I kind of have to agree with Yogs interpretation of the splendor because otherwise it's literally just better to use Mortal enchantments and you can't actually Grant Boons and artifacts of ancient sorcery to any of your retainers or followers trusted or otherwise and something about that doesn't sit right. Literally by raw you could make a tree that could make similar things to kuei Jin but under bronze interpretation you couldn't give someone a good sword.
It's not a matter of interpretation, it's a matter of what it literally says.
1) you must attune a splendor to use it, though you can own as many un-attuned ones as you like
2) Using a splendor involves summoning it, paying the appropriate cost to do so at that time.
3) HS explicitly requires summoning the splendor and then designating a target in the same scene to be marked by it.
That isn't playing games with anything, I've quoted the exact passages where it stays this during this conversation.
Splendors aren't useless without HS breaking the attunement system, and mortal enchantment certainly isn't better either.
For one thing, show me a mortal enchantment that will do this for anything like comparable effort:
Sacred Protection (3 pt. Root Element)
This Splendor defines that which cannot threaten those within its influence, according to the Splendor's character as defined by appropriate Form Elements.
It provides immunity to damage from wind, cold, and electricity (air); being crushed, cut, or pierced by stone or metal (earth); being burned (fire); being drowned (water); being poisoned or struck by wooden objects (wood); disease (death); possession (spirit); or the twisting of the mind by supernatural powers (dreams). If its protection is bestowed by a Fascination, it lasts for a number of hours equal to the Splendor's rating, and may be set to persist indefinitely while within the Splendor's influence in the case of Forms such as Form of the Hearth.
If more than one characteristic is drawn upon when this Element grants its Protection, then instead of invincibility, damage is simply downgraded from aggravated to lethal, lethal to bashing, and bashing damage cut in half after soak (round down), while immunity to possession and thought alteration become the ability to make a Willpower roll at difficulty (10 – Splendor's rating) to immediately shake the effect off, and immunity to disease becomes the ability to make a Stamina roll at difficulty (10 – Splendor's rating) to immediately shake the infection off.
A 3 dot item can make the user immune to 4 elements, and this isn't the only good thing in there.
If you're trying to make rings of +2 soak it's inefficient, but that's not what they're for. The intended use case is to make weird and powerful effects that bend or break the norms of enchanted items.
It also bears repeating that the only people completely locked out of splendor use without HS are flat mortals.
Vampires, mages, sorcerers, enlightened martial artists, demons, fey - pretty much anyone who can work a magic like effect can attune a single splendor at a time. Anyone can own as many as they're able to acquire, so s swapping their plot device/ring of power is possible if necessary. We have gobs of qualifying minions already.
The only thing setting up HS as a slotless item but does is allow you to stack arbitrary numbers of splendors on anyone you like, directly removing nearly all of the use related balance elements worked into the items.
Being able to make a tree that produces super soldiers isn't the same as being able to produce those and hand them out in arbitrary numbers to anyone with a pulse*, and making one in the first place required homebrew shenanigans that weren't even explicitly approved** anyway.
* including yourself since HS works on the owner too. It would take comparatively little effort to add invincible assertion to all of an exalt's critical skills, make them immune to most forms of attack, carry more extra lives than Mario, and all sorts of other tricks.
** As far as I recall.
@Goldfish MHM doesn't do anything with willpower it is an occult intelligence roll.
[X] Yog
When using it to inflict damage directly the damage dice are based on current temp willpower:
With 3+ successes, the Infernal can "fly" by moving herself around telekinetically. She may also grapple or strike her opponents using telekinesis, using a dice pool of Intelligence + (lower of Occult and Brawl or Melee). These attacks inflict bashing damage, and the Infernal's Temporary Willpower acts as her effective Strength value.
