)3.5( Races' Tech Levels

[Deth Muncher]

So, how advanced do you make your races? I mean, obviously, if you're playing a low tech campaign, no one is going to have flying robot lazors, but I mean, which races do you generally have as advanced? Or, to further this, how do you see different races interacting with tech?

I kinda see it like this:
-Humans wouldn't be the first to invent tech, by any means, but they'd surely invent new ways to use it. They take other peoples' ideas, reshape them in a human image, and go forth.
-Elves I see as pretty much shunning technology altogether, due to its ineloquence. They'd stick to purely magic.
-Dwarves would be pretty tech-heavy, and likely the first to discover any new cool kinds of machines. Apparently, I am not the only one to think this, as this is apparently the basis for Dragonmech.
-Gnomes, thanks to WoW, are known as tinkerers. I, however, see them as a halfway between Elves and Dwarves, infusing mech with magic.
-Orks I kinda see like in WH40k, where they just kinda slam everything together, and their assumed latent psychic abilities make it work.
-Halflings...uh. Hm.

[Yar]

I would say thanks to dragon lance gnomes are known for tech. Plus i seem to recall there being a gnomish inventor PRC someplace. Forgotten realms I believe.

But to answer your question I can See kobolds inventing some tech stuff seeing as how they are good with traps its not such a stretch to conceive them making better Tech stuff.

[stenver]

IF you are using the stereotypical races and nothing new and interesting, then YES you scored! Bullseye. You didnt go wrong on one word

[Jayabalard]

-Gnomes, thanks to WoW, are known as tinkerers. I, however, see them as a halfway between Elves and Dwarves, infusing mech with magic.Gnomes as tinkerers is something warcraft borrowed, not something they came up with.

[Deth Muncher]

Gnomes as tinkerers is something warcraft borrowed, not something they came up with.

Orly?

This is what I get for not passing my Knowledge: Fantasy Gaming check. :/ Drat.

Oh well. But the thought about the Kobold makes me think about some of the...odder races. What about Outsiders? Surely beings on the Material plane aren't the only ones with tech, right?

[stenver]

if players travel between planes for long enough, then eventually they will come across material plane with extremely advanced technology. After that they will probably end up in an asylum.

[Fhaolan]

It varies depending on the campaign.

My standard answers for my standard campaign:

1) Humans: Default, as always.

2) Elves: Elves *used* to have a high tech level, but lost it through their own arrogance. Basically elves used to be human, and enhanced themselves through magic and tech to become what they are. This was all lost when they enhanced other creatures as well for use as slaves (creating Gnolls, Lupins, Minotaurs, Satyrs, etc.) and the slaves rebelled. Elves are now reduced to nomadic tribes with survival-level tech.

3) Gnolls: Living off of the corpse of the Elven Empire. They don't originate their magic/tech, but are very energetic about figuring out the relics left behind. The Gnoll Empire is expansionistic, much like the Roman Empire, absorbing the tech and cultural aspects from everyone they conquer.

4) Gnomes/Halflings: (I have combined the two races in this campaign world) Originally a primitive island race discovered by the expanding Gnoll Empire, and imported to be used as slaves. Clever, and willing to learn, but not starting from a high tech base.

5) Orcs: Advanced craftsmen and metalurgists, especially artistically. Yeah, that's right, they have *skills*. However, they live in resource-poor areas so they can't produce good enough, fast enough to support their over-aggressive culture becoming a serious threat.

6) Dwarves: Dwarves are the opposite of Orcs. They are resource-rich, but their tech is utillarian, stagnant, and falling behind.

7) Centaurs: Another nomadic race, but by intent rather than forced. Low-tech on average, but highly focused on wood, bone, and other materials that don't involve mining or fixed agriculture. This puts their bows, tents, etc. as the best in the world.

If you could get Orc, Dwarves, and Centaurs to actually work together in this campaign world as nations, you'd have a seriously overwhelming tech basis to work with, but 'luckily' those three races really, really, don't get along due to completely conflicitng cultural differences.

[arguskos]

My setting works as follows:
1. Humans. They don't really have much more technology than standard D&D fantasy fare, due to their religion dominating society and having branded tech as evil and heretical.
2. Elvenkind is famed for their ability to make anything and everything. They are exceptional tinkerers, so much so that they lose sight of making the damn thing WORK and not just look good.
3. Dwarves... don't have tech. Let's just leave it at that.
4. Gnomes are dead. Thank all the gods.
5. Ditto Halflings.
6. Illithids have high-level magi-tech, but their society is restrictive and hidebound, meaning their progress is slow and implementation is low. They rely on magic more than technology, simply because magic's limitations are known and technology's aren't yet.
7. The as-of yet unnamed servitor race (quadrupeds of a kind, think Vuffi Ra (http://www.starwars-holonet.com/holonet/dictionnaire/photos/droid_vuffi_raa_1.jpg) but four limbs and squareish) have somewhat advanced technology, but that's because their masters have shared it, not because they're smart.
8. The goblinoid clans (goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears) and their reptilian offshoot, the kobolds, have very shamanistic cultures, and don't really have much time or inclination for technology. Goblins are pretty clever though, and sometimes a clever hobbo or gob will learn the basics from a traveling elf and get started on the path towards steam-powered technology.

[Solaris]

My setting?

