feedback on custom charm

[Altered Carbon]

I created this for one of my players, before I unleash it and him on creation I wanted to get any feed back you may have.  Let me explain a bit.  I wanted a starting character to be able to archive this without buying up Essence. There will be follow up charms at a later time.


Any input on balance or other comments are welcomed and appreciated.  And for all you Bleach fans yes this is a slightly disguised version of what will become a Zanpakuto tree.


FORGING THE SOUL’S EDGE


Cost: 5 motes of committed essence


Mins: Melee 4, Essence 2


Type: Permanent


Keywords: None


Duration: N/A


Prerequisite Charms: Summoning the Loyal Steel


This charm was created by a first age Dawn cast who unfortunately took its secrets to the grave during the usurpation, but now he has returned.  When five motes of essence are committed, in a 20 minute ritual similar to attuning an artifact, this charm creates a blade that represents the soul of its owner.  The weapon has the following statistics based on the Virtues of the Exalt, plus the material bonuses for the magical metal attuned to the Exalt.


Speed = 6 – Temperance/2


Accuracy = Conviction


Damage = Willpower


Defense = Compassion


Rate = 1 + Valor/2


(Round up for all division)


If the characters Virtues change the creation ritual must be repeated.  In addition this weapon has the ability to harm spirits and ghosts, but does not give the wilder the ability to perceive them.  In all other ways it is a real weapon and can be stolen, but it will dissipate after 24 hours away from its owner.  Alternatively the Exalt can drop the commitment of essence and the sword will disappear, but the commitment ritual will have to be repeated to summon it again. The weapon cannot be destroyed nor damaged in any way other than by killing its creator.  If its creator is slain the weapon vanishes.

 

[Yakumo]

First, make it clear if the Virtue/2 ratings are rounded up or down.


At a glance, too over powered for the min-maxer.  I'd expect anyone looking for this to kick up two virtues, for the higher willpower too, and buy willpower up cheap.  An example of the results would be my recent Lunar character, who I kicked up to 10 WP without anything like this.  He would get:


With Temp 5, Speed 3 or 4.


Wth Conv 2, Accuracy 2.


With Will 10.  Damage 10, that's a lot and with 2 accuracy and 4 defense.


With Compasion 4, Defense 4


With Valor 1, Rate 1 or 2.


Granted low rate, but some cheap xp and that can be kicked up easy.  Don't have Glorious Solar Saber in front of me, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't come anywhere near what this is.  Oh yeah, and GSS can't automatically effect (assumedly) dematerialized spirits and ghosts.  And it IS a Ess 3 charm.


Granted GSS can be called back and does agg to CoD, but I don't think that balances out.


As to the duration.  I understand the attunement thing is longer than the instant simple charm, but it just seems off to me.


Now if you're game revolves around a lot of virtue effecting charms...then interesting, but it's going to be difficult to comment without way more info, and by that point we're probably way off canon (not a bad thing, but little base for everyone to work with).

 

[Jeppe]

I assume saying that a charm as you propose already exist with Glorious Solar Sabre isn't going to hold any value for you, so I'll just say that at a glance, if you wanna have a low Essence alternative, the charm seems fine. The only thing I can find is, that the charm shouldn't be permanent, it should be simple and have an Indefinite duration.

 

[Moonsilver]

Its hard to comment on one Charm before you see the tree. It does seem over powered for the first Charm of a tree though.

 

[Praedoran]

It's interesting


It's about equivalent of an attunement 5 weapon.  Aside from the character min-maxing his virtues and willpower, this is a fine charm.  Then, assuming that one did, it still wouldn't be as powerful as an artifact you spent those bonus points on.  However, it would take away the Special Materials bonus because that puts it a little over the top.  Besides, why is it getting that bonus when it's more of a magical representation of a person's soul?


Also, if you're trying to go for the Bleach theme, making the sword unbreakable is really taking away from the feel of the series.  Bleach takes a lot of inspiration from traditional samurai mythology, ie. the blade is an extention of one's soul there as well.  When a character's blade is broken in the series, it's a major thing and often symbolizes defeat on a very deep level.


Perhaps make it unbreakable so as long as the character possesses temporary Willpower?  Or the sword can be broken in place of death (like suffering an amputation or debilitating wound).  I'm just running ideas off the top of my head at the moment.