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Old 02-15-2016, 06:46 PM   #7
Ruien
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Default Re: Suspend Missile Spell

Anaraxes, thanks for the feedback and ideas. It's appreciated.

Here are my thoughts on your comments:

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GURPS rules (and their designers) make no claim as to the rules being bulletproof against exploitation and munchkism.
Sure, what I'm trying to understand here is just the behavior as per RAW. In this particular campaign I'm running, I'd choose to follow the RAW. In another, I might choose it's absurd and define it differently.

To be fair, suspending a stack of missile spells isn't any more game-breaking than the Multi-Shot Imbuement. Munchkins will use both together. But is it RAW? That's what's hard to determine, and why I brought this up on the forum.


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(Note that the question still applies even when Missile spells are not involved. If Mage B suspends Mage A's spell, does A still have a spell on? Does A pay maintenance? For consistency, I think the answer to all three would be "no".)
I already rule this as "yes". I think of this as Suspend Spell is just another spell which works to actively counteract the effects of the other spell (completely, including even stopping its internal timer/mana consumption). This explains why you can only Suspend a spell you know.

Mage A would therefore still have his spell "on" (it just doesn't do anything because Mage B's Suspend is counteracting its effects). Mage A does not pay maintenance, however, because his spell's timer is stopped so it never comes up for maintenance while suspended. If Mage A's spell ends for any reason, the Suspend ends as well for having an invalid target. (and Mage A can terminate his spell early if he wants to)

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So, -3 to cast the Suspend while holding the Missile spell; then -1 for having the Suspend active.
Makes sense, and is the same interpretation I was leaning towards as well.

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Note that Hang Spell already exists and gives you a perfectly good way to stack up a bunch of Fireballs ready to go. It has a -1 penalty per Hung spell. The Suspend method will also have a -1 penalty per spell, from the Suspend. It also costs maintenance on the Suspend, whereas Hang does not. So the Suspend method is actually slightly inferior to just Hanging the Fireballs. (That's good, since it gives a reason for Hang Spell to exist.)
Woah -- are you sure about that?

Hang has the same cost as the spell you cast, lasts 1 hour and has the same cost to maintain. So let's do the 9d Fireball with Hang Spell to compare, assuming Fireball-15 and Hang Spell-15:

(1) Mage casts Hang Spell, paying 8 FP
(2) Mage casts a 9d Fireball, paying 8 FP

He's now spent 16 FPs and needs to rest 32 minutes to get this back. He then has to rest another 16 minutes every hour thereafter to keep it up until he's ready to use it.

A second Fireball would cost another 16 FPs and increase his required rest to 32 minutes every hour.

He also needs to spend a 1-second Concentrate maneuver to get his Fireball back. He can't get it back instantly.


Now, compared to Suspend Spell:
(1) Mage casts 9d Fireball, paying 8FP
(2) Mage casts Suspend (at -3), paying 1/10 of 8 FP (round up to 1 FP), minus 1 for cost reduced by skill: that is, 0 to cast, 0 to maintain.

He's now spent 8 FP and needs to rest 16 minutes to get it back. He can keep Suspend going indefinitely at no cost.

A second Fireball would just take another 16 minutes of rest, but no additional ongoing maintenance. He could make a stack of 5 with reasonable skill. Note that a normal failure casting Suspend Spell would not have any ill effects, so this is not particularly dangerous.

Finally, terminating a Suspend is instant rather than requiring a 1-second Concentrate.


This does not imply that Hang Spell is useless. Hang Spell makes a lot of sense for an offensive spell that takes awhile to cast, such as Charm-15. But for a Missile spell I don't think I can say that Hang is superior if Suspend is an option.

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So far, nothing in any of the rules suggests that there's an exemption to the rule of only holding one Missile spell. If you're holding a Missile when one of your Suspends gets canceled, then you're going to drop one of them.

Note that this adds a second disadvantage compared to Hang Spell -- if someone hits the Fireball-carrier with Dispel Magic (etc), all those Fireballs reappear at the same time. Since dropping Missile spells involuntarily means they affect you, this is really bad news, and serves as another limit to indefinite stacking.

The Will roll is to maintain concentration when injured. For non-injury situations, I'd pick something slightly different -- probably the spell skill, maybe the IA, maybe straight IQ. Though you could argue for DX. (One argument in favor: most mages don't have a great DX compared to their IQ and spell skills, so using DX adds yet another way to keep this loophole under control.)
I love these ideas; thanks for sharing them!

However, I'm not sure about the idea of "get hit with dispel means that a bunch of missiles appear". I consider both spells to be running and Dispel might kill both. But if you're holding a bunch of them, there's likely to be some for which the Missile resisted the Dispel but the Suspend did not.

I definitely would do:
(1) You can only hold one missile spell. If another appears (someone canceled the Suspend, due to Dispel Magic as described above, etc) then you automatically drop the spell and suffer its effects.

(2) I would use DX for the roll. The missile is just appearing *out of nowhere* when you weren't expecting it and you have to react to it before it lands on your chest.

(3) I would say that Mage Sight makes it possible to "see" these suspended spell-pairs floating around. This makes him a prime target for a 1-hex Dispel. And if those are Explosive Fireballs then he may be taking a few of his friends with him.

I think this serves to make Hang Spell a lot safer (if that gets dispelled, nothing happens besides the prepared spell disappearing) and makes for some interesting mechanics.

It would also be interesting if there were a way to selectively Dispel only the Suspends and not the Missiles themselves.

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Zwarrior: Finally, there are the descriptions of various other meta spell like Spell Wall, Spell Shield, Ward and Steal Spell where it's explicitly noted that they don't affect missile spells, while Counterspell and Suspend Spell make no such mention. This leads me to believe that missile spells can be Suspended or Countered.
Well, Suspend Spell was written before Missile Spell Mastery existed. It's quite reasonable to think that this implies that a Missile Spell could be Suspended or Countered but is written from the assumption that you'd be using this on an someone else, which lowers its level of abusability.

That RAW might read differently if Magic was written with the assumption that one could cast another spell while holding a Missile spell.

Granted, that is speculating on the authors' intent, not the RAW.

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This seems like a good place to recall those caveats. Don't take the absence of some reference in Magic as an indication that it's a deliberate and significant absence. Or elsewhere; often in the GURPS rules there are lists of examples ("X such as A, B, or C), but these are not exhaustive.

That said, I'd allow Counterspell to remove a held Missile spell. That's what you get for hanging on to it where the enemy mages can see you.
Generally speaking if something can be Counterspelled, then it can be Suspended.

The idea that the "ongoing spell" is really just the magic that holds the physical (if magical) object that's a result of the Missile spell is a really interesting idea. It actually would solve a lot of overpowered/balance problems and be a consistent explanation for why stacking Suspended Missiles doesn't work. And I do agree that this would imply Suspend and Counterspell both mean the missile is dropped.

That also fits with the concept of why missile spells can be thrown through a No-Mana Zone. But it would imply that a mage holding a Missile would drop it on himself if he walked into a No-Mana Zone. Is that really what happens per RAW currently? I don't think I've heard of people dropping missile spells on themselves when walking into an NMZ before.

Last edited by Ruien; 02-15-2016 at 07:00 PM.
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