Reactions to the new staff spells

[larsdangly]

I like the Mana and I'm down with the rising damage and range as you work your way up the staff scale. I'm a lot less interested in the IQ based to-hit, auto-hit and armor penetration. I'd rather those things evaporated and were replaced with things that are quirkier and/or more 'magical' or connected to spell casting and less about just doling out automatic damage. They remind me a bit of the sorts of powers that crept into 4E D+D (not a good thing, I would say)

[The Wyzard]

I think "does 1d6 that ignores armor" is probably about as reasonable as "does 2d6 that doesn't ignore armor", for high-level staffs. Didn't the high-level staff in AW/ITL do 2d6?

[David Bofinger]

I'm not a big fan of these. In canon TFT paradigm, where the fighters have to keep the bad guys away from the wizard and everyone has to work as a team, the vulnerability of wizards is an interesting feature. Making the wizard more effective in melee doesn't seem to add anything good: I think there are many more interesting spells we could include. Also, do we really want to introduce a new category of damage that bypasses armour? Why?

[zot]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Also, do we really want to introduce a new category of damage that bypasses armour? Why?

It's not a new category, it's like shock shield.

[Rick_Smith]

Hi all,
Apart from the "Wizards get a huge boost" when they are ALREADY the stronger class, there are a lot of things that bother me about this.

-- The description says that the various staff spells fit in the same memory slot. Since memory is now gone, this is a confusing rule and should be removed.

-- Attacking with Staffs grows easier and easier until they are infinitely accurate at Staff of power or better. WHY? Furthermore, as Ty points out, this makes strikes at the head, arms, hands, etc. broken.

-- At Mana Staff, it by passes armour. Armour of 4 to 6 points is typical (in my campaign), so this is like a 1d+2 boost to damage. At the top level staff, spell the damage gets another 2 point boost.

-- At staff of power it is a free action!!! WHY??? How does this make balanced parties more fun???

"I'm a heavy fighter but he has big armor! Call in the wizard! His attacks bypass the armor! With a staff range of two, the wizard can murder the guy while dodging, safe behind me. I guess I'll defend. Dull but smart."

***

Rather than staffs getting a grab bag of bonuses (easy to hit with them, no action to hit, armor reduction, magic armour reduction, range increases, bonus damage, and mana storage to replace fatigue ST), why not pick one (or two) and concentrate on that (or them)?

If a staff could be used to store mana and each level gave an improvement in that ability, people would spend the XP to improve the staff spell. It is enough. It is sufficient. It is logical.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by zot

It's not a new category, it's like shock shield.

Yes, I'm a bit concerned about this. I would at least make the staff damage a "spell effect" that has to be cast to work. I know that increases the dice rolling, since there is also a roll to hit, but I don't think the effect should be "automatic"

I need to think more about this.

[CarWarsE]

I may be a bit too removed from GMing TFT by now. But I think that the staff rules might be OK with just a bit of change. I think I would prefer to see the pluses to hit removed and the free attack removed (or made into another level of the spell making the overall number of them higher with a greater IQ requirement for the top). I think I would also prefer a DX roll to hit with the staff until the higher levels at least.

That way, the wizard shouldn't be over powerful at low levels, and by the time the party has more experience, the battles would more likely be starting at range anyway with some pretty dangerous missle shots. That should limit the overall effectiveness of the staff some.

Or perhaps I'm missing something...


Oh - I remember now - and adjust the mana staff so that it is two levels of spell making the bypass of armor higher (perhaps around IQ 16) - or maybe allowing it to bypass one point of armor for each level of spell after level 3 or 4.

[RobW]

I would echo the other comments arguing the combat capabilities of the new staff spells are out of hand.

I've done further simulations based on what i can understand of the proposals and they are disheartening. The sims assume the wizard uses the free and automatically-successful staff attack, coupled with a defend action. No spells. Just defending and allowing his staff to effortlessly yet perfectly land hits on the opponent -- :P

A ST11 DX12 IQ17 wizard with this strategy beats a well-armed ST12 DX20 IQ8 fighter about a third of the time. The wizard won MOST of the time against Weapons Masters and Experts (at least many of them) by circumventing their defensive protection (if that is indeed what would happen, rules not clear). Even against the UCV uber fighter, the wizard won about a third of the time, although again not clear how the automatic striking interacts with defenses.

