Artifacts
Artifacts are objects which can be used to help you attack your opponent, defend against her attacks or sometimes give a tactical advantage. Factors common to all artifacts are that they can be utilised, they can break, and they can be heavy.
Utilising Artifacts
When you have an artifact card in your hand, it may be put into play during phase 3 of gameplay. Putting the card into play like this is referred to as Utilising the card. In game terms the Weapon or Artifact is now in the hands of your Avatar character, or close at hand, ready to be used. Armour that is Utilised is, in game terms, is worn by the Avatar character.
The artifact card is usually placed above the attribute card it affects most, when it is utilised. For example a Ringmail hauberk provides protection against Draining Damage, which in turn effects Electra, so place the Ringmail card above your Electra attribute card when utilising it, to remind you to subtract the value of the armour from any draining damage.
Some Artifact cards require certain actions to be performed after utilising them, before their special effects come into play, or before the character is released to continue other techniques. For example, after putting the Ringmail hauberk card into play, as stated on the card, two Default Ready actions must be performed, before continuing. This signifies the time delay in putting on the armour.
Most weapon cards will require a single Ready Default Action. There are special techniques that combine drawing the weapon and using it in an attack, and in these cases the technique card will specify that the Ready Default Action is not required.
Breakage
The rules for breakage apply most frequently to weapons in combat. This rule is very simple and is covered under Techniques - Failure Consequences.
There are some other cases when a weapon may risk breakage. In particular if you Fall while carrying a weapon, you must check for dropping and possibly breakage. The same applies if you are carrying any artifact in your hand.
Armour may be subject to breakage. If armour passes on more than it's soak factor of damage (ie if its hit with double its soak), roll for breakage.
If a d10 roll is greater than the break value shown on the card, the artifact is broken.
Example of Breakage
Richtar (Electra/Reactions 4) is battling Connor and moves up the Crumbling Stair to get out of his range. He is wearing a Plate Breastplate 3 with break 6, and carrying a longsword with break 7. Richtar falls from the stair and does 8 crush damage, as specified on the crumbling stair card.
Richtar's plate Hauberk soaks 3 of the damage, passing on 5 damage, which is more than it's soak of 3, so Richtar must roll for breakage.
He rolls 6 on d10 for the armour, not greater than the break of 6 - the armour stays intact.
Then Richtar rolls d10 vs Reactions to see if he drops the sword when he falls. He rolls a 5. The sword is dropped.
Then he rolls for breakage, getting an 8. This is greater than the swords break values - unfortunately it breaks. If it had not broken Richtar could have performed a technique to pick up the dropped sword.
Any broken items are immediately discarded.
Encumbrance
This section describes the rules for the effects of exerting your character, while they are under a load. Every object has some load, but usually this is factored into the abilities of every character. Weapons, armour and other artifacts that are heavy enough, when used as intended, to cause fatigue, have an encumbrance value on the card.
When you enact (complete) a technique, check the total of encumbrance points for all artifacts you carry. For convenience keep a D20 turned so the current total is face up, and adjust it whenever your character acquires or drops an artifact. If this sum is greater than your Power Skill (a derived attribute of Corpus) you must check for fatigue as follows:
Find the Inertia value of the Technique just enacted;
Add the sum of the encumbrance points; this gives the fatigue points
Find the number of times the fatigue points exceeds your Power (that is subtract 1 from fatigue points, divide by Power, round down)
This is your fatigue - put a fatigue counter on your Avatar, set to this number.
Every time a Skill Call is made, the value of the fatigue counter must be subtracted from the Attribute before Invoking any skill.
Fatigue counters can be removed by performing a Default Ready Action, or by healing with Spirit Points.
Example of Encumbrance.
Lathana has Capability (Corpus 4). She fights with a Gnaroch's Longsword 6 (encumbrance 2) and wears Chain mail hauberk (encumbrance 3) for a total of 5 encumbrance. She executes a Basic Cut, and finishes it successfully.
At the end of the technique, since 5 encumbrance is greater than her Power of 4, she must check for Fatigue.
The inertia value of Basic Cut is 7 (3 skill calls, plus 4 damage). Adding the encumbrance of 5 gives 12 fatigue points. This exceeds her Power 2 times ([12 - 1]/4 rounded = 2). A fatigue counter goes on, set to 2.
Next 2 turns Lathana does 1 Default Ready action and reduces the counter by 1.
When she starts her next technique she must subtract 1 for the remaining fatigue counter from her Electra, before invoking Speed. Lathana should either find some way of increasing her Power, or fight without the protection of the Chain mail hauberk.
Weapons
Weapons are a special kind of artifact which allow you to modify the damage you do during an attack as part of a Combat Technique. As mentioned in the section on gameplay, different types of weapon, inflict different kinds of damage as dictated in the following table.
Armed Combat Techniques cannot be done without a weapon. Note that if you are unarmed, you can only perform Crushing damage, and there are no added damage benefits.
