I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting from imbuements, but it wasn’t this. As I pull up the magic tab and look at my list of imbuements, I quickly come to understand it a little bit better, and adjust my expectations a bit. Although I'd been hoping for something directly applicable and effective for combat, these are actually pretty good. I get to cast up to 2 imbuements per day, which is insanely limited considering that at first level a priest, mage, or druid would be able to cast 4 spells, but it’s not all bad. The specific imbuement I cast can be selected at the time I go to cast it, which is awfully convenient. It's enough to make up for the whole “I can only cast on items” thing, though it falls well short of making up for only getting half as many spells or taking a full minute to cast. But, ok. So what are my choices?

[Magical Armor:

Imbue apparel, armor, or shield with a defensive enhancement. Degree of effect based on class level. Duration 10m per level.]

[Magical Weapon:

Imbue weapon with an offensive enhancement. Degree of effect based on class level. Duration 10m per level.]

[Health Absorption:

Imbued apparel, shield, or armor absorbs some damage that the caster would have otherwise taken. Degree of effect based on class level. Duration 10m per level.]

[Magical Tool:

Imbued tool grants a bonus to the users skill check for appropriate tasks. Degree of effect based on class level. Duration 1h per class level.]

[Magical scroll:

Imbue spell completion items such as Scrolls or Gospels with enhanced effects. Duration 1h per class level.]

[Magical Potion:

Imbued magical potion does not take effect immediately, and instead the effect is delayed by either the maximum duration of the imbuement, or an amount of time the Architect specifies, whichever is less. Duration 1h per class level.]

[Spell Release:

Imbued item holds onto a single spell effect, which can be activated and cast by the item holder. Maximum spell level based on Architect class level. Duration 1H per class level.]

[Repair Device:

Repairs a small amount of damage dealt to a machine or object. Degree of repair based on Architect level.]

Ok so the magical armor thing should be a straight bonus to my defense, same for weapon and my attack.

The health absorption one is questionable. Am I able to stack that on multiple items? I know I’d be able to do so with typical armor enhancements, but the whole “interfering auras” thing wouldn’t let me wear a helmet and a circlet and a ribbon and so on all together on my head, and frankly for the most part when it comes to how auras actually work I'm really just going with second hand information, it's not like I can see auras so I'm kind of having to take everything on faith and I'll have to verify how things work as I go. In the meantime it's just guesswork. I assume the health absorption ability would work the same way, but I’ll want to test it out before I take it for granted.

The “enhanced effect” from that magical scroll imbuement is… I’m not sure if it will be very good or very bad, but I know it’ll be very expensive for even the most basic of testing, so I have to shelve that one for the foreseeable future. Maybe someday I will be able to throw out scrolls like they are trash, but honestly as far as I am aware no one can afford to throw them out like candy. Granted I've not gotten to see any of the rest of the world outside of my village, but I would expect if magical scrolls were so common and cheap, they'd be featured heavily in the lore I have heard about.

Magical potion, same problem as the scroll boost, even testing is too expensive for me to attempt in the forseeable future. To be blunt aside from any tests costing an arm and a leg, this actually seems even more niche than being able to cast scrolls more effectively. I have to work pretty hard to come up with a handful of scenarios where drinking a potion ahead of time would be the best tool for the job. Doubly so since the potion would be gone whether you need the ability or not.

And repair device? Like… What? I’m supposed to be fixing destroyed buildings now? Or is this more for golems and stuff? Is this just an upgraded version of the mend spell? This also could do with a bit of testing, but right now it seems pretty close to useless to me for the foreseeable future except possibly as a way to make some petty cash. Repairing mud huts is just not high on my list of things to care about.

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Aside from the magical weapon and armor spells, which should be pretty effective under most circumstances, the last two look to me like they have a ton of potential value.

Magical Tool lets me turn a regular thing into a magical thing and use it specifically for crafting. Wow. Most crafting projects will take more than one hour to complete, but that becomes a self-correcting problem over time. And, seeing this, it reminds me that lizardfolk crafting is usually hot garbage. If I’m looking to make money, and clearly I will need to, I don’t think there’s a ton of money to be had in a lizardfolk village in the first place. But using magical tools to offset my system skill based limitations doesn't sound like a bad way to make money here without either behaving dishonorably or getting myself killed. This might turn out to be an amazing ability indeed if I can pick up some more crafting skills.

And finally, Spell Release. This. This is what I had in mind when I was working to unlock the class. It is limited. Sooo much more limited than if I was just able to cast spells directly. The 1-minute casting time for imbuements is absolutely insane: Most fights take less than 30 seconds before one side of the battlefield or another has been wiped out, and most spell casters are able to cast a spell every 3 to 6 seconds. So yes, 1 minute is a big deal, because 1 minute is completely useless once a fight has started.

