ST Items and Mana
 

I cannot find anywhere a consideration of how a +1 ST ring affects a wizard's mana. If a fighter wears the ring, sure - his strength is greater and he can take one more point of damage. But does this same ring bestow upon a wizard those two benefits, as well as providing him with a point of mana for casting spells? And if it does, may the wizard recharge it with the same 5-for-1 ST rules used with a Manastaff?

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Attribute enhancing magic items do just that. When you are wearing them, it is as if your attribute is +1 for all purposes.

So, a ST 9 wizard puts on a Ring of +1 ST, and now acts as if his base level ST is 10 for all things (mana, weapons used, damage in HTH, etc).

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

A ST enhancement item increases fatigue, not mana

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

I suppose, Henry, that if we're being precise in our terminology, we should say that a ST enhancement item effectively decreases fatigue or increases the capacity for fatigue, not increases fatigue.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Yes you are right. It does not increase mana. Thank you for the correction. I was trying to say it increases your basic ST for all things, including casting spells.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Right, so no you can't "recharge" it like a manastaff. But you probably wouldn't want to even if you could, because if you keep wearing it, you will recover your up to your magically-enhanced ST after spellcasting by resting.

(You sort of could recharge, by casting Drain Strength on someone else. ;-) )

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Example, two witches one ring.

Angnus puts on the +4 ST ring bringing her ST from 6 to 10. She casts ten points of spells and falls unconscious.

Her sister Berthe removes the ring. Angnus is now dying at adjST negative four, but she will rest up and will just be unconscious at adjST zero after an hour.

Berthe puts on the ring boosting her ST from 6 to 10 and casts ten points of spells.

Repeat as needed.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Oh, this would SO not go down with my dear GM! Our party's two wizards will have to try this just to jar him - well, they would except that dear GM reads these threads and will see it coming!

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

1) Increase attribute items are powerful (and fairly bland) juju, that GMs might want to consider not including.

2) Yes you can share an Increase Strength item to generate up to 4 usable extra spell fatigue per wearer... if you don't mind being unconscious for 15 minutes per point you go beyond your actual ST (max 4 or you'll die).

3) If a GM wants to include Increase Strength enchantments, but doesn't like the effect Henry just pointed out, they might rule that it increases the wearer's ST but not their fatigue. So when a wizard puts one on, they then need to rest to actually gain the fatigue up to the enhanced level.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Attribute enhancers have been greatly curbed since the first edition. They are capped for DX and don't do much for IQ.

Note also that a DX enhancing sword costs half as much as a DX boosting ring, but is less versatile.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Or it could be like a cursed item? It ring can't be taken off until all the character's ST gets up to 0.

Unless of course, you cut the finger off to get to the ring.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

In that case, a ST ring should also require days of "healing" to access the additional damage capacity.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

This comes down to how fast your GM kills people for being at Neg.ST.

Since fatigue acts exactly like damage (except for the fact that you recover from it over time vs being heal) you can die to it all the same. If I were the GM I'd say if you have base ST 6 and are currently at -4 that you would die before you recovered from your fatigue.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Which leaves you with the odd case of an unwounded figure at -1 ST who can't be saved by a physicker.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

That honestly sounds like a solution more than a problem. Mess around at the edge of the rules and sometimes you get burned.

Though, to be sure, I'd warn the player before he removes that ring from his unconscious buddy.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

"Well looks like Timmy killed you. Next time pick better friends."

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Absolutely.

Or perhaps you should be a bit more cautious when using up all your ST casting spells. You leave yourself in a dangerous condition.

To be fair, if Timmy wanted sole ownership of the ST ring, it's easy enough to acquire when Max has taken a little nap in any case. It's just that this way, Timmy might think the death is a mere side effect, not an act of blatant murder.

Probably, this is the Cydri alternative to the trolley problem.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

You pick your friends, but not you family. What if Timmy is his brother? What if they are out boating on Timmy's birthday? And something glimmers on the riverbed? No telling what all that could lead to...

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

Well you could always put the ring back on your friend, but then you got to juggle the artifact between the two for 15 minutes.

With that said even though I'd kill someone at -4 ST (assuming their base ST is 6) pretty quickly, if you are only at -1 ST I'd say you can like at least 15 minutes. Or you could RP it and let a physicker keep them stable (but not heal them) if they stay with them the whole time they are recovering.

Re: ST Items and Mana
 

For that matter, I don't think I'd declare a character dead, just unconscious, if their ST wasn't negative due to actual wounds. Fatigue would wear off at the normal rate, and they'd regain consciousness when ST got back to 1. Otherwise we really don't have much of a mechanism in this game for representing unconsciousness short of death, except for the special case of being at exactly zero ST, with at least 1 of the outstanding hits being fatigue. As is, the margin between dead and unconscious is terribly narrow.