Dark Jezter said:
r example, creating something like Artificial Intelligence or a machine programmed to hunt down and destroy a particular individual would require a check of 100!
That's true as far as it goes...
So unless you're an epic-level tinker, don't plan on building much more than vehicles or siege engines.
... but you're missing something. The Task DC is
not the Item Creation DC. The Task DC is a number representing the general difficulty of accomplishing the task you want the item to do, and it's only used to define the market value of the item. If you check p. 139, you'll see that the item creation DC is always equal to 15 + the item's highest Technology Score. (I'll get into what that is in a moment.)
That said, true artificial intelligence is very difficult. We haven't exactly mastered it in the real world, and it's not something you really see running around in Warcraft. What's throwing you is that we don't present the difficulty of that task as a Skill DC to create the item. Instead, we use the Task DC 100 to make an attempt to create artificial intelligence so hideously expensive that it can only be done as a massive national research project.
However, true artificial intelligence means a thing that can think for itself, and you don't necessarily need that to have a mechanical man. Mechanical men
can be built by individual inventors, and they can actually do a fair bit without being "intelligent".
For example... let's say I'm Dr. Frank N. Furter, and I want to create a handsome sex toy named Rocky. I don't need him to think -- in fact, I probably don't
want him to think. So instead of doing something difficult like creating artificial intelligence, I define his primary task as "gratify my every sexual fantasy." That's a complex job -- I have lots of fantasies! -- and the system definitely needs to be responsive. But he doesn't have to be creative (all the responses are programmed in), so this is a "complex responsive system". That's only DC 30.
To cover everything else, I can define a secondary task, "walk around looking good in gold briefs". Again, that's kind of complex, since he's got to go different places and occasionally grunt in puzzlement. But it's a repetitive chore -- walking is walking. That's only DC 15.
Again, keep in mind that these are not item creation DCs. They're just helping us figure the market value. This is actually the second step in the process, so let's go back to Step 1, which defines how much technological know-how we're going to need to make our man.
To define a Technological Score for the item, we decide how much it can do. Rock has to be strong (maximum cargo capacity of maybe 400 lbs, and does maybe 3d6 of damage if he hits somebody), he has to be durable (25 hit points should do), and he has to be hard (Hardness 5 is hard enough, I think). The highest of these capabilities requires a Techniology Score 5, which is particularly nice, because it gives him an effective strength around 20.
(Rock's secondary task also has a technology score. It doesn't have to be very high, though, since he doesn't have to do very much. I'm going to call it TS 2 so he gets a bit of a Charisma bonus out of "looking good".)
The Item Creation DC is 15 + the item's Technology Score, so making Rock is only going to be DC 20. A 4th-level tinker can build Rock, even without any feats to help him.
Let's move on to the next step and set Rock's market value. Rock's always ready for action, which means his Time Factor is 1. (Slower stuff is cheaper to make, but we don't want Rock acting every other turn or similar silliness.) He doesn't require a skill roll to operate, and he doesn't really malfunction per se, so his Malfunction rating is 0. Again, this is an area where we could get a price break, but it's not appropriate to the item.
Once we've determined this, we run the Technology Score, the Task DC, the Time Factor, and a Malfunction Rating through a handy-dandy formula that good men died to define. Rock's market value works out to 4,350 gp. As mentioned before, his Item Creation DC is 20.
From there, you just use the normal Craft rules. Assuming Dr. Frank'N'Furter has around +10 in Craft (technical devices) -- which is pretty certain for a 4th-level tinker, then he can just take 10 all the way and be done in 11 weeks. That may not be as spiffy as getting the job done in seven days (seven NIGHTS!) but Dr. Frank'N'Furter can most
definitely make you a man...
cheers,
