On the Leech crew sheet, the ability “artificer” reads as follows:
“Artificer: When you tinker with a device, tool, vehicle, or weapon, you may include advanced alchemical or clockwork features.”
Couldn’t a person without this ability do the same with Tinker? I don’t understand how this ability is special in any way. Needs some clarification I think.
Another ability “Physiker” also needs clearing up:
“Physicker: You can tinker with bones, blood, and bodily humours to treat wounds, stabilize the dying, or study a malady or corpse. Also, your crew gets +1d to long-term project healing rolls.”
I get that the +1d to healing is special. I get that you normally need a doctor to treat wounds, but couldn’t any old player study a corpse with study?
I just assumed it gave you a benefit or bonus to it. A normal person tinkering with advanced stuff might be in a worse position or with limited effect or if it was a clock it would be a longer clock for them or something.
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Page 21, Temporary Treatment, mentions that Physicker allows you to Tinker to make someone ignore harm penalties for a day. This should probably be mentioned in the ability, but I have a feeling mentioning everything a leech could do on the sheet would require the smallest possible font.
Artificer, in version 6, was “include alchemical or clockwork features.” So in this version they’re “advanced” and I assume this’ll tie into gadgets in later versions. Though I do agree that in general Alchemist, Artificer, and Physicker could use some clarification. My best guess for now would be along the same lines as Chris; better position and effect level for a Leech with the appropriate ability.
I’m sure a lot of this will be included in the final book. But in general giving them a better position/effect is the obvious way it helps.
“Couldn’t a person without this ability do the same with Tinker?”
Nope. I mean, sure, you could try, but you don’t know what you’re doing. Want to start pouring chemicals together and see what happens?
Same goes for Physicker. Without it, you can try to sew up someone’s wound, but you don’t know what you’re doing.
These special abilities represent limitations in the game world. The Shattered Isles don’t have accessible education in esoteric sciences like anatomy and chemistry. Without the special abilities, they’re just black-boxes to you. Wrap some cloth around the wound and say a prayer to the Weeping Lady.
And when I say “you can try, but you don’t know what you’re doing” that’s basically saying, “Desperate roll, limited or zero effect.”
I can see a Sokolov-like character: brilliant, a bit creepy and arrogant, possessing esoteric knowledge many respect/covet. Or, in the tinkering way, the guy from the Dishonored 2 trailer who has the clockwork house. Both are close to peerless in that they study and refine disciplines many don’t, making them rare breeds in the world.
It’s easy to forget that these fantastic worlds, while filled with demons, magic, etc. don’t often have instant-access information, unlike now. So most people won’t know the basics that we do. Add in that education probably isn’t available to many and the divide of knowledge widens.
Does that make sense?
John Harper thanks for the reply John! I only ask because the Lurk in my game is playing a “Gentleman Thief” sort of character and is making a gadgety umbrella as a long term project. I’ll let them know that they’ll need the Artificer ability for it. Thanks again!
Antimatter Instead of getting the skill themselves the crew could also get their own “Q” Artficer as a Crew Cohort to help make stuff for them
Antimatter It’s ultimately up to you how strict you want to be about what “advanced clockwork features” means. If your Lurk just wants to put a hidden blade in their umbrella, then Artificer probably isn’t necessary.
If they want it to be bulletproof, with a repeating gun hidden in the umbrella shaft… that’s definitely Artificer territory. 🙂
Think of Artificer a bit like Tempest. It represents a threshold of special ability that you cross. Anyone can try to attune to energy in the ghost field, but if you want to channel lightning through your body, you need Tempest.
John Harper it’s kind of a half way point. They want a bullet proof umbrella, and they plan to upgrade it with gadgets later on. I made the umbrella a long term project and said it would give 1 special armour against bullets and add 1 to the load.
Would they be able to use aquire asset to get an artificer to make the bullet proof bits? And if so, how does this play into his long term project? Would an exceptional artificer tick more segments or something, compared to a poor artificer?
Antimatter I think that you can acquire the artificer as an asset and use his/her Quality to make a fortune roll during downtime to complete the project.
MisterTia86 Thanks! He’ll be happy to hear that
Yep, that’s correct.