Finally! It is past 1 AM here, i am one third asleep, but i can write! I can expose! I can talk!
It also didn't help that i was busy before, and also had an headache.
I can see two ways:
- Charms that let you treat mundane weapons like artifact weapons. The most important issue is that these need to be Reflexive otherwise the action cost is a really big deal.
- No inherent statistical bonus to artifact weapons, but the option to purchase Evocations from them.
If 3E didn't give slightly better stats to artifact weapons, they would mostly be a way to spend background dots to unlock an additional way to spend XP (especially solar XP) on charms.
Actually there is a third way to make Mundane Weapons a viable option: make Artifacts have the same stats of the equivalent of Perfect Mundane weapons, but both apply special effects to them and decrease flexibility of the user.
How?
Let's suspend this question, and quickly go on a diversion that will help answer this question.
Let's take the Table from the Oedanols Codex (Incidentally: Ah Ha! I spotted Earthscorpion and Aleph cribbing partially from it, but maybe missing something from it! Not that it isn't hard, being every example awful.) (Also, i have currently no access to the PC containing Most of my exalted files, because it decided to start the "Upgrade" to Win 10 whilst i wasn't looking, and i objected shutting it down. I will probably have to deal tomorrow with a messed up computer, but luckily i have a recovery disk. What i was going to say, is thaat my memory isn't perfect and i may be wrong.) and analyze it: and look, Three dots artifacts, Fours dots artifacts, and Five dots artifacts are suggested to have powers equivalents to respectively a terrestrial circle spell, a celestial circle spell, and a solar circle spell. Or solar charms of varying strenght.
Well, the last part is solars are most importants! bullcrap explained badly, but it has a menaing, which can be understood thanks to the Exalted Seconce edition book, specifically thanks to the Daiklave of conquest (Artifact 5) and the Singing staff (Artifact 4).
The singing staff is pretty much a perfect example of "Sourcerous" Four dots Artifact: other than being a weapon, it allows the weilder to twist the earth to their benefit, even reaching to the level of making a Desmene easier to make. (My memories fails here: was it true, or i am remembering badly this?) Nothing like the pillar of light reaching the heavens of Solar sorcery, but making the work of a year in a month? Twisting the very dragon lines in such relatively short time? Yeah, that effect is easily Celestial level, the mundane applications re simply the cherry on the top of the cake.
The Daiklave of conquest is anyhing but a Sorcerous artifact: nothing of its war empowering effects can be mapped to any other spell. But what can be done is mapping them to the impact of a Spell. And using such a scale? The Daiklave of conquest is pretty much a very good Five dots artifact: its mechaincs may be lacking, but it was intended to make your army massivley stronger in respect to everything else. It was meant to make anyone but the fiercest enemy in mewling cowards, and still weaken their resolve to the level of a barely above averange human. It was meant to change the face of regions, like Solar Sorcery is meant to do.
As a little diversion, Death at the Root is too overpowered for a 5 dot artifact but, after a pruning and a rebalancing, makes for a very good N/A artifact: having Solar Circle level powers but much more subtle. No titanic pillars of light, only the wielder of a weapon capable of cutting away your infrastructures and putting her own in place in two orders of magnitude less that it would have taken. Scary.
So we can now see what the oadenol's codex was meant to say: each level was supposed to have the same impact of an equivalent spell level.
And now you are almost surely saying, "But Giygas, artifacts fixed in such a manner would make me more likely to want them, then to want a mundane weapon!"
Well, there is a mildy complex solution to that! Let's start with Aaron Peori's Martial arts fix, lets crossbreed it with the evocation system, and than apply it to the native charmset to the exalted.
And now, fellow forumegoers, you are probably saying"Giygas, you madman! What are you doing! Oh god, i can immage the complexity and brokennes leaking into reality! Goood God, it
buuurrrrnnnssss."
And you would be wrong! Here the two am has come and passed, but Giygas isn't still competely insane or mad! He is at the third tea, but this mean nothing!!! He isn't really effected by caffeine! NAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
... Okay, i will assure you that it is less complex that it read like.
SImply put,
let add to the Exalted another thing to buy, and modelling it like a fusion of a evocation style artifact and Aaron fix, and then divide charms in two categories, universals and style charms Okay, better explanation:
In this system, Exalted charms (And probably all the other kind of charms too) would be divided to two kind of charms: Universal Style charms, and Stance Style charms.
Then, to every Exalted splat (And probably to all the other essecne wielders) would be added another thing to buy: Stances, a susprisingly holy hybrid between Aaron solution, and EX3 solution of artifact and martial arts.
Every stance would have artifact like effects and costs, and both open up when activated the Stance Style charms trees conncted to it and close down certain Universal Style trees (Which are otherwise usable everywhen, being universal); Stances would also have some cost/difficulty to switch between each other, but nothing impossible to pay/do. And of course, as long as they aren't completely incompatible, an Essence user can held Stances for different susbsistems.
For example, a rapier wielding swordsman has the Dashing Rapier Stance and the Beautiful Orator Stance activated (The three AM come closer and closer, so please don't judge my name giving abilities), which means that the Stance Style charm trees associated to them would be presumibly something about wielding well a light weapon, being a beautiful and graceful orator, but not the (otherwise Universal)/(Stance Style) breaking things well tree.
Then the rapier wiedling swordsman find himself in dire need to breaking a thing well, but he cannot use charms to do it because he is in an incompatibble stance.
The option are now three:
1)If the Breaking things well tree is an universal one, then the Reapier Guy needs simply to drop his Dashing Rapier stance, use the right charms, and then assumume it again.
2)If the Breaking thing well three is a Universal one, but it is incomplatible too with Beautiful Orator Stance, then the Rapier guy would have to drop both stance, use the charm, and then he would be able to assume then both gain.
3)If the Breaking thing Tree is a Stance one, then the Rapier guy would have to drop DR Stance, and assume the other one to use the charms. (Thi may be combined with 2, assuming that the breaking things well tree is incmpatible with the BO stance.)
Okay, Three AM has just Passed, so i am going to cut this short with a rapid explaation of Artifacts and Martial Arts.
Essentially, Artifacts would empower one/more Styles(Both by empowering their charms, and giving them more), but would require them to be active with much greater difficulties in dropping the Stance(Which would have its bonuses presumibly overwritten by the artifacts). Martial Arts would outright give you new Stiles, but would also be in most cases their own stance, stopping you from doing anything incpmatible with it.
More detailed explanations will come later, now i must really go to bed.
Goodnight!
