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Old 07-18-2019, 04:36 PM   #21
Steve Plambeck
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Default Re: IQ to power spells

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Yeah, we originally had the Mana recharge the same way you did, but it turned the Wizards into unstoppable long-range artillery... [snip]...

Sounds like I'd enjoy playing in your campaign! I bet a lot of other people on here would as well.
Thanks much for that JLV, I'm sure I'd have enjoyed yours as well! My group built up quite a world, a single large continent, with hundreds of years of back story, languages, religions, politics, house rules and history over the 2 decades we played. I'm sure we'd never had stopped if it wasn't for the tragic and untimely real death of our founding member and primary GM. I GM'd too, but didn't have the heart to keep going after that. Now this revival has put the bug in me to start a new group, and I know some young guys that might give it a try. They do play D&D, but I fear they won't really go in as much for the tactical aspects of TFT, whereas I wouldn't really want to play without the more structured combat.

"Long-range artillery" indeed! Of course the other solution isn't to weaken the wizards, it just takes putting a cap on the (M) spells. Expected that with the Legacy Edition, but I've found an inconsistency where a 3 (or was it 5?) dice cap is now placed on Magic Fist and Fireball, but then not even mentioned under the Lightening and W. Wrath spells? I'm guessing that's just an editorial oversight.
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Old 07-18-2019, 11:14 PM   #22
JLV
 
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Location: Arizona
Default Re: IQ to power spells

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Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
Thanks much for that JLV, I'm sure I'd have enjoyed yours as well! My group built up quite a world, a single large continent, with hundreds of years of back story, languages, religions, politics, house rules and history over the 2 decades we played. I'm sure we'd never had stopped if it wasn't for the tragic and untimely real death of our founding member and primary GM. I GM'd too, but didn't have the heart to keep going after that. Now this revival has put the bug in me to start a new group, and I know some young guys that might give it a try. They do play D&D, but I fear they won't really go in as much for the tactical aspects of TFT, whereas I wouldn't really want to play without the more structured combat.
Sorry to hear that -- and it was just awesome that you guys kept it going for 20 years! Our campaign folded after a couple of years because we were playing in college and everyone moved on...graduated, got married, joined the military, got a job in another city, etc. I'd love to get the old group together again, but it will almost certainly never happen now. Too bad to -- they were the best!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
"Long-range artillery" indeed! Of course the other solution isn't to weaken the wizards, it just takes putting a cap on the (M) spells. Expected that with the Legacy Edition, but I've found an inconsistency where a 3 (or was it 5?) dice cap is now placed on Magic Fist and Fireball, but then not even mentioned under the Lightening and W. Wrath spells? I'm guessing that's just an editorial oversight.
Yeah, of course, we were playing with the classic rules, but chose this way of limiting the Wizards a bit instead because no one wanted to mess with the spells themselves that way. Besides, it's really AWESOME when a ten die Magic Fist hits a bad guy!!!! ;-)

My assumption matches yours -- the limits are on ALL missile spells, not just the two where it is named. However, that little discrepancy should give the "rules lawyers" an absolute field day! (I also don't really agree with that limitation personally, but that's neither here nor there...I suppose it was felt to be necessary once the Staff officially could become a mana resource. We had staffs that could store mana too, and never found it necessary, but hey, we weren't "the official rules guys" either.)
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Old 07-19-2019, 03:02 AM   #23
Steve Plambeck
 
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My assumption matches yours -- the limits are on ALL missile spells, not just the two where it is named. However, that little discrepancy should give the "rules lawyers" an absolute field day! (I also don't really agree with that limitation personally, but that's neither here nor there...
I have very mixed emotions about using a cap to solve that problem too, but there's no denying the Lightening spell was/is trouble!

One of the best (or so I thought) adventure scenarios I'd ever composed for our group, certainly the most elaborate in terms of making custom counters for it, was completely derailed in the first 5 minutes when the lone wizard in the player's party unleashed a 10 or 12 ST lightening bolt.

It would have been our first adventure with a battle at sea, I'd made detailed melee-hex scaled ships, and it was going to be glorious. The story opens with the PC's as passengers aboard a small ship, but it's overtaken at sea by a larger slaving vessel with a ton of well armed pirates. It was a deliberately overwhelming force -- once they boarded the passenger vessel the player's would simply have to surrender and then wait to see what happened next -- or so I thought.

