Terrah is out in print and PDF, Rhune is out in PDF, some of you have beta playtested Pure Steam. Pure Steam PDF releases Dec.26th, print in January according to B'omarr Punk, who i just got done emailing. So, for you steampunkers and clockwork-lovers out there like me, which is the best?
Are any of those games horror survival steampunk?
We ran a game with Rune for a while... I quite liked it but I really wish the book was available in print. I much prefer that to pdf.
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Rhûne has super fluff, but suffers from not having a big setting book. Terah, what I've seen, hasn't particularly impressed me and I don't have the setting book, so yeah. I was a backer of Pure Steam; Once the final product hits shelves, I'll review it.
Generally, it's probably a matter of taste: Rhûne isn't *technically* steampunk, but rather stormpunk - and I love it for that and its blending of Norse lore and Steampunk.
Whether Pure Steam can live up to my expectations, we'll see.
I'm surprised Midgard hasn't been mentioned - its clockwork punk feels rather close to steampunk and it has flying airships and the like...
Just my 2 cents, of course.
@Interjection Games: Not for PFRPG, no. Actually, I think Victoriana/Steampunk and horror blend exceedingly well. For FATE, there's teh Demolished Ones and whole settings/RPGs devoted to teh topic, but nothing for PFRPG so far.
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Not 100% steampunk (kind of a mix of magepunk and steampunk), but I'd recommend checking out Thunderscape. I backed the setting book for it on Kickstarter a while back, and just received the preliminary PDF, which means public release can't be too far away. Had a quick read, and I'm quite impressed with it so far. There's a bunch of new classes, some of which have a very steampunk feel to them.
Mechamages create mechanical servitors and use writs to enhance and command them (it kind of feels like a cross between an animal companion and a summoner's eidolon, with some Kabbalistic influences - the writs totally make me think of the legends of the classical golems).
Golemoids are warriors who replace parts of their own bodies with manite ore powered prostheses to gain new powers (they also have access to some pretty pimp weapons).
Thunderscouts are kind of like steampunk cavaliers. Each of them gets their own customised vehicle that runs on manite ore and is steadily improved.
All Paizo classes have also been granted some form of proficiency with firearms due to the far more common nature of them in the setting, and there are some new types (hold-out pistols and sniper rifles), along with differing rules on how to run them to try and prevent the game becoming short range rocket tag against touch AC (basically you're trying to hit normal AC, you just have the higher crit mods and deal a bit more damage) but you can play with the normal Pathfinder rules for firearms if you want. Additionally, quite a few of the classes have archetypes that let them take elements of the new technology based stuff, so you get golemoid rangers and paladins.
I'm going to be using a large portion of the custom rules and ideas for my homebrew. Won't be using the setting, but I have a lot of use for the blending of magic and tech.
Can you link these? The only one I've heard of is Pure Steam, which I liked.
Like Tinker I won't be using the settings, but my own homebrew setting's getting into the Age of Steam and I will definitely want to have steampunk/stormpunk/magepunk/magitek resources on hand when it does.
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Here are the links for:
-Terah
-Pure Steam (will pop up here once it's released)
-Rhûne
Danke
The Pure Steam PDF is now available on Paizo! Endzeitgeist has your link above.
Garnath, Iron Kingdoms has been released in a new edition with it's own, original rules. Privateer Press' FREE Quick-start rules and introductory adventure can be found here.
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Garnath, Iron Kingdoms has been released in a new edition with it's own, original rules. Privateer Press' FREE Quick-start rules and introductory adventure can be found here.
Yep. I have owned them since they were published :) But for 3.5 rules are a good steampunky feel easily adapted to PF.
I know I didn't like the 3.5 Iron Kingdoms for various mechanical reasons.
Downloading Pure Steam now, will share my thoughts on it later.
I backed Thunderscape too. I love it. Captures the feel of the old PC games. Rhino Ferren Golemoid... pure win!
Plus, they make sure the pieces are usable for playing in other worlds. Very well done.
I haven't gone into much number crunching yet, but thus far Pure Steam looks amazing, and I plan to adopt the majority of its rules for my own game.
The setting doesn't look half bad either, but I only skimmed it very quickly.
Here's a link to the THUNDERSCAPE homepage, and another link to the THUNDERSCAPE KICKSTARTER PAGE
I second Endzeitgeist's assertion that it is odd that Midgard has not been mentioned...or Shadows over Vathak or the not-yet released Steampunk Musha - the latter two from Fat Goblin Games...
I backed Thunderscape too. I love it. Captures the feel of the old PC games. Rhino Ferren Golemoid... pure win!
Plus, they make sure the pieces are usable for playing in other worlds. Very well done.
I never played the video games, so I can't really comment on how faithful it is to them, but either way I love it. Even though I won't be playing in that setting, I've got uses for a lot of the stuff in there anyway. Even the Fallen can fit into my setting without the Darkfall around to have spawned them (they sound like a perfect way to represent the spreading corruption of the land itself to me).
Thanks for the linking Oceanshieldwolf. My original post was from a phone, and while I have the patience to type on them, I don't have the patience to link. Forgot to come back and fix it up later.
Sadly I do Tinkergoth, sadly I do. I guess it's just that ol' OCD kicking in...
