[RPM] Post your rituals here

[ajardoor]

Nitpick: the Firestorm charm don't have a Range modifier? That mean, the spell effect (the explosion) goes off exactly where the charm is when it gets broke.

Which means it's a sort of land mine/molotov cocktail in a magic spell.

If I'm reading it right...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Merrick

Spell #1 uses 8 energy for damage (external and blatant) does 9d. If you add in 8 more energy for AoE, you can do 9d to everyone in a 10 yard radius.

Spell #2 uses 8 energy for explosive damage (external and blatant) does only 6d which tapers off to nothing after 3 yards.

This is accurate. Note that Spell #1 has twice as much energy invested in "killing people" as Spell #2; to compare like to like, you need to invest 16 points into damage for Spell #2, upping it to 10d.

As for contact explosions, I think I may have been a bit off there - maximum damage may be more appropriate for contained explosions* than simply in cases where you directly hit the target. This implies AoE is a much more efficient method of dealing damage to an area than Explosive, making Explosive a rather poor modifier (unless you're able to make it go off inside the target somehow). The only real advantage it has is that you can create the missile, then throw it at the most important target (benefiting from high Innate Attack skill) to do a bit more damage to him/her at the cost of doing far less damage to any nearby foe.

*IIRC, HT has a properly contained explosion (that is, one that reaches the walls of a container and fails to breach them) doing double damage, which is a bit different from the maximum of contact explosives (and I think is actually due to overpressure, rather than the explosion somehow truly being stronger). Smothering a grenade probably doesn't really do any more damage than if you simply had it glued to your chest - even if you somehow formed a perfect seal with your body, that seal's going to be broken about as soon as the grenade goes off. So, it could probably go either way - note Explosive is a much better option if it's "60 damage against target, minor damage (3d at 1 yard away, 1d+2 at 2 yards away, 1d at 1 yard, etc) to surroundings," competing with area of effect's "9d damage (average 31.5) against everything within 10 yards."

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Varyon

This is accurate. Note that Spell #1 has twice as much energy invested in "killing people" as Spell #2; to compare like to like, you need to invest 16 points into damage for Spell #2, upping it to 10d.

What Merrick is trying to point out is that against multiple opponents (say 3 Orcs in a line each with 1 yard between them) Spell #1 (I know he forgot to put in range) will do 9d to each. Spell #2 if it hits the center guy (best case) and even using Varyon's 10d, will do 10d to one & 1d to the other two (if they fail their dodge).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Tinman

What Merrick is trying to point out is that against multiple opponents (say 3 Orcs in a line each with 1 yard between them) Spell #1 (I know he forgot to put in range) will do 9d to each. Spell #2 if it hits the center guy (best case) and even using Varyon's 10d, will do 10d to one & 1d to the other two (if they fail their dodge).

Yes, I'm aware (or at least believe I am) of the point Merrick is trying to make. Ignoring range considerations (where in my opinion paying energy for range is better than having to deal with it via an attack penalty), an area of effect attack will be greatly superior to an explosive one. One way to deal with this would be to require area of effect blasts to pay for area via the Area Effect Enhancement, rather than the Area of Effect Spell Modifier, but that may be overkill (it works out to about +10 energy for AoE 2, then +5 per +1 on the SSR Table). A quicker alternative would be to just assume all large area external damaging spells must be explosive (a caster can freely downgrade this to Exp0, making it not actually spread beyond the confines of its nominal space). This will probably be much more balanced - you're looking at a 6d 10-yard-radius wave of fire (optionally surrounded by a 1-yard 2d wave surrounded by a 1-yard 1d wave surrounded by a 1 yard 1d-1 wave surrounded by a 1d-2 wave, etc) vs a 10d explosion - but conflicts with the only existing example of an area effect external damage spell (Rain of Fire).

EDIT: A minor nitpick is that the adjacent orcs actually take ~3d damage, the next set 1d+2, and so forth - you divide by distance from point of impact multiplied by 3. If we roll straight average - 35 damage - for the orcs, that means we're looking at 35 damage at point of impact, 11.67 at 1 yard away, 5.83 at 2 yards, 3.89 at 3 yards, and so forth.

[Dwarf99]

Originally Posted by Tinman

If the above is true then the below is false. The question is which one is correct? Any help greatly appreceated.

