If you're draconian player/GM skip this post.
If you're a magic hater skip this post.
If you don't know/don't care about possible applications of real-world physics in a fantasy world, skip this post.
If you're a nay-sayer skip this post.
If you're sane skip this post.
If you're pregnant skip this post.
If you're driving or operating heavy machinery, skip this post.
If you're pregnant and operating heavy machinery, skip this post.
If you don't care about warnings and will just rant and flame-me-to-death-just-for-flaming-me-to-death's-sake, well have fun, we all gotta get our kicks somewhere.
Anyway, here goes:
We have Golarion.
We have clockwork (and not clockwork) machines in Golarion (starting with the clock tower in Absalom).
We have evokers with at-will pew-pew in Golarion (namely, the Evocation's School Power basic ability), this at-will pew-pew being able to become any kind of energy known to the fantasy-medieval person.
We have evokers who eventually are bound to use electricity either near teammates clad in metal head to toe, inside a smith's workshop, etc... in Golarion.
We have this little gadget (not in Golarion) called the electric engine, which is based on the principle of electromagnetism (which evokers are bound to discover empirically at some point or another), and works by moving the right parts of a clockwork-like device by electromagnetism.
And finally, we have Knowledge(Engineernig) as a Wizard's class skill, which dictates that, as a class, a wizard has the aptitude and inclinations required to become an engineer more or less naturally.
Of course there is a reason why our world didn't think of such thing as an electric engine before, mainly because our world's humans weren't even remotely capable of understanding the properties of electricity until only recently (recently considering the 2 and a half million years the homo sapiens has been walking the earth, that is), and took even longer in devising the means of harnessing its power, thus starting to look forward to its practical applications. In Golarion, however, there are evokers not only with a free-pass to it, but who can also conjure each attack action enough power to fry a 4HP Commoner at that, amount of electric power which de-facto qualifies as "high voltage".
So, take a golarian evoker with enough inclinations towards engineering and who spends enough time around conductive metals and, with some luck, he'll be eventually bound to put two and two together, and so starting devising means towards a very curious end (starting with researching the principles of electric resistance of course).
And then there's this little factor: progress is a direct product of necessity. Just as man only started working iron until he ran out of bronze, people isn't inclined to force themselves towards a goal unless they -need- it, and for an evoker (or any wizard for that matter...in Golarion, or anywhere else with magic), magic is a satisfactor already within his grasp which covers a vast array of needs he might have so... what need would an evoker ever have to invent the electric engine?
Well, fortunately for my hypotetical situation, as we're talking about having Engineering as a class skill we're talking about wizards, people of a psychollogical profile inclined to all kinds of experimentation, no matter how demented, nonsensical or purposeless they may seem to others. There's also the fact that this piece of "technomagic" called the "engine" would allow for much cheaper and reliable miracles. No matter how much of a masterwork craftmanship is required, copper and iron will always be cheaper than the materials required for crafting magic items, plus there's the undeniable perk that you don't need to risk your life through 10 levels of hack&slash adventuring, the magical power you have at level 1 is more than enough to get away with it (except perhaps, whatever levelling you take in getting the ranks and array of feats you might need to start crafting Masterwork items, but it's still a lot less). As an end-user, however, as long as you're a lvl 1 evoker, you can use them... power to the masses (to the masses of evokers, that is).
Anyway, that's just the concept I have for a wizard I ought to roll sometime soon, someone with the means, the savvy, and the curiosity. People here used to complain so much about how the Evocation school is useless that I started wondering about something only evokers could do. I have more ideas for "technomagic" gadgets too, but the electric engine is by far the most flammable, so thought I might as well throw it in as food for thought.
Insert flames and nay-saying arguements after the dotted line
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P.D: The poster denies any responsibility in whatever future nerfs the Evocation school suffers originated in this post.
I'll point out that the electric power harnessed in most evocation spells is an accumulated charge, like lightning or discharging a capacitor (and almost always seems to be discharged to ground).
The idea of a circuit simply might not occur to them.
On the other hand, I just turned in a monster powered by a Tesla coil, so make of that what you will.
You don't even need an evoker, do you? Just train a shocker lizard to do the same thing. Or even better, just use a small fire elemental to power a steam engine (since fire elementals don't eat, unlike shocker lizards and evokers).
