Artifice Rules

These rules by Telgar set out to define the process of in-game Artifice which is the creation of magical Artifacts. This system is not explicitly designed to conform to the canon rules of Exalted regarding Artifacts and certainly not the pathetic attempts at Artifact Creation Guidelines written in the Book of Three Circles, Savant and Sorcerer or any of the new heresy-tomes of Ex2.

The actual goal of this system is to create an entirely new method of ranking Artifacts that is totally independent of the Five Dot Tyranny of the Background System. Under this system, Artifacts are rated by their number of Artifact Points which represents both their physical and mystical potency. Each dot of the Artifact Background will give a set number of Artifact Points to use to buy however many Artifacts the character wants. This will solve a number of problems, not least of which the range of power inherant in each level of Artifacts. No longer will three level 4 items have vastly different powers because there will be no such thing as "level 4" items.

The Process of Artifice

Artifice is a series of extended rolls made to determine the success of various steps in the process such as planning, physical construction and mystical enchantment.

Planning Phase Rolls

The base time for all Planning rolls is one day per roll. These are the most essential rolls made and artificers almost always enhance them with whatever Charms, Stunts and other powers they have because without proper plannning and ideas, the final item will be quite limited.

Conceptualization

Intelligence + Lore roll. No roll that follows in the artifice process may gain more successes then were achieved on this roll. Conceptualization is the most important roll because it involves coming up with the idea for the Artifact and figuring what it will do, how it will do it and so forth.

Construction Planning

Intelligence + Crafts roll. No Construction roll can gain more successes then were achieved on this roll.

Enchantment Planning

Intelligence + Occult roll. If the Enchantment Phase is going to be skipped, this roll is not made. No Enchantment roll can gain more successes then were achieved on this roll.

Construction Phase Rolls

The Construction rolls cover the creation of the physical structure of the Artifact. For very simple or roughly made items, not all of the Construction rolls are required. Simple things like basic weapons, armor, bracers and amulets require only the Forging roll to be made. Complex items like Crimson Armor of the Unseen Assassin and Warstriders require both rolls.

Component Assembly

Wits + Crafts extended roll. Each roll takes a full day. Any successes in excess of the number gained on the Construction Planning roll are ignored. This roll is only made for complicated, multi-part Artifacts. Simpler items made of only a few pieces do not require it.

Forging

Dexterity + Crafts roll. Each roll takes a full week. Any successes in excess of the number gained on the Component Assembly roll are ignored if the Component Assembly roll was made. If it was not, this roll is instead limited by the Construction Planning roll.

Enchantment Phase Rolls

All Enchantment rolls have a base time of 1 week per roll and are all optional. It is possible to skip the Enchantment Phase totally, resulting in an Artifact that is, essentially a very powerful mundane item or an item of better-then-Perfect quality. These items are fairly rare since most artificers do not consider it worth their time or skill to create such trifles. The Enchantment Phase is required to construct an Artifact with a Rating of XX or higher (Artifact 3+).

Basic Enchantment

Intelligence + Occult roll.

Fine Essence Flows

Intelligence + Lore roll. This roll is optional, only being used for Artifacts of extreme magical potency. Artifacts with powers that have an Enchantment Point cost of XX or higher require this roll, others do not.

Construction Points

These points are used to determine the stats of the Artifact, if it has any. In the case of Artifacts which do not have such stats, half the Construction Points are added to the Enchantment Point total. The rest are discarded. The number of Construction Points (CP) an item has is equal to the sum of all Construction Phase successes.

Spending CPs on Weapons

All weapons start with a rating of 0 in Accuracy, Damage, Defense, Rate, Range and Speed. All of those stats except Range are all purchased for 1 CP per point. For Ranged weapons, 1 CP purchases 10 yards for throwing weapons or 100 yards for archery-types.

No Artifact weapon can have more then 10 CPs place into Accuracy, Defense or Rate. Speed and Damage can have up to 20 CPs applied to them. Range has an upper limit of 15 CPs, though spending 15 CPs on Range results in the Range being set to "line of sight".

