New Class: The Artificer

The Artificer

HP: 6+Con
Damage: d6

Core Moves


Gadget Belt: You have a gadget belt that contains various arcane gadgets. When you use an arcane gadget, roll +INT. On a hit, the gadget works as expected. On a 7-9, you must also choose:
You expend 1-charge.
Your gadget is damaged and must be repaired.
You draw unwelcome attention or are placed in a spot.
Start with three arcane gadgets in your gadget belt.

Elemental Charge: When you spend an hour manipulating elemental fields and ley lines, hold 3-charge.

Disable Device: When you attempt to disable a lock, trap, or other device, roll +DEX. On a 10+, you disable it easily. On a 7-9, you can disable it, but the GM will offer you a choice based on suspicion, danger, or cost.

Jury-Rig: When you quickly fix a device without the proper supplies, tools, or time, roll +INT. On a 10+, it works just fine. On a 7-9, choose one:
It’ll work, but only for one more use / a short amount of time.
You need to cannibalize one of your gadgets.

Engineering: When you spend an hour or so in your workshop contemplating an engineering challenge, tell the DM what you’re trying to achieve. The DM will tell you “yes, you can do that, but...” and then 1 to 4 of the following:
• It’s going to take days/weeks/months
• First you must                           
• You’ll need help from                               
• It will require a lot of money
• You and your allies will risk danger from                       
• You’ll have to add X to your workshop first.
• The best you can do is a lesser version.
• You'll need detailed instructions from   
         
Advanced Moves

2-5

Increased Voltage: When you charge up, gain 4-charge, and your max charge held is 4-charge.

Ambaric Charge: When you are involuntarily subjected to a magical effect, gain +1-charge that you can immediately invest in a gadget.

Reverse Polarity: When you use a gadget, you can take -1 to your roll to have it produce the opposite effect.

Etheric Field: As long as you hold at least 1-charge, you have 2-armour.

My Precious: Choose one of your arcane gadgets, you take +1 to all rolls using that gadget.

Collapsible Gadgets: Add two extra gadgets to your gadget belt, without adding any extra weight.

6-10

-need advice-

Arcane Gadgets


Spark Glove: Inflict 1d8 damage to one target, ignoring armour. You can spend additional charges to increase the damage by 1d8 per charge spent.

Ambaric Light: Illuminates any items or creatures in the region that have unusual amounts of elemental or magical energy.

Sonic Screwdriver: Instantly open a locked door or container.

Hypnotic Watch: A single target is transfixed by this watch. As long as no hostile action is taken against them, they will not move or remember anything that occurs while the hypnotic watch is kept in their field of vision.

Magnetic Grip: Levitate a small metal object for a few minutes, or instantly disarm a target wielding a metal weapon.

Trans-Etheric Goggles: See through up to five feet of solid material, or see into the spirit plane.

Ectoplasmic Flask: When activated, a ghost or spirit will be sucked towards the flask. They will either suffer 2d6 damage or be trapped in the flask, their choice.

Spring-Heeled Jackboots: Make an impossible leap.

Hrm, this is a pretty cool version of the Artificer, I must say.  I’ve been giving some thought to this class, myself, but you’ve done some very elegant things here.  I like the wholesale appropriation of the Wizard’s Ritual move for Engineering.  That’s a damn good idea, as long as you’re not too worried about every party having a Wizard and an Artificer.

Gadget Belt:  Interesting spellcasting alternative, I like the idea.  You need to say how to add more gadgets to the belt, though.

Advanced Moves:
Ambaric Charge is unclear.  What does investing 1 charge in a gadget mean?  You don’t have to spend charge to make a gadget work, it’s just one of the options, so what, exactly, does this do?

Collapsible Gadgets:  You currently have no rules regarding Load and gadgets.

Moves you need to add/gadgets you need to make:
Craft Homonculus (very important)
Something to identify the properties of magic items
A multiclass feat that lets you take a Wizard Move (Arcane Craftsman)
High level advanced move to self-destruct a gadget for big damage

Hey, I like it! Very Ebberon or Lord Howl or something :)

I'd make the gadgets like signature weapons. And make the gadget belt more specific. As it stands its a very generalised (and therefore less narratively effective) move.

