[Thaumatology] Syntactic Magic: Damage Parameter and Modifiers

[Adelus]

I'm currently working on a worked example of a Verb/Noun spell system (with various Traditions as specializations, with altered Verb/Noun difficulty and different practices/trappings) and I'm running into what I feel is a sign of Syntactic Magic's incompleteness.

The Damage parameter is not looking pretty good. There doesn't seem to be any consistent suggestions for how to model the effects of several modifiers present for normal Innate Attacks. For instance, if I were to try and make some kind of Firestorm spell/ritual, which is a 1d Burning attack with a variable Area, Mobile 2 and Persistent, there are no default rules for adding any modifiers.

If we borrow from Personal Abilities, dropping the minimum to 0 and changing points to percent added (with limitations able to counter percent added, but never give back energy or give a skill bonus), we might be able to work out skill penalties/energy costs, but there is already a parameter for Area. As for Persistent, should that be used or the Duration parameter? Should the magnitude of an enhancement/limitation's change be dependent on the total dice as well?

And I've seen suggestions for Cyclic or RoF to just work out the total damage over time or for all the shots, but isn't it different if a spell with 7 cycles ticks once per second compared to once per day?

I've also seen it suggested that you should just add an appropriate effect or word combo to do that kind of meta-magic - I.E. "Control X" in order to modify the behavior of an attack. But this doesn't really answer anything for magnitude. Shouldn't it be different if you modify by adding Armor Divisor (2) compared to Armor Divisor (10)? Or Homing vs. just Guided?

I'm not sure how to go about making a fix or kludge for this, so I'm asking you guys on the forum for any suggestions you might have.

P.S. And what about varying kinds and degrees of penetration modifiers, like Malediction, Armor Divisor, etc.?

[Adelus]

Decided I'll try to bump with some actual content now that I've been musing over this for some more.

One idea I had for modifying attacks with the Damage parameter, assuming it was all energy, was to first multiply the base cost by the modifier(s) for damage type, then total up the enhancement/limitation modifiers and apply that to the base cost, and then multiply that result by the number of dice, rounding up.

I.E. a 3d Corrosion Explosion projectile with Overhead (+30%) starting from a base cost of 5 would be:

((5 * 2 * 1.5) * 1.30) * 3 = 58.5 == 59 Energy

(Alternatively, if Explosion was treated as a normal modifier instead of a 1.5x multiplier... ((5 * 2) * 1.80) * 3 = 54 Energy).

If, instead, these modifiers represented a skill penalty, work out what the cost would be as above, divide by the base cost, and you have the total number of "Dice" for which to give your -3 per die penalty for (not counting 1 for the first die). Multiply by -3 and then round up the result.

59/5 = 11.9
10.9 * -3 = -32.7 == -33

This value covers both the increased damage and the modifiers added to the spell.

If you use a mixed system (energy for damage, skill for modifiers) you could determine the difference in cost between the attack without modifiers and the attack with, and then give the skill penalty for the value of the difference as above .

((5 * 2 * 1.5) * 1.30) * 3 = 59 Energy
(5 * 2 * 1.5) * 3 = 45 Energy

14/5 = 2.8
2.8 * -3 = -8.4 = -9

So using the hybrid method, the attack would cost 45 Energy, with an additional -9 to skill in order to control it as such to give it Overhead.

I am still, however, at a loss regarding Missile effects and their penetration modifiers alongside the default assumption that, when used as a Regular effect, the damage done will act as a malediction to bypass DR with no real increase in cost and in many cases without penalties to range as long as some symbolic representation is present. Also, the interplay between Area and Duration with modifiers that do the same with damaging effects Missile or otherwise, or make assumptions that the modifiers will be used instead of the Area and Duration parameters.

Edit: Ok, one solution I'e been kicking is that we take the damage values as shown to stand for external, non-malediction attacks, and when we want a Malediction style attack, we add the appropriate level of the Malediction modifier to it, and then work out Area, Range, Duration and Multiple Targets as per the Syntactic Magic parameters? The optional rules for ignoring range using symbolic representations or associations would still apply. Adding a Malediction modifier to the Damage parameter (as either a modifier or a straight up multiplier) would also adjust the cost to reflect the benefit of ignoring armor in the manner of Malediction.

Example: A 1d Toxic attack with Malediction 1 that ticks for seven cycles of one day each, cast as a supernatural plague on a small village of 100.

Damage Parameter: Base cost is 5.

5 * 2.60 = 13 Energy OR 5 Energy, -6 to Skill OR -8 to Skill OR 13 Energy and -8 to Skill

Multiple Targets: 100

+20 energy OR -20 skill OR both

So, depending on how you assign modifiers, we have a range of possibilities. I think this seems sorta fair so far.

Edit 2: Just realized I should specify that despite the added cost, having an appropriate verb+noun combination to justify the alterations should be required or considered.