Rules for Enchanted Arms and Armour

(Last update: 7/9/95)

(this page written by Mark Shirley)

Armour

With Muto spells, you can lighten armour without changing the protection, or you can strengthen it without changing the load - but not both.

As a protracted lab process (i.e. an enchanted item) you can instill both effects. Treat like the equivalent spells, add 5 levels for constant use and divide by two - item only.

Strengthening

Armour can only have its protection increased to 150% of normal - no more. To give a +2 proc is a Muto XX of 20th level, where XX is Herbam (padded/quilted armour), Animal (leather) or Terram (metal). See table below.

Lightening

The minimum load is 50% - it is impossible to negate the item's weight entirely. To reduce the load by 0.5 is a 15th level spell of the appropriate Muto Art. See table below. For leather and cloth armour, treat as 5 levels less.

Magical Armour

Spell level	Maximum increase in Protection	Maximum decrease in load
10	+1	0.5
15	+2	1
20	+4	2
25	+6	4
30	+8	6

Shields can also be lightened like this, minimum load is 0.

It is also possible to lighten armour with Rego spells. Here the weight can be reduced to zero, but one cannot negate the bulkiness, thus there is a minimum load of 0 for Cuirass, 1 for Hauberk and 2 for Full armour.

Spell Level Effective Strength
15 1
20 3
25 5

Spell Level	Effective Strength
15	1
20	3
25	5

[based on Unseen Porter, ReTe15 D:conc.; which provides a strength of +5]

Weapons

Covered by the Art of Rego. Can only create a permanent change with the use of vis - in an enchantment or as a ritual. There is no limit to how far weapon stats (excluding DmgB) may be permanently increased to, other than the ability of the wielder (see later). Like armour, only one statistic can be altered with a formulaic spell, but all can be affected by expenditure of vis.

Note that boosting 1st, AtkB and ParB is hard - must have Qik/Dex (as applicable) equal to Mag. of spell to use weapon correctly, otherwise the weapon is just better than its wielder. Damage is not affected in this way.

For each Magnitude of the spell, +1 can be added to the appropriate Characteristic. AtkB and ParB can be figured into the same spell because they are both dependent on dexterity - A 20th level spell will add +2 to both; or +1 to one and +3 to the other; or +4 to one.

First Strike can also be improved by lightening the weapon with Muto Terram - use armour table for load decreases, minimum 0. So a 15th level spell would reduce the load by one. The speed of the weapon is increased proportionally to the decrease in load, thus if a load of 2 is reduced to 1, then the speed is 150% of base; if reduced to 0 then the speed is doubled.

Nota Bene

A magical weapon that has its own Weapon Attack/Parry skill gives little benefit if one's skill is higher than that of the weapon - in fact, the weapon and its wielder will use different styles: use the difference between the weapon's and the wielder's skills.

For example:

A sword with an attack skill of 5 is wielded by a mediocre fighter (skill 2) as if it had a skill of 3.
If hefted by a master swordsman (skill 7) then the effective skill is -2, the warrior is too set in his individual way of fighting to adapt to work in harmony with the sword.

It is possible to forge a weapon that fights to the same style as a particular warrior if he is the one that trains it. However, no cumulative benefit is gained from this - just use the largest of the two skills.

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