Magic ITEM: The Black Arrow of Bard

[Thirsty Viking]

Finally, what do you mean by "one-shot dragon kill," so that I don't answer off-base?

A one-shot Dragon kill refers to Bard in the Hobbit, who slays Smaug with Black-Arrow. Yes the arrow was magical. Yes he had Spiritual attributes up the wazoo working for him, but still, a Dragon is a Dragon! It’s toughness and armor is enormous. You cite that:

The problem with that you need to be able to hurt it in the first place, even if the creature rolls all 1’s on defense if you cant crack the armor you can’t damage it. The Dragon’s toughness is 20+ armor, if you have a dice pool 10 which you pump to 20 with spiritual attributes working for you and you get 20 successes, it’s still going to bounce. There is an absolute upper cap to what can be done.

Ok...  well several things here....   Bard didn't hit armor He shot the unarmored space on the dragon,  which was near the dragons heart!

Who says the dragons toughness is 20?  

not me if your going to designate the NATURAL SCALES  as armor and not part of toughness as I would.

We know very little of the Black Arrow.   IIRC  Bard says it had never Failed him before   (alway hit?  Always Killed?)  

Maybe the Arrow had the ability to ignore toughness?  
A % of toughtness?
A set amount of Toughness?  
Who made the Arrow?  When?  

For all we know one of the Istari or an elven smith could have made that arrow.  After the Fall of Dale,  Gandalf..  or another  Could have given that arrow into the keeping of Bard's ancestors...  "This arrow shall one day be the Salvation of your Line! Use it well."  Even faced with Smaug... BARD chose not to use this arrow till last.   WHY?  was the the charge "use it only when all else fails"?

There is more going on with this arrow than we are shown in the Hobbit...


Personally I see several ways to make this arrow...  
How much STR does an arrow hit with if it travels at .5c  (level 3 movement spell)
the only real question..  How many SP dice were lost when it was made.

An interesting note....   The mages in tolkiens world even the Maiar (Arch-Angels?)...  created wonderful masterwork items that they could not replace.  Feanor the (greatest elven craftsman ever) created 3 simirils...  but couldn't create a 4th.   The two trees of light...   the goddess was unable to replace.  And noone else could either...   these were life quests in the realm of magical craftsmanship...   whose culmination drained the creators to where they couldn't do it again.  hmmm  sounds like our system of magic item creation.

[Brian Leybourne]

Personally I see several ways to make this arrow...  
How much STR does an arrow hit with if it travels at .5c  (level 3 movement spell)
the only real question..  How many SP dice were lost when it was made.

Accelerate a small piece of wood like that to .5c and it'll really hurt whatever it hits, but it'll also disintegrate upon impact (if not before), which doesn't really work since Bard used the arrow again and again.

Personally, I don't see it as being magical, it was just his comfy blanket (so to speak) and he managed to hit Smaug's scale-less soft spot. But, this is a magic item thread so lets stick with that.

One thing tRoS magic doesn't really include is "set" magical bonuses that can be added to stuff, ala D&D. You can always manipulate the molecular structure of a sword or arrow tip, improving it and making it preternaturally sharp etc, but as Seneschal how do you adjudicate the bonus this gives? It's kind of guesswork really. There's also (as written) no way to give a permanent bonus such as your speed example to an item, the best you can do is fix a movement spell in there that you can "activate" on the arrow once (the arrow takes aging etc, but a few months added to the age of an arrow is pretty meaningless really).

Personally, I don't see tRoS as a game that needs magical items, that's not what it's about. I kind of like the idea that players can't easily make magic items for each other like my D&D party do. Any special items I do choose to include in my game will be artifacts, the Sword that has been passed down through the ages that was once used to stab Xanar Shard-Finder and over the ages has picked up a sorcerous harmony because of it, that kind of thing.

Brian.

[Thirsty Viking]

There's also (as written) no way to give a permanent bonus such as your speed example to an item, the best you can do is fix a movement spell in there that you can "activate" on the arrow once (the arrow takes aging etc, but a few months added to the age of an arrow is pretty meaningless really).

In this rare case I'm willing to say you are wrong Brian.  At least in the revised Printing as I read it.  Not that I blame you...  I missed it on my first two readings as well.  Under the Vagery of Imprisonment:Magic

x "Sorcery Pool" die/dice "are irrevocably lost if the imprisonment is to be made permanent".  

Maybe Im off Base...   but this isn't storing one spell for release...  to me this is clearly the creation of a permanent magic item.  summoning maggic extends duarion.  Normal imprisonment delays spell for later activfation.  It sems clear to me that this version, either stores a spell for repeated activation, or makes a duration permanent.

Given the PERMANANT sacrifice of SP dice....  these would be rare indeed.   Made for the grandest quests,  in most dire necessity...  Made by a dying mage seeking to leave a leagacy?

As for disintegrating arrow,  Sculpting should be sufficient to craft materials durable enough.  I didn't suggest that that had to be the magic on the arrow. just that it would be one of many ways to approach it.  obviously  speeds much less than .5c  would be enough to slay a dragon,  I was just giving a clear example that was well within the spell parameters (1/2 the speed of movement 3).

Personally, I don't see tRoS as a game that needs magical items, that's not what it's about. I kind of like the idea that players can't easily make magic items for each other like my D&D party do. Any special items I do choose to include in my game will be artifacts, the Sword that has been passed down through the ages that was once used to stab Xanar Shard-Finder and over the ages has picked up a sorcerous harmony because of it, that kind of thing.

Brian

 

Obviously as you have said,  this is left to the adjudication of individual Seneschals to fit the level of sorcery in thier world.  As given, the world would never flood with magic items because of the HIGH cost of production.