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My favourite invention for fantasy ever is Magitech. This thread is basically where we can all share different ways that we manifest this idea in our campaigns.
PLEASE Do Not criticize anyone else's methods, Thank You
The 2 ideas I'm working with right now are:
Elemental Binding: Using Planar binding spells to force elementals into items to power them, eg. Ice Elemental powered Refrigerator or Fire+water elemental powered steam engine or Airbound Sails
Arcanite: These peculiar gems channel raw arcane energy into deadly spell like effects, Power and range depend on the quality of the cut, energy type/spell effect depends on type of crystal.
Please do post any ideas of your own or any comments on mine.
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Dot for later.
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Hi I'm Doc said I use the s@&+ out of magitech stuff. I came to the game from Eberron, love Spelljammer, and run a home game that runs pretty heavily into dungeonpunk.
Currently one of my favorite new magitech options is the lost tech system from kobold's Sunken Empires supplement. I've really ran off with that one in my homebrew.
In my homebrew magitech is primarily the purview of the gnomes who have the culture and temperament to build and experiment with the stuff without blowing themselves apart. That being said other races do fiddle with and buy these devices. Goblins and kobolds on the surface use them too but with different goals. Kobolds usually use magitech for traps or sneakier items. Meanwhile goblins make more unstable devices and have a bad habit of getting high huffing chem smoke and runoff so end up pretty nuts.
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I have three approaches to magitech:
1) Magitech with primitive aesthetics
I'm writing a supplement for a race, called runari, that possess a highly advanced society where magical devices are commonplace. The catch is that their cities appear rather primitive. The race creates magical devices by writing magical script on stones and objects. However, wood is scarce, and metal is too precious to use on everyday things. As a result, most magical devices are made out of stone, which is not only inexpensive but also easy to shape and manipulate using magic. They have houses with doors that automatically slide open, but their homes are made out of slabs of stone. They have constructs, but they look like floating abstract sculptures.
Just because you have magitech in your campaign does not mean it has to be steampunky.
2) Magitech is ancient, mysterious technology
Inspired by Numenera and Outlaw Star, this approach to magitech involves the technology originating from ancient, lost civilizations. Such technology is rare, highly sought after, and seldom understood. Adventurers can only find magitech from ancient ruins or from other adventurers. Such devices are rarely understood. In fact, even if you know what it does, you may not be using it for its intended purpose. I gave a floating sphere that fires faerie fire to my players. The PCs thought it was designed to take out invisible creatures, when it was actually a laser pointer used by a professor during his lectures.
One of the important keys to taking this approach is language. Never describe something using our modern understanding or tropes. Don't describe it as a ray gun. Describe it as a complicated device consisting of brass tubes that emits a ray of fire.
This approach lends very well to Pathfinder lore since Golerion is currently in the dark ages and civilizations prior to Earthfall had advanced technology, like flying cities and machines that could control the weather.
3) Magitech originates from an isolated source
Finally, you can have magitech originate from from an isolate part of the world, making it highly sought after.
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I have three approaches to magitech:
1) Magitech with primitive aesthetics
I'm writing a supplement for a race, called runari, that possess a highly advanced society where magical devices are commonplace. The catch is that their cities appear rather primitive. The race creates magical devices by writing magical script on stones and objects. However, wood is scarce, and metal is too precious to use on everyday things. As a result, most magical devices are made out of stone, which is not only inexpensive but also easy to shape and manipulate using magic. They have houses with doors that automatically slide open, but their homes are made out of slabs of stone. They have constructs, but they look like floating abstract sculptures.Just because you have magitech in your campaign does not mean it has to be steampunky.
2) Magitech is ancient, mysterious technology
Inspired by Numenera and Outlaw Star, this approach to magitech involves the technology originating from ancient, lost civilizations. Such technology is rare, highly sought after, and seldom understood. Adventurers can only find magitech from ancient ruins or from other adventurers. Such devices are rarely understood. In fact, even if you know what it does, you may not be using it for its intended purpose. I gave a floating sphere that fires faerie fire to my players. The PCs thought it was designed to take out invisible creatures, when it was actually a laser pointer used by a professor during his lectures.One of the important keys to taking this approach is language. Never describe something using our modern understanding or tropes. Don't describe it as a ray gun. Describe it as a complicated device consisting of brass tubes that emits a ray of fire.
