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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 1111815" data-attributes="member: 63"><p>My first attempt to quote and answer questions was a failure, but I'll try again, saving every once in a while. I'm going to post what I've typed every few minutes, then edit to add more stuff, because I'm sharing a computer at work and I don't want to lose an hour of typing like I did last time. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Two reasons. First, we wanted to have Intelligence modify signature spells rather than MP. Signature spells represent knowledge, which fits with Intelligence. MP is just power, and if anything it'd fit Charisma, but we already had Charisma affecting DCs, so we decided we'd just make it easy and let everyone have the same number of MP. Second, trying to have the table range in increments of 1/2 a level was really clunky, so we decided against it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not quite sure what you mean here. Charisma modifies spell save DCs. The DC is 10 + 1/2 MP cost + Charisma bonus. I don't know what you mean about magic item save DCs, but Intelligence does not limit how 'high-level' (rather, high-MP) your spells can be. If you're a 20th level Mage, you could have an Intelligence of 3 and still be able to cast 20 MP spells.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It's sort of implied in the text, but yeah, I forgot to be clear. My bad. But yes, there are actually 21 possible power levels for spells, from 0 MP to 20 MP, in increments of 1 MP.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We switched it so that now to charm outsiders you need a Charm [Creature] spell list, namely Charm Outsider. Ditto for elementals requiring a Charm Elemental spell list. Your target's alignment doesn't matter anymore. We decided against Charm [Alignment] spell lists, because then most people would just grab Charm Lawful, Charm Evil, and Charm Chaos, and they'd be able to handle almost any enemy. It's more balanced if they have to get 5 or 10 different lists for different creature types.</p><p></p><p>However, for Faithblades, we thought it'd be interesting to give them this little flavorful power of charming people based on their alignment. Since Faithblades generally have weak spellcasting powers compared to their level, it's not overpowering.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Okay, since I don't quite know what you're asking, I'll go over the whole situation and hope I hit the answer you're looking for.</p><p></p><p>Your caster level is based on class and character level. The Mage has a 1 for 1 caster level advancement, so a 10th level Mage has a caster level of 10. Other classes have slower advancement, so a 10th level Faithblade would have a caster level of 5. A 10th/10th level Mage/Faithblade would have a caster level of 15.</p><p></p><p>Your caster level determines how much MP you have, how many spell lists you know, and how much MP you can spend on any given spell. You cannot spend more MP than your caster level on a single spell (round down if you have a fractional caster level). Thus a Mage 12 can only cast spells of 12 MP or less. This 12 MP can be spent on any general enhancement, or on any enhancement from a spell list he knows, but regardless of how many different enhancements he picks from however many sources, the total cannot be more than 12 MP.</p><p></p><p>Your caster level also determines what modifiers you use when trying to beat spell resistance, or when someone tries to counter your spell. Even if you cast a spell that costs less than your MP limit, your caster level remains the same.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We decided against having spells last more than a day. You get your MP back each day anyway, so you can just cast the spell again. We will include a note that you can just expend the MP again as soon as the next day starts, if you want to make sure the spell never ends (quite useful for things like Move Earth if you're going to be adventuring in the Elemental Plane of Earth for a while). If you want a truly permanent effect, you'd need to have the right feat and spend XP. </p><p></p><p>We also didn't want long contingency spells just for ease of bookkeeping. I suppose you might want a villain to have laid a trap that would lie in wait for three gajillion years, but that would be fairly rare. Again, what you'd most likely do would be to get the Craft Charged Item feat and make a trap that could work over and over again with a certain trigger.</p><p></p><p>As for range, 1000 ft. is about as far away as any encounter reasonably ought to be. You can also use Move Dimension combined with a spell effect to have a longer distance, but this is only really an option at high levels. We generally wanted to keep characters from killing things before they even come into view.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>By 'standard classes,' do you mean non-EOM classes? Well, since all magical skills require MP, and core D&D classes don't have MP, but rather spell slots, core classes couldn't use magical skill anyway. If you want to play a multiclassed Fighter/Mage, though, you could still spend Fighter skill points on things like Dispel Magic, but it would be a cross-class skill.</p><p></p><p>Of course, I personally don't use class skills, but if you use them in your game, then EOM magical skills should be cross-class for all non-EOM classes (and even some EOM classes too).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No, not directly. But the Mage and Taskmage do get to choose several 'tradition skills,' to reflect the specific type of spellcaster you want to play, and Use Magic Device could be one of those skills.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, you can combine a skill and a spell. You might combine an Evoke spell and a Dispel check to try to remove your foe's energy resistance before you hit them. Or you could combine an Infuse spell list with a weak Scry for a flavorful spell that gives you mighty senses (infuse to increase wisdom) and allows you to see through walls (scry).