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Insanewizard

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Resplendent tunic of immaculate protection

Artifact ••••</b>

<b>Commitment: 4 motes
Magical Material: Orichalcum
Soak: 6B/9L
Hardness: 6

The Resplendent Tunic of Immaculate Protection was designed by a Twilight martial artist who thought that to wear no protection into battle was foolish. The master couldn't come to grips with how bulky such outfits could be so he decided to create this wonderful battle Gi. The fabric was spun from Orichalcum smelted during the twilight hour of the summer solstice, stitched with thread made from the very light of the full moon that same night, and runes for weightlessness and durability made from blue jade thread. The result was a nearly impenetrable cloth that repaired itself no matter how damaged it became. Any attack that connected was softened to an almost imperceptable blow. All post soak damage is halved before rolling. The wearer may, for 3 motes of essence per scene, activate the suit's secondary defense. Once activated the suit and wearer grow indistinct as if viewed through a hazy fog. When in motion the wearer's movements are blurred and are hard to interpret. The raises the difficulty to hit the wearer and parry his attacks by a value equal to his permanent essence. This armor also does not count as wearing armor for the purposes of Martial Arts requirements.

Comments

Nice, but seems a little underpowered, IMHO. -- GregLink

Instead of just upping the soak and hardness I added the ability that it halves after soak damage. I also lowered the mote cost to activate the blurring effect. Any comments on artifact rating or commitment cost? I would like to see others come up with martial art stylized gear aside from weapons. ~ Insanewizard

Well, this isn't really martial arts specific, its just armored clothes. And it is underpowered for a level 4. It's more a level 3. Moderate soak, a moderate increase to attack difficulty (3-4 diff doesnt bother most attackers) and halving post-soak damage...eh. Unless it can explicitly reduce damage to 0, I mean its alright. But it's level 3. Not level 4. This isn't anything close to Crimson Armor or Immaculate Battle Suits of Doom. - Telgar

ok thank you, I changed the artifact level to 3 and lowered the comittment cost. And I was kinda requesting a quasi-artifact relay that produces artifacts that are useful to martial artists (armor, accessories, etc.) ~ Insanewizard

Remember the battlesuits of doom need hearthstones to run and wear out. As of now, I personally think this is slightly overpowered for art 3. I mean, it's nice soak... even if that includes the Orichalcum bonus for soak, it's still better than a breastplate, and if it doesn't, then it's better than artifact 2 basic armour just there. It has nice hardness... better than superheavy plate if you're using the default rules for it, and then, on top, for 3m extra, it adds 3-4 diff to hit. Which isn't that much, you say, but it really really adds up. And that diff also applies to parries against user. I'd say it was 4 currently, especially at this low low cost for commit. (9motes is cheaper than charms which produce the same effects. BFT is uhh.. 5, isn't it? and then you've got the defense + offense difficulty additions, they're worth easily 2 each, probably more.)
-- Darloth

I agree with Darloth. I think this is a level 4. A low-end level 4, but a level 4. - David.

Hardness of 6 is worthless against anyone but an Extra. Hardness itself is a joke. So I'm not even bothering to take that into consideration. Basic armor, likewise, a joke. They're all highly over-rated and without powers 15/15 soak is barely a 3, probably a 2 with high committment. 9 motes for an Artifact is pretty darn pricey. While there are three effects (MA compatable, extra diff to hit, halving post-soak damage) none of that or even all of that equals the badassity of, say, Crimson Armor and that's level 4. It's not even really as good as Obsidian Sheath and that should be level 3.\\ The problem with leveling artifacts is that there's no good guidelines. Even the writers can't agree on what should be what level and level 4 currently covers everything from Crimson Armor to Obsidian Sheath to Immaculate Battle Suits to Articulated Plate. That's a huge range. But this doesn't fall into the higher end of that range and the lower end is just people not knowing how to rate on a scale of 1 to 5. - Telgar

Hardness is not useless. It's not very useful, but not useless. I count a 15/15 superheavy as art 4, but only just. I'd usually give out a couple of other benefits for it, but the fact it has hardness (and thus ignores, amongst other things, DB elemental anima ping as well as some of those 'add 4 extra damage rolled separately' effects) is a small benefit. But our opinions on the standard and agreeably wrong artifact armours is not in question here.