First have the player choose three  elements for each of their three gadget from the lists:

chromatic
core
dimensional
fey
geomantic
gravitomagnetic
hydromantic
infernal
neutrino
phased
clockwork
resonating
temporal
crystalline
steam
 
Beam
capacitator
circuit
coil
sprocket
compensator
drive
emitter
generator
matrix
modulator
projector
regulator
sensor

puzzlebox
cluster
flask
globe
device
appliance
apparatus
mechanism
goggles
glove
amulet
periapt
scarab
bracelet

Gadget Girdle: You have a gadget belt that contains various arcane gadgets. When you use one of your arcane devices to get out of a tight spot, tell us what it does and roll +INT.

On a hit, choose 3
On a 7-9, choose 1
* the gadget works as expected
* You don't expend 1-charge.
* Your gadget is undamaged
* You avoid unwelcome attention

Gadget Girdle: You have a gadget belt that contains various arcane gadgets. When you use one of your arcane devices to get out of a tight spot, tell us what it does and roll +INT.

On a hit, choose 3
On a 7-9, choose 1
* the gadget works as expected
* You don't expend 1-charge.
* Your gadget is undamaged
* You avoid unwelcome attention

Hey, that's a really clever way of making less specific, I like it! I'm already using Nathan Wilson's non-spell-dependent Sorcerer instead of the Wizard, so this makes more sense...

Quote from: noofy on July 20, 2012, 08:38:18 AM

Gadget Girdle: You have a gadget belt that contains various arcane gadgets. When you use one of your arcane devices to get out of a tight spot, tell us what it does and roll +INT.

On a hit, choose 3
On a 7-9, choose 1
* the gadget works as expected
* You don't expend 1-charge.
* Your gadget is undamaged
* You avoid unwelcome attention

Hey, that's a really clever way of making less specific, I like it! I'm already using Nathan Wilson's non-spell-dependent Sorcerer instead of the Wizard, so this makes more sense...

Personally, I think you should have the player choose 2 on a 7-9.  Otherwise, they will almost always choose "the gadget works", making the other things false choices.  Obviously the player wants the gadget to do what he says it does... that's why he did the move.  And now that he's Hit he has to decide between "I succeed and a bunch of bad things happen" or "I fail AND a bunch of bad things happen".  That's not a very nice hit.

If you let them choose 2, they can succeed AND decide what sort of problems they'll be facing.  Is it better to have my device remain intact, keep all of my precious charge, or keep the element of surprise?  And if they're REALLY in a tight spot, they can even drop their success to try and save their bacon.

 

True that!
You're right, on a 7-9 choose 2, easy fixed :)

I was just brainstorming! I like this class, its way cool and filling a niche as yet unexplored. What about race moves?

Dwarf: Runesmith - You have the art of engraving any of your gadgets with a single rune each. Runes cover all the basic Wizard / Cleric Cantrip / Rotes. Though you may learn more later. When you use your gadget in a tight spot, add to your choices - * invoke its rune and apply the effect.

Note that once authored into the game, an arcane gadget's primary effect and rune can only be modified or changed via the Engineering Challenge move.

PDF playbook for levels 2-5

I went ahead and wrote up this playbook using Noofy's move (what I'm referring to as the "sonic screwdriver model") as the core of the class, just in time for the start of my new Daojin City Blues game (half Legend of Korra, half Planescape, half New Crobuzon). Nobu the Artificer certainly had an interesting run of things, using his magnetic detection goggles to identify occult wards and his etheric emitter gloves to disable the porcelain guards of the wizard Yao Lin's seclusium.

Having seen it in play, I think the sonic screwdriver model works much better than my original idea of specialist gadgets, as it gives more leeway to the players while still remaining grounded in the fiction.

I really like that playbook layout ... and it's way more readable than my ugly Druid-like PDF one.  

NITPICK!

It's "Temperament" not "Temprament".

I kept finding myself grinning as I read the playbook.  Nice!

A few nitpicky thoughts:
- Bomb maker: the "goes off before you expect" options seems like a full miss to me. Maybe replace it with something like "there's a specific action required to trigger it; ask the GM what it is."

