More questions on Magic - May 30th game

[Primitive Screwhead]

Questions from my game last night, mostly magical

Death and Magic healing: Page 91 does not reference magical healing at all. The options appear to be:

- Magic is awesome. Heal damage up from zero and return character from unconsciousness
- Magic is better. Roll to stabilize the character, but you gain dice equal to the number of dice of healing the spell would normally do
- Magic delays the suck. Add the number of dice of healing from the spell to the characters dying dice pool

I went with option 1 during the game.

Magical Skills: Page 16. {would be nice to have this in the magic chapter}. Nice implementation. Question on Create skill, there are no attribute related rolls so the benefit is only the addition to the MP cap? If I cast a complex spell that includes create, lets say I create a door that drains strength from who-ever touches it and I have the Create magical skill, would the door get the +1 dice to the drain attack?

Infuse: Why the table and not:
3MP grants +1 to an attribute
Elements with a single associated attribute grants a single additional +1 to the attribute
Elements with two associated attributes you may divide the bonus between the attributes

Drain.. this is soo much better than Infuse! I recommend flipping the Infuse:
3MP drains 1 from an attribute
Elements with a single associated attribute grants a single additional point of drain to the attribute
Elements with two associated attributes you may divide the bonus between the attributes

Area of effect, the base is a 10' radius? page 133. Thats 16 squares! *BOOOM*
I would recommend stealing 4th Edition 'burst' where you pick an origin square and a burst 1 {for 1 MP} affects that square and all adjacent squares. This is 9 squares total.


Gotta run to a work-event, so more later!

PS, the game was well received, altho we tettered near a TPK when the Dire Wolf's 3 die damage exploded for a total of 20 points against the druid!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Transform:
Buried in the text on Transform there is a sly mention that to transform someone into an earth elemental you need both Transform Earth and Transform Fey.. because Elementals are 'Fey' creatures? Which means Charm Earth won't actually charm an earth elemental? Is this right?


Others:
Musketeer II grants the ability to fire the musket, and then draw his sword and charge as a single action.
- does this require the combat trick 'charge' or does it grant 'charge' trick for free
Barbarian IV grants the ability to charge.
- ditto
Charge.. nowhere does it say this ends your turn, can you charge, and then charge again?


Combat trick: Recklessness reads "...Your DEFENSE becomes 10 until your next turn, but gain +1 to attack rolls."
What about a creature with a DEFENSE less than 10? I ruled that the PCs defence does not raise to 10....

Overwatch: any reason why this can't be done with a melee weapon?

==========================
Lets talk about combat mix now.

PCs have high to hits, normal defenses, low hit points, and high damage
Monsters have high to hits, normal defense, high hit points, and moderate damage

Based on the game, SOAK is critical to PCs but SOAK can be bypassed by various attack types. And when SOAK does get bypassed, the PC doesn't have the high hitpoints and the exploding damage die can make it swingy.

Flip that around the monsters have SOAK and hit points.. so that they can last a little bit against the PC's potentially high damage.

I really don't have a recommendation there... mainly because I haven't had enough time at the table yet. But my players mentioned this as an issue.

Thats all my half-awake brain can recall right now.

 

[Morrus]

I'm on a phone on a train, so I can only quickly address one quick question right now - you can't charge twice in a turn because you can only use one trick per turn. So you can charge, but your next action would be a regular action.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Thats a looong train ride!

;p

 

[Sniperfox47]

[MENTION=20805]Primitive Screwhead[/MENTION]
Transform: I can't find that mention. The only mention I can find to elementals in transform at all is that turning a fire elemental into a thoqqua or water elemental is fairly easy.
Charm Earth won't charm an earth elemental though, you're right. Then reason why is because charm earth doesn't exist. Charm targets creatures, not elements.

Musketeer: it doesn't say anywhere that it grants you the trick, just that if you use it you get said bonus.

Barbarian IV doesn't grant charge does it? I thought it was +5 mental defense?

Recklessness: this was mention in another post. You're right, it doesn't make sense for it to increase low defense, but I can't remember if Morrus gave an official fix on it.

