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Here’s the deal: I almost always play The Smart Guy, and one of my favorite roles is the group’s crafter. When the crafter teams up with a bunch of hyperactive combat monkeys, however, they tend to get overshadowed and focus more on staying alive than having fun. Every so often I’ll run across an ST who’s experienced enough to just let me bullshit some jury-rigging and macguyvering in a fight, but there’s other STs who just don’t know how to handle it… so maybe putting together some really simple rules for it will help. Obviously, this is still a bit of a work in progress so any feedback would be appreciated.
Here’s my assumptions:
General Rules:
Splat Specific Rules:
Suggestions? Critiques?
Here’s my assumptions:
- All crafts as one. I’m not tying this into any particular system, I just personally rarely run into games that don’t merge crafts down into a single ability instead of six dozen.
- The order of awesome-at-this should be, roughly: Alchemicals > Lunars > Dragonbloods > Sidereals. Solars, Abyssals, and Infernals are included as a rough reference, but in-universe generally do not use battlecrafting.
- This is way too cool to be locked behind charms, so even mortals can do it - most splats will have a charm or charm tree that makes battlecrafting better; the exceptions are Solars, Abyssals, Infernals and mortals.
General Rules:
- To craft during battle, the character must pay a penalty. These penalties are detailed below.
- Pool is Wits+Craft. Difficulty is regular resources cost for the item -1, minimum 1. Item takes resources *2 ticks to create, minimum 2.
- The item holds up for threshold successes +1 uses - so if used in a flurry, it could potentially break immediately. The item will fall apart at the end of the battle without the use of charms to preserve its integrity, regardless of the amount of usage.
- For example, a straight sword would be difficulty 1 and take 4 ticks to craft.
- This system cannot be used to create artifacts.
- This system can be used to create armor and other objects as well as weapons.
Splat Specific Rules:
Alchemicals must either pay 1m/item crafted, with a maximum number of items per battle equal to [Craft], or may take the following submodule:
Omnitool Implant - Battle Legend Fabricator: The Maker’s wisdom flows through the Alchemical, though it most often lurks below the surface. This submodule allows the Alchemical to craft in battle without paying the per-item surcharge. The number of items zi may create per battle is still limited to zir craft rating.
Solars, Abyssals, and Infernals must pay 3m/item crafted, and are capped at a maximum number of items per battle equal to [Craft -1]. They explicitly have no charms for Battlecrafting, as it’s on roughly the same level as Thaumaturgy for them.
Lunars must pay 5m/item crafted, and are capped at a maximum number of items per battle equal to [Craft -1].
Heartsword Drinks Deep
Cost: 3m; Mins: Wits 2, Essence 2
Type: Standard
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Any Wits Excellency
Luna is the mother of all tricksters, and values the tricks her chosen play. The Lunar may activate this charm while Battlecrafting a weapon. Should the weapon drink the heart’s blood of an opponent, the Lunar gains zir opponent’s form as though zi had performed a sacred hunt.
Cost: 3m; Mins: Wits 2, Essence 2
Type: Standard
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Any Wits Excellency
Luna is the mother of all tricksters, and values the tricks her chosen play. The Lunar may activate this charm while Battlecrafting a weapon. Should the weapon drink the heart’s blood of an opponent, the Lunar gains zir opponent’s form as though zi had performed a sacred hunt.
Dragonbloods must pay 1wp for the first item crafted in a battle. Each battlecrafted item that still exists adds another wp to this charge - so if the DB has made 2 items in the current battle, both of which are still usable, zir charge would be 3wp for the third item. If one breaks before zi crafts the third item, the third item would charge 2wp instead. Their maximum number of items per battle is equal to [Craft /2].
Sidereals must pay 1 endurance per item crafted per battle, and are capped at a maximum number of items per battle equal to [Craft /2]. Their battlecrafted items glow with an Obvious blue light, showing their supreme serenity in battle.
Mortals are only rarely capable of battlecrafting. Such a feat requires at least a 2-die stunt, costs 2wp, and is limited to a single item per battle.
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