I was talking back and forth with my friend about the rules of Exalted and concepts every time we play. It is about realism and it is about inconsistencies. One such in consistency is normal weapons compared to artifact weapons. Obviously artifact weapons are better, but there are rules for normal weapons that are masterpieces and better, because lets face it some craftspeople are better than others and if extra time and better materials are used, better things can be made. As such there are provisions made for fine and perfect weapons and that is where the discussion starts. Perfectly made weapons made with magical materials are almost the same as artifact weapons. So why have artifact weapons at all, is it just for the coolness factor of having a six to seven foot sword as wide as a person, which is the coolest thing to see, but having a perfect magical normal weapon that is almost as good?
Weapons have characteristics in game play, speed, accuracy, defensive value, damage and the number of attacks that it can make. Speed refers to how fast you can ready the weapon after attacking, accuracy the qualities of the weapon that aid in hitting a target, defense refers to anything that would help parry another weapon and damage refers to anything that might increase the damage caused by the weapon. Fine weapons would change one characteristic by one, exceptional weapons change three characteristics by one and perfect weapons change two by one and one by two. In practice that means that there is a description along with the item, what makes the weapon so special: a war-hammer whose head is shaped like an eagle's head, with a counter weight at the end of the haft might account for a higher defense, weapons getting caught on the beak, damage from the beak and higher speed because the counter weight allows for a faster recovery time. A thinner blade on a slashing sword might impart a greater accuracy and faster speed while a larger hilt guard, an increased defense.
The system works for armour and for mundane equipment as well, fine chisels might aid with a bonus die to a specific task, exceptional chisels a bonus die to all tasks and perfect chisels a two bonus dice to all tasks with the tool.
What this can do is make ordinary items almost as good as artifact items and this seemed to be unfair to the person that in game had an artifact. But there was nothing in the rules that said that artifacts could not vary in quality either. So this was a solution and it added other additional complexities. Such as how the Solars, who had been banished from the world for nearly Fifteen hundred years could have artifacts, when all their best stuff had been swept away by time and caretakers of it. Solar Artifacts are crude things with no skill or crafting, they were the among the first things that were crafted and were hordes in personal caches across creation as keep sakes and nothing more.
The True Artifacts of the First Age were perfectly made and had other powers too, perfect artifacts would have the bonuses of perfect craftsmanship as well as the artifact bonuses.
Another complexity would arise when a set of artifacts is captured, usually the owner killed. The quality of the artifacts would depend on the family of the owner and higher quality goods would fetch higher resale prices, up to a point. Higher quality artifacts might also mean that the relatives might be more willing to hunt down the new owners to recover a specific perfect artifact. It would definitely make selling a very well known artifact almost impossible even and holding it down right dangerous as the family brings forth all its forces to recover a few valuable trinkets.
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