Topic: Casting spells from attuned item: does armor interfere?

[Aspire2Hope]

It's too late for RMu now but even so doesn't this suggest that the concept of spells need a rethink or at least a reword? Traditionally the casting of the "spell" (I did that because for some it is a prayer and others an act of will) is an action (cue hand waving, shuffling and magic words).  What follows, traditionally, was then that 75% of the round was this, yet the effect was seen at the beginning of the round. This begs the question what is the spell user doing for the rest of the round?

Perhaps the effect of the spell should be given a time frame. You cast in one round (to be counted as that last prep round) and the effect is seen in the following round. Instant effects take place at the start. missile spells happen with missiles. Gradual effects for RR type spells (eg Calm) could make things interesting. Walls of earth take the full round to assemble.  Just a thought - which I may now try and formulate with my regular game.

[Spectre771]

The point is moot though in RMU, at least in the simple round. In the simple round, characters can declare instant defensive spells when they are attacked, so RMU returns to a system where casters can be sure they can always cast their Bladeturns before they are attacked, and the bonus is back to +100 DB. It's just that now these spells take no activity % at all, and can be combined with a full OB attack.

To clarify, doesn't the spell caster have to be aware of the impending attack?  If the mage is stabbed in the back, he shouldn't/wouldn't be able to get the spell off before he's stabbed?  The use of "instantaneous" now sounds like "automatic" spell. 

[Hurin]

It's too late for RMu now but even so doesn't this suggest that the concept of spells need a rethink or at least a reword? Traditionally the casting of the "spell" (I did that because for some it is a prayer and others an act of will) is an action (cue hand waving, shuffling and magic words).  What follows, traditionally, was then that 75% of the round was this, yet the effect was seen at the beginning of the round. This begs the question what is the spell user doing for the rest of the round?

Yes, and that was one of the reasons why many people had problems with the original RM2 round. Spells always went first, such that even a 75% spell action was resolved before a, say, 25% movement action. That took a lot of explaining, and quite frankly didn't make a lot of sense at times.

That issue is now resolved in RMU, at least in the RMU phased round, which breaks the round up into essentially chunks of 25% activity. So you would have the chance to move 25% (action phase 1), then another 25% (action phase 2), and possibly another 25% (action phase 3, if you won initiative), before a caster could get off a 75% activity spell.

In the RMU simple round, characters take all their 100% activity one after the other, much like the DnD round, but to compensate, characters have a chance to react appropriately with any defensive actions/spells. In effect, characters finally have a chance to say what they are doing while the enemy Magician spends 75% of the round casting a spell. So if someone tries to get off a 75% melee attack on you, and you are aware of it, you can cast a 0% or 25% Bladeturn in response, and it will take effect before the melee attack is resolved. You can similarly declare parry. This better represents the fact that you would have had a chance to defend yourself if someone started attacking you for three or four seconds.

One final note is that if you removed the 'Instantaneous' designation from Bladeturn and similar spells in RMU (seeing that pretty much all spells are now 'Instantaneous' in the RM2 definition of the term), that would return Bladeturn more to how it worked in RMSS: that is, you would have to win initiative and get the spell off before your attacker for it to have effect.

[Hurin]

To clarify, doesn't the spell caster have to be aware of the impending attack?  If the mage is stabbed in the back, he shouldn't/wouldn't be able to get the spell off before he's stabbed? 

I presume so. I don't think characters can declare defensive actions in the simple round unless they are aware of the attack. (And of course Bladeturn only affects attacks you can see anyway.)

[Aspire2Hope]

In the RMU simple round, characters take all their 100% activity one after the other, much like the DnD round, but to compensate, characters have a chance to react appropriately with any defensive actions/spells. In effect, characters finally have a chance to say what they are doing while the enemy Magician spends 75% of the round casting a spell. So if someone tries to get off a 75% melee attack on you, and you are aware of it, you can cast a 0% or 25% Bladeturn in response, and it will take effect before the melee attack is resolved. You can similarly declare parry. This better represents the fact that you would have had a chance to defend yourself if someone started attacking you for three or four seconds.

One final note is that if you removed the 'Instantaneous' designation from Bladeturn and similar spells in RMU (seeing that pretty much all spells are now 'Instantaneous' in the RM2 definition of the term), that would return Bladeturn more to how it worked in RMSS: that is, you would have to win initiative and get the spell off before your attacker for it to have effect.
[/quote]

But even with the AP you are still phasing the effects they are really just quick 1 sec rounds. Slicing time ever smaller is only going to finetune the actions not the time spells should take for implementation. Imagine praying to the goddess for aid only to find she was doing her nails .

