Spikards... feh

[scottishstorm]

Honk if you hate spikards!

HONK!

[Ivanhoe]

HONK!

[gabriel_ss4u]

guess you haven't got one?

[RPGPundit]

I've always liked them, but I've never had them be as essential a part of the story line as they are in this current campaign I'm running.

RPGPundit

[scottishstorm]

I've always liked them, but I've never had them be as essential a part of the story line as they are in this current campaign I'm running.

Heh.

I guess it's obvious that I don't.  Then again, I also don't like sorcery in the DRPG, which may also be obvious by now.

[Stormwind]

If it is used as a plot device, then I quite like the idea of spikards, however in my experience they can very easily become quite disruptive if they are freely usable by any player who puts enough points into it.

In short, I tend to consider spikards very much like the JoJ, an extremely powerful artifact, and as such not something that should be handed out willy-nilly, but rather used as a plot device. This is not to say that PC's can't lay their hands on one, just that it will have some serious drawbacks if they do so for any length of time (much like the JoJ does).

[weilide]

If it is used as a plot device, then I quite like the idea of spikards, however in my experience they can very easily become quite disruptive if they are freely usable by any player who puts enough points into it.

In short, I tend to consider spikards very much like the JoJ, an extremely powerful artifact, and as such not something that should be handed out willy-nilly, but rather used as a plot device. This is not to say that PC's can't lay their hands on one, just that it will have some serious drawbacks if they do so for any length of time (much like the JoJ does).

Just so. I feel like Spikards work best when used like a "hot potato" briefcase a-bomb in a cold war drama.

[Ivanhoe]

"Hey look! I have one, no... two rings that have the magical power of a nuclear power plant ! I'll use that to cast fireballs !"
What is this ? Amber or Dragon Ball ?
I do not wish to use spikards in my campaign unless I have a precise account of all the others and to why they never surfaced. If you introduce spikards in your campaign, you have to put all the twelve (was that twelve ?) and know where they come from, anticipate everything your players will want to know from them.

I don't like spikard because they are the tip of an enormous iceberg. you have to invent a whole cosmology and origin history that are not even hinted to in the books. You also have to explain why they were not used during the Patternfall war and to anticipate a decent army armed with one or two spikards coming to defy everyone.

Spikards transform the Amber universe into something totally different where magical/sorcery powers have a tremendous importance and where swords and armors become mere toys.

[scottishstorm]

Here, here, Ivanhoe! (complete agreement)

[Klaus]

"Hey look! I have one, no... two rings that have
If you introduce spikards in your campaign, you have to put all the twelve (was that twelve ?)

Says who? You can have as many or as few spikards as you like.

and know where they come from, anticipate everything your players will want to know from them.  

Or at least anticipate everything they could find out: "The spikards were made by Dworkin and Suhuy working together, just to see if they could do it. You completely fail to understand the mechanisms behind it or how they work."

[scottishstorm]

Spikards are bad/evil/nasty.  They are this because they detract from the theme and genre, rather than adding it it.

Well, to be more specific, they detract from characters' relation to theme, et all.

First, let's pretend that Bleys didn't have spikards.  There may have been something funky with those rings of his, but they weren't spikards.  IMO, this isn't difficult to "pretend".  After all, if he had THAT kind of power in the Chronicles, things would have gone very different, indeed.  I think calling his ring(s) spikards after the fact is a retcon of the worst order.

Second, let's pretend that Pattern Swords are not spikards (again, it's a power balancing and continuity issue).

Now, it seems none of the elders have heard tell of spikards during the first series.  And, this is good.  If Eric and/or Brand had one (as they're detailed in the Merlin books), there wouldn't be much of a story worth telling.

- - - - - -

Err, I think I just derailed myself a bit.  The point I was trying to get to is the second series of novels gives the impression that Power (with a captital 'P') is relatively cheap and easy and dangerous.  The easy accessibility to Power makes nitwits like Merlin & Jurt (and even Luke is nitwitish many enough times to count) on equal or greater footing to just about any of the elders.

