Revision as of 08:05, 5 April 2010

The Book of Artifice

I like artifacts. They are nifty. However, I do not have the Telgarian luxury of being able to come with good ones on the fly. Being a fairly strict S-brain, I need a system to work by. S&S provides most of it, but the system needs polishing and has some nasty loopholes. On top of that, it's not very well formulated. As GreenLantern put it, you only understand it if you read it like a research paper, and being accustomed to those, I can say that that's very bad. At the same time there are some horrible inconsistencies in the design of some published artifacts, to the point where you don't know what goes into a given rating. In short, it's way to arbitery for me. Thus, I have decided to attempt to clarify and polish the rules in S&S as well as trying to harmonize them with WoTLA? and other canon artifacts. I will also try to create rules for automatons, buildings and vehicles, since they fit ill into the other rules. And yes, I know it will be a hellish load of work.

The topics

Azurelight/BookOfArtifice/ArtifactAttributes
Azurelight/BookOfArtifice/AutomatonsAndGolems
Azurelight/BookOfArtifice/BuildingsAndMachines
Azurelight/BookOfArtifice/SocketGems
Azurelight/BookOfArtifice/PowerSources
Azurelight/BookOfArtifice/ComponentsAndIgredients
Azurelight/BookOfArtifice/MotonicPhysichs
Azurelight/BookOfArtifice/BoASuggestions 

Comments

You spelled Artifice wrong on the pagename. And a lot of other things. Like as well being two words and cannon being something you shoot people with. Also vehicles are things you ride in. But aside from that, go on comrade. The best artifacts, I've always found, defy mere systems of numbers and tables, but as you say, not everyone can write that way. I'm all about, however, more in-game explinations and ways to create artifacts themselves, if not their powers. If I can help with this, aside from spelling, let me know. - Telgar

I appreciate you're offer. To me, it is obvious why you don’t like the artifact creation rules in either source book. (aside from there obvious weaknesses). You don't need them and to you, they offer only constraints. No sane person would like that, and most of your artifact rock the house anyway. Also it is to help the artificer in my group. He thinks like an engineer and likes systems. Also, about the spelling: good that you point it out. I am not a native, so I am not always sure on how to spell. Thanks –Azurelight

I don't dislike artifact systems because they're limiting but because they encourage bad practices like putting charms on sticks. Instead of something cool, you get a Daiklave of Dice-Adding or Armor of HGD. You can run your wiki-text through Word or something and spell check, I often do that. - Telgar

I actually agree with you on that one. That is why I personally always nails down a given artifact abilitys mechanic first. And then I look for similar charms to see about what level it is at. I always try to keep the distict. You will find that I adress this problem in the text about artifact attributes. However, I can't publish it just yet since I haven't figured out wiki tables yet. –Azurelight

I never understood the problem with placing Charms into Artifacts. If the description of the Artifact makes sense then who cares if its just a regular old Medicine Charm. I mean, make sure that it makes sense as an Artifact, give it a history and you ahve something unqiue. Instead of saying that its an Artifact of Get Well Charm, you have the ancient ARtifact produced by the Solar Exalted to thelp heal the masses during the early First Age (before they fell into corupption. True, its an artifact charm but only the desginer knows that cause it shouldn't come right out and say, "This is the standard Get Well Charm." Yes, if you have a Weapon of +2, I can understnad that getting bad. But if its a weapon of +2 with a history and a description of why its +2, why make a problem out of it. This is just my thoughts.- Heru