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Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: Jengada on August 10, 2022, 01:08:08 PM
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This spell masks the caster from divination and scrying spells. The duration on this says "varies," which seems to be a reference to the fact the divination or scrying could take place any time in the future, after the caster used shadow assassin.
What is unclear is, how long of a period is shadowed this way from the time of casting? Has anyone used this?
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Well, I guess the spell should have a duration. "Varies" means that it probably works one time, to block out divination spells. Why it's level 4 is because it "varies" in duration. Although it fades after a divination attempt. Then the caster will have to cast the spell again.
As a game master, however, you have the right to nerf the spell. Give it a duration, like 1 hour.
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One of my players does indeed use this spell, and its higher-level versions. I'm pretty sure I went with 10 minutes per level for the spell being active.
I certainly didn't go with anything like a one-time use the spell fading after a divination attempt, I read 'varies' as the effects persisting indefinitely into the future whenever divination spells are used on the murder scene. Otherwise any scryer is just going to scry the murder scene twice, and any magent is going to cast the spell as many times as possible to block the next 15 or whatever divination attempts...
Regards,
- David.
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If it helps, the updated version of 'Shadow Assassin' in RMU Spell Law (level 4 spell on Disguise Mastery) has a duration of 1 minute/level.
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It helps immensely! Thanks.
If it helps, the updated version of 'Shadow Assassin' in RMU Spell Law (level 4 spell on Disguise Mastery) has a duration of 1 minute/level.
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I dunno if 1min/lvl is all that long for such a spell.
Invisibility is 24 hours and masks “physicality” from perception until a named condition in its description ends it, so I’d give the same kind of duration for it instead. That and it’s 4th lvl.
This especially since it would be a rare use for someone scrying anyway. As said above, GMs can vary this but Semis pay through the nose for spells in the first place so be kind to them, heh.
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I dunno if 1min/lvl is all that long for such a spell.
Invisibility is 24 hours and masks “physicality” from perception until a named condition in its description ends it, so I’d give the same kind of duration for it instead. That and it’s 4th lvl.
This especially since it would be a rare use for someone scrying anyway. As said above, GMs can vary this but Semis pay through the nose for spells in the first place so be kind to them, heh.
You're right. So, how would you approach this, then -- Majyk?
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Invisibility only covers one sense and is negated by violent action. 1 min/lvl allows you to slip away, kill somebody, and get back to mingling at the party and effectively jams all the security cameras that are figuratively everywhere when you have guys who can observe the past. Even better if you just need to borrow a certain book and might use the same spell again to return it when done, leaving nobody aware that your crime ever took place. These require careful planning, of course, but you probably shouldn't be playing a spy/assassin type if you don't want to plan. You can also mix with invisibility, using it to cover the time between negating your initial invisibility by attacking and when you recast.
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Invisibility only covers one sense and is negated by violent action. 1 min/lvl allows you to slip away, kill somebody, and get back to mingling at the party and effectively jams all the security cameras that are figuratively everywhere when you have guys who can observe the past. Even better if you just need to borrow a certain book and might use the same spell again to return it when done, leaving nobody aware that your crime ever took place. These require careful planning, of course, but you probably shouldn't be playing a spy/assassin type if you don't want to plan. You can also mix with invisibility, using it to cover the time between negating your initial invisibility by attacking and when you recast.
The spell masks against divination and scrying spells. Not against detection spells and any physical senses. I'm not sure it is *that* powerful unless combined with a host of other spells. Unless divination and scrying spells with long time backtrack effect are common police procedures.
Since there is no "II", "III" and other spells to extend duration, I'd go with 10 min/level, which seems fairly standard for the list. The other "fairly standard" duration being 1 hr/level.
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My take on the magent spell is that it does not have a fixed duration because it covers the assassination attempt and not a specific time period. The actual masked time period is determined by how long time is needed to satisfy the shadow/unseen/false assassin effect. The balancing factor is that the spell is strictly limited to assassinations so you cannot use it to for instance steal a book...unless you manage to also perform an assassination while you steal the book.
