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I found myself wondering, what happens when you take something that's been imbued with chi as per the spell and end up breaking it down and using it to create something else? Say you have a one pound iron bar, cast the spell on it, and later someone uses it to forge a steel sword, wouldn't the sword be just as solid to the flow of chi as the iron bar was? Nothing about the spell suggests that this permanent empowerment can be dispelled or would go away if the object is broken or destroyed or remade into something else. You could manage some fascinating possibilities doing something like this to create defenses and weapons against supernatural beings.

I suppose so but only the part you had imbued. So other parts of the sword not made of that original steel (like the pommel, the padding on the grip) would not be. So if you reshaped that steel bar into a sword it could end up being mighty uncomfortable to use.

Speaking in general terms, if something is altered from the basic form that was magic'ed in, then the magic is nullified/set free/broken/etc..

Part of this comes from the metal working was at one time considered to be a form of magic, and thus beat out any other magic that was in the materials to start off with.

Another part comes from the idea that if you break the item the magic it held is destroyed.

Magic Item collectors make for great NPCs. One really oddball Heroes Unlimited NPC I did a very, very long time ago collected all sorts of artifacts and magic item weapons from all over the place, and basically became a one man army with his stash. However, he did look odd as hell wearing/using some of it... For instance his power of flight was from the panties of an imbued magic item user of the opposite sex who was about 10 inches smaller in the waist than he was... He wore a peacock feather hat that gave him other powers, a drama mask that granted other powers, a ring on each finger that were all very gaudy looking costume jewelry type stuff (some of which gave powers, others of which were nothing but for show),etc. and basically this odd collection of crap that made him stand out in any crowd... (mainly so if he ever was defeated pcs would never want to take his collection since they'd get massive ridicule for even trying to use any of it)

Using an npc like that, I'd definitely as a GM allow something in this arena to be allowed...

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Speaking in general terms, if something is altered from the basic form that was magic'ed in, then the magic is nullified/set free/broken/etc..

Part of this comes from the metal working was at one time considered to be a form of magic, and thus beat out any other magic that was in the materials to start off with.

Another part comes from the idea that if you break the item the magic it held is destroyed.

I have to respectfully agree and disagree with you here drew. The very nature of magic is essentially one of change and alteration. Consider the methods employed in the making of the rune katanas in Rifts Japan, the smith essentially imbuing his own life essence/chi/magic into each and every fold of the steel as he hammers it. And, for all intents, forging an iron bar into a sword blade does not destroy the iron bar, it simply reshapes it.

However. if said iron bar were to be melted down and mixed with a few other metals to turn it into steel before forging it into a sword, as the OP stated, then I would say it's been destroyed and thus no longer imbued with the Chi from the spell.

Also, I am with Tor on his/her assessment... the blade would be the only part of the whole weapon imbued with Chi. Unless of course you use the spell a few more times on the rest of the parts.

JuliusCreed wrote:I have to respectfully agree and disagree with you here drew. The very nature of magic is essentially one of change and alteration. Consider the methods employed in the making of the rune katanas in Rifts Japan, the smith essentially imbuing his own life essence/chi/magic into each and every fold of the steel as he hammers it. And, for all intents, forging an iron bar into a sword blade does not destroy the iron bar, it simply reshapes it.

While there is some "magic" coming from the smith in the form of a ritual working of the metal for the minor rune weapons in japan, like all other rune weapons. However, they take their empowerment from soul of the being 'killed to empower them' not the ritual working of the metal. Thus, you would need to come up with an example of a smith reforging existing magic items to support your opinion.

If I hit a sword with a fireball, do we have rules on how the fire could burn off the padding on the grip and introduce penalties for it being harder to hold and inflicting damage on the hands?

You already know the answer is no, we don't have rules for that, Tor. I don't know any game system that gets that technical with fireballs

I feel like somewhere in the Megaverse there is some hard-to-hold item we could extrapolate from...