And it was all a plot device to simply get the captured players to an unusual location, where they'd escape to make their way to freedom through an elaborate tunnel system that was going to bring them face to face with many new things I'd contrived (and for which I'd made like another 100 counters, most of them being a giant ant colony they'd have to figure out how to trick their way through). They were going to end up owning that warship as I recall, with the aid of the galley slaves they'd have an opportunity to liberate.

So we've only been playing 5 minutes and, now in melee turns, the pirate ship is almost close enough to start boarding... and the players' one wizard says he's leaning over the railing aiming a lightening bolt, a huge lightening bolt, just below the waterline of the pirate ship's side. Well I couldn't disallow it. We all agreed the hull had to be as strong as a heavy door. He hits and rolls some enormous damage and I have to agree he's blown a big hole below the waterline. The enemy vessel goes down in a few turns, completely ruining my story line. I improvised something, I don't remember what to trick the party into getting to whatever island I'd been taking them too, but the day was over before we'd barely scratched the labyrinth. One of the last times we played too, never got the right combination of players together again to resume it.

But as my beautiful classical bireme warship went under, I pointed out to the player who's wizard had spoiled everything that he'd just sent 100 galley slaves, chained below decks, to their deaths. And as he was an outspoken humanitarian, this wizard, I told him this was so out of character I was penalizing him 100 XP.

Oh the moaning and wailing! Oh the arguing! Hahaha. But I wouldn't budge, and the GM gets the last word. Minus 100 XP! LOL
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Old 07-19-2019, 10:09 AM   #24
zot
 
Join Date: May 2018
Default Re: IQ to power spells

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
"Long-range artillery" indeed! Of course the other solution isn't to weaken the wizards, it just takes putting a cap on the (M) spells. Expected that with the Legacy Edition, but I've found an inconsistency where a 3 (or was it 5?) dice cap is now placed on Magic Fist and Fireball, but then not even mentioned under the Lightening and W. Wrath spells? I'm guessing that's just an editorial oversight.
The general limitation is on page 135 at the top of the Missile Spells section, so it applies to all missile spells. The Magic Fist and Fireball spell descriptions reiterate the 3-point maximum but the Lightning and Wizard's Wrath spells do not. This doesn't contradict the overall 3-point limitation given on page 135, it's just less convenient not to have a parenthetical reminder there in the spell description.

Rods explicitly contradict this limitation (page 163) and this is reiterated in the section on immunity (page 156) but both of these sections are copied verbatim from Advanced Wizard, which did not have the 3-point missile spell cap.

Is this an oversight on Steve's part or does he intend rods to provide a huge advantage over the spells?

If he does intend that, rods should become VERY important in the world...
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Old 07-19-2019, 11:06 AM   #25
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: IQ to power spells

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Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
I have very mixed emotions about using a cap to solve that problem too, but there's no denying the Lightening spell was/is trouble!

One of the best (or so I thought) adventure scenarios I'd ever composed for our group, certainly the most elaborate in terms of making custom counters for it, was completely derailed in the first 5 minutes when the lone wizard in the player's party unleashed a 10 or 12 ST lightening bolt.

It would have been our first adventure with a battle at sea, I'd made detailed melee-hex scaled ships, and it was going to be glorious. The story opens with the PC's as passengers aboard a small ship, but it's overtaken at sea by a larger slaving vessel with a ton of well armed pirates. It was a deliberately overwhelming force -- once they boarded the passenger vessel the player's would simply have to surrender and then wait to see what happened next -- or so I thought.

And it was all a plot device to simply get the captured players to an unusual location, where they'd escape to make their way to freedom through an elaborate tunnel system that was going to bring them face to face with many new things I'd contrived (and for which I'd made like another 100 counters, most of them being a giant ant colony they'd have to figure out how to trick their way through). They were going to end up owning that warship as I recall, with the aid of the galley slaves they'd have an opportunity to liberate.

So we've only been playing 5 minutes and, now in melee turns, the pirate ship is almost close enough to start boarding... and the players' one wizard says he's leaning over the railing aiming a lightening bolt, a huge lightening bolt, just below the waterline of the pirate ship's side. Well I couldn't disallow it. We all agreed the hull had to be as strong as a heavy door. He hits and rolls some enormous damage and I have to agree he's blown a big hole below the waterline. The enemy vessel goes down in a few turns, completely ruining my story line. I improvised something, I don't remember what to trick the party into getting to whatever island I'd been taking them too, but the day was over before we'd barely scratched the labyrinth. One of the last times we played too, never got the right combination of players together again to resume it.

