Topic: RMU: Instant Spells are great for Semi's; not for Pures

[nash]

Consider three characters; an Arms realm character, a Semi and a Pure caster.

They are foolishly (and rather contrivedly) standing in a field, being attacked by an also suspiciously contrived group of 3 goblins.  The goblins each fire short bows on our intrepid heroes, who return with their own favourite ranged attacks.

The first hero, Mr No-Spells-for-Me, has good armour and is well trained with his bow, and fires without penalty.  He doesn't have great defence from the ranged bow, but has a few ranks in Movement so gets some defence.  Life could be better, but his great OB in his primary or secondary weapon class means he is in a much better situation than goblin 1 will be shortly.

The second hero, Mrs Bows-And-Spells-FTW, has okay armour, pretty good with their bow and has a couple of spells for defence.  They rattle off a Shield spell on the first round, and makes their attack as usual.  Second round they use a deflect I, or a Turn Missile.  Otherwise they use a spell to boost their OB.   All-in-all, as long as their PP holds out, it's the goblins are going to have a bad day.  Importantly their spell casting is a great benefit to their primary attack.

Our third hero, Mr Blast-it-to-Ash, is also under fire.  They have no useful armour, but they have a number of awesome directed spells.   Of course goblin 3 is also trying to introduce them to a number of "Single Arrows in their Area".   They have a similar offensive capabilities to the others.  However if they use a defensive spell... they can't cast a spell (optional rule allows them to cast at -50 on Spell Casting roll AND attack roll). 

So the result is that that a Semi can make best use of spells in this situation.   Instant spells don't interfere with non-spell attacks.  However for a pure, they pretty much need to choose between using an attack spell or a defensive spell.   There are other examples with Monks using movement spells to move within (or out) of attack range as another example.

Should an instant spell count as a spell for the 1/round limit?  Or should the limit be 1 instant and 1 non-instant per round?

[Ralfsi]

Instant spells act on +20 plus of the casters itintiave, so a semi spell cater with 15 initiate, can use their instant spells as reactions (think DnD)
Also they count as 0AP, so you can still do a 4ap dodge

[Ralfsi]

Need to ad that you can of course prepare och continue to prepare a spell, but if you cast it the same round you do an instant it's -100

[Hurin]

Ralfsi, this is not true of RMU. I'm not sure if you are thinking of the beta rules (or maybe RMSS?), but there is no longer that sort of initiative count or rules like that.

To the OP: yes, the Semi spell user is in the best place in this particular situation. An Arms user with a (mundane) shield will not be too far behind, but yes, the Semi is in a good place. The balance here is that the Semi has to spend more Development Points than the Arms user to buy both arms and spells at once, so the Arms user can buy other (mundane) skills to compensate (like Adrenal Moves, Fortitude, high Shield skill, etc.).

The spell user is likely not going to be able to make such good use of his free AP, true, though he could use them to move, take cover, Dodge, etc. to help close the gap. Also, the pure spell user spends less DP for his spells, so he can have a wider range of them that might be useful in this situation, such as Invisibility.

[Ralfsi]

Ralfsi, this is not true of RMU. I'm not sure if you are thinking of the beta rules (or maybe RMSS?), but there is no longer that sort of initiative count or rules like that.

Welp there went my concept of my defence.
As always you are correct. It was from the beta rules

[Hurin]

Welp there went my concept of my defence.
As always you are correct. It was from the beta rules

No worries. It was a long beta, and it is still hard sometimes to separate beta rules from official ones!

[nash]

To the OP: yes, the Semi spell user is in the best place in this particular situation. An Arms user with a (mundane) shield will not be too far behind, but yes, the Semi is in a good place. The balance here is that the Semi has to spend more Development Points than the Arms user to buy both arms and spells at once, so the Arms user can buy other (mundane) skills to compensate (like Adrenal Moves, Fortitude, high Shield skill, etc.).

The spell user is likely not going to be able to make such good use of his free AP, true, though he could use them to move, take cover, Dodge, etc. to help close the gap. Also, the pure spell user spends less DP for his spells, so he can have a wider range of them that might be useful in this situation, such as Invisibility.

