Breathe Fire / Lightning Stare / etc. in 4e

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

A question for DF mages in specific but also for 4e in general:

How do the various Breathe X / X Stare spells work now in 4e? In 3e, it was clear:

Turn 1: Concentrate, 1 of 2.
Turn 2: Concentrate, 2 of 2.
Just prior to this turn, roll for the spell. If it succeeds:
Turn 3: Attack with the spell.

In 4e, it's less clear, because the spells have a one-second duration, cannot be maintain, and are Regular spells.

If it is . . .

Turn 1: Concentrate, 1 of 2.
Turn 2: Concentrate, 2 of 2, roll the spell.
Turn 3: Attack.

. . . you get a spell that is finished on turn 2, but cannot be fire off until turn 3. What happens if you get interrupted between them?
Also, it's just an attack, with melee weapon ranges, so presumably it's a melee weapon (Breathe Fire specifically back-references Flame Jet, which is a melee weapon) and can use All-Out Attack, Move and Attack, etc. normally. What if you don't or can't attack? The spell is just "lost"?

I'm debating a few ways of handling these:

- Do the above. Kind of sucks, from actual play experience.

- Treat it as a Melee spell with long Reach. So you can charge it and hold it, and then unleash it later but it counts as a Melee spell on as usual (per Magic p. 11).

I'm leaning towards the second one, with the addition downside that you can't talk when any "Breathe" spell is held ready and charged. Not sure what to do with Lightning Stare. Maybe the eyes crackle and it's easy for monsters to spot (Per bonus) and gives you Per penalties equal to the dice of damage of the spell.

Any suggestions on these, or experience in actual play in DF games especially?

Peter

PS - Please don't turn this into a "magic is broken" thread. I don't care if it's broken right now, I care about how to make these spells playable and useable with a focus on DF.

[Mailanka]

It's
Concentrate: 1 of 2
Concentrate: 2 of 2
(End of turn: Roll for spell, if successful:) Attack!

So there's functionally no time between rolling to see if you cast the spell and the attack. If you're interrupted, you make a Will-3 check to see if you can keep the concentration up.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

It's
Concentrate: 1 of 2
Concentrate: 2 of 2
(End of turn: Roll for spell, if successful:) Attack!

So there's functionally no time between rolling to see if you cast the spell and the attack. If you're interrupted, you make a Will-3 check to see if you can keep the concentration up.

That's pretty wonky. When are you taking that Attack maneuver?

Turn 1: Concentrate.
Turn 2: Concentrate AND Attack.

That's two maneuvers, and the spells specifically state it takes an action to attack. You don't get two of them.

If you mean:

Turn 1: Concentrate.
Turn 2: Concentrate.
Turn 3: Attack.

Then you can get interrupted, because you roll the spell on Turn 2 not just before Turn 3 like in 3e. That would also put you in the odd position of having a cast but not yet used Regular spell. I'm trying to think of other spells that do that and I can't think of any offhand, at least not ones that have an external combat effect like these spells do.

[Bruno]

They're essentially <X> Jet spells that come out of your face, take two seconds to cast, and cannot be maintained. Their sole real advantage over Jet is that they require no free hands - Flame Jet et al can of course be cast gesture free by highly skilled wizards (like most DF wizards), but still come out of your hand - meaning that if you're hanging off a cliff/rope/ladder/etc, or tied up, you can't direct your attack and you may set yourself on fire.

They're not "bread-and-butter" combat spells, they're "AHA you thought I was HELPLESS did you!?" spells.

On the plus side, they benefit normally from casting time reductions.

So: For comparison, the normal sequence for Flame Jet (As I understand it) is

Your Turn 1) Concentrate, roll Flame Jet. You now hold a Flame Jet, but you can't attack with it this turn unless you've got Accelerated Time Rate from somewhere. You are ready to defend with it if your GM lets you parry with Flame Jet (I'd let you parry another energy Jet spell or a light saber with one, for reference). Importantly, at this point you can no longer have your Concentration disrupted.

