My Little Gramarist: SCIENCE! is Magic [Gramarie Discussion]

[Mith]

So, perhaps a "Reactive Reagents" principle would be needed? A volatile solution with oil-like consistency that explodes on impact for X sonic damage/volume and X fire damage/volume. Mixing the oil with a flammable powder that can absorb it, such as wood shavings with the properties of 1.5 powder to 1 part oil, will create a reactive powder that will ignite and explode with the same force and fire damage as the volume of oil being ignited.

Now this is very rough, but I think it can work. It can probably be adapted to allow the oil to be concentrated to become a tar that one can paint on a surface and leave to dry to create a firewall when needed.

[Darkweave31]

So I just came up with a new discipline that would be the fantasy equivalent of pharmacology, epidemiology, molecular biology, and maybe a dash of forensics. Basically it would be able to make medicine, maybe stimulants or drugs, create and combat diseases, etc. Distinct from biollurgy in mechanic and flavor. Fills its own little niche.

[qazzquimby]

The problem would be making it open ended, rather than a list of potions and cure disease abilities.

[Darkweave31]

The problem would be making it open ended, rather than a list of potions and cure disease abilities.

I have some ideas, such as lists of infection vectors, symptoms, effects and whatnot.

[Mith]

Yeah, I tried to do that, but I ended up overwhelming myself, since I was trying to deal with all microbes under one system, and I had a hell of a time trying to keep the list from going on forever.

[Darkweave31]

If you've ever played plague inc... That's along the lines of what I'm thinking right now.

[Mith]

I've played pandemic, where it is buy symptoms and such. My thing was trying to deal with microbes that liked extreme temperatures, metals, and others. It wasn't too bad to come up with how things could work. It was more a problem with numbers and balancing, as well as figuring out categories.

[Milo v3]

SNIP

Yeah, it sounds separate enough.

SNIP

Reactive Reagents sounds like a better Volatile Vials *immediately changes course name*. .

[Mith]

Reactive Reagents sounds like a better Volatile Vials *immediately changes course name*. .

Heh

SO we already have something explosive going on? I must have missed it in my skimming.

[Milo v3]

Heh

SO we already have something explosive going on? I must have missed it in my skimming.

It's just a WIP course just outside the ALCH spoiler, doesn't really have any information aside from the names and base ingredients.

[Milo v3]

Next principle in line to be updated into a Course is ALCH 364: Unexpected Materials, which is the principle that makes ascended metals.

Before I try to update it, does anyone have any suggestions for changing how the Ascended Metals work? I was considering having multiple options for ascension, possibly implementing PF's skymetals (which have surprisingly interesting parallels to ascended planetary metals) but I wasn't sure if that would be excessive or redundant.

[Mith]

I honestly cannot find the write up for Ascended metals at the moment, can you give me a link?

[Milo v3]

I honestly cannot find the write up for Ascended metals at the moment, can you give me a link?

I haven't written the update for them yet, unless you mean the original Ascended Metals. Those can be found in Alchemetry of the Mark 2 thread.

[Rolep]

I'm not sure exactly how it should be handled, but the rules should include how to handle biostructure composed of them, engines, transformers, poles etc made of them, and perhaps how they handle being parts of an alloy.

[Milo v3]

I'm not sure exactly how it should be handled, but the rules should include how to handle biostructure composed of them, engines, transformers, poles etc made of them, and perhaps how they handle being parts of an alloy.

Okay, how about I write down details on the following aspects of materials:

• Name
• Break DC Modifier
• Hardness
• Hit Points per Inch
• Melting Point
• Boiling Point
• Density
• Price
• Resistances
• Ascension
• Count As
• Biostructure
• Chassis
• Engine
• Fuel
• Pole
• Rods
• Transformers
• Alloy
• Weapons
• Armour
• Shields

Probably do it for the Gramarie materials + materials I found mentioned in the Core books (though I'm willing to add stuff from sourcebooks if I have time or there's interest):

Spoiler

Show

1. Adamantine
2. Amber
3. Blood
4. Bone
5. Bronze
6. Clay
7. Chitin
8. Copper
9. Gold
10. Glass
11. Lead
12. Leather and Hide
13. Loadstone
14. Ice
15. Iron
16. Mercury
17. Mithral
18. Mundane Crystal
19. Paper and Cloth
20. Pearl
21. Phosphorus
22. Silver
23. Steel
24. Stone
25. Tin
26. Wood
27. Zinc

• Alchemical Silver
• Alkhest
• Brimstone
• Carmot
• Cold Iron
• Cursed Lead
• Darkwood
• Deep Crystal
• Dragonhide
• Holy Water
• Moonsteel
• Nitric Acid
• Phlogiston
• Quicksilver
• Riverine
• Sulphur
• Sunmetal
• Thinaun
• Unholy Water

[Theseventh]

So I ended up posting this on the IRC and looking at it, it was long enough to be a forum post. So here we go.
This may not be relevant if no one cares about the old system at all but I do.

