D20 System steamtech

[woodelf]

so, in another thread, someone says:

Dustin,
Im curious, it seems there are a lot of steamtech supplements out there. Are you guys going to do your own thing or see if you can't borrow someone elses rules? I mean the list is long:

There is Iron Kingdoms, Sorcery and Steam (FFG), Steam and Steel (ENP), and a few others...

Which reminded me of a question i've been meaning to ask for a bit: what are the pros and cons of the various steamtech D20 System rule supplements out there? Steam and Steel is news to me, so we've got at least:

Steam and Steel
Sorcery and Steam
Iron Kingdoms
Dragonmech
OGL Steampunk
[upcoming Blackmoor supplement]
anything else?

Anybody care to compare and contrast? I'm wondering about three general areas:
Best steamtech rules
Best other crunchy bits
Best integration of it all/Best setting

Why should i buy one of those over the others?

 

[jester47]

so, in another thread, someone says:

Which reminded me of a question i've been meaning to ask for a bit: what are the pros and cons of the various steamtech D20 System rule supplements out there? Steam and Steel is news to me, so we've got at least:

Steam and Steel
Sorcery and Steam
Iron Kingdoms
Dragonmech
OGL Steampunk
[upcoming Blackmoor supplement]
anything else?

Anybody care to compare and contrast? I'm wondering about three general areas:
Best steamtech rules
Best other crunchy bits
Best integration of it all/Best setting

Why should i buy one of those over the others?

I have developed similar questions also.

A.

 

[haiiro]

Best steamtech rules
Best other crunchy bits
Best integration of it all/Best setting

I can't compare, but how about a comment or two?

I bought DragonMech on a whim, not expecting much out of it, and found it to be brilliant.

The steamtech rules don't take center stage -- the mech rules do, which is the right approach. That said, the steamtech rules are good, and they do just enough for the game (and are cleverly expandable). It's not a steamtech game per se: there are steam devices, and some mechs use steam, but the atmosphere is totally different from a steampunk game. I'd sum it up as a fantasy western with mechs, and even though that sounds silly Goodman makes it work.

As for other crunchy bits, the mech rules are damn near perfect. They're solid, fun and fairly simple, and they fit the setting beautifully.

As for integration, again I think DragonMech does one of the best jobs of this I've ever seen. There isn't a rule in the core book that doesn't enhance the setting, and vice versa. Things are over the top sometimes, but there's an underlying logic that makes it believeable -- it works well.

Seriously: go buy this book. It's very good.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I can only speak to Iron Kingdoms as I have not had the time to purchase and read the other ones out there (however, since the topic really interests me it is not because I am disinterested).

The Iron Kingdoms is a whole setting that makes use of the steam technology. Therefore, the world and setting is actually supported by a whole line of goodies - gods, monsters, classes, etc. I am not sure where the others are so elaborate.

 

[Samurai]

You can add the Quitessential Gnome from Mongoose to the list of books with Steamtech rules.

All of them are at least pretty good... I own Quint Gnome, Dragonmech, OGL Steampunk, Iron Kingdoms, and Sorcery and Steam.

I like the OGL Steampunk rules for adding a wide variety of special features and flaws to steamtech items, and I would say it's the single best book on the Steampunk genre right now. Very versatile item creation rules. I also like the way they do classes, the revised magic rules, etc... great book overall, though there is no specific setting described in the book. Grade: A

Dragonmech has a very interesting setting, probably the most unique and most "punk" of any here. Item rules focus mostly on Mechs and Mech items, but has rules for other items as well (which are built using a list of about 40 "Steam Powers"). A fun read and full of ideas. Grade: A

Iron Kingdoms is a great setting and the Character Guide is well worth getting. More traditional style than Dragonmech, but just as cool. The item-creation rules are more focused on small items, not vehicles and weapons, and builds them like magic items. Less freeform and versatile than OGL. Grade: A overall, but A- for Steamtech rules

Sorcery and Steam is pretty good. It has a variety of prestige classes, advice on creating a steampunk setting, and a number of gadgets. Nothing very groundbreaking, though. Grade: B

Quint Gnome didn't focus entirely on steamtech rules, but they do take up about 30 pages of the book altogether. It's a fairly versatile system. B- overall, but B for Steamtech rules

 

[woodelf]

You can add the Quitessential Gnome from Mongoose to the list of books with Steamtech rules.

All of them are at least pretty good... I own Quint Gnome, Dragonmech, OGL Steampunk, Iron Kingdoms, and Sorcery and Steam.

I like the OGL Steampunk rules for adding a wide variety of special features and flaws to steamtech items, and I would say it's the single best book on the Steampunk genre right now. Very versatile item creation rules. I also like the way they do classes, the revised magic rules, etc... great book overall, though there is no specific setting described in the book. Grade: A

Dragonmech has a very interesting setting, probably the most unique and most "punk" of any here. Item rules focus mostly on Mechs and Mech items, but has rules for other items as well (which are built using a list of about 40 "Steam Powers"). A fun read and full of ideas. Grade: A

Iron Kingdoms is a great setting and the Character Guide is well worth getting. More traditional style than Dragonmech, but just as cool. The item-creation rules are more focused on small items, not vehicles and weapons, and builds them like magic items. Less freeform and versatile than OGL. Grade: A overall, but A- for Steamtech rules

Sorcery and Steam is pretty good. It has a variety of prestige classes, advice on creating a steampunk setting, and a number of gadgets. Nothing very groundbreaking, though. Grade: B

Quint Gnome didn't focus entirely on steamtech rules, but they do take up about 30 pages of the book altogether. It's a fairly versatile system. B- overall, but B for Steamtech rules

Well, i don't need to be sold on Dragonmech--it's already the one that caught my eye the most, so, if anything, i need to be unsold on it. So, in a certain sense, it's my baseline, and i want to know what the others have that it doesn't. And that could include the tech rules--i saw enough of Dragonmech that i'm pretty confident i'll like it even if that particular bit turns out to be so-so.