I checked out all four (including Thunderscape), they all are very nice. Each had their own strengths and weaknesses. I chose to buy Pure Steam, and will be running it with one of my three gaming groups once we have finished their present campaign.
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I actually own all of them and have a tendency to mix and match. I love some of the classes from Terah but their setting is a little weak, Thunderscape has a ton of amazing goodies in it but their setting, while very good, comes with a lot of pieces I generally don't want to use for the games I run with my group. Pure Steam was beautiful and very well put together, but to be honest, by the time I got to the end of it I was a bit disappointed. I felt like there just wasn't enough steampunk-y crunch, though everything that was their was super good. The barbarian archetype that's basically an office worker gone totally postal was hilarious and is one of my players' hand down favorite archetypes ever.
As mentioned by others Rhune isn't really quite steampunk, but the Norse influences are cool and can be woven into a setting very well.
If I were going to really use the setting from one of these for a game, I'd probably go with Thunderscape, though I normally just integrate the pieces I like into Kobold Press' Midgard or a homebrew.
For the people that checked out all four; which one has the most solid crunch? While flavor is nice I have a preference for transplantable or setting neutral material for homebrew purposes. I've bought Pure Steam but I haven't read it thoroughly enough to really make any real judgements on it but some aspects weren't setting neutral enough for me.
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I'm doing the same Ssalarn (home brewing with bits and pieces of it all I mean), but using the Pure Steam as my setting. My players wanted a change of settings.
Here's a link to the THUNDERSCAPE homepage, and another link to the THUNDERSCAPE KICKSTARTER PAGE
I second Endzeitgeist's assertion that it is odd that Midgard has not been mentioned...or Shadows over Vathak or the not-yet released Steampunk Musha - the latter two from Fat Goblin Games...
Thanks for the links.
I had no idea of the other products. Thanks for those too.
Are any of those games horror survival steampunk?
Not to my knowledge no. But anything can be made into horror right?
I took a look at Rhune Thunderscape and Terah. I greatly prefer Pure Steam. It seems the most crunch-heavy with more transplantable material. Also more of the crunch seems "needed".
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*** It seems the most crunch-heavy with more transplantable material.***
So, earlier I mentioned that I felt vaguely disappointed by Pure Steam, and I think this actually just hit the nail on the head for why. When I pick up a campaign setting style book, there's certain elements I kind of expect that round out the experience. The most obvious and definable one would be elements, whether races, feats, classes, etc., that are unique to the setting and make sense there in a way that they wouldn't anywhere else. Pure Steam actually seems very malleable and, to Malwing's point, more portable and easy to integrate into existing environments. In thinking about that I guess that's actually a very positive thing about the book, rather than the negative that things like Eberron and Thunderscape have kind of conditioned my brain to react to it as.
A lot of the material in Thunderscape, or 3.5 Eberron, or various other campaign settings, comes with a certain amount of baggage. You have to have a certain amount of in world exposition to explain things like golemoids or dragonmarks, but everything in Pure Steam pretty much clicks right in to whatever you've got going without a lot of extra work. I think what I initially was interpreting as "bland" is actually just a very high amount of open-ended compatibility.
Honestly I'd go further and say that I believe Pure Steam could have done better without the flavor that it does have. What was really "necessary" was the vehicles, equipment, weapons, armor, constructs and the contraption system, everything else I couldn't be bothered with.
There are no new races, just alternate racial traits for the core ones, which felt bland. While the Gearhead is needed for the contraption system, the Chaplain is defined by 'factions' making it a little harder to transplant. The archetypes are not bad but not necessary. The setting and adventure I just skipped over. Other things like redefining wealth into dollars kind of irked me but it's easy to convert dollars into gold. Pure Steam has so much good crunch that it outright fails as a 'campaign setting' and the setting they have is bland. Scratch that I just didn't like the fluff at all and wish the crunch was presented in a more setting neutral manner with a separate fluff book.
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Here's a link to the THUNDERSCAPE homepage, and another link to the THUNDERSCAPE KICKSTARTER PAGE
I second Endzeitgeist's assertion that it is odd that Midgard has not been mentioned...or Shadows over Vathak or the not-yet released Steampunk Musha - the latter two from Fat Goblin Games...
I have been pretty happy with the new Thunderscape book. I looked at all three but decided to go with Thunderscape for my next Campaign. The world lends itself to where the PCs need to be careful or the nocturnals and other agents of the Darkfall will prevail.
wish the crunch was presented in a more setting neutral manner with a separate fluff book.
PS Creator here. We are actually working on releasing the crunch as a standalone book, for folks with inclinations just like you.
I'm going to shift my vote to Thunderscape. I got to look much deeper into Thunderscape and while I'm disappointed in the Magi-Science approach compared to Pure steam making an entire subsystem for science, Thunderscape feels the most compatible without tweaks. While I Pure Steam has a lot of my favor I found myself wishing the whole contraption system was usable by any crafter. It seems like it would be a huge boost to mundane classes that want to craft their own weapons or do something incredible without magic. I wound up allowing crafting of contraptions with their activation costing points from Alchemical Batteries (stolen from someone else's house rules) that can be recharged by craft alchemy checks. In the end I felt like I didn't need the classes so it fell a little shorter than Thunderscape for me.