Elements of Magic: Questions for the Designer

[Kemrain]

Now that I think about it, what would happen to an aligned Outsider, say a Demon, if they were Infused with Good and had their alignment overpowered by the spell?

They would still be evil, but would detect as good. It wouldn't turn the creature into a kindly, loving being; you'd need Compel to do that.

Oh, and could you Abjure Good, for DR, with the Greater DR enhancement, aligned to Cold Iron, so the above Demon's Cold Iron or Good DR was made into simply Cold Iron DR?

Hmm. So, you're casting Abjure Good on a demon, which gives it DR x/magic. But I'm not sure if you're saying you want to upgrade the spell to grant DR x/cold iron, or DR x/good. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding.

I was unclear. I'll reiterate.

First question: What I want to know is the effect of Infusing an aligned creature with it's opposing alignment. If it would make the creature register as the opposed alignment, for the purposes of Type (I know Infusing a Demon wigh Good wouldn't make a friendly Demon, but it would make a decent Fool-the-Paladin suprise), would there be any other effect on the creature? An Evil creature wielding a Holy sword (One Infused with Good) takes negitive levels in Core DnD, so I wanted to know if there were any like effects with EoM alignments.

Second question: The End Result I'm looking for is to get a Demon with DR 5/Cold Iron or Good to have DR 5/Cold Iron, and be uneffected by aligned weapons of any kind. The real question is, could I turn DR of one type into Dr of another type, or perhapse just DR X/-? How does EoM DR interact with [Su] or [Ex] DR already in place?

I have more questions, and they're along the same lines. I want to understand Alignments in EoM a bit better.

Say I wanted to make a weapon Holy, pretty close to how it works in Standard DnD. It'd need to be aligned Good, and do 2d6 points of Good damage to anything Evil. (EoM's 1d6 to Neutral creatures is pretty cool, to, so I'll just keep that...) To make the aligned part I need to Infuse with Good, that's not too difficult- I can probably squeeze some other benefit out of that one, too. I think the Damage is a little kludgey, though. I wanted to just "Create Good" and go with Elemental Weapon, but Create only works with Elements. Evoke Good, as I understand it, is best used in some sort of Charged item, as opposed to a Constant Effect, or do I have that wrong? How would you make a Holy Sword?

- Kemrain the Dis-Holy.

 

[astriemer]

Mage Armor and Shield

How would you go about creating Mage Armor that doesn't require armor proficiency without spending a lot of MP to get a magical suit of armor created out of force?

Similarly, how would you create a Shield effect? Create Force would let you create a shield out of force, but as I understand, it would require that the mage put it on (and thus probably need proficiency) and wield it. Would Move Force let you use the shield without paying any attention to it (as in the standard Shield spell)? For example,

Shield
Create Force 2/Move Force 1/Gen 1
Total MP: 4
Range: 0
Area: shield of force
Duration: 10 minutes
Save: None
Spell Resistance: No?
Description: Creates a tower shield of force that moves to intercept attacks made at the caster providing a +4 shield bonus to AC. The shield is virtually weightless and moves of its own accord to block attacks as long as the caster is aware of the attack. Costs: 2 MP elemental object, 1 MP effective strength, 1 MP duration.

Granted that is now a "2nd level" effect. If that works then this should as well right?

Shield
Create Metal 1/Move Force 1/Gen 0
Total MP: 2
Range: 0
Area: tower shield
Duration: 1 minute
Save: None
Spell Resistance: No?
Description: Creates a tower shield that moves to intercept attacks made at the caster providing a +4 shield bonus to AC. The shield moves of its own accord to block attacks as long as the caster is aware of the attack. Costs: 1 MP gear, 1 MP effective strength.

 

[Suldulin]

bump: how goes an errata fix/add bookmarks patch?

 

[RangerWickett]

We're working on it. We have a patch file, but we're double-checking to make sure it works right. Look for an announcement within a week.

 

[Glacialis]

Maybe I missed this, but as I can't afford to be a contributor I can't use the search function :-(. Where's LA at? Want! :-D

 

[Kemrain]

LA has not yet been released, as far as I can tell.

