Revision as of 08:06, 5 April 2010

Books of Sorcery, volume 1: Wonders of the Lost Age

ISBN: 1-58846-691-4

Catalog Blurb

Monuments to First Age Ingenuity

At the height of the First Age, miraculous achievements were possible that are impossible in the fallen Age of Sorrows. But now, the past readies to give up its secrets to the returned Solar Exalted that they might remake Creation into a place of wonder once again.

The Wonders of the Lost Age are lost no more. Draw back the hazy veil of intervening centuries, and gaze on the marvels of the First Age. From power armor to unsinkable warships, and from Essence cannons to self-aware automata, this supplement has all the magitech items players and Storytellers might want and the rules for maintaining them.

A Tome of Wonders for Exalted®

• Reveals the history of magitechnological development in Creation and just how far the current age has devolved
• Details a myriad of magitech devices ranging from weapons of war to automata, including the mighty warstriders
• First in the five-tome “Books of Sorcery” series

This book includes:

• A plethora of First Age weapons, devices and vehicles suitable for any Exalted game
• Complete rules for warstriders, including spiritually active ones

US Page Count: 160 (Softcover)

Authors: Alan Alexander, Kraig Blackwelder, Michael Goodwin and John Snead, Developers: John Chambers, Cover Artist: WW Staff

Comments

Being the crunch-freak I am, I look at the Wonders of the Lost Age not only as a great source book, but also as a data-set. I look to it for examples, such that I might interpolate points, draw data out of it, and thus make predictions about the 'fairness' of other things. This morning, I started into an analysis of the automata. Specifically, humanoid, generally functional, automata, which includes the Folding Servant (page 98), the Brass Legionnaire (page 103), and the two versions of the Clockwork Efficacy Servitor (page 107). With artifact ratings of 2,3,(3\5), respectively, this should make a reasonable data set to draw extrapolation from. There's only one problem - the resulting curve is nearly flat. According to this book, there's very little difference between an artifact 2 servitor, and an artifact 5 servitor. Let's see what I mean:

|| ||Artifact 2||Artifact 3 (Brass Legionnaire)||Artifact 3 (Servitor)||Artifact 5 (Servitor)|| ||Attribute dots||26||29||22||29|| ||Ability Dots||46||53||44||55|| ||Specialty Dots||0||17||20||22||

Other than the specialty points, there's very little difference between the artifact 2 automata, and the rest. And he has the added benefit that he folds into a 6x6 inch box, for easy travel (key for Exalts). The Brass Legionnaire is notably better than the Artifact 3 servitor, but the servitor requires no maintainance, while the legionnaire does. The artifact 5 data point is a bit off, as at artifact 5, the automata can make more artifact 3 versions of itself - skewing the 'value' proposition heavily.

Still, going just by repair-free automata, without special abilities, we see that going from art 2 (folding servant) to art 3 (servitor) gets you a whole lot: -4 attributes, -2 ability points, and +17 specialty points. Doing the freebie math for those shows that both designs are worth pretty much the same number of freebie points. Not very exciting, especially when one can turn into a box, and the other can't.

At the same time, the Brass Legionnaire is essentially just as good as the Artifact 5 servitor, in terms of stats. Thus, I make the following argument. Supposing those stats are 'spot-on' for artifact 4, that'd mean the legionnaire is one low (due to his repair requirements), and the super-servitor is one high, due to his ability to make other automatons. While that last bit is a real boost, in some weird sense, it does turn a four into a 5, and it's all I've got to work with. With that in mind, then, going from artifact 2 to this supposed vanilla 'artifact 4' thing, you'd get 3 attribute points, 8 ability points, and 20 specialty points - not a bad trade, really. Almost 46 freebie points, depending on how you count it (4 per att, 2 per ability, 1 per specialty, in my case). That gives us a linear slope of 23 freebie points for each artifact point. Notably, the step from 4-5 is often 'large', so I'd imagine that step would be worth almost 30 freebies, but still.

Therefore, for a rough estimate, a reasonable metric for automaton construction would look as follows:

• Artifact 1: 173 'freebies' to construct, at 4 per attribute, 2 per ability, and 1 per specialty. Very few specialties (near zero), and primarily ability-focused.
• Artifact 2: 196 'freebies' to construct - as above, with up to 8 specialty dots.
• Artifact 3: 219 'freebies' to construct - as above, save that up to 16 specialty dots are more reasonable.
• Artifact 4: 242 'freebies' to construct - as above, save that up to 24 specialty dots are more reasonable.
• Artifact 5: 265 'freebies' to construct - as above, save that up to 32 specialty dots are more reasonable.

I'm not saying it's great, or good, or even right, but it's what I can extrapolate out of the book. And that's what I do.

Added later: And another thing. You can buy 5 Brass Legionnaires for an extra point of artifact. (to 4). You can buy 5 more times as many for yet one more. Thus, we've got precedent noting that in terms of automata, a single bonus point (at least a 4-5 bonus point, which are 'worth' more than lower ones) can buy 5X as many guys. Taking this to the other end of the coin, we note that a single servitor is art 3, and one that can make more is art 5. Thus, we see that the authors expect you, in a way, to be building around 125 more of them, give or take. (In terms of game balance, at least). Thus, this begs the question - if at least two types of automata have existant rulesets for buying groups at once, what about buying groups of Minions of Deadly Touch (art 3 for one) or a work-group of Hands of the Mountain. Makes quick work of a lot of things when you've got 125 automata at your service...

- GreenLantern

Intresting. And disappointing too. I hate Liniarity in Exalted. then again I thil I maye be thiking in circles here. I guess we suffer from the same problem here as that one Isawa discussed. Ans the same as you and I discussed. We shoukd try to make some decen Automaton rules for the projelt aswell. Speaking of that, I risk being pretty full during the next 2 weeks. (last exam for the term) I will try my best to stay active, but otherwise, Expect correspondance after that. -Azurelight