Tinker and Artificer conversions?

[Luch Ri]

I have a bit of a dilemma, and while I am sure some of the information is out there on this thread already, I think enough of it is absent that it bares asking.

I've been working on my campaign setting for almost 20 years. I hope ot at the very least self publish it one day even though I keep jumping from unfinished writing project to unfinished writing project and have far too many settings going at the moment. This one is my baby though, and I have quite a bit done for it. Custom races, custom subraces, conversion of mechanics I like all the way into pathfinder, tons of lore and more than a few tiny easter eggs to classic tabletop gaming.

What I don't have, well one of the things, is a proper and fitting set of 3.5 to pathfinder rules for two classes. The Artificer, which I am sure I may find here if I dig more. And the Tinker.

Now if you don't recall the Tinker I don't blame you. My setting has had semi steampunk-without-guns in it since near inception but I didn't dig into that too much until a buddy showed me this odd gem in the Warcraft D20 book of all things. Admittedly the rules didn't work quite right as the creation rules assumed making things more along the lines of vehicles and using fuel. But with a few tweaks that class has served me well in home brew games for years.

However it really does not feel quite right for Pathfinder in general. Like several prestige classes and the like out there it feels a tiny bit underwhelming or unfinished when measured against what Pathfinder itself has to offer.

So I am wondering if anyone has ever attempted a proper update of this oft forgotten class. Perhaps even something in a more obscure Pathfinder book since I have not had the cash in my later 20s and early 30s to get new books like I did back in college. That's how responsibilities go after all.

I would be happy to give more details in what I have designed specifically if asked but I am seriously curious about these classes and what might be out there officially or semi officially

Thanks for reading.

[Fizban]

I wouldn't expect any updates or conversions of a 3rd party setting specific class, especially one as bare as the Tinker. They did do a 2nd edition of the Warcraft setting books, rebranding into full WoW terminology and emphasizing it as a standalone rpg. The Tinker's scavenge was given an actual (small) gp limit, and they were given a desperately needed speed crafting ability. . . that you will never use on anything other than free scavenge because any money spent will be wasted. The technological device rules got a few tweaks to reign them in (a tiny bit) but they remained almost fully based on fiat. I tried reverse-engineering some of the printed items to find how they used the formulas and as expected they ran on loose interpretations at best.

Most of the Tinker's support was spread throughout the books: there were two (Magic and Mayhem, and More MaM) that were supposed to be direct support but there still wasn't much in them, while the three alliance/horde books also had stuff spread out. One thing the writers clearly realized was that their technological device rules were a terrible method of "balancing" actual combat mechanics, so the printed tinker items shifted as time went on: there continued to be specific devices with mostly fiat prices but limited scope, as well as "tech mods" for weapons with formulas similar to magic item bonuses, and steam armor was given it's own system.

I actually rather liked the tech mod and steam armor systems, aside from the simple fact that using standard DnD craft skill rules means you'll never have time to build them properly, they're unreliable as all get-out for no real advantage, and even taking all the books together there was hardly any stuff to build. The underlying mechanics on both were rather sound: tech mods had a sort of multi-tiered modular setup of batteries/generators/power requirements with their own costs, which combined with the costs of the upgrades ended up as pricey as a magic weapon of similar power-at least for the mods that didn't immediately start ignoring the rules. The steam armor combination of size+armor material and implementation of armor/hardness/hp/stat bonuses all worked quite well, with the problem being in the extremely short and lame list of armor modules for doing cool stuff.

As for updating, well it's always easy enough to make stuff better. In particular the main problem with all the warcraft tech is the, shall we say "dedication", to the idea that unreliable gear is fun. I wouldn't put up with the failure rate's on Pathfinder's guns, and those are tame in comparison. If you can get your hands on More Magic and Mayhem, expand the tech mod and steam armor mechanics with enough material to be worthwhile, beef up the numbers where needed and ignore failure rolls on stuff like weapons and armor, then you'd have a well-grounded system. And drop the craft times to compete with magic item standard.

I'm actually curious as to how you used the Tinker class in your games. Similar to the Grammarie project it's not so much a class as a world building tool. Except where Grammarie is a whole magical physics textbook, Craft Technological Device is just a bare set of guidelines in a skill that requires extra proficiency feats to encourage you to stay Tinker. Did you actually have players concocting new devices on the fly? Did they build a set of custom gadgets between adventures and hope it was enough? Did you just write up a ton of items for them to use?

[Luch Ri]

I acutally did use the WoW tinker once the WoW book came out, but as you pointed out there is a difference between what WoW players are apparently expected to find fun and what is actually fun.

I actually created quite a bit of support for the mechanic and tweaked it heavily by the time I got it working in my game. Two base classes, heavy reduction/present altertives to basic fuel, and a distinction between vehicular modifications and mods one would use for personal weapons/equipment and the like. I actually have quite a few notes to get into all of the details, but sufficed to say I did a good deal of personal work in the hopes of some day perhaps putting out my personal setting. Which I may still do, I donno.

Sadly as this is still a new laptop I still have things to put on it from my backup drive, so I don't have all of it at my fingertips, but may in the next day or two when I finally get around to loading it up. My big worry though is that my methods usually are not the same as those used by people who stick closer to the rules and are more worried about balance. I have no problem at my table simply telling people no because their idea might take the fun out for others or forcing munchkins to go up against things designed to give their RAW based cheapness a headache. But sadly that is harder to offer up to the masses.