I was back reading through Puissamantics and something about the school just does not click with me. If anyone can address these issues I would be very thankful.

PUIS 101

Spoiler

Show

This one I kind of get. Like its namesake useful for charging stuff. Like if you only have 5ebbs a round and you need a ARCD transformer to put out a 10 ebb burst.

PUIS 149

Spoiler:

Show

This one I don't really get at all. Only thing I can imagine it being useful for was introducing your own (potentially harmful) Ebbs to a closed system. Or maybe if you were lazy and did not want to connect things with HEUR 101 and did the math to perfectly line everything up to use 149 for ebb movement.

PUIS 137

Spoiler:

Show

This one is cool. Make temporary enchanted weapons with ebbs. Its like being an Artificer almost.

PUIS 206

Spoiler

Show

This one I honestly do not get at all. What advantage does it have over other methods of ebb transfer? Only possible use for it I can see is if you have a single burst source of energy but you needed a more sustained source. So you can 'store' it in a conglomerate and the use when you need.

PUIS 266

Spoiler

Show

I actually really like this one. I don't know why but it and the copper ARCD transformer are like my two favorite principles. This is one fun for any number of applications. Long range transfer of ebbs. A weapon. Merging various sources of ebbs into a single load.

PUIS 259

Spoiler

Show

If the theme of this school is supposed to be around potentially harmful use of Puissance then this fits I suppose. I still don't quite see a practical use for this. Since it would explode most of your methods of getting it into another system. And if you have the time and ability to set it up in someone else's system I feel there are better uses of your time.

PUIS 328

Spoiler

Show

High power, high risk system. I like it. I feel that Gramarie has too little risk most of the time honestly. Worse case scenario is you waste your time with a few setups. This lets you squeeze more power out of a system at the cost of maybe overloading it. Gramarie needs more of this. The option to have everything blow up in your face.

PUIS 371

Spoiler

Show

Going back to 259 if this is supposed to be based around harmful ebb reactions this fits. I feel like for what it does though (essentially 1d6 per ebb explosion) you have better options. The magnetic properties of it are kind of cool though. I would love to make a monorail like system out of it. If I had to make a suggestion for this one I would say give it a way to generate even more power at the cost of a definite explosion. Like a Matter-Antimatter reaction. Lot of liberated energy to he had there. Or maybe make the Lead IN ARCD transformer have the ability to absorb Hellfire damage to generate Ebbs.

PUIS 348

Spoiler

Show

For a Military Science principle it feels right. If I am reading this right though the elemental have no duration? I guess by the time you have acess to this principle (Around 14 or so) Gramarie has so many other deadly options that a few ebb elementals are no big deal to worry about balance wise.

Theory

Spoiler

Show

I like it. Again, a high risk high potential cost type deal. Though it seems that you can pay off the debt an hour at the time at the cost of 1 ebb? As long as the debt has done down by one in the last hour you are safe for another hour. So you could "Borrow" any amount of ebbs you like as long as you have ever a Silver IN hooked up to a troll nearby for the rest of eternity. It feels kind of like a credit card. Only instead of the collectors coming to break your knees if you don't pay up, you can just toss this Refractor into a YGGD space and close it on this side and forget it after it explode safely.

To offset that a little, I would say first part of the refractor, the borrowed Ebb part, should have a similar clause to the second. If you fail to pay off its Ebb debt not only is the refractor destroyed, but anything that processed its borrowed Ebbs should suffer something too

The feat

Spoiler

Show

The feat confuses me a little. I am not sure what the physical connection bit is. Only physical form of ebb transfer I can think of is that one discovery that lets you move Ebb through conductive metals. Or PUIS 266 I suppose. Since its a non Heurstic connection.

