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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: jackfremont on April 01, 2013, 04:16:11 PM
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With Lore 5, making base item strength 5, and then spending 7 more slots to up the power to 12, is there any reason I can't have a weapon:6 item with no limit to number of times used?
If so, why would a wizard ever need to use a damage spell? For 2 refresh you have weapon 6 item that doesn't require stress. You could get the required 8 item slots from channeling and ritual meaning that (other than the Lore 5 requirement, which can be fixed upon earning your first skill point) an "Up to your Waist" character could start the game with this.
Furthermore, as the warden sword, an enchanted item, gets around the First Law, would said weapon:6 enchanted item also not be subject to the First Law?
Thanks in advance for your help.
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Something with eight slots in it is going to be massively obvious to anyone and everyone who's the least bit aware of the supernatural, and it's going to be huge.
It'd be like carrying a bazooka around wherever you go.
And I'm really not sure the math you're using there. If the power's at 12, then it's not Weapon:6, and there is no rule about "Always on" enchanted items, at least not anymore.
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You can't make permanent enchanted items - they all have a number of uses/session. This was changed in the updated version of the rules.
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And if your lore is 5 the strength can't be any higher than 10 without very good reason. Though it is possible for a crafter to make something like that with only one slot so that's not to big of an issue, but yea you can't have an always on item
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The rules.
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As other people in this thread have said, always-on items don't exist anymore. And you can't have an item with power exceeding twice your Lore.
So the situation isn't as bad as you might think. Crafting can still get pretty powerful though. Probably too powerful.
As for the First Law issue, check out question #5 over here (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,36777.0.html).
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Well that explains things a bit. We'd been using the pdf in lieu of the physical book for convenience, that and our friend who owned the book had to take a break and took it with him. He was also the wizard and we'd been building one to replace him and were all a little fuzzy on the magicky rules. Thanks for your help.
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Is there a way to tell if your book is the revised edition? or is there a link to the revised PDF?
This also came up at our game.
The basic justification of the player was crafting a weapon based on the warden's sword. Originally, we thought it was half the crafting strength but quickly realized that using those numbers would make it way to easy. Basically to the point of why would a crafting wizard not always have an uber weapon always on. So currently we are looking at a "double half rule". As in, take the wizards total crafting strength, reduce it to 1/4 the score (rounding down) and a total Lore (with stunts) equal to twice the end result then they would be able to produce an "always on" weapon.
(Total crafting strength bonus) - 3/4 = (weapon strength); (weapon strength) x 2 = (equal to or less than total Lore)]
Example: Total crafting strength of +12 (Lore +Refinements +Crafting Foci) and a total Lore of +6 (Superb + Enchanting stunt)
12 (Total crafting strength bonus) - 3/4 = 3 (weapon strength); 3 (weapon strength) x 2 = 6 (equal to or less than total Lore)]
Given this formula they could create a permanent weapon:3 that eats up one enchantment slot.
Note: We are also looking at Armor being reduced to 1/8 total strength.
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This also came up at our game. Is there a way to tell if your book is the revised edition? or is there a link to the revised PDF?
Best way I've come up with so far is to see if the book allows always-on enchanted items or not, since that's the context I always see this come up in.
What are all the differences, anyway?
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That is kind of my question as well. I did not see an errata section on evil hat.
As for the crafting section; I did not see any rules that stated that "always on" items are not allowed, but I also did not see any rules stating that they were allow either. All of the examples are for Use/ session while at the same time having the warden sword as always weapon:3. We assumed that since the only one so far capable of crafting something like this is the senior warden, an almost senior council member level wizard, it would take some serious dedication to crafting in order to create something on par. Thus our rule; lots of items slots used up in Thaumaturgy focus items and many, many refinements in Thaumaturgy, plus crafting/ resource stunts as you cant expect a powerful permanent enchanted weapon to be made from a janitors mop (or some other low level resource item.
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The Warden Sword being Weapon:3 has nothing to do with its enchantments, it's just that it's also a really well made mundane sword.
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I don't buy that. YS303 states the they were "enchanted by Captain Luccio to cut through both spells and matter."
Even a really well made sword is not on par with a desert eagle caliber pistol, rifles, shot guns, and fully automatic weapons in terms of raw destructive damage. The bulk of a melee weapons damage come from the skill and strength of the user not the weapon itself, while the bulk of the damage from these weapons come from the weapon itself. They are an order of magnitude more destructive then the weapon:2 category. Making a weapon:2 melee weapon into a weapon:3 melee weapon for anyone that picks it up needs some form of magic/ enchant to justify its increased level of raw damage output.
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I don't buy that. YS303 states the they were "enchanted by Captain Luccio to cut through both spells and matter."
Yes. That's the Weapon:6 effect.
Even a really well made sword is not on par with a desert eagle caliber pistol, rifles, shot guns, and fully automatic weapons in terms of raw destructive damage. The bulk of a melee weapons damage come from the skill and strength of the user not the weapon itself, while the bulk of the damage from these weapons come from the weapon itself. They are an order of magnitude more destructive then the weapon:2 category. Making a weapon:2 melee weapon into a weapon:3 melee weapon for anyone that picks it up needs some form of magic/ enchant to justify its increased level of raw damage output.
You're not understanding the weapon ratings. It's not an objective measure of how much physical damage one can do. It's a general measure of how "dangerous" it's supposed to be. The rulebook's own guidelines say that swords are Weapon:3.