</p><p></p><p>Magical skills are just like spells. Normally, using them takes a full round, but if you make one a signature 'spell,' you can do it as a standard action.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>D'oh. Yep, you're right. Bad typo.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It will be now. Thanks for pointing this out.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, quite. I think the raw text is about 90 pages long. Abjure and Evoke have certainly the longest entries, and Heal has the shortest.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In this case, you missed a bit of information at the start of the Dispel skill. Permanent spell effects and permanent magic items have a caster level equal to the MP cost of the spell being used, plus 4. In this case, Barbara did not make her own armor, but rather got it somewhere along adventuring. The spell used on the armor is 12 MP, so the caster level is 16. Thus the DC is 10 + 16 + 2 = 28.</p><p></p><p>However, yes, I was trying to retype the example last night, because the original version had some extra detail that was extraneous, and I ended up making a few mistakes. I'll fix them ASAP.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, a 0-level spell is a 0 MP spell, but I'll clarify it. I'm not quite sure what you mean about Divination spells, though.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Attacks against a blurred creature have a 20% miss chance. Attacks against an invisible creature have a 50% miss chance, and spells cannot be targeted against invisible creatures.</p><p></p><p>Auras include things like magic items being detectable to magical Spellcraft checks, or the evil aura around outsiders and undead, which can be detected with Divination. You must pay MP for each aura you affect, but you can affect more than one with a single spell.</p><p></p><p>As for the distance distortion, I'd intended to putting in exact figures, but I'd lost track of it in the midst of numerous other revisions. I'll have to work on the exact numbers, but I'd say a -5 penalty for minor, and make melee attacks at all other levels of the illusion impossible.</p><p></p><p>If an invisible creature hits you, you can see it because you pierce the veil of the illusion. But the creature doesn't become visible, so other creatures don't necessarily see it. The text should read:</p><p></p><p>"Similarly, if an invisible creature deals damage to you, you can automatically disbelieve it. If an invisible creature deals damage to a creature other than you in your line of sight, you are automatically allowed a saving throw with a +4 bonus. Also, if you resist a non-damaging spell cast by an invisible creature, you automatically gets to disbelieve with a +4 bonus."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You're right, we should have a simple entry of total mp cost.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Thanks for the advice, but it will all be fixed when it goes to layout, so I won't worry about it too much right now. I know plain text isn't very readable, but I hope it helps you get an idea to the rules.</p><p></p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p>Thank you very much. Our goal is to make a system that's fun to play and that caters to many different tastes. I'm glad you were interested enough to comment on the whole file. Do you own the original EOM, and if so, what do you think about the changes?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 1111815, member: 63"] My first attempt to quote and answer questions was a failure, but I'll try again, saving every once in a while. I'm going to post what I've typed every few minutes, then edit to add more stuff, because I'm sharing a computer at work and I don't want to lose an hour of typing like I did last time. ;) Two reasons. First, we wanted to have Intelligence modify signature spells rather than MP. Signature spells represent knowledge, which fits with Intelligence. MP is just power, and if anything it'd fit Charisma, but we already had Charisma affecting DCs, so we decided we'd just make it easy and let everyone have the same number of MP. Second, trying to have the table range in increments of 1/2 a level was really clunky, so we decided against it. Not quite sure what you mean here. Charisma modifies spell save DCs. The DC is 10 + 1/2 MP cost + Charisma bonus. I don't know what you mean about magic item save DCs, but Intelligence does not limit how 'high-level' (rather, high-MP) your spells can be. If you're a 20th level Mage, you could have an Intelligence of 3 and still be able to cast 20 MP spells. It's sort of implied in the text, but yeah, I forgot to be clear. My bad. But yes, there are actually 21 possible power levels for spells, from 0 MP to 20 MP, in increments of 1 MP. We switched it so that now to charm outsiders you need a Charm [Creature] spell list, namely Charm Outsider. Ditto for elementals requiring a Charm Elemental spell list. Your target's alignment doesn't matter anymore. We decided against Charm [Alignment] spell lists, because then most people would just grab Charm Lawful, Charm Evil, and Charm Chaos, and they'd be able to handle almost any enemy. It's more balanced if they have to get 5 or 10 different lists for different creature types. However, for Faithblades, we thought it'd be interesting to give them this little flavorful power of charming people based on their alignment. Since Faithblades generally have weak spellcasting powers compared to their level, it's not overpowering. Okay, since I don't quite know what you're asking, I'll go over the whole situation and hope I hit the answer you're looking for. Your caster level is based on class and character level. The Mage has a 1 for 1 caster level advancement, so a 10th level Mage has a caster level of 10. Other classes have slower advancement, so a 10th level Faithblade would have a caster level of 5. A 