I'm looking at the Pure Steam Playtest, and I'm really loving it. I haven't seen any topics on the playtest on the forum yet, so I figured I would take the liberty of making one myself.
I personally haven't had the chance to begin an adventure in Ullera yet, but I am eagerly awaiting it. I haven't really thought too hard about what class I would go, but looking at it, I would either make a Rucctioneer, a Widowman, or a Gunslinger dipped into Civil Bedlamite.
How does everyone else feel about it so far? What is your favorite Archetype? Least Favorite? How do you feel about the Chaplain and the new equipment?
I am sorry if this is the wrong forum to post this in. I was just taken by the lack of Pure Steam topics here and the lack of action over on their dedicated forum.
I've just barely browsed the pdf, but I really like what I see so far. I think that the Chaplain may be a tad bit OP and I'm afraid he will be stealing the thunder from the bard class.
I don't think I'll be able to playtest the material to much since I barely have the time to game anymore.
I see the Chaplain as an odd mixture of the Cleric and the Bard. The Gravitas ability is definitely strong, and if used to do nonlethal, it can become a powerful force when combined with a Widowman Monk inflicting nonlethal. And the Elocutionary Talents are definitely very interesting. Their "Organizations" (domains) are really cool as well and add some awesome flavor to the class...that said...yes, the Chaplain could very well put the party Bard out of a job.
I think they should reduce the temp hit points and nonlethal damage to 1d6, and let them choose at first level if they want to use nonlethal or grant temp hit points.
I do like the organizations though, those were my favorite part of the class.
Hey guys, thank you for your interest in Pure Steam! We did have another post going here, but it seems to have died off in the shuffle (I was actually just about to bump it when I saw this post).
I am the lead designer of Pure Steam, and would be happy to respond to your feedback or answer any questions you might have.
Yes, the Chaplain was designed to be a mixture between the Cleric and the Bard, just as the Oracle is a blend between the Cleric and the Sorcerer. The Chaplain, however, is designed to fit a more society-oriented role than the Bard, as town spokespeople, diplomats, representatives, and natural leaders as opposed to minstrels, storytellers, and performers.
I am very grateful for your feedback on the Chaplain. I designed it this way on purpose, as it is easier to balance nerfs than buffs. And despite their similarities, we still believe that the Bard and Chaplain are unique enough that they could co-exist in the same group without much overlap, depending on how they are built.
I will be reigning in the Chaplain's power a bit, that is for certain.
In the meantime, feel free to share any other feedback or question you may have. And once again, thank you for your interest in our game!
Personally, my favorite part of the PDF was the Fumigator Alchemist. Ever since I first say the Green Hornet gas a room full of mobsters I always wondered why this tactic isn't used more often. Plus I have an affinity for poison-based characters.
If I had enough people to start a group (which I don't currently), or could join a group to help playtest I would, but sadly I cannot at the moment. (Unless someone is running something online or whatever, hint hint)
I love it. Getting my players to test/play it, on the other hand, would nigh be impossible. We get together so infrequently now that Pathfinder is all they want to play.
I will try to implement some of the content into my Jade regent Campaign. I will try to give feedback on how it goes.
Any testing you guys can do, or feedback you can give, helps us out immensely. Thank you guys.
Also, there have been some talks between developers about hosting online Pure Steam games on our forums, but the logistics have yet to be discussed or decided. However, this may happen after the playtest period, unfortunately, but stick around for more info on this.
Keep the feedback coming!
Like what I see.
I believe a friend of mine will be starting up a game soon (as in, within the week if all goes well) and I will give you all of the feedback possible on the new equipment, gear, archetypes and how the Chaplain does...hopefully or GM hopeful has finished preparation for our campaign :P
Also, I'm sorry for making the new topic. If I had seen the old one, I would have posted there instead of making a new one. But at all's well, so it's good ^_^
Not a problem. I think it's good that another topic was started. It helps spread the word of Pure Steam, and also makes me feel all fuzzy inside knowing that people dig our game. So thank you!