A longsword is Weapon:3. Short swords/long knives are Weapon:2. Saying something has to have some kind of massive magical enchantment to be Weapon:3 is making things far more complicated than they are.
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I may be reading it to restrictively; as years of gaming and GM'ing has taught me to =P.
I see it as the chart defines it. swords are weapon:2, two-handed weapons are weapon:3; to me that means if a weapon requires both hands to use properly like pole arms, bows, and the like its a weapon:3, if its usable with one hand but could be used two hands i still classify it at weapon:2 like baseball bats and the majority of swords. Claymore sized swords would one of the few exceptions for swords at weapon:3. A longsword fits at weapon:2
Mind you, this is my interpretation of the rules as i have found most players will try to get away with what ever they can and it has been the Gm's job to rein them back in without being too restrictive/ uncompromising.
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Is there a way to tell if your book is the revised edition? or is there a link to the revised PDF?
It's not actually the revised edition; it's the published edition that removed the always-on enchantment concept. One of the .pdf versions of the rulebook that is circulating was effectively a beta version of the rules used for playtesting before official publication. At that point, the game developers were trying out always-on enchantments, but decided to ditch the concept for publication and instead have every enchanted item work on a uses per session basis. (The published rules don't bother to say you can't have always-on enchantments since they never introduce that as a possibility.)
Warden Swords were the primary example of an enchanted item from the fiction that fit a little awkwardly with the uses per session rule, but the version in YS is reasonable. The Weapon:3 part of the description is part of its base attributes as a sword, though, not an always-on enchantment. You can house-rule always-on enchantments back into the system, but the RAW don't support it and I believe the consensus of the boards is that crafting characters are sufficiently powerful (or over-powered) without that ability.
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The main differences between the books:
-Always-on enchanted items
-The "Lethal Weapon" stunt gets completely negated by any armor in the old book, whereas in the new one it gets incrementally negated.
Regarding the topic:
-Crafting does have one major advantage: Your Conviction skill becomes completely irrelevant for the purposes of Weapon rating. A Weapon:6 attack with 3x/session takes 2 enchanted item slots at crafting complexity 6 (easily doable with Lore 5 and a specialization/focus), and can be aimed by either Discipline or Weapons. The latter makes it a melee attack, but Strength powers apply, so ymmv. The tradeoff is: your accuracy cannot be enhanced by foci, so you cap at your maximum skill rating, whereas an evoker can easily get skill+3 at chargen.
-You don't actually need Always-on items. If an item runs out of uses, you can still use it by inflicting 1 mental stress on yourself. My Shield Bracer (Block:6/Armor:3 3x/session) has proven handy in games, and thus far, I've run out of uses twice.
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As has been mentioned, weapon ratings aren't meant to be objective descriptions of lethality. They're more like narrative guidelines on how dangerous they are in a fight.
That said, YS isn't clear on the subject of swords. The book states that a sword is a +2 weapon, but Warden Swords and Amoraccius (when neither are using their supernatural powers) are both +3. I'm inclined to overlook the discrepancy though and simply agree that large or extremely well-made weapons can inflict more Physical Stress than a basic model of their type.
As for the OP, whatever about the rules, you might be able to make a ridiculously powerful enchanted item, but there will be plenty out there who'll want to stop you using it. ;)
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Is there a way to tell if your book is the revised edition? or is there a link to the revised PDF?
Between the preorder/playtest and published/final versions, pages 2 and 3 of the table of contents have different layouts. Of the two, page 3 offers the most dramatic difference. This is the easiest visual way to distinguish the two versions.
Preorder:
Table of Contents, Page 3, there is a lot of white space under the first column, the sticky note sidebar spans column 1 and column 2. Chapter 14, 15, and 16 each receive their own column.
(http://i45.tinypic.com/200bbyf.png)
Published:
Table of Contents, Page 3, the sticky note sidebar is entirely within column 1, Chapter 15 is in column 1 (half-way down), chapter 16 is in column 2 (half-way down) and the only major white space is in column 3.
(http://i49.tinypic.com/im6s0j.png)
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With Lore 5, making base item strength 5, and then spending 7 more slots to up the power to 12, is there any reason I can't have a weapon:6 item with no limit to number of times used?
If so, why would a wizard ever need to use a damage spell? For 2 refresh you have weapon 6 item that doesn't require stress. You could get the required 8 item slots from channeling and ritual meaning that (other than the Lore 5 requirement, which can be fixed upon earning your first skill point) an "Up to your Waist" character could start the game with this.
Furthermore, as the warden sword, an enchanted item, gets around the First Law, would said weapon:6 enchanted item also not be subject to the First Law?
Thanks in advance for your help.
IIRC, the hard cap on the power of an enchanted item is twice your lore (with the arguable exception of possibly being able to break that from aspect tags). Additionally, 'half power always on' was dropped from the final rules, so bringing it back is a house rule in and of itself.
In other words, no, there is nothing stopping you from ignoring the power cap on enchanted items and adopting a house rule for always on items.
That out of the way, there isn't really a good reason to do it. You are blowing a LOT of refresh on something of questionable value. A variety of power 8/3 use (Lore 5, +3 craft power, +2 craft frequency) enchanted items will give you a lot more millage and usually be more effective. Above and beyond that, enchanted items are much more effective at blocks, uncontested maneuvers and utility rituals than they are at attacks. Enchanted weapons don't help with your targeting rolls, and while it can be useful to drop the occasional WR 8, Zone buster, unless swarms account for the vast majority of your opposition, you can relegate that to a potion slot.