DariusSolluman/RevisedArtifactCreationCommentsPrePowerCombat

I like this, a lot. Will have to try and convince Garden to let my craftsman use it :-) - CorlanDashiva

I think like this alot. I've only played with the weapon design function so far, but it seems modular and easy to use. I have been linking back to this page from the artifacts I am re-calculating to use it. So far Gentle Release and Saber Of The Light's Edge have been re-written, now I just have to tackle Illuminating Wrath of the Sun, my level 5 Monster axe. - Malikai

I'm not sure if you have these notes somewhere but I ran the core book armors through your system and typed up the notes Malikai/DariusArmorNotes - Malikai

On Malikai's notes, a discrepency was pointed out. Thus, the inital build point supply for artifacts is now one higher. Furthermore, Magical Reinforced Buff Jackets just suffer the lack of a gift. One day, they will learn to heal. ;) DS

Just dock it 2 points of bashing soak, use those 2 points and the 1 extra build point to buy them a gift. I do have a question though. What would you suggest doing to earn build points when the item is already level 5. The level 5 Great axe (Malikai/IlluminatingWrathOfTheSun) I designed needs 2 more gifts. I thought about giving it Inefficent twice and using those build points to buy the gifts but the commitment cost is already at 12 motes. - Malikai

Mm. It kinda depends. My gut reaction is the same as if someone designed a Lunar with 5 DBTs on sheet, but 6 DBTs worth of enhancements- that is, the character (in this case, the item) is unbalanced. In this case, I'd suggest that you're trying to too far swiss-army knife the Axe. Some of the Minor Abilities basically are just expensive versions of Charms; it'd be better to get the actual Charm.

A lenient ST might allow for multiple similiar Abilities to qualify as a single gift; in particular, adding Permanent Essence to Damage for a scene and inflicting Agg on the enemies of Creation might qualify as one Gift, while being able to force people to tell the truth and gaining +4 dice to Discern Lies might counts as a second. That saves you the two Gifts ya need.

A third alternative is to do some fiat guesswork about committment levels beyond 5. I'd say you should add +3 to the next two functional levels of Artifact, then +4 to the next two, then +5, and so on. So, two more Gifts via inefficent would make the Axe require 18 motes to commit.

I'm personally leary of that path, however; it's one of the few breakpoints in this system. Possibly, a maximum number of Inefficents should be allowed; beyond that, it's simply not possible to make a single conventional artifact that has the swiss army knifeset of features desired; the complexity is too great. Mind you, you can also pull a Terrifying Armor / Elemental Lens thing here, and 'build in' a secondary Artifact that performs those functions- ideally, said Artifact could slot like a Hearthstone.

Actually, that's a pretty cool idea... even more Materia like... :) DS

I had an idea....For artifacts that aren't weapons or armor. How about using the same build process as weapons, but not issuing default build points, just the one gift per artifact level? - Malikai

I've thought about that... but the problem is, why build an artifact with 1 Gift per Artifact Level instead of a /weapon/ with 1 Gift per Artifact level plus other nifty cools. So, you can increase the number of Gifts per Artifact Level to like, 3 for non-weapons. But that introduces other complications;

Furthermore, as I've thought about it... I dunno. I would almos prefer to see Abilities wholy restricted to the materia-like Hearthstones, which are much harder to custome build. If I can achieve Hearthstone like effects from Artifacts with relative ease, it greatly diminshes the value of the Manse Background.

Stuff. I dunno. :) DS

The thing is that's pretty much already the way it is. Don't forget you still get the essence recovery boost, which can be a huge deal. And Hearthstones have to be socketed into an artifact for you to get anything but the recovery boost. - Malikai

True... it just make me 'enhh'. I suppose, tenetively, you could go with the first Artifact Level is 1 Gift, the second is 3 gifts, the third is five, etc, and remove the 'Artifact 4+' limit on Major Abilities.

I just... meh.

Also, my inital thoughts on Repair and Hearthstone Requirements and such is as follows: Taking the first level of Repair gives 1 point, and provides 200 operational hours (with functions failing every 1/10th the operational time you push it, and combat counting as 2 hours per hour). You can gain another +1 point by trading away 50 hours of operational time, or by increasing the Repair difficulty by 1.

Hearthstone batteries give +1 points per minimum level of the committed Hearthstone, with a flat +1 if it takes a Simple Action or longer to switch out which Hearthstone (if there are multiple) is currently providing it's Hearthstone goodness. Otherwise, it's assumed to be a Dice Action. For -1 points, it's a Reflexive action.

I haven't crunched these yet (I'll be getting to that soon); but hopefully, they'll make the Outcaste stuff a bit easier to handle :) DS

Additional Flaw Suggestion for Armor, Increased Mobility Penalty / Fatigue Value, each point adding 2 or 3 build points - Malikai