DM Nagging: It's pretty much my job

[Anastasia]

Reminder for Cor, Eb and Neph: You're going into what's clearly a big plot dungeon. Any prep for it should be done before session.

[Nephrite]

Could you put us together in a thread in that case? That way there's no confusion as to what we're doing. :)

[Anastasia]

I will be once I get things rolling in a bit.

[Anastasia]

I was going to get this proofed, but under the circumstances I'll worry about it later, once it gets moved over to fluff and flavor. Go ahead and read it now and point out and typos of oddities if they impede clarity.

Artifacts

This article will discuss how artifacts work in Balmuria. This article is written from an OOC perspective and is aimed at players, not PCs. As such, I'll include a notes at the end explaining how much of this each character knows IC. I'm not worrying too much about spoilers here, as this is the sort of thing Mystra would tell Alicia if nothing else, so there's reason for it to be public knowledge.

What is an artifact?

The DMG discusses the origins of artifacts briefly (pg 277), as well as discerns between minor (pg 277) and major artifacts (pg 280). Review those before continuing. Balmuria uses a slightly different take on artifacts, tying them into the greater campaign world.

An artifact is a divine or quasi divine magic item beyond the means of mortals to create in normal circumstances. It is not a matter of lost lore as a matter of purpose. In Creation, every artifact has some purpose, some meaning towards the greater search for the Answer. Minor artifacts are relatively trivial things, minor points of minimal importance. Many do not have any obvious connection to such matters, as they may address small questions or points rather than great matters of good and evil. Major artifacts always have a history and a clear purpose, something that works towards the Answer in some way - perhaps obliquely or perhaps obviously, but always towards that. Many artifacts, especially major artifacts, are aligned towards law, chaos, good or evil due to this.

What properties does an artifact possess?

The powers of artifacts vary. Some are essentially powerful magical items while others do things beyond the greatest magic item to accomplish. Not all artifacts would be considered epic magic items nor are epic magic items automatically artifacts. Regardless, all artifacts are have the following properties unless their description says otherwise.

Artifacts ignore antimagic, dead magic areas or similar things. This is identical to a deity's ability to ignore such things. An artifact sword retains its full powers in antimagic, an artifact ring that raises ability scores continues to do so in antimagic and so forth. Exception: Artifacts that grant spell casting (such as the Shield of the Sun in the SRD) directly do not grant that spellcasting the ability to ignore antimagic.

Artifacts cannot be damaged or destroyed by mortal means. Note that mage's disjunction is not used in this campaign in favor of a houseruled equivalent called magic disjunction. Any non epic ability or spell that says it can affect artifacts can be assumed to be houseruled to be compliant with this. In the case of an unusual situation, bring it up with the DM. Physical force of all kinds are ineffective. Only specific circumstances unique to the artifact can destroy it. Generally, minor artifacts are easier to destroy than major artifacts. 

Artifacts are tied to the force or deity that created them. The strength of this tie varies. Minor artifacts have a faint connection, but major artifacts are always overseen by what they are tied to. How this manifests depends on a variety of factors.

How are artifacts created?

Mechanically speaking, there is one way to create artifacts. The Craft Artifact salient divine ability allows a deity to bestow the properties of artifacts on anything it creates. A deity with this ability can make artifacts as they please, so long as they have some small, tangential purpose towards the Answer. Generally, anything a deity makes will be a reflection of what they are and qualify for that.

However, that is not the only way to make artifacts, only the one supported by raw mechanics. Other methods can make artifacts as described below.

The personal equipment of deities usually becomes artifacts over time, if they were not artifacts before. The amount of time this takes varies, but multiple decades is the minimum. This usually entails no mechanical change beyond the item gaining the traits common to all artifacts. This must be equipment regularly used and equipment that has an effect that is not overlapped by artifacts or the deities innate abilities (example, a ring of protection+1 would not change, as the deity has a deflection bonus higher than that by virtue of being a deity). In other words, it must be equipment that contributes to the deity in some small way.

Rarely, an extremely powerful intelligent item with a purpose related towards good, evil, law or chaos is exposed to exceptionally powerful energy and compatible over a vast period of time. It is possible for an item in this situation to slowly become an artifact over hundreds or thousands of years. Most notably, the item develops a soul in case it did not possess one before. This is essentially akin to a mortal becoming an outsider without dying due to being exposed to powerful planar energies, only on a much longer period of time due to the differences between items and living creatures.

