Homebrew material: Wisp and Reflectum- Smoke and Mirrors

[ScrapyardDragon]

Wisp: For many years, sorcerers have been struggling with one (of many) questions. How to magic away all the things meant to stop magic. Wraithbone makes for a sufficient conductor, but can also serve as a means to ward off their spells. Eventually the means to empower their magics was found. Wisp is a dangerous substance to get ahold of. It is raw slices of umbral energy; be it the blood of djinn or chunks of the unbra itself. It is a strange substance, never truly taking a solid form, appearing as little more than an oddly shaped cloud of colored mist.

Special- Any character within 10m of exposed Wisp receives a 1k1 bonus to focus power tests, but their psychic phenomena rolls are at +5



Melee Weapon- The weapon's damage is resisted by the target's (Aura+Ap)/2 (round down) instead of their armor.

Ranged Weapon- The weapon gains the orgone array property

Ammunition- The weapon ignores cover

Armor- This armor's AP is replaced with aura of the same rating

Bionic Arm- The arm's lack of a solid form means that it can only be affected by magical (or power field'ed) means. However, it also means that proper coverings (Cloth, Leather, metal, etc.) are required in order to manipulate non-magical objects with it, though sufficient coverings block the exposure to spellcasting. The arm has aura instead of AP.

Bionic Locomotion- Most people would consider replacing both their legs with a ghostly tail to be crazy. You are not most people. Your movement is not impeded by terrain, and your "leg/s" may only be affected by magical (or power field'ed) means. The 'leg' has aura instead of AP

Bionic Heart- Reduce the TN of all spells that would affect you by 5.



Promethean Asset- The promethean gains the Minor Magic feat, and always counts as exposed Wisp.



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Reflectum: Reflectum is not an easy material to aquire. Not intentionally at least. Plenty of unwitting fools have found samples of it, only to be convinced it was some other substance. Anyone can make a mirror with enough effort, but proper smithing with Reflectum requires offering changeling blood and the proper magical incantations that have been long forgotten to most. When done properly however, it serves as a potent means to refelct fell magics and replicate the abilities of nearby materials.



Melee Weapon- The wielder of a Reflectum weapon may have the weapon duplicate the melee weapon properties of an artifact material within 10M as a ready action for the rest of the scene.

Ranged Weapon- The wielder of a Reflectum weapon may have the weapon duplicate the ranged weapon properties of an artifact material within 10M as a ready action for the rest of the scene.

Ammunition- While re/loading Reflectum ammunition, the user may have the ammunition duplicate the ammunition properties of an artifact material within 10M for the rest of the scene.

Armor- When the wearer of Reflectum Armor takes damage from spells or E damage, the attacker recieves half the damage the target did.

Bionic Arm- The user of Reflectum arms may have the Bionic duplicate the Bionic Arm properties of an artifact material within 10M as a ready action for the rest of the scene.

Bionic Arm- The user of Reflectum Locomotion may have the Bionic duplicate the Bionic Locomotion properties of an artifact material within 10M as a ready action for the rest of the scene.

Bionic Heart- You may cast Ruby Ray as a spell like ability using Level+Willpower in place of the normal magic test



Promethean Asset- You may spend a pyros to use any spell, special attack, or trick shot made during the scene, using generation in place of magic schools for spells.




Mirror Shield- Artifact 4

A Mirror Shield is a specially enchanted Reflectum shield made to ward off fell magics in place of it's normal effects. The bearer of a Mirror Shield may use it to parry Touch and Ranged Touch spells. Upon a successful parry with at least 2 raises the spell may be redirected towards an individual within the spell's range, using the result of the parry roll for the attack test.

[ScrapyardDragon]

Yeah, I made these materials pretty much entirely for the pun.

Anyways, I'm saving this post for changelogs. As always, don't be afraid to post feedback/questions/comments. Gotta make sure people don't think the forum is dead.

10/30/18
-Changed Wisp melee weapons effect from damage being reduced by aura to being reduced by the average of their armor and aura.

1/17/23
-small tweak to wisp weapon text to say that the result of the averaging formula is used instead of straight armor.

6/5/23
i have reworked the wisp material's passive effect. firstly, the bonus is always 1k1, but now you also will be rolling at +5 on warp phenomena. is it worth it? thats up to you.

[accidentalbystander]

Since Penetration doesn't work on Aura like it does on Armor, should Wisp melee weapons be able to ignore Aura up to its Penetration?

[username]

That's a good question. Aura is much rarer than armor normally. As it is, it works the same as Wraithbone Ammo which doesn't say it ignores Aura equal to the pen of the gun.
One could argue that Pen on a magic attack would go against Aura since the book states Aura is like armor but against magic and Penetration reduces armor, so penetration on an attack that is Magic would reduce Aura. It makes sense but is a bit tortured, and would make the weapons even more deadly than they already are compared to something like poor old Darksteel.

[accidentalbystander]

Ah, I was going by Traskus's answer here on it Penetration not working like that. Would it break anything if Wisp melee weapons and Wraithbone ammo did work like that? Darksteel's bonus feels more like "something very real and killy" while Wisp and Wraithbone's bonuses feel more like "slipping through the Warp".

[ScrapyardDragon]

hm, these are good observations and points. I guess I'll conclude that the current version's penetration would effectively be "piercing aura", but I'll definitely have to do some serious retooling to the melee weapons.

That said, darksteel is one of the worst core materials anyways...

[ScrapyardDragon]

per popular demand, I've nerfed wisp weapons to instead target the average of the target's armor & aura. That way aura still keys in a bit but isn't the "have it or die".

[username]

Oct 26, 2018 16:28:07 GMT -6 accidentalbystander said:

Ah, I was going by Traskus's answer here on it Penetration not working like that. Would it break anything if Wisp melee weapons and Wraithbone ammo did work like that? Darksteel's bonus feels more like "something very real and killy" while Wisp and Wraithbone's bonuses feel more like "slipping through the Warp".

Yes, that is the best way of reading it. There are some arguments otherwise, but the best reading of the penetration, aura and armor rules in the gear and glossary would be that penetration is separate. The only thing that does anything like that specifically in Book 1 or 2 is Emerald Frost Wizard Tradition, which doesn't actually have any kind of pen and instead works around it by instructing you to reduce the aura when doing the calculation by a certain amount.

Darksteel weapon and ammo originally had a bonus that was +8 penetration rather than the somewhat wimpy +4 it is now.

As for the change to use the average of Armor and Aura, I think that's probably a bad idea since it means there is too much calculation involved for each enemy.