Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-26-2022, 12:05 PM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default can Order from Chaos fuel a Blocking spell?

OFC is from Pg 10 of "Horror Magic"

Since it can harvest energy from crit fails, as some of the B236 crit fail results include stuff like "spell is cast on caster" or "spell is cast on companions" it made me wonder if you could use this to fuel something defensive like Ward (Magic 122) to stop the spell from hitting the caster or his allies.

Or possibly a spell you had Reflexed (Magic 132) since costs of reflexed spells aren't paid until activated.

The reason I'm not sure is despite being listed as "Special" (not "Blocking") because it says "Must be cast as a “Blocking” spell the instant the caster witnesses another mage critically fail" it makes me wonder if that would count as your Active Defense in response to the "attack" since B241 says "You may cast only one Blocking spell per turn"

The question is if the 'special' spell works like a 'blocking' spell also seems important to know for energy cost - although it is zero on a success, there is a base cost of 1 energy on failures which begs the question if high skill (15+) would reduce the cost of failures to zero, or if per B241 "Blocking spells do not get an energy cost reduction for high skill" and failures would always be 1.

- - -

If it wouldn't normally be legal I'm wondering if anyone knows various ways one might attempt multiple blocking spells against the same attack, sort of like All-Out Defense : Double.

This type of ban also exists against Power Defenses (ie you can't Power Dodge w/ Insubstantiality and then Power Block with your Forcefield DR if your dodge fails) which similarly makes me wonder if there are ways to get more than one attempt per attack/spell.

The closest thing to this know of is Blocking Spell Mastery from pg 23 of Thaumatology - Magical Styles. Would it seem reasonable if we did count Order From Chaos as a blocking spell (IE normally cannot use it to fuel Ward) that you could take BSM for OFC and follow it up w/ any blocking spell you also had BSM for?

This only talks about casting multiple blocking spells per TURN though (not per attack, or per spell) and only talks about getting a +2 to casting by taking "All-Out Defense : Determined". There is no mention of AOD:Double, but it does say "All other rules for All-Out Defense apply normally" so I'm not sure whether this means you could do a OFC>Ward or OFC>Reflexed chain using AOD:double if you had a pair of appropriate BSM perks.

- -

Given how last-minute a perception of a critical fail is (seems like you need to be watching the second casting is completed) you probably don't have much time to spontaneously think of what spell to fuel w/ Order from Chaos (unless you EXPECT a crit fail) so thinking ahead of time what spells you would fuel in a situation like this seems to make sense.

If it's not a blocking spell to negate the effects of a crit fail then maybe something like Lend Energy to restore FP they lost casting, or a healing spell to heal the injury you couldn't stop, etc might be common?

- - -

If you can't decide right away, I was also wondering if there might be a way that would let you hold onto that extra energy until you decided on what spell you wanted to use it to fuel.

At first I thought the Continuous Ritual perk (Magical Styles 23) but it doesn't seem appropriate since that delays a spell 'going off' and arguably "captures the excess energy of a crit fail" IS the effect so you need it to go off right away.

There's actually two aspects here (capture the energy, funnel that energy into a new spell) so another idea might the the "Delay" enhancement (B105) per the Thamautology 39 "Adjustable Spells" rules.

variable delay 1-10 seconds (+10%) is -2 skill +2 energy cost for spells, for example. If this weren't a standard rule then one of the three AS perks (Magical Styles 21) could be required for it, like Spell Variation (Order from Chaos) or Spell Enhancement (Delay) or Enhanced Spell (OFC/delay)

- - -

Triggered Delay +50% (-5 skill +5 energy) would be very useful (you could hold that energy indefinitely until you need it) but what could balance that out IMO is that until you actually spend that energy it should count as a 'spell on' (-1 penalties) and sinc there is no duration/maintenance you wouldn't be able to get around it using spells like Maintain Spell, only the Reduced Footprint (Magical Styles 29) perk.

If that's still too powerful, one could posit it is vulnerable to stuff like Counterspell (if it succeeds you cannot trigger it to give you the energy for casting) and maybe activating a Triggered Delay (B105) should require an extra Concentrate maneuver? You could then require taking "Reduced Time +20%" for the purposes of reducing Triggered Delay to a free action (allowing it to be done instantaneously) to allow a 'triggered delay' spell to fuel a spell without adding to its casting time?

- -

Another drawback I've considered about Order from Chaos is normally, you need to decide when you finish casting it what spell you are going to immediately cast - you could still require that.

IE if I cast Order from Chaos (Triggered Delay +50%) you still need to specify something like "but when I trigger it I can only use it to cast Fireball". This would make it a lot more specialized and less exploitable as "free energy I hold onto indefinitely"

If that were the case then getting around that ('energy I can trigger to cast any spell') could require something like Rules Exemption (Magical Styles 29)?

Or if "one perk allows all spells" is too broad, maybe treating "Extra Option" like a leveled perk and each level of EO lets you choose a broadening set of spells you might cast it on:
EO1 [1] (Fireball or Lightning)
EO2 [2] (Fireball or Lightning or Lesser Healing)
Plane is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
blocking spells, horror magic, order from chaos, reflex, ward

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:43 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.