristicism stuff inspired this when I considered that understanding pre-existing code is easier than writing it from scratch.

That's an interesting subject, but the main reason I don't want to go with that is so that you have some sort of defense against people messing with your code later on. After all, anyone with the principle can come in and make an Autohypnosis check to mess around with the triggers and responses.

Remember you can always choose to take a 1 on a skill check, so the easiest method I think would be to take artificial 1's on your skill check result until you're done working on it, at which point you can give it a higher skill check to defend against people messing around with it.

EDIT: Haha, and what Dice said.

Are you going to finish the bioengineering Principles before or after you complete more PrCs?

I dunno, haven't really thought that far ahead. But the last discipline will probably be finished either later today or tomorrow. The other prestige classes still need more polishing, so I guess I'll get stuff done when I get it done. Sorry for the delay, I just want as few corrections and errata later on as possible; the change log is long enough already

You know, this thread makes me want and try to rebuild famous pop culture technology. Can we build a gravity gun? It would have to involve some fairly delicate push and pull, and I'm not sure if I can make it portable, really.

It might be possible. Make a portable semi-space with a gravity trait inside it that directs stuff out of the portal hole. Drop your mass in and use some kind of eldrikinetic mechanism to pull it to the back of the space, and then have a trigger to release it with the portal open. It comes flying out of the portal at terminal velocity.

Although I'm sure there are a lot of ways you could go about it.

[Eldan]

Yes, but the problem is that Half-life 2's gravity gun (the one I'm thinking of) can pick up objects and pull them towards the gun as well. So it would need some kind of way to switch between pushing and pulling...

[Kellus]

Yes, but the problem is that Half-life 2's gravity gun (the one I'm thinking of) can pick up objects and pull them towards the gun as well. So it would need some kind of way to switch between pushing and pulling...

Sorry, I never played Half-Life. But it could still be possible:

Gravity: This kind of polarcane flux has different gravity than normal. Inside of the bubble, gravity moves in a different direction than normal. You can set the direction of gravity when you first prepare the principle, and it can also be changed by anyone touching the center of the flux or the object to which it is tethered as a standard action. If you prefer, you can lock the gravity when you first prepare the flux, so that it cannot be changed later. Otherwise, treat this like a reverse gravity effect, except with gravity pointing in the relevant direction. The Reflex save DC to grab something is equal to the Forgery check of the flux.

Stick in a trigger based on Heuristicism to switch the direction of the push or pull whenever you pull the trigger, and bob's your uncle. I would do it by having a shaped bubble flux into a column extending from the muzzle of the gun; normally it's standard gravity trait. Triggers on the gun flip it to pull or push. Point it at your mass, pull the thing to you and it falls into the semi-space that's attached to the gun and which has its portal in the muzzle.

In D&D you need 200ft. to reach terminal velocity; it falls to the back of the semi-space, and then you hit a button that causes two responses: the gravity in the space reverses and the gravity in the column-shaped flux reverses. It goes flying out the muzzle and down the column towards whatever it's pointed at.

Big decision: what range do you want on the gravity pull in the first place? I would say 30ft. is probably sufficient for most battlefields, so you want a bubble with radius 15ft. That's 27 preparations of YGGD 212. That means you need 170ft. of falling room inside of the semi-space. The longest spaces you can make at the 200-level are 16ft. long with 8 preparations of YGGD 241, so you need 11 of them connected with portals. That's 88 preparations of YGGD 241.

Some heuristical programming: you need 1 x HEUR 101 to set up a circuit covering the whole thing in the first place. 1 x HEUR 245 to create a control point where you can activate neutral mode, suction mode, or firing mode. Neutral mode has one trigger/response (setting the flux column to normal gravity). Suction mode and firing mode each have 12 trigger/responses. That's 25 preparations of HEUR 266.

So 141 200-level principles, and 1 100-level principle. Throw in 25 gp for the material to make the gun itself, and you should be good to go for a final selling price of 14,135 gp. It's a standard action to activate it, and the portal, all appearances to the contrary, can pull in things up to 2ft. by 2ft. How's that?

EDIT: Falling object damage rules are weird. But assuming that you can suck in something that weighs at least 200 lb, you're looking at a maximum damage of 21d6 damage against a target at least 30ft. away. Since it takes two rounds to use (one standard action for suction, one for firing) that's not too bad at the price. Pretty awesome for sneak attacks, I would think.

EDIT the 2nd: After considering the aforementioned falling object rules, you realistically want 1,370ft. of falling room for a 1-5 lb object to deal maximum damage. That would be 86 semi-spaces joined together.

27 x YGGD 212
688 x YGGD 241
1 x HEUR 101
1 x HEUR 245
175 x HEUR 266
25 gp materials

Total price: 89,135 gp.

So depending what sorts of projectiles you intend to use, from a 200lb iron block to a 2lb can of soup, your gravity gun is available with 200-level principles and costs somewhere between 14,000 and 90,000 gp.

[Morcleon]

1. The level 20 capstone states that "All of your principles are now extraordinary in nature". Does this effect the output effects of arcanodynamic transformers? i.e., nonmagical fire, lightning, etc...? What about the silver transformer?

2. What happens when you use an ablative tactile illusion? How does this effect observers?

3. What is the effect of Mach 4 on a projectile? What about higher Mach numbers? And what happens when you get, say a wood chip, up to the speed of light...? (For reference purposes, this would require 491,737 ballistic engines.)

[Qwertystop]

It says in the Usurp Space ability of the Lode-Bearer that your check must match the original check. This makes it impossible to usurp ownership of a semi-space made by someone vastly less skilled than yourself. It also gives you only a 1/20 chance of usurping the space if someone's skill is close to yours.

