Satanic Item Abilities

From Sagataflwiki

Latest revision as of 19:49, 22 May 2011

This article contains Item Abilities that can only be Enchanted into items via Satanic Rites. See the Table of Contents to find out which abilities are available.

Mark Target

This Item Ability can only be put into weapons. It lets the wielder designate ("mark") a target, effectively using the item to cast the Ability on the target, so that for the Duration, the wielder receives an RD bonus for all attempts to cause physical harm to the target utilzing the weapon, including Skill rolls for Critical Strike and Precise Strike.

The target must be within range when the Item Ability is used, and feels or notices nothing, unless he has a general ability to detect spellcasting or a specific ability to detect Satanic magic.

This Item Ability is unusual in that Investment Levels spent on increasing the number of charges only double the charges, per IL, instead of following the usual progression. Other expenditures of ILs function as per the standard rules.

A weapon with Mark Target can only have one target at a time. Any time the Item Ability is successfully used on a new target, or when such an attempt Fumbles, the old target is lost, and if successful, the item has a new target. A "lost" target can always be re-targeted, but it is of course more efficient to kill or otherwise take down each target before Marking a new.

Disarms and trips and other tactical options do not qualify as physical harm, nor attempts to damage items carried by the target.

Any object can be used as a weapon, but for the vast majority of items in any setting, it is meaningless, since they cause no harm. A handful of sand, for instance, could not benefit from Mark Target since using it to irrirate the target's eyes or lungs does not qualify as physical harm. Any heavy object can cause harm but is often so unwieldy that the user suffers a severe RD penalty.

Aid Infiltrator

This Item Ability gives numerous bonuses to the target, aiding his ability to move stealthily and overcome a variety of physical obstacles.

The first RD bonus applies to the Stealth Skill, and the AL6 version also improved the target's Sneak Speed. The Skills that get the second RD bonus are:

• Acrobatics (Jump Factor is also improved)
• Climbing (Climb Factor is also improved)
• Jumping (Jump Factor is also improved)
• Swimming (Swimming speed is also improved by the AL5 and 6 versions)

The AL5 and AL6 versions also gives the target a multiplier to all his Terrain Skills, for the Duration, so that he can function better in unfamiliar Terrain (fortresses usually count as Urban Terrain, which many rural characters will have little no or Skill with). This multiplier also applies to the Omniskill and to any other Skill used to substite for or in place of a regular Terrain Skill.

Note that Investment Levels spent on increasing the Duration of this Item Ability will only cause a doubling of Duration per IL. Investment Levels applied for other purposes use the standard rules.

There is no bonus to any combat Skills (including Dodge), nor to working with traps or locks, nor to breath holding time, or to swimming or other movement endurance. It's about helping the target get into (infiltrate) places warded by guards and mobility obstacles, and getting out again (exfiltrate), Duration permitting.

And just to state the obvious: Aid Infiltrator synergizes well with Mark Target, in an assassin's dagger, blowpipe or similar.

Example, Mark and Aid

Ignoring other potentially interesting Satanic Enchantments, let's put Mark Target and Aid Infiltrator into an item (a dagger, because that's the most common and obvious choice) to make a good assassin's tool.

Starting with Aid Infiltrator, we want a dual-strength item with both a very powerful version and a weaker version. Aid Infiltrator III is nicely powerful. Base charges is 3 per 3 Years, for a Normal sized item (such as a dagger), for 1 Investment Level. We want a bit more, so we spend 1 IL to increase to 10 charges/3 Years. That's not a lot, but then again 2-3 big jobs every Year is quite reasonable for an elite assassin. 2 ILs are spent to quadruple the Duration to 24 Minutes. The default target of wielder is fine, no ILs spent here. Default Activation Time of 1 Minute is also fine, no ILs spent here. Total ILs spent 4, for a cost of 2.8 Essence. Expensive but nice.

For lesser jobs (all in a day's work as an elite assassin) we'll also take Aid Infiltrator I. It's not as buttkickingly powerful as the grade III version, but much cheaper, and so suitable for much more frequent use. Base charges is 3/Moon for 1 IL, costing 0.2 es.

Going a bit over the top, we spend 3 ILs on extra charges, ending at 24/Moon (note that for most other 3rd level Invested Item Abilities or Spells, . The wielder can basically use this Investment on an as-needed basis, no need to save charges, unless he lives in D&D-land where adventuring is constant. 2 more ILs on Duration, again landing at 24 Minutes. With both Investments having the same Duration, it is somewhat plausible that the wielder can develop a timing method to know with reasonable accuracy when the Ability expires. 2 ILs can increase the Duration from 1

Advice

Include any and all pertinent advice here. The goal is to increase the chance of each player having fun, by giving advice helping the player to decide whether to buy the ability or not (if the article is about one or more abilities) or use the option (if the article is about something that characters can choose to do), and later on how to make use of the ability (e.g. to avoid any pitfalls that aren't extremely obvious).

