Topic: Phantasm X

[doktorjoy]

[I know this topic has come up here before as I've done a search, but the posts I've found don't really cover my questions properly]

So - my player has just got her illusionist to level 20, and the Illusion Mastery list also (we play RMSS/RMFRP), and is using Phantasm X to squash anything on the battle field. I'm not going to allow this, and am really looking for how other GMs have approached modifying it to keep game balance and so forth.

She is using the 9 'extra' options to give the spell 2 'feels', and 7 doubles on radius (so the radius is now 1280 feet). She is standing inside a castle, looking out of arrow slits - and then using the feels to hit any target she likes up to 1280 feet away for 128x damage. Her Directed Spells skill in the list is a fairly-decent 96 and she is using a herb that gives her +25 to all activities. With a half-decent attack roll she can do 600+ damage to an AT19/DB70 target, twice, for just 20 mana. The opponents can't see her, and even if they could, she's nearly 1,300 feet away through an arrow slit. It's a directed spell, so she say's they can't parry it. It's not elemental, so it ignores any elemental resists or damage reduction, and it's not a Force, so they can't RR. The targets have very few mitigation options therefore even if they anticipate the attack, and there's very little in the Creatures&Monsters book that can absorb 600+ concussion, and nothing I can think of that can handle 1200+.

Compared to a lord-level hasted warrior with an Adrenal Strength, or a lord-level Magician successfully spell-mastering a lightning bolt to x5 and then making *good* attack rolls and critical rolls, she's still out-stripping their maximum damage by something like a factor of 6. All from the safety of a tower 1,300 feet away. To do all this, the warrior and the magician have to travel to the target through whatever other risks are on the battlefield, make a larger number of successful rolls, and to be much closer to the target and therefore in substantial danger and risk of reprisal.

Obviously I'm not going to allow this to continue, but the player is a bit of a rules lawyer - so if there's anything in the rules I can use to curtail this, that would be better than me just making an arbitrary call.

• I've read elsewhere on the forums that the maximum radius of an illusion is 640 (so that's only 6x damage) - but I can't find that limit in either RMSS Spell Law or RMFRP of Essence. Not that I think this would help, as then she'd just hit targets 4 times at x6 instead of twice at x7
• It occurred to me to limit the range at which the phantasm can strike something to the range of the spell, not the limit of the phantasm radius. If after 2 'feels' all 7 remaining options are used on 'radius', then the range remains at 100' even if the phantasm itself is 7x radius (a third of a mile across). This would force her out of the castle and into the open, or force her to drop the damage (radius) multiplier to add range - limiting both range and damage. It still means that in a toe-to-toe fight she can out-damage a warrior/magician by a factor of 5+, using an attack that the target will find difficult to mitigate
• I could apply the additional ruling in the 'Rolemaster Rules' supplement, which is that for concussion damage all doubles are additive, not multiplicative. We already play this rule for someone say under the influence of a Giant Strength potion and an Adrenal Strength. Then she would do 7x damage, not 128x damage
• I could say that for an illusion that size, anything on the battle field can strike it and cancel it[\li]
  

Suggestions, advice, welcome...

[doktorjoy]

Afterthought: I could apply the range penalties for directed spells (e.g. -75 OB at greater than 300'). This brings the illusionist out of the tower and into danger as a penalty that large would make attacking further than 200' difficult against creatures with a decent DB. This still leaves the damage deliverable at short-range to be many times higher than a warrior or magician.

[Ecthelion]

She is using the 9 'extra' options to give the spell 2 'feels', and 7 doubles on radius (so the radius is now 1280 feet). She is standing inside a castle, looking out of arrow slits - and then using the feels to hit any target she likes up to 1280 feet away for 128x damage.

Can you explain why the damage is at x128 (or at x7 if using the other option you mentioned)? For me radius and damage are not connected, so that I would have assumed that any damage done using the two "feels" is still at x1.

[doktorjoy]

Can you explain why the damage is at x128 (or at x7 if using the other option you mentioned)? For me radius and damage are not connected, so that I would have assumed that any damage done using the two "feels" is still at x1.

