Topic: Cretinous spells & spell adders

[Marc R]

I'm contemplating how crazy an effect a high level mage with a +1 adder could pull off if the adder allows them to ignore scaling penalties. . . .a 24th level mage could have 75 ranks in a spell? using magic dart, scaling 72 pp worth would allow a single casual cast of unholy results with little risk.

It's akin to allowing an RM adder to allow you to ignore SCSM / ESF penalties and overcast.

I'd house rule in favor of Ecth's comment to avoid that becoming abusive, personally.

[kasalin]

For the dragon example, don't dragons have innate magic resistance?  Not being familiar with the Magic Darts spell, does it negate innate magic resistance?

Also, where does it say that a spell adder eliminates all scaling penalties?

[Thom @ ICE]

No innate magic resistance.
They do have very high resistance roll modifiers - but Magic Dart does not get a resistance roll.

As for scaling penalty and spell adder.
Spell Adder is first mentioned on page 52 of the Core book under special starting items....

Spells cast using this item must meet normal casting requirements, meaning that the character must have enough skill ranks in the spell for the scaling options he wants to use. The character still gets a casting modifier due to armor, but does not receive any spell casting modifiers for scaling the spell up in power.

[ZuS]

Nope. It's more reasonable to e.g. use 6 times the Increase Darts and 4 times the Increase Dart Size option. That's 70 darts for 5 hits each (max). Since only half of these are going to hit on average, the result would typically be 175 hits and 35 bleeding.

That is accurate - average roll is around there.

Hm, as a power gamer I'd add Eloquence and perhaps also a Skill Specialization on the Magic Darts spell. That adds another +35 for a total OB of 132. Since the typical dragon also "only" has 165 DB we suddenly have -33 + dice roll instead. That's a good chance to hit the dragon. And I don't know whether the caster can get the +20 for suprise to his roll, since the dragon is unaware of the attack, which would improve the chances even further.

In this case the mage has:
+25 eloquence
+10 specialisation
+27 Mental Focus (can be achieved by singing/playing instrument as well)
+77 skill
+20 stat
159 TOTAL + roll

The only way any target has a chance is fumble.

Still, since the dragon has 455 hits in the core rule book, he has quite a number of hits left until he passes out and that means some rounds to act and roast the mage. So the mage should best take at least a second such shot at the dragon before that one can attack...

That is not a problem, since Magic Staff grants +2 or +3 Spell Adder at that level (not sure). Even if he didn't have the Magic Staff, the caster is teleported within 2 seconds of the attack. Besides the dragon example was just an illustration - any other creature is turned into sishkebab instantly.

Anyway, what the example shows is that, using a spell adder, a mage can offset the huge penalties normally connected to scaling up a spell with many PPs and thereby reach an very high OB. So if I were to make a ruling I'd say a Spell Adder should only provide the caster with the necessary PPs for additional spells but not remove the scaling penalties.

I fully agree, but will not create in-house rules - too much discussion.

[ZuS]

I'm contemplating how crazy an effect a high level mage with a +1 adder could pull off if the adder allows them to ignore scaling penalties. . . .a 24th level mage could have 75 ranks in a spell? using magic dart, scaling 72 pp worth would allow a single casual cast of unholy results with little risk.

It's akin to allowing an RM adder to allow you to ignore SCSM / ESF penalties and overcast.

I'd house rule in favor of Ecth's comment to avoid that becoming abusive, personally.

A lvl 24 mage could deliver above 500 damage on average and around 100 points of bleeding per second. For the fans of the Supernatural series, this is equal to what happens to Castiel in the finishing moments of the 22nd episode of season 5, when Lucifer looks at him in anger and snaps his fingers.

[Thom @ ICE]

I have to say it - that's munchkin min/max play at it's extreme...
And your refusal to play at their weakness or use similar play for the NPC's only make it more extreme since it is not across your world, but isolated to the PCs.

Good luck with it.... I've got nothing else that might be of help.

[ZuS]

I have to say it - that's munchkin min/max play at it's extreme...
And your refusal to play at their weakness or use similar play for the NPC's only make it more extreme since it is not across your world, but isolated to the PCs.

Good luck with it.... I've got nothing else that might be of help.

You should have seen his Force Bands with Scope character - that was hilarity beyond borders. 5 rounds after initiation of hostilities 10 of our enemies lay on the ground neatly packaged into magical bondage.

We circulate GM duty, so that the GM is always fresh and the players always excited about a new adventure. Even without the added issue of shared GM position, discussion of rules gets quickly out of hand and takes hours of our game time. We do not want to make in-house rules.

Playing on weaknesses of the players is ok to do sometimes, but it quickly turns the game into an ordeal if that is ALL a GM ever does. The only sustainable solution is, as always, to bring it to the attention of people who might know a rule we missed or are even able to make an official ruling on the matter. In this sense we are no different than system testers at Microsoft, only a tad more nerdy.

[Ecthelion]

We circulate GM duty, so that the GM is always fresh and the players always excited about a new adventure. Even without the added issue of shared GM position, discussion of rules gets quickly out of hand and takes hours of our game time. We do not want to make in-house rules.

