IC: Dichotomy's Age of Worms Redux, Part V(b)

[o3caudata]

[sblock=oc]Sonofa...[/sblock]

"This is most unfortunate. A delay of a day is likely to just bring more forceful assaults against us. We can't safely wait this out somewhere in the city. We can either find someone capable of casting this for us, or proceed without its protection. Are you capable Nethezar? Or perhaps we should seek assistance from the clerics of St. Cuthbert."

[sblock=oc]Not sure if Neth is willing to give it a shot, or if Cuthy would be any help. i'm just grasping.[/sblock]

 

[Dichotomy]

Nethezar curls his upper lip. "We will either need to find a cleric of St. Cuthbert or a wizard. In either case, the caster would need to be someone of... substantial power. The mind blank spell is, from what I know, a spell well above the means of even many accomplished practitioners."
[sblock=OOC]Those damned 8th-level spells.

So, I was meaning to ask your opinions... Does Erd failing the check mean that the spell is lost from the scroll as if she had cast it? As far as I can tell, the rules don't say, and I don't think it has ever happened to us before.[/sblock]

 

[TiCaudata]

[sblock=oc]not sure, I'm trying to do a quick check though and someone in the forums referenced DMG, page 214. so maybe check there?[/sblock]

 

[TiCaudata]

[sblock=oc]I assume you already checked for this, but... "If she fails, she must make a DC 5 Wisdom check to avoid a mishap (see Scroll Mishaps, below). A natural roll of 1 always fails, whatever the modifiers. "

other than that i'm still looking...[/sblock]

 

[TiCaudata]

[sblock=oc]This is off of the D&D website "If a scroll has a caster level higher than your own, you have to make a Spellcraft check (DC = 1 + the scroll's caster level) to activate the scroll. If you fail the check, you don't activate the scroll and the scroll isn't used up." Rules of the Game: Using Magic Items (Part Two)

edit x1 so I think that means I get to try again if I want to. Also I think that since my Wis is higher than 5 I don't get mishaps outside of a natural 1 correct?

edit x2 so I also think that if I can only get a mishap on a natural 1 Erdolliel should try to cast the spell again.[/sblock]

 

[Dichotomy]

[sblock=OOC]I didn't see anything noteworthy on page 214.

The interpretation from the Rules of the Game article makes sense to me. So, I think it makes sense to say that failure on the caster level check means that the scroll is simply not activated. So you can try again.

As for the mishap goo, once again, I believe the rules fail to handle the English language. The whole thing says:
"If she meets all three requirements but her own caster level is lower than the scroll spell’s caster level, then she has to make a caster level check (DC = scroll’s caster level + 1) to cast the spell successfully. If she fails, she must make a DC 5 Wisdom check to avoid a mishap (see Scroll Mishaps, below). A natural roll of 1 always fails, whatever the modifiers."

Is the last sentence referencing the second sentence, or does it reference the first? There are arguments supporting both interpretations.

IN ANY CASE, a "DC 5 Wisdom check" means that you roll a d20, add your wisdom MODIFIER (not your wisdom score) and see if it beats 5. So, I think that Erd could get a mishap on numbers other than a 1.[/sblock]

 

[TiCaudata]

[sblock=oc]oh yeah, modifers... drat... I can fail on a natural 1-5 then... I don't think it matters which sentence the natural roll of one sentence modifies because a natural 1 is pretty much always a failure isn't it? or am I stuck in AD&D here still? If it does matter I think that the std rules of english should apply where the geographically closest thing that can be modified should get modified, namely the second sentence, but it is tricky with all the "fails" thrown in... and it is tricky with my usual lack of caring enough about the english language's structure to actually have a clue... I heard a good little segment the other day on NPR about the rules of language too btw.[/sblock]

 

[o3caudata]

[sblock=oc]
So, that skip williams rules of the game article is old and dumb. spellcraft check to activate the scroll? with the same dc? really? I'll take that.

But his point was clear, failure to activate does not use up the spell. Which doesn't make any sense because obviously a mishap entails something happening with the spell. you can't have the spell target someone 'at random' if it was never cast. unless the mishap is what activates the scroll... which is just confusing... but unrelated. The scroll wasn't used up and can be retried as much as we're willing to.

I would expect that should they have meant to apply the natural 1 failure to both rolls they would have used language to explicitly support that. (i'm not sure how i still carry any faith in their use of language though)

reading the rules i don't see any reason to interpret the text to indicate that 1 is an auto fail on the caster level check. i modeled the success chances for both 1 as an autofail and as a valid roll and there's no significant pattern exposed by either model. There's not really any reason for me to 'believe' they meant it to apply to both.

The 'whatever the modifiers' language strengthens (however slightly) the theory that it applies only to the mishap check as i don't believe there's anything in the core rules to modify your caster level for anything other than SR checks.

It makes sense to me that they would specifically include the natural 1 failure applying only to the mishap chance, because by level ~8 it would be impossible for lots of casters to fail the mishap roll otherwise(assuming a reasonably strong starting attributes). Meaning that any 8th level caster could safely cast (and retry) 9th level scrolls until they're successful, without any risk.

So what i'm saying is... there's a good reason to have a natural 1 fail the mishap roll, there is no visible (to me at least) evidence to support it applying to the caster level check, and no significant impact on the outcomes of arbitrary CLC rolls to indicate that a natural 1 makes more 'sense' as a failure.
[/sblock]

[sblock='lessoc'] That being said... and assuming you agree...

Does Erd want to try again? Do we want her to? Or are we going looking...
[/sblock]

 

[TiCaudata]

[sblock=oc]I say we have her give it a go once more. if we again manage to not activate while avoiding a mishap then we might want to consider going to the Neth's house of god and have them cast it for us or something[/sblock]

 

[Dichotomy]

[sblock=OOC]I'm back from the funeral-ness. My other uncle died. I'm getting myself unpacked, and I have a meeting tonight, so I'm just short-posting now.

Erd gets a 15+ on her second try, so it works.

Unless one of you says something, I'm going to assume that you're going to the Cold Forge area. I'll post again later (maybe not until tomorrow).[/sblock]