Other Notes

Spoiler

Show

Few other things of note. Multiple points in this school it makes mention of supplying Ebbs to a creature. The only instance of a creature containing ebbs and its effects are listed for the Puissamanticist. I assume that's what its referring to?

Something I would like to see in general, and would probably fit in this school. "Anti-Ebbs" or "Empty Ebbs." Ebbs that either supply no puissance when they are handled by something, but still count against its limit of how many ebbs it can handle per round. Or maybe remove ebbs in a circuit a bit like how PUIS 371 does, only minus the explosion bit.

Oddly enough, based on this quote from the school
" Combined with transformers and heuristic circuits, they can construct powerful and world-shaping machines."
There is very little actual building done with PUIS principles. If anything it is one of the more openly destructive schools. Made to sabotage and ruin other peoples creations. Though i suppose it only says 'powerful and world-shaping'. And if you introduced a pair of PUIS 371 ebbs into a large world covering circuit (Like the kind that tend to happen when you combine EI with YGGD principles) that would certainly be powerful and world shaping. In the shape of a crater.

[Milo v3]

*Starts preparing Conjuronomy principle to summon Rolep*

[Omnicrat]

So this is apparently still a thing, sorry for my hiatus. Anyone care to give me a recap before I pull out the fine-toothed comb?

[Milo v3]

So this is apparently still a thing, sorry for my hiatus. Anyone care to give me a recap before I pull out the fine-toothed comb?

There hasn't been Immense progress on the update, with the First Post of this thread containing most of it so far, except for the Alchemetry and YGGD work.

The basic gist is that Gramarist (now Academist) and Geneticist have been updated, Biollurgy and Eldrikinetics is up, Alchemetry is nearly done with me and zale doing abit of work on the material rules so we know the effects of making swords from Moonsteel and claws from Adamantine. Also.... there is a joke discipline based around using your talents with other disciplines to make gramarie foods, which in my opinion is more a test to see how Cross Disciplines will work and see if they can expand the system in a good way.

I'll try and get links for CULN and ALCH so you can see them without searching through the whole thread with that comb of yours

WIP
Alchemetry
Culinaretics
Gramarie Races
Material Rules

[qazzquimby]

I was half the author for most of the puis effects, but I remember looking at it later with a lot of confusion at changes. Hopefully I can help.

PUIS 101
Does power spikes as you say, and also serves to make any device a small battery. I believe it can dramatically change how energy is dealt with at lower levels, since storage becomes significantly easier.

PUIS 149
Can power many devices within a radius, or perhaps charge them all evenly with wisps.
Can output harmful ebbs like an emp grenade.
Can charge creatures puissance pools (terminology and mechanics subject to change), especially in the case of vast hoards of creatures living off puissance. Dethanatologist has zombies that work that way, but it got put on hold with the gramarie update.
Set a reverse lighting rod atop your house to zap everything that gets close.

PUIS 137
I think I had no part in this one, and I agree. I'd remove the burning 1 ebb per round, for book-keeping, unless its assumed it's being constantly recharged.

PUIS 206

Spoiler

Show

Yeah it's kind of weird. The utility is that it does not deplete itself as it supplies ebbs. It supplies 1/10th its total value, until it has supplied ebbs up to the spellcraft check.

You have a generator creating 10 ebbs per round.
Each 10 ebbs is turned into a conglomerate, with a solidifier with a check of 60.
The next turn the conglomerate supplies 1 ebb, and continues to do so for 60 rounds. 10 ebb/round, turned into 60 ebb/round.

This process warms up for the next 59 rounds, until there are 60 conglomerates emptying 1 ebb per round, with the 10 ebb generator creating a new conglomerate as soon as the eldest burns out.

So the solidifier multiplies your total output by (spellcraft)/10, with the only cost of taking (spellcraft) rounds to start up and slow down. As far as I can tell, changing the size of the conglomerate (by a multiple of 10 to avoid loss) makes no difference, because if you double the ouput of a conglomerate, you half the number of conglomerates that can be maintained, since they all last half as long.

Seems op to me.

PUIS 259
Yeah. I don't remember how these work. I thought at first you turn them to wisps before converting, but the wisps would just sit in the irradiator until reverted to normal ebbs. I feel it is not written as intended.

PUIS 328
I agree. I think it might be interesting if the failure had the same effect as irradiated puissance, or something similarly destructive. It makes it scarier to own, and makes it possible to weaponize them. Perhaps merge the principles.

