About Blood pebbles and Living crystal armor

[freid78]

[Baravakar]

[Telarus_KSC]

I prefer the separate categories of Living Armor/Living Crystal weapons, and Blood Charms. As I said, they are related arts, but Blood Charms are the domain of Nethermancers and alchemists, while the other workings are mainly known by Elementalists and Weaponsmiths.

[freid78]

[Mataxes]

Weaponsmiths can use Forge Armor to improve Blood Pebble and Living Crystal armors. There are two reasons for this.

1) They are classified within the game rules as armor, even if they bear some resemblance to blood charms.
2) They have game statistics that can be targeted/affected by the talent in question.

[Kasbak]

Finally getting a chance to catch back up on the forums, and just to add to what has already been said on blood pebble armor not equating to being a blood charm:

Just because two things share a similar interface and use the same power source, it does not make them the same or even have compatible knowledge. A refrigerator and an air conditioner both install in your house, both run on electricity, and both do the same job of cooling things, but just because you know how to work on/repair one does not mean you can do the same with the other. There are likely to be similar concepts between them, and a knowledge of one would probably help in learning about the other, but that still doesn't make them equivalent nor does it make the knowledge of one system automatically apply to the other.

[freid78]

[Kasbak]

I wouldn't say that none of these are issues, but I don't think the ones that are are quite as clunky as you may think.

1. Armor Stacking. This same argument could be made for any two types of armor where you can wear one over the other, so it's not unique to blood pebble. The simple and direct answer for why armor wouldn't stack would of course simply be "because the rules say so". That alone isn't a good way to approach things, of course, so for more of an in-game answer, I would say it's because only the outer most armor is actually doing any protection. That's the armor getting hit, so that's the one the defense ratings will be up against. Armor is designed to be worn as an outer layer, and armor that isn't will not function the same. It's not all about preventing penetration, it's also about deflecting blows and redirecting that enegy away from the wearer. Putting armor over top of another piece of armor prevents the inner armor from functioning as designed. Granted, stacked armor would probably still do something to add to your protection, even if it isn't as effective as it would otherwise be, but personally, I'm willing to sweep that difference under the rug in order to simplify the rules. Game mechanics are meant to simplify and streamline real world physics, not emulate them perfectly, so there are going to be some discrepencies you have to overlook in order to keep things simple. Coming up with a rule to make stacked armor give only partial protection might not be that hard, but it's still a heck of a lot simpler to just have one armor to stat and track. If you don't like a specific instance of real world simplification and want to flesh that out more, well, that's what house rules are for.

2. This I simply attribute to the unique nature of the armor. Having blood pebble installed will give you a few exclusive benefits, such as being constantly protected without needing to put on armor, being able to wear everyday clothes over it (which is included and accounted for in the intended design, so the above point does not invalidate this one), not risking your armor being lost or stolen, no encumbrance penalties, and so on. In exchange, there are going to be a few unique trade offs, and having to uninstall and reinstall to forge is one of them.

3. I actually don't think this is a problem, because I also don't see a reason why one couldn't make a blood weapon. People already can use blood magic to empower a weapon external from themselves, so installing Wolverine claws or the like powered by blood doesn't seem that far fetched in terms of possibility. I do think it would probably be very risky; weapons involve a lot more active use, so a blood weapon would probably cause you a lot of damage if you're using it all the time, depending on how it's designed. This is probably why no one has done it already. But new things are made constantly, it's just a matter of getting someone crazy enough to try it first.

4. This continues the assumption that items with the same power source follow the same rules. There are different intents and purposes involved that resolve this. Blood pebble armor is meant to be a constant, passive enhancement. The more permanent nature of its bonus lends itself better to long term improvements like forging. And as Mataxes pointed out, this is supported by the rules in that blood pebble armor actually has the stats to anchor that type of improvement. Blood charms tend to provide bonuses that are more fleeting, one-time uses that later have to be recharged, if they can be reused at all. A long term improvement on a blood charm would really be better served by just making a better blood charm. That's not to say that you couldn't do an improvement to an existing one. Again, just because there isn't a means to do it now doesn't mean it's impossible, just that no one has done it yet. Thematically though, I think it would be more fitting to have such an improvement be handled through a quicker, more temporary method, like a spell. In fact, I may even do a write up for a Nethermancy spell to give a temporary improvement to the effect of an installed blood charm. Probably something like effect versus target spell defense, +2 to the effect per success on next use, lasts up to Rank days (just quickly spitwadding on that one).

[Utsukushi]

I think Blood Pebbles invite the question of armor stacking more than other armors because they don't fit the, "The other armors are already included" rule. You're not wearing padded cloth under your blood pebbles. And Kasbak's point about inner-armor not working the same as outer-armor does make sense to me, but Pebbles are, again, weird -- there's a good case for saying that they probably could, actually, further-absorb energy that passed through your chainmail.

I do find it significant that nowhere in history do we have anybody riding out in three stacked suits of slightly-bigger plate armor. Where different armors have been `stacked' in real life has always been a matter of... integration -- padding under the chain pieces that let you move under the solid plates, but not full padded armor under a suit of chain armor under a suit of plate armor. But Pebbles, again, seem different.

If nothing else, it seems like one should reasonably be able to have Blood Pebble under their Chain or Plate armor, and get the Physical Defense from the metal and the Mystic Defense from the Pebbles. I think I'd allow that outright.

Argh... I have to go. But I wanted to mention that Forge Armor is a mystical ritual, not just actual forging -- that's why it can go past the normal limits possible with a given metal. Forging Blood Pebbles I wouldn't picture as throwing them into the fire and then hammering at them... that doesn't make sense, whether they're on someone or not. I picture humming, tapping them with a tuning fork, maybe painting esoteric designs around their patterns or something. So rather than the removal-and-reinstallment process, I more imagine that someone wanting their Blood Pebbles magically Forged is going to have to be there for the process.

[freid78]