Magic Item Durability
In the world of Affliction, magic is tennuous. Items can degrade, break or be destroyed, or they can temporarily cease to function.
At the start of each round of combat, the initiative keeper will draw a single tarot card for the round and roll a die to determine which PC the card applies to. The receiving player keeps it face down until the start of his turn at which time the card's effects are resolved.
Items can be damaged, broken (but repairable) or destroyed (irreparably broken). Damaged and broken items can be repaired by NPC craftsmen or player-characters with the proper skills and feats.
This means that players must make choices on how much they risk their items:
- Should I use the prize magic sword or a lesser blade?
- Are the benefits of a battle worth the damaged items?
- Do I invest in repairing certain types of items or develop contacts with those who can do it for me?
page revision: 10, last edited: 10 Mar 2010 02:06
could the rule be amended such that if you are using armor, shield, or weapon, that you only draw a card upon contact or use of some special power? If I have a magic sword, and swing with it, but miss, is there really any expectation of damage to the item?
Will mundane items also be subject to damage? should we plan on carrying a backup, or scavenging along the way?
The intent is that items do not last all that long. But note that some items that you will get as a result of the draft will not take damage.
We haven't emphasized it yet to players but a major part of this setting is that magic is not reliable. This does not apply to dynamically cast items (like a caster's spells) but it does apply to permanent items. So the expectation is that scavenging will be a quite necessary and perhaps a major oocupation for adventureres. On the otherhand, it also means that you may get more magic than usual. Typically, the referee must be very sparing of magic item loot since the players will never voluntarily get rid of it but if it is always breaking, it isn't a big deal to give the players more.
As for swinging and missing- missing just means you didn't cause damage. It doesn't mean you didn't contact something. Maybe you hit a shield or the ground.
It seems there is some player concern regarding how long their magic items can be expected to last. This is legitimate but remember Jim & I will tweak the failure rate so that it is reasonable. The expectation is that items will fail regularly but you should get some use out of them and you can expect a steady replacement stream of these items. So, in short, I'm certain we can get the "feel" of it right so that it doesn't make magic worthless. On the contrary, you should expect a higher than normal amount of magic loot.
Separate of play balance issues, there is the issue of whether the method to track and determine durability is cumbersome and interferes with play. I'm a little concerned that a card per player per round might be cumbersome. Using 2 decks and having one of the decks shuffled while the other is being used would help. And as players familiarized themselves with the tables, it would be faster as well. But there are some alternative methods (note that changes in frequency for which the durability is determined will mean changes in the table to compensate to keep the overall failure rate per encounter the same).
On that score, some thoughts on alternate methods:
On the last method, some more detail:
"gently using an item" means you are not using any item powers. Use half the items modifier (rounded down of course). Additional damage dice, for instance, additional critical damage, are not used. This represents the character using the item carefully.
The player can choose to use the item normally as an immediate interrupt any time the items characteristics come into play. So for most weapons, this would be during an attack. For defensive items, when being attacked. You can't "activate" a sword when being attacked unless the sword had some sort of defensive property.
I like the flavor of this and it leaves the control in the player's hands. However, if a character has 5-6 items and decides to use them all in one round, it could get kind of messy. I guess one way to minimize the effort is that on any given immediate interrupt, only one check is made but it is made for the highest value item the player is activating that round. Still lets the player "protect" an item by activating more than one simultaneously but that might be an acceptable trade-off.
Thoughts?
I guess I'd like as simple a system as possible. One tarot card and one player chit per round seems pretty easy to manage. The feel is something we'll have to get used to and alter accordingly. I think play-testing it this weekend will be a big help.
Simple sounds good. Rather than a chit, why don't we simply just roll to see who gets the card that round? It can be face down until their turn (or just drawn at that time).
Also, since we have reduced the odds of a failure considerably, I suggest that at least for the test session, the suit determines the item that fails if you have an item of that suit. If you don't have a magic item corresponding to the suit randomly select a magic item that is in use.
To resolve the tarot card suit vs. items the player is using issue, what if we have an item order (that wraps) that the tarot suit simply indexes into? If the order is: armor, melee, ranged, other and the suit selected is melee, then you go through the selected characters magic items in the order: melee, ranged, other, armor …. if on the other hand other was selected, then you would go through the selected characters items in the order: other, armor, melee, ranged?
Does that make sense?
jim
Sure, that sounds good.
So what did you guys think after the first run of the durability system?
Here's some of my partially digested thoughts on it:
On the more negative side: