Last time, I talked about how technology’s feel compares to the flavor of other similar classes. This week, I’m going to focus more on mechanics, and how a technological character works from the perspective of a player.

Balancing technology is tricky work. On the one hand, it doesn’t have to be a limited resource like magic: in the real world, we use technology all the time, and its power is seemingly unlimited. This is a far cry from the wizard who begins his career being able to throw magic missile two or three times a day. However, allowing technology this sort of free reign would rapidly throw the balance of the game out of whack.

Fortunately, there was a rather simple solution. Technology as presented in SteamWorks is not ubiquitous - it is either relatively new or recently rediscovered. As such, only the knowledgeable can make use of technology, and even then, the devices the technological character makes use of are not always guaranteed to work. Even if technology in your setting is everywhere, the small chance of failure for technology makes sense: not everything works perfectly every time.

To use their devices, technological characters must ready them; a readied device has a set number of charges, which can be used freely. Each time a device is used, it has a chance to fail; a malfunctioned device must be repaired before it can be used again (even if it has charges remaining), while a device that functions has a slightly higher chance to malfunction the next time it is used. The resources a technological character uses to ready devices are also used to repair and recharge them, leading to a bit of a balancing act on the part of the player in the event of an extended adventure: repairing and recharging devices means that you have less available firepower for that day.

The resources to use their devices that a technological character uses are usable only once a day, much like a wizard’s preparation of spells. Like a wizard, not all of the character’s resources have to be spent in one go, meaning that you can hold resources in reserve to repair or recharge devices after a major fight.

In playtesting, the technologist (one of the technological classes presented in SteamWorks) has proven to be quite useful, effectively able to replace a wizard but with a feel of its own, throwing grenades instead of magic missiles.

Technology as per SteamWorks takes a little getting used to, not only in terms of feel, but also in terms of game mechanics. However, the end result is a mechanical system for technology that reinforces the idea that it is not magic, while retaining balance with existing "caster" classes.

Very early on in the writing of SteamWorks, I wanted to ensure that it pressed the idea that technology is not magic. Unlike psionics, there is no magic-technology transparency. While it is possible to combine the two in interesting ways, I felt that the two were inherently separate fields.

This idea is presented in the book in a variety of ways. For one, the mechanics that technology implements feel very different from magic. To use technology, a character must carry the devices he wishes to use; he must maintain them, repairing and recharging them as necessary; there is always a chance that a technologist’s more powerful devices will fail; and in the construction of some devices, the technologist must use devices he has already built and incorporate them into the new one.

However, to ensure that technology would be useful to a standard adventuring party, the technologist is still capable of things that are typically (at least in d20) in the realm of magic. A technologist can heal others - but their healing is not magical, as it can only affect living things with biological processes, and is weaker than divine healing. A technologist can make himself invisible - but such invisibility is not the same as magical invisibility (the technological term being "cloaking"), and the technologist is unable to manipulate invisibility at all (conversely, arcane magic and psionics cannot easily manipulate cloaks). A technologist can manipulate nature, but such manipulations are forced and artificial, rather than natural applications, as druids use.

The role of a technologist in the adventuring party is similar to that of a wizard or other arcane caster. He has devices like flamethrowers and autocrossbows, cloak generators and flux capacitors, universal remotes and instant fortresses. While they may be similar to spells, they are most certainly not, and no one in a setting would hold a technologist to be anything like a wizard. But while technologists are most similar to wizards, they are also capable of building devices that mimic the abilities of divine casters or psionicists: they can heal, control the wind, and protect their minds from the mental influence of others.

The devices that a technologist can have at his disposal are many and varied in function. While he can do some things that many other classes can do, he cannot do them as well, and some things are beyond even the power of technology. However, in a similar vein, there are some things that only technology can do that no other caster or manifester is capable of.

Howdy. This is the first of a series on the design of SteamWorks. I’m hoping to provide some idea as to the nature of the material found in the book, as well as some insight into the various design decisions that were made along the way. I’ve been working on the book that is now called SteamWorks for somewhere in the region of seven years. Over that time, the mechanics have been completely rewritten several times; only in the past three did it begin to resemble what it is now. A reasonable question, then, would be - why keep at it? Seven years is a long time to devote to something, but I feel the time investment has been worth it. I’ve had an interest in steampunk technology for a long time (perhaps only a little bit longer than I’ve been working on SteamWorks), and since then I’ve been intrigued by the concept of combining steampunk with fantasy. The goal of SteamWorks, then, is just that: to allow for the introduction of steampunk-esque technology into a fantasy setting. SteamWorks makes exactly one assumption about the setting in which it is placed (that assumption being the way a druid regards technology), and that assumption can be easily ignored. There are rules in the book that deal with technology’s interaction with magic and psionics, and there are also details regarding multiple ways in how technology can be brought into a world. The system implemented in SteamWorks mirrors the design of the d20 spell system, ensuring that there is balance between the technology-using classes and the magic-using classes. While the system mirrors spells, it doesn’t replicate it - there are differences between the two that give technology a definite feel, separate from that of magic, and while there is some overlap in what the two are capable of, there are some things that only technology can do. It would even be possible to use SteamWorks in the envisioning of an setting that has no magic, using technology in its stead. SteamWorks details a versatile system that allows for the use of technology in any setting. It makes (almost) no assumptions about your setting; it doesn’t require any change in the setting it is placed into; and it is complete in and of itself, allowing you to pick up the book and run with it. That’s the goal of SteamWorks, and I hope that you’ll find that it accomplishes that goal well.