I am still really keen for RMU to come out, unlike Marc I'd like to work on converting my old stuff when the system is settled and I know what I am working for.

[Ginger McMurray]

How many power points did the magwnr have and what level is bkadeturn for them? How many enemies?

As a ranged attacker, could he have set himself up to be firing from outside of melee and using that bladeturn to benefit an actual melee character?

What rules were you using to allow him to fire while in melee?

[markc]

Late 90's early 2000's: I asked almost the same questions about instants and spell casting during this time. I do not remember who it was the contacted me by PM or personal email but below is what I remember being said.


1) Instants 75% in items as base casting time:
This is by design as they did not want people to have a bunch of items casting instant spells. Instead they wanted players to spend DP on PPD and Spell lists.
This also preserves or helps to preserve some differences in casting spells (in the case of instants) and magic items with spells being triggered and or cast.
2) Work Around to get back to 10% casting time:
As I remember the way to get back to 10% casting time was to make the item intelligent and then the item would cast the spell as a 10% action. But this would also mean that other spells would take normal time and not 75%.
There was some discussion about why it broke the 75% mark for spells and if you could have a hybrid items that cast instant spells at 10% and other spells at 75% but I do not remember the explanation if that was possible or not.


In general:
Setting:
IMHO your setting has a huge impact on how you might rule here, ie a Middle Earth and or light magic setting keep it at 75% and a high magic setting or a setting where magic items are more useful (possibly powerful) then drop it to 10%.
Intelligent Items:
This is potentially a wild card in most games and depending on you view on such it might be necessary to create house rules to cast instants at 10% with such abilities.
My Experience:
In the past when I tried to let items cast instants at 10% as the default method players sought out magic items and tended to put DP in other areas, (ie bought 3rd ranks in areas instead of buying PPD and spell lists). It started to become a issue with the style I was going for so I changed how such items worked with some house rules.


MDC   

[Ecthelion]

I've seen this in practice where a Magent with a bow was able to keep casting Bladeturn repeatedly, negating his opponent's attack with this spell while also getting a full OB attack each round. The Magent with a bow was a better tank than the Fighter with sword and shield, because the Magent was effectively getting 175% activity every round compared to what the semis in RM2 used to get.

Is it possible to attack with a missile weapon in RMU while in melee? In RM2 and RMSS this is IMO not possible. If so, then I think this shows two weak spots where RMU could use some "tuning" of the rules: 1. There should be some kind of penalty for using missile weapons in melee, be it e.g. a -50 OB modification and simply not being able to attack. 2. The DB bonus from Bladeturn seems too high for a 0% activity action. The latter is IMO true independently of this missile attack while in melee issue.

[Hurin]

I've seen this in practice where a Magent with a bow was able to keep casting Bladeturn repeatedly, negating his opponent's attack with this spell while also getting a full OB attack each round. The Magent with a bow was a better tank than the Fighter with sword and shield, because the Magent was effectively getting 175% activity every round compared to what the semis in RM2 used to get.

Is it possible to attack with a missile weapon in RMU while in melee? In RM2 and RMSS this is IMO not possible. If so, then I think this shows two weak spots where RMU could use some "tuning" of the rules: 1. There should be some kind of penalty for using missile weapons in melee, be it e.g. a -50 OB modification and simply not being able to attack.

Agreed.

I made this argument quite strenuously in this thread, where we discussed the removal of the stipulation that ranged weapons can't be used in melee. (RMU removes this stipulation which was in place in RM2, and that causes problems IMHO). The discussion really picked up in post #71: http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=19200.60

In the end, I think the powers that be decided that there was no need for the stipulation or even for a penalty in RMU for using a ranged weapon in melee. I still disagree with that.

2. The DB bonus from Bladeturn seems too high for a 0% activity action. The latter is IMO true independently of this missile attack while in melee issue.

Agreed again.

[Hurin]

How many power points did the magwnr have and what level is bkadeturn for them? How many enemies?

The Magent was level 5. Bladeturn is a level 6 spell, so there was a small chance of failure. He was only fighting one enemy. He had 42 spell points I believe, so he could do that for 7 rounds maximum. He could do it for longer (and with no extra failure chance) against a ranged enemy, since Deflection is a level 5 spell -- so 8 rounds. And by 'do it' I meant both get a full OB attack and cast a spell that would reduce his opponent's attack by 100 points in the same round.

Yes, he is limited by spell points then... but having only 7 rounds of 175% activity still seems to me quite a bargain.

What rules were you using to allow him to fire while in melee?