Actually, for the 'have to eat' point of view, a horse in harness is probably cheaper than paying an evoker to zap all day. (Especially, at-will or not, I'd rule that doing it all day is at least like lifting things all day: There's no hard limit, but you get tired.) A horse might eat more, but the evoker expects a house, better food, entertainment, etc.
And anything enchanted by that evoker to zap on its own is a magic item and very expensive (compared to a horse.) And batteries of an alchemical nature would have a very low power output compared to conventional methods.
The 'expensive' problem applies to binding elementals too, be it a fire-elemental powered steam engine or an earth elemental on a hamster wheel.
Just train a shocker lizard to do the same thing. Or even better, just use a small fire elemental to power a steam engine (since fire elementals don't eat, unlike shocker lizards and evokers).
But then you need the level to either keep in check a shocker lizard or bind a fire elemental, which kind of defeats the purpose of "easy miracles". In addition, while both alternatives can be used for fabrication, first you need to discover electromagnetism, something for which you need the right circumstances. Hence why I thought of someone who lives day-to-day with both electricity and conductive metals, thus having considerable chances of discovering said phenomena empirically before he got old and grey.
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In the original post you mentioned how over time they would learn said "trick"...How many times would it have been learned only to have the "trick" fry the trickster to death thus the trick is unlearned? It may not have been learned and survived up to this point in time. I suggest you have a go at it ;) (that is not an official flame btw, more of an illusiory flaming which is not part of this thread since we are limited to evocation here)
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We have this little gadget (not in Golarion) called the electric engine, which is based on the principle of electromagnetism (which evokers are bound to discover empirically at some point or another), and works by moving the right parts of a clockwork-like device by electromagnetism.
An electric motor or generator is really just a magnet spinning inside a conductive coil (such as a coil of wire). There is very little "clockwork" involved. If you apply a current through the conductor, the generated magnetic field will spin the magnet (motor). If you spin the magnet, then the action of the magnetic field on the coil will produce an electric current (generator).
From where I type, the hard part for electricity evokers would be developing some kind of battery to capture their electricity, allowing them to run devices like motors.
Do shocker lizards produce AC or DC current? ;-)
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2 points considering the OPs post... and considering Golarion
a) Golarion is a lot older than own our world... and there had been ancient civilizations that used this same technomagy... actually the Azlani might have done such a thing... but more importantly... there are already universities for ingeniers... said clocktower in Absalomthat reconstruct/changes configuration itself without magic each day... so actually you just need someone with the inclination and the talent... that considering some places in Absalom... its sounds not only plausible... but useful
b) we arenot talking about a noble wanting his charriot rune by a wizard charrier... (but tlets admit anywhone who arrived by such medium would be the envy in Taldorand Absalom)... but a wizard moving by hyimself:
-Horse might die and needs food
-small charriot with said electrical technomotor with the energy reception where you drive and free zapping each rounds means you have a crazy wizard with hands surrounded with blue sparkles in a non stopping vehicle
give it some ways of speed (lets say a sail or just not lot of weight and good engine) and you might have a vehicule that may not outrun a horse... but it will tire it out
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The existence of magic, especially at-will magic, changes a lot of technological assumptions.
Endless mechanical energy can be produced with Animate Dead (Mr. Zombie, turn this crank, *forever*) or Golems or Animated Objects (for those not inclined to animate dead, although even those offended by necromancy might not be as vociferously opposed to having a dead horse animated and put back to work powering the mill).
Acid, for tanning or metalworking can be created via Acid Splash, and lasts forever once created (under 3.5 rules, anyway).
In addition to it's use as an infinite water source, a Decanter of Endless Water can also be used to power a water-wheel, again, providing an endless supply of mechanical energy (so long as you have somewhere for the water to go, afterwards!).
If I wanted to completely do away with 'magic technology,' I would have a secret brotherhood of wizards and sorcerers devoted to stamping out any sort of magical innovation that would threaten their monopoly on power. (Indeed, in earlier days, there might have been a similar shadow war between Sorcerers and Wizards, as the Wizards viewed the Sorcerers as upstarts who didn't 'earn' the power, and the Sorcerers viewed the Wizards as meddling fools who were trying to codify and distribute what was meant as a gift for only a special blooded elite!) These days, the organization includes both types of arcanist, united only in their desire to not become obsolete, to keep their stranglehold on arcane power and not see it distributed among the hoi-polloi, which they would see as 'cheapening' it.
