Staff, mana, stored ST

[Kirk]

I saw a mention, since I can't figure out what is truly being considered about "stored" power for wizards, about allowing staves to power continual spells, such as summon wolf.

Again, we need to be very careful about considering these types of changes because, for example, there needs to be a balance between image, illusion, and summoned wolf which can be altered if paying for a summoned wolf becomes easier.

Summoned beings can't be wished away, but they take a heavy toll on the wizard. They suck his ST fast, make him vulnerable to the most basic of hits, and force his team to get to it, NOW! If they don't really, then illusions and images become less useful, the time tension disappears, and the possible vulnerability opportunity for the opposing side disappears as well.

This makes the tactical aspect of combat more predictable and less interesting, i.e. more boring.

And if the guesswork disappears on what is real and what is illusion (since real will be more possible due to mana/power staff/etc.), so goes part of the enjoyment and intrigue of spell casting.

[Oneiros]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Data point: I'm enamored of the proposal to limit strength of missile spells to 3 ST. So nobody is going to walk up with a Powerstone and throw a 50-die Magic Fist to knock down Big Ben.

I think that a magic item allowing slightly bigger zaps could be possible, but I would not put it on the shopping list. You might fiind one, and if you want to keep it, keep your mouth shut about it and don't leave survivors to talk.

Excellent.

[Oneiros]

It was brought up earlier, but I never saw it addressed: what's the impact of having staves that store ST on (nka) Powerstones in the game?

Depending on how ST storing staves work, will they make powerstones redundant?

Storing ST in a staff is something within the character's control early on in their adventuring career, where lower point characters have to depend on the GM's generosity to get powerstones, either for sale or found as loot. If wizards have this new feature for their staff, will it make GMs less likely to have powerstones available?

Can a wizard recharge a powerstone with ST from their staff?

The original description of ST batteries says the power can be drawn as a simple act of will. What does that translate into in combat? Is that an action, or can a wizard draw ST to erase fatigue from spells cast, then cast from their refreshed ST in the same turn?

When a wizard is high enough IQ to create their own powerstones, do we need to dread the ST 50 (attribute ST 10 , Staff ST 20, Powerstone ST 20) wizards wandering around?

There's probably other implications of having two different types of ST storing items in the game I haven't considered in this quick post.

[Tenex]

Originally Posted by StuRat

The one issue we had back in the day was powerful wizards looking like, well The Rock (to use a current example); it just didn't jibe with the elderly/frail wizard stereotype.

I agree and had a solution to that back in the day. No staff involved.

Change a wizard's mana to his IQ. Mana is restored at 1:15 minutes rest. Wizards who run out of mana can cast on their ST, but suffer real non-fST damage. Casting without mana is brutal and tears your body up.


Things this does:

- Wizards typically have high IQ, but not ST. They can be frail old guys, but powerful wizards. The mana based off IQ gives them more points to burn in combat.

- Wizard doesn't have to worry about real ST damage "stacking" with fST loss. Makes them a little more resilient.

- Gives them a last ditch reserve of their physical strength to cast spells, but it's truly last ditch and they pay a big price.

- This seemed to give wizards a bit more capacity without going overboard.

- Simplicity. You want simple in the spirit of TFT? This is simple.

- If that's still not enough for you, make mana or fST restoring potions (Gatorade?) available at a relatively cheap price. These potions would still make combat dangerous because real healing still takes time, but you could jack up a wizard pretty easy. It remains under GM control too as to how much of these potions are around in case you find it messes up play balance.

I have no opinion on the staff stuff. The above seemed to hit what people are talking about and still provide game balance.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

One of the beautiful things with TFT is the triple attribute balance. You need all three for alla characters. I love the fact that you can have a strong man wizard. He won't get it right most of the time and his spells are simple, but he can cast many! Sure, the Conan sized mage might clash with many peoples' sensibilities, because it breaks the cliché, but that is ok in my book. Just like a ST 9 javelin wielder with IQ can be a weapon master and quite good in a fight.

The cliché wizard Gandalf, still can fight in hand to hand like a boss. Is he really strong, yes, does he look like Conan, no, but we still buy it.

So what I would like to see is a cap on missile spells based on base ST. If you are a big mage you can throw heavy magic fists, not just many of them. If you are an agile one you will hit consistently with the medium sized ones and maybe even knows Fireball from the start that definitely ups the average damage. And if you are the classic high IQ wizard you better use your Lightnings with care. Your average damage per ST will be higher, but your one shot nuke might not be the best.

The more we link to just IQ, the more cookie cutter builds we will have.

So I would like to see Missile spells capped something like this:
1 point + 1 point per 5 base ST.
So at ST 10 you can use a 3p missile spells. And at ST 15 you can use 4p and if you are Conan the Wizard, a monster or has ST boosting magic of some sort you can do 5p Missile Spells. And even a ST 4 Halfling can fling 1p missile spells with deadly accuracy.