This approach lends very well to Pathfinder lore since Golerion is currently in the dark ages and civilizations prior to Earthfall had advanced technology, like flying cities and machines that could control the weather.
3) Magitech originates from an isolated...
I know where it's coming from ( a sort of gift from the stars in one place and a purely inventive culture in the other) I made this thread for other ideas of what kinds of items one can find/make
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Hi I'm Doc said I use the s*%+ out of magitech stuff. I came to the game from Eberron, love Spelljammer, and run a home game that runs pretty heavily into dungeonpunk.
Currently one of my favorite new magitech options is the lost tech system from kobold's Sunken Empires supplement. I've really ran off with that one in my homebrew.
In my homebrew magitech is primarily the purview of the gnomes who have the culture and temperament to build and experiment with the stuff without blowing themselves apart. That being said other races do fiddle with and buy these devices. Goblins and kobolds on the surface use them too but with different goals. Kobolds usually use magitech for traps or sneakier items. Meanwhile goblins make more unstable devices and have a bad habit of getting high huffing chem smoke and runoff so end up pretty nuts.
Elemental binding is mostly based off of the items from Eberron
Um, okay, then what's this thread for?
I love Magitech. Thanks for the thread. I could have sworn I had more ideas, but what I was able to find were my notes on Magitech firearms. One idea is the alchemical and/or enchanted bullet; no gunpowder just a magical propellant Another idea is more of a railgun. There is a shock charge that goes off when the trigger is pulled. There are magnets or a magical similarity lining the barrel.
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I have a campaign setting where dwarves have built impossibly large simple machines (an elevator the size of several city blocks, massive cannons with revolver barrels, huge adamantine war ships propelled by a wheel at the back, etc.). I always explain it by saying that many of the complex working parts of these devices are actually handled by simple golems of various sizes and strengths that are only designed to do one or two things (such as turn a massive wheel one way or another based on which way someone pulls a lever, or release gunpowder from a hopper when another golem rotates the revolver wheel).
More and more complex devices are just handled by more and more very simple golems.
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I have a campaign setting where dwarves have built impossibly large simple machines (an elevator the size of sever city blocks, massive cannons with revolver barrels, huge adamantine war ships propelled by a wheel at the back, etc.). I always explain it by saying that many of the complex working parts of these devices are actually handled by simple golems of various sizes and strengths that are only designed to do one or two things (such as turn a massive wheel one way or another based on which way someone pulls a lever, or release gunpowder from a hopper when another golem rotates the revolver wheel).
More and more complex devices are just handled by more and more very simple golems.
that would work nicely. Thank you!
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Hi I'm Doc said I use the s~%~ out of magitech stuff. I came to the game from Eberron, love Spelljammer, and run a home game that runs pretty heavily into dungeonpunk.
Currently one of my favorite new magitech options is the lost tech system from kobold's Sunken Empires supplement. I've really ran off with that one in my homebrew.
In my homebrew magitech is primarily the purview of the gnomes who have the culture and temperament to build and experiment with the stuff without blowing themselves apart. That being said other races do fiddle with and buy these devices. Goblins and kobolds on the surface use them too but with different goals. Kobolds usually use magitech for traps or sneakier items. Meanwhile goblins make more unstable devices and have a bad habit of getting high huffing chem smoke and runoff so end up pretty nuts.
could you give a link/PDF for those lost technology items doc? Preferably free
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Kyslite from the World creation by population vote has also got me intrigued, just not how they're using it
could you give a link/PDF for those lost technology items doc? Preferably free
This is it on Paizo's site. It's $9.99 PDF, $18.99 Print, or $19.99 for both.
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Necrotech!
Land vehicles propelled by zombies enclosed in the wheels (hamster style).
Hollowed out armored zombie giants act as power armor.
Flying skeletal roc airships bombarding cities with ghouls.
Items that consume trapped human souls to create magic attacks or defenses.
Necrotech!
Land vehicles propelled by zombies enclosed in the wheels (hamster style).
Hollowed out armored zombie giants act as power armor.
Flying skeletal roc airships bombarding cities with ghouls.
Items that consume trapped human souls to create magic attacks or defenses.
This reminds me of the pocket dimension quantum computer powered by zombies. You just need a pocket dimension where time moves way way faster than in reality and then you need a TON of undead. Give each zombie and order to point in a certain direction when he sees certain zombies point in certain directions (up, down, spin, etc.). This approximates quantum entanglement. As your undead army and pocket dimension grows, you have an ever-more powerful quantum computer.