Your Turn 2) Attack! Maintain!

Your Turn 3) Attack! Maintain!

etc.

For Breathe Fire (without casting time reductions), the sequence (As I understand it) is:

Your Turn 1) Concentrate. Hope nobody interrupts you.

Your Turn 2) Concentrate, roll Breathe Fire. FOOOOSH! You now have a jet of flame coming out of your mouth. Importantly, at this point you can no longer have your Concentration disrupted.

Your Turn 3) Attack! aaand you are done because there's no maintenance, only 1s duration, and you now have to start over.



I have two alternating suggestions for a DF game:
1) Leave these spells as they are, but remind players they're sort of emergencies-only as written.

2) Allow them to be maintained like Flame Jet.

#1 will probably result in seeing less use of them unless someone's really desperate to punch through defenses. As one of the "cooler" types of spells, this would make me sort of sad as a GM, but I can cope. If you want to encourage their use because you like the flashy look, this may not be the solution for you.

#2 has the issue that you're getting a damage increase for the same energy cost as the regular <X> Jet form; if you allow regular <X> Jet to parry things (Even just energy weapons) I would suggest disallowing this for the <X> Breath/Stare spells or only at a penalty. Considering the "start up time", I'd say they're otherwise basically fair for the damage bonus.

[Kazander]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

Turn 1: Concentrate.
Turn 2: Concentrate.
Turn 3: Attack.

I'm pretty sure this is the way it's supposed to be done. And it does suck.

This is one of the reasons I allow a couple of things.

I have a special Archmage advantage. Amongst other things, it allows a caster to cast and attack in the same round with melee and missile spells. However, both rolls are at -6, similar to a Rapid Strike. The penalty can also be reduced with further advantages.

I allow spellcasters to voluntarily reduce their casting skill (note this is instead of, not in conjunction with, the benefits of high casting skill--reduced time and energy costs): -2 for 1 point reduced cost to cast, and -3 for each halving of casting time.

Combined, you could get -9 to cast and -6 to attack, and cast and attack with Breathe Fire in 1 turn. Further advantages could reduce this to -6/-3. But these are House Rules.

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

- Treat it as a Melee spell with long Reach. So you can charge it and hold it, and then unleash it later but it counts as a Melee spell on as usual (per Magic p. 11).

I'm leaning towards the second one, with the addition downside that you can't talk when any "Breathe" spell is held ready and charged. Not sure what to do with Lightning Stare. Maybe the eyes crackle and it's easy for monsters to spot (Per bonus) and gives you Per penalties equal to the dice of damage of the spell.

Any suggestions on these, or experience in actual play in DF games especially?

This is what I do, though not in DF particularly. You might want to use mechanics similar to Hang Spell if you do this:

1) You declare when concentrating if you are Concentrating to Cast, or Concentrating to Hold.
2) You don't roll for spell success until the attack maneuver.

That way, the ability to treat these as Melee spells isn't getting something for nothing.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Bruno

For Breathe Fire (without casting time reductions), the sequence (As I understand it) is:

Your Turn 1) Concentrate. Hope nobody interrupts you.

Your Turn 2) Concentrate, roll Breathe Fire. FOOOOSH! You now have a jet of flame coming out of your mouth. Importantly, at this point you can no longer have your Concentration disrupted.

Your Turn 3) Attack! aaand you are done because there's no maintenance, only 1s duration, and you now have to start over.

Yeah, which makes them very expensive and kind of lame. You don't really want to spend a lot of effort getting good at them, because they aren't cheap and don't work that well. Which isn't a major issue, but . . .

Originally Posted by Bruno

I have two alternating suggestions for a DF game:
1) Leave these spells as they are, but remind players they're sort of emergencies-only as written.

I'll probably do that, but I'm still mulling over treating them as Melee spells. If you can't cast other spells while they are ready, they make good surprise attack spells and they aren't exactly cheap. But I might just stick with the RAW and have them suck. I don't particularly care; mages get a lot of bang for the buck in the basic magic system so I'm not going to cry too much if they lose a little on these spells.

