I am working through a possible book on clockwork magic for d20 3E; i.e. clockwork people, making the DaVinci design for the "turtle" and "aerial screw" work, etc. If you had a wish list - or fears - for such a book, what would they be?
So far there are 10 sections/chapters.
01. Introduction.
02. Clockwork in Context - This helps give some background for the clockwork stuff - Guilds that support it, religious orders that oppose it, how to fit in all in a campeign world, etc.
03. Prestige Classes - Two prestige classes - one for clerics devoted to a machine god, the other for mages focusing on machine spells.
04. New Spells - 30 or so new spells devoted to machines and metal, like a spell to turn metal clear and a spell to cause damage to a something with moving parts, etc.
05. Creating Devices - This covers the actual designing and building of fantastic machines.
06. Karakuri - This cover living machines - called karakuri, to borrow an anime term - both outsiders (not modrons) and ones built by a mage. This also includes clockwork familiars.
07. Items - Over 70 different items; like the aerial screw design by DaVinci, the flying ship by the same, matchlock and flintlock guns, and so on. It also includes 20 different materials; steel, iron, mithral, phosphorous, etc.
08. For the DM - How to make it work and keep the game under control.
09. Appendix I - Suggestions on adventures, some wild items that really do not belong in section 07, some NPC.
10. Character sheets and rules summaries.
Followers of nature gods and traditional mages dislike people who use clockwork. It is possible for a player to; have a clockwork familiar; build something really wild; and run a karakuri character.
The lack of steam-power is a balancing issue more than anything else.
There are already; telescopes that you can fire spells through to increase the range and damage; barometers that add in weather control magic; clockwork/robotic praying mantis the size of a man made of a steel-cobalt alloy and mithral blades that slice-and-dice real well; goggles that leave thieves see through metal to look at the gears of a lock as they work to open it; terminator-like karakuri and a clockwork head-of-Vecna thing from another timeline.
Making sure these have to be rewound and that they can wind down quickly and easily keeps the "mechamancer" from making everyone else in a game - PC and NPC - their total b*t*h.
So far there are 10 sections/chapters.
01. Introduction.
02. Clockwork in Context - This helps give some background for the clockwork stuff - Guilds that support it, religious orders that oppose it, how to fit in all in a campeign world, etc.
03. Prestige Classes - Two prestige classes - one for clerics devoted to a machine god, the other for mages focusing on machine spells.
04. New Spells - 30 or so new spells devoted to machines and metal, like a spell to turn metal clear and a spell to cause damage to a something with moving parts, etc.
05. Creating Devices - This covers the actual designing and building of fantastic machines.
06. Karakuri - This cover living machines - called karakuri, to borrow an anime term - both outsiders (not modrons) and ones built by a mage. This also includes clockwork familiars.
07. Items - Over 70 different items; like the aerial screw design by DaVinci, the flying ship by the same, matchlock and flintlock guns, and so on. It also includes 20 different materials; steel, iron, mithral, phosphorous, etc.
08. For the DM - How to make it work and keep the game under control.
09. Appendix I - Suggestions on adventures, some wild items that really do not belong in section 07, some NPC.
10. Character sheets and rules summaries.
Followers of nature gods and traditional mages dislike people who use clockwork. It is possible for a player to; have a clockwork familiar; build something really wild; and run a karakuri character.
The lack of steam-power is a balancing issue more than anything else.
There are already; telescopes that you can fire spells through to increase the range and damage; barometers that add in weather control magic; clockwork/robotic praying mantis the size of a man made of a steel-cobalt alloy and mithral blades that slice-and-dice real well; goggles that leave thieves see through metal to look at the gears of a lock as they work to open it; terminator-like karakuri and a clockwork head-of-Vecna thing from another timeline.
Making sure these have to be rewound and that they can wind down quickly and easily keeps the "mechamancer" from making everyone else in a game - PC and NPC - their total b*t*h.
