Resurrecting the Create Power

[Christopher R Taylor]

So, which is it - create a object from nothing, or have to start with an already existing object?

 

Good point, that's pretty vague wording.  Its supposed to be cast on an object, making it a magical item.  The object is the target, and hence is not a focus of Create.

 

This is sounding an awful lot like Transform.

 

Transform would be the othe way to do this effect, but I like this concept and build

 

Hm. Suppose I get a total of 10 sticks suitable for wand making and lay them out in a row. Now I take My saved up XP and buy a Create Power with the Autofire Advantage (with suitable "surtax" of course.) Can I now generate ten wands with the same three day act of Creation?

 

No, its not an attack power, you can't put autofire on it.  But yes, you pay experience each time to build the wand.  That's the limiter, and why it costs xps; because its making items permanently and independent of the character.

 

You say Create uses Long Term END. What if I put a Create Power on Charges?

 

You could, but the Create power must always cost END (LTE) and hence you'd have both.

 

As for how to abuse it - please read again what DasBroot said, more carefully.

 

I know what he's saying.  But aside from banning followers (which is my inclination) I don't know how you'd prevent someone from doing this other than the GM saying "you can't do that."  Its the same problem with Summon: summoning someone who happens to have various items for you and nothing else is a valid build, you could explain why (they are servitors bearing heirlooms or whatever) but there's no rule against it other than "no you can't do that" by the GM.

[mallet]

It took me a couple of reads to get it, but I think I did. 

 

But I think any power that makes the player spend xp to create items is honestly a waste of your time (beyond a thought exercise) and a waste of pages in any book you might publish. I know that might sound harsh, but it is not meant to. I can not ever see a campaign where a player would do that, not unless xp was flowing fast and furiously. XP is one of the main things players are working for, why would they want to spend it on something they would then sell or give away? And since this is Hero why wouldn't the player just spend that xp on spells, powers or abilities that give them the same effect as the magic item that was being created?  This seems like a power that would only be used by NPC's at the GM's discretion, and if that is the case, then rules might not be needed, as it is GM controlled. 

 

I think it might be better to build the power as a spell/ritual that a player can learn (by spending xp) that would allow them to place any spell they already know (which they have also already spent xp on) into an item suitable for enchantment. This would take time, and especially special ingredients, expendable foci, etc... This makes creating an item, not only possible, but also adds to the game because the players must locate or buy or discover the stuff needed to make the item.

 

For example, Bob the Fire Mage wants to enchant a flaming Long Sword to do fire damage. He already knows a 1d6KA Flaming Touch spell, so first he needs to learn the spell/ritual to make magic items, then he and his party must find a a blacksmith who can make them a mastercraft silver long sword (and give him the silver to make it with) and then they also need to locate some Phoenix Feathers and a vial of Liquid Flame. Once they have all of that then Bob can do the ritual and spend a week to make the magic long sword that does +1d6KA fire damage. 

 

This makes crafting a magic item something that creates adventures and social interactions, etc... rather then just number crunching. 

 

Some of this is also campaign dependant as well. If it is a High or medium fantasy setting, where magic items are fairly common, then it doesn't make a lot of sense that people are spending XP to make them, as where would all of these enchanters find the time to gain xp by adventuring, etc... in order to have enough to keep making more magic items? 5xp is roughly 2 sessions maybe, in a normal campaign, so that is a lot of adventuring needed to turnaround and spend that xp on making an item, unless they can sell it for a huge sum. But then, if they can make so much money for it, why do they need to keep adventuring? So once again, it ends up being something more for NPC's to use, rather then player characters. 

[Chris Goodwin]

Yeah, I was one of the chief lobbyists against keeping the Independent Limitation, just because of all of the aforementioned weirdnesses.  I think I missed that Christopher was resurrecting that part too.  I'm with you until that point.

 

As I said in my long post above, stopping PCs from being walking magic item factories is partly why we have GMs.  If you make them take a long time and a lot of expensive resources, that should probably be enough.  Your Champions Gadgeteer can make stuff for his fellow superheroes; they pay the points for it if they keep it.  I don't see why the same rationale shouldn't apply to fantasy.  

 

The word NO is small yet mighty. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Your Champions Gadgeteer can make stuff for his fellow superheroes; they pay the points for it if they keep it.

 

 

Same thing with this.  The source of the points is a section all its own separate from this specific writeup.  You don't actually have a problem with people paying points to get items, after all!

[Chris Goodwin]

Same thing with this.  The source of the points is a section all its own separate from this specific writeup.  You don't actually have a problem with people paying points to get items, after all!

 

Ah!  I misread it again.  You spend 5 points on the Create Power; you're not sinking points into the item a la the Independent Limitation.  

 

I'd only add that it might be better to let a PC enchanter have a VPP, only for making items with Create.  Quite possibly requiring lots of extra time, Skill Rolls, etc., to move those points around; in fact that might be part of the process of researching the specific item they're creating.

[Christougher]

I may have to dig out my notes on Magic Items for my campaign, but what I recall:

 

There was a difference between creating temporary/one-shot items and permanent ones.