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My take on the magent spell is that it does not have a fixed duration because it covers the assassination attempt and not a specific time period. The actual masked time period is determined by how long time is needed to satisfy the shadow/unseen/false assassin effect. The balancing factor is that the spell is strictly limited to assassinations so you cannot use it to for instance steal a book...unless you manage to also perform an assassination while you steal the book.
Where have you seen that the spell effects are limited to assassinations ? The spell text certainly contains no such limitation, it just says "all deeds".
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Death's Delving is an 18th level spell, but it is on an Open list and would typically be cast under circumstances where a magic ritual would be practical. Death's Tale is on a Base list, but only 6th level. Death's Memory is another Open list spell, at 16th level. These are just spells that explicitly show someone's killer. There are other forms of retrosurveillance. If you want to get away with murder in the long run, you really want to scramble all the virtual video cameras that other spell-casters can put there retroactively.
Note that in RMU, Shadow Assassin doesn't help against the Bard's The Reaper's Tale spell, since it doesn't rely on visuals. The higher-level Unknown Assassin spell will protect against this as well.
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Where have you seen that the spell effects are limited to assassinations ? The spell text certainly contains no such limitation, it just says "all deeds".
The name of the spells is very clear if you ask me.
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Where have you seen that the spell effects are limited to assassinations ? The spell text certainly contains no such limitation, it just says "all deeds".
The name of the spells is very clear if you ask me.
Spell name does not define intent. Description text does, and the description text only means that "deeds" are covered by the spell - for all we know, it could be useful if someone wants privacy when doing their... business. The list is called "Disguise Mastery" and provides obfuscation/illusion spells - Assigning a specific intent goes against 'freedom of use' of the spells within the technical parameters.
There could be one way the "varies" duration makes sense, and it is if there is an actual tangible objective involved - killing X, stealing Y, spying on Z, or whatever - and all actions pertaining to that objective are covered by the spell. But it makes it a bit too powerful to my personal tastes, as well as very difficult to judge properly (when the Magent travels to the place where he plans to do the deed, are all actions during the travel covered by the spell ? If not, which ones are ?). I'd rather assign a duration, and given the other spells on the list, 10 min/L seems in line with the overall intent.
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It's intent is to hide a deed in the shadows when someone uses scrying on you. The duration varies because it's to obscure the deed in shadows when someone uses scrying. The spell covers any deed the magent does when he doesn't want to be seen.
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Basically, this thread is talking about nerfing the duration of the time the spell can cover so you always can uncover who the assassin is by backtracking and casting the spell again until you see the identity. Some spells like Death's Tale will not work with backtracking, but the Magent must assume that if the target is high profile enough they will find spell users that can uncover his identity.
Not being able to protect the Magent's identity is by any measure a serious weakening of the Magent in his core activity...if you rule that the spells are not limited to assassination but can be used for any actions then the duration limit is probably needed to not make the spell too overpowered. The downside of allowing it to apply to any action is that having limited protection from scrying will mean the Magent is the only sane choice for all agent action and a number of other professions are suddenly quite bad choices for doing agent stuff.
I would argue having the Magent with a monopoly on getting away with assassination and letting the Dabbler or similar get the equivalent spell to cover non-assassination actions seems like a much better game design than making Magent able to perform any subterfuge task with scrying protection. In RMU they ruled that the missing duration was the typo while I would argue the better interpretation of the older editions is the typo is that the word assassination is missing from the spell description.
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The thing is, I don't believe assassination is the Magent's core activity. Being an agent is, which includes recon, intelligence gathering, stealing, sabotage... and assassination. One of the class lists deals with assassination (and can be used for anything else, really - a study patsy / create evidence combo can work for a theft as well as for an assassination), but the others are not specific.
From that, I infer that the Magent spells should be non-specific in their intent except for when the technical aspects are obviously specific - such as Open Ambush, Targeting and Well-Aimed Attack, which are combat-enhancing spells and, as such, specifically deal with combat activities.
