Guide: Enchantment

Guides: Enchantment How DO it work??

A Player's Guide to the Enchantment Numina

When it comes to Sorcerer/Psychic concepts, there's a few Numina in particular that tend to stand out more than others. There is, of course, a reason for this! Enchantment can be a fairly powerful Numina when utilized correctly, from such simple concepts as creating objects allowing -2 to Melee rolls all the way up to creating animated creatures. What goes hand in hand with powerful things in most situations? Complexity. We all know White Wolf can be vague and confusing in their texts, and Sorcerer Revised is no exception. Below I'll attempt to break the Enchantment Numina down into bite-sized parts that you can use to fully understand the complexity of White Wolf's, and City of Hope's, rulings on the usage of the Numina itself.

Enchantment Basics

The actual mechanics of Enchantment are covered on the Enchantment page. As this guide is written to explain practical uses and how Enchantment works with CoH House Rules, please refer to the Enchantment page for any game mechanic inquiries.

Enchantment itself, as intended by the Sorcerer Revised book, is meant to be a Path that can encompass any number of custom magical effects into its usage. In a MU environment, however, such a thing is fairly difficult to accomplish. As this is the case at City of Hope, you may be wondering how a Path that's meant to have such a wide range can work if fully custom effects aren't allowed. The answer, to provide the widest range of customization while ensuring its compatibility with a MU environment, lies in the House Rule uses of Lores, which will be covered later in this guide. Enchantment levels will be laid out in two brackets below, explaining what can be done with each bracket and how.

Enchantment Levels 1-3

Levels 1-3 of Enchantment are somewhat limited in effect, with various examples from the books themselves having been laid out on the Enchantment detail page. The staple usage of these levels of Enchantment, however, is the creation of +X dice and -X difficulty magical items. Generalized examples can be found below on which levels can do what, and what their limitations are.

All magical items created with Enchantment levels 1-3 are created as level 1 magical items. This can be confusing, and is covered in more detail in the Rituals, XP Costs, and Modifiers section.

Increasing Dice:

• Limited to Abilities and subsets of Attributes
• Can provide +1 die per level of Enchantment
  • Ex: Enchantment 1 is used to produce a bracer that provides +1 die to all Melee checks.
  • Ex: Enchantment 3 is used to produce a ring that gives +3 dice to all Alertness checks.
  • Ex: Enchantment 4 is used to produce glasses that gives +4 to Perception checks to notice movement.
• May apply to all uses of an Attribute at a +2 penalty
  • Ex: Enchantment 5 is used to produce a pair of glasses that gives +3 to all Perception checks.

Lowering Difficulty:

• Limited to -2 difficulty
• Limited to Abilities only
  • Ex: Enchantment 2 is used to create a ring that provides -1 difficulty to all Occult checks.
  • Ex: Enchantment 3 is used to create boots that provide -2 difficulty to all Athletics checks.

Enchantment Levels 3-6

Enchantment levels 3-6 are where we get into issues when it comes to the lack of full customization. Though the +N dice effect of levels 1-3 may be brought as high as level 6, and though the book provides numerous examples of objects that can be made at these levels, it's still not enough to emulate the true customization options the Numina was meant to provide. On City of Hope, that's where Lores come in. With the Lore of a Sphere at 3, a Sorcerer may emulate the powers and magical items of that Sphere to create magical items with similar effects.

It should be noted, however, that for example a magical item emulating, say, Mother's Touch is not literally using the Gift Mother's Touch. It's simply a magical item that happens to work similar to Mother's Touch.

The use of Lores to make magical items similar to the powers of other Spheres opens up a wide array of customization options when it comes to Enchantment Rituals. What happens, however, when the power or item you'd like to use for your magical item utilizes Gnosis, or Vitae, Rage, Glamour, Quintessence, or any of the other pools that the various Spheres might possess? In these cases, the Sorcerer is allowed to choose the pool utilized by the object. In the above example, Mother's Touch, a Sorcerer might choose to swap out the requirement of spending a Gnosis with spending Willpower, Mana, or perhaps even Vitae or Quintessence if the item is being gifted to a Vampire or Mage, respectively.