Humans: Highest tech, after the myrmidons. Their religion actually encourages it (much like the real-world church did, thankyouverymuch) and we have a natural knack for invention and innovation. They're somewhere around early Industrial Revolution. Their tech is composed mainly of physics (real-world workings) and alchemy. Human wizardry is pretty low compared to some, but it's solid. Human magic-users are particularly good at crafting magic items.
Elves: Lowest tech. They hit Middle Ages and just coasted for a thousand years. Culturally, they're barely out of the Iron Age. The concept of the nation-state just doesn't occur to them. They're great with magic, but that'll only carry so far. They're better with metamagic than with magic item creation. They're just not... good. At anything, really, except looking good.
Dwarves: These guys? These guys have steam engines and do amazing things with them, to include making steam-powered clockwork robots. Their human allies used alchemy to take those a step further. Dwarves are great with mechanical stuff (a natural extension of their talent with metalworking), but magic and alchemy is just not their strong suit.
Myrmidons: A race of magic robots, basically. Their tech level is essentially at the modern age, but they don't like to share. It developed along alternative routes, incorporating a lot of magic and alchemy, but their civilization is by far the most advanced. Most magic items come from the myrmidon civilization.
Goblins: Pretty clever little runties, their tech just lags behind human.
Hobgoblins: Thanks to their (Chinese-necromantic-Japanese) culture disavowing firearms as dishonorable, they're using muzzle-loading muskets while humans are using clip-fed lever-action rifles with cartridged rounds. Their other areas are pretty advanced, and hobs are better at magic than humans are.

[kieza]

My setting, which is still under construction:

Humans have good chemistry and alchemy, which they combine from ideas imported from other races: they invented guns by taking their gunpowder, shoving it down a magically reinforced pig iron tube with a bunch of shot, and setting it off.

Dwarves come in two varieties: the traditionalists, who are good engineers but won't touch anything that their grandfathers didn't have because it isn't time-tested. They have lots of water-powered machinery in their mines, and a decent grasp of magic. The progressives, on the other hand, look at new tech, and instead of saying "hmmph. Granddad didn't need that" they say "hmmph. Granddad could have done it better." They invented the steam engine, among other things. All dwarves are also good metallurgists.

Elves could have a great tech base; they have the precision crafting techniques to make very fine parts, and they have magic that could enhance things even better, but they have a cultural aversion to tech. (A long time ago, their rulers, the Sidhe, almost destroyed the world as they knew it through arrogance and having too much power concentrated in their hands. After that, they engineered their society so that nobody could get too powerful, and as they're almost immortal, they've been able to keep it that way since. Anyways, their society doesn't have any place in it for tech.) They do have magical equivalents of most everything other races have come up with.

Halflings are mad scientists, when they can be bothered. Mostly, they buy other people's tech and learn to operate it, but when a halfling takes a shine to mechanisms, he comes up with strange, dangerous, and pragmatically effective ways of doing things. Many rapid advances in technology happened when a halfling got ahold of someone's latest tech and improved upon it.

Dragonborn (I DM 4.0) are caretakers: they had an empire with a decent tech level a while back; it fell apart, and since then, they've been carefully maintaining things that their ancestors built. They don't really understand how a lot of it works, but they can use it and keep it running. Pieces of tech are relics: carefully guarded, beautifully maintained, and utterly priceless despite the fact that other races can make things that are almost as good.

Goblins are tinkers: given a bunch of spare parts, they'll make something out of them, then duplicate it with their own capabilities. Give them something broken, and they can figure out how it was supposed to work and repair it into an approximation of its original form. Give them something that works, and they'll find a way or three to improve upon it. They don't have much tech of their own, though.

Orcs are salvagers: given a damaged machine, they can get it into half-working order. A steamjack rebuilt by orcs might have to crawl on all fours or drag its legs behind it, but it works...for a given value of working. They also slap things together fairly well: given three half-destroyed steamjacks, they can put together one that works almost as well as the originals. It won't look pretty, what with the mismatched parts, crude welds and bolt jobs, and grinding, misaligned gear train, but it can kill stuff darn well.

[bosssmiley]

To adapt the old Birthright conceit of quasi-historical tech levels:

Humans - generally medieval (varies by culture)
Dwarves - renaissance, but weirdly so
Elves - dark ages (culturally elective)
Orcs - dark ages
Halflings - medieval (wilfully agrarian)
Goblinoids - medieval
Gnolls - dark ages (mainly stolen or extorted. Lazy hyena men are lazy.)
Kobolds - dark ages
Drow & Derro - renaissance/Mad Science

Gnomes - all other races declare truce and ally long enough to eradicate the Unhallowed Ones and their godless works on sight. :smallamused:

Note that even dark ages cultures are pretty mature technologies in their own right. They're just less able to harness artificial power (windmills, waterwheels, etc.) and have less systematic theoretical knowledge than their more 'advanced' neighbours.

[Calmar]

Orly?



Ya rly! :smallwink:

Humans and Orcs might be the races that use their own inventions and those of the dwarves primarily to create new weapons of war and conquest.

Depending on the level of technology in your setting this could be either trebuchets and ballistae, or cannons and bombs, or even air ships and flame-throwing devices. :smallsmile:

[Myrmex]

Humans:
Depends on region. Everything from dirt huts to magikopolis complete with skyrail. Tend to be good at agriculture, animal husbandry, and mounted combat. Focus more on quick, daring offensive tactics, with cavalry and siege. Tend to be agrarian

Elves:
Forest dwelling dorks who are good at living in forests. Good work with organic materials (spidersilk, chitin, wood, bone, horn, antler, etc). Tend to live hunter-gatherer lives. Some elves wander like gyspies, borrowing technology (like the wheel or mechanical clock).

Dwarves:
Gunpowder, good defensive military strategies, expert metalurgists, renowned historians & brewers. Good at building.

Gnomes:
Magic & technocratic. Basically tinker gnomes.

Halflings:
Barbarians, good with riding dogs and other canids. Tend to be pastoral.

Goblins:
Shamanistic, good at growing things under ground. Very uneven levels of technology. Where they are free to expand unchecked, tend to have human or even dwarf levels of development, though most often, sacrifice innovation for production to outcompete bigger, stronger races. Often enslaved, as a race that tends towards evil, there's no paladins to liberate them.