I've taken a look at it and it's pretty interesting. I'll be keeping my eyes out for more.
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My group keeps talking about starting up...then stuff always happens -_- but, always happy to help out, Sellsword! Fantastic work so far, and I am really looking forward to any future additions...including the Gearhead baseclass
Any new feedback from anyone?
Also, just a little update, we are pushing to have the Gearhead playtest available sometime next week, so stay tuned!
She blinded me with Science! Finally, here is a link to our Gearhead Base Class playtest. The gearhead is the Pure Steam version of a non-magical caster that uses science and technological contraptions to replicate the effects of spells. For the final product, we will be coming up with several more schematic effects, but for now, the current variety of schematics should be enough to get the servos firing! Test him out, create a few contraptions, and then let us know what you think. I look forward to everyone's feedback. Science RULES!
Got it saved on my Drive now, will give a more thorough look-over when I get home from work =)
Does anyone any feedback to share on the Gearhead so far? I am interested to see what you all have to say about it.
For those interested, we are trying to get some people together to run some Pure Steam forum adventures. These adventures would be a continuation to the story of the Grassy Spur module featured in our playtest. You and the other players will help shape the adventure paths' direction and outcome, as well as help provide feedback to Pure Steam's development.
I really like what I see with the Gearhead class, I've been looking for an inventor/artificer/engineer type class for a long time. I'll ask my DM if I can try it out in our upcoming Shattered star game (if we ever get to start it).
I might be interested in some online play. I'll be sure to check out your forums later.
Great news! Thanks Mortagon!
After a more read-through of the class I think the class should be medium bab and d8 hit dice. I understand the reason why you choose the poor progression (9th level powers and such) but several of the builds I have come up with seems quite reliant on weapons. The class also gets light armor proficiency and a host of exotic weapons, and with a poor bab these are not as useful, espescially at higher levels.
My recommandation is to base the class more on the alchemist. Keep the innovations, but maybe give him more and revse the powers so that they have six levels instead of 9 (or keep them as 9, it might not be to bad seeing that the cleric manages to be a balanced class even though he has medium bab and 9th level spells).
I also think the simplified contraptions innovation should either reduce the DC for activating contraptions or remove the check althogether, maybe with some sort of limitation on what level of contraptions may be made as a simplified one, or a restriction on the charges, making them one time use items.
Thank you for your feedback Mortagon. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to look the class over and coming up with a few builds.
Can you please explain in greater detail why you believe the class needs to be more weapon reliant? Is the contraption system not offering enough options?
Also, it has come to my attention that the Beta download link on Paizo's site has expired. The beta can still be downloaded on drivethrurpg.com, for free.
I am the GM in question with the Shattered Star campaign starting tomorrow, if all goes according to plan. Before I even consider having what I consider a VERY out-of-place character weird up my game, I would like to know if playtest results from a game that is not set in a relative setting to the nature of the class will be valuable at all.
I am not altering the game at all. So he will be an "alien presence". This means:
- He will never face Pure Steam related challenges.
- He will never face other Gearhead characters.
- He will be wholly contained in a pure PF game, and the only character with said skill set, forced to create every class related piece of equipment from the basic raw materials, as he will never find Gearhead themed items.
Bottom line: Does this still give valuable feedback? Seems to me that there will be more to be learned in generating a fake party and pitting it against a rapid fire series of encounters.
Absolutely. Making sure the base mechanics of the class are working (period) is extremely valuable feedback. Also, testing how the class plays alongside classic fantasy elements is just as valuable as how it plays alongside steam punk elements.
Plus, you will be playing the class in ways we didn't plan, or in a setting that we didn't expect. That feedback will be more valuable than us shoehorning the class through simulations where we know it will or will not exceed. You will be testing from a different perspective, which is the whole point of a playtest.
So yes, test away, and then let me know how it goes! Thank you Kamelguru.