But, it's cheap and dirty Power.  It's not tempered by age and experience.  It's a little like giving the younger and weaker combatant a vastly superior weapon to deal with a seasoned opponent... without any thought  of what happens if the seasoned opponent manages to take it (the weapon) away from him and use it for himself.

The novel characters were more interesting for having 'earned' their power, IMO.  I can handle a wild card like the JoJ, but spikards overdo it by a considerable margin.

[Klaus]

If a character wanted to "own" a spikard like any other point item in my campaign, I would give it a cost of 30-40 points. That's no longer cheap and the players will feel the value of it, causing them to respect it appropriately. If they don't pay for it, well there are lots of people (and PCs) who might want it.

If spikards become common, I can see how that would change the game from being attribute based to being item based, which isn't really Amber's style. If there's only one or two (at least one of which if not both are not in PC hands), they won't dominate so much. This is more true in  higher point value games; for newly created 100 point characters who paid 50 points for Pattern a spikard is overwhelming. For 200 point characters, a spikard is powerful.



A limiting factor in my campaigns is also that Sorcery doesn't reach across Shadow boundaries, which gives the "real" powers a trump card to play.

[Ivanhoe]

Says who? You can have as many or as few spikards as you like.

I know my players. As soon as they will get their hands on one, they will basically become unchallenged sorcerers. If they learn there are several spikards, however, they will want to know at least the identity of the people who own them and therefore can defeat them.

Or at least anticipate everything they could find out: "The spikards were made by Dworkin and Suhuy working together, just to see if they could do it. You completely fail to understand the mechanisms behind it or how they work."

Well they will at least know enough of them to draw power from them. From there you have to wonder if a player can :
- attach a new source of power to them
- attach the Pattern, a broken Pattern, the Logrus to them
- detach power sources
- find power sources
- transfer power links from the spikard to another item
- walk the Pattern while wearing it
- detect it with a simple spell
- detect it with Logrus or Pattern vision
- draw a trump for them
- use their power from a trump of them
- draw a Pattern with them
- find other spikards thanks to one
- draw unlimited power from them (if not, where is the limit ? Is it equivalent to a psyche of 100 ? 200 ? 1000 ?)
- smith it into a sword
- smith it into a pattern sword
- smith it into a trump/logrus sword
- collapse shadows or create shadow storms
- create objects of substance
- acquire temporarily expensive powers (advanced shapeshift for instance)
- acquire permanently new powers
etc... etc...
Spikards would require a 30 pages book to be fully described. Hell they could also form the basis of a whole series.

If a character wanted to "own" a spikard like any other point item in my campaign, I would give it a cost of 30-40 points.

Considering it is equivalent to a first place in Psyche, it is quite cheap.
If a character wanted to own the less powerful jewel of judgment, would you allow it for the same price ?

[jibbajibba]

The spikard debate is suprisingly heated.

I would say the spikard is simply a spell engine with links out to multiple power sources. As such it can be neutralised reasonably easily. Using Ad Pattern to edit a shadow to disrupt these power links ought to do it and you can probably achive the same thing using other powers.

Also these links and the power sources behind them need to be maintained. if the power source at the end of a link is removed or the power depleted the link is useless.

But here is the kicker. a dispel spell, or indeed power word magc negation should be enough to drop the magic . You might need a pattern powered disrupt (Corwin using greyswandir to cut through merlin's wards). I gave a PC a Pattern blade called Axiom, the blade of truth, and its main power was magic disruption. It could basically dispell magic on command.

So make the spikards powerful I say but fragile.

[Ivanhoe]

Except it is never explained what a "power source" really is. Is it suceptible to Pattern edition or even fundamental Chaos ? My understanding has always been that there were some substance in them, making them hard to disrupt.

Sure, all the question I asked can be answered and it can be fascinating. But it is a tedious work and a single mistep could lead you to a vastly modified setting.