Hobgoblins:
Militaristic. While they are too rigid in much of their society to have the sort of technological innovation of the gnomes, they know a good war machine when they see one. Have good armor & swordsmithing abilities. Extremely feudal, but have probably the best agrarian technology. About even with humans in terms of over all technology, though their historical knowledge of warfare and tactical genius are rivaled only by the dwarves. Tend towards slow, steady, inevitable offensive tactics, employing a diverse number of adopted and developed technologies, from siege crabs to golems to mercenary elephant cavalry.

Bugbears:
Assassins that serve in the higher echelons of hobgoblins & goblins. While bugbear only communities are rare, they have an extensive knowledge of poisons & anatomy. They also are a very superstitious and mystical race, with a great deal of sacred texts and holy men who contemplate these texts, high in their mountain abodes. They are masters at making strong, light, precise weapons, and building ingenious devices that allow them to infiltrate enemy strongholds.

Giants:
The stupider ones squat in ruins or dwell in conquered fortresses. Any technology they have is stolen or bought. The smarter ones tend to be barbarians that live high in the mountains or under the sea. No really special technology to speak of, though Fire Giant's connection to the Plane of Fire means they have access to the marvels of Salamanders and Efreets.

Orcs:
They know a good military technology when they see one, but beyond borrowing or looting, they are little more than violent barbarians, barely out of the stone age.

[Fishy]

Oh well. But the thought about the Kobold makes me think about some of the...odder races. What about Outsiders? Surely beings on the Material plane aren't the only ones with tech, right?

Broadly speaking, a tool is an artificial device that makes it easier to do a difficult task.

Good aligned planes are peaceful happy places of prosperity and joy. There isn't much technology because there just isn't much that's difficult to do and needs to be done. Lots of basking naked going on.

Evil aligned planes are dedicated to hurting their occupants. Why invent the crane when you can force somebody to push boulders uphill for eternity? There are lots of elaborate and eldritch devices for hurting people, and that's about it.

Chaotic planes are hard on artificial devices. When the laws for mass, gravity and friction are constantly rewriting themselves, anything that can't self-repair or exert some sort of morphic control of the plane around it pretty much crumbles to dust pretty quickly. (Incidentally, this is where horrible Daelkyr biotechnology comes from). Plus, tools are unreliable when the laws of cause and effect don't work. One day, a lever might exert force in proportion to the distance moved by the other end, and the next day it might Giant Frog. The natives get around these sorts of conundrums by Giant Frog.

In Lawful planes, there are no artificial devices. You can drop a broken clock and it will assemble and wind itself.

[Bayar]

Orly?

This is what I get for not passing my Knowledge: Fantasy Gaming check. :/ Drat.

Oh well. But the thought about the Kobold makes me think about some of the...odder races. What about Outsiders? Surely beings on the Material plane aren't the only ones with tech, right?

Star elves. They are extraplanar. I thought they came with space ships from another planet or something...

And kobolds are clever little beings. Traps mainly, but they do have those bombs in Races of the Dragon. Not to mention their portable hole trap.


I dunno why people think kobolds as shamans, since they are on par if not smarter, with humans, and work all day in their mines, improving whereever they can.

[Calmar]

Good aligned planes are peaceful happy places of prosperity and joy. There isn't much technology because there just isn't much that's difficult to do and needs to be done. Lots of basking naked going on.
Where do you get these information?
Unless you're explaining the way you handle it in your games, this doesn't make sense, regarding the way the planes are depicted in official sources. :smallconfused:

The upper planes (at least the lawful ones) are pretty much at the same technological level as the material plane.
The good-aligned planes have to defend their peace, too.



Evil aligned planes are dedicated to hurting their occupants. Why invent the crane when you can force somebody to push boulders uphill for eternity? There are lots of elaborate and eldritch devices for hurting people, and that's about it.
Baator and the Abyss produce tons of weapons and wargear to fight each other. Most of the stuff is probably completely unheard of on material worlds.
Devils and demons naturally need technology in order to gain advantage over the other.



Chaotic planes are hard on artificial devices. When the laws for mass, gravity and friction are constantly rewriting themselves, anything that can't self-repair or exert some sort of morphic control of the plane around it pretty much crumbles to dust pretty quickly. (Incidentally, this is where horrible Daelkyr biotechnology comes from). Plus, tools are unreliable when the laws of cause and effect don't work. One day, a lever might exert force in proportion to the distance moved by the other end, and the next day it might Giant Frog. The natives get around these sorts of conundrums by Giant Frog.
Aye.



In Lawful planes, there are no artificial devices. You can drop a broken clock and it will assemble and wind itself.
No. Lawful neutral Mechanus basically *is* an infinite machine...

[Fishy]

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not of his employer or any other federal agency, nor are the indicative of the fundamental nature of reality. The price of stocks may go down as well as up.

[Calmar]

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not of his employer or any other federal agency, nor are the indicative of the fundamental nature of reality. The price of stocks may go down as well as up.

Ah, ok. No offense meant. :smallsmile:

[kestrel404]

My setting (originally 4e, but it can be equally valid as 3.5) is a cross between Shadowrun and Earthdawn. Post-modern, post-apocalyptic, with the sudden appearence of magic causing humankind to spontaneously 'goblinize' into different races. A thousand years after the magical apocalypse, with most of the 'old cities' either in ruins or inhabited by monsters/undead/evil overlords, the surviving human and demi-human races are just starting to get their acts together.

Tech level: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely that race is to use or be familiar with advanced (modern) technology.