In RMFRP 'Of Essence', section 15.14 (page 98 and 99), (and there is the same wording in RMSS Spell Law but I can't give you a reference right now), it says:

If a Phantasm has been given increased “size” by using options from a Phantasm # spell, the concussion hit damage from an attack is doubled for each option so used (e.g., if two options are used to increase the “size” to a 40' radius, the attack’s concussion hit damage is four times normal).

[Peter R]

I am not sure if this helps but the RMC 1st level Illusion Mastery Illusion II says: "All parts of the area of effect must be within the range of the spell (and all parts of the range must be in the caster’s field of vision)."
This means that with no options applied you have a range of 200', a radius of 10'. and 9 spare option.
2 Touches brings that down to 7 options.
Increasing the radius and damge goes
1 option x2 20'r.
2 options x4 and 40'r.
4 options x8 and 80'r and 200' range.
6 options x16 damage and 160' radius and 400' range.

The last unused option could be used to increase the range or add a second sense.
The spell says that it is normally a rank 1 martial arts strike, but striking at range like this I would treat it more as a shock bolt and apply the shock bolt range penalty of -75.

If your player claims that it is not a ranged attack in this way but everything in the area is being squished then I would select the two highest objects in the total area as the first two touches, probably squishing the tops of two castle towers as these are definitely in range or possibly an innocent bird and a tree gets flattened. If on the other hand, it is a specific point being hit then range modifiers apply and the -75 for 301'+ reduces their OB to an acceptable level and of course, the target gets their full DB.

[doktorjoy]

1 option x2 20'r.
2 options x4 and 40'r.
4 options x8 and 80'r and 200' range.
6 options x16 damage and 160' radius and 400' range.

Okay so here they are saying that the radius must fit within the range, so you have to spend the right amount of options on both range and radius. The first two radius options fit within the 100' base range of the spell, so you only need to spend extras on radius, but after that the radius gets bigger so you have to increase the range also, which pares down your option numbers sufficiently to stop the damage multiplier being bigger than 16x.

I think this represents a compromise on the scale I was looking for, thank you  .

I think I have RMC somewhere, so I can even show it to her next session.

"All parts of the area of effect must be within the range of the spell (and all parts of the range must be in the caster’s field of vision)."

This will also act as useful extra constraints.

[Amano]

“(and all parts of the range must be in the caster’s field of vision)."

The illusion spell in RMU also stipulates this requirement (I am not familiar with RMSS/RMFRP). The Phantasm spell doesn’t but it seems reasonable to apply.

Further limitations may depend on what the phantasm actually is. A huge monster making melee attacks can be parried and its sudden appearance on the battlefield might well draw some missile fire. A ball of fiery death plummeting out of sky would be difficult to target on an individual and may, as Peter said, strike unintended targets on the way down.

What phantasm’s does she create?

[doktorjoy]

What phantasm’s does she create?

She tends to stick to something that makes a physical strike, like an enormous giant towering over everything that swings a club down onto the target in question. That might manifest as a 600' tall creature with a 1,000 foot spear that it jabs across the battle field, or maybe it throws a phantasmal rock. She's also created a colossal ballista on one occasion that fired a bolt at the target.

But it seems to me she could opt to have a lightning bolt come down from above, for example, or for something to pop out of the ground right next to the target and smite it. i.e. - She doesn't fill all the radius of the spell with an illusion, just the bit she needs to attack the target.

[jdale]

I could apply the additional ruling in the 'Rolemaster Rules' supplement, which is that for concussion damage all doubles are additive, not multiplicative. We already play this rule for someone say under the influence of a Giant Strength potion and an Adrenal Strength. Then she would do 7x damage, not 128x damage

Repeated doubling is pretty dangerous. If you treated all "doubling" as "+100%", 7 doublings of radius would be x8 damage and the radius would be 80'. x8 damage based on 15 max damage as a rank 1 striking attack vs AT 1 is 120 hits, which is still potent but not absurd. Possibly just limiting damage that way is sufficient.

RMU makes this change to damage and also limits it to 4x maximum. The rule is:
If a Phantasm has been given increased "size" by using options from an Phantasm # spell, the concussion hit damage from an attack is increased one multiple for each option so used (e.g., if two options are used to increase the "size" to a 40'R, the attack's concussion hit damage is three times normal, i.e., increased by two over the basic x1). This is limited to four times (x4) the normal damage.