Personally, I would make it require a check that either matches the original or exceeds it by at least 15. That way, you can only usurp a space if either you manage to precisely imitate its creator or your skill is vastly greater than theirs.

[Kellus]

It says in the Usurp Space ability of the Lode-Bearer that your check must match the original check. This makes it impossible to usurp ownership of a semi-space made by someone vastly less skilled than yourself. It also gives you only a 1/20 chance of usurping the space if someone's skill is close to yours.

Personally, I would make it require a check that either matches the original or exceeds it by at least 15. That way, you can only usurp a space if either you manage to precisely imitate its creator or your skill is vastly greater than theirs.

It's sort of a given that it means 'match or exceed', but you're right, I should have been more specific. Sorry about that, I'll change it. The intention was that the original skill check becomes the DC to take control of it.

1. The level 20 capstone states that "All of your principles are now extraordinary in nature". Does this effect the output effects of arcanodynamic transformers? i.e., nonmagical fire, lightning, etc...? What about the silver transformer?

2. What happens when you use an ablative tactile illusion? How does this effect observers?

3. What is the effect of Mach 4 on a projectile? What about higher Mach numbers? And what happens when you get, say a wood chip, up to the speed of light...? (For reference purposes, this would require 491,737 ballistic engines.)

Good questions!

1. What it means is that the transformers themselves are extraordinary. They don't stop working in an antimagic field. The fire and lightning outputs are always nonmagical; the only supernatural part of the whole process is the transformation of energy from one form to another! A silver transformer, on the other hand, explicitly generates a spell-like ability. This spell-like ability is still (Sp) at level 20.

2. Like any tactile illusion, it would make them think they feel something false. In this case, let's say that you set up an ablative tactile illusion on a table. If I touch it, I would feel like my hand is going through it, even though the table is actually supporting me entirely. This would be a very strong case for a sensory mismatch if I could still see the table.

On the other hand, use an ablative visual and tactile illusion, and I would think the space was entirely empty, except for some reason I can't keep moving. That's what would trigger a fundamental disconnect. Tactile illusions are weird.

3. You generally can't have multiple Ballistic engines acting on the same object, since they need to be touching it and they release their energy in a burst instead of sustained motion. So the maximum speed of Mach 3 applies for most projectiles.

[Qwertystop]

It's sort of a given that it means 'match or exceed', but you're right, I should have been more specific. Sorry about that, I'll change it. The intention was that the original skill check becomes the DC to take control of it.

I had thought it was an intentional decision, since there were other abilites in the same section that said "equal to or greater than". Also because, as I suggested, I thought it sort of made sense to have to exactly mimic someone else's ability in order to take over their stuff.

[The Demented One]

This is a very cool system with some great ideas behind it. I think it could (and should!) serve as the basis for a totally stand-alone RPG, with a core system focused on the kind of scientific details this cares about instead of 5-foot steps and Attacks of Opportunity. I'd play it.

[Amechra]

So would I; damn it, stop giving me more ideas for RPGs to write (I already have two in the works, one kinda based on Sliders, and the other based off of Wuxia Catholic Monks, set in the time of Three Popes, where you can totally have your Franciscan Friar flip out and punch the head off of a demon.)

[Kellus]

This is a very cool system with some great ideas behind it. I think it could (and should!) serve as the basis for a totally stand-alone RPG, with a core system focused on the kind of scientific details this cares about instead of 5-foot steps and Attacks of Opportunity. I'd play it.

Thank you so much! That really means a lot, I'm a huge fan of your work!

The decision to build it off 3.5 is integral to the system as a whole for a lot of reasons. First, and probably most importantly, Dungeons and Dragons is by far the most popular and lasting tabletop game there is. I'm not saying it's the best by any stretch, but it is integral to the hobby as a whole. D&D 3.5 is the closest that I believe the game is going to get for a long time to the kinds of games that this kind of system engenders. D&D4E is (in my opinion) a mess and a step backwards from the transparent world-building I like, and D&D Next seems to be even more in the realm of DM fiat. 3.5 isn't great at this sort of thing, but I appreciate that there are at all details about things like falling objects and material statistics and such that I feel can be explored in greater detail.

The second main reason to keep it as a D&D subsystem is that I believe that it opens up a lot of avenues for the DM, and not necessarily for the player. Players can mess around and build a few things, but first and foremost I see the entire system as a toolset for the DM to design a world that isn't made of arbitrarium in every way. I personally feel that's something that D&D could use.

Lastly, the entire system is built around the physics inherent to the D&D 3.x system. Each discipline revolves around the intersection between a facet (sometimes pretty obscure!) of the rules and actual science. That's why, for example, in arcanodynamics you can transform energy into acid, because in D&D 3.x there are actually five energy types, and acid is one of those. Even if it's totally nonsensical, in the logic of the game acid is a kind of energy, and that's how it's presented in these rules. The entire project is an effort to create a new science, which explores the mechanics built into the game system. While a new system would certainly be easier, it would take away from the fundamental premise of the project, which is to present the rules we all know in a different light.

And (maybe) most importantly, I want to get people thinking about these kinds of things. Even if they don't use these rules, or even anything like them, I want people thinking about the kinds of issues this ruleset brings up. I want more people thinking about how mechanics inform worldbuilding, and transparent settings, and how individual personal power drive the collective power of the zeitgeist. And I think the best way to do that is to present a totally new perspective on a game that was built around small-scale brawls and dungeon crawls.

While I think I could make a better game if I started from scratch, it would mean sacrificing every other major goal of the project, and I don't really want to do that. There are already games like that. This is something else.