1. Humans

In "The Fall", 9 out of 10 humans turned into something non-human. The ones that were left were devestated mentally and emotionally, and the ones that were transformed were especially cruel to and angry with the ones who were 'spared'. As such, the remaining baseline human population of the world consists of either current or escaped slaves. Very few humans have any understanding of technology, as their previous captors had no wish to allow them easy access to the 'equalizing potential' that it represented. Only one or two tiny enclaves of free humans have managed to survive and hide until now, and they're exceptionally xenophobic and wary of outsiders, even the most humanlike of the demi-humans. Tech level: 2/10 or 7/10

2. 'Necropolitans'
The most common (and possibly the most diverse) 'survivor' of the Fall were those who were caught up in the plague of undead that was the herald of the spread of magic throughout the world. Roughly half of the people who died in the fall became undead (half the population died, resulting in nearly one and a half Billion undead). A third of those became some form of intelligent, sentient undead. And perhaps one in ten of those have survived to this day - resulting in a population of nearly fifty million millenia-old undead monsters who have modern day skill with and knowledge of technology, in addition to any magical ability they've picked up along the way. Even some of the supposedly 'mindless' undead have retained enough of their old habits and ability to be able to not only use, but to maintain and occasionally to replenish some common and simple technologies (like plumbing, or guns). As such, the undead have retained a significant advantage in the technologies to the living (who they often use as cattle). The only saving grace is that their 'eternal empires' are more often at war with one another than with the living nations from which they generally deman tribute (in both resources and slaves). Tech level: 2/10 (mindless) or 9/10 (intelligent)

3. The Demi-human races
The Unseelie/Winter Court and the Seelie/Summer Court made a very brief alliance during the Fall. They both decided that it would be boring if the human race died out to the zombies that were spreading like wildfire accross the world. So they went about 'enhancing' various humans, seemingly at random (though in truth it was based on individual temperment), with abilities and magic enough to fend off the grey hordes. Of course, they were (both) also planning on using these new peoples as armies against one another. The Seelie Fae created the High Elves (or Eladrin) and Wild Elves. Both races were gifted with long lives, mystic power and love of the wild. The Unseelie court were more interested in quantity to battle the rapidly expanding hordes of zombies, so they chose to make short-lived, brutish, and practical races - thus were Orcs and Goblins born. Of course, while these races were innately more 'fae-like' than normal humans, every member of these new races were initially human and thus not very willing to kill each other just because some pixie or centaur yelled at them to do so. Instead, many of them (some who were already married before their changes and others who were attracted to natural opposites) found partners among the other race and settled down to have families. The hybrids (listed below) lead to several of the other demi-human races. But through natural inclination and continual subtle influence from the two Fae courts, the four races have drifted apart from each other and developed a natural enmity (though this is more of a rivalry between the two servant races of each court, rather like that existing between seperate military branches of the same government). As for their outlook on technology, the influence of the Fae and their tendancy to 'screw up' technological workings has lead to a significantly reduced dependence of complicated technology. Below are the various races and their takes on technology:
High Elves/Eladrin - These were originally the strongly spiritual members of humanity. While there were several scientific and technological geniuses among them, they tended to run strongly in the 'theoretical' portions of their own fields and have far less practical understanding. The remainder were either strongly religious or else considdered 'hippies' and generally had even less technical expertise. As such, as a people they have abandoned all but the most esoteric and intellectual forms of technology - though the things they do hold onto are often both surprising and very useful. Also, their exceptionally long lives have allowed numerous survivors from the fall to continue living and working in their theoretical technical fields, with the additional insights offered by the arcane and divine to offer them new direcitons to explore. It is not uncommon to find a powerful eladrin wizard working on an "open source golem operating system" or "a unified theory of arcane, divine, primal and quantum power". Tech level: 2/10 (less than 1000 years old) or 10/10
Elves - These were the 'practical' and 'survivalist' people, often chosen for their drive in keeping the 'old ways' intact. In many ways, they were the ideal group for keeping technology as we know it today alive. At the same time, their practicality during a time of crisis kept them from even trying, instead reverting back to a level of technology that they could maintain while the world fell apart around them. While they strive to maintain all of the knowledge of the 21st century, they have reverted to a mid-19th century level of technology since that is all they have the resources to maintain. They have made little move to improve on the technology or techniques in the intervening centuries, aside from keeping in mind the discoveries and modern techniques which could be adapted to 19th century lifestyles. Of course, they also practice and teach both older and newer levels of technology to their children, making sure that they will be able to adapt to their environment and situation no matter what. (Those familiar with Eric Flint's 1632 series of books can think of the Elves as sterotypical Grantvillers.) And while the lives of elves are long, even the oldest of elves are at least a generation removed from those who experienced the Fall first hand. Tech level: 9/10, but with limited experience with tech beyond 1850s era.
Orcs - Originally intended as the pitiless, efficient and unstoppable heart of a vast empire, at least in the eyes of the Unseelie, the Orcs were converted from people with little or no moral qualms. Which meant that they were a race formed of corporate CEOs and cronies, politicians, and the worst kinds of lawyers and beauracrats. These individuals found themselves gifted with a inborn compulsion for expansion and an enhanced thirst for power. This, more than anything, led to the complete destruction and downfall of every government in the 21st century and guaranteed that no modern society remained until the present day. The infighting and backstabbing among orcs has become so well known as to be both cliche and comic to non-orcs. But since every member of the race is simultaneously looking out for #1 and wily enough to do so, they also tend to grab onto and not let go of any piece of old technology (or anything produced contemporarily that is of decent quality), learning with their mother's milk (generally sold to them via low-interest loan) how to use all of the most efficient and useful pieces of technology. So, while they have a very random mish-mash of tech, and produce very little of their own, they very often use what they do have to go raiding into the territories of others to acquire more, and whatever they pick up they'll either know how to use it or, more likely, their commanding officer will know, and be willing to either sell that knowledge or trade his less-useful bit of tech for the one just found. Tech level - 4/10
Goblins - Where the orcs were intended to be efficient, the goblins were intended to be numerous and dangerous. At least in this respect the Unseelie succeeded in spades. They took those people most likely to breed uncontrollably and the most prone to violence - thus creating a race composed primarily of the unsavory elements of society. While pure goblins are the most common, various sub-breeds and offshoot species of goblins have come about, and it is generally one of these 'superior specimens' that will inevitably take control over the local goblin clans (with Orcs taking this position just as often). But try as they might to unite the goblin tribes into 'nations', the quarrlesome and anarchic nature of the race generally prevents any form of unified action. Or trade. Or even much intermarriage. In fact, it's more likely that the local goblin tribes will go to war with one another than a settlement of another nearby race. This doesn't mean that they won't attack these other nearby races, but the goblins will choose to wipe out other goblins above most other kinds of enemy. This may be the only reason the race hasn't completely conquered the world. Tech level: 2/10
Dwarves - Very few scholars can agree on where the Dwarves came from. Some claim that they are half-elf and half-goblin (an idea that both the elves and the dwarves object to strongly). Others that it was a fifth race created by the true fae. Regardless, the dwarves have established themselves as a strong, resilient, and mildly xenophobic race. While they won't turn away contact with other races, dwarves do tend to be surly even towards the friendlier races, and combined with their general stubbornness and conservative views, very few other races considder dwarves, as a people, to be their allies. This doesn't mean that dwarves as individuals do not make friends outside their race. On the contrary, it is often said that a dwarven ally is preferable to any other kind, as their loyalty and heartiness will see you through many difficulties. However, their conservative views and their inherent desire to maintain tradition has prevented them from embracing advanced technologies, instead focusing on creating the 'best' forms of older items, often using what modern techniques and materials that can be adapted to the older forms, including the use of titanium alloys and lightweight ceramics and some synthetics. What they do make is of the highest quality, and as such often comes out better than a modern manufactured product. Dwarves are also the only race that still creates paved roads. Tech level: 3/10, with 6/10 for material science