Anyway, it sounds like you're saying that Sorcery and Steam is, compared to the others, not worth bothering with--it was just first. And Quintessential Gnome also doesn't have as good of a tech system as the newer ones, plus it's got a whole bunch of stuff i'm not particularly looking for (gnomes, PrC, etc.) So i can safely ignore those and concentrate on the others.

You say that you think the steamtech rules are best in OGL Steampunk--can you quantify how they are different from those in Iron Kingdoms? Or, for that matter, what they have that Dragonmech doesn't (by virtue of "only" dealing with the mechs)?

Here're my initial impressions--i don't know how accurate they are, however, so feel free to disabuse me of my preconceptions:

OGL Steampunk: crunchiest of the lot. Maybe too crunchy. Made my eyes glaze over when i got to the steamtech chapter. Though, in fairness, a lot of that could be the dreadful layout and typeface choices, rather than the content per se. Setting, in addition to being fairly thin wrapper for the new mechanics, seemed to be fairly unrelated to the preconceptions that jump to mind when someone says "steampunk". I expected something more like Castle Falkenstein, or maybe steamtech+Renaissance (sort of how Planescape was always drawn), rather than, as it appears, a mixture of Victorian and pulp adventure and anthropomorphic animals and Gothic horror. Not that these are bad things, just not what i expected. Magic looked pretty good, but the classes left me cold. Oh, i do like the way they did races, with, essentially, points that you spend to have a special race. Sort of half way between having to spend a feat, and getting them for free, and allows them not to be all perfectly balanced in and of themselves, so you can have reasons other than just flavor to pick one. However, while the mechanics (all that i looked at) seemed sound, they also seemed flavorless--much like the problem i have with the D&D3E books.

Iron Kingdoms: didn't look much at the steamtech stuff. Sounds like it's about the tech level/setting style i'm looking for (i.e., da Vinci-esque, rather than Verne-esque). Gorgeous book. But it's a whole setting, not just some new rules. So, how do those other bits of setting and rules stand up? What's it do with magic? I noticed some stuff about "tenets" or "moral imperitives" for priests--do those have a mechanical impact, or just RPing? How do the new classes compare to the old ones? Are they equally generic-except-not-quite-because-of-unusual-choices-of-what-to-tie-together, or are they either more generic, or more role-specific? How easily are the various bits grabbed out for other settings? Or do the magic/classes/gods/tech all kinda tie together? Hell, i guess i maybe just need an Iron Kingdoms primer.

Dragonmech: Woah! This is tech-centric. I think what really caught my eye was when i noticed some mention of citymechs. Cool! Seriously, i don't remember now, but i seem to remember the setting did something interesting with magic? And some interesting class variants. I suspect this is the least portable of the three, with much of the stuff being pretty specific to its setting ,which is pretty out-there compared to most fantasy settings. Mech rangers (or whatever they're called), frex.

 

[haiiro]

I suspect this is the least portable of the three, with much of the stuff being pretty specific to its setting ,which is pretty out-there compared to most fantasy settings. Mech rangers (or whatever they're called), frex.

I'd say DragonMech's steam tech rules (the steam powers mentioned above) are completely portable -- there's no real tie to the setting, although they do meld with it nicely.

The stuff related to mechs will obviously be less portable, although the book gives some good suggestions on introducing mechs into your non-DragonMech campaign. Depending on what spin you want to put on things, there's no reason you couldn't integrate mechs into a more "general" steampunk setting.

In Highpoint (the DM setting), mechs were created because of the lunar rain: a nightly meteor shower that, over the past 100 years, has reduced nearly all surface dwellings to rubble. With their thick armor, mechs can survive average lunar rainfall just fine, and the city mechs (which rock!) can even handle the bigger stuff.

If you skipped that cool justification for mechs, they're still usable. Heck, city-sized war machines will change any setting in interesting ways.

 

[Conaill]

How about not-specifically-steam tech? Which books do you feel have the best clockworks or tinkering rules? And which ones require magic vs. purely (fantasy-)mechanical contraptions?

 

[Psion]

Sorcery and Steam has a wonderfully imaginative introductory campaign/idea chapter... but the steam mechanics are weak. The steamtech itself is decent, but the mechanics to make the steamtech is weak.

Chaositech has decent mechancis for the tech itself, and decent mechanics for characters, but the creation guidelines are entirely too punishing. You could never make much Chaositech with those rules. Fortunately, this is not a difficult fix, as the main thing to fix is to apply a multiplier to the rate of production.

Steam & Steel is probably the most flexible, not pidgeonholing you into one concept of steamtech.

Dragonmech is also decent, and provides multiple mech creation methods. The character creation rules are good, but I do worry that steam power might seem weak compared to magic at high levels from a cursory analysis.