Please note

Clarify, elaborate, try to predict and answer questions that are somewhat likely to be asked during character creation or during play.

Mini-FAQ

Put in sub-sections (three ='s) each containing multiple Q&As, and insert a blank line between each individual Q&A.

sub-section

Q:
A:

Q:
A:

The world

A section mainly for the GM, or worldbuilder, about the world impact of the phenomenon, e.g. an Item Creation Power, or an attribute or other stat that may sometimes be starkly high or low relative to the Human average.

World impact

Talk about the effect on the world that this phenomenon would realistically have (taking into account such facts of human nature as greed, ambition and sexual impulses).

The Ärth setting

Talk about how this trait appears and functions in the Ärth historical fantasy setting.

Design Notes

Mark Target

This Item Ability is well suited for an assassin, and in many settings, a significant portion of Satanists will be assassins, at least on the hobbyist level. Any such agenda tends to suit Satan (or any similar Dark Power in a non-Earth fantasy setting) well. And of course a character who is a professional assassin, or who becomes one via possession of a weapon Enchanted with Mark Target (and maybe also Aid Infiltrator), can easily be twisted and corrupted by demons, turned into the treacherous dark side-embracing kind of asshole that is their end goal.

The gimp on extra charges is to prevent this from becoming the ultimate combat weapon. With fairly limited charges, the wielder must choose his targets well, and go after valuable leader targets, and similar, instead of using the item to mow down ordinary foes by the dozen.

Then again, base charges for Mark Target II is 3/Moon. 4 Investment Levels raise this to 300 per Moon. If the wielder has six major fights per Moon, he can Mark 50 targets per fight, each with a -2 RD bonus to hit. Add another 2 ILs to speed up the Activation of the Ability (deliberately left at base 1 Round, to make is relatively swift to use) to 1 Second, and the wielder will be able to mow down lesser foes by the dozen.

Originally there was an AL2 version only for Missiles, but this was dropped.

Aid Infiltrator

Like Mark Target, the Aid Infiltrator Item Ability is highly attractive to shady types, although Aid Infiltrator is all about infilration, about getting into places that are tricky to get into (and exfiltrating - getting out again). The Item Ability deliberately aids only physical Agility-type Skills, not Lockpicking, Acting, Bluff or similar. Instead of subtle but widely useful bonuses, the wielder gains more specific but also much starker bonuses, probably enabling him to perform downright supernatuaral feats (at least for the grade II and III versions) that no mundane sneaker-athlete could ever get away with.

The synergy is, however, obvious. A dagger Enchanted with both Mark Target and Aid Infiltrator is a superb assassin's tool. Note, though, that Aid Infiltrator can be Enchanted into any type of item, and that Investment Levels can be spent to enable it to cast the Ability on targets other than the wielder, so that one such item can aid an entire group of infiltrators.

The gimp on Duration extension is simply for balance reasons. If the Duration could be extended as per the normal rules, then many such items would be made with extreme Durations, as in 4 hours, a few even 1 Week. Perfect for guerilla fighters, but not desirable from a balance perspective, nor from a world perspective.

The extra bonus to Stealth at AL5 is simply to "even out" the progression. AL4 gives a -1 RD bonus to everything, and AL6 gives a -2 RD bonus to everything (because -3 RD to five Skills would be too much), so what's left for AL5? The most obvious solution is to give -2 RD to one Skill, and out of the Skills affected by Aid Infiltrator, Stealth is the most important one.

If you want your character to be able to sneak like a ghost, you'll want this item. Of course, there's the tiny matter of Satan & friends, wanting to fuck up your character's friendships and his morals (and maybe even get him to sign on the dotted line. And no, that's just red ink. Perfectly ordinary red ink...).

Quick mini-glossary

Explain terms of great relevance to the subject matter of the article here, but not terms that are of generally great importance (e.g. RD).

See also

Include links here, to other articles that are highly pertinent to the subhject matter of this one. Remember
linebreaks before or after (but not both!). link
link

To be added

Material from Magic Items doc that needs wikifikation:

• p87, IAb Mark Target.
• p87, IAb Aid Infiltrator.

Table for use