Just looked at your Gearhead Base class. A very complex class to be sure, but definitely seems like you put a lot of thought and passion into it, and I think it sits alongside LPJ's Machinesmith quite nicely.
As to Mortagon's feedback, I'm not sure it's that the class needs to be more weapon reliant - perhaps Mortagon is merely highlighting that some of the builds made were reliant on weapons. I'm unclear whether this means weapon-contraptions or wielding more mundane weapons.
After studying it, I am going to allow it with some fluff tweaks. Primarily, it is going to be a tweak on binding magical forces, not science. This is because even the alien tech of Numeria follows the rules for magic, and not to mention "News! Extremely powerful magic, for the hands of ANYONE! The domain of wizards made available for all!" would be a far more interesting point of focus for the Pathfinders than "We heard there is some old tomes nobody cared about, if you wanna earn some money." And then there is the balance issue of an already powerful class completely circumventing a set of defenses like SR and so on.
Second, I am definitely not giving it increased BAB or HD. This is already a tier 1 class. Easily. Two good saves, power comparable to a sorcerer, with versatility and a rapid progression comparable to a wizard, on top of class abilities that allow the class to produce items rapidly, make him a better rogue than the rogue for dungeoncrawl purposes, and proficiency with all weapons (effectively). Clerics and Druids get away with having better BAB and HD due to their spells being a long shot away from the power of arcane magic. Gearhead duplicates most of the powerful staples of an arcane caster on top of VERY good class abilities.
Did not even touch onto the fact that the Gearhead is not only proficient in armor, but stands out as the only full arcane caster that is freed completely of arcane spell failure, meaning that with a single level dip in fighter, he can wear full plate and wield a tower shield without any penalty at all. THAT is also quite the boon. I know the alchemist is free from ASF as well, but unlike the alchemist who is mostly focused on self-buffs and the quite limited bomb, the Gearhead has the full brunt of offensive power and battlefield control power of a real caster, so that comparison is essentially moot.
My gut feeling is that it is overpowered if set beside other core classes. I get the feeling that the differences between a steam themed setting and classic fantasy might compensate more, as lethality often seem to increase in modern settings, and give non-casters more options in form of gear.
Alright, we got the Paizo download link working once again.
Kamelguru, take into account that the Gearhead does not actually cast arcane spells with his contraptions, he is NOT an arcane spell caster, therefore there is no need for ASFC when wearing armor. This does not, however, allow him to cast spells while wearing armor if he were to take a level in an arcane spellcasting class (that is stated nowhere in his armor proficiency, like for a Bard or Magus).
Also, his contraptions and abilities are completely extraordinary in nature. That is why contraptions ignore spell resistance. Because they are extraordinary, however, the save DC for contraptions are 2 less than spells of equivalent levels. Contraptions also have no effect on incorporeal creatures, and gain no bonuses from feats, abilities, or effects that relate to spells or magic.
Some contraptions can also be disarmed or sundered, something that cannot happen to arcane or divine casters (per se).
If you are playing in Numeria, where science and magic coexist, then you should still be able to play the Gearhead as it is (without changing the rules of the class), and just spin magic into his abilities for flavor only. I really need to know if making his 'spells' extraordinary instead of supernatural or magical, makes him grossly unbalanced or not.
Just looked at your Gearhead Base class. A very complex class to be sure, but definitely seems like you put a lot of thought and passion into it, and I think it sits alongside LPJ's Machinesmith quite nicely.
As to Mortagon's feedback, I'm not sure it's that the class needs to be more weapon reliant - perhaps Mortagon is merely highlighting that some of the builds made were reliant on weapons. I'm unclear whether this means weapon-contraptions or wielding more mundane weapons.
I am also wondering this as well. The reason the gearhead has a 1/2 BAB progression and not 3/4 (which I considered initially), is because you can design nearly all of your offensive contraptions to be weapon-like contraptions, requiring a melee or ranged touch attack. Touch attacks do not require a high BAB. Clerics and Druids have a 3/4 BAB progression because they don't have nearly as many offensive touch attack spells as a wizard/sorcerer does.
