Steampunk/Wild west races as nations

[Ravyn Dawnbringer]

I need design help, I saw the races as nations thread, and since we needed a new campaign idea (Mine is on it's last session monday), I decided to use that.

That being said, I would like to incorporate some steampunk element into it as well, seeing as I'm a big fan and so are four of my players. So far, I've got that Frank suggested using a success-based system, with few hp and the ability for mooks to shoot heroes in the face and have it matter (assuming they get the jump on the hero). I also understand the humans being the result of a giant fuckpile baby from all the races (which I find quite amusing and hilarious to think about). I like all of that, but I'd like to see that not all people are mages. Although logical, it doesn't suit the flavour I'm going for.

So, I currently need:
One (1) Tinkerer-steamsmith class
One (1) Apothecary class (for the wild westness)
And most likely some other stuff I haven't thought of, like weapons and armor and how they interact in the system.

I have:
Hp system (10 for first level, then +1 for each level after, +1 per 2 points of str above ten)
Aaaannd that about covers the system design end of it. Well fuck. Any criticisms or ideas are welcome, because I am a pysch student, and not a math one.

[Ravyn Dawnbringer]

Just as a note: This is where I'm getting my base

[Tulpa]

If you haven't got it already, I can recommend the Legends & Lairs book Sorcery & Steam. Gives a lot of material for steampunk settings, classes and equipment. It's got a decent Artificer class as well. Then there's the artificer of the Eberron campaign Setting, but it is not centered around steampunk technology.

[Tulpa]

I've got an Apothecary class i've made for one of my particularly magic-poor steamcraft campaigns. In this setting, magical healing does more damage than good, so the apothecary is regarded as the primary source of healing. Note that this system also utilizes sanity points as described in Call of Cthulhu and Unearthed Arcana, as well as Injury rules from Unearthed Arcana.

Now, the Apothecary is a low-powered character in straight up combat compared to the cleric, but i have created this class for a low-fantasy, skill-driven campaign.

You may analyze the psychological structure of this class freely.

Apothecary
The apothecary class surfaced few years after the Dimensional Conflagration, as healing magic often proved to do far more harm than good. The apothecary is a specialist herbalist healer, using his skills in healing and knowledge of medicinal herbs and plants to treat patients and cure their ailments.

Adventures: An Apothecary adventures in order to gain knowledge and heal the sick or wounded. Often deeply studious, urban individuals concerned with various plants and chemicals that may be used for the furthering of the medical profession. Others again are more naturally-minded, spending a lot of time cultivating weed and mushrooms for.. medicinal purposes. As apothecaries further expand their repertoire of herbal and chemical knowledge, they begin understanding the workings of poisons and drugs as well.

Characteristics: Apothecary abilities are derived directly from the knowledge they have acquired, much like an arcanist. Apothecaries are often easily spotted and smelled, as they (at least while travelling) carry great amounts of herbal preparations and chemical concoctions. Some might be recognized by their reddened eyes and blissful facial expressions.

Alignment: Apothecaries may be of any alignment.

Religion: An apothecary may worship any deity whose ambitions do not contradict the tenets of providing aid to the needy (As judged by the social and moral adherence of the apothecary or her philosophical). The most common deities followed by apothecaries is Aura, Luna and Lucia, but still, about 70% of apothecaries are strictly rationalistic and realistic, mistrusting any religious direction.

Background: Those who have strong, compassionate souls and a genuine desire to help others become apothecaries. Then again, those who wish to make good money on healing potions and drugs are also drawn towards this profession. Many become addicted to their own drugs, and a few even become successful infiltrators and assassins.

Other Classes: Arcanists and Artificers get along great with apothecaries, as they are all specialized seekers of knowledge in important scientific fields. As for fighters, barbarians and musketeers, apothecaries are given ample research material and opportunities to hone their skills on these careless brutes. As for the other classes, everybody likes the apothecary as he provides quick and effective healing without risking to tear holes in sanity and reality by forging connections between the mortal and immortal realms. Clerics and druids who (attempt to) use healing magic tend to view apothecaries with jealousy.

