Enlisting critique for a New Spell

[Kazander]

I'd appreciate some feedback on this new spell I've drummed up; cost, prerequisites, total effect, etc. I think it looks pretty good compared to other Area and Missile spells, but I need some additional opinions. The cost to cast might be too steep....

Secret Spell: Burning Hands
(Secret Spell perk required) (VH)
Type: Area

The caster arcs his hands together and sends out a short range horizontal sheet of flames in a 120 degree arc in front of him. Range is only 7 yards, but it's an Area attack affecting all those within this area, thus reducing non-sealed armor to half its DR. Dodge and Drop will reduced damage to half (dropping below the flames)--large creatures suffer a penalty to do this equal to their SM. A victim at the edge of the area can avoid all damage if their Dodge and Drop takes them out of the Area of Effect. The DB of a shield can reduce the damage by (DB * 25%; enchantments don't count), if a Block Roll is made (instead of the Dodge & Drop option), but the shield then takes that damage instead, probably lighting it on fire if it's constructed of wood. Flammability Class is reduced by 1 against Burning Hands, meaning most things Resistant to fire burn with 3 or more points of damage (see B433).

The spell cannot be cast at range using the usual -1/yd penalties, nor can the mage's Staff be used to extend his reach for this spell. It must be cast from the fingertips of his hands, with thumbs touching and fingers spread in a fan-like manner. Mages missing a hand or fingers will have the area effect reduced appropriately, with no reduction in cost to cast!

Damage is 1d+1 per die.

Duration: 1 second, can be maintained (expensive!)
Cost: 4, +2/die; same to maintain. The color of the flame reveals how many dice of damage it will do, in order: red, orange, yellow, white, blue (5+, for Archmages with Magery 5+)
Time to Cast: 1 sec
Prerequisites: Magery 3, Secret Spell Perk for Burning Hands, Burning Touch, Breathe Fire

Thanks for any feedback.

[kirbwarrior]

I think this should be dealt with as an Cone instead of Area. Is there a reason for the odd range (7)? As for it being a 120 degrees, it's end would thus be (i think, but I'm only guessing wildly) that it's end would be 14yds wide.

The cost seems fine. As for maintaining it, maybe drop maintain cost by 2 (so you are only maintaining damage cost). It's a little complicated, though.

I don't think you need Breathe Fire as a prereq (especially since certain races would only take one or the other if possible), especially since Create Fire (an area damage spell) is a prereq for all fire spell, and this is just a modified version of that.

There's also a few weird rules about it (does non-sealed DR normally do that?), but otherwise I do like the spell.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

There's also a few weird rules about it (does non-sealed DR normally do that?), but otherwise I do like the spell.

Sort of. For Large Area Injury you apply DR equal to (highest DR on the body + lowest DR on the body)/2 and the lowest DR is almost always the zero DR on the face.

[Dustin]

As written, it's not formally an Area spell, those have specific rules about Base Cost and radius etc on M11. If I understand it correctly, it basically affects a triangle 8 hexes on a side, with the caster occupying one of the tips. That's 35 hexes, pretty close to the area affected by a radius 4 Area spell (37 hexes). Comparable spells appear to be Create Fire and Rain of Fire.

A 4 radius Create Fire costs 8 to cast, and does 1d-1, but is cheaper to maintain. A 4 radius Rain of Fire cast at double strength also costs 8 energy, does 2d-2 per second for a whole minute, but has a 1 minute casting time, making it less a tactical spell and more a strategic spell. Your spell has all the casting time advantages of Create Fire or Flame Jet, can be bumped to very very high damage levels with no casting time penalty and little additional cost. Balanced against this, its prereq chain is pretty stiff, but that's about it. Once you know it, there seems little reason to use anything else.

My suggestions would be to make it a Regular or Special spell instead of Area, disallow any 'gaps' in the area affected, reduce the range to 3 or 4, and change the cost to 1d+1 per 3 Energy spent. I'm not inclined to give it special rules against armor compared to other flame spells either.

Fun post, I do dig the concept, and I'm afraid you'll give my own campaign's pyromage ideas!

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Dustin

A 4 radius Rain of Fire cast at double strength also costs 8 energy, does 2d-2 per second for a whole minute, but has a 1 minute casting time, making it less a tactical spell and more a strategic spell.

I suspect the casting time for Rain of Fire is errata. The rest of the "Rain of" spells have a casting time of 1 second, and on the spell table in the back of the book Rain of Fire is also listed with casting time 1 second.

Apart from that, yeah, 3 energy per 1d+1 sounds about right for a spell that hits an area that size.

[Kazander]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I think this should be dealt with as an Cone instead of Area. Is there a reason for the odd range (7)? As for it being a 120 degrees, it's end would thus be (i think, but I'm only guessing wildly) that it's end would be 14yds wide.

This is a bit hard to describe in text, but if you're looking at a hex map, then go straight out from the caster's hex front left, front and front right directions 7 hexes, then join the ends in straight lines. It's what passes for a 120 degree arc of a 'circle' on a hex map (which is actually a hexagon). It actually looks more like a parallelogram from above, or two 'triangles' side-by-side. The end is actually 15 yards wide total. I get a total area of 64 hexes (-1 for the caster), comparable to a 5-hex radius area (61 hexes, I think).

It's actually more what I would describe as a flat Cone, but there's no such thing as a Cone spell. Just Jets and Area, and it's definitely not a Jet. Since Cones get the same benefit as Area effects against non-sealed armor, I went with Area. I guess I should probably have gone with "Special", but that never actually occurred to me. :-) I meant to disallow any gaps in the Area, but I failed to put that in the write up.

I initially went with 3/die casting cost, but I decided I wanted a bit higher 'step-in' cost, so the first die would actually be 6 points, and 4 dice would be 12--the same as the 3/die cost. The higher step-in cost helps keep it from being used as the everyday utility combat spell.

As for the special rules regarding Dodging and Blocking the spell, those were mitigators to keep it from being the "Inescapable Spell of Doom".

As for 'little reason to use anything else', it was my thought that the casting cost would take care of this, as well as the 'no gaps in the area'/friendly fire aspect. I use Threshold-based magic, and at 12 points for a 4-die version, this comes in at a 'once a day' spell. Maybe two or three times for powerful casters, but then they have to recover for some days.

I was thinking this is less of a go-to spell for combat, than it is a 'last gasp' spell for when the chips are down. If the caster's meat shields are all down and he's in imminent danger of being surrounded, it's time to pull out all the stops.

Does that help clarify my thinking and concept?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Kazander

It's actually more what I would describe as a flat Cone, but there's no such thing as a Cone spell.

We have some material on our group wiki you may be interested in :)

[Kazander]

Originally Posted by Bruno

We have some material on our group wiki you may be interested in :)

Thanks for the link; you've a nice framework for spell revisions there.