I think I saw the zombie computer idea on /tg/. The quantum computer expansion is my own design.
It works in sort of the same way that normal computing does but each "node" (which would be a circuit in a normal computer) has--if I recall--8 different states to the normal computer's 2. I am not entirely brushed up on my computer science but that is good.
I like the arcane science in Fallout Equestria. Spell matrices that are like computers but can crash and must be reset by connecting to another active spell matrix.
They also have soul containers which by infusing a soul makes them nearly indestructable.
I do something similar but I use illusion spells as the interface, so the interface is like a hologram but looks good, can be seen, felt, heard, smelt etc.
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Cr500cricket
I dont know what exactly his nanomachines are different, but the nanomachines I know of basically are just advanced technology that can do effects with the appearance of magic.
Scrapped Princess is a good example. They dont explicitly say that is how the magic works, but they do imply that from what is seen in the later episodes.
What if magitechnology relied on animated or intelligent items?
You mean like a robot or a computer?
:)
My setting is a loosely Victorian/steampunk (probably more like ether/manapunk) so a lot of it runs on this stuff. It borrows a lot from Etherscope (a good buy for inspiration, even if it is for D20 modern).
Basically my setting runs on a mishmash of outdated physics theories. Of particular importance is the theory of ether/aether:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_%28disambiguation%29
Basically this invisible, intangible substance that nonetheless permeates physical reality in invisible layers like an onion. In this setting it's the thing that allows light to travel through the empty void of space. The settings scientific minds understand "magic" as the tapping into this force. The use of ether-force is something that clearly works on logical principles (i.e. game rules) and can be turned into technology (magic item creation).
With this understanding of what previous generations called "magic", the existence of the truly supernatural is scoffed at. (Basically setting things up for a low magic flavor world without necessarily changing the level of magic.) The setting is cut off from the traditional D&D planes thanks to the layers of Ether that surround it. However, the existence of the ether allows an "ethernet" grid that functions like an internet but allows for actual travel into the ether grid (ethereal plane) if so desired. Besides public ethereal highways, there are also private Ether Nodes that are owned by private interests and shaped to whim of whom ever the Domain Masters happen to be. In effect, these Ether Nodes are what other settings call demiplanes.
What if magitechnology relied on animated or intelligent items?made me think again … Cybermen
Probably more like Futurama, where every appliance has its own artificial intelligence.
"Is there anything in the future that isn't a robot?"
"I'm not a robot!" Replied a table lamp.
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could you give a link/PDF for those lost technology items doc? Preferably freeHi I'm Doc said I use the s~%~ out of magitech stuff. I came to the game from Eberron, love Spelljammer, and run a home game that runs pretty heavily into dungeonpunk.
Currently one of my favorite new magitech options is the lost tech system from kobold's Sunken Empires supplement. I've really ran off with that one in my homebrew.
In my homebrew magitech is primarily the purview of the gnomes who have the culture and temperament to build and experiment with the stuff without blowing themselves apart. That being said other races do fiddle with and buy these devices. Goblins and kobolds on the surface use them too but with different goals. Kobolds usually use magitech for traps or sneakier items. Meanwhile goblins make more unstable devices and have a bad habit of getting high huffing chem smoke and runoff so end up pretty nuts.
Not free but not that pricey. Sunken Empires is what you're looking for. Also it has railguns. Other good one is expanded gunslinger from kobold. That one gives you the railgunner archetype.
Mostly modifications to existing magic items; similar in some aspects to the Red Redoubt in Dungeons of Golarion. For example:
Gearwork armor
The wearer of this +3 grinding darkleaf cloth studded leather can gain the effect of righteous might for 10 rounds once per day, except the wearer gains DR 5/adamantine instead of DR/evil or DR/good. Visually, this armor is covered ("studded") with various gears and moving parts, similar to an exoskeleton; when using the righteous might effect, the armor effectively "transforms" into a larger suit with the wearer still inside.
Market Price 43,775 gp
The rules for Building and Modifying Constructs in Ultimate Magic are also a decent starting point, especially when using clockwork constructs (or more advanced construct types), shield guardians, and the construct armor/construct limb modifications. I've written on this subject in the past.
Other "stock" magic items like animate staff, engineer's workgloves, and traveler's any-tool can also be used as inspiration.