Engineer Class for Pathfinder

[President Television]

Ok, here's the deal: I'm planning out this setting for Pathfinder, and one of the central aspects of the backstory is the conflict between magic and technology. Because of this, I want to have a class built around working with machinery. Not an artificer; I want this class to be able to work without magic, or at least with a bare minimum of magical involvement. I'm thinking of building it based on the Engineer advanced class from D20 Modern, but I don't have a lot of experience and there's a whole extra 10 levels to come up with if I want to make this a base class, on top of the necessary cross-system adjustments. How do I build class, PD?

[Requia ☣]

Don't, really.  It never works.

[President Television]

EDIT: I'm thinking I should do this with feats instead of an entire class, so that at least the players have the option of focusing on machinery. Rogues, bards, and wizards would benefit the most from it, I think. Is that a more reasonable alternative?

[Richter]

Would this work for you?  http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue#TOC-Trapsmith

If you're mostly about buggering traps and machinery, that would seem to suit the bill.  You could add levels of alchemist or sorceror/wizard with explosive runes for more a "Combat engineer" function.

[President Television]

Would this work for you?  http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue#TOC-Trapsmith

If you're mostly about buggering traps and machinery, that would seem to suit the bill.  You could add levels of alchemist or sorceror/wizard with explosive runes for more a "Combat engineer" function.

That's actually really good, lol. I should have checked the SRD more thoroughly.  
The only real difference between that and what I had in mind is that I was thinking of something with a heavy focus in the Craft skills, but I imagine a trapsmith rogue would be taking that general route to begin with. Thanks!

[Richter]

It bugs me a bit that there's no outright rule for rigging up traps or mechanical devices.  You could fudge it in under Profession maybe, but I'd still like to see guidelines on DC for compelxity.

[Requia ☣]

Pretty sure there are rules for traps...

Yeah, page 423 and 424... I didn't realize they had set such an insanely high price for trapsmithing.  Class abilities that drop the price would let an engineer do things a rogue can't.

[Richter]

Pretty sure there are rules for traps...

Yeah, page 423 and 424... I didn't realize they had set such an insanely high price for trapsmithing.  Class abilities that drop the price would let an engineer do things a rogue can't.

  I'll check that out later.

I can see the overall utility varying a LOT depending on the type of campaign you're playing.  If you're building a Kobold cave, like decribed in the other thread, then a few Trapsmiths out of one or two dozen kobolds would be useful.  As part of a dungeon crawling PC party, then more disable skill, and clever chaining of spells and created items when you need a stationary trap might be more useful. 

[Cramulus]

EDIT: I'm thinking I should do this with feats instead of an entire class, so that at least the players have the option of focusing on machinery. Rogues, bards, and wizards would benefit the most from it, I think. Is that a more reasonable alternative?

off the top of my head


since "magic items" became "gear" in d20 modern, maybe you should think of your engineer more in terms of being an artificer.

You can use the existing magic-item building feats to let them create high tech versions of regular fantasy gear. Instead of a +1 crossbow, it's now a +1 steam pistol. Instead of a flying carpet, it's a hover board.

Use the potion or scroll rules to create 1-shot spell effects with a tech flavor. (like grenades = fireball scroll. healing potion = stimpack)

Use the wand rules to create repeatable spell effects. (like an acid arrow bazooka, a projector that duplicates Phantasmal Force, or a little machine that spawns clockwork attack bots like a Summon Monster spell)

Use the wonderous item rules to create gadgets of all sorts. (darkvision goggles, communication devices)

If the player has the "craft tech" feat, allow them to negotiate with you about what they want to build -- within the role that tech plays in your game.

For example, if your setting is about the tension between magic and tech, you should have certain effects that can only be accessed by one side or the other. Maybe only mages can make magic weapons and armor, but only engineers can craft wonderous items. If the setting is about unifying magic and tech, it's okay for a hoverboard and a flying carpet to coexist.

Don't, really.  It never works.

[Telarus]

I've been hacking a Combat Engineer Adept for Earthdawn, so I may have some ideas for you. I haven't read the thread yet, be back later.

[President Television]

Ok, for a little background on my setting: The technology is a schizo tech mixture of renaissance, WWI and WWII technology, with a few fantastic "mad science" aspects thrown in like lightning guns.
So no hoverboards, but a walking platform on mechanical spider legs is feasible in-universe.

One of the themes I want to work with is the idea of magic becoming obsolete. Technology is starting to catch up, and as a general rule in this setting, technology always works better than magic once it catches up to it. Sort of a sociologically-caused gotterdammerung. So there's a conflict, in that magicians can do the impossible, but engineers are clever and they're better at finding practical solutions to problems. Magical, technologically advanced items could exist in this universe, but they're exceedingly rare because historically, there's a lot of bad blood between mages and engineers. Most of the inhabitants of the setting see magic and technology as fundamentally opposed ideologies.
That being said, positive and negative energy are still incorporated into things like healing kits and bombs(a negative energy bomb is essentially a nuke equivalent) because in this setting, they're concrete aspects of the natural world. They're magical to us, but to a scientist in this universe they're just another aspect of reality. Also, divine spellcasters catch a lot less flack than arcane.

[Requia ☣]

A nuke sized negative energy bomb?

Hmm... instant undead horde?

[President Television]

A nuke sized negative energy bomb?

Hmm... instant undead horde?

This actually happens in the backstory. It's the reason that the ruins of an old civilization that lost a war with the dwarves are infested with undead.

You do not fuck with the dwarves in this setting. They kill you with negative wessels in name of glorious mother Dvergard.