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

[BryonD]

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.).

It sounds kinda cool. But I'm reminded of the original 3E psionics handbook. And that gives me a shudder.

I have faith that Wulf wouldn't touch that error with a 1st edition 10 foot pole. So I'll completely reserve judgement.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

It sounds kinda cool. But I'm reminded of the original 3E psionics handbook. And that gives me a shudder.

I have faith that Wulf wouldn't touch that error with a 1st edition 10 foot pole. So I'll completely reserve judgement.

Mutli-stat dependency sucked hard in 3.0 psionics because it controlled access to powers, save DCs, everything. If it was just having burn damage apply to different stats, it wouldn't be nearly as bad. Save DCs and casting checks would still be derived from the main stat, and access to spells is already subject to DMs fiat.

For that matter, you could always do half and half -- half to STR, half to another stat depending on school/phase of moon/whatever.

 

[BryonD]

Agreed.

Also, with a little creative interpretation of what I've seen I get the idea that you may run Magi with a primary school focus. So necromancers take WIS damage as they go insane or CON damage as they become sickly and necrotic...???... While diviners take CHR damage, or whatever. The point being that no individual mage has to deal with multiple abilities.

Man, CON damage would make you REALLY think hard about casting a spell. Of course then you give necromancers a way to do evil nasty things that give them protection from spell burn and they get that much more vile.

Anyway, thats plenty of wild baseless speculation for one post.

 

[The_Universe]

Agreed.

Also, with a little creative interpretation of what I've seen I get the idea that you may run Magi with a primary school focus. So necromancers take WIS damage as they go insane or CON damage as they become sickly and necrotic...???... While diviners take CHR damage, or whatever. The point being that no individual mage has to deal with multiple abilities.

Man, CON damage would make you REALLY think hard about casting a spell. Of course then you give necromancers a way to do evil nasty things that give them protection from spell burn and they get that much more vile.

Anyway, thats plenty of wild baseless speculation for one post.

Con damage is the default in Grim Tales for untrained casters, and anything that goes over your STR score bleeds over into CON for trained casters.

Spellcasting is *tough* in grim tales.