Minimum Ability Requirements on Crafting Artifacts/Manses

Flyck

Flyck

Senior Member
Sup guys.  In my gaming group, we've got a player who is playing a smithing character, and is attempting to build artifacts.  My characters a Manse-architect.  My query is this.  Neither of our characters are Essence 6.  Mine's at 3, his is attaining 4 shortly.  With that said, the minimum ability requirements for crafting an artifact of rating 4 is 6 (7 for artifact 5), while Manse is a total of 15 for rating 4 (20 for 5).  Now, we've ruled out that charms, or dice bonuses don't apply to that requirement.  But as per Oed's Codex and main book, an artifact of 3 can build increase abilities to a max of +6.  


So my question is this:  What is your guys' view on artifacts adding to the abilities, and whether or not that would apply to the ability minimum.  For instance, by adding +2 to Lore, Craft Fire, and Occult, could someone with 5 base dots in those abilities craft an Artifact of 5?   Or do you guys see Essence 6 as a base minimum for crafting Artifacts of 4, and Essence 7 for crafting artifacts and manses of essence 5?  Viewpoints?  Opinions?
 
I didn't know about this restriction, curses.


Do specialties count against it?


I mean could you have craft fire:5 and then a craft speciality: orichalcum/artifacts/daiklaives/etc 2 for a total craft of 7 when making artifacts?
 
Why did you rule out Charm use?  Oadenol's Codex has a specific Charm made for building Artifacts and Manses (WONDER-FORGING GENIUS), lowering the minimums on building Artifacts by one dot each and the minimum total for building Manses by three dots (and you can buy it TWICE).  Page 29 of the Codex, if you're curious.
 
I fail to see why artifacts that increase abilities wouldn't count (as long as they are used for all the duration of the crafting, ofc).
 
One of the PCs in my game is currently at the level where he can only produce low level artifacts, but he plans to bootstrap himself into mastery by making a bunch of lesser artifacts which boost his crafting abilities. I don't see any problem with this at all.
 
I'd allow both artifacts and specialties to count as rating, although the artifacts present a bit of a slippery slope argument if you want to get pedantic about it. Namely, say you have an artifact that adds +2 to Occult. There are two ways to interpret this: a) the artifact gives two dice to Occult rolls and b) the artifact adds two dots to Occult. To use as minimums for crafting, you essentially have to pick interpretation b. If you do, someone could also argue that, since it is adding dots, this artifact also increases your dice pool limit. That's either good or bad, depending on your point of view.


In an extreme example, say an artifact gives +5 to, say, Occult, added to an Occult that is already 5. Let's say a solar using the artifact is making a roll with Occult + Int (also 5) and a specialty of 3. Under option a (Int 5, Occult 5, specialty 3, +5 dice), a roll without charms means he uses 18 dice. Under option b (Int 5, Occult 10, specialty 3), a roll without charms also means he uses 18 dice. If the user also does a maximum First Excellency, under option a, he spends 10 motes and gets 28 dice: 13 normally, 10 from the excellency, 5 from the artifact (which doesn't count against limits). Under option b, he spends 15 motes and gets 33 dice: 18 normally, 15 from the excellency.


This would tend to matter a lot more for terrestrials, essentially giving them solar-level dice pools with cheap excellencies. Pool max for terrestrials is Ability + Specialty. Under the same "max First Excellency" situation above, using option a costs 4 motes and gives 26 dice: 13 normally, 8 from the excellency, 5 from the artifact. Using option b costs 7 motes and gives 31 dice: 18 normally, 13 from the excellency.


If you go with option b, you also have to potentially deal with ability minimums for charms.


I suppose you could just add riders to allow the artifact to add dots for one purpose, but not others. What's one more freaking special case rule in Exalted.


In any case, you might be interested in the charts in my Sciences system, which are largely canonical in terms of ability requirements.
 
It seems like you get frustrated by the Exalted system because you deconstruct it too much.


Granted there are a few particularly heinous gray areas, but in general, if a solution isn't fairly obvious to all involved using common sense, a quick ST ruling is all that's needed to keep things on an even keel.
 
Why did you rule out Charm use?  Oadenol's Codex has a specific Charm made for building Artifacts and Manses (WONDER-FORGING GENIUS)' date=' lowering the minimums on building Artifacts by one dot each and the minimum total for building Manses by three dots (and you can buy it TWICE).  Page 29 of the Codex, if you're curious.[/quote']
The problem to the Wonder Forging Genius, is that we're playing Dragon Blooded.  To the best of my knowledge, that's a Solar charm.