Shadow Assassin is not explicit in which actions it should cover by its description, so the intent is that it covers any "deed", regardless of what it is - if the Magent wants to cast this spell constantly to escape divination when going about his daily routine and has power points for that, they are welcome to it. However, since a blanket scrying block spell without implicit or explicit duration would obviously be overpowered, we have to
- either assume the duration is indeed "varies" and the issue is with the scope, in which case we have to update the description to indicate that it covers one "deed" and only covers the actions that are directly linked to that "deed". The result is a spell that is difficult to ascertain and very much open to conflicting interpretations, but probably fairly true to the original intent of the author.
- or assume that it can cover any activities, but then, must be limited in time. I then consider the other spells on the list, which are mostly 10 min/Level (with a few being 1 hour/Level) and infer that 10 min/Level would probably be a fair duration. The spell becomes much easier to referee, even if it is probably a bit more removed from the original intent.
But I would not lock the Magent into an "assassin only" role just because of one poorly chosen word in a single spell description where it's actual role is being an agent that is really difficult to uncover.
As for the Dabbler, its main role is that of a burglar and con man - probably much more on the wrong side of the law than the Magent, and probably much less liable to leave corpses behind them as well. But I can agree with you one one point: the Dabbler lists are sometimes underwhelming and could stand to be improved in a few ways, notably in the ability to remove physical evidence of his crimes.
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I have never had any trouble in my game to referee the use of the spell. The players say they use spell X to discover who the assassin is and the answer is "nope, you only see a shadow/nothing". If the players suggest that they try to backtrack to get around the shadow spell I point out that it won't work against a Magent spell since these actively counter attempts to uncover who the assassin is. If they try to suggest they look at secondary evidence to get clues about the identity of the assassin despite the magic I answer that it is magic and will also cover any such clue.
Of course, they are still free to try to backtrack if they believe it was another spell that provided the shadow/invisibility.
At the end of the day limiting the duration does not matter for what you as GM must do when you provide an answer to the player using the spell. The judgment call about what information to reveal remains the same, but with the time limit, the players can defeat the spell by backtracking and casting the spell again. This is a good discussion, but I think we have exhausted the topic by now.
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For specific spells that counter others when it comes to scrying, I allowed an RR vs the original spell to do so.
However, the defensive spell gets a bump of x5 to its effective level to help keep the mystery alive(and not auto-foil GM plots, which is more often when these spells are employed, LOL!) but that still doesn’t keep them secret forever.
Lucky rolls have to be allowed when they happen, and rewarded!
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I agree with MisterK that the RAW does not limit the spell to Assassination, but I also see Pastaav's point that any scryers could just effectively nullify the effect by rolling back their scrying to the time before the spell was cast to identify the killer. It might take the scryers a bit of time to focus on the right location, so that is a bit of a limitation (especially if the scryers are trying to start a pursuit of the target), but not maybe too significant of one.
Given those parameters, perhaps increasing the duration to 10 minutes/level might be worth considering. That long duration might prevent scryers from identifying the assassin, especially if we considered one 'deed' that is 'shadowed' is the assassin getting to the scene of the crime (thus the scryers would not know where to look for the assassin, especially if s/he had blended into the crowd on his way to the scene).
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Yarding all of this up, here's my take.
1 - Duration: there needs to be a finite duration on period of activity covered, or the magent can just cast once and be covered forever. The description says it covers deeds performed "while this spell is active" but doesn't specify what that period is. The period of activity coverage needs to be finite, but the effect of that coverage carries forward into the future, and any divination spells cast down the road will see the shadowed figure for any divination within that period of activity.
This gets to be a bit like asking what is the period of activity on a slaying spell. The spell's activity was just the slaying, but the after-effects are permanent.
2 - Activities covered: "All deeds performed" seems pretty comprehensive. Not just the act of putting the dagger into someone's heart, or pouring the poison into their wine. If you do it during the period the spell is active, it's shadowed.
