I feel like I'm doing something wrong...(Making a Crafter)

[gojj]

So because I usually make "serious" characters I decided to make a guy who's kind of quirky. I decided to make him a Focused Practitioner with Ritual: Crafting. He makes quite powerful potions and sells them to local doctors and "spirit healers" as vaccines, antidotes, etc, but as I finished up his power list I just couldn't shake the feeling that he was too strong and that I had messed up somewhere. I'm going to copy-paste his powers and explain it a bit to avoid any confusion. I haven't decided what the refinements will be (a hat, ring, etc.) yet, I'm just focusing on the mechanics at the moment.

-2: Ritual: Crafting
    -1 Refinement: +4 Crafting Strength (combined with 2 free focus items from Ritual)
-2: Refinement: Block 10, 7 turns
                      Blast 9, 5 turns
-2: Potions (7) +1 Potion strength

Ritual: Nothing odd here, used the two free focus items and then bought a refinement to increase the bonus. Bonus is under Lore and potion strength is still under 2x Lore.
First Refinement: Used 5 slots here: 1 for item, 1 for increased power, and 3 for increased use.
Second Refinement: Used 3 slots, one for item, and 2 for increased use.
Potions: Essentially 2 refinements, just combined them to save space. Used 7 spaces for potions and one to increase potion strength (the book isn't very clear how this works, does the +1 apply ton all potions I ever create or just for one potion per game?)

It just seems like I messed up somewhere, otherwise I can (for only one scene of course) become nearly invincible if I drink a Guns and Athletics potion in the same scene, having at least one above legendary in each stat. I know drinking more than one potion at a time has bad effects, especially potions this potent and I assume this will manifest in an aspect on me, something like "Churning stomach" or something, but even with that it just seems like I can become a god for 2-3 scenes in any form of combat. I double checked the rules (I only have the PDF and I know the book is slightly different so maybe there's a modified rule there I'm not aware of) and can't find any mechanical faults, but like I said I just have a feeling that I'm missing something. The strength of the potions are 10, exactly double my Lore and the limit on the strength of craft able items. And just as a side note the refresh we are currently at in out campaign is 9, so I have 8 refresh to work with.

Thank you for your time.

[Masurao]

Mechanics-wise I am just as curious as you, on the narrative side, however I can comment a bit. Your powers are your potions, you will probably take an Aspect to reflect that, right? Something like, Always the Right Potion for the Job!, perhaps? I would imagine a GM might wish to remember you of all those potions when you get in scrapes, take a fall or are being grappled.

Becoming temporarily god-like can be fun, if it is needed to safe the day, but you would need to have 2 of your potions slots always dedicated to these two potions. They might take a very long time to make and if the GM extends a session to a few days, you might run out of certain potions. In time, you might become known amongst regular baddies for your potions, so they will take measures against that. They might try to poison your potions. Et cetera.

And you mentioned that getting such powerful magical beverages in your stomach, especially two at a time, might have some nasty side-effects. Imagine being compelled to run to the toilet every ten minutes or so! Or if you really get Legendary Athletics, you might reason it is because you become hyper-sensitive and hyper-acute and react to all sorts of stimuli in a reflex.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Ok, some important notes here:

The release version of the game changed crafting a little bit. The most important change is that you can't craft always-on items any more.

Your potions also benefit from your Crafting Strength focus item, so there's no need to have a separate item for increasing Potion strength, and they wouldn't stack anyway.

Potions and enchanted items generally should not provide a bonus to skills. They replace a skill with a certain result, or provide aspects with free tags.  So, if you drink a power-8 potion of "dodge real good" you get exactly one athletics roll at 8.  Or you could make it a power-5 potion with 3 uses.  Or make it place two aspects (since a maneuver requires 3 shifts), each with one free tag.  However, at least for my group, we've agreed that multi-dose potions have to be drunk and used one dose at a time.

Yes, crafters can be ridiculously strong.  I'm not sure about your exact math, especially since you didn't tell us your lore score.  However, I've played a crafter in a Feet in the Water game with only 1 or 2 refresh spent on Refinement and he was pretty dang awesome.  The only thing that keeps him from overruning the game is that I've used him much more for problem solving than for combat power.

[gojj]

Ok, some important notes here:

The release version of the game changed crafting a little bit. The most important change is that you can't craft always-on items any more.