This is getting very long, so in brief:
Gnomes: Eladrin - goblin hybrid, strongly magical and wily, unlikely to employ non-magical solutions. 1/10
Tieflings: Eladrin - orc hybrid (probably, may be true-fae/human), far more likely to use their sharp minds and sharper wills for recovering and enhancing lost tech. 5/10
Hobgoblins: Orc - goblin hybrid. Nasty, brutish and short tempered. Doesn't care much for tech but will use it if they have it. 3/10
Half-elves and Half-orcs: Usually and elf-orc hybrid, favoring either one or the other side of their ancestry. Sometimes a human based hybrid. Strangely, when a half-elf and a half-orc have a child, they've got a 50% chance of producing a pure human offspring even if they are both elf-orc descended themselves. Both races are considdered societal outcasts, and often find residence among a third race to avoid prejudice. Tend to weigh practicality and efficiency against a desire to conform. 5/10



4. The Draconics
With the re-appearance of magic came the dragons. Whether they were hybernating somewhere on earth or hidden among the people or reborn as a people no one knows. But what is known is that they are a wise and powerful people who can breed with the human stock and have done so to produce more recent and less populous peoples.
Dragons - They are uninterested in human technology, beyond collecting some of the more impressive examples for their hordes. 0/10
Dragonborn - Half or quarter dragons, these individuals tend to be outsiders among another people, and there are few enough of them that they have not created their own society. Rare and untrusted by any other race, they are often discriminated against. Still, their tendancy to be both likeable and powerful, as well as their inborn desire to protect the peoples they are born to has gone a long way towards keeping the Dragonborn race from being either enslaved or exterminated. While most other people will not consort openly with a Dragonborn, they will also often allow one to live among them for these reasons. Individually, Dragonborn rarely get access to technology, even in technology rich societies. Tech 2/10
Kobolds - Goblins, as prolific a species as they are, inevitably bred with dragonborn. While the dragons themselves were universally unwilling to do so, the Dragonborn are not well liked by anyone, and often lonely. Thus the kobold, a Dragonborn-Goblin hybrid. Where the Dragonborn are not well liked, the Kobold are universally despised, even (perhaps especially) amongst goblins. But they are also just as prolific as their goblin cousins and as such they breed like rabits. Despite the fact that the first Kobold was only born a scant few centuries ago, they already outnumber several other races (including Dragonborn, and even humans). They keep to themselves, maintaining a tribal structure similar to goblins, but with far less enmity between them. And thanks to their keen intellects and willingness to live in places most other races don't venture, they are also one of the few races that is steadily advancing technologicaly. They are currently undergoing something similar to the industrial revolution, finding new and interesting ways to mass produce many different useful items. 8/10, with a strong emphasis on mass-produced,low-resource,low-quality goods, like Zip guns and cheap hand radios.

[Superglucose]

Mine:

Humans: Medieval, highest tech level. They make some mighty fine armor and shields, and their swords are widely considered the best in the world, depending on the region. The main empire makes good swords and shields, while an outlying city-state has harnessed raw magic as a fuel source, and still another outlying city-state has discovered an extremely light-weight replacement for armor. Out at sea, a small cluster of Human-controlled islands (which primarily feed themselves via fishing) create the sharpest edges of anywhere in the world, as well as creating the fastest and toughest seafaring vessels.

Rangers: (Yes, this is a species) Nomadic and swamp-dwelling, these guys don't have much in the way of technology at all... though they do understand metal working the only purpose they have is to produce crossbow bolts, swords, and spears.

Ellonar (think Elf): Highly magical, but while they're experts in building design and architecture (similar to the Arabs), their weapons technology lags behind a bit (similar to China) and their armor tech is nearly nonexistent (feudal Japan).

Generally speaking, the Empire (far north coast, center) is the "center" of technology, and the further away you go the worse the technology. Eventually you get to the far south-lands, which are human inhabited and USED to be controlled by the empire several millenia ago, and while some of the tools of that empire stuck around (magical mending, etc.), for the most part no one knows how to create the more complicated tools (like water mills).

