Call to Arms: Fantastic Technology (PFRPG) PDF

This installment of Fat Goblin Games' Call to Arms-series clocks in at a massive 46 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page introduction, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 39 pages of content so let's take a look!

Now this book, obviously, expands on the content of the Technology Guide, so I expect familiarity with that material in this review.

This supplement begins with a piece of adept prose and recap on the significant influence technology has had on the development of our very society and there is a reason for that: Before we can take a look at how technology works in game, we have to imho consider the implications of the addition of technology - namely why and how it found its way into a given game world. If you are like me and consider the internal consistency of a given game world to be of tantamount importance, you probably have sneered at quite a few explanations for the existence of technology in a given fantasy context - and thus, this book presents us with a plethora of options that explain the rise or prevalence of technology, including rationalizations for the potential of a limited prominence amid cultures. The intriguing component of these basic concepts that range from divine inspiration (see Zobeck's gear goddess) to the gifts of the precursors, would be that the respective rules by which technology operates in a fantastic context necessarily ought to change - and the results should not be ignored. If technology is, for example, granted by a divine mandate, it should come as no surprise that adversaries of the doctrine will have a more nature-bound, savage mindset - and vice versa. The inclusion of such ideas and adventure hooks renders this section a useful tool for most DMs who do not want to provide a static backdrop for technology that is relegated to a limited area.

Now here, things become pretty intriguing, at least to me: One of the basic and utterly jarring components of the basic Kingdom-building rules, even when supplemented by Legendary Games' superb expansions, would be the absence of a true means of properly advancing your kingdom. Sure, you can improve infrastructure etc., but you won't be able to create a bastion of enlightened scholars amid the savages, a kind of Neo-Atlantis/Azlant/Ankheshel. Indeed, the kingdom-building rules, by virtue of their origin, assume a medieval backdrop. If your campaign has a different scope, perhaps even spanning the lifetimes of multiple characters, then this will be a full-blown example in awesomeness: What am I talking about? Technology-levels for kingdom-building with concise definitions of which goods and buildings become available, which sciences are taught, etc. And yes, the respective technology tiers do sport rules-relevant benefits for the kingdoms that achieve them and bonuses for researching all technologies. I absolutely adore this chapter since, to me, it completely came out of left field - and yes, there is a huge array of new buildings to create, including android factories and orbital space stations. That's awesome. i mean, who wouldn't want to go all JLA on the bad guys? At the same time, there is one tiny component the system imho ought to have covered in a slightly different manner: Tier-advancement. As provided, the guidelines assume essentially a list of prerequisites that must be met regarding buildings and technology, but personally, I would have enjoyed a cost to upgrade once all the prerequisites are met - essentially a conscious push to move into the next age. It should be noted, however, that this very much represents a personal preference and thus does not negatively influence my verdict - plus, one can always include such an obstacle.

Okay, after this not only extremely useful, but also surprisingly inspired chapter, we finally move to what I thought this book was all about when I first laid eyes on it: Technological items. Though, once again, this claim just now would be ultimately just as reductive as my previous conception of what this contains. Let me elaborate: The very inclusion of the material plastic with concise stats is pretty much a "Why has no one done this before?" facepalm-moment - and I mean that in the most flattering way: With decreased weight and electricity resistance, plastic is an interesting material indeed. At the same time, though, it does receive vulnerability to fire, which results in a somewhat wonky interaction: Energy damage to objects is usually halved and ignores hardness - so am I correct in the assumption that this halving does not occur for fire damage? It would only make sense, but ultimately, this constitutes a pretty minor issue.

Beyond plastics, there is a further component that has galled me about the implementation of technology in most given rules-contexts: The assumption of total functionality vs. being broken - the totality of both conditions is a component, wherein not only the internal game world's consistency slightly suffers, but also a crucial deviation from the super-science/pulp/science-fantasy tropes the very rules are supposed to provide for. Ultimately, I can get behind class-specific technology that only works for one type of character the same way I can accept psionics and magic, but once you render this an item-class, this assumption fell away and the exclusivity-clause was removed. Enter this book.