After some consideration I decided to go with my original alchemist build for our Shattered star Campaign. We are discussing the possibility of a Steampunk game later this summer so we will hopefully be able to get some feedback then.
As for the weapon and bab issue, I have to see the class in action before I can give any more feedback as my observation was solely based on a precursory read through.
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Any advancement on the Gearhead right now ? The class looks to me like the love child of Paizo's Words of Power, Louis Porter Jr. Design's Machinesmith and Adamant's Artificer... but without any of the Artificer's and WoP balance flaws. So, pretty cool !
If I may suggest some things:
- I would write "Accelerate" so it cannot be used in the same round as a full-round action, because as of now it is equivalent to a pounce ability, and I could see potential abuse with enough optimization and time. The other problem with balancing this ability with the haste spell is that haste is already an underrated spell. Sure, it balances the Gearhead with core spellcasters, but by doing so you accept that the Gearhead has the potential to -drastically- change the tides of a battle in ways that warriors will not achieve alone (especially since the effect can only be dispelled by another contraption, not an issue in a full steampunk campaign, but worth an exception in a sidebar for other campaigns).
- As it is really complex at first glance, the class would benefit from just a bit less fluff or at least, a summary of its abilities in sidebard or advertising blurb. Something simple and straightforward, explaining in few sentences the concept of contraptions, their possibilities, and how they are prepared piece by piece to fill the daily slots. It would complete the current avalanche of required crunch specifications and fluff that are a bit hard to integrate in a single reading.
- I am not offended by the 1/2 BAB. A lot of touch attacks and AoE devices make it a non-issue. Wizards are proficient with crossbows too but are obviously not the best at using them; I could see a class variant with weapon-attack-and-damage boosters contraptions, sentry turrets...
... and by the way, if you don't mind, when it is finally ready to go I'd like to see what could be done for the Gearhead in a possible future follow-up to The Secrets of Renegade Archetypes (a supplement promoting Open Game Content base classes from PFRPG 3rd Party Publishers by providing them with shiny archetypes). If the rules are awesome enough (and I damn try to always make sure they are !), I believe it could bring some more eyes to your final product. You'd be cool with it ? :)
Maxximilius, thanks for your feedback! The Gearhead was indeed designed around the WoP system, as I felt that the flexibility and customization options of the WoP system lent itself perfectly to what you would imagine a gadgeteer/scientist to be in a steam punk universe.
Currently, there has not been any new advancements on the Gearhead's development. Due to the lack of feedback on the class, we will have to do some more in-house testing with it before we add anything else to it.
The way Accelerate is currently written, it already does not allow you to take the extra move during a full-round action, as that was one of my concerns as well. Bolded for emphasis.
This move action can come before, after, or between other actions, but not during a full-round action.
I believe that the main balancing factor to the Augmented Accelerate and Haste is that Accelerate can only ever affect the user of the contraption, as opposed to the caster and several allies. The contraption essentially becomes a pair of boots of speed in functionality.
You're right, the complexity of the class is something I have been struggling with, as I essentially have to explain/summarize the WoP system within the class' ability description. For the final product, I will continue to work on simplifying the abilities of the class. I will post updates to the rules here as I make them, if you'd like to be more involved. If you have any more specific ideas on how to simplify the complexity of the class, and its Contraption ability, I'd love to read them!
I have already been thinking about ways for the Gearhead to utilize the contraption system to create contraption-traps, like the Trapper Ranger archetype. Once I have that down, adding things like sentry turrets would be relatively easy. And I have already been pondering over the idea of an archetype that uses more weapon-like contraptions, like enhanced repeating crossbows or contraptions capable of iterative attacks. So it would seem we are on the same page there!
