You convinced me about the "submersion" rules. Ether-space is a cool idea.
"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)
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Ok, so the magic and tech "sub" catigories lets you set a cosmos alteration much like a Plane has settings spicific to to a type of magic... so one cosmos might only let necromancey work effectively while in another chemical tech is higher then ohters.
cool.
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 vehicle's tech ratting would probalby be from its engines &/or power system.
Now weapons and defensive systems also have their own mini-stats, much like a weapon or sheild in normal D&D have their own AC, hitpoints, and can be attacked seperatly from their owner. We could therefore also give weapons and defensive systems their own tech/magic rattings.
Now this means a vehicle might have 5-6 tech and magic rattings, and each weapon maybe 2 rattings (often a magic and a tech ratting combined)...
Is this TOO clunky? Should we limit everything to a primary tech/magic rattings? IE: ignore the mild electronics ratting and engineering ratting on chemical rockets and just call it "chemical 5?" Thus every vehicle has its highest ratting, and each weapon its ratting. That would have worked fine with tech and magic as generic, but with sub-sets its gets more compicated.
Also, this sub-set system makes you cosmos ratting system more complicated to work with. now we have half a dozen tech and half a dozen magic rattings to compare and use skill checks on.
we might want to just use simple Magic and Tech.
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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.
2) there are effects in the game that increase the effectivel caster level of a spell, like cleric domains, and this only applys to "caster level dependant" parts of the spell, often the amount of damage dice rolled, or duration. Now when you say the caster level for the spell is lowered, I figured what you ment was you lower this effective caster level. thus the fireball can still be cast, but it does less damage. (your clarification indicated that what you ment is that if your caster level is bellow the required for that spell it can't be cast, not just weakened. I get it now)
Latter you outlaw spells above the magic level, so thus more powerful spells don't work (there just isn't enough magic in the cosmos) and all other spells do less. 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.
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.
This is counter-intuitive; either a low magic potential should affect novice casters *more* than the powerful ones, or it should affect them all equally. If you can think of a mechanic that allows this besides the one I've got, I'll be glad to consider it.
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). Characters tend to increase their caster dependant trait as they level up, so characters start to lose their higher level spells, but it is still dependant on their own power, not the spell's level. A low level character migh lose his 2nd or 1st levels spells, while a high level character would probably only lose his 9th and 8th level spells.
Especialy powerful characters could still cast normaly in some cosmoses (a simple 1 point increase won't bother an mid level elf with an INT of 20, a powerful mage) but more opressive cosmoses would have to deal with 5 point increases and even the most powerful characters would start to lose spells while weaker characters would be almost helpless. combine that system with the spellcraft check system, and the spell level restrictions in non-flexible cosmoses).
anyway, I'm thinking this whole system either needs a cleaner rewrite or more thought. If I got mixed up, other people would get mixed up too.
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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:
Antimagic and Antitech
Even in a cosmos with a magic potential of 0, people can still cast 0-level spells, and even in a cosmos with a tech potential of 0, rudimentary tool-making is possible. However, in some cosmoses (or in certain areas within a cosmos), either magic or technology is simply not possible. Such places are called "antimagic" or "antitech" zones. The standard notation used by multiversal travelers to indicate a non-existent potential or achievement level is -1. Antimagic potential is almost aways rigid, whereas antitech potential may be either rigid or flexible. Antimagic zones are fairly common in some multiverses, and null-magic locations even more so.
Null-magic and Null-tech
Places where magic or technology is possible, but the inhabitants haven't yet discovered the capacity for it, are referred to as "null-magic" or "null-tech". Null-tech zones are usually found on worlds where sentient life has only recently appeared.
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.
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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.
You can still say that Orcs (say the black hand clan, native to planet with higher gravity) are native to "severe" gravity and use rules for offsetting rules one way or the other. its just feels more d20 to use terms then a numberical/decimal gravity rattings.
just an idea to clean it up.
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Having just re-read the DMG again, I see the DMG mentions using magic to protect againts high heat or cold (endure elements is mentioned etc.) Your rules are, as they say, just a system of offsetting the rules for creatures with difrent native enviroments.
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)?
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Your right about all the suffocation information being in the DMG. I don't know what I was thinking in my past post.
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OGC/D20 compliance...
yah we might want to change refrences to "core book" and the like as you mentioned.
