Artifact -- what's fair?

[Kkat]

Situation #1:


An dusk-caste abyssal character has a charm that gives her bone spikes that can jut out of her body upon charm activation. The player would like to spend background points on Artifact as per a Soulsteel Bloodspike Harness, but instead of having the harness, the character's bone spikes have been coated with soulsteel.


I'm generally of the opinion that this is acceptable, and that the bone spikes would gain the stats of a soulsteel bloodspike harness wherever those stats exceed those normally associated with the bone spikes. However, I would like some second opinions. What do you think?


--Kkat

 

[Brickwall]

Necrotech surgery to coat someone's bones in soulsteel? Awesome...


For 1 dot, I'd make it just add the Soulsteel bonus to her bone spikes and maybe give her soak as per a soulsteel chain shirt, but no Hardness. And that'd be a 3m attunement, I suppose.

 

[Kkat]

Sounds good. How about for two dots?


The basis I was looking at was the Bloodspike Harness artifact, which is a two-dot artifact. The Charm this is being associated with is Five Knife Fist (Abyssals pg 126). I was thinking of giving no soak bonuses, but giving the character's unarmed attacks when using Five Knife Fist the bonuses of soulsteel, and giving clinch attacks the higher damage rate associated with the Bloodspike Harness. At a cost of 5m attunement.


How does that sound?


--Kkat

 

[Virjigorm]

This sounds like a really cool artifact/charm synergy with interesting flavor to boot, I'm for it.


Maybe this could be a tattoo of soulsteel added to the character's body and bound to their Essence by necromancy. It would be similar in appearance to a Lunar tattoo artifact, just without the clawspeak words depicting deeds. It could be symbolic representations of blades or some such with necromantic glyphs worked in(or something at least as cool).


Mechanically, I'd make it as an artifact weapon with full stats for its rating, which would stack with charms instead of using base weapon stats(artifact bonuses only). The tattoo factor makes it impossible to lose, but that can be balanced in the following way: The weapon is used as a set of bonuses that can be added to Essence-based natural attacks. It stacks it's stats with charms like Five Knife Fist (or anything similar to Claws of the Silver Moon or Deadly Starmetal Offensive) and also with spell-created natural weapons like Wood Dragon's Claw or even Incomparable Body Arsenal; however, it cannot be used without modifying an Essence-based effect. It can never be wielded as a stand-alone weapon. This may seem overpowered at first, but compare it to any other artifact weapon whose attack is enhanced by charms and I think it will balance nicely. The no-Essence, no-weapon factor is a significant balance to the power of such a weapon, since a clever enemy with charms like Power Disrupting Blow or Charm Redirection Technique (or similar effects) can take the artifact out of the fight in addition to making it hard to use magic in the first place.


Hope this helps (I may use it myself, come to think of it!)

 

[Kkat]

Situation #2:


The same character has taken the Charm Writhing Blood Chain Technique twice, and just spent the experience points to make those charms a permanent effect. Now the character seeks to have her chains coated with soulsteel as well.


As with Five Knife Fist and the Bloodspike Harness, I'm thinking of using a soulsteel Dire Chain as a mechanical basis. Now the number of chains the charm Writhing Blood Chain Technique grows is largely special effects -- the charm gives a single extra action (so taking it twice gives the character two extra actions). As such, I'm thinking that the attune cost would be six motes, equal to two Dire Chains. Does this seem fair?


--Kkat

 

[GraySky]

And what happens if the attunement lapses?

 

[FluffySquirrel]

"I swear this never happens .. they're normally as hard as steel!.. .. .. give me half an hour to reattune and we'll try again?"

 

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

"I swear this never happens .. they're normally as hard as steel!.. .. .. give me half an hour to reattune and we'll try again?"

LOL AWESOME!!!

 

[Kkat]

LOL!


If the attunement lapses? The most obvious answer is that the character will lose the material bonuses, and no longer be the recipient of the motes stolen by successful attacks. However, there could easily be even less fortuitous consequences considering the quasi-sentient nature of the chains.


--Kkat

 

[Kyeudo]

Go with the Tatoo Artifact solution: since they can't be taken away, they also can't be unattuned.

 

[Kkat]

Go with the Tatoo Artifact solution: since they can't be taken away, they also can't be unattuned.

That's a great idea, actually. I'll do it that way!


The character's soulsteel natural weapons give a significant advantage, but she is also seeing a pretty sizable chunk of her motes swallowed up in committed essence.


--Kkat