Companion living armour

Discussion on the Earthdawn game line, errata, and feedback not related to playing or GMing.
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Moonwolf
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Joined:Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:41 am
Companion living armour

Post by Moonwolf » Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:47 am

The Companion gives rules for learning crafting patterns for alchemical items, and thread items, but doesn't give the target numbers for learning the required patterns for living armour, just the crafting difficulty. What should they be, since they don't have ranks?

Also, the costs on the patterns mean that the crystal plate pattern is unaffordably expensive, and would be unsellable to almost anyone.

Sharkforce
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Joined:Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:39 am

Re: Companion living armour

Post by Sharkforce » Wed Apr 24, 2019 6:43 pm

the crystal plate pattern (and indeed all patterns) are not going to be priced for normal person use, they're going to be priced according to what a merchant would pay.

and from a merchant's perspective, after making 20 suits they've earned their investment minus the cost of wages... in all likelihood, on the 21st suit, they've started to turn a profit, and from that point forward they begin making a very substantial profit of up to 6,000 silver per week (again, less wages). so no, it isn't unsellable to anyone... it is unsellable to anyone who doesn't have a very large amount of capital available to purchase a potentially very profitable enchanting pattern though, which is perfectly fine. basically it means that only the largest armour merchants will be able to make it, and that kinda fits.

no learning difficulty does seem like an odd oversight though. if it was super easy to learn, you'd expect it to be so simple as to not need an enchanting pattern at all, really...

Moonwolf
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Joined:Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:41 am

Re: Companion living armour

Post by Moonwolf » Thu Apr 25, 2019 8:45 am

In part it's the lack of grounding what things cost to non-adventuring costs. Given that non-crystal plate is 3k, a 12k suit is for very high end customers. The pattern is also hugely more expensive than anything else presented in 4E, because crystal plate is so expensive. Even assuming that thread items cost 4-6x the enchanting costs, thread ringlet ends up 1 PA/MA behind the plate, and about 2k.

Also the crystal plate takes 7 successes at target 19, at one roll a week, so you're not making a suit a week unless you're using loaded dice.

ChrisDDickey
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Re: Companion living armour

Post by ChrisDDickey » Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:32 pm

Just another comment about the price of just going out to buy a pattern.

Lets say your clan of cobblers makes 7 league boots. You are using the pattern your great-great-grandpappy discovered, and you and your cousins are the only ones around who can make the 7 league boots. You don't sell a lot of them because not many people can afford the price you ask for them. But if anybody wants 7 league boots, they have to go to you or one of your cousins. People come from hundreds of miles away to buy your boots.

Now somebody very rich comes in. He does not want to buy any boots. He wants to buy a copy of your great-great-grandpappies pattern. How much are you going to sell it for?

Moonwolf
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Joined:Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:41 am

Re: Companion living armour

Post by Moonwolf » Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:49 pm

That makes sense for bespoke or exceptionally rare patterns, and is discussed in the book itself, including using blood promises to secure training.

The lack of large items to compare the handful of singularly expensive presented crafting items to makes it hard to work out how rare any of this stuff actually should be. Travar talks about the costs of signing up to the tournament being really expensive, but how does that compare to anything an adventurer would be able to afford? When is having a large amount of the actually useful common magic items expected? Most of the living armours beyond the fern and crystal shields are functionally weaponsmith only, because of the alchemy and craft armour obligations, which puts the theoretical capability down to about 0.1% of the population (5% adepts, even split, high enough circle).

Sharkforce
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Re: Companion living armour

Post by Sharkforce » Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:48 pm

Moonwolf wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 8:45 am
Also the crystal plate takes 7 successes at target 19, at one roll a week, so you're not making a suit a week unless you're using loaded dice.
*shrug* it isn't an automatic thing, but you likely have karma available to spend on it which will help, and weaponsmiths can spend 2 points of karma on tests to make weapons if i'm not mistaken. and then there's thread weaving. if the weaponsmith can obtain a major pattern item for himself and his forge (and a friend/apprentice/etc willing to tie a thread to his pattern to boost a talent), that could be +18 to his craftsman talent right there. if his tools have a major pattern, another +9. potentially another +5 if it is related to a group (for example, if he's a member of a weaponsmith guild, and he is making the armour as part of the guild's activities). so if we imagine a 9th circle weaponsmith, that's 9 (craftsman free talent) + 9 (pattern item for the workshop) + 9 (another weaponsmith has threaded to his pattern to boost the craftsman talent) + 5 (group) + perception step = 32 + perception, plus anything from thread items and/or from his tools having a pattern item (for example, because they've been passed down through generations of weaponsmiths in this particular guild) + 4 (karma) + 4 (karma again).

so this theoretical weaponsmith using tools handed down through generations in a workshop used by generations of weaponsmiths could be throwing 48 + perception step at that difficulty 19 test (more or less, i mean, it would actually be 40 + perception + 2d6), with potentially more to come if there are any core pattern items involved and/or a higher circle, or if a thread item boosts their craftsman talent. that won't by any means guarantee 7 successes, but it isn't particularly unreasonable that it would happen at least fairly often. this isn't something i'd expect a random first circle adept to be doing, it's the the sort of thing i'd expect gets handed off to an experienced high circle adept who has a lot of resources at hand and who is probably part of an established and powerful guild (which is part of why said adept would have a lot of resources, particularly a workshop in a place with (a) strong pattern item(s) and likewise for the tools). oh, and i forgot to add blood magic in there... a blood promise could add another +2 to their talent as well.

when you *really* put your mind to it, you can get some very high rolls in carefully selected situations :)

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