Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Journeyman_Samwise 12-24-07, 12:21 AM	I'm playing an Artificer, and I really want to have a giant flaming wrench. Not only because it would look cool, but because it would look really cool. However, the DM insists that wrenches don't exist in Eberron. Giant flying ships, yes. Bolts? Not so much. Tell me, how correct am I in stating that my DM's being an irrational tool?
Dragonlord20000 12-24-07, 01:26 AM	Unlike Iron Kingdoms Eberron does not specifically say, "Hey we have wrenches!" Therefore its up to your DM, I'd allow it, I mean its essentially just a mace with some fancy description added. I say pitch it to your DM that way and hope he is cool about it.
ArcTan 12-24-07, 01:46 AM	Real wrenches weren't invented until 1835 -- it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that we really began to standardize the concept of using things like screw threads and whatnot. If your DM feels a wrench is therefore thematically incompatible with Eberron, shouldn't be that big a deal. There are plenty of other tools you could use that give the same feel of a tool converted to a weapon (a hammer being the obvious example).
LunarWolfPrime 12-24-07, 08:55 AM	Real wrenches weren't invented until 1835 -- it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that we really began to standardize the concept of using things like screw threads and whatnot. If your DM feels a wrench is therefore thematically incompatible with Eberron, shouldn't be that big a deal. There are plenty of other tools you could use that give the same feel of a tool converted to a weapon (a hammer being the obvious example). he got you there but think of it this way ebberon (oh i hope i do not tick some one off by saying this) has a little bit of fullmetal alchemist feel to it and i could todaly see winery rockbell as a dragonmarked heir/ artificer of the house of cannith with a wrench i know i am not helping matters much but hey it is a nice idea
Count Nerindil Van Seraph 12-24-07, 11:13 AM	I think wrenches would be found somewhere in Eberron. Lighting rails are made of mostly metal and I'd be willing to bet that some of the Towers in Sharn have metal frames. Also, Fullmetal Alchemist is phenomenal.
Alex_ 12-24-07, 05:20 PM	he got you there but think of it this way ebberon (oh i hope i do not tick some one off by saying this) has a little bit of fullmetal alchemist feel to it and i could todaly see winery rockbell as a dragonmarked heir/ artificer of the house of cannith with a wrench i know i am not helping matters much but hey it is a nice idea Eberron very much has a feel in evocative of steampunk: the noir, the pulp, the invention, the intrigue, and other elements. However, it does this all in a fantasy medival setting. There's no steampower, there are elemntal vessels. People don't float around in Zepplins, they use airships. You don't have mechanics with wrenches, you have Artificers with arcane widgits. Pirates don't wield pistols, they wield wands or hand-crossbows. You don't meet the president, you meet the queen. People don't wear derby hats, they wear fantasy medieval clothes. The huge disaster wasn't a nuclear weapon, it was a magical catastrophe. People don't ride around in cars. They still use animal drawn carts. So you won't find a wrench in Eberron because with the way the setting's designed (modern attitude and themes, but medival fantasy enviroment and resources) there's really nothing that would use it. However, you can add it as easily as any other element. Eberron is lots of stuff in FMA. Part of what makes Eberron unique is that this attitude has generally not been applied to a magic-rich medieval fantasy setting without transforming it into a non-medieval setting, steampunk, or something like that.
Edymnion 12-24-07, 05:54 PM	It depends, are you going to take a cohort named Dee-Dee? http://f.screensavers.com/migration/ss/dectexlaboratory_215.gif
Gurv 12-24-07, 06:53 PM	Thats awesome! The next artificer my players deal with is going to be a Karnn , a gnome named Dexter. Not quite sure what to make Dee Dee...some kind of high-Dex acrobat-type? Freakishly tall, with no Wis or Int to speak of.
