Twenty Minutes: Why?

[Kyeudo]

I'm trying to think of a good mechanical reason why it takes 20 minutes to attune to an artifact. What sort of mechanical abuse is prevented by making Exalts swing superheavy daiklaves and sit around in half a ton of jade plate for a third of an hour?

 

[Thanqol]

Because... otherwise... they could do awesome stunts... and that would be broken.


I think it's mostly anti-theft, though, so you don't get disarmed by some funky unattunement charm and have Joe Abyssal pick up your legendary sword. Or stopping a Night Caste walking into your arsenal, attuning to everything, and then using Call the Blade fifty times.

 

[greasy golem gunk]

In addition to the previous posters post, I'd suggest that an early emphasis on "Finding the treasures of your old lives and using them to make your current life better" also lent itself to players having to fight & trick & think their way into Tombs of First Age solars, and presumably out of those same tombs as well.


A 20 minute attunement to your new Daiklaive might mean that your friends would have to protect you for 20 minutes (or, 200 times as long as a relevant fight the way some might see it), or forcing starting exalts to find a way to lug a 200 chunk of magic materials through the defense system they just snuck into.


Also, in 1e where Dex was a god stat in combat, knowing that your new prize could conceivably be twice or three times your characters body weight was a reason on it's own to have a higher strength score than you would strictly need.


-g3

 

[Arthur]

I don't think that was decided mechanically. I think they thought it made sense that you would require 20 minutes to make your Essence resonate compatibly with your artefact's.

 

[Brickwall]

Twenty minutes because that's how long a scene is. You're going to treat artifact acquisition differently if you have to spend a whole narrative scene on it rather than a single narrative action.


Don't forget that stunts are pretty much defined as allowing you to bend the rules a little in the name of awesome. So it's natural that cool stunting would end up being somewhere outside the RAW. That's what it's for.

 

[Jukashi]

The ability to attune is based on your metaphysical "ownership" of the weapon, so I generally just take it as the time required for the cosmic "he's got a sword!" signal to register. This also allows me to house-rule a little, for example a rule that if they do a little ritual about it a person can formally give their weapon to another person and have the attunement carry over instantly.

 

[Smeggedoff]

that's how long it takes the sidereals to fill in the change of ownership forms 34c and 56d in triplicate, then get them signed and stamped by the supervisor

 

[Brickwall]

If that were true, Solars and Lunars would all have to go without artifacts, because the Sidereals would just destroy all forms relating to the attunement of Moonsilver and Orichalcum, and track down any attunement forms from Solars and Lunars. Heck, they'd probably be vicious and make it so they couldn't own anything.

 

[Thanqol]

that's how long it takes the sidereals Pattern Spiders to fill in the change of ownership forms 34c and 56d in triplicate, then get them signed and stamped by the supervisor

Fixed.

 

[Thanqol]

If that were true, Solars and Lunars would all have to go without artifacts, because the Sidereals would just destroy all forms relating to the attunement of Moonsilver and Orichalcum, and track down any attunement forms from Solars and Lunars. Heck, they'd probably be vicious and make it so they couldn't own anything.

Sidereals can already be vicious and make it so you can't love anything. Why would they bother with your possessions?

 

[Brickwall]

Because you don't get a roll to resist it, of course, if you haven't attuned your anima to it yet.


'sides, check the ratio of PCs who'd take lewt over love to PCs who'd take love over lewt. It approaches infinity. Thus, that'd be near-infinitely better.

 

[Thanqol]

Because you don't get a roll to resist it, of course, if you haven't attuned your anima to it yet.
'sides, check the ratio of PCs who'd take lewt over love to PCs who'd take love over lewt. It approaches infinity. Thus, that'd be near-infinitely better.

Check the ratio of actual people who'd take lewt over love. I don't think it'd be the same.


I, personally, cannot conceive of a more horrifying thing to do to a person.

 

[Brickwall]

Creation, sadly, isn't full of actual people. It's full of the player characters and whoever the ST hates enough to put around them.


Also, as someone with that affliction, I can assure you that it's not really that bad. Certainly not any worse than not being able to keep a hold of anything would be. Honestly, it's not going to drive anyone crazy, or even really mess up their life. So, if you can't think of worse things, you lack imagination. There's a reason it's a low-tier Charm.

 

[Thanqol]

Creation, sadly, isn't full of actual people. It's full of the player characters and whoever the ST hates enough to put around them.
Also, as someone with that affliction, I can assure you that it's not really that bad. Certainly not any worse than not being able to keep a hold of anything would be. Honestly, it's not going to drive anyone crazy, or even really mess up their life. So, if you can't think of worse things, you lack imagination. There's a reason it's a low-tier Charm.

Obviously that's not true. I love you, after all.

 

[Guest]

Creation, sadly, isn't full of actual people. It's full of the player characters and whoever the ST hates enough to put around them.

Win. Fucking win.

 

[Aquillion]

Actually, I always thought the reason was really simple:


It's intended to prevent D&D bag-of-holding syndrome, where a player stuffs a bag of holding with every magic item that could even remotely be useful. This cheapens individual artifacts -- they become less of a big defining part of your character, and more interchangeable tools that you switch around on a whim. It also makes it harder to balance the amount of artifacts that players can safely get.


If attument was instant, then attunement costs for non-combat artifacts would be nearly meaningless -- you'd only attune them when you needed them, and immediately let the attunement lapse when you're done.


Of course, you could always make a fast-attunement charm if you want. There's a Dragon King step that does that.