PUIS 371
I like your suggestions but don't know how to implement. I think it feels appropriate for energy production, seeing how positive and negative charges are behind electricity. PUIS isn't supposed to be about destructive things to do with ebbs. It's about what neat things can we think of, to do with ebbs.

PUIS 348
Originally I think it lost puissance from acting and from taking damage, and used that as a duration, but I'm not seeing that anymore. It should also be directly stated that the ebbemental is mindless and not loyal to the creator.

Theory
That's my problem with all of the economy options in PUIS. They turn into just increased numbers. I like the suggestion.

Feat
When two devices are touching, they are considered to be circuited together. If that's not true, I believe that's the error in the principle's design.

Notes
Yes, the puissamanticist kind of invented that rule and slipped it into every creature's stats, without telling anyone. Milo okay-ed a slight adaptation of it, so it hasn't been shut down yet.

What if charged ebbs were adapted to only explode on contact with ebbs of the opposite charge?

Null ebbs could be an alternate form of wisp? I don't think it needs it's own principle, but I like the concept.

I agree, PUIS is rather miscellaneous in function. Rather than giving a really solid set of devices, it's a mixed toolkit of things that may come in handy.

[Theseventh]

Thanks for the insight Qazz.



PUIS 149
I am having trouble seeing what harmful ebbs it can output. Sure you can use the Ebbs from PUIS 259. Once. And those are only harmful to what you are broadcasting to if you have the discovery that lets them affect further things down the line. And even then you are still exploding your broadcaster. You could use the charged ebbs from 371 one though (Unless the principle is changed so the charged particles only interact with other charged particles, which I am all for. Or make the reaction of two charged particles greater then the average of 1d6/ebb. Maybe if 2 charged particles pair off its 3d6 damage instead. Or maybe a charged pair reaction is always maximized damage.)

Speaking of 371, is the normal internal Ebb reserve of a creature assumed to be of a neutral charge? If so a single charged ebb introduced into them not only will deal 1d6 damage, but also deplete their ebb reserve. If you have your internal ebb reserve drained and then had charged particles reintroduced until you are back at your homeostasis, would you forever hold a charge? Also also, I feel like their must be some kind of type or missing info from 371. No matter how many ebbs pair off and explode at once, your explosion is still only 10ft from the device, or 5ft from a heur circuit. The HEUR circuit part I think is fine, since those can be pretty big and already includes everything it is connected to. But the mere 10 feet from the device for like a (for lets say a 50 UMB transformer that had 50/50 ratio of charged particles dumped in it) would be a mere 10ft radius explosion for 50d6 damage. An increased size the stronger the blast? Or maybe if its a pair of charged ebb its bigger then if its not. 371 just honestly needs more bang for its buck when it comes with 2 charged ebbs interacting.

And flowing from that, while I was reading how the internal ebb reserve of a creature works I realized its fairly easy to make an unkillable creature with it. If a creature has no con modifier (Con score of 10) they don't lose ebbs for being over charged. So if you push yourself up to the 1.75 charge point you net yourself unpassable Regeneration 1, Fast Healing 1, and haste. Forever.And if you are worried about someone just filling you with a few more ebbs to push you over your limit and pop you like an over inflated balloon just make a woodIN net centered on yourself. Most methods of PUIS long range ebb transfer would fail to get through keeping you safe. Your only weakness would be a physical transfer of ebbs. And I don't know what physical transfer of ebbs can be used on an unwilling creature.

I agree the idea of null or anti or whatever name we choose ebbs not needing their own principle. Can easily pair it off with another principle like many other schools do.

Also, unless it was discussed in the thread and never added to any official ruling, the only instance of two items touching thus being connected is from ARCD 101, stating that an In and an Out transformer need to be touching to get true energy conversion.



Semi related to the above, but if PUIS continues to be a thing in the future system I feel like KALD needs an ebb filter. If the shortest point between 2 items in a circuit would pass through the filter, they can not transfer ebbs between them. And maybe the filters weakness is if it blocks more then Spot checkx2 ebbs per round it collapses. Its use with the KALD theory would either be an sphere of anti-ebb, where no ebbs can exist. Or the opposite and a sphere of pure ebb, being capable of supplying Spot check result in ebbs per round to anything within the sphere.