It is of course worse if you allow the wizard to wear lots of armor, or use DX as a dump stat since he is infinitely accurate anyway. Conan the Wizard version 2!

Personally I don't see the game need or narrative for staff to improve melee skills of wizard in such profound ways.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Terrrrible idea for so many reasons.

I agree with most of everyone else about the OP power level of it all and free attacks, strange new rule types, etc.

But in my mind, the worst thing is this:
Wizards don't need ST now, not even for spell casting because now they can just store mana in their staff, and do damage with their IQ through the staff.

And to make it worse, now they don't even need DX, IQ rules all even when it comes to combat. And out of combat support spells aren't that time sensitive so a low DX wizard can manage by recasting spells until you succeed.

TFT used to be about the trade-off between the main stats. You could have a stupid clumsy but strong Wizard. Maybe not so efficient, but at least he could chuck those magic fists all day and still take a punch. If he picked up a club he could even defend himself fairly well. Now every wizard will be cookie cutter builds with high IQ, and maybe a little DX, maybe... And they will all fight like Gandalf in melee.

With three main attributes where you can choose archetypes with a primary, a secondary and a third attribute. You have a potential of 6 combos and maybe a few more if you want to balance your stats almost equally. And this is times two since a wizard and a fighter is very different even if the attributes are the same.

So you start out with at least 15 attribute builds before you chose your talents and spells and you still can fine tune your attributes since one more here and one less there really makes a difference. The variety is huge. This staff spell takes away a lot of those possible builds. A lot! I would go so far as to say that there will only be two wizard archetypes with the staff spell in play. Almost maxed out IQ and Hight IQ with a little DX.

This is not a minor change to how wizards play it is much bigger than giving all fighters an active parry or adding a rule for multiple attacks in a round similar to old versions of D&D. Or an IQ 9 talent letting fighters use ST instead of DX on the to hit rolls. HUGE and game-changing, possibly also game breaking but others brought up the balance problem.

I understand that we need more casting mana for wizards, it has always been a problem. But it should be strongly based or linked to ST in some way. And anything that has to do with hitting or casting spells should involve DX.

I would rather see something along an implement/fetish (that could be a staff or just about anything else or a crystal that could be fitted to a staff. And that personal soul crystal or thingie could holdST/2, ST and STx2 extra mana for the wizard with the right three spells.

And then a wizard's weapon spell (staff spell) that is basically a temporary/semipermanent enchanted weapon. So you are limited by the rule of five but don't have to pay any gold or enchantment time to add this temporary and personal use enchantment on top of any other enchantments that might be on the weapon or item.

And it could be up to +5 (for different tiers of the spell) on DX or damage or a mix depending on what was needed. And sometimes weak wizards would put it on pens or easily concealed wands because +5 damage still hurts in a civilian setting. Like a knight having a sidearm when not armed for war. And on the battlefield, they brought their sturdy 2-h easy to use club in the form of a staff (not a quarterstaff unless they had the talent) and used that for protection. And it would be good enough if it was enchanted.

And the dual classed martial wizard that invested in Sword talent could enchant the sword and swing a really magical weapon, to make up for his investment in IQ, spells and expensive talents. And this combo would open up some new archetypes instead of making them fewer. And it would also open up for lower IQ fighters that only dabbled in spells to make use of the lower IQ spells that usually never see actual play. I could even see a monk with enchanted knuckle dusters or cesti.

I like rules that gives us new balanced options and variety.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

... But in my mind, the worst thing is this:
Wizards don't need ST now, not even for spell casting because now they can just store mana in their staff, and do damage with their IQ through the staff.

And to make it worse, now they don't even need DX, IQ rules all even when it comes to combat. And out of combat support spells aren't that time sensitive so a low DX wizard can manage by recasting spells until you succeed. ...

Hi Everyone, Nils.
Very good point Nils. I might like the Staff storage better, if it could hold mana equal to the 2xST of the wizard (for the best staff). So a wizard with a staff and ST 8, DX 10, IQ 19, could have 24 fatigue ST for casting spells. But a wizard with ST 12, DX 11 and IQ 14 could have 36 fatigue ST.

In both cases the wizard has LOTS of fatigue ST, but in the latter, the wizard is rewarded in a meaningful way, for putting some attributes into ST.

Warm regards, Rick