Discussions/ArtifactBowCreationHelp
OK, I've been looking all over for help on this, and it's driving me mad! I came to the conclusion that our group has never had a good Wood Aspect character, that actually shines of Wood. We have had wood aspects that were sorceresses, martial artists, sailors, crafters, and swordsmen! But no archers! yeah! what the heck exactly! So...in my search, I wanted a really great bow to give this new DB that I made...I cant find one I like. Much less, I can hardly find any at all! In the given material there are less than half a dozen, and user material doesn't seem to center on bows, only swords, armors, martial arts, etc. Even the artifact creation guide/errata doesnt say the first thing of bows, only melee, armor, and ranged (aka thrown) weapons! So, this question is twofold:
1) What are the rules for creating an artifact bow, if any?
2) Once given rules of some sort, what are some ideas for a bow? So far, I have determined I want it to be a shortbow, thats about it, its for style purposes. I have points enough for a lvl 5 bow, so be generous if you want, but as always with DB, im running low on essence to commit, so you dont HAVE to be generous. ^_^
Bows have the same creation rules as thrown weapons and ten times the total range. Just compare the MM bonuses and this will become clear as daylight.
Given that knowledge, I'll take a Wood image, butterflies, say, and design a bow:
Storm of Silent Wings\\ {Insert stats here}\\ The Storm of Silent Wings wraps arrows in a cocoon of silky Wood Essence, which trails behind them like iridescent streamers when they are shot. A victim struck by one of these arrows loses as many motes as HLs of damage he recieved; this amount of butterflies made of gauzy, color-changing Essence drift up into the air from the wound.
As a normal action, the Exalt may roll Perception + Archery (or MA for Immaculates) and spend 1 mote; he fires numerous Essence bolts, each of which pierces one butterfly and comes gliding back. For each success, the Exalt gains a point of Essence, but he may gain no more motes than the number of butterflies present. On a botch, his Essence-shaping is erratic, and he rolls again; as many butterflies as the number of successes on this second are shot, but their Essence does not return.
The Exalt may also commit 10 motes and fire several arrows into the air; they circle around him, wrapping him in silk. In one minute, a silken cocoon is formed. The cocoon cannot be damaged by mortal means, though it has no defense against Essence attacks. While inside the coccoon, the Exalt heals at 10 times the normal rate. Releasing the Essence causes the cocoon to dissolve in approximately a minute's time.
The bearer of Storm of Silent Wings has diplomatic immunity against insect gods of every kind.
This is in no way a 5-dot Artifact. - willows
OK so a high-level artifact bow for a wood-aspect?\\ Something cool might be that every arrow fired from it grows thorns that add 2 lethal dice to damage and a -1 penalty (cumulative with successive hits) until 3 successes (+1 for every hit after the first) are gained on an extended medicine roll to extract all the splinters/thorns, and for 2 motes you can "grow" an arrow to use (broadhead stats plus the bonus from the bow).\\ Stat-wise I'd make it a jade short-bow with just a little bit more accuracy (+2?) and range (+50 yards?).\\ The thing is that with high-level artifacts (this one's about a lvl 4 I think) you just DO run into high commitment costs (I'd make this one, I dunno, 8?).\\ That at all helpful?\\ ~*~Braydz~*~
Wow, thanks guys. That is an awesome idea willows, I think I will take it and expand on it a bit. I like the cocoon thing. Maybe I will mix your ideas together a bit or something. :) You guys are great.
~ MageDragon ~
De nada. Here is my idea, worked up with ArtifactCreationErrata et al. Incidentally, bows are *5 range, not *10.
Storm of Silent Wings: Green Jade Powerbow\\ Artifact •••••\\ Acc: +4 Damage: +4 Range: 200 Rate: 3 Commitment: 12 motes (Jade)Reqs: Str 3, Archery 3\\ This does not factor in the Jade MM bonus (+50 range, +1 Rate).
