Statting a magic sword

[austinmonster]

I have a a player who wants to play a minor scion of death (if any of you have read Terry Pratchett's Soul Music or Hogfater, you'll know Susan).  The one power he wants is to have "death's sword"  a blade that is basically part of his soul that can be summoned when he has to do great great granddaddy's job. 

I'm not exactly sure how to stat this.

The blade itself will have no real power (other than a wicked sharp edge) but the character will be able to summon it to him whenever he wants.  It'll be like a non-anime katanaspace for one weapon.

I thought about making it an item of power, but I remember how the denarian's coins work, how they can't be separated from them as long as they live, and I think this is how he wants his sword to work.  Besides that, it won't have any real powers other than just being a sword.

How would one stat this as a power?  I think functionally, it's similar to Claws, only it takes a supplemental action to bring into being, and would be a weapon:3 (if memory serves)  How many refresh would you charge for that?

Your thoughts are appreciated.

[luminos]

-1 refresh seems about right for the power.  It's close to being more than that, but as long as its just a summonable blade with no other special properties, I wouldn't charge more than -1

[Doc Nova]

To me that sounds like little more than a slightly boosted set of Claws (which are weapon:2, as I recall) with human guise thrown on top of it (to make it so the claws are either A) not always obvious or B) retractable).  To keep it simple, I'd likely go -2 refresh, allowing that extra refresh to cover the slight boost in damage and the dismissal/summoning ability.  I would also strongly suggest an aspect tying in with it somehow to cover their "duties", ownership, and lack of separation that you mentioned, but that's likely covered in the character's high concept already.

[Deadmanwalking]

Well, swords are Weapon: 2 by default...so yeah, Claws with Human Guise seems like the way you'd do that. If you want it to be better than that, upping it to a -2 power could likely make it Weapon: 4.

[Lanodantheon]

In my game, you could do it as just a summonable sword and nothing else as an Aspect.

Claws can also work, but they go off fists and are obvious creature features.

I'd run it as an Aspect if it had no other power than being just a Sword. I asked a similar question about how to do a Yu Yu Hakusho-Style "Spirit Sword" on Rick Neal's Q&A and it was basically decided it would be best as an Aspect because it's a sword....

[luminos]

I'd run it as an Aspect if it had no other power than being just a Sword. I asked a similar question about how to do a Yu Yu Hakusho-Style "Spirit Sword" on Rick Neal's Q&A and it was basically decided it would be best as an Aspect because it's a sword....

Could you link to that Q&A?  That answer seems a little bit off.  An aspect about always having a sword makes sense, but an aspect about having a magic spirit sword would need to be tied to a power in my opinion.  Otherwise, I could just replicate claws and breath weapon and a few other powers by simply having an aspect.  Recall that to have a power in the first place, it needs to be justified by an aspect.

[flymolo]

Could you link to that Q&A?  That answer seems a little bit off.  An aspect about always having a sword makes sense, but an aspect about having a magic spirit sword would need to be tied to a power in my opinion.  Otherwise, I could just replicate claws and breath weapon and a few other powers by simply having an aspect.  Recall that to have a power in the first place, it needs to be justified by an aspect.

If you had Spirit Sword as an aspect, I'd probably expect a fate point to summon it (tag for effect), if you buy it as a power you won't.  It seems to me to be a pretty fair trade.

[Lanodantheon]

Rereading it...we basically hit a brick wall because we couldn't see the value in it. But it's here: http://www.rickneal.ca/?p=590

Q&A part 14 I think.

It didn't help that Rick hasn't seen Yu Yu Hakusho.

[SirApropos]

I'm actually looking at creating a similar sword but it will probably have to be an Item of Power.

I'm mirroring my character off of Annja Creed from the Rogue Angel novels by Alex Archer. She's an Indiana Jones Type Archaeologist who travels the world on several adventures and in the first novel gets bonded to Joan of Arc's long lost sword from the 15th century.

This sword is just a plain sword but it exists in Otherwhere when not in use and Annja can call it instantly when she needs to use it.
It heals her a little faster but not unnaturally so. She may also be immortal now since a couple of other characters linked to the history of the sword have been living since Joan of Arc's death. It is thought by some that the Sword actually brings Annja to where she needs to be to help stop evil doers. 

I was actually thinking the easiest way to do it as an Item of Power was to reduce the One time Discount to +0 to account for the fact that most of the time the sword is in a pocket dimension (Otherwhere). Not sure if this is legal but since Items of Power have to get GM approval it's not that much of a stetch.

So as a Base Item of Power it would be
Discount [+0]
Wizard's Consitution [+0]
It's a Sword [Weapon:2]
Unbreakable
+ whatever other powers I wanted to add to keep it in the -1 , -2 refresh range.

Do you think that would work?


 

[Deadmanwalking]

Well...I think the ability to summon a sword from nowhere is a power in it's own right. If, and only if, the sword can be taken away while it's around, and she'd have to get it back, then I think it's balanced at -0. If it can't be taken away, then I think it needs to be purchased as a power.