Abilities: Intelligence and wisdom are an apothecary's key abilities. High scores in both are vital to successful skill checks involving both knowledge and healing.

Hit Die: d6

Class skills:
Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Gather Information (Int), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (Nature) (Int), Knowledge (Medicine) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Chemist or Alchemy if that's your poison) (Wis), Profession (Herbalist) (Wis), Psychoanalysis (Int), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis) and Survival (Wis).
Skill points a 1st Level: (5+int modifier) x 4
Skill points at each additional level: 5+int mod.

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the apothecary.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Apothecaries are proficient with all simple weapons, and light armor. In addition, apothecaries may use the injector as a melee weapon without penalties and without provoking an attack of opportunity. They have no idea how to use shields.

The Apothecary
Base Fort Ref Will
Level Att Bonus Save Save Save Special
1st +0 +2 +0 +2 Skill Bonus
2nd +1 +3 +0 +3 Diagnose Ailment
3rd +2 +3 +1 +3 Brew Healing Tonic
4th +3 +4 +1 +4 Skill Bonus
5th +3 +4 +1 +4 Expeditious Recovery
6th +4 +5 +2 +5 Drug Specialist
7th +5 +5 +2 +5 Critical Healing
8th +6/+1 +6 +2 +6 Skill Bonus
9th +6/+1 +6 +3 +6 Poison Specialist
10th +7/+2 +7 +3 +7 Expeditious Recover (x2)
11th +8/+3 +7 +3 +7 Improved healing Tonic
12th +9/+4 +8 +4 +8 Skill Bonus
13th +9/+4 +8 +4 +8 Critical Healing (x2)
14th +10/+5 +9 +4 +9
15th +11/+6/+1 +9 +5 +9 Expeditious Recover (x3)
16th +12/+7/+2 +10 +5 +10 Skill Bonus
17th +12/+7/+2 +10 +5 +10 Masterful Healing Tonic
18th +13/+8/+3 +11 +6 +11
19th +14/+9/+4 +11 +6 +11 Critical Healing (x3)
20th +15/+10/+5 +12 +6 +12 Skill Bonus

Skill Bonus: At 1st level and every third level thereafter, an apothecary gains a +2 competence bonus to any single apothecary class skill. A skill may be advanced further by using additional skill bonus and its bonuses stack, but additions to the same skill grants only +1 skill point per investment of the ability.

Diagnose Ailment (Ex): At 2nd level, an apothecary may make a heal check to properly assess and diagnose the nature or cause of injury or illness in a patient. A successful attempt (based on the table below) allows the apothecary to accurately determine the source or underlying cause of the ailment. In the case of poisons and diseases, the Heal DC equals the DC of the saving throw for that particular effect. The apothecary also gains a +2 competence bonus on further heal checks when treating an identified condition or wound.
Heal DC Diagnosis
15 Physical external injury (laceration, compound fracture etc.)
20 Physical internal injury (broken bone, ruptured organ etc.)
20 Mental trauma (shock, concussion, insanity etc.)
25 Spell-like effects (charms, enchantments etc.)

Brew Healing Tonic (Ex): At 3rd level, an apothecary has learned what plants and herbs may be effectively brewed into a concoction that promotes healing. As a result, he gains a +3 competence bonus to all profession (herbalist) checks. Furthermore, the apothecary may brew a herbal healing tea that can have one of the following effects:
DC Effect of potion
10 Remove nausea
15 Remove paralysis
15 Heal 1d4 hitpoints per hour during 1d6 hours of rest.
20 Cure non-magical disease
25 Restore 1d4 ability damage. (herbalist must specify which ability score to be healed before mixing tonic)
+ Remove effects of poison or drug (herbalist check must beat save difficulty of poison +5 )
+5 circumstance bonus if apothecary has access to poison or drug concerned.
Brewing and heating a healing tonic takes 1 hour. With a proper herbalists garden or apothecary's lab, the apothecary may simultaneously brew up to one potion per rank the apothecary has in the Profession (herbalist) skill.
A healing tonic loses its effectiveness if not imbibed within 2 hours of its creation.

