Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DarkerDreams 01-15-05, 05:13 PM	I've got a character in my game who's a warforged artificer with the expressed long term goal of creating the next generation of warforged and insuring the survival of his people... I've been running forgotten forge, SotLW, steel shadows, am now in the midst of WotVB... and am going to be starting on grasp of the emerald claw next... which raises some problems for me; in the various adventures it says specifically that cannith made some of it's great advances with warforged by studying the Xulo schema pieces. by hook and crook my party managed to get away with one of the schema copies in SotLW. Now, he gets to see an early creation forge AND access to a whole pile of new schema (iirc, one of the pillars is a "storage shelf" for schema). I know this character, and these are not finds that are going to be left alone... so, I'm looking (searching, begging) for some sort of ideas for schema work and creation forges... what kinds of things should he be able to get from the various schema? any new and innovative insights on creation forges? ideas? suggestions? links?
InfinityStar8 01-15-05, 08:35 PM	Well, in the Eberron game I am DMing I also am doing the Lost Forge, SotLW, and WotVB but I am tweeking them heavily. In my game I have it set up so the Schema's (Five in total) and the whole Creation Pattern make the "Ultimate Power Source." By that I mean the creation pattern will summon then bind Earth, Fire, Water and Air Elementals into Omnimental (MM3, pg 118) trapped in a Dragonshard to be used to Super-Charge Power sources. Also, one of my players is from House Orien and I am setting it up that Orien has one of the original Omni-Dragonshards and has been using it to make an EVE (Elemental Vehicle Experement), almost an ATV for Eberron, can be "Driven" across Eberron like the Elemental Cart from SotLW, then fly like Air ships and submerge into water like the Gallions. Orien wants to get the Creation pattern to make a whole fleet of these ships and put House Lyrandar out of buisness.
DarkerDreams 01-26-05, 01:51 PM	:bump: anyone?
Gurv 01-26-05, 02:12 PM	what kinds of things should he be able to get from the various schema? any new and innovative insights on creation forges? ideas? suggestions? links? Well, he should be able to get exactly what you want him to get. Moving at the speed on plot and all that. If you don't have a problem with him learning to create warforged as a long term character goal (it should be long term, not something he can do early), then allow it. I don't have the adventure path, but I have a few suggestions. 1) Leave him short on information. When Cannith created the first warforged, they were not the sentient being that they were in the later days. It took them years to refine the technique to that point. Even stealing information from Cannith won't be enough. He should have to learn some of it the hard way, from the Xen'drik ruins. 2) Leave him short of materials. A creation forge costs money, includes expensive materials, and is a magical item all its own. If he wants one then he should be doing a lot of fundraising. He should be working towards that cost, he should be questing for rare materials like huge pieces of dragonshard, and so forth. 3) Make building the thing hard. At the simplest, a creation forge is a wonderous item. I would require a high caster level, as well as the Craft Construct feat, in addition to the prohibative costs I've already mentioned. House Cannith had a staff of artficers and magewrights that your player will lack. 4) Have a couple of false starts. Cannith suffered them. Have his first creations fail, come out wrong (mutated, insane, non-sentient, etc.), and generally cause problems. 5) Remember that what he is doing is illegal. Others will recognize what he is doing. Collecting all those materials is going to trigger some questions. Those expeditions to the Xen'drik ruins, the research, all of it adds up to something that has been seen before. So law enforcement is going to be trying to catch him. Plus, unless Merrix d'Cannith is in on his plans, he is going to be concerned about someone else doing this because it has the potential to get him in trouble. If the special materials are being watched too closely, where is he going to get some for his operation?
Nos-4-A2 01-26-05, 09:05 PM	You need to collect a lot to make a warforged. Steel, obsidian, livewood and other metals and minerals. Then you need to craft it with the schemas (which need to be understood and translated) and spark it to life with the creation forge (which must be illegaly built). Thats a big job for one warforged and shouldn't be taken lightly. I wouldn't let him get access to it for a long time because he's going it alone. It was hit and miss for decades and House Cannith had teams of the finest artificers in the land.
DarkerDreams 01-27-05, 02:58 PM	I appriciate the ideas guys... my immediate problem is the "what do you get in the meantime?" cannith hit and missed for decades, but as the device at whitehearth (the one that destroyed rose quarry) prooves there are other things that the schema can lead you too. I'm frustrated that there is so little information about schema- especially with the tag that they are so coveted by the artificers of the world. Without breaking the artificer by giving him dozens of new infusions, what other things would be good ideas for the schema to grant with proper study. some ideas I've had are acess to non-standard, non-ECS item creation feats (craft portal from FR, craft contengent spell from Complete Arcane, there are a couple elsewhere...) any other ideas?
