My homebrew game has lately seen some minor use of a skill I''ve devised for a custom race of mine, but applicable practically by anyone else just as well.cwhat with being a skill and not an (Ex.) ability of the race
Calling the skill "tinkering" Ive thought it as a bit of a crossroad between crafting and disable device
- where crafting makes new items, tinkering works upom those already existing (even if in parts)
- where disable device is meant to break/sabotage things, tinkering is more interested in changing how they function.
Think of a cross of McGyver and The WH40k Orks' approach to technology.
Now for the most devious part of it - the skill itself is quite mundane, but I just thought how joyously wicked it would be if I could apply it to the magic of items..and other magical effects.
So there come the Pliers of Magic Hacking! A wondrous tool that allows just that.
Any thoughts on those? Especially what would be required to craft them? And what the cost
I think that you have devised a skill that is a subset of an already existing skill, and functions similarly to how a knowledge profane check is more applicable against a Balor than a knowledge plains. Disable device in many 'modern' dnd styled games (KOTOR, for example) let characters of a sufficiently high skill not only disarm the bomb, but pick it up for later use or change its targeting parameters. In dnd raw, this can be used to negate traps and reset them. I see no reason why disable device is limited to disabling, and not per-say, tinkering.
For the other side of your skill, the magic aspect, i remind you of the traditional wizard's approach to magic; if you do things quickly and without knowledge, its likely to blow up in your face. Since this is a racial thing, it is possible that your race possesses an innate and fundamental understanding of how magitech works, and is able to modify the properties of items or weapons with relative ease and safety.
I've always gone by the rule of skill-boosting items starting at 1000*enchantment number^2 to purchase, half to craft, and that you must posses 3 times the bonus invested in said skill, (points, not with bonuses) to craft said item. (you must also have 3 times the caster level, and craft wondrous item or something similar) Each enchantment bonus yields a +2 on the skill while using the tool for an appropriate check. i.e. anvil of awesome-weaponing +4 costs 16k to buy, and gives a +8 magical bonus when used. I can show my work on how I arrived at this conclusion on request.
Feasibility? Yes. Necessity? Maybe. Awesomeness? Quite some potential. Pliers of magic hacking seem like they would work great for moving that recurring trap of Melf's acid arrow onto a stick, but not so great for turning a potion from inflict to heal.
Edit: should have mentioned the enchantment for tools maxes out at +5
Use Magic Device might work as well (but that is a choice of flavor).
For balance reasons, I would restrict this sort of tinkering to consumables.
I could see hacking wands to produce more powerful effects when more charges are expended (targets, area, range, damage). Also, some items could be modified to create the opposite spell effect (for example, a wand of enlarge person could be hacked to cast reduce person).
And this sort of hacking should be chaotic and unreliable - I would build in a misshap chance.
Indeed i was considering that perhaps the skill should require two checks - first based on intelligence to see if the character manages to affect the target item at all (theres always the risk on not getting an idea how to move the parts ar all) and the second, based on wisdom to see how much common sense made it into the result. Things going boom are always fun, though not so often that useful.
Admittedly the race is a tad on the craze inventor side.
Would that cover alancing against some of the threat of abuse of turning harmful effects into heals? The risk of getting not quite what you intended?
I can definitely see two checks; you might consider limiting modification based on the skill. Since you're going for a warhammer 40k orcish style of tinkering, i think you'd have to make tinkering the wisdom based skill.
If you're making an appropriate craft check(or knowledge, or something) for say, a potion, you not only understand how the potion works (probably) but are capable of actually producing it. Given that you made the craft/knowledge check, you have an appropriate magic apparatus of at least +1 (different for every type of tinkering check), you make the tinkering check. i.e. reversing the polarity of a potion; put a potion of cure lite wounds in a magical alembic +1, make the craft potions check, then make the tinkering check to operate or imbue the alembic, hopeful for a potion of inflict lite wounds.
Fail tinkering by five or more? object destroyed or tainted. Fail knowledge check? roll mishap table, possible object destruction/taint.
if you're looking for a simple tinkerings, i think it would be easy to reverse reversible spell effects; other effects get complicated. Craft potions required for potions, spellcraft and the appropriate craft feat required to tinker wands, staffs, etc.
You might be able to squeeze a few extra uses out of wands or staffs that have all their charges expended, with a cumulative mishap chance of a 1/(total charges/5). i.e. a wand could get a max of 10 additional charges before definitely breaking, a staff might get 2. you might lower the mishap chance based on feats, either allowing more charges or allowing two rolls, ect.
You might be able to increase the effective caster level of items or add metamagic to them, with the further the increase, the higher a chance of a mishap on cast or an increased number of charges being used. Metamagic would be quite unstable and definitely require a feat
Most systems that I've seen that allow this kind of hacking of magical items have a huge downside, or are have a mishap chance because they items are unstable; you pick the whatever implementation fits your world.
What I'm trying to get at here is that the sytem could be really simple, or 12 pages long; the only limit is... your sanity? (no, really its what you and your players think is best)
I'm not sure if non-magical classes could do this.
Frankly I think that's the whole point of the skill - magical classes would probably prefer to just have something to break magic items up into ingredients for crafting, then simply make a new item. They have a much ewsier time at that.
On the other side characters more akin to rogues depend more on what trickery they can achieve. That's where I envisionned tinkering would have a place. Doing all that with already existing skills seems like stretching them a little too far.