Expeditious Recovery (Ex): The abilities of an apothecary to treat wounds in a proper manner allows for accelerated healing. When treating a critical wound, the healing time is reduced by a number of days equal to the wisdom modifier of the apothecary. At 10th level, it is reduced by two times the wisdom modifier, and at 15th level, it is reduced by three times the wisdom modifier.

Drug Specialist (Ex): At 6th level, the apothecary gains insight into further use of natural herbs and plants to produce drugs that may help or hinder other living creatures. As a result, the apothecary may use either craft (chemistry/alchemy) or profession (herbalist) to create any drug with a +3 competence bonus. Furthermore, all drugs created by the apothecary have an increased save DC equal to the apothecary's wisdom modifier. The apothecary also receive a +3 competence bonus on heal checks involving identifying and removing drug effects.

Poison Specialist (EX): By further embracing the use of herbs and plants, the apothecary gains the ability to create and apply all types of non-magical poison. The apothecary never risks accidentally poisoning himself when applying poison. Furthermore, all poisons created by the apothecary have an increased save DC equal to the apothecary's wisdom modifier. The apothecary also receive a +3 competence bonus to heal checks involving removing poison, as well as concoctions designed to neutralize poison.

Critical healing (Ex): An apothecary gains the ability to treat wounds inflicted by critical hits. All factor level heal checks are preformed using the next lower factor level DC when treating critical wounds. Any appropriate modifiers are still applicable, as only the base DC changes. For instance, if Schlyyyk the apothecary wanted to heal Bob's broken leg, the base DC for short-term care factor level 1 would be 15 rather than 20. There would still be an additional +11 in modifiers (+3 due to severe wounds and +8 due to a moderate bludgeoning critical effect) but the overall DC is reduced.
At each selected level of advancement, the base factor level DC is reduced another level. This means at 13th level, the base DC for factor level 2 short-term care would be 20 rather than 25.

Improved Healing Tonic (Ex): At 11th level, the apothecary may produce more potent healing tonics.
DC Potion effect:
20 Heal 1d6 hit points per hour for 2d6 hours
25 Restore 1d4 points of ability drain (herbalist must specify which ability score to be healed).
30 Halves recovery time of any and all critical hit effects.
35 Heal 3d6 hitpoints.

Masterful healing Tonic (Ex): At 17th level, the apothecary may produce world-class healing potions rivaling the effects of the magical potions of old times.
DC Potion Effect:
30 Heal 1d6 hitpoints per hour for 1 hour per apothecary level (stacks with physician levels)
30 Restore 1d6 points of sanity damage.
35 Vaccine (provides a +5 medicine bonus to saving throws vs a specific poison, disease or drug. this effect lasts for 2d10 months)

Hope you find something useful here.

-Tulpa

[Tulpa]

Ah, and now that I have taken the time to actually read the thread you were referring to, I realize that most (if not all) I have said is completely useless and miles away from hitting its mark if you are going to use the system proposed by Frank, which by the way seems like a far more dynamic and realistic steampunk setting than the DnD superheroism.
The Sorcery & Steam book is of course d20 system, and would benefit you little in the actual fleshing out of the system.

Good boy, Tulpa. Good boy.

So, uh... uh... everything is under control. Situation normal. Had a small brains malfunction but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine, we're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?

[Ravyn Dawnbringer]

I'm good, thanks. And I really appreciate the time you put into this, I may use it for some of my other games. That said, this is DnD. So I suggest a few tweaks.

Diagnose is already in the game, so it should be replaced with something else. How about:

Potion Mastery [ex]: The Apothecary gains brew potion, and the ability to brew any potion he wants without having the necessary spell to create it. He uses 100g/spell level of the potion in materials, and may not brew a potion that is beyond his level to do. Use char lvl as caster level.

Also, the healing aspect of the Brew Healing potion is far, far inferior to what magic already does. (Barring, as you said, healing magic is painful settings.) Perhaps change the time on the healing part to 1d4 per round for 1d6 rounds, or vice versa. Then make improved potions be able to make a magical disease removing tonic

Though, as I said, I will be making one of my players very happy with this