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Old 06-18-2019, 09:04 AM   #1
CarrionPeacock
 
Join Date: May 2018
Default [Basic] Resist Fire vs (same caster's) Ignite Fire

What happens if a mage casts Resist Fire on himself, but later wants to light up a torch/lantern he was carrying with him? By RAW it seems his Ignite Fire would fail to light a fire. If so, how could he make it so Resist Fire only works on unintended fire, or Ignite Fire can penetrate his own Resist Fire?

Last edited by CarrionPeacock; 06-18-2019 at 09:10 AM.
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Old 06-18-2019, 01:00 PM   #2
Curmudgeon
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Default Re: [Basic] Resist Fire vs (same caster's) Ignite Fire

I believe there's a rule to the effect that you can exclude specific items at the time of casting, such as a torch or lantern, but I can't find a reference for it. If, however, the character forgot to exclude his torch or lantern when he cast the spell, he'll have to cancel Resist Fire (see Cancelling Spells p. B237) if he wants it right now or wait for the spell to expire if he doesn't need it right now.

It's a bit of a grey area for an already lit torch or lantern when Resist Fire is cast if exclusion isn't possible. Does it go out because heat and fire no longer affect it [which would seem likeliest] or does it continue to burn without consuming the fuel [which probably has too much potential for abuse]?
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Old 06-19-2019, 11:12 PM   #3
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: [Basic] Resist Fire vs (same caster's) Ignite Fire

B239 mentions "You may choose to affect only a part of the area, rather than the whole circle" but I don't know if it would apply here since Resist Fire is a Regular Spell not an Area Spell. Is there a way to modify regular spells into area spells like say if you want to buff an entire party with Resist Fire?

Pg 10 of GURPS Magic could be helpful too:
A spell with a variable area of effect cannot be expanded after it has been
cast.
However, a wizard may choose to maintain only part of a spell’s area,
paying the maintenance cost for only a portion of the original area affected
Even if this was the case, Curmudgeon's right that there might be an inability to alter the speciifics post-casting. If you did, maybe it would be appropriate to pay 1 FP as if you cancelled the spell, since you are essentially diong a partial cancel.

M121's meta spell "Suspend Spell" could be useful here, since you could suspend the effect of Resist Fire so that Ignite Fire is temporarily possible. This has ongoing maintenance costs, but does have an interesting effect that as soon as you cancel it, you can cause your torch to go out.
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Old 06-20-2019, 05:21 PM   #4
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: [Basic] Resist Fire vs (same caster's) Ignite Fire

I'd allow an exception to exclude specified items at casting time for Regular spells analogous to the one for Area spells, even though it's not actually mentioned in the rules for Regular spells, oriented as they are to single subjects.

You might even squeeze this into the existing "named subject" targeting if you wiggle hard enough ("I target George and all George's stuff except his torches"), but it's hard to avoid the wording in Resist Fire which distinguishes the "subject" and the things the subject carries if you're being literal enough. Of course, if we're being that literal, George could just put the torch on the ground when you cast the spell and then pick it up. He wasn't carrying it when the spell was cast, so no problem. (Yes, that would mean that all the loot you pick up later wouldn't resist fire, either. That's what you deserve for being so literal...)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
Is there a way to modify regular spells into area spells like say if you want to buff an entire party with Resist Fire?
I don't think so, but that's not what you'd want anyway. An Area spell affects an area, not everyone in an area, except indirectly*. That is, the spell effect won't move with the party (absent Displace Spell). Your party members would only resist fire while they were standing in hexes that were designated as fire-resisting when the spell was cast (as long as those hexes weren't hadn't been dropped during some later maintenance interval). In this case, "carried" just means "in the hex".

(Similarly, I'd say spells like Mass Daze, Sleep, etc., which are Area spells with durations, affect anyone who later wanders into affected hexes after the cast while the spell is being maintained, not just those who were in the area when the spell was cast. This makes them more useful for area denial.)

You could invent a Multiple Subject spell type if you wanted, as a variant of Regular. You might take the worst range penalty of any subject as the range penalty for the spell, or even the sum of range penalties to all subjects to make it harder to affect multiple subjects. Multiply the base cost by the number of subjects. If you're generous, just allow any Regular spell to be cast as Multiple Subject rather than requiring individual variants to be learned.

If you want to start with Area instead, it seems like you'd need a split Duration, to distinguish between the Area itself not remaining affected (duration 0 for the area), but that everything that was in it as cast time does have a persistent effect, as well as defining the maintenance cycle. You'll also need to decide if all the subjects have to mutually remain within the defined radius of the original Area, and if so, how to know where that is if the subjects wander off in different directions. (Probably simpler to not remember that fact, but counting subjects by Area radius rather than individually allows a bit of cheese by always packing the party tightly when the spell is cast, preferably all in a Close Combat dogpile** so the cost is the same as for just one person.)

--
* As with, say, Create Fire. It doesn't set fire to individual people in an Area, continually damaging them for a full minute as they run around as if they'd been doused in napalm. It sets their hex on fire, which causes damage to people which stops if they run out of the hex.

** "Any number of people may participate in close combat in the same hex.", B391. Okay, you 30,000 spectators in the stadium, everybody stand on home plate while we finish the ritual for a base cost of 2 x1 hex radius...
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Old 06-20-2019, 06:26 PM   #5
Not another shrubbery
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: [Basic] Resist Fire vs (same caster's) Ignite Fire

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
(Similarly, I'd say spells like Mass Daze, Sleep, etc., which are Area spells with durations, affect anyone who later wanders into affected hexes after the cast while the spell is being maintained, not just those who were in the area when the spell was cast. This makes them more useful for area denial.)
Has that changed in a recent errata? Mass Sleep doesn't have a measured duration (it's Instantaneous), and Mass Daze is supposed to be the same (although the text listing in my First Printing shows one, that *should* be an errata). I've always figured the given duration for Mass Suggestion was also an errata, given the relationship with those other Mind Control spells.
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Old 06-20-2019, 07:18 PM   #6
edk926
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Default Re: [Basic] Resist Fire vs (same caster's) Ignite Fire

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
B239 mentions "You may choose to affect only a part of the area, rather than the whole circle" but I don't know if it would apply here since Resist Fire is a Regular Spell not an Area Spell. Is there a way to modify regular spells into area spells like say if you want to buff an entire party with Resist Fire?i
Pyramid 3/4 introduced a spell group of secret spells called Mass Resist [Effect], which is an area version of Resist spells. Each type of Resist spell can be learn as a Mass Resist spell.
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Old 06-20-2019, 08:41 PM   #7
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: [Basic] Resist Fire vs (same caster's) Ignite Fire

Quote:
Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery View Post
Has that changed in a recent errata?
I was just checking my PDFs, which may well be errata-prone.

(If the Mass spells are supposed to have no duration, I'd guess they're probably meant as multi-target spells that only affect targets in the area when cast. But they'd really need to list a duration for the targets that are affected -- dazed (etc) for how long? Bit of an awkward category for the standard spell classes and spell stat block format.)
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Old 06-22-2019, 10:13 PM   #8
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: [Basic] Resist Fire vs (same caster's) Ignite Fire

Thaumatology 30 has a critical success chart for spells which mentions:
"A helpful spell is cast as an Area spell on any of the caster’s companions who are within arm’s reach"

so I guess that's one way to get Resist Fire on the whole party without needing to cast it multiple times or invent some "Mass Resist Fire" variant.
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