- The Storm of Silent Wings wraps arrows in a cocoon of silky Wood Essence, which trails behind them like iridescent streamers when they are shot. A victim struck by one of these arrows loses as many motes as HLs of damage he recieved; this amount of butterflies made of gauzy, color-changing Essence drift up into the air from the wound. This mote drain is comparable to soulsteel; IOW this artifact is duplicating another MM's ability; a two-dot power.
- As a normal action, the Exalt may roll Perception + Archery (or MA for Immaculates) and spend 1 mote; he fires numerous Essence bolts, each of which pierces one butterfly and comes gliding back. For each success, the Exalt gains a point of Essence, but he may gain no more motes than the number of butterflies present. On a botch, his Essence-shaping is erratic, and he rolls again; as many butterflies as the number of successes on this second are shot, but their Essence does not return. This mote regain is similar to several Abyssal Charms; again I consider this a two-dot power. Added together, we have an Artifact with three-dot stats and a three-dot power; that's with Artifact 4. We're still short some abilities.
- The Exalt may also commit 10 motes and fire several arrows into the air; they circle around him, wrapping him in silk. In one minute, a silken cocoon is formed. The cocoon cannot be damaged by mortal means, though it has no defense against Essence attacks. While inside the coccoon, the Exalt heals at 10 times the normal rate. Releasing the Essence causes the cocoon to dissolve in approximately a minute's time. This is strongly similar to a Celestial Circle spell; I'd call this another 3-dot power. We're still short!
- The bearer of Storm of Silent Wings has diplomatic immunity against insect gods of every kind. This is just a little bonus that won't push it up into the Artifact 5 region. These last two boni together will do it.
- The bow's enchanted arrows fly gracefully as dragonflies through reeds; they do not suffer environmental penalties for being in wooded areas, and are always considered Charm-enhanced attacks. (This is important for things like the Portentuous Comet Deflecting Mode.)
- Finally, the bearer can sustain himself on nectar and dew alone; in a wooded area, he will never starve.
- willows
Well, I've got a nifty Bow That you might want to take a look at. It's neat, at least concept wise. Plus I'm sort of fishing for comments/reviews. - EJGRgunner
I like your final bow willows. I think I will use a modified version actually. First off, the whole butterfly regaining essence thing, has gotta change. For one, it just doesn't fit my style. *grin* number two, it'san ST's nightmare, and if you have seen how one of the battles that poor Sigilistic has to run with his six players, keeping track of butterflies is the last thing that needs to be introduced. So, I was thinking instead of a butterfly, how about a wood spider? That twist seems to keep some of the other stuff, such as the cocoon. I want to keep the essence leech ability, but make it a little different. Instead of gossamer streamers of silk, how about a single, solid strand of silk, that connects the stuck arrow in the victim, back to the wielder, much like a modern day high end ranged taser gun. It then can leech the essence, but not at 1m per HL (that would be quite ungodly, seeing as how it now requires no extra action or roll to gain the essence). Instead I was thinking maybe 2m per arrow that successfully hit and damaged the enemy. I would also keep the cocoon ability, the dragonfly through the reeds no environmental penalties in woods ability, and the diplomatic immunity thing. I dont know about the surviving off of nectar...I might keep it, or change it abouts. We will see. I have a good idea or two now to throw in, I will put a rough sketch up here for critique, then post a final version on my userpage.
~ MageDragon~
P.S. Man....I have some unorganized methods of posting, dont I? :) one big block of text.
Gossamer Queen: Green Jade Powerbow\\ Artifact ? Acc: +4 Damage: +4 Range: 200 Rate: 3 Commitment: ? motes (Jade)Reqs: Str 3, Archery 3\\ This does not factor in the Jade MM bonus (+50 range, +1 Rate). </i>
- The Gossamer Queen fires arrows trailed by a thin strand of gossamer spider's silk, that connects the struck victim(s) back to the wielder of the bow. Upon damage, the user can actually sap essence from the victim(s) at 2m per arrow. The essence travels along the strand back to the user in a show not unlike a fuse being lit, expending the gossamer thread that linked the two.This mote drain is comparable to soulsteel; IOW this artifact is duplicating another MM's ability; a two-dot power.