Cloud Divider 01-27-05, 03:55 PM	I appriciate the ideas guys... my immediate problem is the "what do you get in the meantime?" cannith hit and missed for decades, but as the device at whitehearth (the one that destroyed rose quarry) prooves there are other things that the schema can lead you too. I'm frustrated that there is so little information about schema- especially with the tag that they are so coveted by the artificers of the world. I had always just planned that schema were documents of some form or another. Some may be useful in and of themselves (ie blueprints or similar schematics). Others may just be only stepping stones. For example, one schema may be the equivalent of a Solid State Thermodynamics textbook. Combine that with a primer on VLSI Design and another on Physical Chemistry give you a fair idea of how you'd go about manufacturing a Pentium 4 chip. However, note that you'd still need a book on computer engineering to actually design your own P4 chip and furthermore need to understand the complete set. You'd have to have all that and be absolutely brilliant to design and manufacture your own P5 on your own. Actually, that analogy holds pretty well, I think. Without breaking the artificer by giving him dozens of new infusions, what other things would be good ideas for the schema to grant with proper study. some ideas I've had are acess to non-standard, non-ECS item creation feats (craft portal from FR, craft contengent spell from Complete Arcane, there are a couple elsewhere...) any other ideas? Honestly, I'd leave most schema as essentially special reference books. If there must be some kind of mechanical value, maybe having a Schema that discusses the nature of elemental infusions may grant the owner some kind of circumstance bonus to his UMD roll to create an appropriate infusion (assuming he's made whatever relevant checks are needed to understand it). The other Feats, like Craft Portal and so on sound like pretty applicable things for a Schema (I'm envisioning a sort of stone tablet with a detailed blueprint of a SG-1 style Stargate); however I'd count those as "Major Schema" (being immensely valuable on their own), and edging into Plot Device territory... Actually, I could see an entire campaign based around a schema discovered in Xen'drik that creates a permanent planar gateway. Then you could have dozens of factions fighting over it (minions of the Daelkyr, the Dreaming Dark, and so on). Throw in a joint Orien/Cannith faction that's wanting to build an instantaneous teleportation array that spans all of Khorvaire (and into Xen'drik), that are in possession of the schema but are unaware of the extraplanar capabilities (maybe they mistranslated that bit). So now you've got planar gateways in all the major cities that if "dialed wrong" are ideal for a massive planar invasion of Eberron...
DarkerDreams 01-27-05, 05:00 PM	~chuckles~ I hadn't thought of the wider ranging campaign ideas- but that is fun. yeah, I know that giving potential to learn new feats and all pushes the Plot Device line etc. This is, honestly, the same issue I've had for ages with wizards and books. How do you make spending the time and money on a library valuable without making every book a spellbook or +15 tome of ultimate-((!!ARTIFACT!!)). given my 'druthers I'd have avoided new schema at all for a while (and hoped for good ideas or more info from WotC), but someone decided that a pile of them in the last encounter would be a good idea. ... consequently I'm thinking of invoking the old standby "after the final boss the area explodes" scenario. And this is why I'm here asking for ideas... :D
Cloud Divider 01-27-05, 05:33 PM	~chuckles~ I hadn't thought of the wider ranging campaign ideas- but that is fun. yeah, I know that giving potential to learn new feats and all pushes the Plot Device line etc. This is, honestly, the same issue I've had for ages with wizards and books. How do you make spending the time and money on a library valuable without making every book a spellbook or +15 tome of ultimate-((!!ARTIFACT!!)). Honestly, I'd make (lesser) Schema to be generally interesting as trivia (ie like rare books) and not necessarily have any fancy game mechanical effects. Kinda like that Thermodynamics textbook. If you're in the right business, it's pretty valuable. But for most folks, it's a book with boring text, scary equations and way too much on diffusion kinetics and concentration profiles. If you MUST give it something mechanical to give it worth, maybe just a bonus to some Knowledge check (ie having the right reference books makes research more efficient) in the document's area. While there is some phrasing that Schema tend to be the "Exotic Plot Device Spellbooks for Artificers," maybe that's something you could ignore. Instead go with a definition along the lines of "Ancient 'tome' containing some aspect of the technical knowledge of the Giant civilization of Xen'drik, and often involve descriptions of their 'technology.'" With the analogy of say, finding a modern university's technical library in a post-apocalyptic Earth setting. An individual book drawn at random probably isn't too useful, generally. But it'd be an immensely valuable tool for someone with the right inclinations... Knowledge is supposedly power, right? So maybe the trick is to find ways to make whatever trivial information ("a schema on crop rotation?!") valuable. Maybe it's just a matter of finding the right interested party... To some degree, I've been trying to think up what would be interesting relics to bring back from Xen'drik that are NOT magical doodads. Art, carvings, pottery, sculptures, whatever. Stuff that in the real world ARE the big important findings on archaological expeditions. given my 'druthers I'd have avoided new schema at all for a while (and hoped for good ideas or more info from WotC), but someone decided that a pile of them in the last encounter would be a good idea. ... consequently I'm thinking of invoking the old standby "after the final boss the area explodes" scenario. That's a perfectly acceptible pulp solution... :)
Nature-boy 01-27-05, 11:45 PM	I've been running forgotten forge, SotLW, steel shadows, am now in the midst of WotVB... and am going to be starting on grasp of the emerald claw next... What, if I may ask, is Steel Shadows?
