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RE: (TFT) Suggested house rules: Tool Elementals

At 6:58 PM -0400 4/24/09, DMG wrote:

Mark,
It appears you have grafted the entire talent system onto weapon enchantments.
More or less, yes. I was trying to pick up the flavor of the Zahn stories, and I hope I at least came up with a mechanism. 


..But how many months does it take to make this,


	5 seconds, to create the weapon. It's a "Create Elemental" spell.
However, the *training* process to teach it the skills was left as an open question. I think the rules for "learning new spells" should serve as a good guideline - more intensive teaching using telepathy -> less time. One on one conversation with the teacher -> more time.
and what happens if the wizard "looses control" of the elemental before the trianing is complete, or worse.
I think the elemental would have to realize that by itself, without the assistance of humans, it's a rock. It is not self-mobile. It's in a shape useful to humans, but not useful to itself without a human. If it fails to cooperate, it dooms itself to a miserable (and probably brief) existence.
In that too, I hope I have somewhat captured the essence of the Zahn stories. 


After it has learned a talent, and constitutes a greater threat to the world.
That, more or less, is the $64 question that I could not answer. As with a human offspring, I don't see any way to guarantee loyalty. If the elemental has "original sin" or is just plain evil or whatever, there may be no way to cause it to become a good, loyal servant. That could be an interesting story line in itself, I suppose. I simply postulated that a sufficient indoctrination and education could eventually cause the elemental to throw its lot in with its creators, and use what powers it has to serve them well. 

At 6:58 PM -0400 4/24/09, Jay wrote:

5 fST huh?
Plus atributes...

I'm VERY curious as to how you got this figure?
Extrapolated from the fatigue ST cost of the "Create Elemental" spell. I wanted the wizard to have control of the IQ, so that he would have control of the number of talents he could teach it after creation (really, I was looking for memory, not reasoning ability, but staying with the 3-attribute system required "IQ" to be controllable). But I thought that to get this degree of control, he'll have to pay for it, and the reasonable approach seemed to be to have ST, DX, and IQ all paid for as part of the creating spell. 

At 6:58 PM -0400 4/24/09, TFT Digest wrote:

....And never the twain shall meet.
Well without purchasing each Talent seperately and the Guild system of economey may not make this a simple task. (Michaelangelo) 
Of course industralization changes that...
In fact, it might be easier to find a Goldsmith Master Armorer (the existence of which is already hinted at in AM (p.22), under "Fine Weapons") and teach him the "Create Tool Elemental" spell. It'll cost him 3 IQ, and he'll be at -4 DX to cast it, but ... teaching a wizard "Master Armorer" and "Goldsmith" (with pre-requisites) would be pretty expensive in terms of his IQ.
But the ST requirements are such that it may be "industrial magic" anyway, since it requires so many apprentices and/or ST batteries to pull off a Fine Tool Elemental. So I think Isladranil probably had wizards dedicated to production and teaching of these weapons. 


A gold or silver tool?
REALLY?!?
Per the precedents apparently set in AW, p.7 under "Iron, Silver, and Magic". Useful to wizards, or just for show, I think. I can't see any reason a normal warrior would want one. 


Rich vein and ore?
Deep?
LUCY...


	Extrapolated from the rules for "Earth" (and "Elementals"), ITL p. 58.


Well THAT'S a vibro blade.
HELLO major damage.
Yeah. I thought about that, but didn't want to go there. The things are potentially game-imbalancing enough as is. But I can imagine "Vibro-blade" being taught as a skill, maybe. 
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