The basic concept is absolutely iconic and genius and perfectly encapsulated in the term "augmentations" - these can be added to a given piece of equipment by characters sporting the Craft Technological Arms and Armor feat akin to how magic works, with a base price of magnitude squared times an amount of gold and magnitude also governing the Craft DC. Now annoyingly, formatting has botched in the bullet point-list that contains these rules - while not rendering the rules opaque in any way, the glitch is so obvious that even casual glimpses should have caught it. But I'll set that aside to talk about what can be done: From radioactive to monofilament enhancements in different degrees of efficiency, the augmentations are awesome and pretty much represent the fulfillment of my craving for orcs that tack barely understood chainsaws to their axes. And yes, I came to roleplaying games over Warhammer. From graviton hammers to chainsaw swords to plasma-axe muskets, the items herein, some of which receive lavish full-color artworks, uniformly deserve praise on a conceptual level. Interesting here would be that, while there are very minor hiccups here and there, the rules-language, traditionally not exactly the strongest forte of Fat Goblin Games, is up to a pretty high standard and supplements the logical consistency of the items provided - chain-blades, once activated, for example penalize Stealth heavily.

When technology becomes more relevant in warfare, it'll be only a matter of time before espionage and sabotage become a threat - and thus, the new cause for glitches gremlinite should be considered a further and potentially narratively rewarding addition to the glitch-rules. Beyond these, there is a pretty basic and wide-spread trope of certain items with an ingrained personality - whether it's a quantum processor-powered AI, a ghost in the shell or a HAL 9000 - AIs are inextricably linked to scifi and fantastic technology. Thus, the rules for actually creating AIs is simple - and the sample item "possessed" by this AI is also rather interesting. Now if that were not enough, what about adding a slew of mythic into the fray, providing new legendary item abilities that most certainly will see use by the Genius, Futurist and Stranger paths, should they feature in your game -what about e.g. overclocking beams to make them AoE? Yeah, ouch! What about an absolutely inspired and unwieldy artifact that can make a high-level dungeon indeed rather strategic? New vehicle propulsion options, from combustion engines to fusion?

The pdf closes with 4 feats that allow you to create Robots, scavenge parts of technological items for your crafting or make AIs. And there is a feat that lets you unarmed punch empty items to get one final charge out of them - thankfully with a cap to prevent abuse.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are a mixed bag - on the one hand, the rules-language is much more precise than I expected it to be, to the point where actually, I don't have any proper complaints that would truly detract from this book -so kudos to editor Lucus Palosaari! On the other hand, there are some obviously rushed glitches regarding formatting that annoyed me to no end -though it should be noted, that for most people out there, the amount of glitches will not be within annoyance parameters. The pdf does sport a beautiful 2-column full-color standard with quite a few nice, original full-color pieces. The pdf comes fully bookmarked, though the bookmarks do sport a couple of wonderful names like"h.izabluogbq3a" before providing the proper (and correctly named) bookmarks - so yes, existent, but you should scroll down - and another example of the avoidable glitches that haunt this pdf.

When this landed on my pile to review, I was admittedly less than excited - Fat Goblin Games has a track record with me of having interesting concepts (and since John Bennett took the reins as line-developer, an actually great horror setting!), but issues with the finer rules-interactions. So analyzing a 40+ page book of rules was not exactly my definition of a good time. At this point, I wish to sincerely apologize for this obviously less than flattering preconception. Fat Goblin Games and author Garrett Guillotte have delivered a massive supplemental book that is so much better than I ever anticipated it would be. I expected a somewhat reductive and repetitive accumulation of Technological items herein - what I instead got can be considered the massive appendix for the Technology rules.

