First off, go read this post by Tarsos.
Crafting systems in most games are unwieldy, requiring players to remember/record the specifics of the recipe and locks them into seeking very specific materials. Making a Darkvision potion requires 1 part Dwarven spirit, 4 parts Berbercane fruit, and 2 parts Water essence.
Fuck that.
The Conceptual Engineer is beyond such trivialities. Instead of an item made of various materials, they can break it down into what it actually represents.
A: Conceptual Engineering, Harvest Concept, Mental Vault
B: Imbue Concept, Read Concepts
C: Suppress Concept
D: Conceptual Avatar
A: Conceptual Engineering
You craft magic items using concepts instead of materials. While a regular enchanter might have to make a pact with a fire elemental to craft a flaming axe, you can just take a regular axe and apply FIRE to it.
Crafting has two major components.
1: The base item. This determines in what manner applied concepts will manifest.
2: Concepts you apply to the base item.
Applying COLD to a sword might make it freeze enemies when it hits them.
Applying COLD to a wand might make any spells cast with it have an ice theme.
Discuss stats for the created item with your GM.
Items don't like to hold concepts that don't inherently belong to them. An item can hold as many foreign concepts as your number of class templates.
Crafting time takes [Concepts used] factorial hours of uninterrupted focus. Applying 4 concepts to an item takes 4*3*2*1 = 24 hours. Concepts must be applied all at once. If you want to update your magic weapon with that cool new concept you found, you have to remove them all and start over.
A: Harvest Concept
You can harvest a concept from an object for use with Conceptual Engineering. Harvesting a concept removes it from the object. Swords
without WEAPON become improvised. Coins without VALUE are
worthless. A crown without AUTHORITY commands no respect. People
can tell that the object is different, like it's missing
something crucial to what makes it up.
Harvesting a concept takes 10 minutes, and requires contact with the object.
Only one concept can be harvested from an object, something about game balance.
A: Mental Vault
Through rigorous training, magical exposure, or powerful psychedelics, a portion of your brain/soul can be used to store the concepts you get from using Harvest Concept.
Your vault can hold as many concepts as your class templates*2
B: Imbue Concept
As an action, expend a concept from your Mental Vault to imbue an object with its properties for a limited time. Additional concepts can be expended to extend the duration.
The concept lasts for [C^2] minutes, where C is the total amount of concepts expended.
1 concept lasts 1 minute, 2 last for 4 minutes, 3 for 9, etc.
B: Read Concepts
You can spend a minute to identify concepts within an unfamiliar item.
Seeing a magic sword burst into flame tells you that it likely contains FIRE, but an unidentified potion? Those can be dangerous.
A potion containing WATER and LUNG could be a waterbreathing potion, but could just as easily be a potion of drowning.
C: Suppress Concept
You can spend an action to suppress a concept's effects from an object you touch for up to a minute. Requires concentration. Suppressed concepts are similar to removed ones. Attempting to suppress a concept that isn't part of the item has no effect.
D: Conceptual Avatar
You can use Imbue Concept on yourself. Yes this is as broken as it sounds.