Or, to steal a phrase. "If everyone is special, then nobody is."
Every now and then, some enterprising arcanist, unaware of this brotherhood, would develop a fire elemental powered steam engine, only to become the victim of mysterious accidents, designed to keep the people against this sort of innovation. (Fires spring up around town, and small fire elementals, like the one he claims is safely imprisoned in his Elemental Engine, are found to be responsible, with evidence at the scenes of the fires tying him to the actions. The town council orders him to cease and desist, and dismantle the machine, and things spiral out of control as he fights with the angry mob. Through some simple behind-the-scenes machinations, the 'Elemental Engine' is not only destroyed, but thoroughly discredited as an idea, and the secret brotherhood didn't even have to show up for the final fight, allowing the upstart mage to be dealt with by adventurers hired by the town to stop 'the Mad Mage of Menlo Park' before his dangerous experiments burned the town to the ground!)
The first thing I thought when I read the original post was an evoker zapping a piece of metal over and over, thinking: "I went to grad school just to do this?"
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This also ignores the fact that real-world electric motors and electronics get fried by lightning strikes everyday. If I remember my electromagnetism classes, an electrostatic discharge (ESD) powerful enough to be felt (like when you touch your doorknob) and cause a spark has to be from 10,000 to 50,000 volts (depending on air density, humidity, and such). An integrated circuit can be damaged by an ESD of 50 volts.
So, (since we're injecting realism into a fantasy world where we play elves fighting dragons with magic), the ESD created by a character using the at-will power would likely be far in excess of what was needed to destroy whatever engine was being created.
-Skeld
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Every now and then, some enterprising arcanist, unaware of this brotherhood, would develop a fire elemental powered steam engine, only to become the victim of mysterious accidents, designed to keep the people against this sort of innovation.
At this point you could interject the urban legend about the guy that invented the 100 mpg carburetor only to sell it for a ginormous amount of money to an oil company so they could sit on the design and bury him under a gag order as part of the contract.
-Skeld
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secret society theory
i... like this :D
but for the wrong reasons :P
i am thinking in the wizard that ask the adventurers to discover who is trying to sabotage him (if there are fire elementals free and they are not his... then someone else is messing with him)
ahhh the Academia of Arcane Arts or AAA sounds like a terrible end game villain society I would love to hate and fight against :D
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So, (since we're injecting realism into a fantasy world where we play elves fighting dragons with magic), the ESD created by a character using the at-will power would likely be far in excess of what was needed to destroy whatever engine was being created.
-Skeld
thats the beauty of it skeld... metals have quite a decent hardness, most of the time beyond what the mage could harm...but enoughelectricity to charge his motor :)
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The existence of magic, especially at-will magic, changes a lot of technological assumptions.
Endless mechanical energy can be produced with Animate Dead (Mr. Zombie, turn this crank, *forever*) or Golems or Animated Objects (for those not inclined to animate dead, although even those offended by necromancy might not be as vociferously opposed to having a dead horse animated and put back to work powering the mill).
Acid, for tanning or metalworking can be created via Acid Splash, and lasts forever once created (under 3.5 rules, anyway).
In addition to it's use as an infinite water source, a Decanter of Endless Water can also be used to power a water-wheel, again, providing an endless supply of mechanical energy (so long as you have somewhere for the water to go, afterwards!).
If I wanted to completely do away with 'magic technology,' I would have a secret brotherhood of wizards and sorcerers devoted to stamping out any sort of magical innovation that would threaten their monopoly on power. (Indeed, in earlier days, there might have been a similar shadow war between Sorcerers and Wizards, as the Wizards viewed the Sorcerers as upstarts who didn't 'earn' the power, and the Sorcerers viewed the Wizards as meddling fools who were trying to codify and distribute what was meant as a gift for only a special blooded elite!) These days, the organization includes both types of arcanist, united only in their desire to not become obsolete, to keep their stranglehold on arcane power and not see it distributed among the hoi-polloi, which they would see as 'cheapening' it.
