Broken Items

[Fade]

• Broken Items
  • Making items being able to be broken and not destroyed with Shatter significantly reduces the effectiveness and fear factor of explosive traps. Someone can take a 40 point Explosive trap to the face (Assuming they don’t shrug it off with Trap Avoidance) and spend some time in meditation and they will have lost nothing.
  • Broken items should either break all the way (i.e. nothing remains active until fixed) or not break at all. At the moment, we need a definition of what “Passive” and “Non-Passive” effects are. This may seem obvious, but it is eminently abuseable.
    • Skills in the Rulebook are listed as “Passive” or “Daily.” Ritual scrolls have no such marking
  • Disintegrate is an opportunity to make a celestial spell do Body Damage, thereby giving it some way to overcome the massive armor totals now seen. There is no reason it should only effect items. Disintegrate has been turning people to dust for years in fantasy gaming.
  • 
    
  • Disintegrate should be a capstone level Celestial spell at 9th level that does untyped damage equivalent to an Eviscerate (500 Body) and can tear down temporary Battle-Magic eldritch structures such as Walls of Force and Prisons. It will take some emphasis off of Prison being the best spell at that tier and give the Celestial Caster some other needed utility in what Disintegrate can accomplish.
    • If Disintegrate gets the kind of utility stated above, it needs a cool and somewhat unique incant.
    • With Disintegrate, vagueness in how the spell effects other objects is well intentioned but can lead to unmet and inconsistent expectations. Simply adding a line that the final result is up to the encounter marshal would curtail this.
  • 
    
  • Suppress Magic needs a better definition than what is currently available. Right now, there are many interpretations, none of which are in the Rulebook.
  • 
    
  • Why would I want to use a Catalyst to make my Rendered Indestructible Improved item take a Suppress Magic from Disintegrate? Without the Catalyst it just breaks it. With the Catalyst, it leaves it open to destruction.
  • Can we cast a second Disintegrate on a Rendered Indestructible item that has taken a “Suppress Magic” effect to completely destroy it since it is no longer treated as magical in that case?

 

[tieran]

Thank you very much for taking the time to put these questions together!

Making items being able to be broken and not destroyed with Shatter significantly reduces the effectiveness and fear factor of explosive traps. Someone can take a 40 point Explosive trap to the face (Assuming they don’t shrug it off with Trap Avoidance) and spend some time in meditation and they will have lost nothing.

As it stands right now, a series of meditations would replace any non-consumable items made through Create Adventuring Equipment. Any other shatterable items would not be able to be repaired, consumables, coin, ritual components, crafting materials, etc.

Broken items should either break all the way (i.e. nothing remains active until fixed) or not break at all. At the moment, we need a definition of what “Passive” and “Non-Passive” effects are. This may seem obvious, but it is eminently abuseable.

• Skills in the Rulebook are listed as “Passive” or “Daily.” Ritual scrolls have no such marking

I agree we need a fleshed out definition or listing of passive/non-passive rituals in order to actively play. However, this packet is not meant for an active playtest. If it aids in your theorycrafting, any rituals or ritual effects that allow for times ever or per day activations (excluding the named exception of Resist Destroy Magic) can be considered to be non-passive rituals.

Disintegrate is an opportunity to make a celestial spell do Body Damage, thereby giving it some way to overcome the massive armor totals now seen. There is no reason it should only effect items. Disintegrate has been turning people to dust for years in fantasy gaming.

I will certainly make sure to bring this idea up with the rest of ARC.

Disintegrate should be a capstone level Celestial spell at 9th level that does untyped damage equivalent to an Eviscerate (500 Body) and can tear down temporary Battle-Magic eldritch structures such as Walls of Force and Prisons. It will take some emphasis off of Prison being the best spell at that tier and give the Celestial Caster some other needed utility in what Disintegrate can accomplish.

This may be a tad too much of an over correction, but it is certainly worth discussion.

If Disintegrate gets the kind of utility stated above, it needs a cool and somewhat unique incant.

This runs counter to the general incant simplification which has been a trend for the last few rule sets. I’d expect something in line with the current incants.

Suppress Magic needs a better definition than what is currently available. Right now, there are many interpretations, none of which are in the Rulebook.

Suppress Magic is not currently (in 2.0) a standardized national effect and, as such, does not belong in the rulebook. Should it become a national effect, it would be.

Why would I want to use a Catalyst to make my Rendered Indestructible Improved item take a Suppress Magic from Disintegrate? Without the Catalyst it just breaks it. With the Catalyst, it leaves it open to destruction.

Being Suppressed still allows for it to be wielded (if it is a weapon, for instance), where being Broken prevents that.

Can we cast a second Disintegrate on a Rendered Indestructible item that has taken a “Suppress Magic” effect to completely destroy it since it is no longer treated as magical in that case?

Suppress Magic does not negate all magic on the item, it prevents the use of any non-passive (please see above) ritual effects, so things like spirit link, extenders, render, and the like, would still be present.

 

[Mobius]

I've never been a fan of Explosive Traps. Since it applies a Shatter Effect to all equipment it is more often a source of PC grief than joy. ETs affect lower level characters far more than higher; wipe out enormous amounts of Treasure (often group) in a blink; guts any Consumable focused character; disproportionately targets gear-dependent characters; is often mistakenly caused by a singular person who becomes the target of hate for many; creates situations where poorly equipped (often lower level) players might as well go-home, while well-equipped (often higher level) players take it on the chin, but will be fine; etc. To me, they're just bad news.

So to me, the introduction of Broken fixes much of the above. Creating a middle realm of merely "Broken" allows for moderate consequences spread across all characters, as opposed to Catastrophic consequences for many or none for a few. Furthermore, it gives Smiths and Tinkers (with Field Repair) more of a role in fluid combat; allows more interesting NPC-enemy statting; and diminishes the huge power-gap between Magical equipment and mundane gear.

Disintegrate becomes a natural expansion to the Broken system in order to keep some teeth to certain encounters. The risk of loss should be a part of certain aspects of the game, however I don't think it should be as endemic as currently.

The one issue I do have with the Broken mechanism is the substitution of Meditate for Repair for fixing a magical item. I think this change will heavily handicap characters without Meditate-3 as they risk getting kicked out of a fight by Broken gear. For Fighters/Rogues/Scouts who don't have as many natural uses for Meditate, and who are naturally gear-focused characters, it becomes a Magic-Item Exp Tax. I think it would be perfectly acceptable for the Field Repair skill to apply to all items, magical or otherwise. It might not work as well thematically, but so it goes.

That being said, I do agree that Celestial might benefit from some kind of singular Body damage Spell, but that's a separate conversation.