[Wyvern]

Originally posted by BlackJaw
"crossovers between environments"... so we should also have atmosphere to vacuume rules? does that work (it isn't exactly a border line between the two... not like water to air is)

Well, when I mentioned crossovers between environments, I wasn't specifically referring to borders between them. I just mean that the rules should be designed to allow a player to figure out whether his airplane will operate in vacuum, or his spaceship will work underwater, etc., and if not, what happens to it. Also what happens when you take your vessel to a cosmos with a different magic or tech level.

However, as far as boundary lines go, you're right: under normal circumstances the border between atmosphere and vacuum would not be a distinct line. Even if you had force fields holding in the air somehow, they wouldn't interfere with your vision, so you don't have cover bonuses like you do with fluid-air or fluid-vacuum interfaces. The rule about water boundaries giving a cover bonus is not my idea, it came straight from an issue of Dragon. (Only problem is, I don't have that issue, and I'm not sure whether I got the numbers right.)

So do we assing a bunch of tech rattings to a vehicle, or are we expected to keep tech rattings for every device/component on a vehicle. I've been making vehicle rules so that you add all the components togeather to get final stats, much like adding gear and levels to a character. If a series of sub-tech and sub-magic levels for a dozen or more items is needed, and skill checks are needed on all of them from time to time, then we got an overly clunky system. I suspect what we need to do here is strip it down. An individual vehicle should have tech rattings for itself, and maybe each weapon gets its own tech/magic ratting.

The method I had in mind was simply to take the highest tech and magic levels for all components of a vehicle and let those be the overall levels for the vehicle. Each vehicle stat block should still have a complete listing of components, so that you can look them up to see what kinds of tech or magic are used, and figure out which specific components fail if you enter a cosmos with an insufficient tech or magic level.

My problem with your "caster level" system is that
1) not all magic spells have a spicific caster level. some spells have more then one caster level.

I don't get what you mean. Could you give me an example? If you're simply referring to the fact that most spell effects scale in one way or another by caster level, I know this; that was the whole point of including the caster level penalty.

Thus I asked, if an effective caster level is reduced to 0 or bellow, then the spell doesn't work... if that is the case, then a -1 penalty to caster level means level 1 wizards/etc can't cast anything.

I've already acknowledged that this is a problem, and I'll let you know when I come up with a solution. I may just add a clause stating that this is an exception to the minimum caster level rule.

Also there are a few rare spells in the PHB that don't really use the caster level for anything (other then say Save DCs) Generaly they either work, or don't. I think Harm and disintegrate are like that.

I checked and you're right about Harm. The range of Disintegrate is determined by caster level. Anyway, I don't see this as a problem.

IDEA: What if we increase the casting atribute requirment for spells? normaly you have to have INT 10 + spell level to cast a wizard spell, CHA for bards and sorcs, WIS for most divine casters, etc. We could increase this ratting as magic levels go down, so 10 + spell level + 1 in tech 8 (or what ever)....

That's a brilliant idea. I think I'll still require some kind of check (maybe a caster level check instead of a Spellcraft check) to cast spells higher than the magic potential, but your idea will work fine for spells lower than the potential. I might also lower the save DC's correspondingly to further increase the uncertainty of magic. (After all, even at 1st level it's rare to find a spellcasting PC without a score of at least 16 in their key stat, so they still wouldn't be affected in a cosmos with a mid-level magic potential.)

My confusion over the Anti-Magic and Anti-Tech chapter is that you placed both the information on anti-magic/tech and the information on civilizations that are just bellow the potential tech ratting in the same place. It was confusing because the two don't seem directly connected. I'd make those two seperate paragraphs:

Okay, I can do that.

You may also want to considering changing from "null-tech/magic" to some other term, and null would seem to indicate "magic or tech is nullified" which means the same as anti-magic or anti-tech. No other term jumps to mind off-hand I'm afraid.

I can't think of a good one off-hand either, but if I do I'll change it.

The more I think about gravity the less I like the system of using gravity levels instead of just assigning gravity "rattings" much like wind. (page 87 DMG) off the top of my head:
"None*, minor, light, standard, strong, severe, Crushing*" Less math, more modifiers is generaly the way to go.

Point taken. I'll see what I can come up with.

We might be able to get away with have this temperature section smaller. Just the bit about offsetting the base temperature and the table(s)?

Hmmm... which part are you suggesting I cut out? If you mean the detailed description of effects at different levels, I think we need that, because I didn't put *everything* in the table. It doesn't list the save DCs, for example, nor does it mention the check to avoid falling unconscious at intolerable temperature levels.

OGC/D20 compliance...
yah we might want to change refrences to "core book" and the like as you mentioned.

The thing is, I don't *want* to unless I have to. "Core rulebook II" and so on just sound awkward to me; I'd much rather be able to write "DMG". Besides which, I've already done it that way and would rather not have to change it. I think this is a call that Darrin should make, since he's the one who's going to be "publishing" the finished product.

Anyhow, with luck I'll have time this weekend to incorporate the changes you suggested, and also finish updating the character creation chapter. Thanks for your feedback!

Wyvern