Let's Talk About Forge

[etherial]

[Utsukushi]

I picture it as a pretty low cost; it's a central thing for them to do, afterall, so they should be able to do it. Really, I picture 1 permanent damage point for each item. I could see making it perhaps 1 per +5 bonus Forged into an item (so 1-3), to help further limit those Fully Forged Items.

Etherial, I'm not sure we mean the same thing. I'm talking about the effect going away after a Year and a Day if you don't spend another full week getting it updated. Ie., whether they're getting better or not, you have to spend a week, out of every year, individually, for each Forged Item in the party, or you lose them. If you don't have an In Party Weaponsmith, you can probably get to a major city and commission multiple Smiths to do this, cutting the time down to only a couple weeks out of every year... but I don't like the Talent being written in a way that makes it only useful as an NPC ability. From a PC Viewpoint, that's a dead Talent. And this isn't just "a" dead Talent; it's the core Talent for the Discipline. When PC Weaponsmiths are best off not putting points in their Weapon Smithing Talent because they can't use it, that's not working.

[etherial]

[Dougansf]

Just to throw an idea out there...

What if Forge Weapon worked similar to Temper Self, (spend X time for a bonus for 24 hours). That would better encourage/reward a PC Weaponsmith.

The talent could still have the longer version where if you spend the week you get the bonus for a year. These bonuses wouldn't stack, of course. Which means a Weaponsmith who trains up Forge Weapon mid-adventure could do the temp Forge on their weapon and get an immediate benefit from it.

[Slimcreeper]

That's closer to what most other talents and buffs do. I'd also thought about the bonus degrading by one for every successful hit, but thought it would entail too much book keeping. Or that it would be a full bonus for bonus number of hits. Something more temporary, anyway, for less of a time investment. Haven't really thought it out, though.

[Dougansf]

1 Standard action to add Rank to damage for Rank rounds? Could be removed with Dispel Magic. That would be pretty disgusting when used on someone with Surprise Strike or other +Rank to Damage Talents. Might make this a Self Only use.

(more like Temper Self) 1 hour to add Rank to Damage for 24 hours? Eventually this would become a logistical issue, as you have Forge Weapon, Forge Armor, Temper Self, and Temper Other. How many hours are you going to spend before you start adventuring this morning?

[Utsukushi]

[Antra]

I think the point that is being missed here is that even today, weapon maintenance can take a while. When you take your Colt 1911A to the gunsmith to have the barrel re-bored or replaced along with the trigger spring, the firing pin, and whatever else needs work, that can take up to a week. When a Weaponsmith works on a weapon (and I'm just guessing here as I'm not a smith. I'm sure there are some here), he has to grind out chips and dents, hammer out warping in the blade, possibly reheat the steel so it's more workable, and check the pommel or cross guard for stress/cracking. This all takes time and then the Weaponsmith, like any good craftsman, has to put the weapon through it's paces to insure there are no faults that can't be seen by the naked eye.

Now I understand the complaint that this puts the party out of action for up to six weeks, but if your group can't find six weeks over the next year to stop and rest while this is done, perhaps they're going H.A.M. Remember, you do not HAVE to wait a year and a day, you can get your stuff re-upped before going on some big huge quest or adventure.

[Utsukushi]

That point isn't.. irrelevant, but I don't think it's.. well, entirely relevant, either. True, real Forging takes lots of time, but one of the key things about Forge Weapon/Armor is that it's being clarified as a magical ritual. So whatever time it requires is really totally up to us, because there is no real-world equivalent for that.

More importantly, we're talking about a PC Discipline - that means the things they do need to be viable for an adventurer to do. If we want to be realistic about Forging times based on what it takes a real-life blacksmith to make a sword sharper than swords naturally are (say, looking at the time spent crafting Katanas, which could run into months, apparently)... then the result is to acknowledge one of two things:
1) Weaponsmiths should be one of those non-adventuring Adepts that are hinted at here and there in the rules, like Farmer Adepts and Chef Adepts and whatever might be great to come home to but isn't useful enough on the road to warrant a position as a Player-Character-Available Discipline - in other words, take them out of the Disciplines chapter and relegate them to a sidebar in the Goods and Equipment chapter where you talk about paying for magically Forged weapons; or,
2) Weaponsmiths have potential, but Forging itself is (two) dead-end Talent(s) for an Adventuring Weaponsmith, because it's only reasonable to have done by NPCs. Weaponsmiths need to somehow be reimagined so that the actual smithing-of-weapons can be safely sidelined - a Talent Option, perhaps, which Weaponsmiths in the party don't have to take, but one can fairly assume town-based Weaponsmiths all have.

I don't like either of those, myself, so I would look for a solution that leaves Weaponsmiths in as a Discipline, and leaves their core ability as a thing they can actually do.

And not waiting a YAAD between Forgings is indeed fair, but that means you're doing it more often, which means it is in fact taking up more time.

[Telarus_KSC]

I've been mulling this over for a while now. I really don't think that they are "Dead End" Talents for an adventuring Weaponsmith. Hell, he wouldn't be able to use the Talent while adventuring without a portable Forge if away from civilization (& no one has brought that up yet, or what Threaded Portable Forges might do). So I think the idea earlier in the thread to reduce the time for extra Success Levels (instead of extra bonus ranks) will resolve most of the perceived bottleneck we've talked about here. This would be why you have the Forge Talent Rank as high as possible, not so you can grind-out a max-Forged item, but so each Forging will be easier on you.

But I really like Josh's description of how the rules now support the Barsavian economy. You simply can't expect your whole party to go around with +10 to +15 Forged weapons, it's simply not realistic (until the party is Circle 10 maybe) and you have to work within the bounds of the Talent to get higher bonuses. If your Warrior is walking around with a Forged +10 sword, it's something VERY rare, but many people will have Forged +1 to +5 weapons. Think of it like the non-linear scale in the Legend Point/Advancement table. Early advancement is cheap (easy), later advancement is more expensive (harder), but presumably your character will have the resources to deal with that. It's a concept built into the core of Earthdawn.

Now, Improve Blade/Armor serves as that "emergency combat bonus if you have time to prepare" niche. They've been brought way down in the advancement line, so will see much more use.

I think that the rules will work out fine. As to the whole "useless while the weapon is being worked on" sentiment, well... that's very narrow-minded. I'd LOVE to see characters walking around with more than just 1 primary weapon. "Oh, I want to spend a week getting TrollBiter Forged to +7, but I have to go run those rabid horror-touched wolves from the farm? Guess I better bring that Named sword we picked up on the last adventure, sure it's only Forged +2 and has a Rank 2 thread on it, but those wolves are going DOWN!" (And maybe it changes the players tactics for a game or two....)