Or, to steal a phrase. "If everyone is special, then nobody is."
Every now and then, some enterprising arcanist, unaware of this brotherhood, would develop a fire elemental powered steam engine, only to become the victim of mysterious accidents, designed to keep the people against this sort of innovation. (Fires spring up around town, and small fire elementals, like the one he claims is safely imprisoned in his Elemental Engine, are...
Sounds like one hell of an adventure module. So, when are you writing it, and when can I expect it to be published? :)
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Sounds like one hell of an adventure module. So, when are you writing it, and when can I expect it to be published? :)
this Actually sounds more and more like an AP :P
with a secret cabal with roots everywhere... maybe your own wizard is part of it and becomes a sleeper in your midst...scaryso... this is how the War of Ascension began in Golarion?
Since the Chinese had gunpowder for centuries before the Europeans came up with the idea of guns and cannons, I have no trouble with evokers failing to invent the electric engine for quite some time.
I'd say that the principles are most likely known by anyone with a suitable Arcana roll, but are considered impractical for most applications, and more costly than just a skeleton and a crank.
This also ignores the fact that real-world electric motors and electronics get fried by lightning strikes everyday. If I remember my electromagnetism classes, an electrostatic discharge (ESD) powerful enough to be felt (like when you touch your doorknob) and cause a spark has to be from 10,000 to 50,000 volts (depending on air density, humidity, and such). An integrated circuit can be damaged by an ESD of 50 volts.
So, (since we're injecting realism into a fantasy world where we play elves fighting dragons with magic), the ESD created by a character using the at-will power would likely be far in excess of what was needed to destroy whatever engine was being created.
-Skeld
This is true: We're not talking about 120 volts AC, we're talking about enough jolt current to kill a man (by burning, too, not by stopping the heart) every 6 seconds. It's a hell of a motor that would survive that.
Well, survive it and run on it. I'm sure the electric motors that push nuclear subs and aircraft carriers can easily absorb that much current. They just won't, you know, DO anything.
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I'm often let my players design technology for their lairs and strongholds as it's not portable and only rarely comes into play. In a world where each wizard has to translate arcane writing in thier own handwriting, my feeling is that there isn't much of a concept of 'mass production.'
When someone else looks it - they tend to view the same way someone would look at someone else's magic experiment - cool, but I'd do it another way. In my mind, this is why these societies tend to stay at the same level of technology for thousands of years. The best and brighter are often wizards whose learning is not transferable through the society.
Also, I have a metagame reason as well. Technology seems 'easy' to us because we understand it. If we had the ability to perform magic, casting an invisibility spell might seem as straightforward as building a web site, or getting an oil change. It's sort of our lack of the actual magic that makes it seem well magic...
So in my mind allowing a player to build an electric engine even to power a vehicle is fine, provided they could accomplish something similiar with magic and they don't try to mass produce it.
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I'm often let my players design technology for their lairs and strongholds as it's not portable and only rarely comes into play. In a world where each wizard has to translate arcane writing in thier own handwriting, my feeling is that there isn't much of a concept of 'mass production.'
When someone else looks it - they tend to view the same way someone would look at someone else's magic experiment - cool, but I'd do it another way. In my mind, this is why these societies tend to stay at the same level of technology for thousands of years. The best and brighter are often wizards whose learning is not transferable through the society.
Also, I have a metagame reason as well. Technology seems 'easy' to us because we understand it. If we had the ability to perform magic, casting an invisibility spell might seem as straightforward as building a web site, or getting an oil change. It's sort of our lack of the actual magic that makes it seem well magic...
So in my mind allowing a player to build an electric engine even to power a vehicle is fine, provided they could accomplish something similiar with magic and they don't try to mass produce it.
this in itself is a very interesting point Cypher, you are right... every wizard is in general egocentric enough to think they have the answers, sometimes destroying what other think is a better way, sometimes trying to learn from one another... scientists do this, why wizards no?
How many times would it have been learned only to have the "trick" fry the trickster to death thus the trick is unlearned?
Oh indeed, this kind of thing must have already happened hundreds if not thousands of times over the course of at least a century, with rocket-science evokers dying to mishaps and lab accidents. Eventually, however, one might make it through. But indeed you're right as, from an evolutionary point of view, if this phenomena is killing the majority of specimens rather than making them fitter for survival, then this means that, even if the specimen is a step forward, perhaps it may be way -too- forward for the specimen to survive -now-.