[technobabble66]

Fwiw, for any multiplying effect that could become Uber powerful if exploited, our group made it more additive. So extra multiples would just add another of the original value.
Eg: 10’ radius doubled would be 20’. Then another “double” from a different effect would increase it to 30’. Another “double” got it to 40’.
Similarly for strength or speed increases (where we mainly tried to exploit). So, for example, 3 different sources of double speed or strength just got us to x4.
This was primarily to stop buffs getting out of control, but the maths does kind of make sense. Doubling the doubles causes exponential increase; whereas if “doubling” is intended to add an additional amount of the original value, the result from multiple doubles is more “multiplying”. If that makes sense [emoji57]


Ultimately, does your PC understand the need for balance in the game?
Because either way, you should be able to point out to her that there is absolutely no way in hell she’s going to be able to do this in future. Either it’ll be nerfed down heavily or you’ll have to be a bastard to devise a way to control it (eg: the illusion hits several birds/insects on its way to the target).



Without checking up on illusions, don’t observers get some sort of perception or, say, Intuition RR to see whether they believe the illusion or see it to be fake? And surely once someone realizes it’s an illusion and screams it out, everyone else gets a bonus on that roll?
(Or maybe I’m also not aware of how illusions work in RM [emoji1])


How do undead perceive illusions?
And could your opposing NPCs simply include a spellcaster (or item) to cast a Dispel/Cancel Essence globe/dome around themselves?  Have a 100’ hemisphere of cancel Essence around them, so as the giant/spear/bolt is about to hit them, it disappears as it crosses the threshold or at least the bit crossing the threshold. No need for instantly reactive spell casting.

[jdale]

Without checking up on illusions, don’t observers get some sort of perception or, say, Intuition RR to see whether they believe the illusion or see it to be fake?

They do, but recognizing that it's an illusion doesn't change the fact that the illusion is constructed out of real light, sound, and force. It's not a construct in your mind (that's a Seeming, not an Illusion) that goes away when you disbelieve it. Recognizing illusions is more important when the purpose of the illusion is deception, e.g. creating an illusory foe that the enemy will direct its attacks against, or run away from.

Think hologram -- the image is real, even if there is no true object.

[Ginger McMurray]

With this sort of player a conversation is more important than a rules clarification or change. Working your way around this particular system abuse only patches the hole. She'll likely to find another method on another spell list and you'll be back in the same situation.

That said, I can't speak to the system, but RM2 includes some stuff on this:

• Elemental attack rolls take a penalty for range. 300+ feet is a -75. You mention 70DB. Another -75 vs. a 96 skil means an attack roll at -49.
• Full helm is -5
• Wall shield is -30
• Cover applies

Also, change up the game and the foes.

• Use objectives that don't let you hide in a tower to accomplish them.
• Earth Law: Unstone disintigrates 100 cubic feet of stone. Stone to mud is also great at mangling towers.
• Spell Mastery list reverse spells. Hit her with the same thing. It's only a +0 attack but she's probably got little DB against it.
• Ninjas attack! i.e. spies and assassins sneak into the tower.

[Spectre771]

I understand the system you're using is RMSS/RMFRP but you posted in the general RM thread so here's some info from RM2 that may help you:

Elemental Companion has some fantastic Greater Drakes with three different age ranges.  The ones that stick out that would be great to send against your mage are these:

Chaos, Young  lvl 25 -- Hits 350G  (The 'G' is for calculating HP if you choose to send a Drake greater or lesser than level 25)
Chaos, Mature lvl 50 -- Hits 650G
Chaos, Old      lvl 75 -- Hits 950G

Nether, Young lvl 25 --  Hits 300G
Nether, Mature lvl 50 -- Hits 600G
Nether, Old     lvl 75  -- Hits 900G

Time, Young lvl 25 -- Hits 300G
Time, Mature lvl 50 -- Hits 600G
Time, Old     lvl 75 -- Hits 900G


Those three types stand out for a few reasons.  Primary the number of HP, secondary the level, tertiary the type of crit.   That's where it gets fun!