When it comes to which level of Enchantment can emulate which level of Power or magical item, there's a simple formula. Enchantment 3 can emulate level 1 powers and magical items, Enchantment 4 can emulate level 2, Enchantment 5 can emulate level 3, and Enchantment 6 can emulate level 4. As you can see, emulating level 5 powers and magical items with Enchantment is impossible, and even level 4s require Enchantment to be at 6. Due to multiclass restrictions, this can be a difficult benchmark to reach.

Powers from game lines that do not have a 1-5 Power progression structure, such as Possessed and Bygone, may not be used for magical items with the above methods.

Due to the limitation of having to have the requisite Lore: <Sphere> at 3, Sorcerers not associated with a Sphere outside that of Sorcerer/Psychic may be asking what they can do without them. The answer is: Quite a bit! Take into consideration that Sorcerers start with Lore Sorcerer-Psychic at 3, which means that at Enchantment 5 you may create magical items that emulate Sorcerer/Psychic Numina up to level 3.

Above Enchantment levels 1-3, the level of the magical item created starts to rise. Enchantment 4 creates a level 2 magical item, Enchantment 5 creates a level 3 magical item, and Enchantment 6 creates a level 4 magical item.

Examples:

• Enchantment 3 may be used to create a wand that acts as the Rank 1 Gift Mother's Touch, spending Willpower instead of Gnosis on activation.
• Enchantment 4 may be used to craft a sword that provides the wielder Potence 2.
• Enchantment 5 may be used to fashion a dagger that works the same as a Fang Dagger, a level 3 Fetish.

Rituals, XP Costs, and Modifiers

The above examples given, the next question may be 'How does this translate into Ritual levels and XP costs?', or 'Are there any custom modifiers I can place on my magical items to lessen the cost?' The below handles these questions in detail, with examples to make it a bit less complex.

Rituals and XP Costs

The level of Ritual used for any particular item, as well as its XP cost, is based upon the level of Enchantment used, and not the power being emulated.

• Ex: Using Enchantment 1 to create a backpack that gives the wearer +1 to Academics dice pools is a level 1 Ritual, which costs 3 XP.
• Ex: A gun created with Enchantment 3 that provides the user -2 difficulty to all Firearms rolls is a level 3 Ritual, which costs 9 XP.
• Ex: Crafting a set of water wingies that provides the wearer Celerity 4 with Enchantment 6 is a level 6 Ritual, and costs 18 XP.

The XP cost to craft a magical item with Enchantment is only charged one time. If a Sorcerer wished to create the magical items in the above examples, she'd only have to pay the XP cost once per type of magical item desired.

• Ex: The Ritual to create a ring that gives +2 to all Primal Urge dice pools utilizing Enchantment 2 would cost 6 XP. Once the Ritual is purchased, the Sorcerer need not purchase it again, and may continue creating this object at their leisure.

Modifiers

As with most Sphere crafting, there are numerous modifiers that may be included when crafting that may raise or lower the level of the item and Ritual created. This list is detailed on the Enchantment page, however a few examples are laid out below.

• Ex: A player would like to create a tattoo that provides Fortitude 2 to the wearer. As the magical item is a tattoo, and is harder to steal/knock out of the player's hand, etc, the level is increased by 1.
  • In this case, the player must purchase the Ritual at level 5 instead of level 4 to accommodate the option of the item being a tattoo. The player would not need to purchase a separate Ritual if a non-tattoo version is requested to be made with Enchantment 4.
• Ex: While creating a bag that emulates the level 1 Fetish Magpie's Swag, you decide you'd like the item to only be usable by your intended recipient. Limiting the item to only be usable by one individual would lower the level by 1.
  • In the above example, the item may be bought as a level 2 Ritual instead of the usual level 3.