[Dervag]

-Gnomes, thanks to WoW, are known as tinkerers. I, however, see them as a halfway between Elves and Dwarves, infusing mech with magic.I remember gnomes as tinkerers before World of Warcraft was in alpha testing.


-Orks I kinda see like in WH40k, where they just kinda slam everything together, and their assumed latent psychic abilities make it work.What latent psychic abilities, in D&D? Besides, they don't need the psychic power of the WAAAGH! to make Iron Age weapons and equipment work, and your standard D&D setting doesn't have other races using precision-manufactured machinery that the orcs/orks need to compete with the way 40k does.


-Halflings...uh. Hm.Halflings are classically rural or pastoral, living in small communities. That's not consistent with high technology.
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My setting?

Humans: Highest tech, after the myrmidons. Their religion actually encourages it (much like the real-world church did, thankyouverymuch)Cannonmeister! Good to see you again!

Could you expand on your reasoning on the role of the Church in technological growth?


Elves: Lowest tech... They're just not... good. At anything, really, except looking good.Heh. I like that. Elves as guys who spend most of their time in a fugue state contemplating their navels and manage to sit out the Industrial Revolution... then wonder what those strange shiny birds buzzing over their beloved forests at ~10x treetop level are.


Myrmidons: A race of magic robots, basically. Their tech level is essentially at the modern age, but they don't like to share.Magic and semiconductor triodes are a fricking' scary combination, thankyouverymuch... now I'm going to have nightmares about those things.:smalleek::smallwink:
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In Lawful planes, there are no artificial devices. You can drop a broken clock and it will assemble and wind itself.Yes, but can you make a clock out of, say, metal bar stock?

If so, the Lawful planes become a technologist's heaven, because the Second Law of Thermodynamics has been repealed and machines do what you want them to do, not what the (True Neutral/Unaligned) laws of physics tell them to do.

[Yukitsu]

Me DMs setting has 3 relevant factions set out by the three players who were ambitious enough to create large planescape level organizations. They all have completely different tech, but encompass several races.

One is "the empire" which as always means it's the largest, most repressive, and most reliant on tech, even if it doesn't invent anything new. Basically the group that went around snatching up anything anyone else had invented, then cobbled it together into functioning, futuristic technology. As far as I can tell, it's mostly humans and mercane, with other races avoiding the infringement on their traditions. Their leader is a pixie.

For these guys, tech access isn't based on race, but rather on how much money you have. The more money, the more high tech stuff you'll own. They have schizo tech. Guys with clubs along with star trek era stuff.

The second is the equally evil psionic faction, which consists of what is essentially the borg sans tech. They spend all their time running around mind seeding everything, and fighting with the empire for control. They have the least tech, actually regressing in many cases. They consist mostly of hive minds, oozes, brainwashed humans and a few outsiders. Other races seem to have avoided the brainwashing better than the humans, as we don't ever meet any infected anything else. Their leader was a human, but since they're all the same, whenever one dies, which is often, whoever and whatever happens to be next most powerful leads.

For these guys, tech ranges from clubs with nails in them to fairly standard fantasy stuff. What they have varies by how intellectually advanced they are, which varies as the mind seed erodes further from the originator.

The last is the union, which is a wizardly faction, having the dubious quality of being the only good aligned great power. Isolationist in their policies, they keep out of the conflict between the other two evil powers, hoping they wipe one another out. Tech consists mostly of highly advanced magic, but includes advances in alchemy, herbology, agriculture and animal husbandry. It also has the largest group of biogeneticists of any of the groups, making extensive use of guided mutations and grafts. The union is mostly humans, constructs, aberations (elan) and elves at this point in time. It is led by something similar to a leShey (superpowered elf).

Tech is uniform across the union, simply because they're communists. The baseline is roughly equivalent to Victorian London.

[chiasaur11]

Let's see. Haven't thought too much on the subject.

Humans: Discworld, circa The Truth. Some really impressive stuff, but swords and crossbows still are the way to go for killing and maiming. Magitech and clockwork are common, but the really devastating magical weapons are still old stuff.

Dwarves: Magical gear for adventurers tends to be Dwarven. They may not have as many nice bits of bric-a-brac for day to day living, but if you need gear that gets a demon dead fast, you want to hit the mines.

Elves: Well behind the curve. At one point, they were competitive magically, but they didn't adapt, and now their little slow adapting cities are hammered into the corner.

Dragons: Big, few in number, and incredibly low tech. Magically, though, they've been devastating forver. A majority of epic spells are draconic in origin. Fortunately, they don't like tech much, and are a bit slow on the uptake to new developments, given that they sleep all the time. Which means that they still don't know how to deal with, say, siege ballistas.

Kobolds: Are kind of brilliant. You visit, say, five different Kobold caves and make it out alive, you will have seen more completely different ideas of how to create deathtraps than you thought possible. Dragons may not like technology, which means that every time the boss wakes up the whole kit and caboodle gets hidden or toasted, but Kobolds build fast.

Essentially, it's a whole lot of brilliant one off ideas, a few of which catch on, most of which get totally wiped out within twenty years. In the uncommon event of Kobolds having the luck to work under someone who encourages these tendencies, you get Castle Heterodynean nightmares of trap design. When it works, you have unassailable fortresses and lasers. In the equally likely event of failure, you have the same thing, but trying to kill you.

Orcs: Loot. A lot.

[Solaris]

Cannonmeister! Good to see you again!
Dervag, 'sup? Long time no see, neh? Sorry 'bout the game dying - missions kept getting in the way.


Could you expand on your reasoning on the role of the Church in technological growth?
It was more true during the Middle Ages than during the Renaissance, where they did do stupid things like say "It couldn't possibly be that way because we don't teach it that way." The Church in the Middle Ages was pretty much the only bastion of literacy and learning, and there were a lot of monks with nothing to do but sit on their thumbs and think about stuff. Roger Bacon, one of the men credited with the invention of gunpowder, was a Franciscan friar. The Church also ran/supported universities, if I recall correctly, and priests tutored the children of nobles in more than just theology. In my setting, it's somewhat similar. During my setting's Middle Ages the Cathedral of the Argent Flame was the only real source of learning, and it helped that one of the patrons (basically, demigod celestials) was a patron of the sciences. They founded universities and suchlike, spreading learning along with the church doctrine.


