Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Converting "Problematic" Spells to Powers

Terwin · 08-19-2015, 11:54 AM

Remember, Time-out is a very powerful spell with limitations like 'Bounded by a wall of utter blackness', 'spells involving the outside automatically fail', and 'the flow of mana is effectively nill' to keep it from being an automatic 'I win this siege' spell, even with a 5 minute casting time.

Time Out:
VH spell
Base cost: 5
Time to cast: 5 minutes
Prerequisites: Magery 3 and a VH spell that requires IQ 13+ and 2 spells form each of 10 colleges.

Sounds to me like the kind of spell that would only be accessible to the most powerful master wizards with a long and successful career behind them, and even then it is probably only used a few times per war as part of a critical surprise-attack where a couple archers with a cart launch $10,000 worth of arrows in an opening salvo.

Getting all that for a couple hundred points seems pretty cheap, especially if it becomes quick enough that you can cast it during normal combats.(at which point it could be compared to an innate attack covering the range of a common ranged weapon of the campaign as an area of effect and doing at least as much damage as that ranged weapon, especially with the ability to focus all of that fire on one or two large targets if needed)

08-19-2015, 11:54 AM	#40
Terwin Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Plugerville	Re: Converting "Problematic" Spells to Powers Remember, Time-out is a very powerful spell with limitations like 'Bounded by a wall of utter blackness', 'spells involving the outside automatically fail', and 'the flow of mana is effectively nill' to keep it from being an automatic 'I win this siege' spell, even with a 5 minute casting time. Time Out: VH spell Base cost: 5 Time to cast: 5 minutes Prerequisites: Magery 3 and a VH spell that requires IQ 13+ and 2 spells form each of 10 colleges. Sounds to me like the kind of spell that would only be accessible to the most powerful master wizards with a long and successful career behind them, and even then it is probably only used a few times per war as part of a critical surprise-attack where a couple archers with a cart launch $10,000 worth of arrows in an opening salvo. Getting all that for a couple hundred points seems pretty cheap, especially if it becomes quick enough that you can cast it during normal combats.(at which point it could be compared to an innate attack covering the range of a common ranged weapon of the campaign as an area of effect and doing at least as much damage as that ranged weapon, especially with the ability to focus all of that fire on one or two large targets if needed)