Meta-Spells: Delay

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

At 450 points, you can probably do this:
.
Snip

(You will need a large ER and FP pool for the above, since the +9 DX costs 36 energy, 33 with the high skill discounts. You want to keep ER and FP pool at similar levels to maximize recovery times)

As Kurshima points out it can be very very effective...and as the point totals go up a mages power can inflate fairly quickly.

Tactics/Spells that are effective at 150 pts can be unprintable obscenities at 450 pts.

Enjoy!

[cccwebs]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Get Delay and Maintain Spell.
Delay now costs 0 to maintain. This means that Maintain Spell will provide 5 duration intervals per FP spent. Maintain spell has it's cost reduced by 3, so baseline, you get 30 hours of delayed spells, and they don't count as spells on.

Unless this has been addressed elsewhere, the spell that is being delayed isn't "active" until it has been triggered but it counts as a spell "on". This is important as Maintain Spell can only be cast on an "active" spell. While the caster can use Maintain Spell on Delay (and thus Delay no longer counts as "on"), the caster can't cast Maintain Spell on the linked spell until after it has activated (which means that the linked spell still counts as "on"). The combo of the two would only reduce the penalty to -1 for one spell "on" for each delayed spell that has Delay combined with Maintain Spell, not remove the penalty entirely.

[vierasmarius]

When a spell is Delayed, only Delay itself counts as "on" until the spell activates. As such, Delay can be Maintained and the mage effectively has no spells on. When the Delay is triggered, and the spell it carries is activated, it logically would henceforth be "on" for the casting wizard (assuming it has a duration). I suppose you'd need to Delay an additional copy of Maintain Spell to get around that, though that's seriously stretching the bounds of Magic RAW.

For example, let's say a wizard (skill 15) wants to Delay (for up to 6 hours) the spell Missile Shield (5 to cast, 2 to maintain) with enough energy to keep it up for 5 minutes (5 cycles). He casts Delay-15 (2 FP) then Missile Shield (4 FP) and gives it a suitable trigger. He then casts Maintain Spell-14 (11 FP, for 6 cycles of 2 FP) on the Delay spell. Next, he casts Delay-15 (2 FP) and Maintain Spell (4 FP, for 5 cycles of 1 FP) with the trigger of "upon activation of Missile Shield." He finishes up by casting Maintain Spell-14 (11 FP) on the second Delay.

It's a lengthy process, with a total energy cost of 34 FP, but that can be split up into segments of no more than 11 FP at a time. The end result is that when the first Delayed spell is triggered, it casts Missile Shield-14, then Maintain Spell-13 (or possibly both at skill 15, if you interpret Maintain Spell as obviating the note in Delay about spells on) ultimately giving the subject Missile Shield for 5 minutes with no immediate energy cost or skill penalty. This obviously becomes more practical at skill 20, as the energy cost drops dramatically for each step in the process; he'd be able to pull the same trick for a total of 13 energy, and Missile Shield would last for 10 minutes instead of 5.

[cccwebs]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

When a spell is Delayed, only Delay itself counts as "on" until the spell activates.

Unless there's an errata that I don't have (which isn't listed on the errata pages for Magic or on the FAQ), Magic p131 clearly states "Both the Delay and the linked spell count as “on” for spellcasting purposes". Once the linked spell is activated, the Delay spell no longer counts as "on". So, without the use of Maintain Spell, any spell that has been linked with Delay counts as at least 2 spells on (any information spells also linked into the combo count as an additional spell "on"). Maintain Spell on Delay would remove one of those spells from being considered "on". Of course, Maintain Spell could be cast for the information spell also and remove it from being "on" as well.

[cccwebs]

Originally Posted by Snaps

Using Delay to hang spells like this is my favorite tactic. It really allows a wizard to prepare for the worst.

The real limiting factor with Delay is that each Delayed spell gives you a -1 to all other spells you cast. If you have 5 spells delayed, then you are at -5 anytime you cast a spell.

There is a way around this however. Maintain Spell allows you to feed energy into a spell, making it independent and removing the -1 to your spell casting. The drawback is that the spell is no longer under your control.

Actually, both Delay and the linked spell count as "on" for spellcasting purposes. So each spell you prep with delay counts as a minimum* of -2 to all future spell casting. You can reduce that penalty by one point** by casting Maintain Spell on the Delay, but you can't cast Maintain Spell on the linked spell until is is activated.


* some triggering conditions may require the additional casting of an Information spell, which also counts as a spell "on" adding to the penalty.

** you could also remove the penalty for any Information spell added by using Maintain Spell for it.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by cccwebs

Unless there's an errata that I don't have (which isn't listed on the errata pages for Magic or on the FAQ), Magic p131 clearly states "Both the Delay and the linked spell count as “on” for spellcasting purposes". Once the linked spell is activated, the Delay spell no longer counts as "on". So, without the use of Maintain Spell, any spell that has been linked with Delay counts as at least 2 spells on (any information spells also linked into the combo count as an additional spell "on"). Maintain Spell on Delay would remove one of those spells from being considered "on". Of course, Maintain Spell could be cast for the information spell also and remove it from being "on" as well.

You're right, now that I read more closely. That would complicate the sequence a bit, but should still be doable. I think I was confused because Hang Spell only counts as one spell "on", and is very similar to Delay.