[RPM] question about conditional spels

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Qhaysh

EDIT: Ninja'd by Ghostdancer. Should've been expecting that :)

I may dance and be ghost, but I can also ninja. It's how my people roll. Tomahawks, Not shuriken.

Originally Posted by Celti

I'm allowing multiple copies of the same conditional spell to be hung in the game I'm going to start running tomorrow, with the caveat that all spells in this setting are conditional; a mage has to take her time and prepare her spells before using them in a very Vancian style.

Yes, this allows a mage to throw six fireballs in rapid succession if that's what she prepared, but that eats up into other spells she might have had hanging instead, as she can't just bust out the utility spells through normal casting at the time that they're needed.

This could work (and I've a model for this exact methodology somewhere in my RPM*Iteration files), and work well. I would like a AAR Celti - if you're up for it. You know my email.

[Celti]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I would like a AAR Celti - if you're up for it. You know my email.

I'll definitely shoot you one, but it may take a few sessions before magic has seen enough use to judge anything; there's only one mage in the party with any real spellcasting ability.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Celti

I'll definitely shoot you one, but it may take a few sessions before magic has seen enough use to judge anything; there's only one mage in the party with any real spellcasting ability.

That'd be perfect, thank you.

[Angle]

For Vancian Magic, wouldn't you just disallow Ritual Adept, and maybe let them stack duplicate rituals? That's all it really seems to need, by my analysis.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Angle

For Vancian Magic, wouldn't you just disallow Ritual Adept, and maybe let them stack duplicate rituals? That's all it really seems to need, by my analysis.

That is one way of doing it - probably the easiest - but like all things RPM there are multiple ways of doing things.

[ajardoor]

My take, up until now, was that you could hang spells of the same effects with different triggers ("My first Fireball spell goes off when I clench my fist and say my name backwards, second when I hold up my index finger by itself and say this poem").

See, I thought when spells are hanged, they're not cast until triggered - getting around the standard stacking restriction (triggering spells of the same effect within their durations means the standard fizzling of the weaker one).

So you load up on several Fireballs and blast them off separately...

But it appears I'm wrong about that. No same spell effects on the same conditionals prepared list, it seems (so no Lesser Strengthen Body for +1 ST and another for +1 DX both prepared to trigger)?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

But it appears I'm wrong about that. No same spell effects on the same conditionals prepared list, it seems (so no Lesser Strengthen Body for +1 ST and another for +1 DX both prepared to trigger)?

Conditional spells are subject to the Stacking Spells rules limitation - that is you could have one Lesser Strengthen Body effect and one Greater Strengthen Body effect - but not two Lesser Strengthen Body effects. So, if you really wanted that +1 to DX and ST you could combine them or voluntarily treat one as a Greater effect (increasing its cost) to get the two separate effects. They'll be other ways to get around this eventually for the clever caster (I hope) - but not in specifically game-breaking ways.

[Kalzazz]

My specific understanding of conditional spells is

1. You cannot have two spells with the same effect (say Greater Create Energy), hung at the same time

2. If you have a spell hung with an effect (say Greater Create Energy), you cannot cast another spell with the same effect at lesser energy level (the hung spell negates it), or if its greater energy, it negates the hung spell

3. Charms don't apply to this, charms are chill since are cast on themselves

So say, Bob the Mage knows 2 spells, Fireball and Big Fireball, which are a 9d fireball and a 27d fireball for 42 and 114

Bob can hang one or the other spell, but not both

Bob if he has Big Fireball hung, cannot cast Little Fireball, as it will be auto negated by Big Fireball. If he had LF hung, he could cast BF which would negate it

He cant cast any other Greater Create Energy effects while one of those spells is hung either without something being negated

It makes trying to fill out your loaded conditional spells like trying to play Magic Sudoku and one of the most challening and annoying parts of the entire magic system

[Pragmatic]

Do we know WHY they chose to limit it this way, rather than not allowing the same trigger (so you don't release multiple spells at the same time)?

Is it to keep the viability of charms? To enforce some "utility spells" within the conditionals?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Do we know WHY they chose to limit it this way, rather than not allowing the same trigger (so you don't release multiple spells at the same time)?

Is it to keep the viability of charms? To enforce some "utility spells" within the conditionals?

Well, I'm not PK ("Sir, I worked with PK. I know PK. PK was a friend of mine. Fella, I'm no PK") - but conditional spells are basically active spells. Since you can't have more active spells on you then a [Lesser {or} Greater] [Specific Effect] [Specific Path] it stands to reason that that is where the rule comes from. And that rule is to prevent abuse.