Your concern was a creature that can handle 1200+ HP in one attack.  That's tough to deal with but this is a start.  A flying Drake has a bonus to DB and if your mage is casting a ground based illusion, the Drake can take flight or just stay air born.  Some Drake can teleport to other planes and some are invisible.

The next one is the level of the creature.  In RMSS/RMFRP, do the targets get a RR vs the Illusion or realm of magic?  I've never player RMSS/RMFRP.  The youngest Drakes at level 25 are higher than your mage.  If you go to level 50, it's considerably higher than your mage, I would assume that a level 75 Drake wouldn't even notice someone casted a level 20 spell at it.

The crits are where the fun happens, but you would certainly need EC and/or RMC-III for the Attack Tables and Crit Tables.  Here are some samples:

RMC-III has the Physical Alteration Table

Chaos Cits inflicted: Acid and physical alteration (physical damage from acid and physical alteration. Turn that leg into a crab claw!)
Nether Crits: disruption and stress (Reality checks, orientation rolls at varying difficulty, physical alteration.  Turn the arm into a mushroom!)
Time Crits: time (Time Crits reduce the targets stats at random and can also hyper age the target into dust)


--------------

If RMSS/RMFRP allows RR vs Illusions or realms of magic, then even a young Drake is +5 levels over the mage.  All of the Greater Drakes are extremely intelligent and have access to spell lists.  There must be a spell list that protects the caster from Illusion spells.  I haven't even tried to look through the spell lists, but I'm sure there's a Dispel Illusion or something that gives at least a bonus to the RR vs. Illusion. 

For example, the Chaos Drake has mastery of Chaos Mastery, Chaotic Weapons, Chaotic Armour, Changeling, Metamorphose spell lists. (3x Chatoic Lord base lists, Warlock Base, Moon Mage Base) 3x level PP

I didn't list the stats, but the Nexus Drake (not a Nether Drake) is a master at teleporting with mastery of Gate Mastery and Spell Wall lists and could really make things hairy for the mage hiding in a tower, especially if there suddenly is a Drake in the same room and only an arrow slit through which to escape

Vacid Drake has mastery of Inner Wall list and Protection spell lists (Ranger base and Cleric Base)

Aether Drakes pop in and out the the aether plane at will at different locations in the physical realm.  They have mastery of Ethereal Mastery and Invisible Ways.

-------

While you can't always send a Greater Drake at the party, hitting the mage with a decent Chaos Crit and a physical alteration just once can be very devastating.  A suddenly old mage with stat degradation will weaken the spell casting ability.  Aether crits can teleport the target to the aether plane.  (I would assume would be instant death unless the target has Hostile Environments - Aether as a skill. )  These suggestions may seem extreme, but you're dealing with an incredibly OP mage, for game play balance, something equally nasty should be fighting her.

She is using the 9 'extra' options to give the spell 2 'feels', and 7 doubles on radius (so the radius is now 1280 feet).

This is the key component though.  These 'options' are they optional spell casting rules that you allow in the game?  Optional rules always run the risk of something OP occurring and a lot of the optional rules I've seen state Option 1 or Option 2 or Option 3, not "use all of the options listed here." 

The best choice is to cull those options if they are optional spell casting rules.  Allow only one, maybe two spell casting option.  For game play balance, in our gaming group, whatever options the players use, the baddies get to use.  When one of my mage players decided to try using Verbal, Somatic, Token, and Spell Holding to increase his spell attack at the boss... I made sure my NPC spell caster was able to do the exact same thing and the party didn't like the result. 

Conversely... since the player used all four options for his spell, if he didn't use all four options, his spells suffered penalties because he wasn't completing the entire spell process.  He was leaving out steps in the spell casting process so spell failure was increased as well.  When his hands were tied, he couldn't cast his spell because he needed the somatic portion of the ritual.

[rdanhenry]

While quite possibly overpowered, I'd have to say that the effects were originally intended to be multiplicative rather than additive. There was a general rule to combine x2 and x3 as +100% and +200% to get +300% or x4, but the text carefully avoids this symbolism for "doubling". And checking my RM2 Spell Law, the notes for the Illusionist spell lists even demonstrate this: "if two options were available the range could be doubled to 200' and doubled again to 400'".

