So you want an actually holy sword or evil sword?
For your clerical NPC enchanters:
Puissance (Holy) - This enchantment is functionally the same as Magery-based Puissance, except it is unaffected by No Mana Zones. In addition, its bonuses do not apply in combat against good creatures or inanimate objects. Normal animals, evil foes, etc. are affected normally. Weapons enchanted with Puissance (Holy) will detect as holy to anyone with any level of Holiness or Power Investiture on a Per+Holiness or Per+Power Investiture roll. In addition, Holy Puissance will give its bonus to any roll for True Faith with Turning, if the weapon is presented boldly while concentrating.
Puissance (Unholy) is identical, except its bonuses apply against all opponents, good and evil, animate and inanimate, alike. It is affected negatively by Sanctity on a 1-for-1 basis (An Unholy Puissance +1 weapon is +0 in High Sanctity areas, a Puissance +2 weapon is +1, but would be +0 in Very High Sanctity areas *). Optionally, bearers of such weapons cannot use them to directly harm the truly good or innocent.
Holy and Unholy Accuracy are logical extensions of this, and would work the same way - evil vs. everyone, but affected by sanctity, while Holy is only vs. living foes, either unaligned or malign, but not versus fellow holy types.
The idea here is that Holy weapons aren't especially good at smashing up physical objects and can't hurt good people (well, can't hurt them extra, anyway). They shine through even in evil Unholy sanctuaries, though, and show up as Holy when see. Crusader types can present their weapons as they turn the undead. And the usual shields against magic don't apply here.
Cost on these is double that of the normal enchantment (double the energy cost, then calculate the price), and in general churches will only enchant such weapons for the faithful. Evil types might be more free with it, but in general would be greedy and unpleasant types to deal with, and using such weapons would mark you as a tool of evil. Not good, in most game worlds, and perhaps a good excuse to pick up Social Stigma (Excommunicated)!
* I re-wrote this to use level names, not shorthand for level changes like I did originally. You could also go with Power levels, which would, in general, mean Unholy Puissance at Power 15 does nothing in a High Sanctity/Low Unholy Sanctity area. Or you could just go ahead and say that Unholy Puissance +1 or +2 do not function at all in High or Very High sanctity holy areas, and that Unholy Puissance +3 is reduced to +1 in High and does not function in Very High. You shouldn't be able to march around into the high holiest sanctuaries with evil stuff and have it not be affected, but "bring your blessed blade to clear out the temple to Hell" makes perfect sense. Corruption is turned away by good, not matter if it comes to the good or the good comes to it.
For the unholy puissance, you might want to have the bonus or penalty be the difference between the two sanctity levels. Maybe some areas both the Devil and God want to claim it and they both raise the sanctity there so their followers can fight for it. Or maybe there is a place that neither good nor evil care about and there is low sanctity on both sides.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with opposing sanctity is that it'll always come out to a single number anyway - if it's +3 holy and -3 unholy, it's 0. I don't see a situation where you'd end up with two numbers.
DeleteHere is an example, a temple is dedicated to the Devil and God does not like it. He sends his clerics there are increases the sanctity to very high. The evil clerics of the Devil also have very high sanctity due to the evil energy of the temple. Both the holy clerics and evil clerics can cast huge spells for little energy. This is an ulimate showdown between evil and good.
DeleteThe difference between the two sanctitis in the temple above is 0 yet they both have very high sanctities.
DeleteAh. That would take re-doing the sanctity system though - it would be weird to have Very High Sanctity in an unholy place, and vice-versa. It's like saying an area is very life aspected (and gives a bonus to life spells) and death aspected (gives a bonus to death spells) but that neither actually gives the usual penalties to the other. It might make for a cool epic final showdown, but it would mean needing to track bonuses for both and ignore penalties for both, I think.
Delete+2 to -2, I mean, not +3 to -3 (an error I made in the original post). I changed the wording to use the level names and expand on the idea a bit.
DeleteAnother example is cursed land. Maybe God cursed a land because of too much sin and then he provides no Sanctity there. There is however low unholy sanctity and evil magic can be cast but it is weak. Evil clerics go there but few find much use of the land because it is so difficult to cast their evil spells there. But it is a land where evil men can congregate and wait to try to raise the evil sanctity. Holy weapons would not work here but unholy ones would.
DeleteEven another example might be a church where there is high holy sanctity and low unholy sanctity. Maybe over time some of the clerics are sinning and this raises the unholy sanctity to normal but the holy sanctity is still high. Then some of the clerics are tempted into wickedness and this raises the unholy sanctity to high but the holy sanctity for the pious who attend the church is also high. If the wicked clerics are brought to justice then the unholy sanctity can be reduced back to low. In this case the holy and Unholy sanctity do not cancel each other out, instead they depend on what is happening with the morality.
DeleteIn that case, I'd lower the Sanctity overall. I don't like the idea of holiness and unholiness co-existing in that fashion. Sin in the holy sanctuary and it's not as holy anymore, at least in my game.
DeleteI am too affected by Ars Magica and its aura system which is like sanctity and mana levels in GURPS. There are Divine, Infernal, Magical and Faerie auras and each of these are independent of the other although over time they one aura can erode the other aura. But in Ars Magica the Infernal is the master of corruption and deception. The Infernal Aura can hide within a Divine aura like rotten pits in an otherwise wholesome appearing fruit.
DeleteWould the item with holy puissance trigger a Weakness disadvantage in an evil creature that has a weakness to holy water?
ReplyDeleteIt's not water, so no. It would be a holy object, for those who dread holy objects.
DeleteHow much damage does the Holy sword do to someone with Social Stigma (Excommunicated) who picks it up?
ReplyDeleteI'd say nothing, but it might not function for them.
DeleteBut you could assign it 1d x level of Puissance Burning (Cyclic, 1 second cycles, 1000 cycles, Cosmic: Ignores All DR, Accessibility: Only those who are Excommunicated or have Unholiness or Unholy Powers of any kind), if you like. No one would argue with that. Or live long if they're the sort to argue with that.
The holy weapon should not be limited to living opponents; it should be good against undead opponents as well.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't restricted to living, just animate. Undead are animate.
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