Stunt Balance Problems

[ways and means]

Your right it doesn't say you can't use two charges a turn well I suppose with the appropriate investment that isn't anymore unreasonable than a discipline maxing wizard for raw damage.

[Haru]

First, I know of no rule limiting you to activating one enchanted weapon per turn. A page reference would be appreciated if possible.

Second, the resource investment needed to make the stunt overpowered is not relevant. Partly because stunts are not drawn from a fixed list, but mostly because some characters will have made that investment anyway.

Well, you are right, there is no rule that explicitly says that you can only activate one enchanted item. But I kind of see it as a given, that activating an enchanted item is a full action. In the case of an enchanted weapon, you choose to activate the weapon and then make the appropriate attack roll, which can be the weapon skill, but you could also activate and target a spell imbued in a sword with discipline or any other skill you chose when enchanting it. That means, there is no attack roll with the swords, there is an attack roll for the spell on the sword, and the stunt would not apply. At least that's the way how I interpret enchanted items.

There is however the case of Harry using all of his force ring charges at once, which would contradict this. Though that might be doable by trading in uses for power on that one occasion, if the GM allows. Again, that would be how I'd probably do it.

[ways and means]

Then in terms of rules attacking with two weapons is two turn (attacks) the stunt allows you to gain half the benefit of a second attack, so as long as the two attack with enchanted weapons resolve as one attack I don't see why it can't be done, activating and enchanted item dosen't take at turn (see enchanted blocks) attack with them does.

[wyvern]

activating and enchanted item dosen't take at turn (see enchanted blocks)

Actually, that's written as a special exception for defensive items, which - at least as I read it - strongly supports the interpretation that the base assumption is for an enchanted item to take a standard action to activate.

And, since you can't make a magical attack that has a duration in it, that quite solidly puts the clapper on dual-wielding weapon 10 enchanted swords.

[Sanctaphrax]

Pretty sure that Haru's interpretation is wrong.

First of all, the attack with the sword can be treated mechanically as the targeting roll for the enchanted item activation. This is explicitly allowed.

And secondly, the Warden Sword's writeup seems to indicate that the dual-wielding trick works.

[ways and means]

Here is the Warden Swords write up from Your Story, it seems to support Sanctaphrax's interpretation.

Warden Sword
Built by Luccio’s formerly impressive crafting,
the Sword can produce one of the following
magical effects 3 times per session:

The Sword may be treated as a Weapon:6
item for one attack.

This means that in the case of duel wielding warden swords with the stunt you are dealing with weapons 8 with one enchanted item use or weapons 9 with 2 enchanted item uses, pretty good. If you taking this with an optimized crafter you get a 12 weapon attack with one use and a 15 weapon attack with 2 enchanted items uses, pretty grim.   

No where does it actually say using an enchanted item effect takes up a turn so this build is raw as you are only attacking once in the turn. In fact if using the enchanted item cost a turn that would mean you couldn't attack on the same turn as you used the swords as you would need 1 turn to use your enchanted item to buff your sword and another to attack with the buffed sword that and the fact that enchanted blocks don't cost a turn to activate seems to indicate that using enchanted items doesn't cost a turn of itself but attacking with or maneuvering  with enchanted items does.

[wyvern]

...Activating the enchanted item *is* the attack.  As in, you spend your action, and you get the magical effect of a melee attack at weapon: 6, using your weapons skill to determine the accuracy.

No, it doesn't say anywhere what kind of action activating an item is, except for that one line on YS280 about "Defensive items often don't require a separate action to activate" - which can be interpreted as an extension of the rules for free actions on YS213, where it states that defense is a free action.  I'd also point out here that YS213 is very clear that free actions are limited to what the group & GM is willing to allow.  So - you can, by RAW, activate your two enchanted swords, and your enchanted armlet that gives you a free tag on "burst of speed", and whatever other junk you've got on hand, letting you make your attack at weapons skill plus 2 (or more!) and weapon rating 15 if and only if your gaming group & GM is OK with that.  I wouldn't be.