Saying the specimen survives, one of three things will happen:
a) This specimen, being himself a wizard, and being wizards the egocentrist, self-important bunch they are, is not interested in making of his discoveries a new school of "magic", so except perhaps for an apprentice, he doesn't propagate his ideas and technomagic dies with him. 90% of happening, Wizards -are- self-important pricks as an average.
b) Humans, being the sceptical bunch they are no matter the universe and gaming world, will see no need for the new toys seeing how they already got lucrative contracts with people who offer exactly the same services, and technomagic fades into obscurity until perhaps centuries or millenia later when the world is ready for it (as it happened to Nikola Tesla). 98% chance of happening, saying this wizard belongs to 10% of non-pricks.
c) Somehow the "new fad" catches the eye of a following and becomes the rage among evokers... becoming a threat to current society in the process (as it happened to Jesus and his ideas of enlightened humanism). Let's see... the 2% of an event which only has a 10% chance of happening, from among the few specimens that survive their experiments to adulthood, from among that reduced sector of our population called "wizards"; while the chances aren't "astronomically small", it's safe to assume we'll only see one of these every millenium or so.
Still, it would be interesting to see PF's take on the Dragonstar game someday.
The first thing I thought when I read the original post was an evoker zapping a piece of metal over and over, thinking: "I went to grad school just to do this?"
LOL, don't half our modern world's professionals feel that way? Oh God, I just brought The Man to Golarion, what have I done? o_o;
This also ignores the fact that real-world electric motors and electronics get fried by lightning strikes everyday.
Heh, I aknowledge I'm exploiting game mechanics here, given how "iron" (which is more or less the game's benchmark for anything "metal") has Hardness 10, whereas the Evoker's basic pew-pew damage, even if by common sense should be considered "High Voltage", is still far below that threshold (as long as he is under lvl 10). Guilty as charged. =)
However, I also mentioned that the first part of research would indeed be about Electric Resistance and Conductivity properties on a variety of metals, so it's pretty much just a matter of time before getting it right.
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If you're draconian player/GM skip this post.
If you're a magic hater skip this post.
If you don't know/don't care about possible applications of real-world physics in a fantasy world, skip this post.
If you're a nay-sayer skip this post.
If you're sane skip this post.
If you're pregnant skip this post.
If you're driving or operating heavy machinery, skip this post.
If you're pregnant and operating heavy machinery, skip this post.
If you don't care about warnings and will just rant and flame-me-to-death-just-for-flaming-me-to-death's-sake, well have fun, we all gotta get our kicks somewhere.
Anyway, here goes:
We have Golarion.
We have clockwork (and not clockwork) machines in Golarion (starting with the clock tower in Absalom).
We have evokers with at-will pew-pew in Golarion (namely, the Evocation's School Power basic ability), this at-will pew-pew being able to become any kind of energy known to the fantasy-medieval person.
We have evokers who eventually are bound to use electricity either near teammates clad in metal head to toe, inside a smith's workshop, etc... in Golarion.
We have this little gadget (not in Golarion) called the electric engine, which is based on the principle of electromagnetism (which evokers are bound to discover empirically at some point or another), and works by moving the right parts of a clockwork-like device by electromagnetism.
And finally, we have Knowledge(Engineernig) as a Wizard's class skill, which dictates that, as a class, a wizard has the aptitude and inclinations required to become an engineer more or less naturally.
Of course there is a reason why our world didn't think of such thing as an electric engine before, mainly because our world's humans weren't even remotely capable of understanding the properties of electricity until only recently (recently considering the 2 and a half million years the homo sapiens has been walking the earth, that is), and took even longer in devising the means of harnessing its power, thus...
OK I know that I'm a couple of years late but the inner mad scientist/wizard/exploiter inside me couldn't resist to not reply.
Why bother with electricity when you can use steam-power to create a Steam Turbine with few magical items and a couple of permanent spellsthat will almost never stop, will not need supplies to run it except perhaps a few maintenance expenses and it will be able to be compact enough to power vehicles and clockwork golems or large enough to give power to early industrial factories or even cities.