Firstly, there are four powers, not 3.

• MA Compatible (usually rated as actually rather high by most people.)
• Half post-soak damage - nice, but nothing spectacular.
• spend 3m for a scene, gain +Ess difficulty to be struck - essence 2 or 3 charm, presumably reflexive as it's armour based, and doesn't take charmslot, so quite nice also.
• included in above cost, gain +Ess difficulty to all opposed parries - essence 3 or 4 charm, since it's also reflexive etc etc.
• Finally, it has a fairly nice armour rating, which isn't strictly a power, but is certainly something which should be considered. Hardness comes in this point.

Now costwise, I was wrong. It's actually 4m normally and 7m in battle (since you're always going to want to activate that particular power, to be honest. There are no drawbacks.) I'll consider 7m for the moment as the base cost, since there are advantages and disadvantages to it being a scene-long power (although I personally think that's better than always-on, always-committed).

Powerwise - This is clearly meant for a martial artist. In one stroke, it does a bit of everything that a martial artist could want in combat (with the possible exception of granting multiple actions). It makes your usually weak or slow soak immediately very reasonable. 9L is good armour. On top of that, you're harder to hit, by a non-trivial amount (most extras for example now have very, very low chances of hitting you even if you're standing there taking a drink, let alone if you've got a dodge or parry handy) and this stacks perfectly with various other powers. It's harder for people to parry you, which is a nice bennie against a parry user but honestly not quite AS useful as the defense boost, and finally, if you do get hit, you take half damage. All of these come for the cost of 7m, with exactly NO power-up time, without costing you a hearthstone or even making you particularly obvious. You could hide this under a cloak or some larger clothing with no trouble, it's hardly the I Am Wearing A Battlesuit effect of the Immaculate armours or the Funky Dinosaur Exocrystal effect of the Orichalcum Sheath, both of which at least look bulky under a cloak. None of the powers individually would make an artifact 4, no, but togeather, I think they do.

To compare and contrast with Crimson Armour, which seems to be the most similar in form and function... My first thought is that the Crimson Armour is level FIVE unless you're not using sidereal astrology. I personally think it's low-end five even if you're not, but it's certainly not what I would call representitive of artifact 4. It has less lethal armour (8, although more bashing at 12) and its mid-combat power is very similar, but costs more (5m) lasts for only Essence turns, and is a flat 3 successes, not scaling with essence. It costs 10m to commit (PLUS extra costs for its various powers) and adds +2 to various things and grants various other bits and pieces. It does pretty much everything, sure, but there IS a hazy warning that if you wear it too much it might also eat your soul (or detach it from destiny, yada yada). So, even if the crimson armour islevel 4... it costs a heck of a lot more, and the various powers don't last as long. It also prevents martial arts. So, that's an expanded version of what I think artifact 4 is and why, and why this is (just about) artifact 4.
-- Darloth wrote more than he expected, uh... sorry ^_^

I'm going to agree with Darloth. This is a decent Level 4 armour. - FrivYeti

Bah. I still say this isn't worth 4 points of Artifact but then I have a much higher scale for 4 and 5 then most people, I guess. I want a level 4 Artifact to be BADASS with all caps. And a level 5 should shake the world. At level 4 and 5, you should ALWAYS use your Artifact. It should be useful to an Essence 7 character, not be something you shrug off as you get stronger. I don't think this falls into that. Certainly not for just being MA-compatable. - Telgar

I put that at 5, with NA as shaking the world, personally. But that's one of the problems with a scale like this, it's all relative and down to people's opinions anyway.
-- Darloth

Reset artifact level to 4. I really appreciate the feedback guys. I am kinda new to artifact creation so I was hoping I came close on this one. ~ Insanewizard

Hey, a really good job I feel. It takes skill to get the wiki arguing over the powerlevel of an artifact ^_^. Usually means it's interesting enough to get people looking at it, as well as being close enough to the appropriate level that people aren't sure or are of divided opinion. *grin* It's a nice artifact anyway, keep it up.
-- Darloth

Although... while you're around. Does it include the MM bonus, or should we add that on? Could it be made of other things similarly, and if so, would the bonuses be the same? Questions questions!
-- Darloth

I honestly didn't even think of the MM bonus when this was created so I guess you may add which ever MM bonus you would like to use. ~ Insanewizard