[Sanctaphrax]

Mmm. Semantics. wyvern's reading is valid, but not necessarily correct.

The fact that we are even having this discussion is proof that the stunt interacts badly with Crafting.

The original question of this thread, the one that I actually want to discuss is, how do you handle things like this?

Looking around for technicalities in the rules to solve the problem is not a good approach. It just leads to endless arguments and bad precedents.

Does anyone have a better idea?

[Haru]

Well, like I said, I try to look not at the wording but at the intent behind a stunt. Most of the times, it solves the issues. The rules state pretty clearly, what a stunt can and can't do, if it is doing more than that, it should be dialled down to a version where it would work as intended.

Example:
In the case of Off-Hand Weapon Training, I look at the table of what weapon ratings the author feels one handed melee weapons should have. That is effectively 1 or 2. A weapon:3 would already be a two handed weapon. If you then look at the stunt again, it gives you half the weapon rating rounded up, which in both cases (weapon 1 or 2) would be a +1 weapon rating. That means, the stunt could also be worded "grants +1 weapon rating when attacking with both a main and off-hand weapon.", which would make it fit perfectly into the stunt rules. The only situation it would not apply like that, would be when someone was attacking with 2 twohanded weapons and supernatural strength or hulking size, that would become a +2 bonus by the original wording, which might or might not be granted on a case by case basis, but since hulking size and strength already provide much additional stress, that 1 point is not going to make a big difference.

If in the game there still comes a situation, where a stunt (alone or in combination with a power) would cause problems, I would simply look at what the stunt should do at the most. So if the wording of the stunt would provide the character with a +3 on a maneuver, I'd reduce that to the +2 it should be. More than +1 on an attack? Same thing.

[ways and means]

I disagree with you about Off-Hand Weapon Training if they wanted to give a +1 to weapons they would have given a +1 to weapons, considering that the level strength gets to in the game (at mythic strength you could duel wield London buses)  the bonus is meant slide between 1-3 depending on the strength of the character. Though I personally think the stunt would be better with flat out +2 to weapons rating when duel wielding which would fit the stunt guideline.   

I usually try to go with perceived aims of stunts which doesn't steer me wrong when gming when playing I like to interpret stunts towards my aims. Infuriate is an odd stunt it is clearly meant to benefit both mental and social attacks and maneuvers (it was explicitly stated in the stunt) with the aim of enraging someone, I suppose to balance it I would make the stunt give a +1 but not make all consequences it dealt reference the PC who created them. This would make the stunt compatible with the stunt guidelines and also make it more powerful than its current version as it would allows PC's with the stunt to get enemies to fight each other rather than causing enemies to attack the PC). 

[Sanctaphrax]

Okay, sounds reasonable.

Thanks.

[Blackblade]

I simply wouldn't allow infuriate to stack with Incite Emotion. 

[Sanctaphrax]

That would also work.

[UmbraLux]

I have to question the premise a bit.  Not anything Sanctaphrax said about the stunts interacting - it certainly would appear to provide the stated bonuses.  My question is, why is that a problem?

Seriously.  This is a game where people consistently discuss optimizations allowing +10 or better spellcasting.  A game where everyone can gain a +2 every round just by making an appropriate Declaration.  Why are these interactions, which gain +1 to +2 for the most part, seen as egregious? 

Even the worst of them - dual wielding - is only an issue if you're already allowing escalated weapon values. 

[Sanctaphrax]

Because you can make stunts freely.

If it's okay for stunts to interact in ways that make them more powerful than they should be, then why not just design such things into them?

I really like stunts. I think that their power level is great. I don't want to see it messed with.

PS: Optimization does not preclude the use of stunts. Optimizing for social combat is all about stunts, in fact. And sometimes two combat stunts are better than a level of Strength or Speed or Toughness or Recovery.