Enchanted Items (and Wards?): inaccurate rules or me missing something?

[Morfedel]

So, examining the rules and looking at the examples, enchanted items don't seem to fit what we see in the source material - at least, Harry's trench coat.

His coat took shot after shot after shot, knife blows, all kinds.of things. The narration most definitely seemed to indicate that his coat lasts for months, and certainly seemed to get a lot of use.

And yet its limited.to a.few used per session?

I hadn't checked yet, but I wonder if the wards, which an last for months if not triggered, have the same problem. For that matter, the novels talks about taking down wards and restoring them, amulets to bypass them, etc, but haven't seen the rules for it. But, I admit to being new.to the game and still reading the rule book.

So, rules issues, or did I miss something?

[Belial666]

1) We have never seen Harry's original coat (before it was upgraded) deflect more than a couple attacks per day.

2) Enchanted items can be fueled with more uses via mental stress. So even if the uses run out, Harry can still use his items if he needs to.

3) The basic Ward lasts until sunrise, like most thaumaturgies. By spending extra shifts of complexity you can increase duration. With enough shifts, you can make a ward last for several human lifetimes.

4) You can bypass your own wards, yes. You can also add passwords and keys, wardflames and alarms and so on. Read the rules for Wards again.

[deathwombat]

Source material does not have to deal with game balance or mechanics issues either...

[Morfedel]

Source material does not have to deal with game balance or mechanics issues either...

But in designing a game, you have the ability to take both game balance and game source material into account during the  design process. In other words, their hands were hardly tied.

[Sanctaphrax]

It is a very bad idea to change game rules for the worse in order to accommodate the source material. That sort of thinking is a major cause of the generally low quality of video game adaptations.

That being said, I think that there should be rules for "always-on" magic items that aren't full Items Of Power. Don't ask me what they should be, but there should be some.

[Kaldra]

trail and error usually work out the best in code so lets start trying. the goal would be an item that is continuous, requiring no activation. compared to other items in the game this seems to make the continuous item more appealing meaning that it needs something to keep it on level with the other items. so how do we make a continuous item less appealing, the first method would be cost. make continuous items cost the same number of slots as a focus item. another method could be to make them less appealing would be to limit the power of them, say instead of using your lore score use lore over two rounded down or lore minus 3 min 1. any ideas?

[Morfedel]

It is a very bad idea to change game rules for the worse in order to accommodate the source material. That sort of thinking is a major cause of the generally low quality of video game adaptations.

That being said, I think that there should be rules for "always-on" magic items that aren't full Items Of Power. Don't ask me what they should be, but there should be some.

What I'm saying is it should have  been designed that way in the first place. And I believe that it is possible to have created it to be more true to the source material and still be balanced.

[Morfedel]

1) We have never seen Harry's original coat (before it was upgraded) deflect more than a couple attacks per day.

True. But that changed in the later novels.

2) Enchanted items can be fueled with more uses via mental stress. So even if the uses run out, Harry can still use his items if he needs to.

Yes, and I found that out after reading another thread after posting this one, hehe, oops! It's still not quite true to the source material, but at least it's possible.

3) The basic Ward lasts until sunrise, like most thaumaturgies. By spending extra shifts of complexity you can increase duration. With enough shifts, you can make a ward last for several human lifetimes.

4) You can bypass your own wards, yes. You can also add passwords and keys, wardflames and alarms and so on. Read the rules for Wards again.

Ok, thanks for the info.

[Morfedel]

Hm, just an idea here, as I JUST bought the books a week ago, and haven't read them in excruciating detail yet, but I wonder if instead of adding powers, if you could use thaumaturgy to add aspects to items.

So, for example, Dresden's coat could have the Aspect "Bullet Proof." And perhaps he could tag it once for free, and, once invoked, it lasts for a scene or something. And its enchantment level could determine how many times it could be could be invoked before needing to be completely recharged (if it uses its last charge, before being recharged, it's item could be shredded, destroyed, whatever, if absorbing an attack)?

