Revision as of 09:02, 3 April 2010

This is specifically regarding the crafting of magic arms and armor.

Weapons

Inspiration Deadly Beastman Transformation
Opinion: Artifact Weapons should be based on regular items, with the volume turned up to 11.
Opinion: Flerits are bad; boosting a weapon's Minimum Ability requirements should be discouraged. A sword so heavy that only the Exalt it was made for can use it is an advantage. This is trebbly so for Lunars -- otherwise, there'd be some simply gianormous Ultra Grand Daiklaives they could only use in their DBT. Ergo, Minimum Ability requirements are mostly flavor on Artifact weapons. They simply have the same minimum requirement as their nearest mortal equivelent. (This does not apply to Committment costs; I'll get to that in a bit)

Creating an Artifact Weapon is akin to taking Deadly Beastman Transformation for an item; it thereafter gains bonus points and nifty Gifts.

The first Artifact level provides 5 points and 1 Gift. Each additional level of Artifact provides 3 points and 1 additional Gift.

Points can be spent to either improve the base weapon, or add additional gifts. Each +1 Damage or +1 Accuracy costs 2 points, while +1 Defense or +3 Speed costs 1 point. An additional Gift costs 3 points.

An artifact which does not use every point is slightly easier to make normal; reduce the total number of successes needed by the difference in the remaining points. (So, a Level 2 Artifact which would have 8 points and only spent 7 would need 1 fewer successes).

Additionally, much as I'm personally loathe to do so, I'm introducing Flaws; there seems no other adequete way to model some artifacts. This will also help explain why Inefficent was showing up in such odd places -- it will no longer consume a Gift pointlessly.

Gifts

Terrifying Might: Provides 2 additional bouns points.
Hearthstone Slot: The artifact has a Hearthstone Slot.
Infinite Supply: (2 Gifts, Ranged Only) The user of this artifact will never run out of copies of it to throw.
Minor Ability: Provides the user with some other power, equivelent to a Level 1 or 2 Hearthstone. Must be at least Level 3.
Major Ability: (2 Gifts) Provides the user with some great power, equivelent to a Level 3 or 4 Hearthstone. Must be at least Level 4.
Efficent: Reduces the Commitment Cost of the Artifact by 1 level. An Artifact reduced to Level 0 by this Gift draws it's essence from the air around itself, and has no committment cost; it can even be used by mortals.
Easier Construction: Simplifies the process of building the Artifact; reduces the difficulty by 4.
Mortal Attuneable: A mortal is capable of committing a point of temporary Willpower to attune to this Artifact. They gain no MM bonus, and age a number of days every week equal to the Commitment Cost. Otherwise, this works like a normal attunation.

Flaws

Inefficent: The Artifact requires additional motes to attune to; 1 point per additional mote, to a maximum of +2.
Repair: The Artifact has a Repair rating (as described in The Outcastes). The Repair rating of an artifact may never be greater than the Artifact level. Repair provides 2 additional points per level taken.
Operative Time: The Artifact will only operate a limited amount of time before it starts to lose functionality. At the end of this time, some ritual or action is needed to recharge it; for some, this is easy (Stormbringer has an Operative Time before it needs to drink another's soul). For most Technomagic, this is the time before the artifact starts to break down. Operative Time is the time you can go before needing to Repair the item (any item with Repair must have at least 1 point of Operative Time). Operative Time is worth 1 point for 200 hours, and +1 for every 50 hours less than that.
Requisite Hearthstone: The Artifact requires a Hearthstone in order to operate. This provides 2 additiional points per minimum level of Hearthstone required. By default, if there is at least one additional Hearthstone in the artifact, it requires a Dice Action to change between the stone being used to power the Artifact. For +1 points, it requires a Simple Action; for -1 points, it is reflexive (but may not be done more than once a turn).

Commitment Costs are as per the original Artifact Creation Rules.

Artifact Level | Commitment Cost
       1       |       3
       2       |       5
       3       |       8
       4       |      10
       5       |      12

Hokay. My first chunk of the page, in which I justify all the numbers I use later, I'm shifting off page:
DariusSolluman/RevisedArtifactCreationNumberCrunching

The examples have likewise been shifted off page: DariusSolluman/RevisedArtifactCreationExamples

And finally, the weaopn statistics are also shifted off page: DariusSolluman/RevisedArtifactCreationBaseStatistics

Armor

Armor has proven consideribly tricker to crunch; however, I believe this isn't a grossly inaccurate version.

As a side note, I couldn't find any evidence of artifact armor having Hearthstone Slots, so I've assumed they have none. This will cause headaches when I start on the Terrifying Armor of the Dragons, I know. Possibly the number of Gifts needs to be increased.

Artifact Armor, like Artifact Weapons, starts with a base armor and then adds power to it. However, larger artifact armors simply require heavier classifications of normal armor to enchant:

1 Level of Artifact is needed for a Light Armor.

2 Levels of Artifact are needed for a Medium Armor.

3 Levels of Artifact are needed for a Heavy Armor.

4 Levels of Artifact are needed for a Superheavy Armor.

This inital buy-in provides 7 points and 2 Gifts. Each level of Artifact above and beyond this minimum provides +2 points and an additional Gift.

