Firstly, would you use the Augment spell to add an effect to a weapon? eg fire, lightning, blast etc?

If so, and you add such effect to a ranged weapon, what happens? Does it activate per shot? or Only if you use it in melee? Would you need to augment each piece of ammo (bullet, arrow etc)?

I've added this to Augment in my campaign:

+dd Enchant Item: Select one item you are engaged with (or holding). Add Boost to checks related to its use (a weapon would gain this on attacks, for example). You may choose other effects to add to the item, such as weapon qualities, at the GM's discretion.

I'm thinking it may be worth adding a specific list of effects that can be added like Burn 1, Disorient 2, Ensnare 1, and specifying that you may spend 2 Advantage to increase the rating of the quality.

Enchanting feels like another magic type, but adding to Augment works well enough. My problem though is that the Attack Spell has a close combat upgrade. I think FFG’s idea was that even if your using a weapon and enhancing it you actually use the Attack Spell.

How could you change it though? I would take the additional effects from Attack and add them to Augment, but doing so removes the basic Augment effect of adding an Ability dice to the pool. Stacking both effects would diminish the appeal of Attack.

I don't know...Attack is fire and forget, whereas Augment requires concentration, and if you're enchanting your own weapon, you're spending an action to get a small bonus on your next attack. The damage profiles are different enough, and Attack can stack on a few different modifiers.

I agree that enchanting an item should probably replace the basic effect of Augment.

It feels a little different, but not different enough to warrant a new spell, in my opinion. That's been one of the things I've had some trouble dealing with using Genesys: where do you put new magical abilities? New spells? New additional effects? I've mostly gone with the latter unless I could think of a whole list of added effects that make sense going on a new spell, and the basic effect I want doesn't make sense being added to an existing spell. Necromancy, for instance, is very similar to Conjure, but it felt different enough that it warranted its own spell. Not to mention that it seemed weird to me that basically every caster who has Conjure would also be just as capable as a Necromancer.

So what I would want to avoid is something like a Wild Woodsman with a giant axe. Let’s say they have Brawn 3 and Willpower 4, Potentially they could:

Augment Willpower to be 5 then Concentrate and use Attack with Close Quarters and Empowered for an Attack that does base damage 10 at a Difficulty of Daunting (4)

or

Augment Willpower to be 5 then concentrate and cast Attack Spell with Deadly and close combat for 5 Damage, Crit 2, Vicious 2 (assuming knowledge 2) against a Difficulty of Hard (3)

or with this new option:

Augment their weapon to have Blast/Burn/Ensnare etc and Concentrate then Attack Action with a Great Axe doing Damage 8, Pierce 2, Vicious 1 against a Difficulty of Average (2)

It it just becomes a no brainer to augment a weapon for all those possible effects rather than using the actual attack spell.

I know it sucks, I really hope there are Talents coming our way that will improve the situation a bit. Obviously the magic items really help too, especially if your gm is happy to customise to your needs

Keep in mind that there are currently a lot more ways to defend against a melee attack than a spell: defense, Defensive Stance, Dodge, Bodyguard, fight defensively, and a few talents that remove you from engaged, add setbacks, increase or upgrade difficulty, etc...

Then, I think you have to include that the caster using Attack could, instead of spending a turn casting Augment, just cast Attack. They also don't need to be engaged, and are probably better off not being engaged, which could mean spending a maneuver to back off (and forcing melee opponents to close with them again) if they are already engaged, or save a maneuver by not having to engage. If you're casting Attack at Short range, you can just add Deadly for 4 damage, Crit 2, Vicious 2, against an Average difficulty. Compare that to the Augment then attack option, you basically are getting two attacks vs. 1 attack that trades a better Crit rating and 1 Vicious for Pierce 2 and you must be engaged. Total damage is comparable, but the first is more likely to score at least 1 critical, more likely to score more criticals, and the crits are going to be more severe. And Attack can add Blast to affect an area.

I just don't see Augment eclipsing the Attack spell unless, for some reason, you want to be using it while Engaged, and I just can't see a reason that you would want to be doing so.

That’s true with range, but the real weapon starts off doing the same damage as an empowered & deadly Attack Spell. adding additional effects to the real weapon requires you to make that action, but the spell will increase the difficulty. Sure you don’t have to maintain the attack with concentration, but if you have to keep moving out of Engaged then you’re using a manoeuvre anyway.

IDK, it just feels too much like stepping on the Attack Spell toes to me

Also the Attack Spell a Combat Check So it is subject o all the combat modifiers, shooting into Engaged, Dodge, Defense, Adversary etc. anything that makes hitting with a rifle or sword harder also applies to the Attack Spell.