In some of my previous reviews pertaining subsystems generated by Paizo, I lamented the lack of synergy and further support for systems once established, while at the same time pointing out that this is pretty much where 3pps can take control and deliver. This book makes perfect use of this thesis - not only do we get some material for mythic fans, the kingdom-building component essentially provides the backdrop for campaigns to take a whole new scope: Instead of just focusing on one age or dynasty, one can utilize these to essentially make kingdom-building, Sid Meier's Civilization-edition. Indeed, a capable GM can just slot more tiers in between for a finer gradient between tiers and expand the concept further, allowing you to potentially tell stories of truly epic scope and breadth. If you've been following my reviews for a while, you'll note that this simple fact is something I value over almost anything else - beyond the mechanics of augmentations, the new items and AI-rules, it is the rules-framework to tell a *NEW* type of story that was previously not supported by a given system that ultimately makes me grin, makes me happy, makes me cherish a product.

And sometimes, I get lucky - first Alexander Augunas' Microsized Adventures, now this book - and two whole new inspiring ideas take form: When combining the two, you could conceivably play characters shrunken to enter an organism and fight diseases with their nanite "subjects" while kingdom-building the immune system. Yes, I'm actually going to run this for my group.

What I'm trying to say here is: This book ranks among the few truly inspired crunch book that manage to be innovative. At the same time, I do have a criticism of this book and that ultimately boils down to scope: Whether it's AIs, augmentations, tiers - I found myself ultimately wishing each of the cool components herein had seen more support and yes, I'd definitely would be very interested in a sequel - the ideas featured herein are so good, I actually would have loved to see them expanded beyond their page-count. Now for the amount of content provided, this is an inexpensive pdf and I wholeheartedly encourage you all to check this out - I don't mention books of the superb quality of Microsized Adventures lightly in the context of other books.

At the same time, though, the (kind of) professional reviewer has to grit his teeth and point out that this pdf is not perfect; it does have flaws and I wished the glitches I noted weren't there. If this were either more focused or longer or had no glitches, we'd have a definite candidate for my Top ten of 2015 here. It's that good. Alas, there are some hiccups in presentation and some concepts that could imho have benefited from more space to render them clearer. So no, I can't rate this the full 5 stars - I should probably round down. But know what? that would be a disservice to the book and ultimately, you, my readers. This book is inspiring and I always have and always will prefer innovation and inspiration over bland mechanical perfection - and here, this book delivers in spades. hence my final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5, and yes, this book gets my seal of approval - it is simply too much fun, too inspired to be bogged down by the glitches, though the more nitpicky among you should remember that they're here and probably rather round down.

Endzeitgeist out.

For those of you who don't know I'm a big fan of the technology guide. I love that we have rules for adding things like lasers, robots, rockets, and power armor to my fantasy setting. I love that it grants us the chance to insert a little more mystery into our worlds than just "it's magic" and make our players a bit more intrigued by the dungeons and worlds that exist in their lands both in Paizo's home setting and our home games without having to write a book myself to do it. What's more the style in which it was presented was amazing, a fusion of classic scifi tropes like laser pistols and death rays with a healthy dose of 40k future diesel punk and grim dark thrown in for some amazing options (looking at you chainsword, monowhip, and rad grenades) that really scratch that itch and make these options feel grimy and brutal in all the right ways for a world with Conan style barbarians rubbing shoulders with robot titans.

But with all that in mind it wasn't enough. We got a lot of the good starters but we were left with far more questions. How the hell does all of this fit into a world like golarion where stuff like a toothed sword that screams as it saws a man in half is far more likely to be attributed to being possessed by a demon than it is to a microprocessor? And for that matter what do they do with all the broken pieces, do they just leave them lying around, what do they think happens when one finally shuts down, and do they ever try to fix them or more try anything more interesting? Well it seems Fat Goblin has heard me, since with this book I get new tech, an answer to some of these questions, and oddly enough a tech tree system.