For temporary items, the player wrote the effect of the item; this cost them nothing.  They paid points for the ability to create those temporary items. It's an ability like any other spell or power.

Permanent items were unique and required part of a soul to create; creating one means your name lives on forever.  That costs character points to create the item, no 'crafting of' spell or ability needed.  As others have said, quests for special items and the like are often required.

 

I see the OP as following the same basic idea I used for temporary objects.  Not sure how he handles permanent ones.

[Chris Goodwin]

I may have to dig out my notes on Magic Items for my campaign, but what I recall:

 

There was a difference between creating temporary/one-shot items and permanent ones.

For temporary items, the player wrote the effect of the item; this cost them nothing.  They paid points for the ability to create those temporary items. It's an ability like any other spell or power.

Permanent items were unique and required part of a soul to create; creating one means your name lives on forever.  That costs character points to create the item, no 'crafting of' spell or ability needed.  As others have said, quests for special items and the like are often required.

 

I see the OP as following the same basic idea I used for temporary objects.  Not sure how he handles permanent ones.

 

Yeah, that's what I'd do.  If you pay points for the ability to create a healing potion, then you can churn those out.  Even if it takes time, materials, lab, etc.  But then I'd probably also put healing potions into the category of things you don't need to pay points for, anyway.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Temporary items are created with tradeskills, and cost no points.  Potions, oils, herbs that have a one-shot effect, etc.  Those aren't made with Create in the campaign setting.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I use Transform for magic item creation. The item has to be created the normal way and a ritual has to be performed with many magical ingrediants and criteria which also must be obtained (quest fodder) then during the ritual and item creation, the Enchant spell (Transform mundane object to magical object) is cast with the target number being the Active Points of the powers in the object.

 

Very powerful objects can take days or weeks, even months to create, though the time can be reduced considerably by having several enchanters involved in the process at once.

[Lucius]

 

The example wand has 13 Real Points.

 

One can have double the number of a Focus for +5 pts.

 

So by creating a Create Power with a Base Cost of 23 can I Create four wands at once?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that the Create Fireball Wand power has 5 Real Points. Can someone build a Create power with 5 Base Points that creates and item with that Create power?

[Hugh Neilson]

Before I would buy this "create magic item" power and spend xp to, say, give the entire party Wands of Healing, I would look at the merits of adding the advantage "Usable by Others" to my Healing spell, with the Focus of a wand. If that's cheaper, why should I spend my precious CP on crafting wands of healing using this approach? Even if the costs are comparable, why would I want to risk having to spend another 20 xp to re-create the wands for my four teammates if they are lost, stolen or destroyed?

[Christopher R Taylor]

One can have double the number of a Focus for +5 pts.

 

 

That would have to be disallowed as well, to negate mass production, I think.

[massey]

Here's what I'd do for magic item creation.  It all depends on how the items are intended to be used.

 

If you want to produce something that your party is not going to be keeping, then it can be accomplished through roleplaying.  Whatever skills or special materials that need to be used in the game world will have to be appropriately gathered or whatever, but it doesn't require any special power build or expenditure of XP.  If you are going to make a Sword of Dragon Slaying and give it to King Theogorn as a coronation gift or something, then you can just do that.  Just roleplay it and do it however is appropriate for the campaign.  No Hero System rules required.

 

If you want to have some magic items that you always have with you, like your guy always carries 4 potions of extra healing or something, then you should probably just purchase it with points as normal.  I'm fine with potions just being a Universal Focus, and not putting a Usable By Others advantage on it.  UBO, you still retain ultimate control.  That guy can't drink the potion unless you let him, and you can revoke that permission whenever you want.  Universal Focus, whoever has the bottle in his hand gets to use the potion.  I would simply buy the Healing power on 4 charges, replace only in given circumstances, and then define it as being 4 potions of healing.  At that point I wouldn't worry about what happens if 3 people all want to drink their potions at the same time.  No need to buy it Area Effect, Selective or anything like that.  Just let the guy hand out healing potions.

 

If you want to be able to hand out non-disposable magic items to your buddies with the intention of them keeping it, then you're probably going to need to buy it with UBO.  Too much potential for abuse otherwise.  So you can give everybody a Belt of Giant Strength, but you're gonna pay for it.  If you intend to regularly hand out different things, perhaps you need a Magic Item Making VPP that you can change up.

 

For the occasional limited use item, I might allow you to build it with a Summon.  I'd require limitations on it so you can't just be a magic item factory, This would be for items that are used for maybe one adventure and then they don't come up again, magical maguffins that do not become a permanent part of anybody's character sheet.

 

Finally, if you're just really adamant that you want to create a permanent, powerful item that somebody is going to carry around and use all the time, then I don't have a problem with using the Independent limitation.  If you really want that +5 Battle Axe, you can have it.  Of course, it would be the person getting the item who pays the XP, not the guy creating it.  And remember, people can take it from you at any time and then it's gone.  Somebody in one of our games, ages and ages ago, actually built a character with the power Detect: Independent Focus.  He saw those items as a big floating pile of character points that he wanted to take.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I really like that analysis, the way you put it.  That's basically what I have in mind, Massey, but you laid it out really well and helps clarify the way I want to put it in the book.