World Changing Magics

[Seerow]

This shouldn't be necessary to state, but if you know me in real life and are a part of my gaming group, please exit this thread stage left.



Okay that being said, I'm working on my first non-E6 campaign in a while. I have a general idea of several different factions/groups that will be doing things that the PCs will want to either help along or interfere with. One of these groups has the endgame of basically bringing about a cyberpunk style futuristic dystopia. I plan to have this group exploring every possible avenue of advanced engineering/magitech I can think of. There's a big focus on futuristic stuff, steampunk/clockwork innovation, and that sort of thing. They'll be starting out relatively small (a couple dozen researchers each on the cutting edge of their respective fields who dream of something greater), but will evolve rapidly as time progresses.

Mainly right now I'm interested in determining what different fields they are each researching. I'm not afraid of homebrewing new stuff to fit a cool concept, but in general any given concept should have its roots in something that already exists in D&D. For example, one planned researcher is an Ironsoul Forgemaster who will be researching ways to put soul energy to use in mass produced weaponry/armor (think incarnum powered weapons without the user requiring incarnum).

Other things already under consideration/accounted for are:
-Magic Items/Wondrous Architecture/Magical Traps.
-Magical Transportation/Translocation
-Effigies/Constructs
-Clockwork Items/Grafts (drawing from Dragon Mech here. Grafts will likely also draw on existing 3.5 graft rules)
-Mechs (once again, drawing from Dragon Mech, likely overhauling the rules when I get that far)
-Necromancy (read: The effects of a zombie workforce)
-Elemental Power
-Enchantment/Mind Control


I have these all in mostly broad strokes. I am specifically avoiding nature/druidic magic, Planar Binding and other similar methods of summoning, Wish abuse, divine intervention (and thus most divine magic in general, some possible exceptions).

So, here's the questions:
1) Are there any major world changing fields I completely missed?
2) Is there anything specific falling within one of these fields you think would be especially cool that may not have been considered?
3) Does this seem even like a reasonable hook?

[Phelix-Mu]

First of all, I vent: WHAT? NO DRUIDIC MAGIC?

Now, aside from that slight complaint, which I will revisit later, here's a couple things dealing with magitech or a more scientific approach to magic:

- Thermodynamics: Unlike real life, with the aid of magic, it is very easy to either make heat/heat sources appear from nothing, or to make heat disappear (which is flat out impossible). While entropy-ish is a thing in D&D (negative energy), it has nothing to do with heat. Which leads to some interesting issues. But, mainly, it makes various simple machines very feasible. Like a house-sized sphere of riverine, filled with water. Inside, a turbine, and beneath, some perpetual source of heat (self-resetting magical traps or constant effect items work best, but you can always just go with wondrous architecture from Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and coat the floor with a flame veil). Put magnets on the blades of the turbine, and wrap the whole thing in wire, and bam, electricity. Or just bind a storm elemental. Or a bunch of angry shocker lizards.

- Gravity: Does it exist in your game? How about in space? Space transport irl is much less plausible due to energy consumption to achieve escape velocity. But in a world of teleportation, escape velocity is very pish-posh. Simply raise a massive weight into the stratosphere and use it as a massive counterbalance for a floating city. This gets especially crazy with ideas like immovable rod/wall of force frame-of-reference abuse. Often, if you are going for truly massive terraforming projects, its easier to assemble things like islands and subcontinents in space, and then control their descent using reverse gravity or a series of walls of force. Extra points if you assemble the island out of things like Tippy's ice assassins of a psion 20 warforged PaO into huge blocks of granite.

- Conservation of Matter: Remember that? Lol. Yeah, if someone is using repeating magical traps, then get ready for some very silly ideas. When new stuff is available for free in unlimited quantities, that really affects lifestyles and mindsets. For instance, remember space? Well, a wizard, instead of having his own demiplane, may just set up in a zero gravity area off-planet. Get traps of create water, heat metal, wall of stone, stone shape, and maybe even some energy transformation fields, and a wizard could set up their own planetoid. It wouldn't even be that hard, as long as they work out a way to avoid the effects of the void (assuming that's what space is like in your setting...Spelljammer had a mix of void and phlogiston...don't ask).

Alright, so, I heard something about no nature magic. I understand if you are avoiding divine stuff, but nature magic, even some spells right off the wizard list, is iconic, and it also fits a certain mindset that I would be surprised wouldn't crop up in-game. Some wizards want to make stuff from scratch, make a robot that can do whatever, or animate a zombie to do it cheapside. Others would just look out the window and see that that donkey/plant creature/weather can do the same thing, but with less work and a certain style. I'm not saying it's superior or more effective, just that it really would be strange if there were all these schools of thought cropping up, and they miraculously ignored the oldest teacher around: nature. Legions of custom-bred animals, cultured diseases/plants/fungi to achieve special effects, sentient dogs, floating hydroponic farms...there's just a lot of magic that is so quasi-druidic that you really will need a good reason why some people (like, say, elves, if they exist in your setting and are anything like default fluff) don't just have a fully-integrated nature/magic lifestyle, such that the two are hard to tell apart.

