Masterwork items and Magic weapons and Armor

[Waleed Ibn Alurah]

I like the idea of Masterwork items, like a sword. Corsair (3) would get a 3d6+1 with a mastercraft weapon. Not all Masters are equal... a Hattori Honzo sword could be a Masterwork +3 sword.

Magic weapons however I think would add dice, not just a number, making them much better than a master work weapon and much rarer. Corsair (3) with a Cutlass +1 would be 4d6. If it were a Cutlass +2, then 5d6.

Magic Armor subtracting/ignoring attack dice is a good idea. When someone who's wearing +5 armor threatens you, you better back down unless you have a +5 magic weapon to even it out.

Ring of Protection +1... etc... could work out nicely here.

Magic items are not prolific in Mike's game, which makes earning one even more special so I know where he's coming from and he's not about to send a bunch of goblins dressed in +5 armor weilding +5 weapons at us, unless it were a joke or if we teleported to Forgotten Realms. Sometimes you can't always win the fight, well, I digress...

Anyways, I like the ideas for this set of house rules.

[Ahmar]

Waleed said:

I like the idea of Masterwork items, like a sword. Corsair (3) would get a 3d6+1 with a mastercraft weapon. Not all Masters are equal... a Hattori Honzo sword could be a Masterwork +3 sword.

Magic weapons however I think would add dice, not just a number, making them much better than a master work weapon and much rarer. Corsair (3) with a Cutlass +1 would be 4d6. If it were a Cutlass +2, then 5d6.

Magic Armor subtracting/ignoring attack dice is a good idea. When someone who's wearing +5 armor threatens you, you better back down unless you have a +5 magic weapon to even it out.

Ring of Protection +1... etc... could work out nicely here.

Magic items are not prolific in Mike's game, which makes earning one even more special so I know where he's coming from and he's not about to send a bunch of goblins dressed in +5 armor weilding +5 weapons at us, unless it were a joke or if we teleported to Forgotten Realms. Sometimes you can't always win the fight, well, I digress...

Anyways, I like the ideas for this set of house rules.

I think superior and masterwork items just homogonize things to much. If a scimitar forged 1000 years ago for a famed warrior gives the same +1 as a cutlass made especially for a corsair lord, what's so special about either one? They're bonus die gear according to the Risus rules and can have different effects.

Let's say Ahmar ended up with the scimitar. The blade could simply add one whole die to his most combat-oriented cliche or just make one roll an automatic six. The cutlass, say in Waleed's hands, could have either of these effects or something slightly different.

I like magic items to be a bit more unique. Weapons can certainly give the bonus die or auto six mentioned above, but they could also do lots of other funky things. What about demoralizing your enemy (reducing one of their cliche die to a 1)? A weapon or magic item can bestow an entirely new cliche or power. In this way, each magic item is unique, not just assembly-line creations.

[Ahmar]

Here are some suggestions from S. John Ross on how to represent magical or superiorly-crafted armor in Risus:

By default, cliche dice-loss doesn't necessarily represent injury at all: even in a purely physical fight, it can represent demoralization, humiliation, loss of apetite, waning sex drive, falling for the "Goodrich Blimp" joke and being poked in the eye, being partially disarmed, being bound up in sticky magical glue, or any number of other things that a suit of fine chainmail, at least arguably, would have no effect on. So, in Risus, armor is (like any other normal physical object) assumed to be nothing more than a prop, or (if it's special) Bonus Dice Gear.

That said, there's No Wrong Way to Play Risus, so here's some alternate methods cribbed from my notes for that book I don't mention by name anymore:

*Non-Victory Bonus Dice: Armor adds dice to your combat cliche, but those dice are represented by a different color, or rolled separately. These dice add to your total normally, but they won't help you WIN an exchange; they'll just prevent you from LOSING one.

EXAMPLE: You roll 3,3,5, and a NV die of 6. He rolls 6,6,4. His total is 16, and your total (before considering the armor) is 11, so you lose. But now you add your armor, and your total is 17. You DON'T win ... The round is a draw, and you lose no dice and he loses no dice, since you don't "really" have a 17, you just have one for defense purposes.

* Martyr Dice: You can represent armor by assigning any suit a "swap number." This is the number of your dice you can sacrifice from your roll to remove dice from his roll. As above, if this turns the tide of battle, the result is a draw for that round, instead of victory.

EXAMPLE: You roll a 1, a 3 and a 5; he rolls a 3, a 3, and a 6. If your armor is worth one Martyr die, you can sacrifice your 1 and get rid of his 6! Now you compare totals normally. Your 3,5 now beats his 3,3 - so the round is, again, a draw.

* Armor Value: There's a flat number by which an opponent must defeat you to cause you to lose a die. If he doesn't beat you by that much, you don't lose the die but you don't cause him to lose any, either. Simple.

The result of all these methods is the same: He'll have to work harder to hurt YOU, but you don't actually get any bonus to hurt HIM. Note that if you include these rules, your game should include "suits of armor" for all kinds of conflicts, not just physical, or much of the core of Risus is discarded. If a Big Brawny Knight can get a physical-combat bonus for wearing Big Brawny Plate Armor, a Weaselly Corporate Executive should get a negotiation-combat bonus for wearing an Expensive Trendy Power Tie.

Optionally, the armor bonus can be used only when it's not your turn (so you're assumed to be the defender) to water down the potency.

In either case, I'd recommend letting levels of armor cancel each other out, to keep play simple. If you've got two bonus armor dice (or two Martyr Dice, or a 3-point "Armor Value") and he's got two bonus armor dice (ditto), then just throw the rule out for this fight and use the cliches straight-up. If you've got three and he's got two, then you have ONE for this fight.

[Waleed Ibn Alurah]

Ahmar said:

I think superior and masterwork items just homogonize things to much. If a scimitar forged 1000 years ago for a famed warrior gives the same +1 as a cutlass made especially for a corsair lord, what's so special about either one? They're bonus die gear according to the Risus rules and can have different effects.

It has to do more with story and history than anything else in the above case. Would your character rather carry a 1000 year old sword possibly belonging to an ancestor, or a new blade he had commissioned for him? Rules-wise they are the same, but in the story they are not. In the Conan comics I felt bad for Conan losing his dad's helmet, it was just an orindary helmet, but it had history behind it and made it more valuable to him than all the others he could have taken.

I like magic items to be a bit more unique. Weapons can certainly give the bonus die or auto six mentioned above, but they could also do lots of other funky things. What about demoralizing your enemy (reducing one of their cliche die to a 1)? A weapon or magic item can bestow an entirely new cliche or power. In this way, each magic item is unique, not just assembly-line creations.

Yes, but a magic weapon should be sharper than a normal blade or even a master's blade and in game terms this is signified by bonuses. Leaving it at that and giving the sword no history makes it worth less, but not worthless, in story terms. It's up to Mike to determine if he wants to add additional powers, but with additional powers usually comes bad reprecussions.

[Waleed Ibn Alurah]

Ahmar said:

Here are some suggestions from S. John Ross on how to represent magical or superiorly-crafted armor in Risus:

Hmm... too many things to remember. I like Mike's original idea.