As I'm co-running the game as one of the 2 STs, it's difficult for me to come to a conclusion on the ruling.  While a quick ST ruling should in theory fix the problem, that of course causes resentment as by ruling I have some difficulty in seeing how Essence 3 or 4 Exalts could craft greater Manses of epic proportion or immense creation-shaping Artifacts, let alone a DB.  By that setup, the Realm (let alone Lookshy) should be well on their way to unlocking Magitech and other First Age wonders and creating/recreating horrendously powerful N/A artifacts on their own.  Afterall an epic suit of rating 5 armor of 3 different MM types and colossally powerful manses with colossally powerful Hearthstones is what we're looking at having built right now while our group has some 'downtime' from a recently completed Wyld Hunt.  


On the flip side, we're looking at engaging in the Locust War and possibly FaFL's legion.


By saying Artifacts add Dice and not Abilities, then comes the issue of resentment by player for not being able to build what he wanted.  And he does bring up a good point that under the max-bonus guideline for an Artifact 3, it does say 'Ability +6', implying that it would boost the ability and thereby would meet the requirements.  While I'm not keen of just handing over free reign to build an Artifact of 5 (and I'd definitely say "No, you don't have the exotic materials needed in your manse"), at the same time I'm not too keen of saying 'Sorry, you can't build that unless you're Essence 7 or more.  And if a ruling was made that that could count for crafting minimums, then in theory it would also add to the largest potential bonus dice pool, far exceeding the normal DB max of Ability+Specialty.  At which point, every DB might as well have some generic 3-rating Daiklaive of +X Melee, a Power Bow of +X Archery, etc... in order to bypass an intended limitation to their bonus dice-pools.


But that could also be limited by saying the artifact's ability increase matters for casting or charm minimum requirements, but not for dice pool increases.  As you can see, I'm kinda in a tough spot and this topic did end up coming up in the middle of game, and effectively brought progress grinding to a halt until we can figure out what we can and can't build.
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Bah, who needs to build manses the old fashioned way, just learncelestial sorcery, there's a spell to turn all demesnes within a user set radius to manses and telepor their hearthstones back to you. Result :)


*Bricked*
 
Smeggedoff said:
Bah, who needs to build manses the old fashioned way, just learncelestial sorcery, there's a spell to turn all demesnes within a user set radius to manses and telepor their hearthstones back to you. Result :)
*Bricked*
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/facepalm


Would be nice... If I was a Celestial Exalted...
 
ah, right. I did indeed just read you saying you were dragonblooded, awfully sorry old chap.


out of interest do assistants give you dice or add temp dots to your ability?
 
They add dice.  Some of them though, you're almost better at being an assistant for (considering their power level and how much dice they'd be throwing around).
 
unfortunate, maybe make it a quest? spread rumours of a factory-cathedral or legendary manse-workshop that the crafter and manse maker would have to work together to restore, but once done would give them improved skill while they work inside its walls?
 
He's already got a workplace-manse that's pretty impressive.  Nothing short of rebuilding Lookshy's Factory Cathedral could top that.
 
well then, my suggestions boil down to-


a) take specialities in the genre of artifact/manse crafting


b) allow him to make artifacts to add dots to skills but make them harder to make than items that add dots, acomplish by binding the soul of a superior/legendary craftsman to the item (like THE Hanzo or something), or having the blessing of a major god of crafting or something.


Just make sure it's above and beyond the normal ingredients for a dice adder, cos dots beat dice hands down


c) find an "assistant" with more dots than you and make him do the bulk of the work


(I apologise if this is blatantly obvious)
 
Flyck said:
The problem to the Wonder Forging Genius, is that we're playing Dragon Blooded.  To the best of my knowledge, that's a Solar charm.


I have some difficulty in seeing how Essence 3 or 4 Exalts could craft greater Manses of epic proportion or immense creation-shaping Artifacts, let alone a DB.  By that setup, the Realm (let alone Lookshy) should be well on their way to unlocking Magitech and other First Age wonders and creating/recreating horrendously powerful N/A artifacts on their own.  Afterall an epic suit of rating 5 armor of 3 different MM types and colossally powerful manses with colossally powerful Hearthstones is what we're looking at having built right now while our group has some 'downtime' from a recently completed Wyld Hunt.  


By saying Artifacts add Dice and not Abilities, then comes the issue of resentment by player for not being able to build what he wanted.
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OK, I finally read this thread in enough detail to catch this post.  I hope you've forgive me for chopping it up like this.