Overwatch: can't be done with a melee weapon because its meant for stuff like snipers spotting targets behind cover, or a machine gun laying suppression on an area. A melee weapon wouldn't gain any benefit from it. If you're throwing daggers maybe, but then they're (for all intents and purposes) ranged weapons.

 

[Morrus]

Death and Magic healing: Page 91 does not reference magical healing at all. The options appear to be:

- Magic is awesome. Heal damage up from zero and return character from unconsciousness
- Magic is better. Roll to stabilize the character, but you gain dice equal to the number of dice of healing the spell would normally do
- Magic delays the suck. Add the number of dice of healing from the spell to the characters dying dice pool

I went with option 1 during the game.

MAGICAL HEALING
Various spells and concoctions can be used to heal wounded characters. Generally, magical healing increases HEALTH by an amount specified in the spell or effect, but cannot allow it to exceed a character's normal maximum HEALTH.

If a character is unconscious, magical healing automatically stabilizes him. If the character is already stable, magical healing restores HEALTH as normal (from the existing total of zero), restoring the character to consciousness.

A dead character can sometimes be restored to life using a Heal spell with the revive enhancement.

Magical Skills: Page 16. {would be nice to have this in the magic chapter}. Nice implementation. Question on Create skill, there are no attribute related rolls so the benefit is only the addition to the MP cap? If I cast a complex spell that includes create, lets say I create a door that drains strength from who-ever touches it and I have the Create magical skill, would the door get the +1 dice to the drain attack?

Good question. Technically, as written, no. But let me think some more on that; it hadn't occurred to me.

Infuse: Why the table and not:
3MP grants +1 to an attribute
Elements with a single associated attribute grants a single additional +1 to the attribute
Elements with two associated attributes you may divide the bonus between the attributes

That probably is easier, yes.

Area of effect, the base is a 10' radius? page 133. Thats 16 squares!

That is correct, yep.

 

[Morrus]

Transform:
Buried in the text on Transform there is a sly mention that to transform someone into an earth elemental you need both Transform Earth and Transform Fey.. because Elementals are 'Fey' creatures? Which means Charm Earth won't actually charm an earth elemental? Is this right?

Where are you seeing that? Transform is a long section!

Musketeer II grants the ability to fire the musket, and then draw his sword and charge as a single action.
- does this require the combat trick 'charge' or does it grant 'charge' trick for free

As written, it requires the charge trick to fulfill the "when charging" conditional at the beginning of the ability.

Barbarian IV grants the ability to charge.

Change that to "V: When charging, you move at twice your SPEED and gain +2 dice to damage."

Charge.. nowhere does it say this ends your turn, can you charge, and then charge again?

No. You can only use combat tricks once per turn.

Combat trick: Recklessness reads "...Your DEFENSE becomes 10 until your next turn, but gain +1 to attack rolls."
What about a creature with a DEFENSE less than 10? I ruled that the PCs defence does not raise to 10....

Change to "You cannot benefit from cover until you next turn; additionally, enemies gain a +1 die bonus to attack you."

Overwatch: any reason why this can't be done with a melee weapon?]/quote]

That doesn't make any sense to me. It's a way of covering an area with a ranged weapon.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

MAGICAL HEALING
Various spells and concoctions can be used to heal wounded characters. Generally, magical healing increases HEALTH by an amount specified in the spell or effect, but cannot allow it to exceed a character's normal maximum HEALTH.

If a character is unconscious, magical healing automatically stabilizes him. If the character is already stable, magical healing restores HEALTH as normal (from the existing total of zero), restoring the character to consciousness.

Unless the intent is to force a second action, please change to:
=======================
If a character is unconscious and stable, magical healing restores HEALTH as normal (from the existing total of zero), restoring the character to consciousness.
if a character is unconscious and not stabilized, 1 die of magical healing is used to stabilize them and the remaining dice of healing restore HEALTH as normal, restoring the character to consciousness.
===================
That way the healer whose signature spell heals 4 die of damage doesn't "waste" their MP just stabilizing the target. Also this means a healing cantrip would simply stabilize.