Edymnion 12-24-07, 07:25 PM	Thats awesome! The next artificer my players deal with is going to be a Karnn , a gnome named Dexter. Not quite sure what to make Dee Dee...some kind of high-Dex acrobat-type? Freakishly tall, with no Wis or Int to speak of.Elven Rogue. She is obviously thin and dextrous, which is the normal elven stereotype, and she obviously has Evasion and Uncanny Dodge, based on how she can blow everything up around her while still remaining untouched. Thief-Acrobat sounds like a very good match for her. Heh, this is just one of those things I didn't think I'd be doing when I woke up this morning. Working on statting out Dee-Dee and Dexter in Eberron...
Siberys 12-24-07, 11:32 PM	Unlike Iron Kingdoms Eberron does not specifically say, "Hey we have wrenches!" Therefore its up to your DM, I'd allow it, I mean its essentially just a mace with some fancy description added. I say pitch it to your DM that way and hope he is cool about it. If that doesn't work, offer to take a -4 nonproficiency penalty. One isn't usually trained to FIGHT with a wrench, after all :P Also, off-topic: I LOVE Dexter's Lab. I can't be the only one able to say that, if not for one particular episode of this show, I'd have never gotten into D&D, or gaming in general... D&DD was the best episode EVER. Great way to intro people to the idea of the game, IMO.
Arryn 12-24-07, 11:41 PM	I think that wrenches would most likely exist in Eberron because of how powerful House Cannith is. It stands to reason that the House of Making would want to be able to standardize its products across the face of Khorvaire. Standardization of nuts and bolt sizes would probably lead to tools such as wrenches.
Edymnion 12-25-07, 03:30 PM	Well, the problem is the very existence of a bolt in the first place. A threaded bolt is *NOT* easy to produce. Yes, the screw has been around for thousands of years, but only in very large sizes, and not as a fastener (instead, they were used for pumping). The screw as we know it today didn't become a normal fastener until the 18th century. The problem is that, unlike nails, you can't just whip a screw up. The fine threads have to circle the center pole at an incredibly regular interval, and whatever you are screwing into has to have the exact opposite, incredibly regular interval for the thing to work in the first place. The technology to make a bolt just simply didn't exist in the medieval world, where you used smooth wooden pegs or (far more rarely) iron nails. So yes, the DM is well within his rights to say that bolts and wrenches are simply not one of the anachronisms present in his game.
Alex_ 12-25-07, 04:27 PM	Well, the problem is the very existence of a bolt in the first place. A threaded bolt is *NOT* easy to produce. Yes, the screw has been around for thousands of years, but only in very large sizes, and not as a fastener (instead, they were used for pumping). The screw as we know it today didn't become a normal fastener until the 18th century. The problem is that, unlike nails, you can't just whip a screw up. The fine threads have to circle the center pole at an incredibly regular interval, and whatever you are screwing into has to have the exact opposite, incredibly regular interval for the thing to work in the first place. The technology to make a bolt just simply didn't exist in the medieval world, where you used smooth wooden pegs or (far more rarely) iron nails. So yes, the DM is well within his rights to say that bolts and wrenches are simply not one of the anachronisms present in his game. I think that it's also worth noting that Eberron simply isn't a game about nuts and bolts. Clockwork mechanisms, springs, and metal gears are virtually nowhere to be found in the setting. It's understandable if players want to add that to the game, since other themes are so evocative of steampunk settings, but Eberron isn't steampunk and values magical solutions over technological ones, and due to this intentional design choice, is unlikely (if ever) to introduce or officially support steampunk staples such as wrenches, gears, motor oil, steam engines, or firearms.
Edymnion 12-25-07, 06:37 PM	Yeah, why use bolts when you can use magic to seamlessly fuse two sheets of metal together? Why bother with gears and pullies when you can have magical power source A over here, and magical linkage B to get the power directly to doo-hicky C? Especially in Eberron, if its something more mechanically complicated than say a crossbow, then people are more likely to try and find a magical solution to the problem than to fiddle around until they can clunk together a mechanical one.