Both of the previous methods are not common, outliers that are notable that it happened at all. The main method of artifact creatures relies on a magical item being used in a remarkable way and accruing a legend around it. A mortal paladin's great holy sword that is part of every story as he throws down tyranny after tyranny and defeats monster after monster may one day have as much of a legend as the paladin. As the paladin grows stronger, gains levels and grows in meaning to Creation (see the article here for more information on that concept), the holy sword may as well. In time a small spark of potential may develop within it.

When an item has developed this spark a deity can choose to ignite it. Doing so transforms the item into an artifact, catalyzing all of this potential into the item and transforming it. The item becomes an artifact connected to the deity that transformed it. Additionally, a deity can only transform an item if it is compatible with them. For example, Tyr could certainly empower the previous discussed holy sword, but Cyric could not. This is done by the patron deity of the creature who primarily uses the item, assuming the creature has a patron deity. If the creature does not, a suitable deity who would not be hostile to the creature may do so.

How are artifacts destroyed?

As the DMG discusses, artifacts require specific methods to destroy them. The method for an item is meaningful for the item, usually some deed that is anathema to the item in some way. For example, using the holy sword above to murder a solar. The difficulty varies. Stronger items are harder to destroy, and major artifacts are harder to destroy than minor artifacts. Destroying any artifact should require a method that is a quest to complete under normal circumstances.

It's worth discussing another aspect as well. Namely, the methods of destruction can range from clear and material (use this sword to murder a solar) to the highly abstract (quench this sword in the suffering of a nation, then have it held by a man that embodies the sin of wrath). As a rule of thumb, more abstract methods of destruction should be considered more difficult than clear and material ones. This especially applies if figuring out what could fulfill the conditions is a quest unto itself. There is a slight tendency for artifacts related to law to have clear and material means of destruction while artifacts related to chaos to have more abstract means of destruction. However, this is far from universal and any artifact can fall anywhere on this range, regardless of if they are related to law or chaos.

How do magic items and artifacts interact?

As artifacts are magical items with extra properties, by and large they interact as they normally would. In most cases the rules established here and existing rules are sufficient. For example, a magic item that drains and destroys other magic items to power itself couldn't drain or destroy an artifact (unless that was the artfifact's method of destruction), as artifacts can't be destroyed by normal circumstances. Alternately, an artifact used to cast greater dispel magic to counter another magic item used to cast lightning bolt would use the normal rules for such a situation, using greater dispel magic's dispel check as normal.

If there is a situation where an artifact and magical item clash and the outcome is not readily apparent in the rules, assume that an artifact trumps a magic item, be it a normal item or an epic magic item. Any exceptions are a matter of DM discretion and should be rare.

What do various characters know about artifact creation?

It's safe to assume that any typical, non epic character knows nothing about how artifacts are really made. Exceptions may exist but these are exceptions, not the norm. Epic characters may know more, from experience or simply being highly knowledgeable. A DC 60 Knowledge (Arcana) check reveals a a few facts, a DC 80 check reveals more and a DC 100 check is sufficient to have a grasp of how artifacts are made (though not perhaps every method of doing so).

Deities are knowledgeable about the process, as they are directly involved in the creation of most artifacts.

What about artifacts and the works of Incarnations or things from the Far Realm?

In the event an artifact and a work of the Incarnations clash (such as 21), the work of the Incarnation has total supremacy, as it would have any other magical item, within the limits of the powers the work has.

Anything from the Far Realm only loosely plays by the rules of Creation at best, so this is something handled on a case by case basis. Unfortunately, there is no standard here, as creatures from the Far Realm lack any such structure or standards.

Balmuria 6 Post Script: How much does my PC know about this?

Alicia: Deity, so she should be familiar with all of this.
Moore: As someone with high K:A checks, you'd have a decent idea of how all this works.
Tryll: As someone with high K:A checks, you'd have a decent idea of how all this works.
Alyssa: As someone with high K:A checks, you'd have a decent idea of how all this works.
Seira: Deity, so she should be familiar with all of this.

[Anastasia]

Proposals for epic warmage spellcasting.

1. Each level, they gain a handful of spells known. They choose these spells and they must be on theme with the non epic warmage spellcasting. Basically, copy the advanced learning feature and make it how they work in epic. I'm thinking 2 spells per new level - at 21 they'd get 2 10th level spells to choose, same at 22 and 23. At 24 (the first level with 11th level spells being available), they'd get 2 that could be 10th or 11th level spells. It has the upside of having flexibility but the downside of more effort being needed.

