What We Know So Far - Magic Items

From the Empire FB Page:-

** Implements are weapon-safe tools used for delivering effects in combat. Implements are wands (around dagger length), rods (around one-handed weapon length) and staves (longer, I think up to seven foot). I can't put the numbers here because as always when talking weapon lengths my brain just dumps the info as soon as it isn't in front of me.

**Implements currently can do a point of damage when you whack someone with them. We hmmm'd and hrrr'd all around the houses on this topic, but it kind of came down to occam's razor; most people feel the hit and take the damage without thinking about it. It's an extra moment of thought/perception to notice that you've been hit with something that ought not to do a point of damage.

**'Combat magic' consists of 'incantations' - short casting time, then touch the target. There's a possiblity that some rituals will exist for creating more complex effects (MASS calls are an obvious place we could go), but all the incantations are touch ranged. There was a lot of chat about this, and a lot of factors were weighed up. For me it came down to a comment by a buddy who does CP who said that he felt more effective, and was more confident his spell would work, when he touched the target. There's also an element of not making magicians flat 'better' than warriors here. Magicians are powerful, but they don't just get to point at you and make you fall over. I think some people will hate this, but the feedback from our playtests was that once people got past the initial shock it was a lot of fun. I want to see battle magicians in the middle of the fight with their mates, not ten feet back shouting with increasing anger "SHATTER! YOU IN THE HAT! YES YOU! THAT SWORD! SHATTER! DROP THE FUCKING SWORD YOU CHEATING BASTARD!!!"

** Some combat magic (not all) causes feedback to the caster. For the most part this is a feature of the more 'potent' incantations. We decided to pull it back a little because some of the spells were clearly made pants or comedic by a blanket application of 'sympathy.' Also people were calling it 'sympathy' which I didn't like.

** Not all incantations are combat magic, and so not all incantations require an implement to cast. Utility spells, for example, don't need an implement. At the moment there's slightly more combat incantations than utility incantations, but that's because our focus has been on getting the combat magic right. There's space for more utility stuff as we do more work on rituals

** Craftsmen will be able to make special implements that enhance various abilities, just as they can make weapons for warriors that enhance their abilities. This is the main place where it matters if you are wielding a wand, a staff or a rod as the different classes will have different flavours of abilities. My hope is that this will mean that any magician can benefit from carrying an implement even if they are ritualists or utility specialists. There's some twiddly bits in the system that mean that you will only be able to use one crafted implement at a time; I'll probably talk about that later on when we pin all the implications of 'bonding' down so don't ask me about it now because I have nowt to say on it

** Orbs and other magical tools will almost certainly exist - there's one on the sample crafted item shortlist at the moment that i quite like that changes how the detect magic utility incantation works for example - but for the moment we're not calling them implements to avoid confusion. If you're casting a spell during a fight, you're using a wand, rod or staff to do it.

Hmmm, useful to know. *Wonders where he can get the lyrics to 'A wizards staff has a knbob on the end'*

Asherven wrote:

Hmmm, useful to know. *Wonders where he can get the lyrics to 'A wizards staff has a knbob on the end'*

HERE: http://www.lspace.org/fandom/songs/wizards-staff.html

*Chuckles* Thanks.

Also it looks like we won't be able to use swords to deliver magic.

Yep - Rods, Staves or Wands only.
But we CAN use a rod, stave or wand to do damage...

who needs swords anyways...

So looking at the Artisan rules, wondered if someone could help clarify the wording?

" During the downtime between events, you may craft up to three magical items using rare materials that you have in your possession."

Does this mean by taking the skill I could craft 3 items for each event I attend, or is it 3 all year?

Cheers,

Colin

From the Magic Items section:-

"Making Items
A character that has purchased the artisan skill has three months each downtime to make items. There is no monetary cost to make items, but the character must have the rare metals needed to make the item. Most enchantments take a month to complete but some weak enchantments are done without materials in two months. A character can continue to operate their personal resource while crafting items.

Enchanted items last for a single year from the day of creation. This means that they can be used at the following four events before the magic is lost."

http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Magical_items

That's interesting, sounds like the crew are managing the economy pretty tightly. If there can never be more than twelve magic items per artisan we won't see so many people wondering around wearing what looks like a coat o lammies. I wonder if they've done some economy predictions and found this is a good way to keep the price of items at something reasonable.

I can also see people finding a reason to use any nice weapons they have. Strom was terrible for people hoarding stuff and then keeping away from battles where they would be useful! Hopefully a secondary benefit will be an overall increased level of activity on the field

From the wiki:-

http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Category:Magic_Items

Some details on artisan-crafted magic items...

Shiny.
They combo with character skills.