04-13-2018, 07:47 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Shortened spell duration and maintenance
Am I reading these two things correctly:
1. When casting a spell, you can specify a shorter duration than normal. (DFS11, Canceling Spells box) 2. When a maintainable spell’s duration ends, you can pay its maintenance cost to make it last another interval equal to its (shortened) duration.
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Per-based Stealth isn’t remotely as awkward as DX-based Observation. |
04-13-2018, 09:14 AM | #2 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Shortened spell duration and maintenance
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04-13-2018, 09:25 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Shortened spell duration and maintenance
Well, the entire point is to maintain free spells in one-second increments to skip paying 1 energy to end the prematurely.
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Per-based Stealth isn’t remotely as awkward as DX-based Observation. |
04-13-2018, 10:48 AM | #4 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Shortened spell duration and maintenance
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I can think many situations where "Oh, no! I got knocked out! This buff on my ally or debuff/area-denial/crowd-control spell on the enemy is going to conk out in one second!" would be a huge problem, but relatively few where "Oh, no! I have to end this spell ASAP but I can't afford 1 FP!" would be even a minor issue. Both are possibilities, of course, but putting spells on a one-second timer means that hitting buffing and crowd-control casters who are already prime targets can really hurt the party that relies on magic, with the only gain being 1 FP saved in the rare situation where, say, you no longer want the barbarian to have Might and Shield because he got mind-controlled. And you can bet that I'd let enemy casters roll vs. Thaumatology (which covers "letting you recognize a spell cast by an enemy wizard") to realize what's going on! If the PCs can do that to reveal enemy weaknesses, it's only fair to let enemies do it, too.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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04-13-2018, 01:30 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Shortened spell duration and maintenance
Awesome. Interesting decisions with trade-offs are always better than no-brainer or no decision.
I was thinking about spells more useful for exploration than combat, *intended* to be dropped at the first sign of trouble, to increase effective skill for resisted spells.
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Per-based Stealth isn’t remotely as awkward as DX-based Observation. |
08-30-2023, 04:10 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Shortened spell duration and maintenance
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(Normally Resist Cold would seem more appropriate but I assume the GM made a ruling that Heat can be capped at some reasonable temperature instead of automatically going to 2800 degrees F.) |
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08-30-2023, 07:29 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jun 2022
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Re: Shortened spell duration and maintenance
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Unless they're just heating some items of clothing, in which case we get into GM fiats of "how much clothing counts as 'one thing' versus multiple things". |
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08-30-2023, 07:56 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Shortened spell duration and maintenance
Not burning yourself to death at 2800 degrees F seems like an advantage to me. Ditto immunity to cold damage and paralyzation from freezing attacks.
Last edited by sjmdw45; 08-31-2023 at 01:42 PM. |
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