Your potions also benefit from your Crafting Strength focus item, so there's no need to have a separate item for increasing Potion strength, and they wouldn't stack anyway.

Potions and enchanted items generally should not provide a bonus to skills. They replace a skill with a certain result, or provide aspects with free tags.  So, if you drink a power-8 potion of "dodge real good" you get exactly one athletics roll at 8.  Or you could make it a power-5 potion with 3 uses.  Or make it place two aspects (since a maneuver requires 3 shifts), each with one free tag.  However, at least for my group, we've agreed that multi-dose potions have to be drunk and used one dose at a time.

Yes, crafters can be ridiculously strong.  I'm not sure about your exact math, especially since you didn't tell us your lore score.  However, I've played a crafter in a Feet in the Water game with only 1 or 2 refresh spent on Refinement and he was pretty dang awesome.  The only thing that keeps him from overruning the game is that I've used him much more for problem solving than for combat power.

Ok, that makes sense to me. I've never dealt with potions before so (from the book's explanation) it sounded like if you drank a "True shot" potion with a 9 strength, your Guns would be at a 9 (for shooting people) for the entire scene.

When you said "The most important change is that you can't craft always-on items any more.", did you mean that the +4 Crafting Strength could not be applied to enchanted items or that I'd have to keep creating new items to replace the spent or used up items?

And lastly my Lore is Superb.

[EdgeOfDreams]

When you said "The most important change is that you can't craft always-on items any more.", did you mean that the +4 Crafting Strength could not be applied to enchanted items or that I'd have to keep creating new items to replace the spent or used up items?

There used to be a rule, during Beta, that you could make an enchanted item, cut the power of it in half, and have the effect (such as providing Armor) always on instead of having uses per session. That rule was ditched completely.

Your +4 Crafting Strength will still apply to both enchanted items and potions, and items that are used up don't vanish, they're just useless until the next 'session' (unless you pay 1 mental stress per additional use, a little-known rule found in the enchanted items section).

[Arcteryx]

Also watch your pyramid with the refinements. i.e. you can't have a +2 power bonus for water evocations until you either have +1 control for water or a +1 power in fire. You can't have a +3 until you have a +2 and a +1. And if you have two bonuses at +2, you must have two more at +1 (straight out of the book YS182)

With a refinement you can either

• get a new element (not going to happen if you are a focused practitioner)
• get two additional specialization bonuses for evocation and/or thaumaturgy (some issues there again being focused)
• gain two focus item slots (which translates into 4 enchanted item slots)

[Llayne]

I think your guy would look something like this.

Powers:
-2 Ritual: Crafting
-5 Refinements

Specializations:
Crafting: Strength +2, Frequency +1 (1.5 refinements)

Focus Items:
Crafters Gloves: Crafting: Strength +3 (3 focus item slots) (.5 refinements + the 2 free ritual slots)

Assuming you had a lore of Lore (5) your 'base' item would be power 10 with 2 uses by just expending 1 enchanted item slot.

You'd also have 12 enchanted item slots (3 refinements)

Enchanted Items:
Robes: 10 Block/5 armor 6 uses per session (3 slots)
Wand: Weapon 10, 6 uses per session (3 slots)

And then you still have 6 potion slots open that would default to Strength 10, 2 uses. As somebody else said, you can get by with a lower strength for placing aspects on yourself, so you could drop potions down to Strength 6 with 6 free tags/uses.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Guys, he's using Ritual. Ritual and Channeling don't do specializations, only focus items.

[gojj]

Also watch your pyramid with the refinements. i.e. you can't have a +2 power bonus for water evocations until you either have +1 control for water or a +1 power in fire. You can't have a +3 until you have a +2 and a +1. And if you have two bonuses at +2, you must have two more at +1 (straight out of the book YS182)

With a refinement you can either

• get a new element (not going to happen if you are a focused practitioner)
• get two additional specialization bonuses for evocation and/or thaumaturgy (some issues there again being focused)
• gain two focus item slots (which translates into 4 enchanted item slots)

That's it, I screwed up. I can only take the specialization bonuses if I take full Thermaturgy. However I didn't want my character to do any magic besides potion making, do you think it will be possible to accomplish a similar effect with stunts? For example:

Lore 5
-2: Ritual: Crafting
    -1:Block 8, 9 turns (added four enchanted slots to the four that came with ritual)
-1: Potent Potions: +2 crafting strength when creating  potions (adds two shifts and a limitation, in line with Mortal Stunt rules)
 -2: Potions ( 8 )

Refinements only allow to add (offensive or defensive) conviction or discipline to Evocation spells or lore (complexity) or discipline(control) to Thamaturgy spells so it looks like stunts are the only way for me to power up my potions (without taking Thamaturgy). I could justify the stunt by giving my character a background in chemistry or similar. Also you aren't allowed to use focus items to power up other focus items (and by extension I assume enchanted items as well).

[ARedthorn]

You can't take spec, but you CAN take focus items to the same effect... in your case, probably better, since you don't have to worry about the pyramid with focus items.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Also you aren't allowed to use focus items to power up other focus items (and by extension I assume enchanted items as well).

No, it explicitly calls out the focus-item recursion as not allowed, but focus items to improve crafting of enchanted items is definitely allowed.

[gojj]

No, it explicitly calls out the focus-item recursion as not allowed, but focus items to improve crafting of enchanted items is definitely allowed.

How would I differentiate the focus item bonus from specialization bonus, since specialization gives strength or frequency, what would a focus item grant that would be different? Would I narrow the bonus like only granting a +2 strength for potions?

[EdgeOfDreams]

How would I differentiate the focus item bonus from specialization bonus, since specialization gives strength or frequency, what would a focus item grant that would be different? Would I narrow the bonus like only granting a +2 strength for potions?

Well, foci and specializations stack, regardless of whether you're talking about crafting or other stuff.

The easiest way to think of it is that Crafting bonuses from any source improve your enchanted items and potions but never your focus items. That's all there is to it.

[Llayne]

I see the "no specialization for ritual/channeling" houseruled all the time, so I don't even really think about it any more.

[Vairelome]

Some of these points have already come up, but I want to get them bundled together.

Powers to take (assume 8 refresh to play with, as stated in OP):

Lore 5
-2 Ritual: Crafting (includes 2 Focus Items slots)

Since this is Ritual, not Thaumaturgy, you can't take specializations, and you don't get a free specialization point to start with.  In my opinion, the -1 upgrade to Thaumaturgy is generally worth the refresh, but not necessary, especially for this character.

-X Refinements

You are going to want a lot of these, for two reasons that I'll get to in a moment.

-1 Potent Potions: +2 Crafting Strength when creating potions.

This is a perfectly valid supernatural stunt, in my opinion, but it's also slightly underpowered, so I wouldn't take it.  An additional -1 Refinement is in all ways better, see below.

Ok, Refinements--this is where most of the work goes, in terms of putting things together right.  First, limitations--since you don't have Thaumaturgy or Evocation, Refinement can only be purchased to grant Focus Item slots (which can be traded in--1 Focus Item slot is 2 enchanted item slots).  You can't use Refinement to purchase specializations.  For your character, this is a fairly meaningless limitation.  You WANT Focus Items anyway; they are somewhat less limiting for a Crafter than for nearly any other type of practitioner.

-2 Refinement + 1 slot from Ritual:  +5 Crafting: Strength Focus Item, possibly a staff, could be something else large.
-1 Refinement + other slot from Ritual:  +3 Crafting: Frequency Focus Item, possibly a ritual carving knife, or whatever.
-3 Refinement:  12 enchanted item slots.

You can drop one of the item slot Refinements to boost your Frequency from 3 to 5, but in my opinion, 3 ought to be enough.  The trade-off would be only 8 enchanted item slots.

What does that give you?  12 enchanted item slots, each of which can hold a 10 Power effect with 4 uses per session.  You can allocate 2 of those to defensive items, like a Block 10 effect, 4/session, and a Armor 5 effect, 4/session.  Possibly another slot or two to offensive items, and the remainder to potions.  You're capped on Power, so there's no need to spend slots on Power, and each slot already comes with 4/session, so spending slots to boost frequency is a waste--if 4/session isn't enough, spend a slot to get a second copy of the same item.

The reason Focus Items are even better for Crafters than normal is they don't have to be carried around with you; they can be left safe in your lab where you actually DO the Crafting.