The One Ring DFRPG Stats

[Sanctaphrax]

I assume that everyone here is at least somewhat familiar with The Lord Of The Rings.

So the following Item of Power ought to look pretty familiar.

THE ONE RING [-1]
Description: A simple gold ring. The Dark Lord Sauron invested it with most of his power, and if he should recover it he will surely conquer Middle Earth. The One Ring is semi-sentient, and those around it are frequently enslaved by its power.
Musts: You must have an aspect related to your possession of this item. This aspect should reflect your relationship to the Ring and the level of control that it has over you.
Skills Affected: Discipline
Effects:
[-0] Purpose. The One Ring was created to bring Sauron dominion over Middle Earth. It may be used for any purpose, but its wearer and those around its wearer will often receive compels related to this purpose.
[-0] It Is What It Is. The One Ring is a ring. Pretty ordinary looking, except for the words that appear when it is burned.
[-0] Unbreakable. As an Item of Power, this item cannot be broken except by the fires of Mount Doom.
[+1] One-Time Discount. The One Ring is small and easily concealed.
[+1] Corrupting Influence. The One Ring slowly takes over the mind of its wearer. Treat as Feeding Dependency, except that the wearer may not recover his Hunger stress by any means.
[-3] Invisibility. The One Ring turns its wearer invisible, creating a strength 5 veil that does not impede the vision of its wearer.

I wanted to do this ages ago, but I couldn`t until I had an invisibility power to work with.

I would appreciate it if some Tolkein fan could tell me if I missed something here. I never read LoTR.

[Magickal_Grenadier]

Looks pretty good to me. I've read LotR a few times.

[Todjaeger]

[+1] Corrupting Influence. The One Ring slowly takes over the mind of its wearer. Treat as Feeding Dependency, except that the wearer may not recover his Hunger stress by any means.

Personally I'd replace Corrupting Influence with Demonic Co-pilot, since the semi-sentient nature of the Ring gives it an agenda (get back to Sauron, or be claimed by a Being of Power), but then again that's my take on it.

In many respects, I'd consider the Ring to act the way a series of silver coins with the face of Tiberius act, getting lost, dropped or falling off whenever it seems most convenient to advance the item's agenda.

-Cheers

[wyvern]

Strength five for three refresh seems a bit weak to me.  I mean, compare to glamours - if your skill cap is 5 (and you have high discipline or deceit), glamours is both cheaper and better.  Or compare to a warden sword - that's a six shift effect, albeit with mental stress per use (which honestly seems pretty appropriate to me for the One Ring anyway) for a quarter of a refresh.  I'd expect a three refresh personal invisibility to be more like strength equal to your skill cap plus four.

Also, with no way to recover from the corrupting influence, I'd think that's worth more than a mere +1 modifier.  So I'd second the use of Demonic Co-Pilot.

Hm.  Were I actually statting the thing out, I'd probably make both the power that it offers & the corrupting influence scale with the total spent refresh of the bearer; a hobbit can carry it (and even use it) without too terrible much danger - but if Gandalf picked it up, well, he'd become horribly powerful and nearly-instantly enslaved.  Not sure quite how to put that in terms of game mechanics, though.

[Sanctaphrax]

wyvern, please take discussion of Invisibility to the Custom Powers Master List thread. This isn`t really the place. (But since you brought it up, let me point out that Invisibility is always on. It takes no action and it has no limit on its uses. Plus it blocks attacks. So that 3 refresh buys you a constant Superb defense on top of the stealth effect.)

I actually considered Demonic Co-Pilot, but I decided against it because as far as I know the ring never boosts anybody`s skills.

Corrupting Influence is probably worth more than +1, but rebates can`t reduce costs below -1.

And yes, the ring is surprisingly similar to the Denarian coins. It probably isn`t totally coincidental.

If anyone has any ideas for making the power of the ring scale with the user`s power, I wanna hear them.

[Tedronai]

The true power of the One Ring was not mere invisibility, but to allow the wearer to exert influence over the wearer of the other Rings (thus the rise of the Ringwraiths).
One Ring to rule them all, after all.

[ARedthorn]

Yes, but we never actually see anyone use that ability except for sauron (before he lost it)... galadriel seems to think she could, but that's unproven. It might be best to leave the more complicated powers off of the stat-block, but make a notation that the powers as listed barely scratch the surface of what the ring SHOULD be capable of.

I also like the idea of Demonic Co-Pilot... the stat-boost when working with the ring seems right to me... and it's an existing mechanic for semi-sentience.

[devonapple]

Some disadvantages:
Ringwraiths could easily see the Ringbearer when he was using the One Ring to be invisible, though that could have been done by Invoking an Aspect or something else.

IIRC, the One Ring, when worn, also acted like a homing beacon for Sauron.

[Silverblaze]

Could give it:

Glamours -2
-1 ring has a discipline/deceit of Fantastic for glamours only.
Allows for str 2 or str 10 veils

-1 demonic co - pilot (also signifies them going crazy from stress (see what i did there? stress....)

Could give/assume wraiths have

Special Senses: ring bearer (even while invisible)
Same for Sauron.

[Sanctaphrax]

Ringwraiths probably have Supernatural Senses that let them find the ring.

Sauron can just use divination. He's a link to the ring in himself.

I guess I'll give the ring demonic co-pilot after all. Maybe link it to the Hunger track.