And Steve's suggestion to pay XP for a Staff is just another way of implementing a separate superscript attribute, fST with another name. I kind of like it, since it keeps the triple attribute balance almost intact, but it feels like a roundabout way. Like a separate sub rules system.

I would rather do it like one of these ways:

A. A talent for both Heroes and Wizards called something like Second Wind. The talent lets you sit down for a minute or three, like a boxer between rounds, and recuperate a set amount of fatigue and maybe 1 wound, that has been lost since last time you took a breather. This could be the sailor getting down under deck, away from an icy storm, warming up in the galley before going out again. It could be the soldier taking a quick break before continuing with the forced march. The jouster shaking his numb shield arm to get the feeling back before getting a new lance. In short every kind of fatigue or casting damage. It would encourage parties to take quick rests and go back in. And everyone would gain something from it. It wouldn't change arena combat. Death Test rest of 1 ST in between rooms could be this talent in action, etc.

B. Implement fST like many have suggested before.

C. Keep Fatigue separate which means doubling the ST (making it more important for a wizard which in my book is good), first fatigue, then wounds. If you want to keep it separate, you can give people -3DX for low fST as well as low normal ST. So with ST10 a wizard would cast for 6 fatigue in order to avoid the -3DX penalty. And then start to take real wounds for another 6 points. And then he would cast one or two more spells before he collapse. At the most getting off 12 points of good castings, and then two really bad ones for a total of 18 points and still stand up. Not unreasonable. Especially if combined with the missile spell cap.

D. A personal ST battery. A magic Item creation spell that can be placed in anything of obvious arcane value (most common will probably be the staff since it already has a protection from being picked up). Only the wizard can use it and charge it. And the maximum of the battery is the wizard's own ST. So the triple attribute balance will be preserved, but a ST 6 elven wizard can still cast for 6+5 points if he has a charged "staff" with him. And if you really want to encourage wizards to have a staff, increase the base damage of the Staff (or possibly weapon, or cestus, or whip or whatever) that is your focus, with +1 damage if the focus is at least half charged or +2 if it is charged to the max. I could see the possibility of taking the staff spell several times. The number of times you get the spell it increases its power level by X points, maximum is still the caster's ST. X could be as low as 2, or maybe as high as 4? We want most wizards to take it, but it shouldn't be a must have. And if it is a must have, maybe not all levels of it.

[kentreuber]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Data point: I'm enamored of the proposal to limit strength of missile spells to 3 ST. So nobody is going to walk up with a Powerstone and throw a 50-die Magic Fist to knock down Big Ben.

I think that a magic item allowing slightly bigger zaps could be possible, but I would not put it on the shopping list. You might fiind one, and if you want to keep it, keep your mouth shut about it and don't leave survivors to talk.

I recently played a wizard at Kublacon (run by MIB). My only missile spell was Magic Fist, and I found I needed to cast it at 4-5 dice in order to cause reasonable damage to get through armor. I agree there should be a limit, but, especially with Magic Fist, 3 is too limiting.

What about extending casting time, e.g., allowing a wizard to put up to 3 ST per turn. For example, you could throw a 9 point fireball, but it takes 3 turns before you can throw it. Then what happens if a wizard if he is hit or distracted during preparation?

Question about damage from Magic Fist: is a 3 dice MF 3D-6 (add all dice then subtract 6), or do you subtract 2 from each die individually so that a die of 1 becomes a 0 rather than a -1? It changes the average damage from 1.5 per die to 1.67 per die.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by kentreuber

I recently played a wizard at Kublacon (run by MIB). My only missile spell was Magic Fist, and I found I needed to cast it at 4-5 dice in order to cause reasonable damage to get through armor. I agree there should be a limit, but, especially with Magic Fist, 3 is too limiting.

What about extending casting time, e.g., allowing a wizard to put up to 3 ST per turn. For example, you could throw a 9 point fireball, but it takes 3 turns before you can throw it. Then what happens if a wizard if he is hit or distracted during preparation?

Question about damage from Magic Fist: is a 3 dice MF 3D-6 (add all dice then subtract 6), or do you subtract 2 from each die individually so that a die of 1 becomes a 0 rather than a -1? It changes the average damage from 1.5 per die to 1.67 per die.

Hi Kentreuber,
In my campaign, you could charge up a missile spell for a few turn. If you were hit when it is charging, the blast 50% of the time hits the wizard, and 50% of the time flies off in a random direction.

My understanding is that the new Magic Fist will do 1d-2 damage, minimum 1 damage PER DIE. So if you spent 3 fatigue ST on the spell, and rolled a 1, 1, and 6 for the damage dice the damage would be: 1 + 1 + 4 = 6 points of damage.

Warm regards, Rick.

[flankspeed]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Data point: I'm enamored of the proposal to limit strength of missile spells to 3 ST. So nobody is going to walk up with a Powerstone and throw a 50-die Magic Fist to knock down Big Ben.

I think that a magic item allowing slightly bigger zaps could be possible, but I would not put it on the shopping list. You might fiind one, and if you want to keep it, keep your mouth shut about it and don't leave survivors to talk.

