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The DM of my current Friday night game is running a steampunk-setting, using the Pathfinder rules system. We have two artificers in the party, but my feeling is that all of our material is fantasy and medieval tech, and anything that is modern or really "steampunk" is just being made up by the DM.

Are there any good source materials for steampunk or modern technology in d20? I am sorely underwhelmed by D20 Modern, and Spycraft is awesome, but doesn't play nicely with other d20 systems. I am also ruling out BESM, unless there is some supplemental material for it that's particular to modern weapons.

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Should I make this CW? There are a lot if disparate answers, and it seems like most of them are good. Not sure if there is one best/correct answer. I gave out upvotes for all of them – RMorrisey Aug 23 '10 at 3:04
I do not think that you need to make this question CW. @shaneknysh has the most comprehensive answer, so I would accept it as the correct answer. It can be edited to include the other good answers, if that becomes necessary. – Eric Weilnau Aug 23 '10 at 11:29

5 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Depending on what kinds of Technology you are looking for there is a broad range of material available.

DragonMech (Goodman Games) has a definite fantasy flavor but has rules to add massive mecha. Although mecha is not a purely steampunk element it is present in many steampunk stories and games.

Etherscope (Goodman Games) has rules for a more traditional steampunk/ victoriana set of rules.

Gaslight Victorian Fantasy (Battlefield Press) is also a traditional Victorian setting.

Sorcery & Steam (Fantasy Flight Games) and OGL Steampunk (Mongoose Publishing) are older steampunk rulebooks for the OGL games. As far as I know they are both out of print but available from RPGNow as PDFs.

Imperial Age (Adamant Entertainment) is a steampunk rule set (with many books available through RPGNow) for the d20 Modern rules.

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up vote 7 down vote

Privateer Press published Iron Kingdoms, a d20 campaign setting which mixed fantasy and steampunk elements. The most useful sourcebook for a general steampunk game would be Liber Mechanika. It contains an arcane mechanik class along with rules for creating the arcane machines.

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Unfortunately the books for this are out of print, but I believe there are PDFs for sale via drivethrurpg. – MadMAxJr Aug 23 '10 at 18:08
@MadMAxJr The PDFs are for sale at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. I linked Liber Mechanika to its product page on DriveThruRPG. – Eric Weilnau Aug 23 '10 at 18:20
It's a great system but it painfully shoehorns Iron Kingdoms concepts into d20 rules, as a result some things are a tad complicated. The mechanika crafting rules may require a few readings before you understand them. In the main supplement, magic users will need to note the changes from typical D&D magic (Healing has limits, some arcane magic draws infernal attention, etc). If you can work past all of that, it is a very rich setting. The world guide is almost entirely setting description material with bits of artwork. – MadMAxJr Aug 23 '10 at 18:46
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There are certain aspects of Eberron which I think fall into the "Steampunk" category - you could probably mine that campaign setting for some good ideas.

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up vote 3 down vote

There are two I can recommend: Mongoose's OGL Steampunk and Goodman Games' Etherscope. The first is more generic, while the second develops its own custom setting, but both are decent d20 adaptations of the genre.

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Would it be too commercial to add the links to the product pages here? Here's the steampunk one -- rpg.drivethrustuff.com/… And the Etherscope one - goodmangames.com/etherscope.html – Erik Forbes Aug 23 '10 at 12:24
up vote 1 down vote

For a while I tried Sorcery & Steam but found that it was really just a re-skinning of magic items.

There are rules for building steampunk-esque equipment in the World of Warcraft d20 rulebook, which seemed interesting, though I've yet to play them. It allows a character a lot of flexibility in designing and building a custom item, without it being too cimplicated.

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