- The Exalt may also commit 10 motes and fire several arrows into the air; they circle around him, wrapping him in silk. In one minute, a silken cocoon is formed. The cocoon cannot be damaged by mortal means, though it has no defense against Essence attacks. While inside the coccoon, the Exalt heals at 10 times the normal rate. Releasing the Essence causes the cocoon to dissolve in approximately a minute's time.
- The bearer of The Gossamer Queen has diplomatic immunity against insect gods of every kind, much as the Eclipse caste has a broader immunity.
- The bow's enchanted arrows fly gracefully as dragonflies through reeds; they do not suffer environmental penalties for being in wooded areas, and are always considered Charm-enhanced attacks. (This is important for things like the Portentuous Comet Deflecting Mode.)
- Upon drawing the bow, tiny spinnerets near the arrow rest can produce arrows made of solid spider's silk. Consider the rate cost of these arrows double. (i.e. a rate 3 bow can fire one of these and a normal arrow per round, a bow with a rate of 4 can fire two, etc.) The spinnerets can produce any normal arrow type, use normal stats for these arrows. Approximately 10 minutes after striking a victim, the arrows dissolve into normal, softer silk, and within 30 minutes, they have completely dissolved. Personally, I think you should ignore the half rate thing. - Sigilistic
- There are two hearthstone settings in the bow, one of which must be used to power the bow, the other can be used normally. The bow requires only a lvl 2 hearthstone, using it to produce the gossamer used in the bow. The wielder can switch between which hearthstone is being used for powering the bow, and which to reap benefits from by simply changing the two around, the top one being used to power the bow. After switching hearthstones however, the user must re-attune to the bow. And here I would change things a bit. Get rid of the heartstone-powering thing. That only happens really with the heavy stuff, like the Immaculate Dragon Armor and War-Striders. I would think that having a permanent piece of a Wood Spider would prove sufficient to generate the essence necessary for the gossamer and the arrows. A question: would the gossamer arrows have gossamer silk attached to them like normal arrows do? - Sigilistic
Ok, what ya think? Beyond casual comments, I would also like input onto what the AF level should be, and what essence to commit. I would also like to know if the hearthstone level required is too low or too high. I havent written up the history yet, but in short:
The bow was created with the cooperation of a great wood spider spirit, who was in debt to V'neef herself for saving his arse in some way (prolly saved his forest). The spider was very old, on the verge of dying even, and lent his very "body" to be used in the bow. Encased in the green jade arms of the bow are the gigantic fangs of the great wood spider. V'neef had this bow fashioned so that one day one of her childeren could wield it for great deeds. In this sense, she tried to make it "user-friendly" towards dragonblooded, but only those worthy (cough, noble/high breed cough). So, instead of commiting oneself to it, she constructed it to use a pricy hearthstone instead, which of course any of her childeren should have ample supply. The diplomatic immunity comes from the very discourse between V'neef and the spider. The other abilities tell for themselves.
~ MageDragon ~
P.S. I used your weapon as a template, so if it seems a little familiar.... :)
I tend to agree with Sigilistic's suggestions here. It's an artifact bow, not the Five-Metal Shrike; chill with the disadvantages! I would, however, require the full 12 motes of commitment that are requisite to a level 5 Artifact. - willows
Yeah, im just too used to playing other RPGs, i like to keep things toned down, but alas, this is exalted. lol. Ok, so renig the powering by hearthstones, and ignore the half rate thing, good point about the wood spider essence... Ugh. Well. I guess I can have a total playable essence of....man. lol......4 peripheral? Oh well, I got a decent personal.....and most of my charms that i will actually use are low cost. (and the first thing experience is going towards is essence/virtues, i couldnt get what i wanted with starting pionts. *nudge* hey, if you were thinking about that starting xp thing Sig...heh...heh...um. Im your best friend. ^_^) addendum: Oh yeah, and the gossamer arrows will also have the strand for essence stealing ~ MageDragon ~