Alex_ 12-25-07, 10:49 PM	Yeah, why use bolts when you can use magic to seamlessly fuse two sheets of metal together? Why bother with gears and pullies when you can have magical power source A over here, and magical linkage B to get the power directly to doo-hicky C? Especially in Eberron, if its something more mechanically complicated than say a crossbow, then people are more likely to try and find a magical solution to the problem than to fiddle around until they can clunk together a mechanical one. I always thought about it more like the Flintstones. They use rocks and animals as the basis of all their technology. Not because it's the most logical or even most reasonable. Ink or paint would be easier than chiseling stone, and bows would probably be more effective than slingshot guns, and some kind of gravity water feed would make a better shower than a wooly mammoth's trunk. However, all those off beat approaches make for a very interesting, unique, and creative quirk of the setting. It's not that, for whatever reasons, firearms or steam engines wouldn't be plenty useful in Eberron or that people wouldn't logically try to develop them. However, that would be like Fred and Barney inventing paper so people don't have to write on stone anymore. More logical, sure, but much less fanciful and breaks the unique style they were going for. And Eberron's very much about fantasy and style, much of it enforced by themes moreso than any internally consistent logic/probability in the world.
Siberys 12-26-07, 01:01 AM	There's a flipside to that, though. Necessity is the mother of invention. Why go through the trouble to research alchemy and make a gun when you can already, and much more easily, blast them with hellfire? Name an invention. If someone in the past hadn't decided we needed the effect it produced, it wouldn't have been invented, as the problems it would have fixed never came about in the first place. In Eberron, guns (or, in this case, wrenches) wouldn't exist, as the problems they fix are already solved by magic (wands and... other wands)
Alex_ 12-26-07, 01:12 PM	There's a flipside to that, though. Necessity is the mother of invention. Why go through the trouble to research alchemy and make a gun when you can already, and much more easily, blast them with hellfire? If you can blast the enemy with hellfire, but that doesn't make cheaper ranged weapons that can be used by non-casters useless. There are still bows, crossbows, slings, and boomerangs in Eberron. Firearms wouldn't compete with spells, they'd be competing with other mundane ranged weapons, and as has been historically shown, firearms can not only be invented while they exist, they can coexist side-by-side with, and given time, largely replace them. Which is why this line of reasoning against firearms in Eberron (or most fantasy settings) doesn't work. Deciding to leave out firearms is (and works best as) a deliberate choice of style and theme and design of the world.
Edymnion 12-26-07, 02:02 PM	Which is why this line of reasoning against firearms in Eberron (or most fantasy settings) doesn't work. Deciding to leave out firearms is (and works best as) a deliberate choice of style and theme and design of the world.Beyond that though, the initial step is missing. The initial creation of gunpowder. In the real world, it was first made in china and used for centuries as nothing more than crude fireworks that made loud bangs and some sparks to scare away demons. Producing lights and noises is something that any third rate arcane spellcaster is capable of doing with a single casting of Prestidigitation. A bolt (and hence a wrench to turn the bolt with) are still meeting a basic every day mundane need in a superior manner, and hence are far more likely to exist in Eberron, IMO, than firearms. Ya want a gun, get a +1 Thundering Hand Crossbow. If you want a bigger gun, get a +1 Thundering Light Crossbow. If you really wanna whip out your little friend and blow everybody away, +1 Thundering Heavy Crossbow.
Alex_ 12-26-07, 02:45 PM	Beyond that though, the initial step is missing. The initial creation of gunpowder. In the real world, it was first made in china and used for centuries as nothing more than crude fireworks that made loud bangs and some sparks to scare away demons. That was one of it's uses. From it's inception, it was used in warfare as well (bombs, rockets, and firearms). Reference of its use in fireworks is often to illustrate the point that while the Chinese had varied use for the substance, Europeans used it almost exclusively for war (and whatever that may imply). It was hardly the reason it was created or it's only application. A bolt (and hence a wrench to turn the bolt with) are still meeting a basic every day mundane need in a superior manner, and hence are far more likely to exist in Eberron, IMO, than firearms. I don't know, considering the fact that firearms (not to mention wartime applications of firearms) predated wrenches by over 800 years. It seems as if Eberron has addressed the "industrialization" part as much as the weapons part with magical solutions. I mean, they have forges that make stuff for you: all you do is pour in the ingredients. With stuff like House Cannith and magewrights around, I think you also see a reduced incentive to pursue non-magical solutions to streamlining production/repair. Ya want a gun, get a +1 Thundering Hand Crossbow. If you want a bigger gun, get a +1 Thundering Light Crossbow. If you really wanna whip out your little friend and blow everybody away, +1 Thundering Heavy Crossbow. Those are very expensive options (over 1200 gp compared to a 250 GP pistol). Firearms would have the potential to replace bows and crossbows (even melee weapons) in ways that magic and magic items never could- largely due to cost and the fact that you don't have to be born special, chosen, or have to be trained in metaphysics to make, let alone use them.
