Creating Technological Devices
There are many weapons and technological devices in the world of
Warcraft - from bomb launchers, dragon guns, and gryphonclas pistols to autostilts, clockwork oxen, goblin zeppelins, flying machines, night scopes, portable field kitchens, rocket submarines, siege engines, and many kinds of walking armor. This amazing technology will be detailed in
Alliance & Horde Compendium, but that doesn't mean you can't make devices of your own!
Kalimdor is a crucible of developing technology. Dwarven and goblin workshops are springing up across the land, and a host of devices and constructs are taking shape. With all this activity going on, it would be a shame if you got left out of the fun. The item creation rules below will assist you in developing your own steamtech gadgets.
Step One: Set the Technology Score
Imagination and hard work only go so far. The power of the items you can create is limited by your experience. This factor is handled as a "technological limit," figured as follows:
Technological Limit = 1 + tinker class level + feat modifiers
Any device you build must have a Technology Score (TS) less than or equal to your technological limit. If more than one character works on an item, the device's TS may be less than or equal to the highest technological limit. Items with lower Technology Scores are cheaper and quicker to make than those with higher Technology Scores.
The TS determines the device's maximum capabilities. Not all categories apply to all objects - a gun does not carry cargo, for instance - and an object can be designed to use less than its maximum capabilities. Thus, the object's overall TS is determined by the capability that requires the highest Technology Score. A TS can be increased by later upgrades; see "Upgrades and Adding Functions," below, for more information.
The DC of the Craft (technological device) check needed to build the device is determined as 15 + TS.
Step Two: Define the Task
The first step to designing any item is figuring out what you want it to do. Got a forest you need to chop down? Maybe some goblin treecutters can help. How about drilling through a castle wall or sailing the seas in a rocket submarine? If you can imagine and describe a task, then a technological device can perform it. Some possibilities include:
- Magnify small of far-away objects.
- Bore through a lock on a door - or the stone wall next to it.
- Fly people and cargo across the continent.
- Test the floors of a ruined temple for traps.
- Entertain a crowd with automated puppetry.
- Assemble a brick wall.
- Forge a hundred swords.
- Communicate with a distant city by using giant semaphore signals.
- Hang glide into a mountain fortress.
- Change the course of a river by digging out its bank.
- Add up large numbers very quickly.
Once you have described the task to be performed, the GM assigns it a DC to represent how difficult it is for the proposed mechanical device to perform the task described.
Task DCs are never used in skill checks. They exist only as a way of evaluating how difficult an item is to construct.
The GM should take into account the scale of the task, how long the task is likely to take, how complicated the actions required to perform the task are, and how the item is expected to operate. These factors make for a wide range of possible DCs - a device that produces a small fire without flint or tinder may be DC 5, for instance, while "kill every orc on Kalimdor" may be DC 500. The GM may even rule that a task is impossible to perform with the technology available to
Warcraft characters.
One way you can persuade the GM to set a low DC is to provide a detailed description of how the item is expected to accomplish its task. If you can show that the task is easy, the GM has a good reason to assign a low DC. A Rube Goldbergstyle drawing is a wonderful way to prove that a task is not as difficult as it might seem.
Step Three: Decide How Quickly the Item Operates
A task takes time to perform. For most items, this time is the interval between beginning the task and finishing it. For vehicles, this time measures how quickly the vehicle begins operating. For weapons, this is the time required to reload or ready the weapon.
The GM decides the basic time unit for the task - combat rounds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months. Use whichever time unit seems most appropriate given the scale of the task and the design of the item.
The person designing the item then chooses a number between 1 and 10. This is the Time Factor, or how many time units are needed for the item to perform its task. The Time Factor is important because slower items are less expensive and can be built more quickly than faster items. The faster an item is, the more you pay for it.
Some items work just once and then destroy themselves. These items are considered to have a Time Factor of 10.
Example: Zim the Mad is building a boning machine to prepare his favorite dish: gefilte human. His player presents a charming sketch of a conveyor belt system with 36 strategically placed blades. The GM decides that this is a complex repetitive chore, but the blades are positioned efficiently and will do the job quickly. The GM decides that "minutes" are an appropriate time unit for the job. The player chooses 2 minutes for each use, making this item's Time Factor 2.
Step Four: Determine the Malfunction Rating
You can make something reliable and expensive or save some gold and put up with the occasional life-threatening explosion. Most tinkers prefer thriftiness to personal safety, which means there is a significant chance that their devices will malfunction during normal use.
During the design process, you assign the task a Malfunction Rating from 0 to 5. This number represents the chance that the item will suffer a catastrophic failure when this task is performed. See "Malfunction Rating," above, for specifics on applying an MR to completed items.
Figure the Market Value
Once the Technology Score (TS), Task DC, Time Factor, and Malfunction Rating (MR) are determined, the item's market value (in gold pieces) is figured. The Task DC is the most important factor when deciding worth.
Task DC;
Multiply by
10;10
15;20
20-30;25
35-50;50
75-100;100
200+;250
The list above shows the number by which you multiply the Task DC to get the Task DC Value, which is then applied with the other elements to determine market value, as indicated here:
Market Value = TS x (Task DC value) / (Time Factor + MR)
So, a device with TS 4, Task DC value 500, Time Factor 3, and MR 1 has a market value of 500 gp.
Market value is not set in stone. The GM should round the value to the nearest 25 gp and may adjust it further to reflect special circumstances.
Hardness, Hit Points, and Size
You determine the hardness and hit points. In most cases, these figures represent the maximum that the item's TS allows. (Steam technology may be oversized, but it is generally sturdy.) Building a fragile device that is easy to destroy if it falls into the wrong hands is convenient sometimes, however.
The GM then sets the size and weight of the device based on what functions it performs and the materials from which it is constructed. In most cases, the size of an object is obvious - small hand tools are Tiny and weigh a few pounds at most, steam-powered tree saws are Small and can be held and operated in two hands, while self-propelled mechanical lumberjacks may be Huge and weigh hundreds of pounds. Keep in mind that steam technology tends to involve large pistons, boilers, and other oversized equipment. Most devices are much bigger and bulkier than they would be on 21st-century Earth.
Finally, the GM determines any other information necessary to use the item. Most steam-powered air vehicles have average maneuverability, for instance, though the GM may decide that a particular vehicle is more or less maneuverable. (A flying machine would have "good" maneuverability, for instance.)
Alliance & Horde Compendium will provide more detailed guidelines.
Building the item
Once the item creation DC and the market value are set, the item may be built using the standard Craft rules (
PHB, Chapter 4: Skills, "Craft"). You pay one-third of the item's price in raw materials to get started. Actual construction requires a weekly Craft (technological device) check. Mltiply a successful check result by the check's DC and record the total. When the accumulated progress is greater than the device's market value x 10, the item is finally completed!
Technological devices are considered complex items. They require a Craft (technological device) check if created by spells such as
minor creation or
fabricate.