But as my beautiful classical bireme warship went under, I pointed out to the player who's wizard had spoiled everything that he'd just sent 100 galley slaves, chained below decks, to their deaths. And as he was an outspoken humanitarian, this wizard, I told him this was so out of character I was penalizing him 100 XP.

Oh the moaning and wailing! Oh the arguing! Hahaha. But I wouldn't budge, and the GM gets the last word. Minus 100 XP! LOL
That's a fantastic game story! I love it when unexpected developments during play turn the situation into something new and unexpected! (Even when it makes a bunch of my prep no longer relevant... )

I would suggest however that even a door-sized hole in a hull isn't going to sink or stop the ship - it's just going to add a flow of water into the hull... it sounds like they were close enough to still attempt to grapnel and board the players' ship, but now would be in the process of eventually sinking.

Also a pirate survivor might give some information that might lead the PCs to investigate that interesting place, just under different circumstances.
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Old 07-19-2019, 04:23 PM   #26
Chris Rice
 
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Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
Default Re: IQ to power spells

That's a classic example of why my prep is never very detailed 😂😂
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Old 07-19-2019, 04:28 PM   #27
Shoug
 
Join Date: May 2019
Default Re: IQ to power spells

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Sorry to hear that -- and it was just awesome that you guys kept it going for 20 years! Our campaign folded after a couple of years because we were playing in college and everyone moved on...graduated, got married, joined the military, got a job in another city, etc. I'd love to get the old group together again, but it will almost certainly never happen now. Too bad to -- they were the best!



Yeah, of course, we were playing with the classic rules, but chose this way of limiting the Wizards a bit instead because no one wanted to mess with the spells themselves that way. Besides, it's really AWESOME when a ten die Magic Fist hits a bad guy!!!! ;-)

My assumption matches yours -- the limits are on ALL missile spells, not just the two where it is named. However, that little discrepancy should give the "rules lawyers" an absolute field day! (I also don't really agree with that limitation personally, but that's neither here nor there...I suppose it was felt to be necessary once the Staff officially could become a mana resource. We had staffs that could store mana too, and never found it necessary, but hey, we weren't "the official rules guys" either.)
I would guess that the reason you never charged your staffs is because you automatically gave all wizards fully charged level 2 manastaffs imbedded in their foreheads upon chargen.
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Old 07-20-2019, 04:24 PM   #28
JLV
 
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I would guess that the reason you never charged your staffs is because you automatically gave all wizards fully charged level 2 manastaffs imbedded in their foreheads upon chargen.
I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about here. When did I say they didn't recharge their staffs? Where did you get the sarcastic dismissal that followed?

Seems like something you could either a) explain better and with a less hostile delivery, or b) delete.
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Old 07-21-2019, 12:25 AM   #29
Andrew Hackard
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Old 07-21-2019, 01:19 AM   #30
MikMod
 
Join Date: May 2019
Default Re: IQ to power spells

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
My assumption matches yours -- the limits are on ALL missile spells, not just the two where it is named. However, that little discrepancy should give the "rules lawyers" an absolute field day! (I also don't really agree with that limitation personally, but that's neither here nor there...I suppose it was felt to be necessary once the Staff officially could become a mana resource. We had staffs that could store mana too, and never found it necessary, but hey, we weren't "the official rules guys" either.)
I think Shoug simply misunderstood the above. They linked 'not necessary' to the adjacent comment about storing mana because it's immediately after those words. It's an easy mistake to make. I misread it like that too at first. I can see now that you were referring back to 'the limitation' (which is a callback to 'limits', which is itself a callback to the earlier explanation of limiting wizards to 3 dice missile spells), but not everyone will see that straight off.

Also, the context is about giving people access to an additional source of spell 'ST' on top of their actual ST, and there is the suggestion above (not from JLV) that this IQ fatigue should recharge at 1 pt per 15 minutes.

So seeing you had just 'said' your players didn't need to recharge their staffs was a not-unreasonable interpretation. Sure, it wasn't correct, but I don't know it warranted reporting Shoug. This board is an international resource and not everyone is a native English speaker for a start.
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