A little technomagery...

[nyte]

I've been playing with an idea since I started playing 3.5 and that is to create either a useful, simple circuitry for adventuring, or a mundane one that can interact with magical items in interesting ways. So I would like to ask what your ideas are on the subject.

[Afgncaap5]

I've been playing with an idea since I started playing 3.5 and that is to create either a useful, simple circuitry for adventuring, or a mundane one that can interact with magical items in interesting ways. So I would like to ask what your ideas are on the subject.

Well, I guess I'd have to know what you meant by it. Functionally, it'd be no different from a magical circuit thing that also interacted with magical items in interesting ways, just that flavor-wise it'd be using what, by the lore, was scientific ingenuity instead of magical formulae. (Which can be interesting sometimes... I've got a group in my game world called S.M.A.R.T. Labs, standing for Science, Magic, and Alchemy Research and Technology).

So... do you want something that can alter the capabilities of a magic item, or that itself would gain certain uses when paired with certain magic items? The most simple form I can think of for the latter would be something that could give you basic information on magical things (so, it'd basically be equivalent to a Tricorder, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, certain uses of The Doctor's sonic screwdriver, and a Pokedex.)

If you'd be okay with something that could just reflavor magic as technology, the artificer class potentially works almost exactly like this. Most of the things an artificer does is to imbue mundane items with magic or to alter the magic of an item; case in point, it can turn the damage from a flaming sword into sonic damage or frost damage, and it can turn mundane items into one-shot magic wands (ie., quickly making a bizarre invention that'll fall apart after just one use.) I think the Teleportation spell is too high in level for that particular ability, but imagine an artiicer who starts tracting magic runes in salt over a nearby rug, tells everyone in the party to stand on it, and then suddenly it teleports them all (and the now non-functional rug) across the continent just in time.

So if you wanted a single item that could do that... the artificer could be rebuilt to use a highly valuable (probably highly fragile) focus device. "This gate won't let anyone through who isn't a troglodyte! Fear not, friends, let me apply my Tintinabulizer to yon ingress!"

Other than that... well, there's no reason not to make a magic/magic-equivalent device like you suggest that has preset ways of interacting with other magic items. I guess it'd just depend on what sorts of effects you'd like. Maybe a circuit that can be put onto a divinatory item that will get it to divine where it was created or last used or something.

[Name1]

The Gnome Artificer can produce pseudo-magical effects by nonmagical means, if that helps.