Artifacts

[robertliguori]

The Hand & Eye of Vecna are chortle-with-glee-worthy. It's a shame no (experienced) player would be foolish enough to use such items.

Hey, thanks to the specificity rule, all you need is an effect that protects your physical form. "You are zorted into nothingness." does not reference other rules; "You are protected from things that zort you." does; ergo, the dark and subtle mysteries of the Vecna-bits will be available as soon as a careless designer starts introducing additional conditions akin to petrification, and a generic preventative.

This kind of struck me.

I was always of the impression that artifacts were little bits of godly(or, in rare cases, godlike) power given physical form. You don't get much more deus ex machina than that.

Or am I misunderstanding one of the relevant terms here?

In a Greek tragedy, the cast can't cast Forbiddance to prevent their gods from descending from Olympus, and don't have too much of a chance of murdering them outright if they get the notion. The current treatment of artifacts would be a damn fine set of rules...for an E10 game. But the entire point of being a paragon is that the set of rules and assumptions about what mortals can and cannot do is bent in your favor, and by the time you're epic, "the impossible" is also known as "what I did before breakfast today."

Really, it's the minion problem with the polarity flipped. I like the idea of encountering enemies so weak relative to a character that they can be mown down en masse, and I like the idea of spells, effects, and dangers so potent that no traditional countermeasures will work. I just don't like those conditions to remain constant across 30 levels of adventuring.

Part of the joy of D&D is watching monsters go from plot device ("A troll! Run away!" to a solo ("He's back! Lidda, drop the cask of alchemist's fire on his head!") to an elite ("Dammit, a troll and a cleric? But clerics can cast Resist Elements...oh bugger.") to a normal monster ("I'll take the one on the left, and you take the two on the right.") to finally minion status ("Yeah, the Trollfens sound like a great place to invest in real estate. Trust me on this.")

Likewise, I enjoy the fact that you can go from "A wall of force? Well, there's no way we're getting around this. Let's go back around and look for the keycharm." to "Okay, we have one rod of cancellation. We can make one breach in the fortress's magics. Or, we can hold onto it, on account of the fact that Miss Entropic Disciple up there may well be flinging a Sphere of Annihilation around. What do you all think?" to "A wall of force? Disjunction. It go poof now."

I like the fact that you can encounter a great wyrm, a massive creature that exemplifies the utter peak of the development of might both physical and magical, and he is a Sorceror19, and you can be a Sorceror20.

Having mechanicless, "These can only be opposed or countered through the GM's whim" items smacks me of including equipable Elministers in your world. The way I roll, even the big boys of the universe play by the same rules as everyone else, and if Vecna hops into the material plane and throws a Magic Missile at you, a Shield charm will block it. I think it makes a more satisfying universe than roping off certain effects and not thinking about what they imply or how to make them work consistently.

 

[the Jester]

Obviously artifacts are hard to balance.

The 4E designers have apparently said 'screw it' and didn't even try, instead thinking the better solution would be to have them not balanced, but make it so they are little more than a fleeting mistress in the character's adventuring career.

I can't imagine how that's a good solution for something as iconic and monumental as an artifact.

Did you play earlier editions?

3e took away all the cool stuff about artifacts, and 4e is putting it back in. If all you want is a big cool magic item, settle for a big cool magic item.

 

[the Jester]

Artifacts aren't entities, is the problem.

I absolutely disagree. They are entities, with their own goals and motivations.

 

[Spatula]

Well, in 4e you can. It has been told several times by the designers that epic PCs are supposed to be able to fight and slay deities. They even gave two examples about their powerlevels (Orcus who is in the MM and Moradin who is not in the MM but his level has been mentioned by the designers)

As a lesser power he should not be that high beyond lvl 30. Moradin as a greater power is lvl 38 solo while Orcus as something akin to a lesser power is level 33 solo . So I would guess Vecna between lvl 32-34 solo

Orcus isn't a god at all. He's a mere demon lord, below the gods in power. Some have said that gods would probably be around level 35-38 solo monster, but that's just talk until there are published stats for gods.

 

[Spatula]

Having mechanicless, "These can only be opposed or countered through the GM's whim" items smacks me of including equipable Elministers in your world.

So basically, you're opposed to the very idea of artifacts. That's fine, don't use them.

 

[Stogoe]

The Hand & Eye of Vecna are chortle-with-glee-worthy. It's a shame no (experienced) player would be foolish enough to use such items.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm not 'experienced' enough but I think it might be fun to have a character involve himself with the Objects of Vecna even though I as a player know they're bad news.

 

[malcolm_n]

If you don't like that the artifact goes away, you can rule that it is satisfied enough with the user to stay. Also, keep in mind that there are artifacts who've done so previously, like raistlin's staff. Also, there are ways to keep the artifact against it's will, like the one ring. That thing kept trying to get away, but frodo always grabbed it again. When at last they were going to destroy it, it finally wanted him to have it back so he wouldn't so it dominated him.

 

[Mirtek]

Orcus isn't a god at all. He's a mere demon lord, below the gods in power.

Actually Orcus is a primordial, peer to the deities. He's not one of the most powerfull primordials, but somewhere akin to a lesser deity.

Orcus and Demogorgon are primordials who settled in the Abyss after it was created by Tharizdun. Tharizdun hoped to command them to lead his own faction in the struggle between primordials and deities to wrest controll of creation for himself.

However as godlike primordials in their own right they refused to bow to Tharizdun and simply did their own thing in the Abyss

Some have said that gods would probably be around level 35-38 solo monster, but that's just talk until there are published stats for gods.

Soon we will have the published stats of Orcus and Doresain.

The people who already have their stats say Orcus is Lvl 33 solo and Doresain (as an exarch which is the 4e term for demigods) is only lvl 27 elite (which I find disappoint, he at least deserves to be a solo).

So I would put Vecna not higher than lvl 32-34 as his powerlevel is app. the same as Orcus'