Will try a Domination variant for the control of other ring-wearers. Maybe I'll have the variant target Hunger stress instead of Mental stress.

Will also add a note saying that not every wearer gets every power.

[Sanctaphrax]

How's this look?

THE ONE RING [-3]
Description: A simple gold ring. The Dark Lord Sauron invested it with most of his power, and if he should recover it he will surely conquer Middle Earth. The One Ring is semi-sentient, and those around it are frequently enslaved by its power.
Musts: You must have an aspect related to your possession of this item. This aspect should reflect your relationship to the Ring and the level of control that it has over you.
Note: Not every bearer of this item gets every power that it has to offer. Everyone gets Invisibility, but Demonic Co-Pilot is only gained by characters of unusual skill or power. Only major supernatural beings get One Ring To Rule Them All. Everyone except Sauron gets Corrupting Influence.
Skills Affected: Discipline
Effects:
[-0] Purpose. The One Ring was created to bring Sauron dominion over Middle Earth. It may be used for any purpose, but its wearer and those around its wearer will often receive compels related to this purpose.
[-0] It Is What It Is. The One Ring is a ring. Pretty ordinary looking, except for the words that appear when it is burned.
[-0] Unbreakable. As an Item of Power, this item cannot be broken except by the fires of Mount Doom.
[+1] One-Time Discount. The One Ring is small and easily concealed.
[+2] Corrupting Influence. The One Ring slowly takes over the mind of its wearer. Treat as Feeding Dependency, except that the wearer may not recover his Hunger stress by any means.
[-3] Invisibility. The One Ring turns its wearer invisible, creating a strength 5 veil that does not impede the vision of its wearer.
[-1] Demonic Co-Pilot. Uses the Hunger stress track instead of the mental one.
[-2?] One Ring To Rule Them All. The One Ring allows its wearer to inflict compels on other characters who have rings of power. The first such compel made against a given character each month is free, each one after that costs a Fate Point or a point of Sponsor Debt.

[ARedthorn]

Add Wizard's Constitution, and I think you've got it spot on Sancta... after all, Bilbo got at least an extra couple decades out of it, and Golum a few hundred years... mind, they were decidedly worse for wear at that point, but...

[Howl]

Add Wizard's Constitution, and I think you've got it spot on Sancta... after all, Bilbo got at least an extra couple decades out of it, and Golum a few hundred years... mind, they were decidedly worse for wear at that point, but...

Wizards Constitution is a great idea. It does prolong the life of the wearer. And the ring is perfectly done Sanctaphrax.

[Sanctaphrax]

Alright, can I call this a finished product now?

THE ONE RING [-3]
Description: A simple gold ring. The Dark Lord Sauron invested it with most of his power, and if he should recover it he will surely conquer Middle Earth. The One Ring is semi-sentient, and those around it are frequently enslaved by its power.
Musts: You must have an aspect related to your possession of this item. This aspect should reflect your relationship to the Ring and the level of control that it has over you.
Note: Not every bearer of this item gets every power that it has to offer. Everyone gets Invisibility, but Demonic Co-Pilot is only gained by characters of unusual skill or power. Only major supernatural beings get One Ring To Rule Them All. Everyone except Sauron gets Corrupting Influence.
Skills Affected: Discipline
Effects:
[-0] Purpose. The One Ring was created to bring Sauron dominion over Middle Earth. It may be used for any purpose, but its wearer and those around its wearer will often receive compels related to this purpose.
[-0] It Is What It Is. The One Ring is a ring. Pretty ordinary looking, except for the words that appear when it is burned.
[-0] Unbreakable. As an Item of Power, this item cannot be broken except by the fires of Mount Doom.
[+1] One-Time Discount. The One Ring is small and easily concealed.
[+2] Corrupting Influence. The One Ring slowly takes over the mind of its wearer. Treat as Feeding Dependency, except that the wearer may not recover his Hunger stress by any means.
[-0] Unnatural Vitality. The One Ring keeps its bearers alive, no matter how badly the passing of time might wither them. This power is mechanically identical to Wizard's Constitution.
[-3] Invisibility. The One Ring turns its wearer invisible, creating a strength 5 veil that does not impede the vision of its wearer.
[-1] Demonic Co-Pilot. Uses the Hunger stress track instead of the mental one.
[-2?] One Ring To Rule Them All. The One Ring allows its wearer to inflict compels on other characters who have rings of power. The first such compel made against a given character each month is free, each one after that costs a Fate Point or a point of Sponsor Debt.

[Tedronai]

Still don't think Corrupting Influence is priced appropriately.  The inability to recover from that stress is incredibly detrimental.

One Ring To Rule Them All is at the very least worded incorrectly.  Players can never 'inflict compels' on any others' characters, but only ever invoke-for-effect to trigger a compel that is then adjudicated by the GM (who serves as arbiter over, among other things, what is a reasonable compel).
Moreover, I feel that it is overpriced if all it then truly grants is a monthly free tag (per other ringbearer) that has additional usage limitations (can't be used to add to rolls or to re-roll) and to grant access to sponsor debt for such a limited purpose.
I would escalate the free tag availability to one per scene, limit their useability to ringbearers present at the time, explicitly allow FPs to be spent to invoke-for-effect against absent ringbearers, and to grant access to sponsor debt for either of the above as well as uses fitting the ring's other powers and its purpose.