troysandlin 12-26-07, 03:34 PM	And Eberron's very much about fantasy and style, much of it enforced by themes moreso than any internally consistent logic/probability in the world. Which is exactly why he wants to use a huge flaming wrench as a weapon in the first place, for fantasy and style. What does it matter if nuts and bolts actually exist in the setting? Is it really going to come up in game play? Is any DM going to center an adventure around nuts, bolts and wrenches or the lack there of? No. I really doubt it. He wants it cause it would look cool. Call it a flaming mace and be done with it. It doesn't break the game in any way. Call it a spanner or something. Maybe it's used to pull pegs and such out of their holes. It just happens to look like a wrench. If it makes the player happy and doesn't hurt the game in anyway; I say let em have it.
ArcTan 12-26-07, 03:45 PM	Beyond that though, the initial step is missing. The initial creation of gunpowder. In the real world, it was first made in china and used for centuries as nothing more than crude fireworks that made loud bangs and some sparks to scare away demons. ...Not actually true. The fact that European historians said this for centuries (including creating an entirely false legend about how gunpowder was independently invented by a German monk) is just a testament to European racism and unwillingness to give anyone else credit for anything. The Chinese had powder-based "fire-lances", cannon and flamethrowers as early as the 10th century, probably only a few hundred years after Chinese alchemists discovered that saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal makes big sparks and flames when you set it on fire. Indeed, the *earliest existing* recipe for gunpowder is in a *military manual* describing how to use it to make explosive ammunition for catapults, and even including various recipes for making various kinds of ammo (blasting bombs, incendiary bombs, smoke bombs) for different situations. Really, people who find it plausible that you could invent something like gunpowder and *not* try to find a way to use it to kill people have too much faith in human nature. I can't think of any technological innovation in history that wasn't basically turned into a weapon as soon as it became feasible.
Alex_ 12-26-07, 05:19 PM	Which is exactly why he wants to use a huge flaming wrench as a weapon in the first place, for fantasy and style. What does it matter if nuts and bolts actually exist in the setting? Is it really going to come up in game play? Is any DM going to center an adventure around nuts, bolts and wrenches or the lack there of? No. I really doubt it. He wants it cause it would look cool. Call it a flaming mace and be done with it. It doesn't break the game in any way. Call it a spanner or something. Maybe it's used to pull pegs and such out of their holes. It just happens to look like a wrench. If it makes the player happy and doesn't hurt the game in anyway; I say let em have it. I agree. Said so in my first post. "you won't find a wrench in Eberron because with the way the setting's designed... However, you can add it as easily as any other element." I've spent the last couple of posts, not arguing that wrenches wouldn't be invented in Eberron, just that their existence should tied to style- not to any logical extrapolation or internally consistent model regarding the actual technology a fantasy world like Eberron would/could produce.