Where are you seeing that? Transform is a long section!

Not in the Transform section at all...
Page 116:
" There is a difference between spells that affect elementals (the fey creature type) and those that affect elements. A Transform Earth spell can turn things to stone, but it cannot turn something into an earth elemental. For that you’d need both Transform Earth and Transform Fey."

Kinda weird. Perhaps change the creature type of 'Plant' {very limited even in a Jungle themed campaign} to 'Animates' that covers normally non-sentient things that have an INT score. This would include the array of things like sentient plants, elementals, animated chairs, and magically created golems.

As written, it requires the charge trick to fulfill the "when charging" conditional at the beginning of the ability.
....
Change that to "V: When charging, you move at twice your SPEED and gain +2 dice to damage."

That should be spelled out better I think. My entire group thought that anyone could 'charge' but you needed the charge combat trick trick to gain the bonus damage. Hence these two traditions wouldn't be "forced" to take the charge combat trick. {thier words!}

No. You can only use combat tricks once per turn.
...
Change to "You cannot benefit from cover until you next turn; additionally, enemies gain a +1 die bonus to attack you."

Missed that.. thanks
..
I like that change! Thanks

Overwatch: any reason why this can't be done with a melee weapon?]/quote]
Had a player who knew the wolf was going to move over next to him and wanted to ready an attack for when that wolf got within range of his axe. I didn't see any reason to deny him since the archer next to him was using overwatch {on the same wolf..}
Perhaps an addendum that you can do this with melee weapons, and only one attack.

Speaking of overwatch.."the maximum number of targets you can fire upon during a turn ... is equal to your AGILITY attribute."
So, archers should 'overwatch' every turn!
I recommend dropping this and having overwatch be a single attack. If you want the attribute to play a part in this, state that you designate a number of adjacent squares equal to your AGILITY attribute. You may fire on a single target that enters these squares before the beginning of your next turn. This attack is resolved when the target enters the square, and then the targets turn continues normally.

 

[Morrus]

Unless the intent is to force a second action, please change to:

Yes, it is. Effectively a full turn.

Perhaps an addendum that you can do this with melee weapons, and only one attack.

No, it's intended for ranged weapons only.

Speaking of overwatch.."the maximum number of targets you can fire upon during a turn ... is equal to your AGILITY attribute."
So, archers should 'overwatch' every turn!

Yes. It should be the default choice for a ranged combatant, with other actions happening as and when needed. It forces folks to hide behind cover and work out how to get from one point to another. It's even better in N.E.W. with automatic weapons and suppressive/covering fire etc. Changes the dynamic drastically from what you're used to with D&D or Pathfinder in a way that I find very pleasing.

I recommend dropping this and having overwatch be a single attack.

Then it would be a different thing. It covers an area; it's not covering a specific target. Think how the recent X Com video game handled it (ish - it's not exactly the same).

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

re: Magical Healing
I meant second spell to cast, which really means two full turns to magically heal someone who is dying and get them back up on their feet: one casting to stabilize and then a second casting to heal. With this option, every healer should have the signature spells of 'stabilizing touch' {heal cantrip with 30' range} in order to avoid wasting a better healing spell just to stabilize someone.

re:Overwatch
Ah. so this action is intended to be the obvious choice in battle over targeting one specific enemy. This also means ranged weaponry will be the obvious choice over melee. Hmm. Will have to try that out at the table.

- I thought of counters, as this would obviously be common in combat and immediately thought of the Blur illusion. While Blur doesn't do that, I recommend moving the line on page 163 {that states that attacks against a blurred target have a -1 die penalty} up to page 162 and place it right behind the statement that an average illusion allows the mage to blur their image.
Then I thought of tower shields. Current rules on page 105 state that tower shields provide +8 to defense. Wouldn't this intersect better with the overwatch rules if they granted cover against one chosen direction?


re: radius 10' for spells
Oh my, watch out for the Mage!

These three rules have a significant impact on the feel of the game, and the pacing of the game. They also throw off my instinct for a balanced encounter.

My group has three casters; one blaster, one druid, and one cleric.,, oi!


Thanks for the responses!