1 hour ago, Richardbuxton said:

Augment Willpower to be 5 then Concentrate and use Attack with Close Quarters and Empowered for an Attack that does base damage 10 at a Difficulty of Daunting (4)

Minor issue, but it looks like the wording of the Augment spell adds an ability die, but doesn't actually increase the ability, so the base damage doubled would only be 8. The extra die does help deal with the difficulty dice. You also have the option to get another 3 from a wand (or perhaps 4 from a staff, though a wand with close-quarters would be more optimal).

Your point is still totally valid.

Oops, very true. Agreed about the equipment, I think magic equipment is vital to Spell casters in this system, a barbarian without their great sword is no barbarian

5 hours ago, RagingJim said:

Firstly, would you use the Augment spell to add an effect to a weapon? eg fire, lightning, blast etc?

If so, and you add such effect to a ranged weapon, what happens? Does it activate per shot? or Only if you use it in melee? Would you need to augment each piece of ammo (bullet, arrow etc)?

The Augment spell in the book can't exactly be used in this way. You can certainly flavor the additional ability die to represent the effect of something like fire or lightning, but it's not providing a new mechanical option. For example, Augment to add Fire to a sword simply manifests as an extra ability die. In some cases, like when attacking an opponent vulnerable to fire, the vulnerability applies to the augmented weapon.

If you want a house rule for doing this, adding the ability die is reasonably balanced against effects that cost one difficulty, so you could replace the benefit of the ability die with something like the Fire effect (with the ability to trigger Burn). In this case, I'd rule the Burn potency to be the same as it would be under the Attack spell (based on Knowledge ranks).

Edit: I agree with Richardbuxton that if you want to attack yourself with the enchanted weapon (and you're mostly a caster), you should probably just use the Attack option, with the enchantment aspect being flavor. If you're trying to enchant someone else's sword, the Augment option works better.

10 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

So what I would want to avoid is something like a Wild Woodsman with a giant axe. Let’s say they have Brawn 3 and Willpower 4, Potentially they could:

Augment Willpower to be 5 then Concentrate and use Attack with Close Quarters and Empowered for an Attack that does base damage 10 at a Difficulty of Daunting (4)

or

Augment Willpower to be 5 then concentrate and cast Attack Spell with Deadly and close combat for 5 Damage, Crit 2, Vicious 2 (assuming knowledge 2) against a Difficulty of Hard (3)

or with this new option:

Augment their weapon to have Blast/Burn/Ensnare etc and Concentrate then Attack Action with a Great Axe doing Damage 8, Pierce 2, Vicious 1 against a Difficulty of Average (2)

It it just becomes a no brainer to augment a weapon for all those possible effects rather than using the actual attack spell.

I know it sucks, I really hope there are Talents coming our way that will improve the situation a bit. Obviously the magic items really help too, especially if your gm is happy to customise to your needs

There is a trade off though, that Augment requires an action, so the character can't attack the same turn he augments, and requires a concentration maneuver

14 hours ago, RagingJim said:

Firstly, would you use the Augment spell to add an effect to a weapon? eg fire, lightning, blast etc?

If so, and you add such effect to a ranged weapon, what happens? Does it activate per shot? or Only if you use it in melee? Would you need to augment each piece of ammo (bullet, arrow etc)?

You can very much do so. In fact, on page 212 it talks about using augment to add a boost die to the use of a weapon. For such a spell, I would only have it be Easy (P). If you want to add additional effects, I'd use the table for the Attack spell as a guideline. And you're enchanting the item , so the weapon has the property, not the ammo.

For example, if you wanted to just 'magic up' your weapon, it'd be an Easy (P) check and you only get a boost die to the use of the weapon. If you wanted to set the weapon on fire, that would be an Average (PP) check, since the fire option is +P.

So I ran session zero of out home brew setting (kind of mouseguard but with rabbits) tonight for my kids (7&9) and my son declared “I want to be a rabit Mage Riding a Badger around with a giant flaming sword, shooting meteors at our enemies” ... looks like I’ll be testing some of these ideas soon!

On 12/28/2017 at 8:59 PM, RagingJim said:

Firstly, would you use the Augment spell to add an effect to a weapon? eg fire, lightning, blast etc?

If so, and you add such effect to a ranged weapon, what happens? Does it activate per shot? or Only if you use it in melee? Would you need to augment each piece of ammo (bullet, arrow etc)?

I believe the description of Augment specifically said you can use it on weapons. I would say the augment on the weapon lasts as long as the game mechanics specify for Augment. So until the end of the user's next turn. This duration could be increased, of course, by taking the concentrate maneuver.