- Kemrain the Patient.

 

[RangerWickett]

It is still in the writing stages, but is fairly done. I had to put it on hold when the ENMag restarted, but I'll be getting back to it the middle of this week. It will be out before the end of summer, certainly.

 

[Kemrain]

Not to be a nudge or anything but, RangerWickett, is there any chance that you're going to answer my questions about EoMr Alignment I asked in May? No pressure or anything, I'm just still curious.

- Kemrain the Patient, but Curious.

 

[RangerWickett]

First question: What I want to know is the effect of Infusing an aligned creature with it's opposing alignment. If it would make the creature register as the opposed alignment, for the purposes of Type (I know Infusing a Demon wigh Good wouldn't make a friendly Demon, but it would make a decent Fool-the-Paladin suprise), would there be any other effect on the creature? An Evil creature wielding a Holy sword (One Infused with Good) takes negitive levels in Core DnD, so I wanted to know if there were any like effects with EoM alignments.

A creature whose alignment is altered with Infuse (or with Illusion Death, for that matter) is affected by magic as if that were its real alignment. In the case of Illusion Death, if the spellcaster disbelieved, his magic would function against the creature using its normal alignment.

Second question: The End Result I'm looking for is to get a Demon with DR 5/Cold Iron or Good to have DR 5/Cold Iron, and be uneffected by aligned weapons of any kind. The real question is, could I turn DR of one type into Dr of another type, or perhapse just DR X/-? How does EoM DR interact with [Su] or [Ex] DR already in place?

Things stack oddly with damage reduction. Even in the core rules, there seems to be no guidelines for stacking damage reduction of different types. Basically, if the damage reduction types are identical, stack them.

So if you have a creature with DR 5/Cold Iron and then you give it DR 3/Cold Iron, it'll now have DR 8/Cold Iron. If instead you give it DR 3/wood, then the creature will have both damage reductions. Hitting it with a cold iron sword would get past the cold iron DR, hitting it with wood would get past the wood DR. There really oughtn't be a way to get past both DRs at once, barring some freaky magic.

I hadn't thought of using Abjure to just change the DR on a creature. I haven't playtested to see how broken it would be to just pay 1 or 2 MP and make a creature change from DR 10/magic to DR 10/fishsticks, but I imagine it would be balanced with a 4-MP effect.

Say I wanted to make a weapon Holy, pretty close to how it works in Standard DnD. It'd need to be aligned Good, and do 2d6 points of Good damage to anything Evil. (EoM's 1d6 to Neutral creatures is pretty cool, to, so I'll just keep that...) To make the aligned part I need to Infuse with Good, that's not too difficult- I can probably squeeze some other benefit out of that one, too. I think the Damage is a little kludgey, though. I wanted to just "Create Good" and go with Elemental Weapon, but Create only works with Elements. Evoke Good, as I understand it, is best used in some sort of Charged item, as opposed to a Constant Effect, or do I have that wrong? How would you make a Holy Sword?

- Kemrain the Dis-Holy.

In Lyceian Arcana, I made sure to add in the option for Create [Alignment], which I just completely forgot about for EOM. Create [Alignment] isn't really good for much else than creating aligned weapons, but it is still a useful trick. And I suppose it'd be cool to have a house made of pure good, using 'elemental object.'

 

[BSF]

Ryan,
I haven't picked up the the Revised EOM yet, I still have the old one. But, I am thinking of grabbing it when I pick up Steam & Steel.

I have a conceptual question for you. I am not a huge fan of the Epic spellcasting rules. It just doesn't scream Epic to me. However, using the concepts of Spellseeds to give an Epic spellcaster access to EOM-style magic does start to seem Epic. Weaving together spells on the fly, while non-epic magic casters are "stuck" using known formulized spells seems like it could be an interesting way to approach Epic play. Any thoughts on how easy this would be to integrate? Advisability on integrating it? Heck, maybe there is even an idea in there that you want to run with for another supplement?