Just a thought here, but if The Rule of Five is still part of the game in relation to magic items and enchantments, could the five limit be invoked for Missile Spells as well?

Missile Spell strength would be limited to 5 ST maximum for the same internal game logic reasons that enchantents are bound by this rule. Why? Because that’s just part of the immutable laws of magical physics that govern Cidri.

If the abuse of Missile Spells is a major issue, perhaps the spells need to be revised to cost 2 ST per die of damage inflicted, and limited to 5 dice of damage total, thus costing 2 ST for 1d, 4 ST for 2d, 6 ST for 3d, 8 ST for 4d, and 10 ST for 5d. I don't like this option, but mention it as a counterpoint against changing Missile Spell costs.

Personally, I would rather see The Rule of Five invoked to limit Missile Spells to 5 ST in a single casting rather than changing the rules regarding ST cost.

[The Wyzard]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Kentreuber,
In my campaign, you could charge up a missile spell for a few turn. If you were hit when it is charging, the blast 50% of the time hits the wizard, and 50% of the time flies off in a random direction.

My understanding is that the new Magic Fist will do 1d-2 damage, minimum 1 damage PER DIE. So if you spent 3 fatigue ST on the spell, and rolled a 1, 1, and 6 for the damage dice the damage would be: 1 + 1 + 4 = 6 points of damage.

Warm regards, Rick.

That would be pretty reasonable!

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by flankspeed

Just a thought here, but if The Rule of Five is still part of the game in relation to magic items and enchantments, could the five limit be invoked for Missile Spells as well?

Missile Spell strength would be limited to 5 ST maximum for the same internal game logic reasons that enchantents are bound by this rule. Why? Because that’s just part of the immutable laws of magical physics that govern Cidri.

If the abuse of Missile Spells is a major issue, perhaps the spells need to be revised to cost 2 ST per die of damage inflicted, and limited to 5 dice of damage total, thus costing 2 ST for 1d, 4 ST for 2d, 6 ST for 3d, 8 ST for 4d, and 10 ST for 5d. I don't like this option, but mention it as a counterpoint against changing Missile Spell costs.

Personally, I would rather see The Rule of Five invoked to limit Missile Spells to 5 ST in a single casting rather than changing the rules regarding ST cost.

Rule of five is a good idea, fits very well with the lore. The problem is the one shot 5d fireball or lightning or even Wrath at high level. It more or less guarantees a "kill" so why use less in a normal RPG encounter. And at the same time it limits the wizard to one simple insta dps tactic. Sure it is more mana wise to use an illusion or some such, but that takes time. And a 2d and a 2d and a 1d just doesn't do the same thing. So if the player wizard uses it at first opportunity as soon as a big baddie shows up, why shouldn't the enemy wizards do so too?

And if they do, player characters die, often without even having time to do anything. Sure they can dodge if they know what the opponent is up to, but how often do you know? And 4/DX will still happen fairly often. A heavy crossbow you can spot and its damage is "only" 3d. And it is scary enough.

By connecting the max number of dice to the wizards base ST you get three good effects. High ST means either magic Fist, where 5 dice is ok. Or a very clumsy wizard and then a Dodge will save a PC or just normal luck. And thirdly a normal level wizard will do comparative damage to a crossbow and if they only shoot every other turn or so, they might keep shooting the whole fight instead of going dry after two or three rounds.

And as a bonus fourth argument, the wizard might not be instantly hate targeted by any big baddie with an IQ of more than 6. I don't know how many RPG situations, not arena fights, that has ended just as they started by a 5d or even 7d lightning at the boss or main target. And if they would have had Reverse Missile on from the start it would only mean a very dead character and an angry player.

Sure I could have told him that he should have tested with a smaller spell first, but that would have let the bad guy do something nasty back, so the risk is about as big as letting the boss do something and getting a crit. Unless more than 1 in 50 bosses have a reverse missile the player would still take the risk.

My solution was to cap the missile spell based on ST in a house rule. Solved everything and some wizard players, that were short on spells due to starting with some other talents didn't even invest in a missile spell. But most did, so it was probably fairly balanced.

I like the charging up of big spells. That creates drama. But if the wizard is attacked I think the spell should just fizzle at a cost of 1. Or one could rule that you have to cast a 1 die spell, before you can cast a 2, then a 3, etc. That would mean that the heavy artillery would come at the end of a fight when it is more dramatically appropriate and people would be able to identify the wizard and plan accordingly, but at the same time the wizard can be ignored for the first round or three which is also good. But he could still get somethings done with the small spells.

I have never tried this variant though... :-)

A wizard would need access to 1+2+3+4+5 = 15 mana and five turns to cast an OP kill spell. And maybe he gets an aura to show that he is charged up. Crackling sparks for lightning, burning eyes and flaming crown for fireball and showy levitate for Magic Fists. Combined with a maniacal laughter an he is good to go! :-D