Spending CPs on Armor

Armors have Lethal Soak, Bashing Soak, Hardness, Fatigue and Mobility to spend their CPs on. Each stat costs 1 point for each level. All armors start with 0 in their stats. Adding to the Fatigue Rating or giving an armor a Mobility Penalty is handled under the Negative CPs section.

No Artifact armor can have more then 20 CPs placed into either soak total or its Hardness rating.

Spending CPs on Other Things

All Artifacts have a Committment Cost stat which defaults to 10 motes. This stat can be decreased by 1 mote by spending 2 CPs for the first 5 reductions. Reductions that take the Committment below 5 cost 5 CPs. Removing the Committment Cost completely requires a total of 45 CPs.

Negative CPs

It is possible to gather additional CPs for an item by imposing penalties on certain parts of the Artifact's statline. Each negative CP applied to a stat gives one CP to be added in elsewhere. No item can ever have a penalty greater then -5.

Armor can not have negative soak or Hardness. To add negative CPs on to armor the Fatigue Rating or Mobility Penalty are increased. Armor cannot have more then 10 negative CPs on either category.

The Committment Cost of an item can be raised by up to 5 motes. Each increase in Committment Cost gives 1 negative CP.

Enchantment Points

The most essential part of any well-designed and well-build Artifact, Enchantment Points are used to purchase the magical powers of the item. The number of Enchantment Points (EP) an item has is equal to the sum of all Enchantment Phase successes.

Spending EPs

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Rushing Construction

It is possible to make Artifice go much faster then indicated above, if such speed is truly needed. The base times of any roll can be modified for a price. In order to reduce the time required for a roll, the difficult of that roll will increase. The difficulty doubles for each factor of time by which the roll's requirement is reduced. Weeks reduce to days and days reduced to hours. No task can take less then 1 hour per roll. Artifice takes time, y'all!

Taking Your Time

The effective opposite of Rushing Construction, this is a system that benefits the artificer for going slow and making sure everything is perfect at every stage. For every time factor by which the artificer willingly increases the time requirement of a roll, that roll has its Target Number lowered by 1. Target Numbers can not be lowered beyond 4. There is a point at which taking more time is just being lazy and has no additional benefit.

Further Note

Though all the rolls in the Artifice process are extended, there is a limit to how many rolls can practically be made. An artificer has a number of "free" rolls on a specific task equal to his score in the relevant Ability. If he chooses to make more rolls then he has dots in the Ability, each roll beyond his limit has its time factor increased by one. Hours increase to days, days to weeks, weeks to months, months to seasons and seasons to years. There is no benefit associated with this extra time taken, it is a penalty. It is possible to Take Your Time on rolls exceed your Ability limit. In such cases, the time factor increase stacks.

NOT FINISHED

Comments

I am really enthusiastic about this project. I always felt that the 5 dot system could not possibly incorporate the vast majority of artifacts in the exalted universe, mainly because artifacts does 3 jobs at once. First, they fill the more or less classical rule of fantasy magical items. Second, they essentially replace the technology of our world. Third, they go beyond the technology of our world. This in essence, lead to the problem that everything from a Glow orb (Light bulb/lamp) to a to a flying crystal War-titan city, equipped with essence weaponry and First age WMDs should fit in the 5 dot system. Couple that with the fact that WW can't seem to decide if the 5 dot scale is exponential or linear, and it's almost bound to fail. I don't know exactly what you are aiming for, but I personally think an open ended system might be good idea. I am jusdt brainstorming a bit really, but does anything I write make sense? I am really looking forward to seeing a good system in this one.

-Azurelight

Thanks for the interest, Azure. I hope you continue to be enthusiastic as I add more. - telgar

I haven't read this thoroughly but for a while now I've been hunting for alternative systems to use on a custom-setting game. (And this might be particularly useful because this setting is not really magical and I don't think I'll use any canon artifacts) So... I'll be around hoping to see more of this. -Koji-Kabuto

P.S. 2e > 1e >:]

Pfft. Exalted is far superior to Lies and Heresy. - Telgar

Hmmm....this hasen't been touched in a while....did the projekt or even Telgar go poof?

- Azurelight

Yeah, sorta. - Telgar

Sad to hear that. What are you up to nowdays then?