Thrown spells maximum range

[Chris Rice]

Just limit Thrown Spell range to a “mega-megahex.” The penalty will be enough to discourage most attempts at the limit of that range whilst preventing the sort of silliness the OP outlines.

[Helborn]

Or, make failures cause damage rather than just lost fatigue unless the caster is using mana from a Staff or powerstone or item. In which case any failure of 16+ still causes damage in addition to the lost ST from Staff/Powerstone/item

[tomc]

Max range could be double the caster's highest attribute, in hexes.

[hcobb]

The reason why I tied it to ST is that Missile Spells also may or may not be tied to ST and ST is a big dump stat for wizards.

[larsdangly]

Is this something anyone is actually doing in play? I try to avoid adding rules to cover things that are imaginable but don't actually happen.

[Skarg]

Casting Thrown spells even at range 5 (one over the minimum ST of a halfling) is pretty rare, let alone range 7 (one over the minimum ST of an elf or goblin) or range 9 (one over the minimum range of a human or orc), naturally, because of the DX penalty.

So in order for a human wizard to much enjoy the advantage of even one optional point in ST (so ST 9), they'd probably want to have a DX before the range penalty of say DX 20, so they'd have more than a 50% chance of success at range 9.

So I'm imagining what human or orc wizard this would be. Something like:

ST 9 DX 20 IQ 9 could be surprising people by casting Aid, Avert, Clumsiness, and Confusion, or maybe Turn Missiles, Drop Weapon or Blur, at a range of 9 hexes... and that takes a 38-point character.

So really, while again, I don't object to a Thrown spell limit to ST, but I think it's extremely unlikely to matter much.

As for actual play impact, I can see some situations where it would have an effect, mainly with players / characters who use Aid to increase the DX of a caster to be able to reach powerful foes with potent thrown spells. That has been done in actual play in my campaigns... but rarely and mainly by unusually experienced and clever players, and still rarely at range 9+ anyway (with a couple of notable exceptions which did have huge unexpected effects on the campaign).

[Helborn]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Is this something anyone is actually doing in play? I try to avoid adding rules to cover things that are imaginable but don't actually happen.

Not in any group I have ever been a part of.


However, I believe punitive rules have a part in any game to prevent unrealistic play. In RL friendly fire is not an oxymoron, though too many gamers play as if it is and too many rule sets have these cinematic additions to do things that no one would in RL

[Steve Plambeck]

Since you have to count hexes and calculate adjDX for a Thrown spell anyway, I think I'd use that adjDX as range limiting factor as well. So the spell can be tried at any distance as long as the adjDX ain't zero or less. At DX 12 you have an 11 hex range (and you're rolling against adjDX of 1, so you're just hoping for an auto-success anyway, as you would be even if the target was 4 hexes closer and you were at adjDX 5).

And just for good measure, that adjDX you're rolling at is also the number of tries you may have to cast that spell in one day. So even if you aren't in combat turns, no one can say they spent the day rolling against adjDX 1 until they hit auto-success. One try, and that's it. AdjDX 6? They can have 6 tries. Why? Because the physics of magic are just so complex and inexplicable!

[larsdangly]

A loosely related tangent: how many of you have used the Aid spell to jack up DX briefly for the purposes of casting a spell at unusually great range?

[Shostak]

I've done that with Aid. It can be a very effective tactic.