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Artifact/TelgarSphereGuardian

2023-01-14T09:12:19Z

Liquidspeaker: /* Comments */

== Alabaster Sphere Guardian (level ?? Artifact) ==
*by [[Telgar]]
*back to [[Artifacts/Telgar]]

Originally designed as peacekeepers and protectors in cities and important First Age establishments such as libraries and museums, Alabaster Sphere Guardians were common law enforcers during the First Age. Numerous cities and settlements contain the ruined hulks of their vast white bodies. They default to the shape of great spheres of purest white, six feet in diameter. The Guardians can roll themselves across any solid surface at tremendous speed and with very little sound unless they are in terrible disrepair. They are able to roll up walls or columns, even those not actually able to support their weight. They can pause, clinging to surfaces without moving or even hurl themselves off the surface they are rolling upon to throw themselves at a target.

Sphere Guardians are able to affect enough repairs on themselves via internal tools and self-repair enchantments that they do not actually require anyone to keep themselves active though if they suffer extensive damage they do have difficulty repairing themselves without access to spare parts and materials.

Generally Sphere Guardians are assigned to protect and police a city, settlement or even a specific building. Such Guardians are given instructions at the time of their creation or assignment and carry these out unfailingly, with blind obedience. In rare cases, however, they were created to be the personal guards or servants of specific Exalted who can command them verbally. Reprogramming a Sphere Guardian is a difficult task that involves first disabling the Guardian, opening a hidden access panel to its innards and reworking many of its internal processes.

Guardians are fully intelligent, able to understand and interprit complicated orders and memorize vast amounts of legal or cultural information to enforce proper behaviour or act as proper guardians. They do, however, lack much in the way of initiative and drive. They are totally unoriginal, completely direct and unable to think outside the box at all. They are devoted to their orders and will under no circumstances deviate from them in the slightest. Sphere Guardians speak Old Realm and are both unable and uninterested in learning new languages.

When faced with those who are in violation of the rules they have been instructed to uphold, Sphere Guardians will relentlessly persue them and attempt to subdue them non-fatally unless they encounter resistence too heavy to overcome by non-fatal means. If they are able to subdue their targets then the Spheres generally report to whatever authority rules over them that they have done so and stand by their targets, awaiting further instruction or removal of the troublemakers.

=== Sphere Guardian Stats ===

Attributes[[Artifact/B]]> 
Physical: Strength 5, Dexterity 10, Stamina 8 
Social: Charisma 0, Manipulation 0, Appearance 3 
Mental: Perception 5, Intelligence 3, Wits 5

Abilities[[Artifact/B]]> 
Brawl 4 (Trample 3), Endurance 3, Resistance 3, Crafts 2 (Repair 1), Melee 5 (Self-Defense 3), Dodge 5, Athletics 5, Bureaucracy 2 (Law 1), Larceny 2 (Theft Prevention 1), Survival 1 (Tracking +2)

Advantages[[Artifact/B]]> 
Virtues: *Artifact, never fails Valor rolls, never succeeds on anything else. 
Essence[[Artifact/B]]> 2 
Willpower[[Artifact/B]]>: 10 

Health[[Artifact/B]]>: -0, -0, -0, -0, -0, -0, -0, -0, -0, -0, Incap 
Armor and Soak[[Artifact/B]]>: Armored Metal-Ceramic Shell 
Lethal[[Artifact/I]]>: 25 (5 armor) 
Bashing[[Artifact/I]]>: 25 (5 armor) 
Hardness: 20 

Attacks[[Artifact/B]]> 
Trample[[Artifact/I]]>: Speed 18, Accuracy 20, Damage 15B, Defense 0, Rate 2 
Dodge Pool[[Artifact/I]]>: 15

=== Sphere Guardian Powers ===

*Perfect Balance - Sphere Guardians are unable to lose their balance, no matter what. They call roll in any direction, even up walls and across ceilings. They never fall from whatever they choose to roll across and they can be supported by as little as a tree branch, despite their great size and weight.
*Defensive Plates - When attacked a Sphere Guardian can manifest midnight black plates of armor that rise from its surface to smash themselves against incoming blows, creating a reflexive parry. These parries do not require the Sphere to split its action, but they suffer a -1 penalty for each previous use of the power in a turn.
*Restraining Ooze - When in physical contact with a target Spheres can excrete a sticky, viscous ooze that hardens quickly in air or water. The ooze entraps and slows those covered in it, forcing the victim to roll his Strength + Athletics against a difficulty of 4 every turn. It requires 6 accumulated successes to fully remove the goo. Until it is removed, the ooze applies a -1 penalty, doubling every turn that it remains in place until it has fully immobilized its victim or is removed.
*Shriking - In order to fit through doors and down narrow streets, Sphere Guardians are able to shrink down to a diameter of two feet. They can shrink or expand to any size between 2 and 6 feet in radius as a reflexive action.

===== Comments =====
What if they try to expand in a restricted space? Does this exert their Strength score, or more than that, against the restraints? - [[IanPrice]]
:I suppose they would roll their Strength+Athletics or Brawl or however normally escaping from restraint is resolved. It's the same thing, basically. - [[Telgar]]
::what about possible upgrades? - [[liquidspeaker]]

SolarCraft/IanPrice

2017-12-06T21:15:33Z

Liquidspeaker: /* Comments */

Phantom Craftsman Assembly 
Cost: 10m, 1wp 
Minimum traits: Craft 5, Lore 2, Essence 4 
Type: Extra Action 
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious 
Duration: Instant 
Prerequisites: Craftsman Needs No Tools, Crack-Mending Technique

This charm allows one Solar craftsman to become a small squad of himself, creating phantoms of Essence to assist in a crafting project. This charm supplements a dramatic crafting action, reducing the time required immensely. Alternatively, the phantoms may work on multiple different projects, allowing the same period of crafting to produce multiple wonders. Either way, (Essence) Duplicates are created. As with the usual Extra Action combo rules, all the duplicates must use the same charms for the duration of the dramatic crafting action. Also, this charm effectively creates a "magical flurry" with the dramatic action, so the longest action in the bunch determines the length of this charm, and no phantom can change its task or make more than one roll during this time.

