Topic: Spell Law Submissions

[JimiSue]

That actually reminds me of something very similar in Space Master - the party were being strafed by a bad guy in a fast fighter airc raft of some kind - the GM had us pinned down by the guy, until the Teep said that he was going to examine the attack pattern for the moment he started to pull out of his dive. He then proceeded to cast a really low level psion (I forget what it was, some kind of confusion one). The GM said it wasn't line of sight, he was quite high level and the modifiers would be significant, but the Teep calmly rolled a 100 for his psion attack roll, imposing a huge penalty on the target, who only rolled about 16 on his RR in any case.

All good. However, what the Teep, and in fact all the players had failed to take into account was that if the strafer is at the phase of his dive where he's about to pull up, his guns will have been pointing forward, and as he was shooting at the PCs, the craft was heading straight for the group, now out of control. Cue a scene very reminiscent of a certain scene in Aliens. In our case though, not all the group made it. The Teep did though, and had bragging rights thereafter. And that GM never strafed a group again

[pastaav]

The party of adventures are travelling along the coast in their boat. As speed is of the essence they start to consider if they can skip making time consuming stops in the harbours. The Alchemist and Illusionst suggest they can use the lvl 2 essence spell Sustain Nutrition from the Sustain Body list to avoid the need to get more food. The fighter of the group is not happy about being in need of others and demand that he be thought how to do it himself.

I am on the way to point out that it might take some time to learn a spell for a fighter, when the Alchemist explain that the fighter need to practice by meditation to learn the spell. The catch is that it will only work if the fighter soaks his clothes with sea water every hour. The fighter agree and soaks his clothes with seawater, while the Alchemist player bring out his dice to cast the spell on the fighter. For the rest of the journey the fighter was very wet, hungry and miserable...we players had to make a break until the laughter died down.

[pastaav]

The Cautionary Tale about Why to Avoid Straight Stairs in a Dungeon
The main event of the evening is about to happen with the players gather at the top of the gigantic stair to repel the goblin invaders. Unfortunately the magican is bit creative and uses the spell Stonewall from Earth Mastery at the top of the stairs. The others players point out that the goblins can just exit to the sides since the wall is just 10'x10'. The Magican nods but ask them to topple the stone wall down the stairs. A number of one 1' thick stone slabs rushing down the stairs and maiming all the goblins ended the battle and taught the lesson: Avoid Straight Stairs in a Dungeon     

[jdale]

I should have posted this earlier, since it's mostly Channeling (with some Mentalism), but in the interest of contributing something...

The party is in the heart of the enemy's mountain fortress, where we have found the fabled Tree of Life, stolen ages ago by the fabled sorcerer, Yatic, who appears to be in the process of returning. We were kind of hoping the Tree would be smaller, maybe "tree" is a metaphor and it's actually a nice compact piece of jewelry? No such luck. It's at least 400' tall with enormous roots that extend out over at least a square mile on the ground. Magic reveals the tree is or contains a powerful spirit: definitely what we are looking for. The leaves are of all types, as if it is All Trees. But the outer bark seems to be burned and the leaves all seem to be diseased. The air is thick with red mist: blood. We have to tie damp cloths over our mouths to filter it out. There is blood everywhere, like dew condensing out of the air. All meant to corrupt the tree and change its nature. Obviously we can't move the tree, but we suppose maybe we can get some kind of seed or cutting.

My character Niles, a Nightblade, has boots and gloves of spider-climbing, so I climb the tree looking for seeds or pods (none are visible at ground level). The tree is slippery with blood but that's no problem for the spell so I keep climbing higher, looking for anything promising.

Meanwhile Nilda, the Animist, tries to take a cutting. The first one crumbles to dust in her hand after a second or two. Thinking the corruption is the cause, she tries a disease purification spell as she takes another cutting; it lingers about a minute, then blackens and crumbles to dust. Better, still not a success. Did I mention this is Nilda's player's first Rolemaster game ever? But she's not willing to give up. She uses disease purification followed by a preservation spell on the third cutting: again it lasts about a minute, then crumbles to dust. Almost defeated, she says she will try one more thing. Disease purification, takes the cutting, and then quickly casts a Lifekeeping spell to try to keep the spirit in it. Can't hurt, right?

This time the cutting doesn't turn to dust.

This time the cutting remains and the entire remainder of the 400' tree turns to dust.

At this point, I am about 350’ up the tree which has turned to dust. My Landing spell makes me perfectly safe... for a fall up to 120'. Acrobatics... adrenal landing... add it all up, it's not enough. But the roll is a natural 100 and Niles will live to climb another tree (hopefully with less blood).

After that there are the wyverns and the lesser black reavers, a desperate 100' climb to a platform with a magical circle we use to Gate out just in time...  and then what the heck do we do with this cutting anyway?

The GM has no clue either, he never expected us to actually take the tree with us, only to report back where it was. But a clever set of spells (and matching good rolls) and the game has gone somewhere none of us quite expected.