I'm not thinking adding more house rules than that. I'd like to minimize my house rules in this game, for a lot of reasons, and shifting them from an existing spell type to another existing spell type is an easy fix where adding advantages, etc. for them is a much deeper fix.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

A question for DF mages in specific but also for 4e in general:

How do the various Breathe X / X Stare spells work now in 4e? In 3e, it was clear:

Turn 1: Concentrate, 1 of 2.
Turn 2: Concentrate, 2 of 2.
Just prior to this turn, roll for the spell. If it succeeds:
Turn 3: Attack with the spell.

In 4e, it's less clear, because the spells have a one-second duration, cannot be maintain, and are Regular spells.

If it is . . .

Turn 1: Concentrate, 1 of 2.
Turn 2: Concentrate, 2 of 2, roll the spell.
Turn 3: Attack.

. . . you get a spell that is finished on turn 2, but cannot be fire off until turn 3. What happens if you get interrupted between them?
Also, it's just an attack, with melee weapon ranges, so presumably it's a melee weapon (Breathe Fire specifically back-references Flame Jet, which is a melee weapon) and can use All-Out Attack, Move and Attack, etc. normally. What if you don't or can't attack? The spell is just "lost"?

I'm debating a few ways of handling these:

- Do the above. Kind of sucks, from actual play experience.

- Treat it as a Melee spell with long Reach. So you can charge it and hold it, and then unleash it later but it counts as a Melee spell on as usual (per Magic p. 11).

I'm leaning towards the second one, with the addition downside that you can't talk when any "Breathe" spell is held ready and charged. Not sure what to do with Lightning Stare. Maybe the eyes crackle and it's easy for monsters to spot (Per bonus) and gives you Per penalties equal to the dice of damage of the spell.

Any suggestions on these, or experience in actual play in DF games especially?

Peter

PS - Please don't turn this into a "magic is broken" thread. I don't care if it's broken right now, I care about how to make these spells playable and useable with a focus on DF.

Under 3e it went off at the beginninf of the next turn. it's range is it's reach as a melee attack.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

I'll probably do that, but I'm still mulling over treating them as Melee spells. If you can't cast other spells while they are ready, they make good surprise attack spells and they aren't exactly cheap. But I might just stick with the RAW and have them suck. I don't particularly care; mages get a lot of bang for the buck in the basic magic system so I'm not going to cry too much if they lose a little on these spells.

I think it's reasonable to allow the spell to be held until used, it seems consistent with Melee spells and it doesn't seem broken. It might be fun to say that a Breathe spell thus held prevents the caster from talking, though.

I'm not thinking adding more house rules than that. I'd like to minimize my house rules in this game, for a lot of reasons, and shifting them from an existing spell type to another existing spell type is an easy fix where adding advantages, etc. for them is a much deeper fix.

It's GURPS Magic, so don't think of it as a house rule; think of it as an errata fix for a deeply flawed book. :)

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

Under 3e it went off at the beginninf of the next turn. it's range is it's reach as a melee attack.

Right, I know all that - I outlined it at the beginning of the post you quoted.

I just didn't have them come up in play under 4e rules - the last person to use one of these (Lightning Stare, actually) did it in 3e, and had it bought high enough to be instantaneous (Lightning Stare-25 IIRC). It came up yesterday in a DF game and stopped us when the caster asked about how to use it with All-Out Attack.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I think it's reasonable to allow the spell to be held until used, it seems consistent with Melee spells and it doesn't seem broken. It might be fun to say that a Breathe spell thus held prevents the caster from talking, though.

Yeah. Just doing the RAW will work for me, but I think making them held as a melee spell w/annoying side effects while held is also pretty funny. I'll need to mull them over and see which one I like.

My goal in this campaign is to minimize the number of house rules we use, but a few have to come up just to fix some of the insufficiently-revised Magic spells. I knew that going in, so it's a question of "sucky RAW version" versus "more fun but house-ruled Melee spell version."