Points are spent to increase the Soak of the armor. 2 points for a point of Lethal, 1 point for a point of Bashing. 3 points can also be spent to aquire an additional Gift. The bonus from one stat may not more than double the bonus for the other.

(I'm gonna leave these numbers as an exercise to the reader in this case; I got them very similiarly to how I got the Weapon numbers, but don't feel like organizing my notes here again ;) The final formulas I used were P = 2x L + B and P = 3x Mob + 3x Fat + 2x L + B on the improvements between Artifact and normal versions of the armors in the core book). It's not quite as precise as previously though, which irks. DS

Committment for Armor follows a slightly different progression than for weapons.

Artifact Level | Commitment Cost
       1       |       2
       2       |       3
       3       |       4
       4       |       6
       5       |       8

Gifts, with as few data points as I currently have, seem to be primarily the same as with weapons. Two new ones, however:

Reduced Fatigue: The armor's Fatigue value is reduced by 1, to a minimum of 0.
Reduced Mobility Penelty: The armor's Mobility penelty is reduced by 1, to a minimum of 0.

One quick example, for my own edification:

Silken Armor Level 3 Armor.
1 Level buy in for a Light Armor (I'm presuming a Chain Shirt; 3L, 1B, Mob -0 Fat 1)
6 points base, +4 for two additional levels, 10 total.
Only needed (+3L, +2B) 8 points.
Total of 5 Gifts (2 base, +2 for two additional levels, +1 with 3 points)
Gift: Fatigue Reduction
Gift: Minor Ability (Does not count as armor; may only be taken for armor that has no Mobility or Fatigue penlties)
Gift: Minor Ability (Undetectable as armor without some sort of magic)
Gift: Major Ability (2 Gifts; Stacks with other armor)
Flaw: Inefficent (+2 points, costs 6 motes to attune to)
Difficulty to Construct: 29

So, other than being poorly constructed (There's no need for this armor to be Inefficent), Silken Armor seems to work. And I can finally answer, for sure, that I don't think it should be compatible with Martial Arts Forms :) DS

I revise my opinion, in light of using Flaws instead of Gifts; Presuming you allow 'Does not count as Armor' as a Minor Ability, possibly with the further cavats of tying it tighter to the major gift 'Stacks with Other Armor' or 'Undetectable as armor'. DS

Comments

DariusSolluman/RevisedArtifactCreationCommentsPrePowerCombat

Hm. Just did a casual crunch of the Great Sword to Grand Daiklaive for Power Combat stats. The Grand Daiklaive gains +3 Speed, +6 Damage and +1 Rate. This can't readily correspond to the old system (unless +1 speed = +1 damage, and +2 Speed = +1 Rate. Hm). I'll be going through this stuff again in the near future, for Power Combat level items. DS

I had just gotten my copy of the player's guide last night and just now reading the Power Combat section. I came by to ask if you had thought about how this related to your rules set yet and found the above note. If there is any number crunching I can help with just let me know. - Malikai

My inital pass through revealed MAJOR inconsistancies between the Power Combat artifacts, and any kind of balancing- either based of a 'artifacts of equal level are equal' or a 'artifacts are improved versions of normal items'.

On the other hand, I do have some cause for optimistic hope regarding the Artifacts are enhanced normal weapons- they appear to be consistantly getting a +3 Speed boost between regular and artifact versions. But the other bonuses are just not regular. To an extreme degree- Like, I wanna switch around the artifact levels, tone down the ones almost across the board...

Not having a firm grip on how valuable Speed, Rate and Defense are now doesn't help matters. DS

By adding arbitrarily assignable trait bonuses that bypass the normal cost differences, you can regularize the inconsistencies. That is the approach taken in PowerCombat/ArtifactCreation. - Raindoll

Grrrrrr *scowls in the direction of whomever re-worked the weapons charts*. here is a thought, if we could establish the formula of conversion from standard to PC fo individual artifacts we could just apply that formula to weapons created with your rules set - Malikai

Well, the big happy I had out of my ruleset was the fact that it /worked/ with the original artifacts almost every time. This time? Not so much.

My favorite theory for point values at the moment is that it is additive to the original item (like my system posits), but that it's a non-linear bonus, such that something aquiring a minor boost to every attribute takes fewer points than something which juices a single attribute. This would be hard to get a fix on from a simple evaluation.

Judging by the stated priority re-evaluation, I'm inclined to think that Defense and Rate both cost 2 points to improve, that Damage and Accuracy both cost 1 point, and that Speed is still 1 point to every +3 of Speed. A better expression might cost everything out in terms of Speed, actually... I shall have to try this. Possibly the maximum improveable level is based on the original item's attributes, tooo.

Also, much to my dismay, a Short Daiklaive appears to be based on a knife, not a hook sword. I owe an apology on the WW Forum :) DS