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Old 10-19-2021, 06:26 PM   #11
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Musings from Myriangia

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Originally Posted by warhorse11h View Post
Something that never seemed right in this game is the rule that spells of IQ15 and above cannot be cast from a book because they are too complex. Complexity would actually make books more necessary, even for wizards who know the spell well.
I would say that the reason for that, is that IQ 15+ spells are quite powerful, and many of them are quite useful even if it takes a long time to cast them. So if you make them castable via book, then suddenly access to those powerful spells could be had by just buying (or obtaining) a book, rather than being a powerful learned wizard who actually mastered the spell.
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Old 10-19-2021, 06:42 PM   #12
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Default Re: Musings from Myriangia

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I would say that the reason for that, is that IQ 15+ spells are quite powerful, and many of them are quite useful even if it takes a long time to cast them. So if you make them castable via book, then suddenly access to those powerful spells could be had by just buying (or obtaining) a book, rather than being a powerful learned wizard who actually mastered the spell.
Indeed! That ease of access is part of the reason for my house-ruling away being able to cast from normal spell books.
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Old 10-19-2021, 10:32 PM   #13
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Perhaps you can make a Grimoire like "a wizard's chest or laboratory" in that it "must be attuned to him. A wizard may not use a lab until it is so attuned; this takes 50 ST, one week, and a successful 3/DX roll." ITL p 142

Thus a 'found' Grimoire would take time to be able to 'break it in'. This would further make a wizard be dedicated to piercing the veil of its magic. This reading and handling and attuning before the first cast might eliminate the First Cast penalty.

I like the time it takes to cast the spell from the book:
IQ 10 spell x 5 turns x 5 seconds = 21 minutes
IQ 8 spell x 5 turns x 5 seconds = 16.5 minutes

With the concept of spellbooks being mundane (and not infused with magic as opposed to grimoire) and being meant for learning with, one could train with a spellbook and use the Learning Talents Through Books article in Fanzine Trip and reduce the XP cost of learning the spell.
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Old 10-20-2021, 07:41 AM   #14
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Perhaps you can make a Grimoire like "a wizard's chest or laboratory" in that it "must be attuned to him. A wizard may not use a lab until it is so attuned; this takes 50 ST, one week, and a successful 3/DX roll." ITL p 142

Thus a 'found' Grimoire would take time to be able to 'break it in'. This would further make a wizard be dedicated to piercing the veil of its magic.
This could be done for other magic items, as well. Or, perhaps one needs to read a certain text to learn how to unlock the magic, but, sadly, that book was burned in the firefight with the wizard and now the party needs to go on a quest to find the other known copy.
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Old 11-07-2021, 07:00 PM   #15
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My most recent blogpost is some designer's notes for the Fear Factor rules I contributed to Hexagram 8 (order your copy today!) Enjoy!
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Old 11-10-2021, 08:53 AM   #16
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A great idea for a house-rule addition. We'll have to wait to see how you handle this, mechanically; in the past I used either special talents or a personality score or trait, a'la p. 14 of LE ITL. I always felt like an expanded, judicious use of that little snippet of the official rules book could have really opened up the way TFT approaches various role playing issues. The problem, of course, is that everyone would have different ideas about which traits and scores were essential. At various times i've used 'morale' (equivalently bravery, valor, etc.), 'status' and 'piety' (religious conviction and potential for miracles, etc.).
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Old 11-11-2021, 11:39 AM   #17
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Thanks, Lars.

I took a very minimal approach--no new stats or attributes. There are new talents and handicaps, though, and yes, both talents and handicaps can be used to influence the simple mechanic.
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Old 11-22-2021, 12:20 PM   #18
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Shostak - browsing through your blog, I can across your posting about counter storage.

Can I ask where did you get those 30-pocket pages from? The only ones I could find include a flap at the top of each pocket. Though more secure, it's a pain to get tokens in and out of them.
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Old 11-24-2021, 06:01 PM   #19
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I picked them up through Amazon. Here’s the product page.
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Old 11-25-2021, 08:12 PM   #20
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I muse a bit on weapon buff spells in the latest post on my blog.
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