what are some creative uses for the technomancers fabricate tech?

[korinthmalar]

what are some creative uses for the technomancers fabricate tech?

[The Shifty Mongoose]

What sort of appeal could there possibly be to somene who can magic into existence cables and manacles that only last up to a maximum of twenty minutes?

(They should at least last for a full hour!)

Seriously, though, this does mean that nobody will ever be without the proper tools with a technomancer around.

[Ventnor]

If you're fighting an invisible enemy, you can fabricate up a motion detector so that you know where to aim your spells and/or AOE weapons.

You can also use it to create a personal comm so that you have a "burner phone" which falls apart after it's used and thus cannot be traced.

[Styrofoam]

Standing in the middle of a desert with no cover from incoming fire? Bam, now theres a washing machine in front of you for cover.

Have a favorite Stawberry Machine Cake song on your comm unit, but no one can hear it over the wails of the Drift Dead? Bam, 10 bulk wireless speaker.

[ThomasBowman]

How about as a door to door salesman? You fabricate items and then you sell them, collect the money and then you get out of there real fast!

[Jasque]

A metamaterial cloaking suit (a tech-based cloak of invisibility)

A hoverboard to get over that suspiciously green pool of liquid

A solar powered charging station for your batteries. (Wind-powered and water-powered would work as well.) Technically, it wouldn't have any charges

A mechanical lift to move that boulder out of your way

A Geiger counter

Night vision goggles

A water filter

A miniature weather machine?

A listening device

A sound canon to scare off that pack of hungry looking aliens with 1 INT

Chemical analysis equipment (test for poisons and such)

The villains favorite childhood (mechanical/electronic) toy

A timer that counts backwards to zero attached to a fake bomb

Half the stuff in Batman's belt

[Jasque]

One more: A handheld translator device

[Nixitur]

A lot of those ideas don't seem in line with what technological items can do and definitely don't fall under "minor piece of equipment with a real-world equivalent". Weather machine, cloaking suit and translator device seem a bit much. There is no indication that any of those things even exist in this universe.
Solar-powered charging station seems very sketchy, especially combined with Energize Spell. If you're putting it at recharging station speed (1 charge per round), you're soon getting back far more spell levels than you've used to fabricate it. So, you could burn all your spell slots to charge a ton of batteries to cast far more than you're supposed to. That's some high-octane rule trickery and I ain't having that.
If, however, you're putting it at generator charging speed, that's 1 charge per minute which is fairly useless.

The rest seems fairly sensible, though. Hoverboard would probably be under 100 pounds which is 10 bulk, so fair game.

Also, as for the "charges" wording, it says that you're not allowed to create stuff that has limited charges. It doesn't say anything about items that use charges. The "Capacity" heading in the table denotes "the maximum capacity for an item that requires charges to function", not that it has that amount of charges to begin with. Yes, when you buy them, they come precharged, but that's obviously not required.
I'm pretty sure the wording is not intended to keep you from fabricating motion detectors and microphones, but just so that you can't create ammo. But because the items you create aren't allowed to have charges, they will be empty when you fabricate them. Which is fine, though, because they can be recharged with batteries.

[Jasque]

Nixitur wrote:

A lot of those ideas don't seem in line with what technological items can do and definitely don't fall under "minor piece of equipment with a real-world equivalent".

I mostly agree with you. Personally, I would not take Fabricate Tech without some good house rules. The ability is ripe for abuse. Worse still, it can easily create arguments at the table. For any technological item not in a book, the GM has to decide:

1) if that device exists in the universe
2) what level the device is
3) what mechanical benefits (if any) the device provides

And how likely is it that the player and the GM will agree on all 3?

Take something as simple as a Geiger counter. That should probably exist. However, it has the power to replace the Detect Radiation spell. Is that too powerful? And does anybody at the table really know enough about Geiger counters to stat one out without Googling them first?

I like coming up with creative uses for Fabricate Tech, but I agree that GMs should definitely restrict what it can do. For starters, I don't think that any tech items created should be able to duplicate a spell effect, unless that tech item is listed in an official Starfinder source. That would eliminate a lot of the abusive items.

[Lane_S]

Jasque wrote:

Take something as simple as a Geiger counter. That should probably exist. However, it has the power to replace the Detect Radiation spell. Is that too powerful? And does anybody at the table really know enough about Geiger counters to stat one out without Googling them first?

No it is not too powerful, you have to expend a spell slot of at least first level to fabricate the item. Also consider that many spells would duplicate mundane items.

Yes I could stat up a Geiger counter.

[Nixitur]

Lane_S wrote:

Jasque wrote:

Take something as simple as a Geiger counter. That should probably exist. However, it has the power to replace the Detect Radiation spell. Is that too powerful? And does anybody at the table really know enough about Geiger counters to stat one out without Googling them first?

No it is not too powerful, you have to expend a spell slot of at least first level to fabricate the item.

And that's exactly the problem. Detect Radiation is a first-level spell. If you could expend a level 1 spell slot to get something working as Detect Radiation, there would be no reason to take Detect Radiation. If you let Fabricate Tech duplicate spell effects using a slot of equivalent spell level, this Magic Hack is practically several spells known in disguise.

