artifact questions

[Khisanth the Ancient]

When building a deity with less than four artifacts, you just give it other abilities equal to the ECL of the lost equipment, right? So a hero-deity with two artifacts would get extra abilities equal to half the ECL for equipment at hero-deity rank?

Also, can a deity have an unlimited number of neutronium or orichalcum, but nonmagical, items? A Sidereal I'm working on (the Sun of a campaign setting) needs a ton of swords (and he can only have three artifact ones, since one slot is needed for his armor), but that could be sort of unbalancing! (Of course, does a 220HD Old One really *need* balance?)

[Belzamus]

Remember that Artifact Bonus = 1/3 of TOTAL ECL, including that from HD.

Your 220 HD Old One, ECL 380, has a total Artifact Bonus of 127. Dividing that by 4 yields a total of 31 per points per Artifact.

If you were to forego two of said Artifacts, you would gain +62 ECL to play with in whatever manner you choose, usually in the form of extra Divine, Cosmic, or Transcendental abilities.

As for your other question, you should be able to give them as many as you want, as Uncanny Weapon Specialization, a "mere" divine ability, makes all weapons you wield size-appropriate, anyway.

[paradox42]

For my game, we actually differentiated between "artifacts" as defined in Ascension, and artifacts or magic items as defined in the core rules. We call the Ascension artifacts "Soul Objects," and just posit that every one of them could be used in a manner like that described in Chapter 1's Resonance section (not that my PCs have ever bothered).

What happens, then, is that the practical difference between Soul Objects and artifacts/magic items becomes that Soul Objects automatically grow with the user/creator- and other items don't. So yes, you can go get that +20 Universal Energy Blast Vorpal Greatsword when you're ECL 60, but that same weapon's going to look pretty shabby compared with your Soul Object weapon when you become, say, ECL 120. And you have to spend actual XP, materials, and time to upgrade an existing item- Soul Objects just automatically change for free whenever your ECL goes up for any reason. Soul Objects, therefore, are limited to 4 as described in Ascension; other items are not.

Belzamus makes a good point about Uncanny Weapon Spec, too. If they're actually nonmagical, then as long as you can afford the materials cost of creating/getting them, I say go for it.