Required items for compact size Steam Turbine Power Generator:
-Adamantine casing with fireproof enchantments or a naturally heat resistant casing for the Engine.
-A Decanter of Endless Water
-Metallic Blow Pipes (one or several depending power output required)
-Water transfer pipe network
-Bladed Fan Turbine
-Water Tank with opening for the Decanter
The procedure is simple:
Attach to the heat resistant casing the metal blowpipes
Cast Gust of Wind + Permanency to each pipe (strength depending power output required). Leave at least one pipe for exhaust.
Cast a Wall of Fire + Permanency inside the Heat Resistant casing.
You now have a furnace with never ending fire that is supplied with air at high pressure increasing its intensity therefor its capability to turn water to steam.
Guide the exhaust into the Turbine Chamber its pressure should add to moving the bladed fan.
Connect the Water pipe network with the Furnace and the Water tank and attach the decanter of endless water to it and activate it.
The end of the water pipe network should connect with the Turbine Chamber.
The water pipes run through the Furnace, the heat converts water from the decanter into steam that joins the exhaust fumes of the furnace into the Turbine Chamber and turn the bladed fan while they run through the chamber into the final exhaust.
The turbine axis will connect with a clockwork mechanism to provide movement to the machine .
Disadvantages
Dispel, Disjunction and Antimagic field and effects will suspend or deactivate the Engine.
Will not operate as effectively at low oxygen environments.
If not protected underwater environments may disrupt the functionality of the Engine.
It will probably be quite loud therefor it will attract attention.
Advantages
It does not require fuel (at least not-abundant fuel)
It should require minimum maintenance.
It is somewhat environmental friendly since it doesn't use fuel except air and water.
Once I was working with a team of gnomish inventors. We had bought a lightning elemental from some chap who kept it in a metal cage with a curious spike pounded into the ground.
After 6 or so casualties we learned a valuable lesson. KEEP THE SPIKE IN THE GROUND! Eventually, we managed to transfer the elemental into a glass ball with single metal bar exiting the enclosure.
We designed some uses but the marketing folks were unable to make any sales.
1) Massive amount of whips were connected to the bar running from the enclosure. Prisoners or slaves could be whipped with the additional benefit of electricity to motivate them. At our first demonstration, only 10-15% of the prisoners died per application of the whip. Those that survived seldom created anymore problems...
2) We then tried selling an electric cook pot to a coven of witches. We ran the bar from the enclosure to a large cooking pot. The electrified water could be used to humanely kill animals. Or to our horror, young children. Fortunately, electricity seems to transform water into 2 highly flammable gases. The candle lighting ignited the gases, blowing up the witches, and enabling the children to escape...
3) Finally we tried marketing the idea to a dwarven armory. The electricity was able to magnetize metal and we thought we could market the idea of magnetic armor components. We used wooden tongs to hold an armor spike, one end touching the bar from the glass enclosure and the other end of the spike to the ground. We had asked the dwarves to not wear any metal to the demonstration. Apparently the Master Armorer was wearing a chainmail undergarment. Which the spike was attracted to...
Now the big glass ball sits disconnected in the middle of the room, amusing the halfing wizard who likes to touch the glass, making his hair stand on end.
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very interesting concept...
for literary inspiration, check out "The Magic Engineer" and "The Order War" by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
Basic premise: use "Order" (crafting, cold, and strengthening) magic to make things like steam power, cannon, rockets, and the like. Very interesting novels, and the main characters are mages exactly as the OP describes.
Other interesting uses for Evoker style energy:
Leyden Jars with some basic wiring (and insulation) can serve as the capacitor / charge battery for such things as electric motors.
Electrolysis of water will yield both Hydrogen and Oxygen in pretty easy supply. And having nearly pure gases such as H & O has got to be awesome for wizardly studies.
Water Desalination Sure, a decanter of endless water will yield easy drinking water, but this way, you get to use evocation to the same effect.
AS you can see, I've had a bunch of experience with just such ideas...one of my players had an Evoker in CoT, and she was constantly trying new ways to "build" and "create" using nothing but known materials and evocation magic.
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Do shocker lizards produce AC or DC current? ;-)
Maybe this lady could shed some light on the conundrum?