Craft Specialization Question

[Peteman]

I remember someone mentioning that Craft Specializations were reaaaaally overpowered, but I don't feel like checking the math. Can someone fill me in?

[sinker]

There are two things you can do with crafting specializations. First you can increase frequency, so for every specialization/focus in frequency all of your enchanted items/potions gain an additional use per session. The second thing you can increase is strength, so for every specialization/focus in strength you can increase the effect strength of your enchanted items/potions by one (beyond your lore).

Dunno if they're overpowered necessarily, however I can see the potential for abuse.

[arete]

I just wanted to add to the above post.  The specialization and focus cannot be shifted around like the base power to gain other benefits.  This does not matter to much, but it is a limitation.

[bitterpill]

Crafting Specialisation is not that broken because of the skill table progression, when adding in the fact you can stack its effect with Two Focus Items to also increase strength and frequency that is when it becomes broken. Using the example of a ten refresh Wizard +2Power enchanted item and +1 Frequency with a lore skill of five can have four enchanted items with 7 shifts of Power which can be used twice a secession this may not seem much it still represents a near doubling of the amount os spells a Wizard can cast a session.  

For Crafting to be really broken for Wizards it requires high refresh whereas even at feet in the water a FP who focuses with Crafting is Lethal.

+3 Refinement
+2 Ritual Enchanted Items

A crafter with a lore at 4 and a focus item increasing crafting by 2 power and 2 frequency can Have 8 enchated items at 6 shifts of power which he can use twice a secession, so a total of 16 uses of a Power 6 spell. If A focus practitioner instead decides he wants more powerful spells he can have a focus item of +4 Enchanted item Power (instead of +2,+2) can have 8 items which he can use to generate a +8 shift Spell once a session. This makes Feet in the Water Characters who are way ahead of the curve and only gets further ahead at higher refresh. At submerged Levels a craft FP can have 12 items which he can use for a 10 shift spell, 6 times a secession this means he can use 72 high level attack or defenses in any one secession and is unlikly to ever run out of tricks.  

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[sinker]

Where are you getting the concept of "persistent" bitterpill? Wouldn't that create a 2 armor or 4 shift veil that lasted for four exchanges? It's not a huge difference in terms of the armor (a wizard with equivalent skills could create an Armor 2 for five exchanges with one additional stress), however it's a terrible veil in comparison (the wizard's would last the entire scene).

[bitterpill]

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[arete]

Where are you getting the concept of "persistent" bitterpill? Wouldn't that create a 2 armor or 4 shift veil that lasted for four exchanges? It's not a huge difference in terms of the armor (a wizard with equivalent skills could create an Armor 2 for five exchanges with one additional stress), however it's a terrible veil in comparison (the wizard's would last the entire scene).

in some of the older PDFs you can take half power to keep a power always on, but you take another 1/2 effect to get armor.

[bitterpill]

Oh is that changed Im sharing a book with a roleplaying society so Im basicly running of the PDF, thats a pity that was useful ability especially the constant armour but i suppose without a catch it did make toughness powers look  silly.

[arete]

Oh is that changed Im sharing a book with a roleplaying society so Im basicly running of the PDF

Correct.  In fact warden swords are much scarier in the RAW due to the change.

[Drachasor]

Don't forget for one mental stress you can activate an enchanted item after all its uses for the session are gone.  That's pretty nice.

Still, true evocation has a lot more flexibility and can do a lot more damage in one attack, so it isn't all awesome stuff for enchanted items (though they are great, don't get me wrong).  Enchanted items do provide more staying power, but have less peak power.

[sinker]

Oh is that changed Im sharing a book with a roleplaying society so Im basicly running of the PDF, thats a pity that was useful ability especially the constant armour but i suppose without a catch it did make toughness powers look  silly.

I still remember bits from the playtester rules myself. For a very long time we were still playing with 2 potions per enchanted item slot. And you thought the crafting specialization rules were ridiculous when you had half the potions!