[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

I also don't want to step on the toes of Imbuements or Innate Attacks. I was trying to build something similar to both of those, but not exactly the same thing. Mainly I was playing with the idea of trying to fit something similar to a Jedi or a into a fantasy setting. From there, I was also playing with other ideas of how to refluff a few high/ultra-tech items into magical or supernatural items.

Yes, but Jedi in the Star Wars setting have things like blasters around them that do comparable damage and can be bought off the rack by anybody, and anybody in Star Wars can pick up a lightsaber, turn it on, and flail around with it without the proper training. If the mages in your setting don't have that sort of thing to contend with, then this is going to be a huge advantage for them putting them off the chart from other people with similar point totals. I'd personally do it as Advantages with Gadget limitations like malloyd is talking about (possibly unbreakable, but obviously capable of being stolen even if normal people can't use it), because that way it will cost a bunch of points and allow a lot of personalization.

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

Making the blade "solid" is something I like. I envisioned the blade as being an embodiment of the mage's talent. I think that helps to make it a little more balanced by not having the Force Sword benefit of damaging anything you parry with it.

Destructive Parry is an enhancement in Powers that could be added or not if you build this with advantages... Depending on what kind of magic they specialize in, people could have fun variations like a Fire Sword that does lots of Burning damage with double-plus Incendiary on it, a Lightning Sword that does lower Burning damage but Stuns and ignores metal armor, a Crushing Wind Sword with Double Knockback that can't be Parried, a Necromancy Sword that inflicts wounds that never heal (mwahaha) (with Side Effect: Unhealing and Extended Duration: Permanent until dispelled), etc, and it'll all be point-balanced with people whose Mage Sword does something else, people who put all their points into ST, etc.

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

I'm not 100% sure how mana levels should impact the power of a Mage Blade. Campaigns 481 has guidelines for how magic items function at different levels of magery, but I envision Mage Blades being a little bit different from being just another magic item. An idea I've considered is having the magery level of an area effect the level at which a Mage Blade functions. Low Mana would cause a MB to function at one level less; high mana would cause a MB to function at one level higher.

I think +1 is a little weaksauce for the effects of mana on one of these things, personally... I'd treat it like a spell and say that No Mana will kill it dead no matter what, Low Mana costs double FP and halves damage (and other effects, like armor divisor, if applicable), High Mana turns the FX up a notch and lets anybody use it, and Very High Mana does the above, draws the FP to power it from ambient mana, and turns any failure using it in combat into a roll on the Critical Spell Failure table.

Originally Posted by Dwarf99

anyone got any good ideas for constructing these bad boys in a non Star Wars setting?

I'm pretty sure that's what we're all talking about here.