After the product is published, I think it would be really cool to see some fan-created archetypes. When that happens, I will certainly contact you about it (if I forget, just send my a PM here on the forums). I will bring up this possible opportunity to the rest of the team, in the meantime. Thanks!
I was searching for something steampunk and I found this. Thanks for this awesome job! I have read the playtest and the gearhead class, and I have some questions regarding the Chaplain. About the spells. How does he obtain the spells? What is the source of his spells?
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Thank you for your kind words, Yumeko!
The source of a chaplain's power is the mysterious soci etas [so-see eh-tayse], an energy source derived from society itself. A chaplain's power comes from the belief and expectations of the people around her; from community. Society look to chaplain's for guidance, wisdom, and solace in an age where religion is waning.
Simply, a chaplain has power because people expect/rely on them to, much like how a politician or pastor only has power because a community has appointed them the title. Think of it as the reverse relationship of a cleric and his deity; a cleric must believe in his deity in order to gain his powers, whereas a society believes in a chaplain so therefore she has power.
I need to clarify, though, that not every leader or politician automatically becomes a chaplain. Like sorcerers, a chaplain is born with the potential for power, but that power must be awakened by a community's or society's need for a chaplain. For a chaplain to lose her powers, the philosophy of society itself would need to vanish, the society that relies on the chaplain would need to physically disappear, or the society would need to outright and unanimously disown the chaplain.
The workings of soci etas were left vague and unexplained on purpose, to allow players to come up with their own definitions of what that power is. The explanation above, however, is how we envisioned it and what could be drawn from the explanation of the power source found in the chaplain class' descriptive fluff text.
I hoped this helped! If you have further questions, please feel free to share.
Duuuuuuuude.
That pretty much is exactly something I needed to hear. One of my homebrew game plots revolves around a sort of cultural spirit entity kind of tied to a particular city and its culture and society - kind of like a Dryad, but instead of a tree it's bonded to a city - and the players have to spend some time protecting it from the BBEG. I'd never quite figured out how to mechanically represent the thing... but I think that provides me just the missing piece I need. Thanks a ton!
Really thanks, that helped me a lot! And I must admit it's a great flavor. Waiting for the book to see the final version of the chaplain and the headgear!
Haha glad I could help guys. We are beginning to wrap things up now. Still have some in-house testing we need to accomplish, as well as some refinement, before we begin the editing phase. We are pushing hard to have the book published by the end of August. Here's hoping!
Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on the release of Pure Steam. I know that this update is long overdue, but it's difficult to post updates when you are the only one active on the forums and feverishly working to finish the game at the same, so again you have my apologies.
You guys can keep up-to-date with us on our Facebook page.
We are currently in the final stages of pulling together all of our content into the final PDF. Once that is done, we will have it run through a couple of editing and formatting processes while the last of our art is commissioned. Then, it is off to the printer!
Also, the minis are sculpted, and we're waiting for the mold and casting to be completed. The music is composed and mixed, and we are ready to press CDs.
Lastly, check out this link for a preview of our cover art from Avatar Art.
We are getting close guys! Thank you again for everyone's support and patience; we wouldn't have come this far without you guys!
Awesome =D
I just found out about Pure Steam. How many new monsters are included, and what kinds? Would love to put some more steampunk in my game.
We have several new monsters in Pure Steam, the highlight being our Wondrous Armatures; constructs animated to life through science instead of magic, using the brains of deceased creatures or humanoids to create limited sentience. Similar to non-magical golems. We also include rules for GMs (and players) for creating unique Armatures using a similar mechanic to creating eidolons.
We also have the Reanimated dead, zombies created through science instead of negative energy, altering the way divine energy affects them. In addition to those, we have several more examples of fauna native to our world, and we will be adding more as we expand our world. Otherwise, nearly any creature that can be found in the bestiaries can be found in our campaign setting.
The PDF will be available as soon as it is completed, which should be by the end of November, early December at the latest. Printed copies will be available a couple weeks after that. Everything should be up for sale well before Christmas.