Thronging Phantom Workforce 
Cost: None 
Minimum traits: Craft 5, Lore 4, Essence 5 
Type: Permanent 
Keywords: None 
Duration: Permanent 
Prerequisites: Phantom Craftsman Assembly

This charm permanently enhances Phantom Craftsman Assembly. The number of phantoms created is now (Essense x 5).

Excellent Phantom Workforce 
Cost: None 
Minimum traits: Craft 5, Lore 3, Essence 5 
Type: Permanent 
Keywords: None 
Duration: Permanent 
Prerequisites: Phantom Craftsman Assembly

This charm permanently enhances Phantom Craftsman Assembly. It now no longer counts as a charm use, and thus need not be placed in a Combo to use other Craft charms along with it. This means different phantoms may use different charms, though only one charm or combo each, and all costs are paid from the Essence and Willpower of the original.

Harmonious Phantom Workforce 
Cost: None 
Minimum traits: Craft 5, Lore 5, Essence 5 
Type: Permanent 
Keywords: None 
Duration: Permanent 
Prerequisites: Phantom Craftsman Assembly

This charm permanently enhances Phantom Craftsman Assembly. Any Craft charm paid for by the original once will enhance all phantoms by an equal amount without extra expenditure of Essence or Willpower. This also explicitly allows Wyld-Shaping Technique to enhance all phantoms with just one expense.

=== Comments ===
A very innovative way to apply Extra Actions to Crafting. I just may have have to steal this for my Twilight! --[[DarkWolff]]

:I appreciate the compliment! If you want a dramatic way to learn these charms, I recommend what I'm going to be doing in an upcoming game: have your Twilight seek out the hungry ghost of his former incarnation to re-learn these potent techniques, requiring you to bargain for favors with your old soul. - [[IanPrice]]

Many things.
*) One: Your method of learning these charms rules.
*) 2: From the way I read it, the first charm in the tree explicitly notes that "...all the duplicates must use the same charms for the duration of the dramatic crafting action.", and is of type Extra-Action. Thus, the last charm in the tree enhances it so that all actions in the flurry receive the benefit of charms, which must only be paid for once. This is a huge savings when we're talking a magical flurry of between 4 and 20 actions.
*) 2#0011#: By the time you pick up the second charm, there's really no way you can afford to activate even a single charm 25 times. I mean, ''maybe'' you can activate a 2-3 mote charm, but that's about it - certainly no CNNT, for example. ... Ah, never mind.
-- [[GreenLantern]]

:You seem to have perfectly grasped what I was indending with these charms... talk more? - [[IanPrice]]

Alrighty. The third-tier charm concerns me, as it breaks a fundamental rule of Exalted 2E Charm creation: it renders previous comboes useless. In particular, if you ''had'' this in a combo before, that combo is now lessened. You've just ''lost'' XP for buying this charm, in some way. Perhaps giving the charm some sort of bonus in the case that you actually use it in a combo? For example, combos incorporating this charm (and only Craft, Lore, and Occult charms) don't have to pay the Willpower cost to activate? Perhaps halving the cost of charms activated by some motes? For example: "Duplicates may activate their own charms or combos. Every time a duplicate activates a charm that has already been activated by the Exalt in this tick, reduce the cost to activate the duplicate charm by 1 mote." That would not overwhelm the hight cost of combos, but would allow a slight reduction in cost for large teams of duplicates... -- [[GreenLantern]], ''still just talking''

Or, You could say that, at Essence 5 the first charm simply adds the "Flow" keyword, (See my custom keywords page) or put it as a second function of the second charm. Also, Unless I am misreading the, chars with an extended duartion should affect all, right- [[Azurelight]]

:Replying to both of you at once: the intention of this tree was to be seen as a whole. Nobody should be putting ''Phantom Craftsman Assembly'' in a combo if they ever intend to purchase ''Excellent Phantom Workforce''. The existence of the second charm shouldn't be secret or anything. So, much like in the base rules: if you create your attack + defense combo before getting HGD, you have to make a new combo and waste XP. Similarly, if you can't wait for Lore 3 and Essence 5 to buy the following charm, you waste XP by buying a combo. I am thus comfortable with making combos obsolete, because that happens to combos.

:When taken all together, the character is intended to be able to work many times faster with only the initial activation cost as extra. For the character I invented these for, these charms will probably be used to replace demonic labor with a "do it yourself" attitude, to avoid the problems brought on by demons.

:At the same time, I don't want to build it into the original charm at no cost. Thus I made the "flow" function a seperate charm which would cost XP on its own. In my mind this replaces the XP cost of various combos.

:Finally, it is of note that there's only two tiers of charms here, as all three of the permanent charms require only the original charm, despite varying levels of trait prerequisites. Therefore, if any of these charms still bother you despite my explanation of rationale, it's easy to remove the offending charm from the tree for your use and replace it with something you favor more. - [[IanPrice]], ''not really seeing a problem.''

I'm going to be using this shadow clone jutsu thing, and what level of assistant would this replace as a work force? [[liquidspeaker]] "loven it"