3 - Power against counter-spells: The primary spells (using RMSS, though I am porting the spell into my RM2 game) for this would be Death's Memory (explicitly cited in the Shadow Assassin spell), the Past Vision Open Mentalism spells, and possibly the Vision Behind spells for Seers. Death's Memory shows an "vision of how someone died and an image of the killer," which the Shadow Assassin spell would force to only show the shadowy figure. It also has to be cast within 24 hours of death.
Past Vision and Vision Behind both show events associated with a place or item at a previous time, for a period of minutes to hours. Depending on what item was available or what the place is, this could allow the caster to see the assassin, or possibly not. If the assassin was carrying a dagger for 24 hours before casting Shadow Assassin, then killed someone and left the dagger, a Past Vision or Vision Behind spell going back to that period before Shadow Assassin was cast would see the assassin during that period. If they did not have the dagger, they couldn't trace back, and if they didn't go back to a time before Shadow Assassin, they would see the shadow.
I don't see having a 10 min/level time limit as nerfing Shadow Assassin at all. I don't see allowing it to cover other actions as making it too powerful. I do see making its period of effective concealment unlimited being very problematic. All a 4th level Magent needs to do is cast it and say "this is to conceal my actions leading up to the assassination of the High Priest of Mixor" and then never really try to assassinate that High Priest. They would be concealed from divination/scrying their entire career.
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I do see making its period of effective concealment unlimited being very problematic. All a 4th level Magent needs to do is cast it and say "this is to conceal my actions leading up to the assassination of the High Priest of Mixor" and then never really try to assassinate that High Priest. They would be concealed from divination/scrying their entire career.
That would indeed be a silly ruling...I doubt anyone does it like that.
Wanting to assassinate the High Priest of Mixor is not the same as doing an assassination so you cannot in my game cast the spell successfully just because you claim that you plan to kill a certain character. Instead, the Magent cast the spell when he has killed his target. He uses the spell afterward to protect his identity and the magic will interfere with any attempts to scry the event.
That all deeds the Magent did at the scene that could reveal his identity are covered is of course powerful, but with my ruling that it is limited to assassinations that seem fine in my book. Having the means to keep the plot mystery going no matter if the players have access to such spells is good for the story if you ask me.
Players working hard can use spells to determine where the assassin entered the place and use that to find witnesses that saw the assassin enter, but they cannot use the spell to get instant knowledge about who the assassin is.
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4. Shadow Assassin – All deeds performed while this spell is active are "shadowed" to divination spells. All related visions gained through divination effect are shrouded in shadows. For example, a Death's Mastery cast on the scene of a murder might reveal a shadowy figure performing the deeds (but no details about the identity of the figure).
"All related visions gained through divination effect" seems pretty broad. Just moving your divination forward and backward through time seems like it would fall under that heading. I would never allow divination to observe the moment the magent goes from normal to shadowed. That transition would be shadowed. If they went back far enough for that transition to become ambiguous, they might discover that the magent was present, e.g. the magent was at the ball and later a shadowy figure appeared and murdered the duke, but it would never be clear who the shadowy figure was. (I did not compare the wording in other editions, this is from RMU.)
I also think the spell should cover all deeds during the duration. The word "assassin" is just color. Just like the spell list "Assassination Mastery" is not limited to assassinations, it can also be used for hunting, scouting, other combat, etc. The spells do what they do, the character decides how to use them.
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But even those without magical protection will take into account retrosurveillance when committing planned crimes. Wear masks during the crime. Approach and leave the crime through a dark, preferably complexly-branching area (intersecting alleys at night, sewer/drainage systems, etc.) or use Long Door several times to muddy the trail. Backtracking would be a normal thing to try, therefore also a normal thing to make difficult. Shadow Assassin simply eliminates the need for clumsy disguises/masks that waste time, create physical evidence, and make you suspicious on sight.
Also, depending on the judicial system, there may be a huge difference between a scryer testifying as a witness that you actually did the deed versus a scryer testifying that you were "seen in the area" around the time of the crime.