- Morphic interlock: should it ignore armor?

- Etheric field and Overload: do you need to also have one of your gadgets on you?

- Logical: this is, strictly speaking, better than the wizard version as it doesn't require a specific way of discerning. Is it supposed to be the same move?

- Gadget Belt: do you want the move to only apply when you use a gadget to "get out of a tight spot?"  What if I use my hypnotic projection goggles to, say, manipulate the otherwise non-hostile guards?  Does it just work?  (I'm OK with that; I just want to make sure that's your intent.)

-Geomantic Charge: is there a point in saying "an hour," as opposed how Commune and Prepare Spells say "When you spend uninterrupted time (an hour so)..."?

-Geomantic Charge:  I feel like you could have some cool roll associated with this, where 7-9 has you pick 1 and on a miss you and the GM each pick one of the following:  only regain 1 charge; you draw unwanted mystical attention; your charge is tainted with chaotic/corrupting/impure/? energy.  Maybe that's too harsh, but it tickles my fancy.

That looks AMAZING Lone Amigo! What a cool playbook :)
Well done! I'm so excited to see this in a game now.

One of my players will be play-testing this class this weekend. She's been asking me to create an Artificer class, and when I found this thread we both got very excited. I'll let you know how it plays out for us.

I tweaked it a little. Briefly, here's what I changed or added. Please let me know what you think.

GEAR
- added crossbow as a starting weapon


Starting Moves:
- removed the disable device move. Mostly because it steps on the thief imo, and we'll have a thief at the table.

- Gadget Belt: I reworded the roll to 'on a hit, it works as expected, and you expend 1-charge. On a 7-9, choose one.' Then I removed the 'spend 1-charge' option.

Advanced Moves:

-Etheric Field: You wear a stable forcefield on your hip. While you have at least 1-charge remaining, you gain +1 Armor.

- Construct Companion: You have crafted a mechanical companion. Choose a specialization for your companion.

• reseach: take +1 when you spout lore
• stand guard: take +1 when you stand guard
• Reload: you don't have to reload
• scout: take +1 when you scout

- Interlocked Harness: Increase your load by 3.

- Market of the Bizarre: You learned long ago not to waste your time with common vendors. Back-channels are how you get your assortment of gizmos and whatsits. When you're looking for something extraordinary for one of your projects, you can use INT instead of CHA to Supply.

EXPERT MOVES:
- Increased Voltage is now an expert move.

- Highly Logical: Requires Logical. when you discern realities, on a 10+ you can ask the GM any three questions, not just those from the list.

- Maximum Overload: reqires Overload. For each charge you expend, roll the damage twice and take the better result.

-Old Construct, New Tricks: Requires Companion Construct.Choose another specialization for your companion.

- Shigawire Harness: replaces Interlocked Harness. Increase your load by 5.

- Forcefield Upgrade: replaces Etheric Field. While you have at least 1-charge remaining, you gain +3 Armor.

Spark Glove: Inflict 1d8 damage to one target, ignoring armour. You can spend additional charges to increase the damage by 1d8 per charge spent.

I'd cap this at 1 extra charge or create a move that allows a single add of damage for 1 charge on various gadgets. If this isn't capped a player can do 5d8 damage at level 2.

Overload: I'd suggest lowering the damage to d8.

Other suggestions:

Craftsman: You've spent some time and invested some of your hard-earned loot into your workshop. Tell the GM what upgrades you've added, and remove two options from the Master Artificer list.

EXPERT MOVE:
Field Workshop: Requires Craftsman. When you have the necessary materials and a safe space, you can create a workshop. Tell the GM how you're constructing (where the sophisticated equipment is coming from, for instance, and what precautions you're taking). The GM will tell you how long it takes and at least one person or organization taking an interest in your workings.

<<snipped>>(half Legend of Korra, half Planescape, half New Crobuzon)<<snipped>>

Wow, I want details about this. You just named 3 of my favorite settings as half the inspiration of your game.

The Artificer Playbook.

I used the blank sheet on the Dungeon World site, along with the ideas and improvements mentioned in this thread, and brought the playbook up to speed.