RedRider 12-26-07, 05:59 PM	Well, some workarounds: -Possibly, Cannith could have their own standardised measurements for nuts and bolts. (Since not everyone has the talent to be a magewright or even an artificer, and not every structure justifies the attention of a mage.) -Okay, maybe House Cannith don't, but perhaps your artificer happens to have built devices using his own standardised-measurement bolts or something similar. (Realistically though, the time invested in making your own bolt could probably be better spent using other sealing methods, unless you have a good reason to build something you can assemble and disassemble at will and can't do it magically.) -Perhaps they're useful as standardised portable levers in military or industrial machines, which, for whatever reason, don't have permanant levers attached. (Consider elemental vessels, Argonath, and other magical vehicles. If it's cramped inside them you don't nescessarily want levers sticking out all over the place for people to nudge accidentally or get jabbed by as they walk past.) -You could try for an adjustable wrench, like a monkey wrench or pipe spanner. It's not too out there that you might need to effectively apply torque to thin objects. You could even argue a set of trap-disarming tools shouldn't be without one. (Of course, that too would need a screw-thread, but since it's one item rather than hundreds of nuts then you're probably okay if the base price reflects the cost of precision engineering.)
Edymnion 12-26-07, 06:56 PM	The Chinese had powder-based "fire-lances", cannon and flamethrowers as early as the 10th century, probably only a few hundred years after Chinese alchemists discovered that saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal makes big sparks and flames when you set it on fire.And how is that any different than what I said?it was first made in china and used for centuries as nothing more than crude fireworksI said "For centuries it was just used for fireworks", and you now say "used as a weapon only a few hundred years after they found out it goes bang". Either way, it was centuries after the discovery of the explosive properties of gunpowder that it was turned into a weapon of war.
Alex_ 12-26-07, 08:48 PM	And how is that any different than what I said?I said "For centuries it was just used for fireworks", and you now say "used as a weapon only a few hundred years after they found out it goes bang". Either way, it was centuries after the discovery of the explosive properties of gunpowder that it was turned into a weapon of war. "Fire-lances", cannon and flamethrowers didn't show up until after a few centuries. Bombs and munitions had been around much longer, pretty much as old as fireworks, not surprising considering fireworks are little more than small explosives. Guns came later, but the idea that you can kill stuff with gunpowder as an alternative to bows, spears, and swords, is as old as the substance itself.
Siberys 12-26-07, 10:17 PM	I don't know, considering the fact that firearms (not to mention wartime applications of firearms) predated wrenches by over 800 years. It seems as if Eberron has addressed the "industrialization" part as much as the weapons part with magical solutions. I mean, they have forges that make stuff for you: all you do is pour in the ingredients. With stuff like House Cannith and magewrights around, I think you also see a reduced incentive to pursue non-magical solutions to streamlining production/repair. That's exactly my point - no need (read: incentive), no invention. Done. But, in regards to wrenches, go ahead. While I don't see them as being common, artificers always have bizarre tools, so a wrench isn't odd enough to disallow (though I'd definitely say one would take a nonprof penalty on it). It's just that the same line of reasoning that can be applied to guns can usually be applied to any number of relatively high-tech items. Sto Exstasis Siberys
Alex_ 12-27-07, 10:02 AM	That's exactly my point - no need (read: incentive), no invention. Done. However, there is a need. There's a place. There's a huge untapped market there. For both wrenches, firearms, and all kinds of things that don't yet exist in Eberron. If you want Wrenches, add them. If you don't, then don't, but you're getting nowhere if you try to base either decision on some kind of logic. Eberron's not based on internally consistent logic in those regards. Either option is entirely a matter of the taste and style you're going with for in the world.
Arz 12-27-07, 12:27 PM	The common techniques to bond metal in the pre-industrial age was the rivet. Obviously these were welded not expansion rivets. Tools used to remove them: crowbar, chisel, and hammer. Personally screaming into combat with a flaming crowbar works for me.