My core point is that the Pure is in the worst place.  The non-spell user will probably be fine, the Semi can buff themselves up to the level of the non-spell user, and maybe beyond if they are focused right (I'm looking at you Deflections), but the Pure doesn't really have a way of using their tools for attack and defence.

[katastrophe]

To the OP: yes, the Semi spell user is in the best place in this particular situation. An Arms user with a (mundane) shield will not be too far behind, but yes, the Semi is in a good place. The balance here is that the Semi has to spend more Development Points than the Arms user to buy both arms and spells at once, so the Arms user can buy other (mundane) skills to compensate (like Adrenal Moves, Fortitude, high Shield skill, etc.).

The spell user is likely not going to be able to make such good use of his free AP, true, though he could use them to move, take cover, Dodge, etc. to help close the gap. Also, the pure spell user spends less DP for his spells, so he can have a wider range of them that might be useful in this situation, such as Invisibility.

My core point is that the Pure is in the worst place.  The non-spell user will probably be fine, the Semi can buff themselves up to the level of the non-spell user, and maybe beyond if they are focused right (I'm looking at you Deflections), but the Pure doesn't really have a way of using their tools for attack and defence.

We long since got rid of the 1 spell per turn rule. We allow as many instants as you want in a turn but only one full cast. this usually is only a possible issue when the caster has haste or variants but we have not run into a lot issues. 

It never made much sense to us that a mage could not use little quick spells to defend themselves and then turn around and cast a real spell.

Since we use the RMSS initiative 2d10+Qu and a count down system with 100% activity, most people can maybe cast 2 instant and a real spell. And we count you down 2 initiative steps per instant so you might have to deal with something between when your next cast action comes around.

[nash]

We long since got rid of the 1 spell per turn rule. We allow as many instants as you want in a turn but only one full cast. this usually is only a possible issue when the caster has haste or variants but we have not run into a lot issues. 

My feeling would be 1 instant and 1 non-instant as a limit.

[katastrophe]

We long since got rid of the 1 spell per turn rule. We allow as many instants as you want in a turn but only one full cast. this usually is only a possible issue when the caster has haste or variants but we have not run into a lot issues. 

My feeling would be 1 instant and 1 non-instant as a limit.

We've not found it to be an issue, but either limit is what it is. Most of the time there are only so many instants a mage would want to cast in a combat scenario, and if they want to cast a real spell, they can only cast 2 instants because they would run out of % activity. 10 for each instant and 75 for a real spell, and if you want to concentrate for a spell that is like 90% activity.

[GrumpyOldFart]

My core point is that the Pure is in the worst place.  The non-spell user will probably be fine, the Semi can buff themselves up to the level of the non-spell user, and maybe beyond if they are focused right (I'm looking at you Deflections), but the Pure doesn't really have a way of using their tools for attack and defence.

But on the other hand, the pure spell user is likely to be the only one who could turn all 3 enemies into a bloody mist with a single action. Like most "big guns," the spellcaster tends to be slow to get into action, and require defensive support, but devastating when used properly.

[jaesyk]

I think it is the squishy mage stereotype rearing its ugly head in the game. A forced class dependency thing. I think the way casting works in game is for no other reason than that.

[Cory Magel]

We long since got rid of the 1 spell per turn rule. We allow as many instants as you want in a turn but only one full cast. this usually is only a possible issue when the caster has haste or variants but we have not run into a lot issues. 

My feeling would be 1 instant and 1 non-instant as a limit.

My rule is one Full Cast, one Offensive Instant, as many Non-Offensive Instants as you like.

[jdale]

The pure caster might be better off summoning some cover like Airwall, and follow up with offense next round. He could alternatively cast an instant spell (like Deflections I) and also do a round of spell prep to make his type F spell harder to resist.

It's definitely true that instant spells are more advantageous for semis. But when you look at the big picture I wouldn't say semis are better off than pure casters in RMU.