Suddenly, Exalted Crafting
Creating an Artifact 5 Superior Crafting project, before applying charms, requires:
-> At minimum being a sorcerer or Exalt, and having Lore 3, Occult 3, Appropriate Craft 4, and Craft (Artifacts).
-> Gathering legendary materials appropriate to the artifact, such as frozen flame or behemoth bones.
-> Fusing all three of your major project slots to the superior project, and/or creating temporary major project slots at a cost of 5 silver crafting experience (sxp) [which... would be recommended, so you can do major projects to gain gold experience without buying temporary slots for each new major project.]
-> Spending 5 gold experience points (gxp) as part of creating the superior slot. [It takes days to weeks to complete a project which rewards 2-6 gxp and 1-3 sxp depending on how appropriate and impactful the situation was. And *those* rolls require 10 sxp to attempt. Which themselves require the completion of some basic projects to fuel major projects which partially return a major project but require yet more basic projects . . . fractally.]
-> Two years, at the bare minimum, of working non-stop on the Artifact, several hours a day. Any breaks for any purpose extend the minimum time.
-> Spending 10 gxp to *attempt a roll* of (Attribute + [Appropriate Craft]) - which is an extended roll, difficulty 5 (first 5 successes are ignored), terminus 6 (six rolls maximum or you outright fail), goal number 100.
-> Spending another 10 gxp per set of six rolls you need towards the goal number of 100. If you have Int 4*, Craft (weapons) 5, and spend a willpower per roll, you will average 1 success per roll, 6 successes per 10 gxp - and that's if you're a world-renowned grandmaster at this craft.
*Oops. I didn't realize meeting the difficulty yielded 1 success. Scaled int back to 4, which is very much more reasonable, and the rest of this post won't have to be rewritten.
Considering that an average of 4 gxp can be earned per relevant major project, as your creativity allows you to tie crafting projects in with your intimacies and strengthen your intimacies and merits/etc in-game... and your need for 110-170gxp**... your minimum time is a lot longer than 2 years. It takes 10sxp to work for about 4gxp and 2sxp, which means 2 basic projects and 1 major project to fuel the next major project, so on average you'll actually need to complete 35 major projects and 70 basic projects, which can easily explain the day to day work of another year or two in-game.
**If you're allowed to take a specialty or some sort of merit/benefit grants you +1 dice, you go up to 1.5 successes per roll, 9 successes per 10 gxp, average 110gxp needed in total, which completes the project in... a far more reasonable timeframe. If you can find some way to stunt this roll, or have charms, you break the dice and time systems into tiny pieces, and make short work of these flavorful intricacies.
If you ever botch, the project is ruined. Like, royally ruined. Your dream, your vision, all of your efforts to shape the magical materials, kindle the spirit of the artifact, align its Essence, and create your masterpiece - have failed. And if the artifact was a unique endeavor, it can never again be attempted. You have failed to create Howling Flame Lance, one of the greatest direlances ever known, even among those lost wonders of the First Age.
Crafting is serious business.
Mortals can attempt projects equivalent to Artifact 2 or 3 ratings, in building something large-scale like a palace. They would always be facing down difficulty 5, terminus 6, goal number 30-50... with likely no more than 7-10 dice and an automatic success, give or take stunting cheese. Still requiring about 3 months of preparation and a month of gxp to attempt each roll.
Sooo. There's a reason it takes even Exalts upwards of decades to truly master and complete the strongest of Artifacts. If you're doing anything except spending your days working on the project, that time adds on to the end. You usually have to quest for exotic materials beforehand, and harness upwards of 40gxp beforehand or during or after you start rolling. 2 years for a 5-dot is the *bare minimum* and that's if you're eschewing flavor, dedicating a mind-boggling amount of labour into each and every day of those two years, or had all of the resources you needed (110-170gxp, 220-340sxp, bottled flames of the primal desert in the deepest South, tears from a banshee whose wail slew a supernatural being, and pounds upon pounds of pure red jade and orichalcum, along with a place, preferably a manse, attuned to forge these materials). '-'
This message was last edited by the player at 19:26, Mon 07 Nov 2016.