And even requiring a higher spell slot doesn't make it much more balanced. Giving a Technomancer the ability to essentially cast a lot of level 1 spells using second-level slots or a lot of level 2 spells using third-level slots or something similar is still extremely powerful. And I'm going to guess that it's not intended.

[Lane_S]

A Geiger Counter is not exactly a detect radiation spell. The spell will tell you exactly the level of radiation and source. A Geiger Counter will tell you radiation level where you are and you may be able to locate source and it's strength with an engineering check.

I think fabricate tech was specifically meant to create mundane items with similar effects to spells. The tech created is short lived and probably needs to be charged before use. Taking this hack is not mandatory and is taken instead of other options. It could also be viewed as equivalent to a Mystics Connection Spell.

[The Shifty Mongoose]

Nixitur wrote:

Lane_S wrote:

Jasque wrote:

Take something as simple as a Geiger counter. That should probably exist. However, it has the power to replace the Detect Radiation spell. Is that too powerful? And does anybody at the table really know enough about Geiger counters to stat one out without Googling them first?

No it is not too powerful, you have to expend a spell slot of at least first level to fabricate the item.

And that's exactly the problem. Detect Radiation is a first-level spell. If you could expend a level 1 spell slot to get something working as Detect Radiation, there would be no reason to take Detect Radiation. If you let Fabricate Tech duplicate spell effects using a slot of equivalent spell level, this Magic Hack is practically several spells known in disguise.

And even requiring a higher spell slot doesn't make it much more balanced. Giving a Technomancer the ability to essentially cast a lot of level 1 spells using second-level slots or a lot of level 2 spells using third-level slots or something similar is still extremely powerful. And I'm going to guess that it's not intended.

Similarly, why learn the Light cantrip when you can just tape a flashlight to your helmet?

As for Fabricating Tech, it's definitely the sort of thing for players who know what they need when they need it, but not before. Though I'd agree that it'd need figuring out with the GM.

[VR]

Three Years later and this is about the only info I can find on this subject :(

We are just starting for the first time and this is the build I chose (currently at fifth level, so I haven't done any research on the higher level stuff yet). From everything I've read on all the concerns and other options available, even if you allow fabricating ammo this class is still not a game breaker and there are more powerful combos.

The main thing is that it allows versatility for a creative player. I think it is full meant to duplicate low level spells with tech because every tech option out there is significantly less powerful than the spells. You can't just summon a translator to translate a dead language, but I could use comprehend language to do so. You have to be at least 10th level to be even able to translate a living language unless you can download a language file (I would assume a fabricated translator only has languages the creator knows, but that is a GM call).

If the GM isn't on the ball and lets players get away with things more powerful than their level equivalents than, sure, it can be broken. But then that's a GM problem and not a balance problem. On the other hand, if the player is not creative it's a straight up waste. This build trades off various damage increasing abilities. Doing a focused build I won't be able to get something like Energized Spell until later (and you can only use it once a day). Trying to do it earlier is pointless because it makes the build less optimal by either giving up Fabricate Tech (making it pointless) or give up Fabricate Arms (which is better from a offensive perspective). The benefit is that I don't need to take some of those situational spells that may or may not end up being useful and have a limited version if I do need it or I can take some of those situational spells and burn them for weapons or other situational abilities as needed (I hate to take Comprehend Languages and Detect Tech instead of damage spells but or campaign will totally require their occasional use)

Ultimately it depends on the GM because certainly in battle heavy games Fabricate Tech is not as useful (It mostly is a very limited rental business), while in an RP heavy game it will be more useful but still limited. Meanwhile, Fabricate Arms will be of little use in a RP heavy game and more useful in a battle heavy game since it gives versatility in attacks and defense but still limited to a short battle. We do balanced games, so this is an obviously good choice for me but will certainly be better in the RP department than the battle department because there will be others that are stronger in that area.

Unfortunately, because it was poorly worded in the first place and has received little love that I can find to fix the flaws, it is a huge headache to figure out the can and cannots with my GM. That is why we are making a pre-game list of useful items (which solves many of the complaints about mechanics during game... my god there is so much tech in the Armory that this is a huge headache for those like me with decision paralysis and slow reading).

So, to the people here that have been playing around with Fabricate Tech for a while, what are your thoughts now on what's useful?

[breithauptclan]

I love Fabricate Tech for its role-playing value. To me it is basically an in-game justification for being Macguyver and being able to build whatever you need on short notice from paper clips, super glue, bleach, and copper wire.

I haven't been able to play my Technomancer character very much, so I haven't ever come into a scenario where me and the GM had to butt heads trying to negotiate out what is or isn't possible to create or what spell slot it would cost.

So far I have used it to create a prod pole to help carefully negotiate the party through a boot-sucking, character-trapping bog. I could maybe have convinced the GM to let me gather a long stick from the surrounding forest and maybe been required to make an engineering check to convert it into a mundane tool. But that would have been more discussion and negotiating than I felt like doing at the table. So I just burned a spell slot to pay the cost of finding an appropriate stick from the area and using it as a prod pole to help with the skill challenge.

So to me that is the value of the feat. It lets you skip the negotiating phase at the table if you are building a character like Batman or Macguyver that always seems to have the right tool for the job no matter what that job is. The player-agreement that needs to be made is to not try and do anything too powerful. That prod pole only gave a +2 bonus to the checks needed to navigate the bog. Seemed appropriate for a level 1 spell slot.