Engineering in D&D Help

[Drathmar]

So, started a new campaign tonight, and me and another character decided we were going to build things together... since it's a rare magic world, so we took Craft (Engineering) and Craft (Woodworking) as our DM makes it so to make an item we have to get the knowledge from somewhere and have a working knowledge of how to make it.

So basically we have the woodworker to make the pieces and engineering to put them together...

We have thought of some cool things to make... but I wanted ideas on what people think would be cool to make with these skills... the DM is open to anything really as long as we can justify it, make the checks, and they can even duplicate abilities of feats/magic items (WITHIN REASON) and as long as its 75% wood or more we can use the woodworking check for it...

So far we have... platform on the bottom of shoes to duplicate the effect of leap of heaven feat and not have a penalty to standing jumps... a ship.. (and an airship much later with the help of our mage)... repeating crossbows for the other guy to wear on his wrists and not have to worry about drawing to use... obviously siege engines

So any ideas of other stuff?

[DonDuckie]

how about mechanical computers a la Antikythera mechanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism)

get the information age started:smalltongue:

[Feralventas]

Technology is rather mix and match in my homebrew depending on what nation or area of the world a PC is from. In order to try to give the non-magical folks a better option to keep up with the 'casters, I allowed the use of D20 modern weapons at first. In addition, a non-'caster can take Craft Magic Arms and Armor feats using BAB in place of CL and creating non-magical enhancement bonuses (+1 to +5) and even magical equivalents if they can justify it (craft Alchemy to create a blade that reacts chemically with flesh it strikes for Corrosive enchantments, Tesla-coil bludgeons for Shocking, Keen and Distance simply being quality of the weapon or rifling a barrel or putting a spiral effect on an arrow to make it fly true.

[Pilo]

Windsurf!!!

(Sorry, private joke)

Keep in mind that engineering in D&D as very few in common with modern engineering.
But it allows you to design ships, bridges, mills, sawmills, trap and so...

[Eldan]

Do you want to stay in the middle ages technologically, or is moving on fine?

With mechanics you could still build, say, a difference engine. Babbage's was hand-cranked, but you could probably build a watermill-powered one. Or a steam engine, if you want to go that far.

Then there's just industry, ify ou need to make money. Hammermills, wind-powered looms, blast furnaces.

[Diarmuid]

Keep in mind that woodworking and engineering are only going to get you so far. If you dont know how to make metal brackets, hinges, and things like that you're basically making Abe Lincoln log cabins.

[Drathmar]

how about mechanical computers a la Antikythera mechanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism)

get the information age started:smalltongue:

Unfortunately we wouldn't be able to make anything that complicated.


Technology is rather mix and match in my homebrew depending on what nation or area of the world a PC is from. In order to try to give the non-magical folks a better option to keep up with the 'casters, I allowed the use of D20 modern weapons at first. In addition, a non-'caster can take Craft Magic Arms and Armor feats using BAB in place of CL and creating non-magical enhancement bonuses (+1 to +5) and even magical equivalents if they can justify it (craft Alchemy to create a blade that reacts chemically with flesh it strikes for Corrosive enchantments, Tesla-coil bludgeons for Shocking, Keen and Distance simply being quality of the weapon or rifling a barrel or putting a spiral effect on an arrow to make it fly true.

I will definitely talk with my DM about some of these as I don't think he is against magic items, he just has a vision of this world and its rare for magic, so this might help a lot. Hmm... Craft (Alchemy) could help... and I am pretty sure he would let me use engineering for something like a tesla coil type thing.




Windsurf!!!

(Sorry, private joke)

Keep in mind that engineering in D&D as very few in common with modern engineering.
But it allows you to design ships, bridges, mills, sawmills, trap and so...

I know, I don't want to use to for like technology like computer stuff, but I asked him what crafting skill would be best for planning cool items that could have similar effects to magic, h said this, and that I would know how to put them together and design the parts needed but someone else would have to make it which is why another member got woodworking.


Do you want to stay in the middle ages technologically, or is moving on fine?

With mechanics you could still build, say, a difference engine. Babbage's was hand-cranked, but you could probably build a watermill-powered one. Or a steam engine, if you want to go that far.

Then there's just industry, ify ou need to make money. Hammermills, wind-powered looms, blast furnaces.

Middle Ages for the most part... but like clockwork type tech would be fine... just nothing obviously modern.

And hmm... Industry stuff would be interesting.


Keep in mind that woodworking and engineering are only going to get you so far. If you dont know how to make metal brackets, hinges, and things like that you're basically making Abe Lincoln log cabins.

The thing is, he is hand-waving making us have every little craft skill that would be involved. That's why he said if its 75% or more made of wood we can make it, and are assumed to know how to make brackets/hinges/etc to put things together.

[Dr_S]

a magically programmed wooden clockwork butler!

[Diarmuid]

I would say that your DM is being overly generous in the "75% or more of wood and you're good" thing and now you're coming here to look for ways to further take advantage of it?

Take a crossbow for example, made of mostly wood, but the spring/crank are the only actual technology involved. Otherwise you have a bow and a shoulder stock.

Same thing for boots that give bonuses for jumping, that's almost assuredly depending on some kind of fancy spring mechanism that's certainly not made out of wood.

