Steampunk Dungen Fantasy?

[b-dog]

Has anyone done any steampunk Dungeon Fantasy? I would be interested in something like this.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

I haven't actually done anything along those lines yet, but steampunk, or at least clockpunk, contraptions seem like the obvious direction for artificers to expand in. I once noodled around with some artificer power-ups in the form of wind-up or steam-powered prosthetics, and I haven't the slightest idea where it's gone.

[scc]

You might want to look at Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms. I'd advise looking more at the older D&D 3.5e version of the game, as their new version draws too much on their wargame set in the same universe, resulting both a heavy combat focus and characters leaving military with way too much gear, like full suits of power armor months or even years before it's put into production.

[Rupert]

Note that the reach and alpha strike of ranged combatants is very considerable even with TL5 guns, and unlike with bows the users do not need to invest in ST to do their damage. Design of dungeons and monsters needs to allow for this.

[Tinman]

I have! I've run 2 campaigns that include DF & steampunk (one lasted a year & a half before being destroyed by a 'gust' GM.) and one that's about 4 months old.
Both were set in the world of Banestom.

In the first I had an Artificer/Musketeer* who created black powder weapons. He improved them to revolvers & breach-loading carbines. For the ship he created Nock Volly guns & Puckle Guns (both with slightly modified stats to mach the DF guns in pyrimid). Also, a few light rockets & wrist bracers that fired primitive gyrocs.
He also created some airships. The first was sm:+3. The second was sm:+5 & was stolen by the Enemy Clockwork Group. The third & final was sm:+6.

His reoccurring enemy was a group of clockwork artificers & their minions.

DF & steampunk works well and is a lot of fun!

* Musketeer (from TBC's article in pyramid 3-36 p17).
* Artificer with unusual background (Gunsmith) [10] (also recommended by TBC in a thread in this forum).

[Phil Masters]

It’s an idea that I mentioned in Steampunk 1. I’ve not tried running it myself, but I keep thinking about ways to expand on the concept... The new Steampunk 2 may help, of course...

[whswhs]

A basic factor in this sort of thing is that GURPS ranged spells have limited ranges; for example, Fireball has 1/2D 25, Max 50, Acc 1. Even a matchlock musket is much better, or a wheellock pistol. I suppose in a dungeon you'll be firing at incredibly close range, but anywhere you have room to maneuver, the soldiers can shoot when the mages can't even get close to them—and you need a lot less training to fire a musket than to cast a spell.

You might want to look at boosting the range on all spells, say by a factor of 10. That would make mages a serious threat on the battlefield.

[b-dog]

I would think there could be some interesting and deadly steampunk traps in a dungeon. Also monsters like Frankenstein might be steampunk too. Lolth’s spider ship could be steampunk and there could be steampunk machines that summon or interact with Elder Things too.

[Phil Masters]

Note that there are two different possibilities here; adding a bit of clockpunk or steampunk tech to a standard dungeon fantasy game, or running something very like dungeon fantasy in a cinematic steampunk world.

In the former case, you’ll want to keep firearms fairly rare — toys for clever gadgeteers, mostly — if you don’t want to address the broader consequences in the world outside the dungeon. (There’s a world outside the dungeon??) In-dungeon, the cramped spaces will tend to keep low-RoF firearms fairly constrained anyway. In the “steampunk world” version, I’d tend to downplay wizards, perhaps using a slow-casting ritual system of some kind, to get the feel right, with some of the gun bunnies taking over the “large damage at range” niche.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

In the “steampunk world” version, I’d tend to downplay wizards, perhaps using a slow-casting ritual system of some kind, to get the feel right, with some of the gun bunnies taking over the “large damage at range” niche.

Depending on the type of steampunk game it is, most or all of the characters might have guns, so the wizard is the one who does the weird stuff - though he or she might also be the sniper, if they have the right spells/rituals for that (in D&D, there's a spell called, I think, 'True Strike' that would be incredibly useful for a sharpshooter, or indeed anyone else with an attack that does a lot of damage in one shot - it does something like give you a +20 on your next attack roll, but not on damage rolls).