Heh. I like that. Elves as guys who spend most of their time in a fugue state contemplating their navels and manage to sit out the Industrial Revolution... then wonder what those strange shiny birds buzzing over their beloved forests at ~10x treetop level are.
Civilized for over ten thousand years, and yet they haven't managed to invent the bicycle. Feh.


Magic and semiconductor triodes are a fricking' scary combination, thankyouverymuch... now I'm going to have nightmares about those things.:smalleek::smallwink:
Hee. If it makes you feel better, they're the myrmidons are the heirs of the Atlantis-analogue prehistoric empire.

[Myrmex]

I remember gnomes as tinkerers before World of Warcraft was in alpha testing.

He doesn't, though, so his gnomes are tinker gnomes based off his experience with WoW.


Yes, but can you make a clock out of, say, metal bar stock?

If so, the Lawful planes become a technologist's heaven, because the Second Law of Thermodynamics has been repealed and machines do what you want them to do, not what the (True Neutral/Unaligned) laws of physics tell them to do.

Isn't the morphic trait peculiar to Chaotic planes? I would imagine universal laws would be, well, Lawful.

[Piedmon_Sama]

IMC, humans run the gamut from the earliest to stretching the end of what we call "the Middle Ages." Depending on how remote, isolated or small the group of humans is, they could very well be in the stone age. The most advanced human communities employ water-wheels, windmills and other early industrial advances, along with highways and aqueducts as good as the Romans had (which Europe didn't really get back until the 19th C.) Plus, creature comforts including piped plumbing and indoor heating from steam channeled under the floor from a central boiler.

Militarily, there's early firearms, usually from the period where Flintlock is the new big deal on the block but older models are still common, recreating the era of Pike and Shot in warfare (which was when the really fancy plate harness from D&D was available anyway). Bows are actually still much more accurate than guns, but take years to properly train with (pistols make a nice surprise-weapon though, and I rule all guns as simple weapons).

More isolated and distant cultures might be more primitive in some respects, but have developed further in other areas. For example, the Empire (vanilla human setting) has paved highways over huge regions of pasture and farms, while Wahfferpache (germanic/norse guys) is mostly wild forest. But the Wahfferpacheans can actually move faster than even the Imperial highways allow, since Wahfferpache has a ton of streams which they can move quickly through on fast canoes, skiffs or longboats. Another example is the Steppefolk (think Turco-Mongols meets ancient Thracians/Sarmatians). They live in yurts, have next to nothing in philosophy or literacy, and come off as simplistic barbarians to westerners; if anything, however, their rapid cavalry maneuvers and powerful composite bows make them more advanced than the Empire militarily. All the cannons and pikes in the world are no good against an enemy who can circle around you and send arrows punching through your armor in minutes. The Legions that deal with the Steppefolk have actually abandoned their old doctrines and taken up horsemanship and archery themselves.

No one in my setting matches the gnomes, though. They're up to steam-engines for ships and track-locomotives, as well as possessing zeppelins and cannons that can fire out to 95 miles. Their guns are advanced, automatic and fanciful-looking compared to the humans' wheellocks and flintlocks, usually with multiple barrels. They even dress in a mix of "Buccaneer Sheek" and Antebellum USA. If they wanted to, the gnomes could probably conquer everybody (except the magical races, dwarves and elves), but luckily they'd rather sell their technologies out in limited supply to the humans rather than go through the rigmarole of managing the brutes.

Even though I'm not making a categorical list, I feel Hobgoblins deserve a mention. This is partly because they're the "unseen power" of the setting, partly because they're pretty much the only civilization that has magic and isn't afraid to use it. Like humans, they don't have access to Clerics, but they have some True Necromancers (a class supposedly exterminated more than a century ago). These guys bred the Varags (incredibly fast, feral Hobgoblins) and created the Bonedrinker (zombies with marrow-sucking tentacles). They lack black powder tech, and their best protection is a good byrnie of chains, or a cuirass of scales under a thick fur cloak; their infantry still uses heavy tower shields, stabbing swords and spears or javelins with simple crossbows intermingled in the formation. The advantage of the Hobs is their aforesaid magic, the monsters such as wyverns and hydras they've tamed, plus a society so militarized it makes the Empire look like a commune of care-bears.

[JonestheSpy]

I prefer a traditional tech level for fantasy campaigns, but my main fantasy campaign world has a few variations.

I like the gnomes as tinkerers archetype, but in my world they don't mass produce anything. An invention - usually a mix of tech and magic - is like a work of art, and another gnome would never want to duplicate it any more than an artist would want to exactly duplicate someone else's painting. The most important document in gnome culture is "The Book of Patents", which both gives inspiration and makes it easy to avoid copying an idea that's already been tried.

[Bayar]

Orcs: Loot. A lot.

Orcs loot alot you say ?

http://1d4chan.org/images/e/eb/Lootedemperor.jpg

Yes they do. Not to mention the looted carnifex or looted tarrasque, or looted monolith, or looted baneblade.

[Yahzi]

My world has 3 tech levels: Civilized (High Middle Ages), Wild (Iron Age), and Primitive (Aboriginal).

Any given society can be any of those, but usually:

Humans are Civilized or Wild.
Goblins are Civilized.
Ogres, Orcs, Giants are Wild or Primitive.
Most extra-planar races are Civilized (Djinn. Efreet, Dwarves). Except for Elves, who are Wild, because they like it that way.
Mind-Flayers are Civilized+.
Formians and Dragons don't use tech.

