Steampunk in 3.5

[B1okHead]

I am going to be running a pseudo-steampunk game in a couple weeks and I am looking for some good D20 steampunk books. Does anyone know any good ones?

[Wings of Peace]

The Iron Kingdoms campaign settings is fantastic for this imo. The primary book you will need is the Character Guide and probably Liber Mechanika for all the nice machines. It's 3rd party but high quality.

[B1okHead]

Yeah I've looked into the Iron Kingdoms rpg but I'm really looking for less of a campaign setting and more of just the steampunk crunch.

[HunterOfJello]

1. Remove all magic
2. Leave in magical items
3. ??????
4. PROFIT

[Venusaur]

Ebberon has magitech stuff, and should help. They have airships and magic trains.

[Partysan]

There's a dedicated d20 Steampunk setting called Etherscope, it might have some tech for you.

[Zombulian]

Well you can ignore the setting stuff from Iron Kingdoms and still have things like gunmage and steam armor warriors... so why not?

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

1. Remove all magic
2. Leave in magical items
3. ??????
4. PROFIT

Memes aside, this is probably the best way to do it. Use the D&D rules and for any kind of fantasy technology just use the magic item pricing guidelines. If magic is not a significant part of the setting, ban classes that rely on magic and give new class features or bonus feats to any classes that have some magic. Also, you may consider making some supernatural skills, like Autohypnosis from the Expanded Psionics Handbook.

You may want to break down the D&D schools of magic into scientific fields, if only for the purpose of item creation feats. Transmutation is biology and chemistry. Evocation is electrical engineering and ballistics. Necromancy is medicine and surgery (Dr. Frankenstein style, of course, but you could throw healing items into this category).

You may also be interested in the D20 Modern classes, which are appropriate for "action movie hero"-style characters. The Wealth system may or may not be appropriate for your campaign. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd

Also, as cool as steampunk is, don't forget to maintain the tone of the setting and determine it ahead of time. Is it like Arcanum, or is it Girl Genius?

[Kaje]

There's also a quite awesome steampunk/apocalypse setting called DragonMech.

[B1okHead]

I haven't seen DragonMech so I think I'll look into that.