We also tend to power gaming. But when we find a way to create a character that is out of balance we usually quickly find an agreement how to restore the balance. And we don't cling to one of our characters remaining the uber-character in the group if he gets too powerful, but instead we accept that it needs to be toned down. If you have players who don't accept this and won't change their character or modify the rules via a house rule in such a case, then things become difficult. We had one player in the group for whom that was the case - and we nowadays play without him...

The only sustainable solution is, as always, to bring it to the attention of people who might know a rule we missed or are even able to make an official ruling on the matter.

Rasyr, are you willing to make an official ruling, changing that Spell Adders remove the scaling penalties? Or do you favor the current ruling from the books?

[kasalin]

The spell needs to cost more PP.  Trying to recreate it using the guidelines in College of Magic, it should cost about 8 pp as the base and +4pp per extra 10 darts. Can the attributes of the spell be shared?  Maybe its costing is not right.

Although, even increasing the cost, its still pretty powerful if there are no scaling penalties.

[ZuS]

The spell needs to cost more PP.  Trying to recreate it using the guidelines in College of Magic, it should cost about 8 pp as the base and +4pp per extra 10 darts. Can the attributes of the spell be shared?  Maybe its costing is not right.

Although, even increasing the cost, its still pretty powerful if there are no scaling penalties.

The spell is pathetic and the price is right, untill you use the fact that damage grows quadratically with combined scaling options (good job, spell designer). Even this would be somewhat tolerable, if the penalty to OB was substantial, but for a power gamer with the Spell Adders from Magic Staff spell it's a walk in the park. Even if you survive the 200 damage, there is no way in hell you will heal a bleeding of 40 every 2 seconds.

If it was this one spell, I would say so what. But it's really all directed spells that get out of hand when modifyers don't apply. I think it would be sensible to remove or at least limit the penalty that a Spell Adder can remove from casting, even at the cost of changing the balance between PP Adders and Spell Adders. One-shotting anything at level 8 is just nutty.

[ZuS]

Alternatively one could keep the casting penalty benefit, but do something about the crazy OB bonus that Spell Adders grant sort of like a freebie to directed spells, unlike all other spells with respect to Spell Adder use.

[providence13]

I have never played Harp.
2 second rounds always sounded great, but this is just wacky!

What do you think about not rotating GM's each game? You be the GM for a few sessions. Don't argue the rules. The rules for any game shouldn't get in the way of fun. Tell them what happens. When they buck, remind them softly and sternly "that's my ruling now let's move on"..
Spell scaling sounded cool
at first.
Wow!
Have fun.

[Thom @ ICE]

Alternatively one could keep the casting penalty benefit, but do something about the crazy OB bonus that Spell Adders grant sort of like a freebie to directed spells, unlike all other spells with respect to Spell Adder use.

Note - Direct Attack spells were initially presented in the HARPer's Grimoire, which was later pulled from sale and replaced with HARP Codex.  In Core and CoM rules there is no such thing as a direct attack.  Spells were either Utility, Attack (which always offered Resistance!) or Elemental Attack (which resolved on the various elemental crit charts).  The Elemental Attack is very similar to a Direct Attack spell - but the difference lies in the Damage aspect.

Elemental Attack resolves on standard elemental crit charts with scaled damage based upon the success of the roll.

Directed Attack in one spell resolves similarly (and that doesn't seem to be an issue - Scattershot),  and then there are those with preset fixed damages including special damage and the ability to scale the damage (Thorn Blast and Magic Darts),  and finally there is Web (which upon re-reading is an uber-powered spell that assumes a hit every time and only allows the target a Hard Str Maneuver to break free - should include either a Magic RR or a roll for a successful hit) and Web Bolt (which doesn't even reference either a Maneuver to break free or the RR or hit roll)

The Web Str Maneuver is 1d100 + (StrBonus *2) with a -20 Hard Maneuver penalty and you need to break 100 to succeed.   That means you need to either OE or you need to have a StrBonus of +11 or more.  Assuming your race gives you a +2 or +3 (one of the stronger races) that still requires a Strength of 100+ to succeed without an OE.

So perhaps these 4 spells should return to the roots of HARP magic....
Make them all resolve similar to Elemental Attacks (without the uber-scaling options!) and for scaling options increase the damage size (Tiny/Small/Medium/etc.) and if giving special damage types apply a secondary crit.

For the Web spells, roll the attack (DB should not include armor bonus) check the result on the Percentage Results and then allow a StrBonus Maneuver on the Percent column to try to break free.
ex:
Caster has a skill bonus of +77 and Target has a DB of +80 (but only +20 without armor).
Caster rolls a 30, adds 77, subtracts 20 = 87
Percentage column reads 80 - therefore target can act at -80 for any maneuver or target can attempt to free himself with a Str check.  Strong guy with +10 StrBonus goes for the StrCheck.
Rolls 56 +20 (StrBonus *2) = 76.  He has reduced the web by 70 and resulted in his left leg still being caught.  Next round he can act at -10 or free himself further.

I haven't playtested this, but just from running it in my head it seems to be a much more legitimate rule than the way the spell is currently written.  Feel free to share comments on it.