[Nostri]

The tech level in my world is a bit wonky. Most everyone is at Iron Age level of technology. However because most of the world is built over the remains of a much more advanced culture (think a modern level of technology mixed with magic) some groups have a slightly higher levels of tech with a few small concentrations of very high tech for the world.

Though that is just the humans. The other races are as follows-

Icemen (Dwarf/Gnomes)- They live in and around dormant volcanoes in the world's arctic region underground. They heat and power their cities with steam produced from tapping steam vents and slow lava flows. Their tech level is very much steampunk. Airships, trains (well subways), guns, oil lamps, small clockwork servitors ect. Also these guys are inventors as a opposed to the normal mad scientist/tinker trope normally associated with the gnomes.

Aeflin (Elves)- Medieval Ages/Renaissance level of tech though it's accomplished entirely with magic. I've also done away with their tree-huggy nature, instead their cities are made of specially grown crystals (along with everything else they use) that all resonates with other crystal forms that planned as being nearby it. So when someone drops a tool instead a bang and a clatter you get a specific note, which then resonates with other nearby objects to create a sound pleasing to the ear.

Hobgoblins (they don't have a nifty name yet)- Feudal Japan/Medieval China. They are fantastic metallugists and smiths, making amazing weapons and armor. Most of the normal master craftsman tropes that go to dwarves go to the hobgoblins in this world. Also they have a very advanced understanding of alchemy due to their goblin allies.

Lower Planes/Demons and Devils- They have highly advanced bio-clockwork technology. Lots of gears and boilers and blackened coal furnaces with growing veins and muscles integrated into the machinery. The hordes of hell are equal parts demonic flesh and smoke belching, gear grinding cybernetics forced to work through bound spirits and the like. Think Chaositech for those of you familiar with it.

Higher Planes/Celestials- Don't really have technology. They've got forges better then anything the Hobgoblins can think of but most other technology is deemed unnessicary because it revolves around needs that the celestials can meet through their innate magic or just don't have.

[Maryring]

It doesn't work exactly like that in my world. Technology isn't defined solely by race, but more so by culture and society.

The Nepheritian kingdom, after being ruled by a technologically inclined queen for the last millenium, have technology similar to what you'd find around the beginning of the 19th century. They haven't built Titanic yet, but it won't be too long now. They do have guns, technically. But they're the same kind used in the middle ages, wherein you get one shot, and if you miss, you're dead.

Miklagard, being a barbarian civilization of Dwarves and Humans, have by far the greatest technological achievements within the weapon industry and, surprisingly, math and some physics and chemistry due to their use in balistics. Only after the end of a horrific civil war between the original heir to the country and an usurper has the kingdom begun to develop more peaceful technology.

Sotonia, though pretty low on the tech-pole, have the best agricultural achievements in the whole world. The reason being that they have the most fertile land available, and also the strongest magical defenses which for now have kept them protected.

Technological advances are fun though, but it can end up a headache at time to combine magic and tech without making more magitech.

[Flayerman]

In Alcyon, the highest-tech "people" are the Warforged, being Inevitables from the plane of law. They don't advance much, lacking civilizations and all, but Axiomaton occasionally dispenses advanced technology for certain favored Warforged or Inevitables to use, usually one age ahead of the current.

Humans are the innovators, the builders. In the Age of Steam, humans are the ones creating the steam-powered technology, the zeppelins, the dirigibles, the Difference Engines. Even back in the Mythic and Imperial Ages, it's human innovation making life better. So I'd put humans as the most advanced.

The next most advanced would have to be the elves, in a shocking twist of fantasy stereotypes. Once the Age of Steam hits, the elves start eating up this new stuff, allowing them to build all sorts of new gadgets to make hunting and gathering food easier. Before the Age of Steam, though, they don't do much in the way of building, being semi-nomadic and primarily hunter-gatherers.

Next in the list are Orcs. Their technology is simple, but effective; in the Age of Shadows, they're using animal skins to cover wells in the desert, blown shut by the strong winds that signal the start of water-contaminating sandstorms. In the age of steam, they're using steam-powered vehicles to make hunting a bit easier, though many tribes abstain from this for various reasons. In the Age of Steel, orcs live among most of the other races in cities, still fond of their heritage but nonetheless 'civilized' - many orcs work for various governmental agencies as law-enforcement officers. In the Age of Stardust, what few orcs still retain their cultural identity have moved off-planet and settled on other planets in the solar system.

The Spiritfolk are a weird group. They're incredibly backwards - all the way through the Age of Stardust - but thanks to their unusual destinies divined at the date of their birth, those who take up the path of the inventor (in the Age of Steam on) create some of the most impressive and advanced technologies on the planet. As a result, from the Age of Steel on, Spiritfolk are simultaneously incredibly advanced and yet continue to live in their small towns, with such improvements as automobiles and airplanes either ignored or relegated to small towns. In the age of Stardust, thanks to their unique martial arts passed down through the ages, Spiritfolk are some of the best pilots in the world.

The Highborn are much like the spiritfolk, but even more backwards. Until the Age of Steam, the number of Highborn with any contact with other races can be counted on maybe two hands. After the Age of Steam, the Highborn are more aware of the other races, but it isn't until the Age of Steel that they join the greater global community, and even then the majority of them continue to live on their archipelago. In the Age of Stardust, the Highborn are the only species without mecha or space flight accessible to them freely.

Changelings and Wilders are much like Humans, and thus anything that applies to humans applies to them.

Finally, the Dragonborn. Supposed heirs to the legacy of dragonkind, the Dragonborn don't build, they scavenge. Even in the Age of Steel, when most of them work alongside Orcs in law enforcement, their race has provided few if any real advances to the global community; in the Age of Stardust, the Dragonborn often act as marines for other races rather than pilots. They scavenge off others, getting what they can, and making their way through the ages.