Talent/Spell of the Week: Remove Thrown Spell

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Word of Command is a Special spell, so Remove Thrown Spell would be useless against it.

But who cares? I haven't had any NPCs, much less PCs, who've used that IQ 20 spell. The thrown spell Freeze is much, much more likely to be a problem.

Henry, do you have a lot of wizards learning Word of Command: Freeze? It would be a useful Word, I suppose, more useful than Sing.

[hcobb]

I'm considering a villain who combines WOC Freeze with Drain Strength.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by hcobb

I'm considering a villain who combines WOC Freeze with Drain Strength.

Sounds like an interesting idea.

[Axly Suregrip]

Shapeshift states, "The spell is permanent unless removed by Dissolve Enchantment, a wish, or another shapeshift." Even through it is a thrown spell, that statement is saying it is immune to RTS.

Has anyone seen RTS used to remove a Weapon or Armor enchantment? See ITL 28 & 166. That is, to reduce a magic sword of +2 DX to a +1 DX, etc. Seems like you are ruining your spoils so I doubt most would do this, but a fun little quirk intentionally in the rules.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Shapeshift states, "The spell is permanent unless removed by Dissolve Enchantment, a wish, or another shapeshift." Even through it is a thrown spell, that statement is saying it is immune to RTS.

Has anyone seen RTS used to remove a Weapon or Armor enchantment? See ITL 28 & 166. That is, to reduce a magic sword of +2 DX to a +1 DX, etc. Seems like you are ruining your spoils so I doubt most would do this, but a fun little quirk intentionally in the rules.

You'd have to know the weapon or armor is enchanted, which is not so common for a simple weapon enchantment.

This raises a question I hadn't thought of. RTS is itself a thrown spell, so it targets a person or object. Does it remove EVERY thrown spell on the person or object? (Aside from Weapon/Armor enchantments, I don't know any enchantments that would be removed using RTS offhand, but other thrown spells might be cast on the object. And a person might have a slew of thrown spells affecting him.)

My interpretation is that if the spell succeeds, every thrown spell is removed.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Shapeshift states, "The spell is permanent unless removed by Dissolve Enchantment, a wish, or another shapeshift." Even through it is a thrown spell, that statement is saying it is immune to RTS.

But how do you reconcile that with the fact that the Remove Thrown Spell says that it works on all thrown spells except Spell Shield? The two don't agree, so one or both must be wrong. If the former, who is to say which, and with what authority?

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Does it remove EVERY thrown spell on the person or object? (Aside from Weapon/Armor enchantments, I don't know any enchantments that would be removed using RTS offhand, but other thrown spells might be cast on the object. And a person might have a slew of thrown spells affecting him.)

My interpretation is that if the spell succeeds, every thrown spell is removed.

The spell name is singular (contrast with Dispel Illusions), and the spell description states it nullifies "an enemy spell", which suggests you select one. If casting it "blind" on a person or object with more than one active Thrown spell, perhaps Remove Thrown Spell should nullify them in the same order that Reveal works?

[Axly Suregrip]

Originally Posted by Shostak

But how do you reconcile that with the fact that the Remove Thrown Spell says that it works on all thrown spells except Spell Shield? The two don't agree, so one or both must be wrong. If the former, who is to say which, and with what authority?

Except it does not say "works on all thrown spells except Spell Shield." Instead it states it works on "any Thrown-type spell" and also gives a list of exceptions that is not inclusive: "Has no effect on spells other than Thrown type, on most magic items (but see p. 166), or on the Spell Shield." The difference is slight but this allows for exception to be mentioned, and in the case of Shapeshift the exception is explicit.

ITL 33, "The spell is permanent unless removed by Dissolve Enchantment, a wish, or another shapeshift." This lists only extreme measures to remove Shapeshifting. Dissolve Enchantment (IQ 17; cost 50), a wish (gained by summoning a demon IQ 17; cost 30 plus a pentagram and risking your life), or another Shapeshift (IQ 18; cost 20). The IQ 14 & cost 2 RTS does not fit in this list.

[Axly Suregrip]

Originally Posted by Shostak

The spell name is singular (contrast with Dispel Illusions), and the spell description states it nullifies "an enemy spell", which suggests you select one. If casting it "blind" on a person or object with more than one active Thrown spell, perhaps Remove Thrown Spell should nullify them in the same order that Reveal works?

I totally agree with Shostak. Even the example of removing a weapon/armor enchantment says it will remove 1 point only. See ITL 166, "and will subtract
one damage, defense, or DX bonus from an item of weapon or armor under the Enchant Weapons/Armor spell". And ITL 28, "but the bonuses on a multiply-enchanted object must be removed one at a time."

The hard part is when there are multiple enchantments to remove and the wizard did not do Analyze Magic/Reveal Magic... so how does he know which one to remove. Does he get a choice or just randomly choose one. For example, the foe has Blur and Stone Flesh on himself and the casting wizard clearly knows about Blur but maybe not about Stone Flesh. If the wizard is casting it for a specific purpose, say specifically to get rid of a flesh hardening, even without knowledge, I would allow it. But what then if it was only Blur? It just gets weird to cast a general remove spell when there may be none to several unknown targets.

Good thing this never comes up since RTS is never used in combat.

[Steve Plambeck]

I'm partial to treating RTS as spell-specific and not generic. The caster of RTS should have to know (or think they know) the exact spell they are trying to remove -- that just feels like the right flavor.

I'd want to require the caster to point at their target and loudly invoke (in the Sorcerer's Tongue of course) "Remove Blur!" or "Remove Flight!" or "Remove Invisibility!". And if that specific spell isn't present, then RTS fizzles, it costs them 1 ST, and they are aware of it. How would you say "Oops!" in Sorcerer's Tongue?

I'd probably allow RTS to work though if the spell they named was the right sort, just of lesser degree. For example, "Remove Iron Flesh" would be close enough to work even if it turned out the target was only under a Stone Flesh spell. Just maybe, I'd even allow for the opposite and let "Remove Stone Flesh" cast on a target that was actually under Iron Flesh reduce that spell to mere Stone Flesh rather than cancel the enchantment entirely.

What's a shame is that none of these really fun questions ever came up in all my years of play -- no one ever used RTS! Maybe RTS does need a tweak to get it into play, although I'm danged if I can think of what that would be.