10th/10th level Mage/Faithblade would have a caster level of 15. Your caster level determines how much MP you have, how many spell lists you know, and how much MP you can spend on any given spell. You cannot spend more MP than your caster level on a single spell (round down if you have a fractional caster level). Thus a Mage 12 can only cast spells of 12 MP or less. This 12 MP can be spent on any general enhancement, or on any enhancement from a spell list he knows, but regardless of how many different enhancements he picks from however many sources, the total cannot be more than 12 MP. Your caster level also determines what modifiers you use when trying to beat spell resistance, or when someone tries to counter your spell. Even if you cast a spell that costs less than your MP limit, your caster level remains the same. We decided against having spells last more than a day. You get your MP back each day anyway, so you can just cast the spell again. We will include a note that you can just expend the MP again as soon as the next day starts, if you want to make sure the spell never ends (quite useful for things like Move Earth if you're going to be adventuring in the Elemental Plane of Earth for a while). If you want a truly permanent effect, you'd need to have the right feat and spend XP. We also didn't want long contingency spells just for ease of bookkeeping. I suppose you might want a villain to have laid a trap that would lie in wait for three gajillion years, but that would be fairly rare. Again, what you'd most likely do would be to get the Craft Charged Item feat and make a trap that could work over and over again with a certain trigger. As for range, 1000 ft. is about as far away as any encounter reasonably ought to be. You can also use Move Dimension combined with a spell effect to have a longer distance, but this is only really an option at high levels. We generally wanted to keep characters from killing things before they even come into view. By 'standard classes,' do you mean non-EOM classes? Well, since all magical skills require MP, and core D&D classes don't have MP, but rather spell slots, core classes couldn't use magical skill anyway. If you want to play a multiclassed Fighter/Mage, though, you could still spend Fighter skill points on things like Dispel Magic, but it would be a cross-class skill. Of course, I personally don't use class skills, but if you use them in your game, then EOM magical skills should be cross-class for all non-EOM classes (and even some EOM classes too). No, not directly. But the Mage and Taskmage do get to choose several 'tradition skills,' to reflect the specific type of spellcaster you want to play, and Use Magic Device could be one of those skills. Yes, you can combine a skill and a spell. You might combine an Evoke spell and a Dispel check to try to remove your foe's energy resistance before you hit them. Or you could combine an Infuse spell list with a weak Scry for a flavorful spell that gives you mighty senses (infuse to increase wisdom) and allows you to see through walls (scry). Magical skills are just like spells. Normally, using them takes a full round, but if you make one a signature 'spell,' you can do it as a standard action. D'oh. Yep, you're right. Bad typo. It will be now. Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, quite. I think the raw text is about 90 pages long. Abjure and Evoke have certainly the longest entries, and Heal has the shortest. In this case, you missed a bit of information at the start of the Dispel skill. Permanent spell effects and permanent magic items have a caster level equal to the MP cost of the spell being used, plus 4. In this case, Barbara did not make her own armor, but rather got it somewhere along adventuring. The spell used on the armor is 12 MP, so the caster level is 16. Thus the DC is 10 + 16 + 2 = 28. However, yes, I was trying to retype the example last night, because the original version had some extra detail that was extraneous, and I ended up making a few mistakes. I'll fix them ASAP. Well, a 0-level spell is a 0 MP spell, but I'll clarify it. I'm not quite sure what you mean about Divination spells, though. Attacks against a blurred creature have a 20% miss chance. Attacks against an invisible creature have a 50% miss chance, and spells cannot be targeted against invisible creatures. Auras include things like magic items being detectable to magical Spellcraft checks, or the evil aura around outsiders and undead, which can be detected with Divination. You must pay MP for each aura you affect, but you can affect more than one with a single spell. As for the distance distortion, I'd intended to putting in exact figures, but I'd lost track of it in the midst of numerous other revisions. I'll have to work on the exact numbers, but I'd say a -5 penalty for minor, and make melee attacks at all other levels of the illusion impossible. If an invisible creature hits you, you can see it because you pierce the veil of the illusion. But the creature doesn't become visible, so other creatures don't necessarily see it. The text should read: "Similarly, if an invisible creature deals damage to you, you can automatically disbelieve it. If an invisible creature deals damage to a creature other than you in your line of sight, you are automatically allowed a saving throw with a +4 bonus. Also, if you resist a non-damaging spell cast by an invisible creature, you automatically gets to disbelieve with a +4 bonus." You're right, we should have a simple entry of total mp cost. Thanks for the advice, but it will all be fixed when it goes to layout, so I won't worry about it too much right now. I know plain text isn't very readable, but I hope it helps you get an idea to the rules. Thank you very much. Our goal is to make a system that's fun to play and that caters to many different tastes. I'm glad you were interested enough to comment on the whole file. Do you own the original EOM, and if so, what do you think about the changes? [/QUOTE]
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