See above link in my previous post for a link to the discussion of why RMU removed the restriction on using ranged weapons, and the debate that followed.

[Ginger McMurray]

A 5th level semi with 42 pp? I don't know RMU so maybe it's expected. In RM2 that would be insane. It's about a 100 Stat and a x3 multiplier or a 95 Stat and a x5. Unless character creation rules are high powered they're taking a decent hit to OB to do this trick.

IMO having your PP do nothing but avoiding 7 attacks in a day (while risking hurting yourself) isn't that bad. Then again, that totally depends on the campaign setup. If there's usually just one fight a day then it becomes a much more powerful thing. Of course, all spell casters are much more powerful in that scenario.

In my game the PCs are 6th level and only the pure casters have that many power points. Well, one semi- has a x13 multiplier giving her 100 but it's also inhabited by the spirit of an ancient evil archmage so has downsides she hasn't slammed into yet.

[markc]

To OP about OQ:


In general depending on how the magic items works then no armor penalties do not affect items casting spells or generating effects.
One special case is if the person triggering the item is supposed to do something to trigger the effect such as acrobatics, dancing, ie anything that armor may interfere with to complete the requirements for the item to trigger its effect.


House Rule (I think):
In my game there are items that give you the ability to cast spells, in this case you follow all of the spell casting rules.


MDC

[Hurin]

A 5th level semi with 42 pp? I don't know RMU so maybe it's expected. In RM2 that would be insane. It's about a 100 Stat and a x3 multiplier or a 95 Stat and a x5. Unless character creation rules are high powered they're taking a decent hit to OB to do this trick.

Like me, you must be an RM2 player. RMSS/FRP greatly increased the Power points available to PCs, so RMU is similar to RMSS in that respect. This is another reason why spells such as Bladeturn are so much more powerful in RMU than in RM2: In RM2, a level 5 semi might have been able to cast that spell a couple of times before being out of PP. But in RMU, he can cast it way more often. Yet another reason the spell needs to be modified.

[jdale]

PP recovery is lower than RMSS though. A caster will have a lot of PP in their first encounter, but if you aren't giving them multiple days of downtime, they will be much more limited if they blow through all of them.

The final rule on that is that recovery is normally limited to 40% of your max per day. That's 10% per 2 hours of sleep, to a maximum of 8 hours of sleep. (Proportionally faster or slower if you need more or less than 8 hours of sleep per day.)

Between that and the penalty for using more than half of your PP, essentially you have a deep reserve you can draw upon in an emergency, but doing so isn't going to be something you can rely on all the time.

[Ginger McMurray]

PP recovery is lower than RMSS though. A caster will have a lot of PP in their first encounter, but if you aren't giving them multiple days of downtime, they will be much more limited if they blow through all of them.

The final rule on that is that recovery is normally limited to 40% of your max per day. That's 10% per 2 hours of sleep, to a maximum of 8 hours of sleep. (Proportionally faster or slower if you need more or less than 8 hours of sleep per day.)

Between that and the penalty for using more than half of your PP, essentially you have a deep reserve you can draw upon in an emergency, but doing so isn't going to be something you can rely on all the time.

Interesting. I actually like the sound of that. Any idea when it'll be out of beta?

[Hurin]

The lower PP recovery is good and works well in practice, imho. It strikes a good balance for spells compared to RM2: your first level Magician is no longer total dead weight to the party and can cast spells more frequently than once every three rounds.

My problem is just that some particular spells, most notably Bladeturn and Deflection, become too strong when they can be cast so frequently, without prep, and without any activity. Consider too that the higher level versions of these spells can turn three attacks at once -- again for 0% activity.

[jdale]

Interesting. I actually like the sound of that. Any idea when it'll be out of beta?

Best I can say at this point is first half of next year.

[Ginger McMurray]

How up to date are the pdfs in the beta forum? Will the final product be print and electronic format?

My current campaign will probably be done by then. I'd love to be able to do the next one using a new and presumably simpler system. Assuming it still feels like RM and I can get a version of ERA for it.

[jdale]

Not very up to date. There's some discussion about putting out something in the meantime but I'm not sure where that stands.

The final product will be released both in print and PDF. I assume that, as with other ICE products, the PDF will be available first giving a few weeks to catch any typos that slipped through before we have people getting printed books. You'll be able to download the corrected version at no additional charge if you bought the PDF.

[markc]

IMHO, there is no reason why could could not run an "game world" event in which the rules for PPD and PP recovery were changed to be something like RMU.
In fact you could even do a "in this dungeon" only adventure with the rule change or just ask your players if they would be willing to try something new out.


Also if things go sideways then just change them back.


MDC