First lets talk about the biggest addition and the bulk of this product for most consumers, augmentations. An answer to my biggest question about what the hell all these primitive societies do with all this broken or discharged tech that is lying around in places like Numeria's rust fields or other worlds where these things are ancient technology left behind that they barely understand, augmentations are weapons and armor that have had used, broken, and discovered technology incorporated into their design to help improve their function or capitalize on the remains of destroyed tech. Augmentations let you do everything from repairing armor by lashing it all together with ion tape (basically duct tape) to attaching chainsaws to your greatclub to give you a baseball bat that will chew through your enemies like a wood chipper. In short they are amazingly inventive and already have me and my players chomping at the bit to play with them at the table, from our warpriest wanting to wrap a chainsaw blade around his holy weapon to both of them wanting to buy a pack of cylex rounds (ammunition coated with impact activated C4) to help them even the odds against a morlock tribe they ran afoul of in a local dungeon these things get me amped to not just incorporate them but use them as ways to explain how this midevil culture has started to incorporate them into their world beyond sacred relics. It lets me have blacksmith who make full plate out of rare plastics scraped from the machinery of ancient dungeons, weaponsmiths who craft greatswords around damaged graviton engines to impart "the thunder of the gods" into the wielders stroke, and to have kobolds that craft uranium laced longspears from broken rad grenades to permanently cripple any foolish long shank dumb enough to try and break into their lair. And all of it is done with a fusion of old gear and the pieces they would naturally find. That is awesome and what's more those are just some of the examples I could pull from here. On top of all that the rules for crafting them allow you to use old, burnt out, and discarded tech to create these augmentations, turning that timeworn chainsword you picked up and burned out a few sessions ago from a worthless piece of junk and into a key component for turning your humdrum greataxe into a howling toothed chainsaw greataxe that would make Kharn the Betrayer proud.

The next big thing in here is the tech tree system, oddly something designed for of all things the kingdom building system presented in Kingmaker and Ultimate Campaign. With this system you get what is essentially a civilization style tech tree system that allows you to invest build points into furthering your nations understanding of technology, granting basic things like learning physics and basic biology at the start to eventually crafting things like orbital space stations, airports, and hospitals that can replace your arm with a top of the line cybernetic replacement at the highest end of the trees. The investments are steep for each facet of the various trees you invest in and many require investing in multiple trees to qualify for options (i.e. pharmaceuticals requires you have invested in biology and chemistry in order to begin studying it) but having a way to not further your nations education in a tangible way and see the fruits of it start to show up is just icing on the cake. The system even helps incorporate things like firearms into the equation, offering them up as some of the first pieces of advanced technology your budding nation can produce. The examples here go on and trying to lay them all out could take pages but suffice it to say if you would like to add a little more Civilization to your kingdom building this is a great place to start.

Finally you get the actual new tech of the book which is surprisingly sparse, in total numbering out to maybe a half dozen or so new items that are not examples of augmented tech but all of which are pretty cool. Ranging from a set of adamantine piston knuckles a la fallout that let you roll twice for damage to a nanofiber vest that can expedite healing and even grant fast healing but has the wearer risk cardiac arrest if the push the system too far. Each one is interesting, well priced, and easy to insert into any campaign alongside the tech guide with little problem.

Now the book is not perfect. It's got some formatting errors that drive me crazy like notes for where bullet points are supposed to be that haven't been added (part of why it's not 5 star as of this writing) but overall the book is an absolute treat for those looking for more ways to incorporate the options introduced in the technology guide in more interesting ways. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to design a gnoll barbarian with a radioactive axe.

This book hits a lot of topics that appeal to me so I have a lot to say before I get to the review. Don’t worry, this is really important for determining whether or not you want to purchase this product, I just want to describe where my needs come from before I tell you whether or not this product fulfills those needs.

