[Solar System] Let me see if I got equipment ratings right...
Eero Tuovinen:
Yeah, the new rules are somewhat different from the old ones, Harald - they're in the generic crunch section at the beginning of the book. I made a point of keeping the equipment ratings intact as a concept, but the way they're used is pretty different. Imbuements work differently, too.
John: don't get confused by this discussion of my new TSoY equipment rules - it's all explained pretty clearly (I hope) in the book, these forum clarifications aren't really that good in comparison. I can tell about the old rules, too, if you'd rather hear about them.
As for your questions, remembering that we're discussing the new rules: Owning equipment always costs one Advance per piece of equipment - it's just like a Secret. This is radically different from how it used to be, but it works better this way, I find. The one Advance buys you however many equipment ratings your item has, and the chance to have Imbuements in the item. Imbuements are Secrets that are possessed by the item instead of the character. It used to be that Imbuements cost Advances just like normal Secrets, but they also gave you a one-point discount on using the Secret for various reasons. My new rule is that Imbuements do not cost Advances (although you still need to be able to justify the Imbuement in the setting, and an item may only have at most as many Imbuements as it has quality value), but instead they have an introduction cost: when a character uses an item with any Imbuements for the first time in a scene, he has to pay Pool equal to the number of Imbuements to introduce the item. My goal with this new dynamic has been to support powerful magical artifacts better than before: the logic of these new rules is that you don't need 10 Advances to own Excalibur, but you need to be quite virile to swing it around - and even then you'd likely only bring it up in an important scene where it's actually useful instead of using it all the time.
As can be seen above, equipment only has extra Pool costs if it has Imbuements. Thus the simple sword in my last post is free to use, as it doesn't have Imbuements. If we gave it some, it'd look like this:
My Ultimate (5) Magic Sword
This is a magical sword crafted from the bones of a bird, such as some Qek craftsmen make for ritual purposes. It whistles when swung, and should it pass nearby your ears, they will bleed blood. The sword's vibrations break bones quite easily on impact; the user can activate the Secret of Mighty Blow at will. Also, the user can sacrifice a '+' die from his Ability check to bumb up the equipment ratings of the sword by one step for the rest of the conflict.
Ratings:
+1 for fighting people
+1 for fighting spirits
+2 against birds and lizards
+2 against hearing opponents
+3 for ritual dances involving martial spirits
Imbuements:
Mighty Blow (V)
Equipment Mastery (I)
Cost: 1 Vigor and 1 Instinct per scene
The type of Pool each Imbuement contributes to the introduction cost is determined by the Story Guide according to his whim - whichever Pool the Secret itself uses is always a good pick. As you can see, Imbuements and Secrets are mechanically interchangeable: the Mighty Blow Imbuement and Secret of Mighty Blow do the same things once they are introduced into the game one way or another.
oliof:
This does also dovetail into the issue of lending some piece of equipment to someone else: They could possibly use the ratings as-is, but would need to pay for the imbuements.
Eero Tuovinen:
Actually, the imbuements are free for everybody. The only cost associated with them is the introduction cost, which applies to the whole item. So if your item has imbuements, you pay the introduction cost once in each scene if you want to use the item for anything, ratings included. The introduction cost is per-item, though, so if you loan your item to somebody else in the middle of the scene, they don't need to repay the introduction cost - or that's how I figure it, the situation hasn't come up for me yet.
oliof:
yes, but you can loan and the recipients pay for the imbuements if they want them and you didn't before. That's a nice feature.
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