[Drathmar]

I would say that your DM is being overly generous in the "75% or more of wood and you're good" thing and now you're coming here to look for ways to further take advantage of it?


Instead of making us each have 5 different craft skills to do something fun in a campaign? Well, I am glad your not my DM.

Not that there isn't precedent for this... read up on Effigy creation in complete arcane... direct quote

"An Effigy built with the Craft Construct feat uses a body built from wood, leather, metal, and wire, constructed with either a DC 15 Craft check (woodworking, leatherworking, OR metalworking ) "

Now obviously we cannot build an Effigy as we don't have the magical ability to do so or the feats, however the body for one is made of all of wood, leather, metal, AND wire, yet only requires ONE of those craft checks to make it. Which is why our DM is allowing us to craft things of mostly wood without having 10 separate craft checks.

Also, I am not trying to take advantage of it, I am trying to get some cool ideas, if someone gave me a working idea that I could get my DM to let me pull off but would be OP... would I do it? Of course not... being OP ruins the fun of playing.

I was trying to have this be a fun 'what cool things could you create with this' thread to get some ideas.


Take a crossbow for example, made of mostly wood, but the spring/crank are the only actual technology involved. Otherwise you have a bow and a shoulder stock.


Yet I am pretty sure most DM's would let you make a crossbow with a single craft check (Craft: Crossbow, Craft: Weaponmaking) etc, especially as doing so doesn't break the game and not doing so just makes things tedious.

Those that wouldn't are probably those DM's who are strict as hell and railroad the **** out of their players to force them to do what THEY want instead of working their vision around what the characters want and guiding them through the world (which is one of the qualities of a good DM/GM in my opinion, one of the most important)



Same thing for boots that give bonuses for jumping, that's almost assuredly depending on some kind of fancy spring mechanism that's certainly not made out of wood.

Oh, a spring... lots of ways to wave that off... it was bought as part of the cost for the raw materials... or as part of that cost, the engineer character paid a blacksmith to make it to his specifications (maybe increasing the cost of the thing slightly), or whatever. Still works with a single craft check.


So if someone wanted to make armor and you were DMing, and lets say it was studded leather... would you force them to make a craft: leatherworking to make the leather pieces, craft:metalworking to make the metal plates that go inside of it, and then a craft:armormaking to put them all together?

Or just the last check?

Lets say someone wanted to make a ballista... would you make them have craft: woodworking, craft:wiremaking, craft:metalworking, craft: engineering (or something similar) to put it all together?

[Diarmuid]

All of the examples you've given are in the books and have associated prices for the various raw materials (based off base price).

Your example of the Craft: Armorsmith has DC's for the armors and includes the studs and straps, and you're assuming to be putting them all together and perhaps crafting some of them yourself, but being able to make that buckle or rivet for the armor doesnt automatically make you able to make anything made from metal.

The effigy example is even worse because magic is involved.

How are you calculating the costs and DC's for these items you're creating? The mundane boots that grant the equivalent of a feat seem like the most egregious of offenses as there are magic items that grant feats and they cost thousands of gold (obvously priced according to usefulness of the feat, but still).

I'm not saying what you're doing isnt fun and creative, but you've come to a message board where the only real constant people can base their discussions on are the rules as they are written and you're mad that I'm not simply saying "woohoo, guns are made from mostly wood, why not make some guns", or "heck a warforged could be made from wood...go nuts".

I'm not really losing any sleep over whether you would want me to be your DM, but haphazardly deciding what you can make without giving any peripheral thought to how it could impact the game in general seems irresponsible to me.

That being said, I'm not in or running the game, so enjoy yourself.

[Drathmar]

All of the examples you've given are in the books and have associated prices for the various raw materials (based off base price).

Your example of the Craft: Armorsmith has DC's for the armors and includes the studs and straps, and you're assuming to be putting them all together and perhaps crafting some of them yourself, but being able to make that buckle or rivet for the armor doesnt automatically make you able to make anything made from metal.

The effigy example is even worse because magic is involved.

How are you calculating the costs and DC's for these items you're creating? The mundane boots that grant the equivalent of a feat seem like the most egregious of offenses as there are magic items that grant feats and they cost thousands of gold (obvously priced according to usefulness of the feat, but still).

I'm not saying what you're doing isnt fun and creative, but you've come to a message board where the only real constant people can base their discussions on are the rules as they are written and you're mad that I'm not simply saying "woohoo, guns are made from mostly wood, why not make some guns", or "heck a warforged could be made from wood...go nuts".

I'm not really losing any sleep over whether you would want me to be your DM, but haphazardly deciding what you can make without giving any peripheral thought to how it could impact the game in general seems irresponsible to me.

That being said, I'm not in or running the game, so enjoy yourself.

Sorry, I thought it would be obvious there would be appropriate DC's and costs associated with doing this like making anything else in the game.

Boots for example, he said would probably have to be reset after each use so once per encounter at most and cost at least 500g (he just threw out a quick number without checking to give us an idea) to make because of the complexity and the DC would be at least 20 if not 25 'cause of the complexity.

So yes, it is constrained by rules... I just didn't figure that would need to be mentioned in the opening post, as I figured it would be obvious... I'm sorry for that.