Question for Pulver: Maximum range of Control Person

[hcobb]

How many thousands of miles away may I attempt an auto success with a Control Person spell? (My character is willing to sit around all day long and make 25 attempts until that 5% chance pays off and he's controlling the king.)

[xane]

You'd have thought it was at least a requirement to see your target, but there does not seem to be a defined maximum with Thrown Weapons as well as Thrown Spells like there is for Missile Weapons (ITL p125).

[hcobb]

There is a second maximum range for missile spells at ITL 135 so adapt that.

Using both hexes (on the tactical map) and megahexes (on the lab map) as maximum ranges.

https://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#Thrown

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by xane

You'd have thought it was at least a requirement to see your target, but there does not seem to be a defined maximum with Thrown Weapons as well as Thrown Spells like there is for Missile Weapons (ITL p125).

Not specifically called out...

But on the other hand, it's also not called out that there IS and ability to target people you can't see, either, and there are optional off-map invisible movement rules, and the implication to me of -1 per hex spells is that they get harder and harder to cast outside a few hexes' distance. It doesn't seem intentional to me that someone would be able to take advantage of the rule edges where it doesn't specifically say you can't spam spells waiting for an auto-success even at negative adjDX, or where it doesn't say there's a max range, or where it doesn't say you even have to know where the target is.

It seems to me far more strongly implied that a Thrown spell caster at the very least needs to know which hex they are casting the spell at relative to where they are, and in almost every case, I would think that would rule out distant and unseen targets. I'd think the wizard would need to aim a certain number of hexes away and up/down from their location, and it would involve the in-game wizard (not the player who can count hexes) knowing the relative location, or else they'd be targeting whoever's in a guessed location (and since terrain is often not flat, probably often a location above or below the ground).

i.e. If they're not on a short-range combat map with you, and your adjDX for range isn't above zero, you probably have no chance. And even if they are on a short-range combat map with you, and you can't see them, you need to guess correctly which hex to target.

In theory you could still try this. Guess which palace the king is in, lurk/sneak as close as you can to the walls, and choose some hex some distance less than your DX away from you inside the palace walls. That multiplies the auto-success failure rate by the odds anyone is actually in the hex you guess at that moment, and you're much more likely to Control Person a guard or a cleaning woman rather than a prince or king, but it could still be a useful technique for a very patient and sneaky wizard... just appropriately limited.

[hcobb]

ITL 105 "invisible/shadowed figure is has the same -6 DX. The same goes for casting of spells and attempts to miss an invisible figure."

Which can get you down to negative DX within creation spell range.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

ITL 105 "invisible/shadowed figure is has the same -6 DX. The same goes for casting of spells and attempts to miss an invisible figure."

Which can get you down to negative DX within creation spell range.

Ok, even better. Sounds like a reasonable difficulty level to me. Determined people could still attempt to get past it by adding an assistant with Aid... but they'd still need to guess the hex. But they could also be more clever and go for carriages heading into/out of the palace, time the guard shifts and go for guard posts, etc.