Now I love Paizo’s Technology Guide. Up until that point I felt like there was not a real means to introduce technology into Pathfinder in a way that was easy to pick up. Most of the time there was an entire subsystem full of new terms and changes to classes and the need for new classes. Everything felt too convoluted or requiring a lot of house ruling to make work. With the Technology Guide I felt I was finally able to bring my fantasy games into the space age, full of pulpy goodness to go with my magic along the lines of Thundarr, He-Man, Thundercats and Final Fantasy. But with such a limited page count the Technology Guide had it’s limits and for as much as it introduced the logic of space age items brought with it realities of what technology does. Str and heavy armor becomes useless and the game becomes a ranged dex game. While this was very realistic it took away a bit of the fantasy aspects were a bit lost and some great fantasy tropes get left in the dust.

This brings me to Call to Arms: Fantastic Technology. The description promised one thing that I’d been searching long and hard for; melee technology. So of course I ate it right up, looking at each bit and thinking about characters. So did it deliver?

Well the first bit starts off with a discussion of technology and fantasy leading to a series of tips on how to deal with fantasy with technology involved. This includes some plot hooks and a few rules on how arcane or divine magic can interact with technology that you can take or leave.

After that we get some Kingdom Building support for technological facilities and learning centers based on technology level. To extent I felt the discussion of technology levels could have been discussed in terms of what kind of technology to allow in which age but Kingdom Building is nice. Don’t take my lack of excitement as a downside, I’m just biased because I tend to prefer playing and running heroic adventure rather than Kingdom Building so for the most part I just read through this section to make sure it made sense enough. I have nothing bad to say.

Then we get to the bit I was all worked up about: New technology. First there is a new crafting material: Plastic. OH MY GOD. Why has this not been covered before? It seems so obvious now. The plastic rules make sense enough. There is a bit of a glitch where I’m sure if the plastic takes 1.5 times damage from fire damage or the wearer itself. Its the first out of many points to bring up the question as to what happens for area effects. Logically if you’re hit with a fireball the plastic should take damage too but rules-wise this never happens with regular armor so I guess I won’t rule it that way.

Then we get to Augmentations, which are kind of the technological equivalent of magic weapon and armor properties. I don’t think it covers everything my imagination has conceived for technological weaponry but it covers quite a bit for the size of the PDF. You can put buzz saws on your weapons, make Captain Boomerang-type exploding thrown weapons, and plasma swords among other things. The armor augmentations cover some protection from firearms and beam weapons as well as just reinforcing the thing with ion tape. There are specific arms and armor that mix some of the augmentation with new functions. The entire section is just what I needed, including energy knuckles that deal a monk’s unarmed damage and a gravity hammer.

There’s also new glitches and AI for technological items somewhat mirroring intelligent magic items. It interacts with the skill chips from the Technology Guide which is probably the most interesting thing in the book. Then we get to technological artifact rules plus a new artifact, and new propulsion engines for vehicles. If you own any other vehicle book this is actually pretty useful. Really useful. I already have a use for it for a campaign.

Lastly there are new feats including robot and AI crafting feats, a thing recycling feat and a thing healing feat.

Bottomline: This book interacts really well with the technology guide and brings it to a new level. It brings technology to the Kingdom Building rules, gives actual means to make AI, introduces plastic and technological armor and weapon qualities and gives a means to put melee combat tactics into the future . Basically its everything I wanted and I love it.

There are some hiccups. There is a few weird points, like the stat blocks for the two AI being formatted differently and in the second one’s case missing it’s CR. The weapon damage from small to medium size is sometimes non-standard. These are among the occasional language that makes you have to re-read a bit carefully. Overall nothing comes out as completely unfunctional although there are situations that makes for DM fiat rulings like the situation with plastic and AoE fire attacks above.

So I wanted something and I got it with ignorable glitches. I think if you want to use the Technology Guide for a straight sci-fantasy game you need this product. Each item spun the wheels of my imagination and made me want more. It just makes the Technology Guide more complete for general use. I love it, and I’m going to use it so I guess I’m giving it 5 stars.