To your player:  WAH!  Life is unfair.  Exalted is specifically, deliberately unfair.  Celestial Exalts, specifically Solars, are by definition capable of doing all the amazing artifact and manse-crafting shit that you want to do.  Dragon-Bloods AREN'T.  It's like Solar Circle Sorcery, or Sideral Martial Arts, or Lunar Shapechanging.  You're the Chosen of the Elemental Dragons, and you just aren't all that.  Your ancestors should have thought about that before blowing up all the Solars.  Do what dragonblooded are good at--making LOTS of small artifacts.


Seriously, if your PC can throw together Artifact 4 and 5 and N/A crap, then some other dragonblood could.  And in the centuries of the Shogunate and then the Empire, you wouldn't have this whole theme running through their history of all this spiffy magitech stuff falling apart for lack of Solars to maintain it and build new stuff.  Dragonblooded craftsmen were assistants to Twilights and No Moons, not the masters in their own right.


Personally, I'd look at it just like any other limit hard-wired into the game system on the maximum power of Dragonbloods.  Tinkering with it changes the fundamental assumptions of the game system.  There's nothing wrong with it if that's what you want to do, but you shouldn't do it casually or without considering the implications.  If a dedicated young dragonblood could casually craft wonders, why didn't anyone do it before?


Anyway, that's my rant, take it for what it's worth.
 
The issue with this is the fact that Dragonblooded artisans have in fact, canonically, crafted NA level Artifacts. First during the Shogunate, and then even in the Second Age, Skywolf was crafted. Being able to make high level artifacts is not impossible for Dragonblooded. Making them in large numbers...and enough to rely on them for an infrastructure and quickly is another question entirely. Not being able to pull the components for such things out of your ass on its own makes things much more difficult. Lacking charms which decrease rather large crafting times down to a more useful level does similar. Now, of course, eventually, Dragonblooded crafter can meet the various minimums at a higher Essence level, by actually naturally meeting those levels, instead of taking charms to make them easier to meet. Depending on your ST, Specialties may also count if appropriate towards minimums. This still limits you to a specific subset of specialized items made before 6+ Essence...but would allow such otherwise.


On artifacts which boost dice counting for minimums, I have to agree with those who say they do not. Dice are not dots. However this does give some actual use to Terrestrial Reinforcement, in enhancing your assistants...since it does grant an ability rating, according to its wording, though also counting against maximums itself. Further, there are some artifacts which lower minimums. The Mobile Repair and Fabrication Platform, for example, lowers minimums for certain tasks.
 
They did never create genuine NA level artifacts. Skywolf and those other projects while impressive are still a lot more modular than an NA daiklaive and therefore easier to be made out of lower level components. Or at least that is where I assume comes the dicrepancy between rules and setting from.
 
Yeah, most magitech N/A stuff is made by just chucking together lots of pieces of artifact 3s and 4s and such.. and lookshy and the realm -do- have access to essence 6 DB's I'm sure, even if they're in serious shortage.. so such components aren't too impossible.


Also, the reason they made those things, is because they have factory cathedrals, which can actually make lower artifacts all by themselves if they're set with the designs. Remember, skywolf isn't actually that -good- .. it's just about the best the second age can manage, in the first age, it's laughable, and basically just a craft for DBs


But yeah.. if you're playing DB's.. generally just don't expect to be making tons of high level artifacts.
 
Flyck said:
By that setup, the Realm (let alone Lookshy) should be well on their way to unlocking Magitech and other First Age wonders and creating/recreating horrendously powerful N/A artifacts on their own.  After all an epic suit of rating 5 armor of 3 different MM types and colossally powerful manses with colossally powerful Hearthstones is what we're looking at having built right now while our group has some 'downtime' from a recently completed Wyld Hunt.
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This type of issue is one reason I made my Sciences system: it prevents simple Ability and Attribute scores from automatically allowing creation of whatever you like by adding a new trait (Science ratings) to sort of represent "what esoteric knowledge you have uncovered". This allows a progression that comes across as more "fair" to the players, while at the same time allowing the ST to control the tech curve in his campaign. It also acts as an xp sink for crafters, which I like. It's more useful in long-term campaigns, though.


I should have also mentioned in my post about "interpretations a and b" above: interpretation a is the canonical one. Going on about interpretation b was really more to illustrate the not-immediately-obvious issues that it creates. A house rule with less "collateral damage" on the rules (but probably with more on the campaign world) would be to just alter the requirements for artificing. I would also allow specialties to count towards the limits (though this can be tricky).
 
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