ArcTan 12-27-07, 04:46 PM	I said "For centuries it was just used for fireworks", and you now say "used as a weapon only a few hundred years after they found out it goes bang". We don't know exactly when it was discovered. We *assume* it probably takes a few hundred years between discovering the powder *at all* and having the powder be a common, standard weapon of war used for many different applications. We don't have any records whatsoever of when gunpowder was first formulated. We *guess* that it was discovered a few centuries before the 10th century because that's a good guess -- it's about when alchemists began using chemicals like saltpeter and sulfur in large amounts to try to make medicines. Either way, it was centuries after the discovery of the explosive properties of gunpowder that it was turned into a weapon of war. No. We have no proof of that, and actually it's highly unlikely -- it's much more likely, given that the *earliest known record of gunpowder* refers to it *primarily* as a weapon of war, that the first major uses of gunpowder period were military uses. The "fireworks" thing is utterly false as a statement of known fact. Indeed, the point of what I said is that the furthest back in time we have any historical reference to gunpowder, it's for weapons. Records describing gunpowder as "firecrackers" used to scare away ghosts come from centuries *after* that time. Again, the *earliest time gunpowder is mentioned in any written document*, gunpowder is described as a weapon. If you wanted me to guess how the story went, I would guess that it starts with the alchemists trying to make medicines who made throwaway references (some of which we can find) to saltpeter being volatile and flammable (but in its pure form, of course, saltpeter is useless as an explosive). At some point between the 8th century and the 10th century, experimenters discovered that a particular mix of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal made a powerful, portable, useful explosive. *Almost immediately afterwards* it was pressed into service as a weapon of war. By the time the first historical reference comes around in the 10th century, gunpowder is a *common* and *widely used* weapon of war. There is no record of gunpowder being widely used as a "firework" before then. There is zero evidence of the fantastically unlikely scenario of gunpowder being commonly known and widely used by commoners to make "fireworks" without ever being used as weapons. This is a *myth*. The earliest examples we have of the fireworks you're talking about were made in a dynasty that *already commonly used gunpowder weapons as a military staple*. The earliest reference to gunpowder existing is gunpowder being used as a staple military explosive. There is *no* reference to *any* period of time for gunpowder being used "recreationally" without military use. There is a relatively small window of time we have for when it's likely people could have discovered gunpowder -- and during that *entire window of time*, fire-lances, cannons, smoke bombs, land mines, flamethrowers, rockets -- all of those were invented. That's almost certainly what was going on in the "few hundred years" I was talking about -- a time that, in China, was a time of constant warfare and strife, during which it is incredibly unlikely that any possible technological weapon would be ignored and used for "fireworks". The whole idea that you could invent something as obviously terrifyingly destructive as black powder and the government would *ignore* it and *not* use it to kill people is *stupid*. There is no historical basis for it. At best, you could claim that there's a window of time between someone figuring out that a particular powder burns and smokes very brightly when you drop it into a flame, and the invention of powerful catapults specifically designed to launch explosive shells over city walls with different recipes for fire, smoke or blast. Which is not what you were saying -- you were saying the stupid and utterly unfounded European myth that the Chinese *ignored* the military applications of gunpowder *even while mass-producing it for recreational purposes*, which is BS.
ArcTan 12-27-07, 04:53 PM	"Fire-lances", cannon and flamethrowers didn't show up until after a few centuries. Bombs and munitions had been around much longer, pretty much as old as fireworks, not surprising considering fireworks are little more than small explosives.\ Right. My point was that the earliest actual historical reference to the existence of gunpowder is in a military manual that describes gunpowder as common, and has several different military uses for it. (And this manual itself comes after paintings and drawings that show what are pretty clearly fire-lances, although people argue over this.) These could not have sprung fully-formed from nowhere. All evidence points to gunpowder existing for a very long time and people having a great many opportunities to experiment with its formulations and applications before that description occurs. The earliest references to the "fireworks" Edy was talking about come from the 12th century, 200 years *after* the first reference to using gunpowder to make smoke bombs and incendiaries. Fireworks as a common recreation do not become *common* until much later in China, when China hits a prosperous and peaceful period in the Ming Dynasty after driving out the Mongols (IIRC). As with most such technologies, the military use greatly predates the peaceful use. The art of the pyrotechnician only comes into existence *long after* the science of the ballistic engineer. The Chinese knew the recipe for how to