Interestingly... since it only mentions "Blocking and Missile Spells cannot be linked" does that mean you can cast Link to activate a Melee Spell?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
Link it a particularly obnoxious case because it looks in most ways like a Lasting spell, but it does give a 'spells on' penalty, albeit 1/3 the normal value.
|
Since M131 says "No maintenance of a Link is required," I'm thinking "Every three Link spells on count as one spell on, rounding down" might be for the purposes of Mage Sight (M102) and Detect Magic (M101) which are mentioned right after that? Although I don't get how that would work, you could set up 3 links in an area and only one spell would be detected via DM or MS?
Or maybe that's the wrong tangent... no maintenance of A link may just mean (since you round down) that a single link (or two!) doesn't require maintenance, while 3-5 active Links would count as 1 single spell on.
Despite there being a no-penalty state and these not requiring FP to maintain (much like a missile or melee spell) I kind of get the impression that unconsciousness would cause these to end...
It feels like there should be some kind of option to use Maintain Spell in these situations... they seem maintainable even though they don't have expiration and renewal periods like most maintainble spells.
Maintain Spell for 0-cost spells (like from high skill) costs 1 energy per 5 full duration periods, so that should be 1 energy FOR ETERNITY for indefinitely-active spells like Link, right?
If you could cast Maintain Spell on a Link though, you'd lose control of the spell so you could no longer use 1 energy (or 0 FP if a Killswitch perk) to shut down the spell unless you regained control of your spell using Steal Spell.
Since presumably only the owner of a Missile Spell can throw it (some random goblin footman can't just wrestle a fireball out of mage's hands and throw it at his king, can he?) doing something like casting Maintain Spell on a Fireball (to maintain it without the -3 penalty to cast other spells, if you have that perk... or to cast spells at ALL, if you don't) should probably prevent you from being able to throw it (perhaps even to move it around, leaving it stranded in space, harmless to all?) until Steal Spell is cast on it.
M127 mentions "a held missile cannot be stolen" which sounds like you can use Steal Spell on non-held missiles... but you would normally use Catch Spell (M123) to gain control of a THROWN missile... so maybe Steal Spell can be used instead to gain control of a "parked" fireball with Maintain Spell cast on it?
1 energy for all eternity for missile spells would allow crazy stockpiling though, not to mention probably function as permanent torches, so I'm thinking maybe treat missile spells as having some kind of unwritten 10-second (like B101's "Duration for Advantages") duration (0 energy maintenance cost, of course) so that if you could use Maintain Spell to park them, they'd cost 1 energy per 50 seconds.
Maybe it should even be 1 second instead of 10? Reason being... M10 "Canceling Spells" before normal duration expiry is normally 1 energy... and M14 "Dissipating Held Melee and Missile Spells" allows this as a free action during your turn and there's no mention of FP cost... so maybe that's a result of being maintained second-by-second and allowing the second-long duration to expire to avoid cost?
In that case Maintain Spell would cost 1 energy per 5 seconds so parking fireballs would be pretty costly. To get long-term stockpiles you'd probably need to modify the spell (per Thaumatology) with "Increased Duration" so that Maintain Spell would be cheaper.