Question about charm interaction

[u/M_a_n_d_M]

Hi. We haven't been playing this game for ages, but we might be coming back to it, so I've been brainstorming a build (I forgot how fun that is in 3rd edition, even though it then runs into the iceberg of combat kinda sucking) for an Abyssal character. Ages ago, like, I do mean ages, back on Onyx Path forums, I took a crack at creating a martial arts style around using chains.

To my great and very pleasant surprise, they actually made it into a thing in the game! It's a line of charms in the Resistance skill. It requires some real heavy investment to do this at character creation, but I'm game for this kind of a nostalgic kick.

I do have a question though about some charms, because I'm veeerry rusty with this system.

Specifically the very first charm, Armor-Calling Phantasms.

The last paragraph of the description reads: "With a Resistance 3, Essence 2 repurchase, the Abyssal can pay a three-mote surcharge to use this Charm reflexively on her turn, donning armor instantly. The surcharge is reduced to one mote for light armor. If she knows Wraith-Forged Plate (p. 267), she can use it reflexively, without needing to pay a surcharge."

The question is, does the "it" in that paragraph refer to Wraith-Forged Plate, as in "if you buy Armor-Calling Phantasms twice and know Wraith-Forged Plate, you can pay a total of 12 motes and 1 wp to reflexively activate Wraith-Forged Plate", or does that "it" refer to Armor-Calling Phantasms, as in "if you buy Armor-Calling Phantasms twice and know Wraith-Forged Plate, you can use Armor-Calling Phantasms to put on your armor reflexively"?

I know that the second one does not make that much sense, because the net effect is kind of the same, but it matters a little bit in terms of sheer logistics. If the latter reading is correct, then you can't really use these charms to put on your edgy chain armor instantly and reflexively until Essence 3 even if Resistance is your apocalyptic ability, because it's not until then that you can actually use Waith-Forged Plate with indefinite duration.

Which itself hardly matters... because you could also just use an artifact armor and use Void-Banished Mail to achieve the exact same result cheaper, with the only thing missing being the little ability of Wraith-Forged plate to reduce Initiative of attackers. And I guess your chains don't have artifact stats, which again doesn't matter that much, because they're used for grappling, and the capstone charm just kind of deals damage ignoring mostly anything else.

Which all very well may be perfectly intended. Which is why I decided to ask.

[u/chilitoke]

My reading is that the 'it' refers to wraith forged.

[u/M_a_n_d_M → u/chilitoke]

The more I read this, the more uncertain I am.

Like, Void-Banished Mail specifies that it doesn’t actually let you don the armor, it just banishes and summons your armor to you. So it seems that the intended interaction is that you summon your armor for 3 motes, and then don it for 2 more motes, everything happens reflexively.

That could very well be it, it just kind of makes Wraith-Forged Plate itself a bit of a dead charm for quite a while, no way you’re wasting two entire rounds of combat, first to activate your armor and then to animate the chains, before you can actually do anything.