make gunpowder emit noxious, choking gas *long* before they knew the recipe for how to make gunpowder give off bright green sparks instead of bright red ones. Certainly, the European insistence that the Europeans *observed* the Chinese for many years using gunpowder for "fireworks" rather than weapons is an outright lie. If there ever was that fantastically unlikely thing -- a time when gunpowder was widespread in China and given to little kids for firecrackers but not used in firearms -- no European saw it, and no record of it survives. By the time of the earliest contact with European traders (the 1300s), the imperial government already had a standing order in place that no saltpeter or sulfur chemical compounds were to be sold to any foreigners, under pain of death. Gunpowder was already, at that point, an *important military secret*. The European idea that gunpowder weapons were a European thing, or a "modern" thing, is a canard almost entirely fabricated by Victorian historians in the 1800s to describe the "inevitable" nature of the Europeans' rise to global power, and, like almost everything else they "knew", was made up out of thin air. The fact that people still jump on it today and try to spin it into a *good* thing -- that gunpowder was a happy, peaceful invention used for pretty fireworks that was "twisted" into a weapon of war -- is just an extension of this myth. There's no truth to it -- there is no evidence that, as soon as the formula for gunpowder was set down on paper and people *knew for sure* what it was capable of doing, it wasn't immediately snapped up by warlords who began to experiment with all manner of killing machines powered by it. (Again, as early as the *900s*, gunpowder was already an infantry weapon, an artillery weapon, a naval weapon, a form of area-denial landmines... And there *weren't any fireworks yet*.)
ArcTan 12-27-07, 05:01 PM	The common techniques to bond metal in the pre-industrial age was the rivet. Obviously these were welded not expansion rivets. Tools used to remove them: crowbar, chisel, and hammer. Personally screaming into combat with a flaming crowbar works for me. To increase the effect, have the Artificer wear bright orange armor and have spectacles and a beard under it.
ArcTan 12-27-07, 05:12 PM	Beyond that though, the initial step is missing. The initial creation of gunpowder. In the real world, it was first made in china and used for centuries as nothing more than crude fireworks that made loud bangs and some sparks to scare away demons. Also, while I'm riding my little "Edy is wrong" high... Gunpowder wasn't specifically invented *in order* to create fireworks. (Like I said, fireworks aren't mentioned in the books until hundreds of years after gunpowder weapons are mentioned.) If anyone specifically invented gunpowder, it was because they were ordered to research preexisting records of particular chemicals that were highly flammable in order to make a weapon out of it. Either that, or a highly flammable chemical was *already* being used as a weapon and people experimented with it in order to find a version that would work better (be less volatile, more controllable). The overall *idea* behind gunpowder -- that potash sparks and flares and explodes when exposed to heat -- was discovered accidentally, as with all such discoveries, as a direct result of researches that initially had nothing to do with explosives at all -- trying to explore the medicinal qualities of saltpeter and other compounds. In a world where "alchemy" of any important kind exists, it's almost inevitable that someone will discover volatile, explosive chemical compounds -- and, I would say, basically inevitable that after that someone will find a way to use such compounds as a weapon. The European story I was talking about -- Berthold Schwarz, the German monk who was looking for the elixir of life and discovered a weapon of death -- is not actually that unlikely. It's probably how it originally happened in China. The main reason the Berthold Schwarz story is almost certainly false is that there was no *need* for him to "invent" anything -- as early as there *is* a strong European tradition of systematic alchemy (Roger Bacon and such), gunpowder already exists and is already known in Europe because of contact with the East (despite the best efforts of the Chinese to prevent this). *Everyone* the Chinese traded with -- the Indians, the Muslims, the Europeans -- got the secret of gunpowder pretty quickly. It's too easy to make and too incredibly valuable to stay secret for long. And everyone who gets it makes new weapons from it almost immediately (the Europeans make cannon and, later, muskets; the Muslims make torpedoes and rockets; the Indians make a whole crapload of explosive devices, of which they're so proud that they start a big debate with China over who actually invented gunpowder in the first place). In other words, I personally find it fantastically *un*likely that any advanced culture that has a supply of potassium compounds to screw around with and has any interest in alchemy wouldn't discover gunpowder. And it's basically laughable to claim that if anyone *did* discover gunpowder, they wouldn't use it to kill people -- we use *everything* we discover to kill people. That's what we do. Argue against gunpowder in Eberron on stylistic or thematic grounds, fine. The argument that the Eberron civilizations wouldn't've discovered gunpowder because they weren't "interested in it" or that, having discovered it, they would only use it for "peaceful purposes" -- that is an extremely shaky argument, and has *no* historical precedent in real life.
