Methods for house-ruling away trivially-maintainable gate networks
 

Starting a new thread for this house rule tangent in the main forum:

Naturally there are many ways to house rule a reason redundant gates aren't practical.

I was thinking of something along the lines you mention, though if both ends have to be near each other for a problem to happen, the obstacle can be overcome by having even one other station at a different third point, though that is a tricky technique to house rule away.

Having gates become more unstable the more gates there are nearby would work, but I wouldn't want to increase the reliability for a single gate to 6's on 6 dice (!), or even 4 or 5. And, I don't really want to remove the ability of guilds to have a gate room with multiple destinations. I just don't want them to be trivially maintainable.

I'm leaning towards a few house rules, but still brainstorming and pondering several other ideas.

My considerations include:

* The way we played made sense that there would be limited and unreliable gate networks, assuming mainly social conditions such as not many Gate wizards typically available and willing to spend a lot of time/effort making and maintaining gates, and important/wealthy/influential/Wizards' Guild people and their needs tending to use the available Gate wizard effort for their own uses.

* Creating and stabilizing gates shouldn't be entirely trivializable to the point where it's "just" an IQ 15 wizard with the spell and 50 ST. Making these more difficult can go a long way to reinforcing the unwillingness of wizards to spend all day on gate maintenance, or to "just" make several redundant gates when they make a gate, or to always have one backup gate for every gate in use, and making another gate to use with it as soon as the main use gate goes down.

House rules I am particularly liking so far:


* When Create Gate is used either to create or to stabilize a gate, it affects the astral plane all around the gate opening (whose other details can tie in with other house rules designed to make Astral Projection more interesting and hazardous). The effect is large (a mile or more radius) and lasts at least a day, and one effect is it makes casting Create or Control Gate again within that radius and time more difficult (e.g. add a die to the difficulty of casting Create or Control Gate for each such effect).


* When a gate fails and starts to flicker, the effects are neither predictable nor obvious.

On a 17, a gate will flicker indistinguishably from a failure for 1d minutes, but not actually fail. (i.e. a gate maintenance team will want to stabilize the gate to be sure, but that has effects per the above house rule.)

An 18 means a breakdown, but how long that takes, whether it's still possible to use it while flickering, and if/when it flickers, are all unpredictable. I'm not sure what tables I'll settle on for this, but a first shot:

On an 18, roll d6 for symptoms:
1-2: Gate flickers for 1 minute as in RAW.
3: Gate flickers for 1d minutes.
5: Gate doesn't flicker for 1d turns.
6: Gate shows no sign that it is failing.

And roll d6 for effects:
1: Gate fails after 1d minutes.
2: Gate fails after 1 minute.
3: Gate fails after 2d turns.
4: Gate fails after 1d turns.
5-6: Gate breaks down immediately. No time to stabilize it, turn back, or run other people through it.

And roll d6 for usability before failure:
1-3: Usable until it fails.
4: Not usable 2d6 turns after it starts flickering.
5: Not usable 1d6 turns after it starts flickering.
6: Not usable while flickering.

A gate that fails before it stops flickering will still be a flickering gate for a while (possibly inspiring people to try to use or stabilize it) but nothing can fix it after it fails.


* If there is a gate with both ends within a certain radius of another gate (1 mile? 10 miles?), and one of them starts to fail, it may cause the other gates to also start to fail. Roll 1d6 for each other such gate and if the result is less than or equal the number of similar gates, that gate also starts to fail as if it too had rolled an 18 during use. (This means you can still set up redundant gates, but the more you do it, the more likely it becomes that they'll all fail if one goes.)


* When you stabilize a gate, roll again 4/DX. If you fail, the gate is less stable than before. Add a +1 to future breakdown check from attempts to use the gate. This is cumulative.

Re: Methods for house-ruling away trivially-maintainable gate networks
 

Another method I like:


Gate Entanglement

If a wizard who has prepared one end of a gate but not the other end, gets transported by a gate, the incomplete gate becomes Entangled with the gate that was walked through, and vice versa. If another incomplete gate gets entangled, they all become part of the same entanglement.

When an entangled gate starts to fail, all entangled gates also start to fail. If stabilization is attempted, each gate has to be stabilized individually.

(This creates some complications to use a gate network to maintain a gate network. If you want unentangled gates, you need to actually do what the spell description says, i.e. "The wizard must travel to the site of the other end of the Gate in order to finish the job!")


Gate Weaving

Making several gates at the same time, rather than completing one gate before starting another gate, is more complex and difficult to do, especially if the incomplete gate ends are near each other.

When completing a gate by creating the second end, for every other incomplete gate start a wizard has created, the wizard is at -1 DX on their Create Gate attempt. For every incomplete gate start within five miles of the gate start the wizard is trying to complete, the attempt is one die more difficult.

A failed roll completing a gate adds a cumulative +1 modifier to the gate's breakdown roll. An 18+ (even when rolling more than 3 dice) ruins the incomplete gate start[/I].

(A simple version would just be to say that Gate Weaving simple isn't allowed, either requiring spacing out of incomplete gate starts, or only allowing one incomplete gate start per wizard at a time.)

Example: Dweever the Gate Weaver (ST 8 DX 17 IQ 15) is attempting to create four gates from A to B. He already has one incomplete gate start at C. At A, he hires a flock of apprentices and casts Create Gate four times. Then he travels to B, and hires another flock of apprentices.

To create the first gate from A to B, he has one apprentice give him the maximum +5 DX via Aid spell, as well as 50 ST from the other apprentices. The roll will be against his DX 17, +5 Aid, -4 for four other gate starts, plus 3 dice for 3 other gate starts within 5 miles of A. 18 or less on 6 dice would be a 28% chance, but an 18+ automatically fails and destroys the gate start, so he has a 21% chance, and any failure loses the gate start.

Either way, he'll be down one incomplete gate start. So to create the second gate from A to B, he will roll at -3 on 5 dice. He only needs a +3 DX Aid to keep his adj DX at max useful 17, and he has a 50% chance of success, other 50% or ruining the gate start.

The third gate would be -2 on 4 dice, so 84% with a +2 Aid.

The fourth gate he could do without an Aid, at -1 DX for the gate start at C, but on 3 dice since he has no more incomplete gate starts at A. In that case, a roll of 16 would be a normal failure, and would not destroy the gate start, but would make it less reliable.
Say he fails twice but then succeeds, without rolling 17+


Gate Weakening

When stabilizing a flickering gate, the gate may become less reliable in future. A cumulative die roll modifier to the breakdown roll applies.

The GM can decide how often he wants this to happen, e.g.:

* Every time a gate is stabilized, it gains a +1 breakdown modifier.
* If the stabilizing wizard misses their roll, the gate gains a +1.
* If the stabilizing wizard crit fails, the gate collapses immediately.


I think the combination of these three is probably enough to make gate networks about as much trouble to maintain as I'd want them to be. I think it heads off the known ways to trivialize the travel requirements and breakdown chances.

Re: Methods for house-ruling away trivially-maintainable gate networks
 

I've long since come to the conclusion that no satisfactory game-mechanical solution to this problem was possible, so my house rule is "GM Whim."

It's glossed as the two gate-end locations having, or lacking, "mystic harmony" with each other. The greater the mystic harmony, the longer the Gate will last before going unstable and collapsing. With a lack of mystic harmony (read: I, the GM, do not want this Gate to exist) then the Gate very quickly goes unstable and collapses.

I've also ditched the "chance of a Gate becoming unstable every time it's used" rule. There are Gates I want to be permanent, and that "chance of instability" rule makes such Gates impractical.

The same consideration and gloss applies to the Long Distant Teleport spell in my game. The St cost varies with the degree of "mystic harmony" between the origin and destination of the teleport - i.e. I set a St cost as a matter of GM whim for any given casting, based on whether I want to allow it or not.

I don't particularly like having to resort to a GM whim mechanic, but there are occasions when it's the least bad solution I can think of. And I do give give forewarning: Everyone (or at least every wizard) in the game-world knows that the Gate and Long-Distance Teleport spells are wonky that way.

Re: Methods for house-ruling away trivially-maintainable gate networks
 

Add a monster that steps through gates from elsewhere.

Re: Methods for house-ruling away trivially-maintainable gate networks
 

When I want a permanent gate, it is a Mnoren gate. The downside is that they may operate in ways unknown to the players.

Create Gate is a wizard's way of poorly imitating the perfect precision of the Mnoren magic.

Re: Methods for house-ruling away trivially-maintainable gate networks
 

Now that is a genuinely interesting idea. It's not one I'd use, because I don't use Mnoren. ("I reject the reality of the Mnoren and substitute my own!") But if you do use Mnoren, it's very much a viable alternative.

Re: Methods for house-ruling away trivially-maintainable gate networks
 

The Mnoren are now gone but their are remnants and ruins of them. Really, just an ancient gate here or there. Or if I want a piece of technology to be found (I haven't but I can).