ZuS - I know you won't want to add this as it is a house rule - but I think it might be a house rule you guys can easily accept and implement (at least the part about modeling after Elemental Attack).

[bottg]

Surely one issue with the magic darts example, using 27pp, is that it is going to take 5-6 rounds to cast (at 5pp/rnd).  I would want a fairly high perception roll to co-ordinate that attack with a fast moving dragon, otherwise the range will be all wrong, or there will be a hefty increased speed penalty?

[jasonbrisbane]

I'm contemplating how crazy an effect a high level mage with a +1 adder could pull off if the adder allows them to ignore scaling penalties. . . .a 24th level mage could have 75 ranks in a spell? using magic dart, scaling 72 pp worth would allow a single casual cast of unholy results with little risk.

It's akin to allowing an RM adder to allow you to ignore SCSM / ESF penalties and overcast.

I'd house rule in favor of Ecth's comment to avoid that becoming abusive, personally.

A lvl 24 mage could deliver above 500 damage on average and around 100 points of bleeding per second. For the fans of the Supernatural series, this is equal to what happens to Castiel in the finishing moments of the 22nd episode of season 5, when Lucifer looks at him in anger and snaps his fingers.

That level 24 mage, scaling 72PP has a scaling penalty of -360 (72*5) and will take 16 rounds to cast or incurr an extra -140 to fascast in one round for a total of -500. Now whose looking like fumbling!!

Remember that if that level 24 mage gets that spell off, Yes he IS supposed to be fantastic, but it is more like a ritual than a "spell" (16 rounds = 32 seconds...)

[jasonbrisbane]

Ok, here's a couple concrete examples.

BREAKING A STANDOFF:
Round 0: standoff - a group of enemies are in cover, mixed melee & range weapons, including a spell caster
Round 1: mage teleports to an exposed angle of enemies, invisible.
Round 2: enemies have no time to react before mage fires off a fireball, stunning everyone
Round 3: mage teleports 100 feet away in random direction; our archers (some invisible) and a second mage (Mist Form with ability to cast) enter exposed angles with little fear of retaliation (some teleport to less accessible areas)
Round 4: mage casts invisibility (just in case); archers shoot, second mage delivers spell adder scaled Stun Cloud on top of the targets.
RESULT: 5 enemies stunned for 5+ rounds 2 seconds after combat is initiated, all enemies eliminated within 12 seconds (reload & shoot second time)

A lesson we learnt quickly - EVERYONE has at least 20 jada leaves - chewing negates stun instantly up to ten rounds worth.

If all fighters have this (and what fighter doesnt considering their availability and that they are the ONLY way to get rid of stun...) then they pop a herb as a free action (everyone also gets one rank in herbcraft and a herbal bandolier to do this).

Most if not all fighters are no longer stunned.

(Of course swimming through mild acid is fun as everyone looses their jada leaves!)


PS: in the above example, you might not have a scaling penalty but will still take the 16 rounds to cast in order to focus the power points through the spell matrix the caster uses - Remember it is only the Power points that the spell adder provides!!!

PPS: the ONLY reason people parley is to allow their own archers, mages to get flank, rear and surprise bonuses on the characters before giving them one final opportunity to give in... Then EVERYONE hits them with all they have!

Remember the mages and archers will be spread out to ambush the PC's .
If your running the fight/confrontation with everyone in a tight circle/ten foot area, then that is your problem... If mages in your world use those tactics mentioned above then they will learn in basic training NEVER to stand in a ten foot area!

Remmebr to adjust your tactics according toyour players abilities. If your players are doing it, then others will be using the same tactics and peple would have thought of ways to negate those tactics. You using them against your payers isnt "cheating", simply the NPC's  adjusting to the way magic and people use these tactics in their world!

[ZuS]

That level 24 mage, scaling 72PP has a scaling penalty of -360 (72*5) and will take 16 rounds to cast or incurr an extra -140 to fascast in one round for a total of -500. Now whose looking like fumbling!!

Remember that if that level 24 mage gets that spell off, Yes he IS supposed to be fantastic, but it is more like a ritual than a "spell" (16 rounds = 32 seconds...)

Are you telling me that the Spell Adder does NOT negate casting time??? How does that make sense? He is spending 0 PP - ergo he casts 72 ranks of spell in one round.

[ZuS]

I am asking just so I know the mechanics - in our case it matters little. 27 ranks of spell would take 6 rounds to cast, or 1 round with -50 OB penalty. Since the caster has 159 OB with the spell, he would smoke anything short of a dragon 95% of the time anyway, so casting time addition to Spell Adder is little help to this situation.

[Ecthelion]

Are you telling me that the Spell Adder does NOT negate casting time??? How does that make sense? He is spending 0 PP - ergo he casts 72 ranks of spell in one round.

The caster is still handling the magic power equivalent of 72 PPs, which takes its time. IMO it does not matter that it's none of his PPs. And at least the short description on Spell Adders in the rule book does not also tell that casting time would also be negated.

[Thom @ ICE]

I am in agreement with Ecth that the casting time should still be required - but the scaling cost savings is huge on its own (especially with your spellcaster!!!)