Lanodantheon 12-31-07, 01:27 AM	Back on topic.... There is one place I could see a wrench being used in Eberron personally: Not Screwheads and bolts, ....Plumbing. Even Rome had pipes. The wrench can be a write off since the Plumbing around at this level of technology would be huge. (Especially in Sharn) Ask your DM if they have sinks, if they do, you're in the clear. Plus, I agree with the assessment that House Cannith would standardize everything. They already standardize weapons and equipment made by the Guilds, why not pipes and other parts? In the end it doesn't matter, it's your game. No matter what arguments I have campaigns are as varied as the people who play in them. Besides, threads like this make me laugh because we're arguing about the presence of an anachronism in a world that doesn't exist.......><
Edymnion 12-31-07, 08:21 AM	In the end it doesn't matter, it's your game.Except that it isn't his game. :P
Ringmereth 12-31-07, 02:44 PM	In other words, I personally find it fantastically *un*likely that any advanced culture that has a supply of potassium compounds to screw around with and has any interest in alchemy wouldn't discover gunpowder. And it's basically laughable to claim that if anyone *did* discover gunpowder, they wouldn't use it to kill people -- we use *everything* we discover to kill people. That's what we do. Argue against gunpowder in Eberron on stylistic or thematic grounds, fine. The argument that the Eberron civilizations wouldn't've discovered gunpowder because they weren't "interested in it" or that, having discovered it, they would only use it for "peaceful purposes" -- that is an extremely shaky argument, and has *no* historical precedent in real life. You're absolutely right... but who's to say Eberron does, in fact, have saltpeter? I've considered sticking guns into Eberron as a product of the Last War, since I don't think it's much of a thematic stretch to have swashbucklers with a brace of pistols, but for those who wish to stick with the original flavor, simply say that alchemist's fire is the current height of non-magical explosives, and it's not for a lack of trying. Rather, the ingredients necessary for making gunpowder or similar substances just isn't to be found--if it exists at all, it's way underground, on different continents, incredibly rare, etc.
ArcTan 12-31-07, 08:35 PM	Back on topic.... There is one place I could see a wrench being used in Eberron personally: Not Screwheads and bolts, ....Plumbing. Even Rome had pipes. The wrench can be a write off since the Plumbing around at this level of technology would be huge. (Especially in Sharn) Ask your DM if they have sinks, if they do, you're in the clear. Well, pipe wrenches work on pipes because pipes have screw threads that screw together. It's still the same argument (would Eberron have hit upon the idea of screw-threads yet?). Rome didn't, which is why Rome didn't have pipes running all through the house with multifarious forms of indoor plumbing -- Rome had pipes that were big and heavy and required big strong laboring slaves to install that were therefore only used in a few specific areas on a large scale (i.e. huge public baths with huge pools of water, rather than a personal shower stall).
ArcTan 12-31-07, 08:37 PM	You're absolutely right... but who's to say Eberron does, in fact, have saltpeter? I've considered sticking guns into Eberron as a product of the Last War, since I don't think it's much of a thematic stretch to have swashbucklers with a brace of pistols, but for those who wish to stick with the original flavor, simply say that alchemist's fire is the current height of non-magical explosives, and it's not for a lack of trying. Rather, the ingredients necessary for making gunpowder or similar substances just isn't to be found--if it exists at all, it's way underground, on different continents, incredibly rare, etc. Sure. There's nothing wrong with disallowing guns for thematic reasons and handwaving it away for thematic reasons. My ire just prickles up when people try to justify this as somehow intrinsically making sense. 'Specially when they parrot myths about ancient China to do so.