Dravot 01-28-05, 10:18 AM	What, if I may ask, is Steel Shadows?It's an Eberron adventure/module published in Dungeon Magazine #115. I'm trying to get my grubby little hands on that issue.
Nature-boy 01-28-05, 11:42 AM	It's an Eberron adventure/module published in Dungeon Magazine #115. I'm trying to get my grubby little hands on that issue.Wow I want one too. Where can you find past issues though? And for what level party is it?
Dravot 01-28-05, 12:04 PM	Wow I want one too. Where can you find past issues though? And for what level party is it?You can back order issues from Paizo (availability of any specific issue can vary): http://www.paizo.com/dungeon/products/issues/2004 (Paizo Dungeon Magazines 2004) I *think* it was set up for 6th-7th level characters, with the standard suggestions for tweaking the challenge up or down a couple of levels. Ah...here's the blurb: Steel Shadows by Keith Baker A killer is stalking the warforged of Sharn. Some say the murderer is a vengeful spirit, while others blame human bigotry and fear. Can the adventurers expose the truth that lies hidden in the depths of Sharn? A D&D Eberron adventure for 7th-level characters. Some local gaming stores carry issues of Dragon and Dungeon. My favorite one doesn't have that issue though. :mad: I'm gonna check one other store and if they don't have it, I'll order it on-line.
unobserved 01-30-05, 10:27 AM	yeah, I know that giving potential to learn new feats and all pushes the Plot Device line etc. This is, honestly, the same issue I've had for ages with wizards and books. How do you make spending the time and money on a library valuable without making every book a spellbook or +15 tome of ultimate-((!!ARTIFACT!!)). I forgot which adventure it was in (possibly in the whitehearth story) but one of the schema's was described as a pattern that allowed house Cannith to create certain items either better or more quickly. You could use them in that fashion for your artificer. Allow schema's to grant a small bonus to craft checks for creating items, or decrease the cost of materials components, or decrease the time needed to create an item, or decrease the xp spent. It would be best if these bonuses only worked for creating particular items, say .. Schema 4454-D grants a 5% reduction in the material cost for creating wands. Then, once you had collected all the smaller pieces of a larger schema, combining them might reveal a pattern that grants a 10% reduction in the material cost to create a wand in 1/2 as much time, and the wand receives +2d6 bonus charges. Or something along those lines, for other items types. Learning to use each individual schema or the complete pattern might require a knowledge check (at some appropriate DC) that if failed can only be tried again in 1 month's time. You could also consider instead of having every schema grant a bonus, have it grant a trade off. i.e. 50% reduction in creation time for 50% increase in material cost for creating potions, or boots, or items that grant an ability bonus. Of course eventually if you really wanted, you could allow you character that has stumbled across a couple disparate schema's that can come up with a creative way to make them work together to essentially create their own patterns. Obviously though, not until high level, and not without much research costs, time spent, etc. And remember, any character that ends up with or creates any kind of pattern for creating magic items quickly or better, should probably be on the lookout for members of House Cannith or other artificers, that I'm sure would do anything to get their hands on something so valuable. I see giving an artificer these kinds of creation bonuses on about the same level as giving a fighter a magical sword or such. it allows them to use the items they have in creative ways to accentuate their characters strengths. Hope that helps.
Dravot 01-31-05, 09:08 AM	Some local gaming stores carry issues of Dragon and Dungeon. My favorite one doesn't have that issue though. :mad: I'm gonna check one other store and if they don't have it, I'll order it on-line.I found a copy of the issue at my not so FLGS. It's pretty good overall, but I'm still reading it and mulling it over (and therefore not willing to give a more comprehensive review). It has lots of opportunities for social interaction (talking with witnesses, potential suspects and other players in the mystery), with some decent combat opportunities. I'd like to see something that didn't involve warforged and/or Sharn for once, though. I'd like to see more storylines and other stuff for shifters, changelings and Kalashtar.
Nos-4-A2 01-31-05, 12:28 PM	You can "steal a hook" and make your own Dravot. You can't expect a setting this young to have adventures for every race and every place.
Dravot 01-31-05, 04:04 PM	You can "steal a hook" and make your own Dravot. You can't expect a setting this young to have adventures for every race and every place.Which is what I'll do. :) No, I can't expect an adventure for every race and place, but every adventure, Dungeon magazine and published module has started out in Sharn (or taken place there exclusively). This would have been a great opportunity to perhaps do something in another nation or city. I feel like I have a strong grasp of Sharn and the warforged, but some bit of operational flavor for Q'barra would be most welcome. No biggie though. It's a minor problem and one that I can readily work around.
DarkerDreams 02-17-05, 06:09 PM	dunno if anyone's seen this... it's what I'm working on for schema. http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=5469559&postcount=11