So I saw what you said and I had to do a Find in Page search to get the context. The thing is, if the charm is used as a mine, I can totally see a Contact explosion (e,g. full damage because the target stepped on it) and while I don't know what the original quote of full damage was referencing, I would personally say that a thrown charm that breaks on the target is functionally a Missile Spell, which doesn't do full damage. If the user breaks the charm, he takes full damage if he doesn't exclude himself, unless there's a specific rules prohibition against the caster's own charm working against him that I'm not aware of.

[PK]

I was asked to pop in here and answer questions about Area Effect vs. Explosive, but I'm having a very hard time puzzling out exactly what the issue is and questions are. Can anyone summarize the actual questions for me?

[Merrick]

Originally Posted by PK

I was asked to pop in here and answer questions about Area Effect vs. Explosive, but I'm having a very hard time puzzling out exactly what the issue is and questions are. Can anyone summarize the actual questions for me?

Hey PK,
Thanks for chiming in. I will try to clarify the issue. According to the new RPM book (p.17) external damage is x3, but if it is explosive it x2. I guess that the intent here is that explosive does more damage to more targets. So far, so good.

The problem starts when you throw Area of Effect into a regular external, blatant spell. That build ends up being cheaper and does more damage to more targets, than the explosive version of a similar spell. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Fire Spell #1: Greater create (6) energy, (8) damage (external and blatant) does 9d6, range 20 (6), area of effect 10 yrds (8). total energy 28x3= 84 energy

Fire Spell #2: Greater create (6) energy, (16) explosive damage (external and blatant) does 10d6, range 20 (6). Total energy 28x3= 84 energy.

These two spells have the same cost. However, spell #1 does a full 9d of damage to every target within 10 yards. Spell #2 does 10d but tapers off to nothing after 3 or 4 yards. Furthermore, if a caster throws Spell #2 at a target, and the target dodges, that target only takes about 3d of damage. With Spell #1, a dodge won't help you unless you make it out the 10 yard AoE.

It just seems to me that an explosive effect that is supposed to be more powerful than regular external damage, ends up being a lot weaker when you throw in AoE to that regular external damage spell. Just as an aside, the way that we dealt with this in our games is to not allow blatant, external spells to have an AoE.

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Merrick

Hey PK,
Thanks for chiming in. I will try to clarify the issue. According to the new RPM book (p.17) external damage is x3, but if it is explosive it x2. I guess that the intent here is that explosive does more damage to more targets. So far, so good.

The problem starts when you throw Area of Effect into a regular external, blatant spell. That build ends up being cheaper and does more damage to more targets, than the explosive version of a similar spell. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Fire Spell #1: Greater create (6) energy, (8) damage (external and blatant) does 9d6, range 20 (6), area of effect 10 yrds (8). total energy 28x3= 84 energy

Fire Spell #2: Greater create (6) energy, (16) explosive damage (external and blatant) does 10d6, range 20 (6). Total energy 28x3= 84 energy.

These two spells have the same cost. However, spell #1 does a full 9d of damage to every target within 10 yards. Spell #2 does 10d but tapers off to nothing after 3 or 4 yards. Furthermore, if a caster throws Spell #2 at a target, and the target dodges, that target only takes about 3d of damage. With Spell #1, a dodge won't help you unless you make it out the 10 yard AoE.

It just seems to me that an explosive effect that is supposed to be more powerful than regular external damage, ends up being a lot weaker when you throw in AoE to that regular external damage spell. Just as an aside, the way that we dealt with this in our games is to not allow blatant, external spells to have an AoE.

Also, if it's an explosion you could shelter behind a wall or dive into a ditch or go into another room if you're in a building.
If it's an AoE there is NO shelter in that area at all!

[Kalzazz]

The part that confuses me is how 'External' and 'Area Effect' interact

The big discount from external seems to be 'normal defenses like dodge protect nicely against this', but, how does dodging work vs a 10yd radius spell for instance?

[Merrick]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

The part that confuses me is how 'External' and 'Area Effect' interact

The big discount from external seems to be 'normal defenses like dodge protect nicely against this', but, how does dodging work vs a 10yd radius spell for instance?

It doesn't.