06-26-2013, 10:20 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2010
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Dispelling in RPM
So breaking a spell in the RPM system is obviously Greater Destroy Magic and I assume that this is done as a Quick Contest between Path of Magic and the appropriate Path skill. However the rules say that extra energy is relevant to this although it never defines exactly how. I know that if two rituals try to stack the one that cost more wins but a counterspell isn't really trying to stack on top of the original one. How should I deal with this situation?
RPK brings this up in his FAQ but it doesn't clear things up for me much. For example using Lesser Restore Mind ought to only suspend the original mind control spell for as long as the Lesser Restore Mind lasts, while Greater Destroy Magic would end it entirely. It seems that the intention may be that you cannot even try to dispel a ritual unless the counterspell uses as much or more energy which feels a little bit strange. |
06-26-2013, 12:51 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: New York City
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
IIRC (IDHMBWM) there is NO contest. If you spell works & has equal or more power it dispells the target spell. The spell with the most power wins. No contest unless there is a magic ward (& if there is the contest is to get through the ward, not to dispell).
Lesser restore mind works because it's not trying to remove the spell, it's dealing with the mind after it has been affected. |
06-26-2013, 01:04 PM | #3 | ||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dobbstown Sane Asylum
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
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Now, the existing rules do provide a few ways to get around this issue, but detailed examples and guidelines will have to wait for the RPM book itself.
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06-26-2013, 02:28 PM | #4 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2010
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
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It's good to know how it's supposed to work so that I don't break it if I make adjustments. And I managed to completely read past that twenty times, lol. Thanks! |
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06-26-2013, 04:48 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
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In real life, it's generally easier to destroy than to create. It doesn't matter how much energy and time it took to create a complex structure; it often takes relatively little energy to disrupt it, whether that's a quarter-inch hole through your chest or a block of C4 on the right pylon of a bridge. You could certainly argue that spells work this way. You just blow a hole in the structure and it collapses. Or not. If this is the rule, you should expect fights to start off stripping buffs from each other. And once that's the expected tactic, players will start wondering whether it's worth the time and effort of preparing and buffing. You'll get a different feel to combats and the prep for them. Whether or not that's the desired end result is your call. The standard rule also omits any consideration of skill or mental agility when it comes to unweaving spells. Often in fiction you see the wizards analyzing the structure of a spell in order to figure out how best to unravel it. This might be modelled as a contest of skills in the Path in question. One wrinkle might be deliberate obfuscation of the structure of the spell when it's cast, which you might model by allowing the caster to take a skill penalty that later shows up as a penalty to opponents in the analysis contest. Victory in the contest lets you know where to put that block of magical C4. As long as we're blowing things up, we can have failures -- or maybe even successes -- result in random dramatic and dangerous side effects from the collapsing spell -- the more energy, the worse it gets. You want to be careful in your spell destruction, like those guys that drop buildings down on top of themselves without damaging the neighbors. (Much.) |
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06-26-2013, 06:16 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
I suppose, if you kept track of the way in which the spell was built, you could have weaker dispel attempts start to break it down by reducing some of the effects. Area gets smaller, duration is reduced, potency of the spell drops, that sort of thing.
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06-26-2013, 06:29 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Mar 2010
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
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06-30-2013, 12:22 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
You could also make the penalties for critical failures less severe in dispelling, like say, only a time penalty.
Thus 'wizard spends hours studying the spell and eventually gets an 'AHA' moment and cracks it' could actually mean: Need to gather 100 energy to break spell crit fail at 60 energy, loose ten minutes crit fail at 80, loose an hour crit fail at 15, loose 10 seconds crit fail at 95, loose two hours success- spell dispelled. |
06-30-2013, 06:56 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
This sounds to me like a fun quirk for a spell to pick up on a failure (or perhaps an ad hoc bonus resulting from a critical success) rather than an attribute of the counterspell. Frankly, I think I'm going to file the "lowers effective energy level by X for the purposes of dispelling" quirk away for later use.
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06-30-2013, 07:22 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Dispelling in RPM
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These are examples from fantasy fiction rather than gaming. Unfortunately they were read in my misbegotten youth back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, so I can't bring up many examples, though Madwand by Roger Zelazny comes to mind. |
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Tags |
dispelling, ritual path magic |
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