In general, the heavier a weapon is, the more damage it does, for a greater encumbrance. Weapon cards have the following features:
Shown as a large digit in the top right corner of the weapon card. This is the amount of damage which is converted to the cardinal damage for that type of weapon Since this is a Sword 3 this means convert 3 of the damage done by the technique to Wounding the type of damage done by swords, from the table above. Special damage Some weapon cards may have a special ability. For example a barbed weapon, which does 1 or 2 draining Damage, as well as the Main damage. In this case, the weapon gives 1 point of draining damage, in addition to the normal crush damage done by a punch, and factored in after the damage calculation. Damage bonus: add this value - here +1 - to the total amount of damage done by the technique, before converting any damage by weapon type. Calculating Weapon Damage
To figure the damage applied to the opponent when using a weapon, first add the Power skill of your character, to the damage figure from the Technique: this gives the basic damage. Add to this the modifier for your weapon. This gives the weapon damage. Now break this up into damage types. First allocate the Main Damage: for the sword above, it is the 3 points into Wounding. If there is any special damage, allocate this next. Any remaining Damage is Crushing.
Note that Special Damage indicated with a plus or minus sign, is separate to the Damage calculation, and is factored in afterward. See the end of the example.
For another example see the discussion of damage under Gameplay.
Example of Weapon Damage
Lathana does a standard Cut technique with her Gnaroch's Longsword - a Sword 6
The damage of Lathana's Cut is 8, being 4 for her Power (read off the Corpus attribute card), plus 4 for Cut (read off the Cut technique card).
The Longsword 6 has a +2 Damage modifier (it is a heavier weapon with encumbrance 2), so the weapon damage is 8 + 2 = 10.
Because the card is Sword 6, 6 points of this damage become Wounding, the remaining 4 are Crush.
Example - Special Damage
If the weapon had been say a barbed weapon with the legend "Special Damage: barbed - Drain 2", then 2 of the 4 points of Crush from the previous example would become Draining.
The damage would be 6 Wounding, 2 Draining, 2 Crush.
More complex example
A Sword 6 has the legend Special Damage: poisoned - +2 Draining. Because of the + sign, we are adding a bonus to the Draining damage only, after the damage types have been allocated.
The sword has no Damage modifier (it would be likely to be a light sword) with the same Technique and Power as above we would get weapon damage 8, splitting into 6 Wound, 2 Crush, 0 Drain.
Finally, add the +2 Draining damage to give 6 Wound, 2 Crush, 2 Drain.
Weapon Breakage by Missing Technique
As already discussed, Weapon artifacts, as well as all other artifacts, can be broken by being dropped, from falling, or failing a technique. Weapons also risk breakage when used in techniques to block another weapon (where the weapon impacts with another weapon), or where a technique is evaded (and the weapon possibly impacts with the floor or wall).
If any of the following occur:
execute an attacking action, which is blocked;
execute an attacking action, which is evaded or fails to meet a target;
block another attacking action.
the player must check if she needs to roll for breakage.
Add the attacking damage of the technique to the weapons encumbrance: if greater than the break value of the weapon, roll for breakage.
Weapon Range
Apart from causing different types of damage, weapons are also distinguished by their range. Some are suited to close quarters combat, such as the dagger, and shortsword. Others are designed to be effective in a larger field of battle, or to give the user an advantage of range.
Also while many weapons may be effectively thrown, to cause damage, there are weapons specifically designed as projectile throwers. Examples are the bow and sling. These are obviously most effective at a distance from the target.
In the Morphyry CCG, as long as both Avatar characters are on the playing surface, they will never be far away enough from each other for the difference in range between say a bow and arrow and a thrown dagger, to be significant.
Special note: moving from Melee to Close Range. You must complete actions as part of a technique (or Default Action technique) to move from one square to another.
In the table below, the Range Names are those listed on Technique cards, to describe the Range at which they are effective. This is the distance at which an attacking character must be from her target at the time the pay-off action is completed, for the attack to be effective.
For example if a technique is described as "Close Combat Technique" we say that it applies when the characters are at arms length, and in gameplay we use movement techniques to ensure our miniatures are at Close range before the technique goes off.
See the discussion of movement on the playing surface under Techniques for more on moving in and out of Range.
Armour
Armour Cards represent artifacts that prevent damage inflicted on your Avatar from taking effect. Armour achieves this by soaking the damage. Their use is very simple and can mostly be seen from the card.
Various types of armour are able to soak different types of damage. When putting an armour card into play, it is convenient to place it above the Attribute card for which it provides protection. That is, put your Plate Armour Breastplate 4 Card above your Corpus card.
As a general rule, heavier armour covers a larger area of the body and/or is thicker, and can soak more damage. The penalty however is that heavier armour has higher encumbrance. It may also be more likely to break. The rules for this are covered above.
When you receive damage as the result of an attack from another Avatar (or other effect such as a spell, or a fall) you will be told the breakdown of the damage. For example damage might be 6 Wound, 2 Crush, 2 Drain.
Simply subtract the value of the armour from the appropriate damage. If you are wearing Plate Armour Breastplate 4 and Leather Jerkin 1, subtract 4 from the wounding and 1 from the crushing to give 2 Wound, 1 Crush, and 2 Drain.
As mentioned above if the Armour passes on more than it's soak value in damage (ie it is hit with damage more than twice its soak value) check for breakage, per the breakage rules.
Next: Scenarios