I don't know, just brainstorming. I need to read how thaumaturgy can add aspects and manuevers. I suppose then the coat could have more aspects, such as "More Bulletproof," and "Even more bulletproof" to represent it being tougher and tougher... or whatever.

I'll read some more rules over the next few days and give it some thought.

[Kaldra]

basicly you would have to use a spell to stick the object with the aspect and then pump into it a whole butload of power to keep it there for more than one scene and allowing it to be tagged for free. this could work but it seems like it would be rather inefficient

[babel2uk]

Yeah, the aspect thing really wouldn't work. All it would do mechanically is add 2 to your dodge roll when you spent a fate point. So you'd actually be making the coat less effective.

Personally I think the system as it stands pretty accurately reflects the majority of the magic used in the books. And I think it's absolutely fair that an 'always on' enchanted item (that holds a spell effect) isn't something that just comes 'free' with the ability to use magic. I make that distinction because a Focus Item basically falls under the description of 'always on'.

[WillH]

What I'm saying is it should have  been designed that way in the first place. And I believe that it is possible to have created it to be more true to the source material and still be balanced.

In theory, the enchanted items don't model the source material because they aren't always on. In reality you will never need to use an enchanted armor item more than a few times per session, so that limitation really isn't a factor. There used to be rules for always on items, but since you will only need it a few times a session, always on items were much less useful than limited use items. Eventually the rules were dropped.

As for Harry's coat taking shot after shot, there are a couple things to keep in mind. First that coat is a plot device. It protected Harry when JB needed it to, but it also did not protect him when that was better for the plot. SO what about the coat taking all sorts of machine gun fire? Well a single use will last an entire exchange* so that accounts for multiple attacks. You can take mental stress to get extra uses. That is in line with the source material. There is no way you can say Harry wasn't taking all sorts of mental stress when he was being raked with machine gun fire.

*I'm not sure if that's 100% in line with the rules, but it makes sense and is how I handle it.

[Richard_Chilton]

Someone has collected everything that Jim has said about magic in the Dresdenverse, and this is what the collection has to say about Wards:

"No wards on the office.  To build a ward, you have to use a threshold of some kind.  (Well, you can use other kinds of similar energy structures, like ley lines, ogham stones, etc, but you can't just slap them down anywhere.)  No wards on Harry's office in the books for that reason."

Richard

[Belial666]

That is not entirely correct. The Merlin and the Gatekeeper erected a ward in the Nevernever, in the middle of a battlefield, during combat, to stop an army of Red Court vampires and Outsiders. So it might be possible to erect wards without a base - but you'd need far beyond Harry's skill with Wards to do it.

[Becq]

Regarding the coat, each 'charge' lasts for a full exchange, which could be as much as a minute or two depending on the circumstances.  In practice, if a group of thugs let loose with a volley of gunfire (whether that constitutes a double-tap from a pistol or a burst from a machine-gun) a single charge would protect from all of them ... until one beat the block strength and the charge expired.  (Though in this example a second charge could be expended to defend against the next attack after the block failed.)  For a high-block item (or low-skilled thugs) that could easily add up to a LOT of protection.  In addition, as stated earlier, the wearer can expend mental stress for additional uses.

So with reference to the novels, it might be useful to ask whether Dresden appeared to tire out faster after getting shot up a lot, even when his coat blocked all or most of the damage?  Hard to say, but I think you could argue that the novels and game might well be consistent, at least to a reasonable degree.

That is not entirely correct. The Merlin and the Gatekeeper erected a ward in the Nevernever, in the middle of a battlefield, during combat, to stop an army of Red Court vampires and Outsiders. So it might be possible to erect wards without a base - but you'd need far beyond Harry's skill with Wards to do it.

I don't recall the details of that scene, but didn't they draw a circle to anchor the ward?  Circle = threshold.  An office, however, is hard to draw a circle around.