05-14-2019, 11:04 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
I wrote up self-only afflictions as -50%. Honestly, it might be -80% because you can only use that attack one one person: yourself. And a single target is canonically worth -80% per Power-Ups 8: Limitations (p. 5). And if you go that route it's really just easier to outright buy the trait to begin with and slap the Sorcery modifier on it.
I'd probably call Conjure anything an appropriately modified innate attack, it's not a buff.
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05-15-2019, 05:47 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Jun 2017
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
If you want to be able to mantain a spell and cast other spells while you mantain the first one, you have to pay full cost for your most expensive spell.
Each time you do that, you extend your "spell ready pile" by one (three spells at the same time for the two most expensive spells at full cost, for example). If you don't do that, you will not be able to cast spells while flying with a "self-flight" sorcery spell. |
05-15-2019, 06:26 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
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My first reaction was "no discount; it's just a complicated way to buy the ability directly". I certainly wouldn't give away all self-only abilities at -80% (which does stack with the 1/5 AA multiplier, so together they're a 25x force multiplier). But I think the Limitation worth something, because if you did buy Affliction (Flight), you could give the members of your party the ability to fly -- which is going to be quite useful from time to time. Giving that up is going to show up in games and restrict the player's getting maximum use out of the ability. Advantage Afflictions are expensive. (In the case of flight, it's 10 CP +400%, so 50 CP, more than Flight at 40 CP, so the -20% would make them come out the same*.) So the question really boils down to "why would you buy a self-only Affliction rather than the straight ability"? (That's a different question from "what would the Limitation value be?") I can't think of any good reasons off the top of my head. Munchkinly reasons are easy to come by -- exploiting loopholes with Cumulative and/or Permanent, or just doing the math both on every ability and taking whichever one happened to be cheaper, setting metaphysics irrelevant. And there are good reasons to prefer simpler builds over more complicated and esoteric ones. -- * I usually lean toward Multiplicative Modifiers when it comes to games where the powers are central. The rules throw around a lot of +100%, +150%, +300% modifiers, but there's really no way to counterbalance those with the additive method, due to the lack of similar large values on the Disad side. The point costs just explode with AM. You can give away more points, but that just leads to the non-powered characters becoming OP because the scale tilts. (And if the your philosophy were "I don't care about points", why would you care about the method for calculating those irrelevant values?) |
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05-15-2019, 06:34 AM | #14 | ||||
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
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05-15-2019, 07:56 AM | #15 | |||
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
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If it's allowed to buy the ability separated from Sorcerous Empowerment, it would be way better but it could have some problem down the road when the mage learns how to buff allies with such ability. A mage with flight learning affliction (flight) would in effect be paying twice for the ability to fly himself (unless there's "others only" limitation on affliction, but I doubt such limation would be worth as much as 10%). Quote:
I doubt there's any good reason outside of Sorcery's special circumstances. In this case, I'm trying to find out how to deal with self-buff spells with this system. A mage in Skyrim can have a spell that gives him, and only him, a magical sword for a few minutes, and he can use his off-hand to hurl fireballs. Without some Self-Only Affliction, this mage would: 1) be able to give anybody a magical sword; or 2) only use a sword or throw a fireball at time, and needs a second of concentration between them. A Self-Only Affliction would allow him to give himself a sword for a few minutes, and allow him to switch his spell to fireball, which is much closer to the game. |
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05-15-2019, 08:22 AM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
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05-15-2019, 08:51 AM | #17 | |
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
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05-15-2019, 01:58 PM | #18 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
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"Contact Agent" also wouldn't impede hitting yourself with your own attack unless you were wearing armor and you had to target a smaller exposed area like a hand at -4. If you had "Blood Agent" on an affliction you wanted to target yourself with, you'd have to touch yourself in the eye or in the mouth I think? Last edited by Plane; 05-15-2019 at 02:06 PM. |
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05-16-2019, 06:35 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Feb 2014
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
As it should; Sorcery is a specific version of advantages, and not all purchased advantages need to be viewed through its lens unless your campaign has a rule of "anything supernatural must be sorcery only, no exceptions"
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05-16-2019, 09:57 AM | #20 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: [Sorcery] Self-buff Affliction
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There's also no base rule that says all abilities have to belong to your AA set if you have one, or that you can only have one AA set, for that matter. It's perfectly legit to buy other abilities that exist in parallel with the Sorcery AA group. The GM might want to disallow that just to reflect the way magic works in the setting, but it's not inherently broken to buy abilities this way. Your standard super build would likely have at least their main attack, defense, and movement abilities all bought separately, as they're expected all to be used together. Simultaneous Spells gives you some flexibility in that regard -- "any three" rather than "this attack, this defense, and this movement". If you have a need to go more defensive or supportive, you might want to have "defense, defend other, buff*" up, for instance. As you say, that flexibility is valuable. It's better than having a few separate, fixed, abilities. The price of Simultaneous Spells is of course based on the cost for just buying the most expensive (N-1) abilities in the set separately plus an AA group of everything left, so it's not actually any more expensive -- unless the ability you want to be always available is a lot cheaper than your most expensive ability. SS has to be priced the way it is to avoid the obvious abuse of paying less for that expensive ability and always keeping it "swapped in". So if you really have to squeeze into your budget, splitting out a cheap ability that you expect always to want can come in a bit cheaper, at the cost of not ever being able to swap it for something else. -- * this is one reason you might buy "defend" as an Affliction, rather than just an ability. Often you put it on yourself, but sometimes want to put it on a friend. If you need to protect a whole party and don't have time to cast a lot of spells beforehand, you might need Affects Others + Area Effect. Expensive, but sometimes you need to put up that anti-fear / mind control / AoE damage bubble on everyone at once. |
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