>The part that confuses me is that there's nothing in the character
>description which gives me any idea why these devices have the values that
>they do. If A player comes to me and says "I want a sword as powerful as
>Cutrid the Black's mace", am I giving him a hugely powerful weapon? What
>kind of scale am I dealing with here?
They're not especially powerful, but pretty handy nonetheless. Think of the ranks in terms of what the character could do themselves magically. A standard sword/spear/mace/staff would have Rank ^3, with a Combat Affinity of, say, 5W, you could be fairly sure of adding a +4 Edge to it, which makes much the same effect as Rank ^7, except you don't need to roll for it. Rank doesn't help you hit, it doesn't fire Lightning Bolts, in fact, it doesn't (with the exception of hitting spirits) do anything really magical at these levels. Humakti can get a +5 Rank with a Gift, if they accept no magical healing (pretty severe geas!).
A powerful, but reasonable, magical sword in my campaign would be one with a silvered edge, which has Rank ^2 normally (it's a shortsword), Rank ^5 vs. Chaos, allows the wielder to use Flameblade at ability 1W 3 times a day, and attacks any creature of Chaos hurt (Wounded or Injured) with Burn Chaos at 5W (including the +5 for contact) as a separate attack. In RQ it was called something like Yakkerpupphie's Sword, from an old Judges Guild adventure I believe. I'd say it was fairly high up the non-Heroic scale, anything more powerful would be pretty extraordinary (and there will be many which are, around, but not in my campaign).
Wulf
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