IsawaBrian/RepairIsStupid

In theory, I like the concept of Repair; it fits well into the thaumatech fun of Exalted. Unfortunately, I'm seeing a trend in both published artifacts and in the books to use Repair as an excuse to, well, make Repair-items more powerful than non-Repair ones. Seems like a no-brainer at first, right? But the text says that High First Age wonders were supposed to reach a greater breadth of power -and- didn't need repair; in the Shogunate, the Dragon-blooded were often unable to recapture that power, or to equal it, required expendable components or high-maintenance gear. But, since artifact dots (not including N/A) are hard-limited to 5 (and pre-BP limited to 3, producing a second, if more flexible, barrier), this means that there's no distinction in mechanical terms of absolute output between High First Age devices and Shogunate-era ones-- and yet, the High First Age device costs an entire further dot (reaching that hard limit at 4, then) for the lack of repair, meaning that if 5s are compared to 5s, and 3s to 3s, the Shogunate devices are more powerful. This is just concerned with like to like, not problems like the Artifact 5 Celestial Battle Armor requiring 3-5 picks to equal the Artifact 4 Immaculate Dragon Armor when both of them have precisely the same Repair rating, 3.

As a result, as much as it was easily abused in 1st Edition, I think it's time to bring back the concept of Notoriety. If you wear something that could only have been produced in the High First Age-- or only would have been then, like an Orichalcum suit of battle armor-- you're noticeable-- at _least_ as a target for those jealous of your possessions, at most because it marks you instantly as one of the Solars or the Lunars (Sidereals and Starmetal are a special case, but I'll get to that later). Instead of these artifacts requiring a dot higher to produce equivalent level effects without the Repair rating, you instead get the Notoriety rating, which serves as a (probably non-cumulative, since as I understand it, you just have to be able to _match_ your Repair ratings, not expend for them) negative-only version of Influence-- that is to say, it gets you the downside of having major attention without the upside (the upside being the increased artifact abilities). In theory, super-artifacts (perhaps Artifact N/As that might be turned into 6 or 7 equivalents) that required high notoriety _and_ repair (like very large transports or siege weapons) might then be placed as Artifact 4s or 5s from a combination of both.

This works just as well for Moonsilver artifacts as it does for Orichalcum. The Immaculate Philosophy hates both, and -everyone- is smart enough to be wary of someone wiedling either, at the very least. Moonsilver artifacts have an easier time amidst barbarians; Orichalcum ones have half-hidden legends of salvation and the sun-cult waiting for them. It DEFINITELY works for Soulsteel. The problem, then, is an equivalent for Starmetal, which is of Celestial level (If Bluesids aren't the crafters that Twilights are in the -text-, I suspect the efficiency is close enough as to not be registered by Exalted's large-grain stats) but hardly as recognizable as the other three Celestial Materials, as well as being possesed by a group that is literally forgotten about by nearly every one. The only major downside to Starmetal in text is its rarity, which is not something you can mechanic into the artifacts -themselves-.

One solution is to say that Starmetal is very rare which should be represented in the point cost-- but that Sidereals still have a good deal of their First Age infrastructure intact (which, it's implied, they kinda do). Your average Starmetal-primary artifact requires twice as many background dots or BPs as one of the others to get... but for Sidereals, this cost is halved because they have the infrastructure to produce more of it, much like DBs get three times as many artifacts for their background dollar because of their wealth and existing empire. This isn't a problem for devices that have Starmetal _components_ but no 5MM bonus (or another one to which it is primary; those just get effected by Notoriety or Repair as the text and the Storyteller feels are appropriate. The problem potentially comes from Sidereals purchasing non-Starmetal artifacts and for non-Sidereals who want to purchase Starmetal-primary artifacts (for appropriateness of background or for fitting statistics). My thought is that it shouldn't be a problem to merely double the Siddies' artifact-to-background bonus for non-Starmetal (effectively, doubled for all), because, again, the infrastructure. They're -still- going to run up against Essence limitations and the like anyway. And if someone else -does- want the Starmetal artifact that has neither Repair nor Notoriety-- well, the guy with high Repair has to purchase more backgrounds (and potentially, other stuff) to keep up with the maintenance, and the Notoriety guy is going to be targetted (requiring more essence spent on counter-ambush charms, probably more Virtue rolls to deal with the people who actually like him but have quest-requests or whatever, etc.) causing a similar cost.

Thoughts?

Comments

A thing that should be noted is tha repair and maintenance are NOT synonymus in WoTLA, despite what the intro box said. According to Condrad, the reapir rating for Items that does not require maintenance is in case the get broken.

I , Personally, just made them cost another bonus point, not an artefact level. It may not seem like it, but there is a significant diffrence.

MY Major problem with WoTLA is tha dsome things Feel too weak, mostly the 5s. WW never managed fives well, execpet with Soul mirror, when it came to personal artefacts (for exemple; I feel that celestial battle armor should have more power picks). For my solutin to the repair problem, see my craft charms. -Azurelight

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that there's errata somewhere that says that you no longer have to make the minimum Lore, Occult, and Craft ratings to perform maintenance unless it says otherwise-- just ones with specific plans of maintenance? Where would that be found? That's a good explanation for the CBA/IDA problem, but it -still- doesn't deal with the basic problem of output disparity. Your idea, coupled with a buff to the non-maintenance ones to bring them up to the same level as the maintenance ones (or the reverse) might work, though I sort of like just ditching the extra point costs in all cases but Starmetal. :) -- IsawaBrian

Well, in the case of CBA, it actually says you don't need to maintain it. I assume this actually applies to all things that don't actually have an 'Endurace' section that says how often you have to do upkeep on them. -FlowsLikeBits

FlowsLikeBits is correct. Also, for a non native, what do you mean by "output disparity" in this context? The nuber of slots that I think would be appropriate for CBA is 5 (Provided they are power five) -Azurelight

I think he means "bang for the Artifact Dollar". For example, four dots of Artifact background spent on a Shogunate Age artifact will generally buy a more 'powerful' artifact than spending the same four dots of Artifact background on a First Age artifact. At the extreme case, since the rules clearly note that you can buy a repair-requiring artifact for X points of Artifact background, and buying a maintainance-free version with First Age tech requires X+1 points, that means that the most powerful artifacts available in the game world are not first-age devices, but instead, Shogunate-era devices of rank 5. (Because there is no rank 6 that you can have, unless you go straight to NA). Thus, for a character to buy the most uber-powerful artifact he can at creation, he needs to be shopping for Shogunate-era, not first age - even though First Age devices, with their Solar artificers, should be far better. The problem relates to what a point of Artifact Background 'means'. If it means 'a way to sort Artifacts so characters are on an even playing field at creation', then this works fine. If it means "the relative power level or utility of each artifact, as compared to each other", then it fails, because with that hard 5-point cap, Shogunate-era devices are more powerful, which makes no sense. -- GreenLantern, trying to explain what he thinks is the point

I see. In that case I am entierly with you. And with CBA, they don't realy feel that good to me...sure, I dont know if they are 4 but they defenetly don't feel like a strong five to me...more like a 4.2. -Azurelight

I mentioned GoldenH/ArtifactCreation on the RPG.net thread, comments would be nice and suggestions on the related page - GoldenH