[technobabble66]

Yeah, just read the RMU list and noticed it specifically states that example of how the doubling is meant to occur.
Personally, I’d houserule that that is OP and apply the mundane version of multiple doubling.
In fact I think we might have just houseruled our original application of it rather than inferred it from the RAW

[Ecthelion]

If a Phantasm has been given increased “size” by using options from a Phantasm # spell, the concussion hit damage from an attack is doubled for each option so used (e.g., if two options are used to increase the “size” to a 40' radius, the attack’s concussion hit damage is four times normal).

Thanks for explaining. One idea to limit the Phantasm spell that comes to my mind is that not only a strike from the phantasm will cancel one "feel" effect but also a strike against the illusion. And with such a super high radius illusion such as a titan inside a 1280' radius it might happen that one or the other enemy decides to send and arrow against the illusion or strike it with a sword, thus cancelling one of the "feel" effects. With only 2 "feel" effects these effects might be lost even before executing the first strike via the phantasm.

[Peter R]

If a Phantasm has been given increased “size” by using options from a Phantasm # spell, the concussion hit damage from an attack is doubled for each option so used (e.g., if two options are used to increase the “size” to a 40' radius, the attack’s concussion hit damage is four times normal).

Thanks for explaining. One idea to limit the Phantasm spell that comes to my mind is that not only a strike from the phantasm will cancel one "feel" effect but also a strike against the illusion. And with such a super high radius illusion such as a titan inside a 1280' radius it might happen that one or the other enemy decides to send and arrow against the illusion or strike it with a sword, thus cancelling one of the "feel" effects. With only 2 "feel" effects these effects might be lost even before executing the first strike via the phantasm.

This is exactly the case. Any forceful impact will wipe out a touch on the illusion. If the illusionist is creating a massive object or structure then anyone or anything hitting or being hit by it will wipe out touches, intended target or not.

[Peter R]

One of the most important stipulations for illusions is often missed out. It happens right at the end of the description for Phantasm II.

It stipulates for phantasms that move is that all the correct senses must be applied. So a 1200' titan moving on the battlefield, would not be completely silent. Armour would creak, they would breathe and so on. You get one sense for free, normally sight, but you would also need to add sound. The titan would be a natural target for any archers present as a clear and present threat so there is a good chance that people may snap off shots at it between the moment of casting and before the illusionist's next action.

For something like the giant lightning bolt, they make a lot of noise, they are visible but also give off a lot of heat. Two options would need to be spent to add sound and heat options.

[gog]

One other issue with Arrow Slits, they have a vary narrow angle of vision in general - no more than about 45 degrees from memory. If there is a 600' giant standing in the way, how is the pc seeing the target?

[jdale]

One of the most important stipulations for illusions is often missed out. It happens right at the end of the description for Phantasm II.

It stipulates for phantasms that move is that all the correct senses must be applied. So a 1200' titan moving on the battlefield, would not be completely silent. Armour would creak, they would breathe and so on. You get one sense for free, normally sight, but you would also need to add sound. The titan would be a natural target for any archers present as a clear and present threat so there is a good chance that people may snap off shots at it between the moment of casting and before the illusionist's next action.

For something like the giant lightning bolt, they make a lot of noise, they are visible but also give off a lot of heat. Two options would need to be spent to add sound and heat options.

Only if you want the illusion to be persuasive. In this scenario, the purpose of the illusion is not to deceive, but only to apply a physical force. That force is real whether or not the illusion is persuasive. You could make it a silent cartoon giant but the force would still be real and damaging. Everyone would know it's not real, and they might conclude there is an illusionist somewhere that they desperately need to kill (possibly from extreme range with a trebuchet), but they'd still take the damage. Tactically there might be an advantage to a persuasive illusion in some cases (e.g. as a target for attacks) but it's not required. Maybe the illusionists' guild will revoke their membership card for lack of artistry?

The use of the illusion spell to achieve this is not really because it's the most appropriate spell for it, but because it's one of the few spells that has inherent scaling options.