How technologically advanced are your PF games?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


As the title asks; out of curiosity.

I tend to add in more modern elements like trains, printing presses, pocket watches, basic firearms and so forth, but I'm also a fan of steampunk.

Liberty's Edge

Well, Golarion already has printing presses, but if you're interested in things like trains and pocket watches, you should take a look at the Eberron setting. It's a bit more steampunky than other settings. I think there's someone around here who's done a conversion to Pathfinder.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

All players have laptops, all use electronic forms of rules (prd, d20pfsrd, pdfs) and we use Google docs extensively both in-session and between-sessions. We use them for character sheets, combat trackers, initiative tracker/roller, etc.

Edit Oops, I replied to the title of the thread not the body lol

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Depends on how tamed the land is. Highly civilized areas will have lots of magitek. More remote wilderness areas will be less advanced, but have easily transportable things here and there.


The world we have is flexible in it's technology level based on the 'age' in which you want to play. We go anywhere from ancient Babylonia to late Renaissance in our in-game tech levels. It really depends on the campaign. The beauty of it is that it's all set in the same world, which makes the history characters create really matter and can be very fun.

As for 'player' tech ... Google Docs is absolutely the best way I have seen yet of keeping character sheets. It gives both DM and Player full access to the sheet at any time and allows them to track changes/etc without erasers, multiple print-outs, etc.


Ringtail wrote:

As the title asks; out of curiosity.

I tend to add in more modern elements like trains, printing presses, pocket watches, basic firearms and so forth, but I'm also a fan of steampunk.

For my home campaign, it varies. Not only in techology level but in types of technology. Some regions and their people are exceedingly primitive, yet they continue to endure the test of time due to magic. Meanwhile, other regions use magic to enjoy various "modern" conveniences such as running water. Another location has advanced steam technology very far due to magic. In essence, most of the world runs in one way or another on magic. Societies that have shunned magic in the past have simply died out due to natural selection.

My campaign is also post apocalyptic. The world is currently in a downswing from an age where technology and magic were plentiful. Much of the world now lies in ruins, overgrown with dense forests and jungles. Massive sky cities that soared like clouds over the earth plummeted and buried themselves into the landscape, in the oceans, and otherwise reconnected and merged with the world in a big way; forming great expansive labyrinths beneath the surface world. Much of technology is being re-discovered. This has led to the world being in many was both a rugged frontier world and one of high civilization.

Most towns and such enjoy minor conveniences like lights (everburning torches) and running water (most villages consider decanters of endless water to be useful). Running water also produces the capability for indoor plumbing in some form or another (most villages have bathrooms with sanded wooden box-shaped toilets). The toilet as we know it today isn't the design they use.

Airship travel is a reality however. Not quite the massive airships like they have in Eberron. No, these are far more simple in design. Most are based on air-balloon technology and the ability to heat air and water with trap-like furnaces (essentially, magical "traps" that produce fire or water when certain switches are used); and otherwise fly based on simple engineering (flaps which help with steering, propellers that help to propel the ships in the desired directions and so forth. Such ships are vulnerable however. Some wyverns and the like take to attacking them for easy prey; which has led to commercial airships being crewed with defenders and some of them being built to be far slower but well-armored airships (particularly to protect the balloons that hold the ship aloft).

Naval travel is mostly unchanged for the most part, and is as popular as ever. Most folks don't deal much with gunpowder though. Traditionally, if you need to screw with another ship, you do it with archers (admittedly, those archers might be packing arrows of fireball for setting ships on fire) or board the other ship and take it by force. It tends to change the dynamic of ship to ship combat. Some truly intimidating warships are fashioned out of iron and steel, which make them imposing war vessels that are heavily resistant to most forms of attack.

There is a region that has used steam technology to produce overland vehicles called horseless wagons. They're exotic in most regions of the world, but are pretty common in the region they were invented.

Of course, there's also tons and tons of tribal cultures, savage wilderness, dense jungles, frosty mountains with dwarf holds, and dragons that stalk the hidden places of the world.

So...kind of like earth as is now. We got cultures whose greatest technological advancement is still bows and arrows or longspears, and we got others who are racing cars 500 miles in a circle like it was special. That's a pretty wide spectrum, I think.

Oh, did I mention space travel? :P

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I tend to use Golarion-based technology, so, in general, the most advanced thing one could probably find are those clockwork constructs (which are run by magic anyway, so less "tech" I suppose). If looking for mundane items, I'd suppose that pocket watches are as far as I get. The only exception is with places like Numeria or the Mana Wastes, where due to an anomaly of some sort, I'd easily allow for the canonical tech to be used (so, high-tech machines and guns respectively).

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