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Old 04-02-2020, 03:11 PM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default range caps on spell maintenance?

M9 doesn't seem to have range be any sort of issue:

If you do, the spell endures for another interval equal to
its duration.
This takes no time and requires no skill roll.
Distance is not a factor.
This leads to situations where you might cast a spell on someone, then take a plane flight thousands of miles away (or maybe a rocket light years away) or jump into another dimension, and still be able to automatically sense when spells need renewed, by able to renew them as a free action, never roll, etc.

I'm looking for ideas on how we might possibly fiddle with that to create situations where there might be some kind of roll involved that could take varying range penalties, perhaps add requirements for refreshing the spell (like a concentrate maneuver) etc.

If we looked at "Maintain Spell Manual" (to avoid confusion with M128's meta-college "Maintain Spell" which might be thought of "Maintain Spell Auto" for distinction) as something with a built-in "No Roll Required" and "free action", introducing factors like this might be like adding limitations to an advantage like "requires skill roll" or "takes extra time" or "Short-Range"...

The means of adding limitations to spells would exist by adding limited enhancements to them via T39 "Adjustible Spells".

Normally AFAIK the extra FP that you pay to introduce these enhancements applies just to the initial casting cost and not the maintenance cost, though I'm not 100% confident at that conclusion, it's just what this text seems to imply:
by spending additional energy and taking a penalty to effective skill at the time of casting.
Of course there are some cases where maintenance cost aren't fixed and are based on initial casting costs (like "half to maintain") in which case a higher initial cost should increase the maintenance costs too.

What I'm thinking of is this: instead of applying enhancements to the initial costs (the spell effect) we construct "maintenance-only enhancements".

This idea would involve violating the complete prohibition against "reduced fatigue cost" and "extended duration". The purpose here would actually be to buy these, but with the necessity that you have to add "requires skill roll" and if you fail it, you lose the extra FP and don't get the benefit of the enhancements.

Since these +20% enhancements are so expensive (+4 FP) it's generally not worth the effort of getting to -1 to FP cost.

However if you made them as cheap as possible, you can create a situation where it's eventually worth it.

For example: "Reduced Fatigue Cost 5 +100%) would normally cost 20 FP using "Adjustible Spells" rules. It's pointless, you're just paying 15 more FP for the pleasure of taking -20 to skill.

But: if you take Reduced Fatigue Cost 5 +20% (Limited Enhancement -80%) this will only cost you 4 FP (and -4 to skill) so you can end up saving 1 FP in the maintenance cost per -4 to skill so long as you take -80% worth in limitations to the maintenance.

Taking a -4 to skill penalty, given that mages get -1 to cost per 5 points of skill, probably isn't much worth it if it made you lose your discount to maintenance FP costs, so maybe don't have it affect that?

That is where you could add discounts like 'requires skill roll' or 'short range' or 'takes extra time' or 'requires preparation' or whatnot. It would have to be a generous collection of limitations to add up to -80%.

What I propose so it's not too broken (IE you can't just get FP cost down to 0 for free magic doing this) is that you ignore the rule about 1/2
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Old 04-02-2020, 03:35 PM   #2
Refplace
 
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
Default Re: range caps on spell maintenance?

Seems kind of complicated to me, if I wanted to factor in a range limit I would just say as a House Rule you have to roll against the spell applying Long Distance modifiers as a Free Action. You may take extra time to increase effective skill.
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Old 04-02-2020, 07:58 PM   #3
mburr0003
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Default Re: range caps on spell maintenance?

A simpler method is just to track Long-Distance penalties and apply to skill for "cost reduction purposes". Then the further away the "spell travels" the more costly to maintain. If that doesn't deter the caster, not much else will.
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