2. Write up a spell list. It has the advantage of being solid and warmage has a small list as it is, so this isn't terribly difficult. The downside is that it's locked and can't be easily changed as we make more epic spells. I'm less partial to this option simply because it locks me into things and requires more DM work to adjust it as it goes on.

3. Keep it as is. It's a kludge, but it's not an unworkable one.

I lean towards 1, it's the best idea I've had (once I debug it and polish it up). But I'm more than interesting in hearing what y'all think. Particularly Moore because of Xandra, but I know Eb at least looked at warmage for Marie.

[Nephrite]

Looking at the actual Warmage spell list, my mind boggles a bit as to what theme they were even going for. General utility? A smorgasboard?

I don't have any objection to 1 as an option, since it would broaden spells from just Evocation as it is now.

[Anastasia]

Looking at the actual Warmage spell list, my mind boggles a bit as to what theme they were even going for. General utility? A smorgasboard?

I don't have any objection to 1 as an option, since it would broaden spells from just Evocation as it is now.

Let's try that. Could you do me a favor and fix up a mock 10th+ spell list for Xandra? Don't worry about mage of the illuminated temple stuff, just a flat spell list. Assume that she gets 2 new spells known from 21 on, each can be 10th level to whatever her max spell level is for that level. A short reason why (a sentence at most) on why it's justified as a spell based on pre existing warmage casting would be doubly useful.

Gives me an idea of what I can expect.

[Nephrite]

Glancing through the 10th level spells, this is what I have for what I think would be available as a general warmage list.

10th level

Antimagic Sound
Canderella's Sudden Thunderbolts (Evoc)
Gathgorian's Fireball (Evoc)
Greater Cone of Cold (Evoc)
Hellball (Evoc)
Mephistopheles' Cold Hand (Evoc)
Ravaging Touch (Necro)
Simmer's Contagious Fireburst (Evoc)
True Vulnerability (Abjur)
True Meteor Swarm (Evoc)
Vitrification Bomb

Thoughts here: Warmages learn no Enchantment, Divication or Illusion spells as far as I can tell. They learn a smattering of others with what seems like a focus on prismatic/elemental ones, so I tried to keep the theme here. I put in Antimagic sound because, for whatever reason, Warmages learn Shout, Greater Shout and other sonic-esque spells so it seems fitting. YMMV.

I originally had Unseen Needle on here, but it doesn't fit the elemental theme, so I ended up removing it.

Warmages learn a lot of Abjuration spells, but none of them are buffs, but they have things like Prismatic Sphere and Scintillating Path.

[Anastasia]

That wasn't quite what I asked for, but that's okay, I like what you did. What would you do for 11th and 12th level?

[Nephrite]

11th:

Dire Winter (Evoc)
Dragon's Burst (Evoc)
Elle's Deceptive Bolt (Evoc)
Fog Trap (Conj)
Imix's Desiccating Aura (Abjur/Trans)
Seira's Unicorn Rainbow (Conj)
Silverfrost (Conj)
Sunlance (Evoc)


Same thoughts as before -- I only allowed Imix's spell because it feels like it fits the theme and I'm willing to ignore the Transmutation part of it. No dispel magic because Warmages don't learn that stuff (y tho).


12th

Boneyard's Embrace (Necro)
Flux Grasp (Conj)
Sandalphon's Amazing Barrage (Evoc)
Rain of Desolation (Abjur)


Aaaaaaaand that's about when we realize we're out of spells. I would argue that Warmages should be able to learn Disintegrating Blast and Burst since they learn Disintegrate.

[Anastasia]

That's interesting work, thanks for the help, Moore. I'll work on it from there, it's really appreciated.

[Nephrite]

Sure. This is actually quite interesting to look at, so let me know if I can help further.

[Anastasia]

I will. I mainly need to do sanity checks and compare/contrast how they should work versus a sorcerer.

[Anastasia]

Heads up, I had the boards eat a post this morning. It's probably a random one off, but just in case it happens to y'all, be careful with longer posts.

[Anastasia]

Dana reaches level 33.

- Dwarven Defender 19 and Psychic Warrior 24.
- 8 on a d12 for a total of 21 hit points and a grand total of 618 hit points.
- +1 BAB for a total of +32.
- Dwarven defender's AC bonus rises by 1 to +7 total.
- Another daily defensive stance.
- +28 power points for 32nd level psychic warrior manifesting. No new power this level, unfortunately.
- All saves rise by 1.
- +1 Strength for a total of 25.
- Skills go up as normal.

Really an average level.