If people are interested though I may finish tweaking my update for pathfinder and put it up here, just to see what people think. I am pretty happy with how most of it has come out, including the tweaks I made to ensure making some devices remains viable without slowing the game down, yet you don't have the time to outfit everyone in super duper ultra meg high tech steam and spring armor... not that most of them could use it without burning feats.

[The Vagabond]

Well, for the Artificer, I have two paths I recommend deciding on how you think of the class:

The Eberron in pathfinder Artificer (Which features a ton of other Eberron stuff for your use) (https://sites.google.com/site/eberronpathfinder/conversion-info/classes/artificer)
If that's too powerful, just loot everything else from Ebberon In Pathfinder but the class, and simply swap the Artificers reserve for 5 times it's quantity in gold. Or use the Artisans gold progression.

And a new class, The Artisan (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/3rd-party-publisher---drop-dead-studios---classes/the-artisan), for a lower-power version of the class, without a lot of what makes the Artificer powerful. (If you want to buff it, you could give it infusions progressing as a Paladin)

For the tinkerer, you're probably going to have to port it yourself. I doubt they have anything in Pathfinder to do it, but since it's 3.5, it shouldn't be too difficult to do.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Apart from a few things- skill lists/ranks, CMB/CMD and splatbook spells- Pathfinder is the same game as 3.5. Some classes are a bit stronger, some are weaker, but the differences are insignificant compared to the existing problems with class balance and optimization skill they plague both editions. Just take the classes and any dedicated feats/items/spells, update the skill lists to the aforementioned houserules and you're pretty much done.

[Luch Ri]

Apart from a few things- skill lists/ranks, CMB/CMD and splatbook spells- Pathfinder is the same game as 3.5. Some classes are a bit stronger, some are weaker, but the differences are insignificant compared to the existing problems with class balance and optimization skill they plague both editions. Just take the classes and any dedicated feats/items/spells, update the skill lists to the aforementioned houserules and you're pretty much done.

That is my problem spreading it further though. Me? I laugh at optimization and balance. What is fun is fun. If you make a broken character I, as DM, will come down on that character in a painful sea of 'luck' and convenient monster/trap choices. Especially if your broken character makes it less fun for others.

But others don't seem to see it that way. I did quite a bit of updating and twaeking to the tinker, because I wanted to shift the scale of creations. Becasue it is based on WoW it has bigger stuff that blows up more. now breaky inventions and failures are good fluff, but not fun game wise. So reducing the chance of these items breaking and making it more of a fluff thing, along with shifting how the fuel source works, was not a big deal. But artificer, my main worry was that some of the rules involved an EXP pool that I thought was less of a thing for Pathfinder..

Apparently as was mentioned by The vagabond they have a Pathfinder friendly Artificer, so I may just go with that. My worry is though that even self published, I want to make my setting and the tools for it more accessible. Which is hard when your general MO is "if it's fun, make it. The DM will make the game fun and ensure everyone has stuffs to do". I mean really if I wanted to make a game with rigid, set rules and little dynamic flow I'd just break out RPG maker and work on that.

But it's a different story when trying to make a setting for other people to run, as that personal DMing philosophy does not carry over and people have those odd concerns about balance, optimization and other things I never bothered to understand.

[thethird]

I have a bit of a dilemma, and while I am sure some of the information is out there on this thread already, I think enough of it is absent that it bares asking.

I've been working on my campaign setting for almost 20 years. I hope ot at the very least self publish it one day even though I keep jumping from unfinished writing project to unfinished writing project and have far too many settings going at the moment. This one is my baby though, and I have quite a bit done for it. Custom races, custom subraces, conversion of mechanics I like all the way into pathfinder, tons of lore and more than a few tiny easter eggs to classic tabletop gaming.

What I don't have, well one of the things, is a proper and fitting set of 3.5 to pathfinder rules for two classes. The Artificer, which I am sure I may find here if I dig more. And the Tinker.

Now if you don't recall the Tinker I don't blame you. My setting has had semi steampunk-without-guns in it since near inception but I didn't dig into that too much until a buddy showed me this odd gem in the Warcraft D20 book of all things. Admittedly the rules didn't work quite right as the creation rules assumed making things more along the lines of vehicles and using fuel. But with a few tweaks that class has served me well in home brew games for years.

However it really does not feel quite right for Pathfinder in general. Like several prestige classes and the like out there it feels a tiny bit underwhelming or unfinished when measured against what Pathfinder itself has to offer.

So I am wondering if anyone has ever attempted a proper update of this oft forgotten class. Perhaps even something in a more obscure Pathfinder book since I have not had the cash in my later 20s and early 30s to get new books like I did back in college. That's how responsibilities go after all.

I would be happy to give more details in what I have designed specifically if asked but I am seriously curious about these classes and what might be out there officially or semi officially

Thanks for reading.

While I can't provide much help on the tinker front other than suggest converting skills and making sure craft technological device works. Have you looked at dragonmech and iron kingdoms? Both have quite a punk aesthetic with lots of mechanics and low magic they have 3.5 splats and should be convertible in a similar manner.

[Luch Ri]

While I can't provide much help on the tinker front other than suggest converting skills and making sure craft technological device works. Have you looked at dragonmech and iron kingdoms? Both have quite a punk aesthetic with lots of mechanics and low magic they have 3.5 splats and should be convertible in a similar manner.

Actually I tried running it with the Dragonmech setup for a while, but in the end it just didn't work right. It's a fun setting in and of itself, but I haven't found much in it that translates outside of Dragonmech very well. Save for perhaps using a mech as an epic level encounter for some players. That was fun.

The other one, I donno. I will have to look into it. Thank you though for the suggestion on both fronts.