Talent/Spell of the Week: Remove Thrown Spell

[hcobb]

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

[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?

[Bill_in_IN]

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.

In my Classic TFT days, we had a character that was proud of his flaming Great Sword. One time, in the middle of battle against a similarly decked out foe, his sword flame went out and he lost 1d+1 damage. Apparently, there was an invisible wizard lurking around the scene. While it was an "Oh Crap!" moment, He was still able to take out his foe but he took considerably more damage than anticipated because he wasn't dealing out as much damage himself. I guess that this is Remove Enchantment as opposed to RTS.

However, the GM would occasionally remove enchantments from rings and even RTS some thrown spells during the course of battle or even in downtime between battle. Apparently, unbeknownst to us, a wizard was watching and listening to us.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

RTS is a critical spell for when you've been cursed. But how often do you get cursed? And when you are, do you urgently need to be decursed, or can you go to the wizard's guild in the next town and get the problem fixed there? It depends, but IMX mostly the latter.

Of course, that all depends on the specifics of the given adventure, but it could absolutely be urgent.

The problem with RTS to debuff enemies in combat is, of course, range. And in many campaigns it's not common to encounter enemy wizards.

The Thrown range penalty applies to all other Thrown spells that would be used in a tactical situation, so this isn't so much criticism of Remove Thrown Spell as it is of Thrown spells in general.

The problem with RTS to decurse friends in combat is that the spell you cast is IQ 14, 2 ST and the spell you counter is quite likely to be lower in IQ and you're saving the enemy wizard his maintenance cost. From an economic standpoint it's questionable.

The following is a partial list of Thrown spells have a lower IQ requisite than Remove Thrown Spell. In nearly every case, the character nullifying any one of them with Remove Thrown Spell will spend no more than the ST required to cast the spell being removed.

Spell Casting/Maintenance Cost
Freeze 4
Avert 2+1
Dark Vision 3
Turn Missile 1+1
Dispel Missiles 1+1
Lock 2
Shock Shield 2+1
Speed Movement 2
Control Animal 2+1
Persuasiveness 2+1/minute
Conceal 2/4/8/16/32
Reverse Missile 2+1
Eyes Behind 3+1
Invisibility 3+1
Control Person 3+1
Mage Sight 2
Slippery Floor 3
Sticky Floor 3
Stone Flesh 2+1
Stop 3
Telekinesis 2+2

RTS should be on your list of spells to buy once your wizard's chest is booted up. Along with... everything else. But is it worth a precious spell point? I'd say most of the time it isn't.

If that's your plan, you'd best hope that nothing happens to that precious wizard's chest while you are out adventuring.

[Skarg]

• How often do you select Remove Thrown Spell for your PCs and NPCs?
  - Fairly often, when they have enough IQ for it.
  
  
• How have you used it in combat situations?
  - yes
  
  
• How have you used it in less tactical situations?
  - yes
  
  
• If you've ever been in a situation in which you rued the fact that you didn't equip your character with this spell, tell us about it!
  - When we had people suffering curses. Or who wanted to undo shapeshifting.