05-10-2016, 07:49 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Land of the Britons
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[DF] Gem of Healing questions
I've just taken a closer look at the Gem of Healing, and noticed that it clearly lists itself as a Spell Stone, and that it casts Major Healing when activated. All well and good. Looking at how spell stones work, they must concentrate for a second while crushing the spell stone to activate it, and you roll to cast the spell the next turn. Here's where I'm needing some clarifications.
It's easy enough to assess the casting roll, the items Power is marked at the lower of spell skill or enchanting skill, but DF simplifies this to a default skill of 15 or 20 with a CF bump. The tricky bit comes when you do this more than once... Major (and Minor) Healing suffer penalities if used more than once per day by the same caster on the same subject. So, assuming this affects the items power, which seems likely, how often do you end up with the same person enchanting a stack of these gems? There is no way of knowing who made them, so there's no way of judging if it's the same caster, so do you always apply the penalties, or never? Additionally, its clear a spell stones requires active use, in the form of crushing it. There seems to be two forms, one where the spell will be cast for the caster, and one where its cast on the caster. It seems like the standard Gem of Healing is the latter, but its not really clearly stated. The question is though, is it ever possible to use one to heal another person? Can you put one in the hand of an unconcious person, squeeze their hand around it to crush the stone, and trigger it? You need to concentrate to cast the spell so it seems like this is impossible, but if the Gem allows you to cast the spell for yourself, you could always target another person as the subject of the spell. This all may seem trivial, and I could just say they always work, without a roll (or penalities) and you can use them on other subjects just as easily as on yourself - however I'm more interested in their benefits and drawbacks compared to potions, and these seem like some of them.
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05-10-2016, 09:07 AM | #2 | |
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Australia WA
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Re: [DF] Gem of Healing questions
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05-10-2016, 09:23 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: [DF] Gem of Healing questions
It's the stone that casts the spell, right? In that case, you could argue that it would get the penalty if it ever cast the same spell on the same target more than once a day... which will never happen, as it's destroyed upon casting (although there might be odd instances that cause Spell Stones to be restored, not be destroyed in the first place, and so on). Self-powered wands, however, would suffer from this effect.
Failing that, I'd go with it being a function of the creator, not the user. I'd expect each stone to have a mark identifying its maker (most craftsmen do this). I'd say each generic DF "town" typically has stones available from a single caster at Power 20, and from up to three casters at Power 15 (although probably only have a few in stock). A village where magic items are harder to come by might only have Power 15 stones from a single caster, while a metropolis containing a mage academy probably has several sources of Power 20 stones, and enough of Power 15 that you don't even need to worry about it. |
05-11-2016, 05:09 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Denmark
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Re: [DF] Gem of Healing questions
The whole point of DF is to keep things simple. So keeping track of which healing stone you use and possible modifiers to possible check-modifiers is in my mind, out of the leve lof detail I care for in my DF games.
For what its worth I agree that it would be the stone that cast it, and it is destroyed. So there wouldn't be any carry-over penalties anyway. |
05-11-2016, 11:37 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: [DF] Gem of Healing questions
Or if you want "harsh simplicity", ignore the "per caster" part of the rule, and just track heals on each subject, stacking the penalty regardless of source.
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05-11-2016, 01:19 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Land of the Britons
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Re: [DF] Gem of Healing questions
I guess I'm looking for the "correct" answers to four main questions...
A lot of the answers so far have addressed either 1 or 2. Which is fine, and I can totally see waiving the normal penalities (assuming there are any to begin with), but I can also see balance reason or alternative means of counting the penalties that are no more book keeping than having a cleric on the team. I'm also very interested in the answer to question 3, as it radically changes the utility of the item if you can't use it on another person, or if you can but only akwardly. Or if the Gem functions exactly like a spell stone and you can start naming other PCs you can't even see and don't know where they are, but you know need some immediate healing and its worth a go even if the caster penalties are likely very high (that's what Luck is for, after all).
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05-13-2016, 12:47 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: [DF] Gem of Healing questions
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05-13-2016, 01:09 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: [DF] Gem of Healing questions
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I've always thought of the Gem as a self-only item. There are, after all, potions for healing other people. I'm pretty sure we haven't been using penalties from the gems in any of the DF games I've been in or run - and our games are really one foot in DF, one foot in excessively-detailed GURPS. It didn't destroy the world in our games, or make the role of the healer obsolete, so I think you'll be fine. As a GM, I like ways for players to destroy their own money. Consumable treasures are also inherently easier to control.
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