[Grim Tales] Spell Burn, something other than Str?

[Hjorimir]

Naw, I want a hardback. PDFs are the devil!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Naw, I want a hardback. PDFs are the devil!

Ooo... man, even in print, this is likely to be a softcover. Hope that's ok!

 

[Hjorimir]

Well I prefer hardbacks, but dont worry; it won't stop me from buying it.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Well I prefer hardbacks, but dont worry; it won't stop me from buying it.

Sheet metal and duct tape. Make any paperback into a hardback.

 

[The_Universe]

I'll chime in here:

I don't have a thematic or mechanical problem with trained casters draining their strength with spells - that make sense to me, and I'm ok with it.

But, I have to admit that I am somewhat enamored of having different spells/spell schools draining different abilities. After all, while the genre *is* rife with examples of casters weakening as they cast more spells, it's *also* rife with casters who descend into madness (Wis damage, maybe Int?), etc.

So, rather than trying to defend the Str drain mechanic (which I like, and have no problem with) is there a reason *not* to change the main "drain" stat? Is there a reason not to open it up to more specific ability drain depending on the school/description/whatever of the spell?

If there is, I'd like to know.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

So, rather than trying to defend the Str drain mechanic (which I like, and have no problem with) is there a reason *not* to change the main "drain" stat? Is there a reason not to open it up to more specific ability drain depending on the school/description/whatever of the spell?

Nope, change away.

I'm not defending the STR-drain mechanic so much as mounting a counter-offensive against the reasoning behind the change in the first place.

 

[The_Universe]

Nope, change away.

I'm not defending the STR-drain mechanic so much as mounting a counter-offensive against the reasoning behind the change in the first place.

Actually, I just came up with a reason (myself) not to allow each spell or spell school to drain a different stat - it's going to allow your casters to cast a lot more spells. If you want to do that, that's fine - but by allowing casters to spread the damage over all 6 (or some other subset) of the ability scores, you're going to encourage them to start casting spells a lot more often (since they can take a little Dex damage, a little Wis damage, a little Int damage, etc.).

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Depending on the burn options and how you handle healing, that may not be a problem. Up the burn die to d8 or d10 and they can cast the same number of spells as single-stat burners, but they get to totally debilitate themselves

Or, lower the burn die to d4, but apply damage to all stats equally (or just physical stats for evocation, mental stats for enchantment, wis+con for necromancy, etc).

Geez, every time I think about GT casting, I come up with a dozen variations I want to try.

 

[Victim]

I haven't seen casting being tied to STR as problematic. Each bit of casting stat is worth several points of STR because of burn resistance. And anyone who puts STR above Con for a caster has tons of points, total crap for other stats, or wants to die. A low Con character is punished even more by GT than in DnD: a lower Con means more MDT checks, which are doubly bad because of his lower Fort. In the game we just finished, the 2 characters with 12 Con probably failed at least 50% more massive damage saves than those with 14. Since INT is far more important for casting, and CON is required for survival, STR is tertiary at best. So on a standard array, the caster is probably looking at 13-10 STR (and, given the need for other stats, probably about the same with higher point buy). While that kind of score is perhaps more buff than most DnD pencil neck wizards, it's not out of line for a guy doing dangerous stuff where physical fitness is somewhat important. Especially since he won't be casting spells all the time, other skills and abilities (eg, beating people up) will be required.

 

[BryonD]

First, if a difference of a +1 in mod resulted in a >50% change in success then somebodies dice really sucked. And if your dice suck, the system don't matter.

CON is certainly a major stat. It is for all classes period. I think that is one less than ideal aspect of D20 in general.

So neither of those issues end up being relevant to the matter at hand.

You are left with would I rather my typical caster select WIS and CHR over STR or dump the other mental stats in favor of being buff.
To me the choice is a no brainer.