Items of Power, Size, and Refinements?

[citadel97501]

Hello all,

I had a couple questions that came up when I was thinking about using William Forsythe's world of Haven, so here they are.  (Book is Crystal Warriors, yeah I know a crap-tastic title.)

1) How big does the item need to be to get the +2 bonus, rather than the +1?  I was specifically thinking of a Belt?   

2) Is it OK to use refinements on an item of power, to improve your spell casting, I would probably avoid using it to improve Crafting even though that would be incredibly powerful, as it would be odd that you would get the bonus for your permanent items even if you lost the item. 

[Haru]

1)
The passage about the discount says, that you only get 1 point of refresh back, if the item is difficult to detect and can be concealed, which is definitely the case with a belt buckle.

2)
I don't see a problem with a refinement IoP, only one thing: an IoP should probably not be used for focus item slots, because those have to be items by definition, so you would simply get refinement for free by making your focus items an item of power. I would have no problem though, with a ring that provides fire if you already have evocation (and probably provide a fire specialization too, because you would need at least 2 refinement on the item, to get the discount).

I don't have a problem with an IoP for Crafting. Only one thing: if you lose the IoP, you still have the enchanted items you made with it. But once you use those items, you have to recharge them, and for that you don't have your IoP, so you would have to decrease the item accordingly. And the IoP should probably be something that is actually used to create the item, like a hammer, a carving knife, something like that.

[Belial666]

1) The item has to be obvious, as the passage says. That has nothing to do with size though. You could have a ring or amulet as an IoP but if, for some reason, you could not or did not conceal it you'd get the full discount. I.e. Nicodemus has the Barrabus Noose that is just a piece of rope around his neck. But he has never concealed it even after Dresden realized what it could do (maybe he can't?) and thus gets the full discount.


2) An IoP should not give refinement directly because refinenent is a variable bonus - different people take it for different things and a fixed item should give fixed bonuses. It should also not give fixed specialization bonuses because it then might boost someone with specializations of his own outside the specialization pyramid. It could be a focus even though foci are items already for two reasons; first, an IoP would be noticeable a lot more than the smaller foci (who can be easily concealable small jewelry). Secondly, an IoP always has strings attached; it is usable only within a specific agenda. Thus the focus in question would have you follow that agenda if you are using it (think of the Blackstaff). Finally, IoPs could easily be special cases of enchanted items. Think of an IoP runecarved staff for example, each gem-studded rune on it having a different power as a minor enchanted item. In that case, the IoP does not actually give you enchanted item slots; you are using the enchanted item rules to describe the IoP's fixed powers instead.

Just remember that it being obvious and it having an agenda should always be part of major items of power. Each of those things is, essentially, why you get the rebate. +1 or being obvious. Another +1 for the agenda.