[Sknt]

I came up with an off the wall idea of applying the idea of voice inspired from Dune, together with that everything is measured by wavelength of energy with splashes and waves ofwater as root along with music to make vibrations mastery and related spell lists that would be a bit bardic and also use voice as a weapon. And use waves and vibrations that at the highest level is earth.  Since my parents both were geologists and had a friend playing a knowledgble dwarf we had a situation where party was along with innocent people would have been under possible life ending attack by giants.
The dwarf showed my vibrationist the fault and fracture lines of mountain. I seamed a vibration spell over an area to effect a rock face over the giants. My attack roll was openended high and mountain failed open ended low and our desired result occured... dropped a mountain on a group of giants. by by 72 giants. The way this was put together the GM felt my lists fit arcane  but the way i made my spells work involved a mental focus, essence and organic earth channelling to work

[GrumpyOldFart]

It was RM1, and the GM had a houserule that casters of the Mentalist realm required no external flourishes. No hand waving, no words, no fancy dances, just be aware of your target and pay attention.

It's been so long ago I can no longer remember who she was, what the party composition was, or what they were fighting. Only that she was a Mentalist, and that she got an injury during a fight that left her paralyzed from the neck down.

Out of the combat? Not on your life, this was a Mentalist. Any time a bad guy came through her field of vision she'd Mind Store it. After that there wasn't any place it could hide from her.

Whatever we were facing, it was pretty nasty, and wounded a lot more than just her. It probably would have gone very badly had it not been for the effect on enemy morale of an enemy they couldn't see (they could, she was lying right out on the floor with a broken neck, they just didn't realize it was her) and couldn't defend against.

They could have had us, they really could have, we were bad off. But instead they ran away.

[chippermonks]

Players love it when a GM is really inventive. You know? When you design an excellent character or plot hook that the players just grab on too.... As a GM, the most ingenutive players I have met used mentalism (often bards or mentalists of of course) and they cause no end of trouble to me....In my mind, mentalism users are those players that like to make my NPCs dance naked in the streets and bend my plot hooks with their little psychic brains!

This particular player and his party were investigating a mysterious plague that wiped out a small village, and as members of the kings army they were assigned to solve this mystery! Esau, the graduate level intern, was a budding young mentalist who was in charge of contacting base with updated reports, as well as act as a liaison between intelligence and this recon squad. The Intelligence bureau had reason to believe an organization known as "the militia of the wind" had been using forbidden magic to release this plague at choice sites, all under the instruction of Dustin Lance, the exiled necromancer.

Searching through the ruins of the village they came across a group of soldiers wearing hardier travel gear then is standard issue. They said they were passing through when they found the village and were investigating on behalf of the Kings Army...The party was not informed of any other squads in this region and were convinced that these men were not who they say they were....

Esau, the graduate level intern, walked forward and held out his hand cheerfully and said "My name is Esau, nice to meet you, captain....?"
The soldier-who-wasn't-a-soldier reached out and clasped hands with the party mentalist whom responded with some name I can hardly remmeber because the next thing that happens is

Esau: I cast question
Me: ....really?
Esau: Yup, I say "Who do you work for?"

I sigh and pray the dice are in my favor, but to no avail! I drop my head on the table and curse his name! "You dirty bastard! you tricked me into letting you touch him! if it weren't for that touch-penalty I would have made it!"

The soldier shouts out "I work for the militia of the wind.....o damn" and the fight ensues, leading to the slaughter of that enemy squad.

Mentalism users are so dirty!

[Eldritch Cheese]

First, the setting.  We're on a boat.  A calm, peaceful ride.

Next, the danger.  The moon starts dripping blood.  Strange creatures from below the sea begin to emerge from the depths, dripping and oozing their way onto the boat.  The first wave of combat goes by.  The creatures are repelled from the deck, but much of the party is left exhausted.

The twist.  The hull has been torn in many places, and the boat is sinking.  Within minutes

The panic.  The crew boards the only life boat.  A party member falls off the crow's nest, and is saved by an impromptu flight spell by another party member.  Someone runs into the invisible pet fire elemental we snuck onto the flammable wooden boat, negating the invisibility.  The flying party member thinks that he has spontaneously learned to fly and forgets about the 4 minute limitation.  A fumbled Leadership roll convinces the crew members that we are to blame for everything, and they sail off without us.

In retrospect, the crew members are not really that wrong about us, though everything we did was by pure incompetence.

The situation.  On a sinking boat nowhere near shore with hungry things in the water and a crew that has left us to die.

The solution?  Prayer circle.  To the complete and utter disgust of the GM, the party sits down and begins to pray.  To the god of the sea, for safe passage?  Nope.  To the god of the afterlife to have pity, or at least to chuckle at us?  Nope.  To the Fire God, whose only desire is to engulf the world in flame?  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  We had two religious members of the party, and it was either the God of Fire, or the God of Chicken.

Now, we roll well.  We roll very well.  In every GM's heart, there is a number, which when rolled above, can cause anything to happen.  We must have rolled above that number on that day, for the prayer circle was transported through a land of fire and lava, onto a deserted island.

Each of us felt a booming voice in our heads, shouting out the reason that we were saved.  In all the world, there are those who start fires, those who put out fires, and those who burn.  We had been brought through fire because we were those who would always bring more fire to the world.

Thinking back, we realized that we had never left a city without our backs warmed by the soft glow of houses in the distance.

[Marrethiel]

I had a character that had a ring that could be used to change my apparent class, race and level to what ever I wanted, when some one used an information gathering spell on me. Nice, but not too scary.
I was playing a conjurer with circles of power. We were being hunted by the Enemy and were at a loss on how to win the next battle. So I used a relatively low level illusion spell to make me look like a Black Stalker (high level undead that walks towards its prey and never rests). However I made myself Grey and showed some spell casting capabilities. The enemy commander was over heard saying, "what idiot gave Black Stalkers magic?"