If this were historical earth it would be normal for large scale fights to last hours or even days. But in historical earth they didn’t have spell casters throwing balls of superheated fire large enough to cover half a football field, fighters that could lift and use 50 kilo great swords, and actual gods who occasionally pop in to stretch their legs out and maybe smite some heathens. So, fights here are faster.

Maybe it'll take you months or years of preparation to gather an army and make sure you'll have all the required supplies, but the fights themselves? They’re deadly, and they are fast. Meaning that the only way to use this or any of the other imbuements is if I know ahead of time that I’ll need to have something imbued. But even then, that’s only to make it so that I can activate the spell release with a speed comparable to a normal spell caster. And I can’t cast anything far in advance, it has to be within an hour, or the spells duration will expire.

To rephrase those limitations, it’s not enough that I can’t use any of these abilities in combat: I have to cast the imbuements ahead of time, and then once my imbuement is cast I’ll be able to cast them in a relatively normal fashion in combat. But only if I also didn’t cast them too far ahead of time, and only if I also pass some sort of a skill check, and only if I have the time and foresight to have selected the right spell and have the time to release it within that limited window.

I really don’t feel like 2 imbuements per day is reasonable. But even I have to admit, the selections are pretty amazing. Spell release alone is practically worthy of a class, because it doesn’t seem to care what my power source is. Divine magic, natural, arcane? It’s all the same to me. Which, now that I think about it, is probably the whole point. Being able to select from any classes spells is incredible.

Is what I am right now actually better than being, say, a mage? In the long run, for me it probably will be. Even on earth I would add caveats to my ability to take someone down. I would say I’d need to be careful, that I’d need to take advantage of the environment, and so on. Certainly, I was able to fight when and where I was attacked, but I was never the guy that would run off halfcocked into someone else’s ambush. If I am attacking you I’ve got a plan, and it is a good one. Good enough to be near certain of success as well as survival, at least.

For someone who isn’t prone to letting their emotions force them into immediate action, this class is actually pretty awesome. Offensively. But even on the offense, and even assuming it’s me doing the attacking, a mage of the same level would be better at bringing down fiery bolts of arcane hatred upon unsuspecting victims, because they'd be able to do it more often. Similarly a priest would be better at healing and supporting their allies during a fight, and so on.

So no, I don’t think it would be fair to say that the Architect is an objectively “better” class than a mage. In fact, a mage is significantly better at handling arcane magic than the architect is; just as a priest is significantly better at handling divine magic than the architect. For the vast majority of people, the ability to cast a spell when you want would, by itself, be enough to make them prefer literally any other spellcaster over Architect. But I do think that this might have potential, because it really might. Maybe this really is the right class for me.

If this were an MMO and I were solo like I am now, I’d have a lot of trouble finding a team to take on dungeon instances with, because frankly right now I’m probably still the weakest possible class to run off adventuring or whatever. I’m a second or even third rate… Everything. My healing spells will arrive after your dead, my magical attacks will land after the enemy is dead, the entire battle will be over before anything at all I want to do can take effect.

Also if this were an MMO? Guilds would love me, and the guild leaders would make sure I was getting power leveled despite being useless in a fight. My ability to create magical items at a reduced cost is just that big of a deal, it makes it worth being less capable at properly filling a single role. It’s a strange kind of value add, but it does make me consider lending myself out to someone with the power to hook me up with some cushy exp.

So there you have it. Now you know what my abilities are, or at least you know as much about them as I do. I’m not quite as useless as I used to be in a direct confrontation, but I'm still going to be horrible at it for the near future, especially when it comes to defending against attacks.

When on the offense I have to be prepared to be able to contribute about half as much as a priest or mage would have been able to. Perhaps not even that much, because I can only achieve that 50% effectiveness if I know the battle is coming and what the appropriate steps measures to take will be prior to the battle being joined, and even then only if I pass skill checks which might be difficult or easy. All that just to be *up to* half as good as my level should be.

If I don’t know to expect trouble or fail to guess what spells would have been useful against that upcoming trouble, my contributions will be much lower, probably close to nothing. I really hope it's easy to pass those skill checks, because capping out at 50% effectiveness is pretty brutal and to get that high assumes that I'm passing 100% of those checks.

This isn't all bad though. The current me is wildly unsuitable for direct confrontation, but if I live long enough I'll be able to use magical items to pick up that slack. What this class is suitable for is accumulating power over time, empowering allies, and changing the landscape of a region. It's a longer route to power, and harder, but if I'm able to push through the early challenges it will make things possible that the other classes can only dream of.

I’m not a fighter or a mage or a priest: I’m a crafter, a designer, and a builder. I. Am an Architect.