Don't get me wrong. For all my nitpicking I very much enjoy the implications and intent of PUIS. A Gramarie counter to Gramarie. For all the large and powerful projects they build, they usually have so many fail safes in them they are honestly kind of boring. Immune to everything this, and untouchable infinite power that. This school creates something to be feared for all your huge world shaping projects.

For all of the above, sorry about dredging up a potentially dead horse. If Rolep shows up I heard he had some potential rewrite for it that never got around to finishing. I would be interested in seeing what he did get done though.

[Rolep]

@theseventh I would just like to say that I think you may be looking at an outdated version of PUIS. The newest for the old system can be found on post #334 on page 12. Furthermore, I have been updating to the new system, and some changes are taking place in that regard. My post on some alpha notes regarding these concerns is #797 on page 27.

Now to your actual comments (I'll only reply to the ones that warrant further discussion):

PUIS 149: Everything it does and more can be done by HEUR with contingencies, and it has limited utility anyways, so my latest revision is scrapping it

PUIS 137: this is being merged with PUIS 101 in the new revision, because it seems more like a specific use of 101 and fits in really nicely with the new course-based system (the same goes for 121)

PUIS 206: this one is completely different now

PUIS 259: This one has been changed to Doctorate, and has been altered to work properly. In a nutshell, it explodes other people's systems. Furthermore, my in-the-works rewrite is streaming some features of this further, so it should be much more functional now

PUIS 328: I like the idea of merging this with irradiated ebbs in the rewrite!

PUIS 371: Scrapped as it doesn't do anything new, but I want the idea of charged/anti-ebbs to appear somehow

PUIS 248: Moved down to magisterial but definitely needs some wording and balance tweaking in the rewrite

Theory: Yeah, the theory definitely needs sorting out, repercussions-wise. Though I'm still not sure how the new system handles theories...?

Feat: This has been changed, but I'm not sure if any PUIS feat yet has really satisfied me. C'est la vie, I guess.

Notes: I like the idea of both null and anti ebbs, and would like to implement them, especially with charged ebbs gone, but I have not come up with a method that quite satisfies me. And yes, there is a lot of destruction involved in PUIS The thing with ebb reserves is due to the fact that I like the idea and support its full implementation in the new system. I would like to see a puis KALD filter as well (just so the irradiator doesn't become too strong)

[qazzquimby]

I'm converting gramarie to shadowrun, I think. Does anyone play this and have advice?

@ Reading the outdated version.
Oh. That explains why I didn't see all the unfamiliar things I remembered.

I think what PUIS needs as a discipline, is more ideas. It doesn't have a strong backbone, besides everything branching off of altering ebbs in some way, so it needs as many interesting uses as it can manage before redundancy.

[Rolep]

Currently PUIS has 6 courses , all of which I feel are strong on their own, but yes, it does need more ideas and a clearer focus. One thing I'm owrking on is refluffing the ray emitter to be more about altering the nature of the particles, so that it fits better with the superposer, capacitor, irradiator, animator (includes materialiser) and amplifier (i.e. the other five). I would like to find some way to implement anti-particles as well, but beyond that I don;t have many ideas. If anyone has potential suggestions for other refractors, I'll be glad to hear them.

Also, how do theories work in the new system?

[qazzquimby]

I imagine theories would just be courses that require a very high level.

[Milo v3]

Also, how do theories work in the new system?

Theories are the same, except you'd say that they have Thesis or Military access to the key disciplines, rather than saying they specialize in them.

[Omoikane13]

Hi.
I was working on KALD, but not only have I been unable to come up with anything, I've been pretty busy with education. Besides, the stuff you guys are coming up with is far beyond what I was doing. KALD is open for anyone, don't count me as working on it. I'm gonna keep watching this project because Gramarie is the best thing ever.

[Arcanist]

Milo, can you direct me to the new Gramarist class (or Academic or whatever it's called now)? I want to see if I can actually make a blueprint using what you've guys have set up.

[spikeof2010]

Milo, can you direct me to the new Gramarist class (or Academic or whatever it's called now)? I want to see if I can actually make a blueprint using what you've guys have set up.

Long time no see, Arcanist. :D

[Milo v3]

Milo, can you direct me to the new Gramarist class (or Academic or whatever it's called now)? I want to see if I can actually make a blueprint using what you've guys have set up.

The OP of this thread has most of the update-to-date.