[TuggyNE]

This looks pretty thorough and pretty cool. Ain't got much to add, really. :smallcool:

[Seerow]

To clarify the point on Druidic Magic, it's being left out mostly because this group is seeking deliberate progress, and many of their methods will be very diametrically opposed to a typical druidic mindset. Another faction is going to be a cult with a heavy druidic focus who is opposing all change, with a tinge of anarchy/destroy civilization mixed in there. I could see however having a Blighter or the equivalent running research on ways to bring nature magic to heel in a way that serves their goals. Alternatively, a lot of what you are suggesting (specifically magically augmented/modified animals) are things that generally fall under the category of "A Wizard Did It". I could see a Transmutation specialist working on exactly that sort of thing, and I will likely include that (I can't believe I didn't think of it from the start. Especially since a master transmuter was a major player in a campaign a year or two back).



As for the rest, that's great stuff. Especially the stuff about gravity and floating continents/planetoids sounds like a great endgame (think how many dystopias in fiction have a upper and lower city, where the people stuck below live a life of squalor. This would be quite literally that on a whole new level. Plus introduces the possibility of secret test labs floating high in the sky long before that point, a great set piece for mid level dungeons if I ever heard one.

[Gildedragon]

Zombie workforce is less than ideal
constructs last longer and are less of a disease risk. Also cheaper and carry less bad PR
BIG thing for necromancy: perfect refrigeration. Negative energy to kill all spoilage critters, and prevent ripening, and you have means to keep all sort of food just as fresh as when it was picked/prepared. No need to cool it or process it so that it will last.

Dessication Spells from sandstorm also carry a great deal of weight in the movement of goods (though it is obviated with Teleportation Circles)

Problem with grafts in 3.5 rules (esp golem grafts) is they kinda make you go nutso...

Divination for prospecting and entertainment

Protection from mind control or prohibition of the Enchantment school would prolly be a big thing. It is a legal mess because it moves the guilt all over the place (commit a crime via an enchanted proxie, profit, let the patsy take the brunt of the law)

[Phelix-Mu]

Another cool thought I had was relating to grafts and symbionts. I would be interested to see a kind of sect that expanded this into nano-machines and positive viruses/diseases, treated as refluffed symbionts. Maybe a particular kind of artificer works with biological pathogens, breeding new strains of...let's call it the T-virus. *evil laughter*

Check out what I did with the Biogenetor in my sig. Very WIP, but basically it's just a class that uses the psionic power points chassis to run an astral construct summoner, with the astral constructs refluffed from animated ectoplasm to biomatter given form and life. Add in a side order of homunculi, grafting, and a bit of minionmancy, and, presto. Anyway, the idea was to have a non-magical basis for a summoner archetype. Still working on it. /shamelessplug

Final thought of the night, and I'm just spit-balling here:

Were you purposely avoiding psionics? One of the coolest bits of psionics that I always liked was schism and the like. I once made a PrC that was based around running multiple schisms and planting them in temporary puppet bodies (which were literally life-sized dolls and mannequins). It would be interesting to have a sect that, unlike mind control, was into expanding the definition of consciousness/sentience by sub-dividing and calving new beings off of their own mind. I think you could mix in some Unbodied/Psion Uncarnate, and maybe even a little Fiend of Possession and Psibond Agent, as a group that experiments with moving their mind or fragment of their mind into new receptacles. A little bit of casual ice assassin abuse, via the StP-> Psion psychic chirurgery trick that would let psions know ice assassin as a power, and then the fun can really begin. Kind of like astral projection + multitasking on steroids. Bonus points for allowing the hivemind rules from the Book of Vile Darkness, lol.

[Gildedragon]

Chaosshuffle engines that allow instant retraining
Psychic Reformation (Psi) beasties that let you correct your past lifechoices

[Ruethgar]

Decanter of endless water + turbine.

Ravenloft Legacy of Blood has the scientist class and the ability to make non-magical magic items.

Magitech Armor (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?176276-3-5-Magitech-Templar-Iron-Man): Use a Construct Armor(PF) modified Warforged as your armor.

Gramarist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?291019-By-the-Inferior-Science-of-our-Enemies-Gramarie-Mark-II) has the fluff and if you think creatively enough you can get pretty far with it. Reading into the first few ideas for the fields, Gramarie seems like it could be a good fit.

[Slipperychicken]

1) Are there any major world changing fields I completely missed?

Resurrection. As in, things which bring people back as non-undead creatures. So many of our institutions and practices, and so many parts of our culture, are built around the core assumption that people die inevitably and stay dead.

[Ravens_cry]

Decanter of endless water + turbine.

You do have to deal with an endless quantity of water. Since the power of a single turbine will be quite limited, you'd need a lot, and while some of that 'waste' water could make the desert's bloom, it would be bad long term. Now, I'd love to give NASA a decanter of endless water. It would mean cooling, oxygen as well as that and hydrogen for fuel, or at least propellent Combine that with a nuclear reactor and you have a rocket to explore the solar system with ease.

[Seerow]

Resurrection. As in, things which bring people back as non-undead creatures. So many of our institutions and practices, and so many parts of our culture, are built around the core assumption that people die inevitably and stay dead.

The problem is this is something that typically falls into the realm of Divine/Nature magic, which I am mostly avoiding.

However, I am going for the dystopian theme, and one thing that is a pretty common trope for Wizards is finding ways to extend life. I can easily imagine a researcher striving for extending life, transfer of life force, etc. Possibly even the same guy working on the undead workforce, since that's all very necromancy themed. I can imagine this avenue of research potentially getting something like the movie "In Time" where you have the elite who will live basically forever, while the poor are constantly working just to try to stay ahead another week. It likely won't progress that far, but it's definitely a theme to explore and an avenue of research that should be involved.


On the decanter of endless water and other similar contraptions, I see a lot of that falling under the general umbrella of either clockwork gadgetry (just using a magic item as thing that keeps it ticking) or Elemental Power (as the trick is basically the same. Get a magical power source and use it to fuel awesome things). Definitely something I've considered, but nothing that really stands out on its own.



Zombie workforce is less than ideal
constructs last longer and are less of a disease risk. Also cheaper and carry less bad PR

Constructs are way more expensive than the cheap undead that would get used for labor. Disease risk is fairly minor (afaik the rules for undead don't even account for diseases). The bad PR is an issue to be overcome, of course.


BIG thing for necromancy: perfect refrigeration. Negative energy to kill all spoilage critters, and prevent ripening, and you have means to keep all sort of food just as fresh as when it was picked/prepared. No need to cool it or process it so that it will last.

That is an interesting take on it.


Problem with grafts in 3.5 rules (esp golem grafts) is they kinda make you go nutso...

So much the better. That fits in with basically every cyberpunk theme... ever.


Another cool thought I had was relating to grafts and symbionts. I would be interested to see a kind of sect that expanded this into nano-machines and positive viruses/diseases, treated as refluffed symbionts. Maybe a particular kind of artificer works with biological pathogens, breeding new strains of...let's call it the T-virus. *evil laughter*


I'd rather not start up the zombie apocalypse, despite allusions to necromacny :p. But symbionts and nanites are definitely cool and well within range of possibility for a couple of different fields. (It could come from the guy working on grafts as you mention, or it could come from the guy working on transmutation, who makes magically modified diseases).


Check out what I did with the Biogenetor in my sig. Very WIP, but basically it's just a class that uses the psionic power points chassis to run an astral construct summoner, with the astral constructs refluffed from animated ectoplasm to biomatter given form and life. Add in a side order of homunculi, grafting, and a bit of minionmancy, and, presto. Anyway, the idea was to have a non-magical basis for a summoner archetype. Still working on it. /shamelessplug


I'll check it out when I get the time.


Were you purposely avoiding psionics?

I was not specifically avoiding psionics, I was just having a hard time thinking of anything Psionics specifically does that Arcane magic does not. I'll look into the things you mentioned. Schism cloning/hive mind sounds like a fun premise. I could also warp that towards creating biological super computers/AIs.





As an aside, I'm trying to avoid things that are raw cheese, as determined basically by how I feel at the time. I mention this because Ice Assassin shenanigans have been brought up a few times now, and I will likely just be ignoring those entirely. There may be other things at a whim I decide are too far for my personal taste, while other times I may be totally okay with and run with something objectively stronger. I reserve the right to be arbitrary here.

[Gildedragon]

Another problem of zombie workforce is that it will go down as lifespan approaches immortality. And the ones that were had are a limited and dwindling resource. They will experience wear and tear (accidents etc)
whereas a riverine animated proto-intelligent suit of armor is MUCH harder to destroy and will last longer.
Easier workforce is made by really strong animated gauntlets, which can be REALLY cheap: You start with a small riverine shuriken (506.2pg), enchant it for +1 sizing and morphing (160+100) tack on the Flying property (+200)
Make them gauntlets of whatever size and strength you want.
Total cost 966.2gp