Ensorcel vs. Item

[dds_ks]

Some will remember that I already started a thread on Ensorcelments (M60). The closer I look at it...

Imagine you want an Item increasing your ST or HT permanently (= always on). This costs 1,500 energy points per bonus point on the attribute (compare M37, "Might" or "Vigor"). Retail price would be around 50,000 $ (33 $ per energy point). When you order this item at an Enchantment-Circle, the system's default setting of 6 Enchanters allows you to pick your item up in 250 days... if they have no other job in the moment and can start immediately. And when you finally get your item, it can be stolen or broken.

Now ask for an Ensorcelment with the same effect. This costs 200 times the base cost of 2 per point on the attribute, which totals at 400 energy points instead of 1,500. Retail price drops to 13,200 $, and waiting time to 67 days... and you don't have to pick it up, it will be "delivered" whereever you are (well, you shouldn't be in a No-Mana-Zone or another world). This assumes that you don't chose an escape clause... you can, but you are not obliged to. If you accept an "easy to avoid" clause (stand on top of Mt. Everest and shout 'I hate my Ensorcelment'") and we follow the proposal of the other thread that this makes a 10 %-reduction, then it costs arount 12,000 and 60 days. This Ensorcelment cannot be stolen, and it only can be broken by a Remove Curse-spell... which should be a second "easy to avoid" situation, I'd say.

The only two disadvantage I see are: You can't lend the item to a fellow adventurer who just at the moment needs a boost while you don't need it right now, and you can't sell it if you need the money urgently.
Well, if your PC dies, the fellow adventurers as your heirs will really be upset. But is this a disadvantage or an advantage?

What about the prerequesites of Ensorcelment?
Ensorcel needs Malefice, and Malefice needs Seeker, which needs two Seek spells. In addition, of course, you need Enchant - but that's needed for the magic item, too, so this is not a difference.
In practise, this might be even less, I'd say. Seek spells are "entry"-spells in many colleges. For Enchant, you need spells of 10 different colleges anyway, so this could just be two Seek-spells outside the Knowledge-college, and Seeker as the third. So under optimal conditions, you only need two CP more than for a magic item with the same effect, but much higher cost. Let the enchanters double their price for those two CP, and you still make a bargain.

[starslayer]

Right- read Ensorcelments again; notably:
->Remove Curse is effective against any ensorcelment


Now further you can potentially extrapolate that since the ensorcelment is dispelled by remove curse, it may ALSO be dispelled if the user goes into a no-manna zone, or is struck by a meteroic/DN weapon.

So you are left with a very temporary enchantment that was somewhat cheaper then getting the actual enchanted item, but which could be removed by a single casting of a quite common spell by any wizard, and potentially by hitting anything anti-magic.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Right- read Ensorcelments again; notably:
->Remove Curse is effective against any ensorcelment


Now further you can potentially extrapolate that since the ensorcelment is dispelled by remove curse, it may ALSO be dispelled if the user goes into a no-manna zone, or is struck by a meteroic/DN weapon.

So you are left with a very temporary enchantment that was somewhat cheaper then getting the actual enchanted item, but which could be removed by a single casting of a quite common spell by any wizard, and potentially by hitting anything anti-magic.

Remove curse takes an hour to cast, 20 energy and has prereqs of a spell from 15 different colleges. Compare to an enchanted item which can be removed at the very least by cutting it off, and it probably provides incentive to do so. All enchanted items are suppressed when entering a no mana zone, so that is a wash*. I'm not sure what the weapons are, so I can't really comment. I would like to point out this IS an enchantment spell, so it should be just as durable as any other enchantment, with the one exception of remove curse. All in all I would gladly trade "vulnerable to theft" for "vulnerable to remove curse"; anyone that isn't a complete cripple could simply steal the item in the time it takes to cast remove curse.
*Almost. I think a no area mana enhancer advantage would let a spell on you function but not a carried item.

[starslayer]

Ahh, but your forgetting about the excellent combo of 'long time to cast but combat useful spell+hang spell'

I use several wizards who will reduce there effective skill (From 21ish) in most spells to 14-15 range and walk around with a few choice spells hung <like a 9 point fireball, banish, great healing, and remove curse>

[benz72]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Ahh, but your forgetting about the excellent combo of 'long time to cast but combat useful spell+hang spell'

I use several wizards who will reduce there effective skill (From 21ish) in most spells to 14-15 range and walk around with a few choice spells hung <like a 9 point fireball, banish, great healing, and remove curse>

If you were facing a foe who seemd stronger than he initially appeared, would you use remove curse on them? It seems to require that you know the source of the enhancement and it's vulnerability to make it an effective tactic.

[dds_ks]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Ahh, but your forgetting about the excellent combo of 'long time to cast but combat useful spell+hang spell'

I use several wizards who will reduce there effective skill (From 21ish) in most spells to 14-15 range and walk around with a few choice spells hung <like a 9 point fireball, banish, great healing, and remove curse>

Take the view of those wizards you mentioned:

If you expect adventurers as "mortal foes" and can prepare with Hang Spell or any other linking spell, would you really concentrate on Remove Curse, or wouldn't you prepare something more lethal (or at least incapacitating)?

The answer is: it depends.
It depends whether you prepare for battle as...
... an intelligent mage who wants to (first priority) survive and (second priority) win the battle. In this case you prepare some emergency escape and some "save or lose"-spells like Agony, Flesh To Stone or Charm.
... as an GM who doesn't really mind what his NPC would want (if he were more but just a few numbers on a sheet of paper), but wants to do some "permanent" or "lasting" damage on the adventurers to let them pay for their final victory.

As an adventurer, my answer would be different. If you do some kind of dungeon crawl, you might happen to trigger an ancient curse which has to be removed fast, very fast. So it could be wise to Hang a Remove Curse. But would I use it in battle, if I'm not sure about where the unnatural strength of my fighter's enemy comes from? Wouldn't this mean wasting several seconds for some Identify Spell-spells on my enemy? And then I only know it's an Enchantment, but I don't know which. And Remove Curse only works against one Enchantment: Ensorcel. All the others are immune against Remove Curse. Would you throw a Hanged Analyse Magic before the Remove Curse?

Well, I would use a Dispel Magic, just in case, because this could dispel several temporary spells all at once and I don't have to know which spells this might be. And maybe the unnatural strength was the result of a temporary Might spell, in which case Remove Curse would be wasted.

And last, but not least: As an evil mage, I would be very careful whom to give body parts/items/knowledge to Ensorcel me. On the other hand, back to the GM, I wouldn't care about the costs of the magic item, as I would include the "extra money" in the setting. Who cares about the budget of the evil mage? Who ever calculated costs of his dungeon/castle/ruin/pyramid/whatever, added the costs of building, magical traps, secret doors and so on?
And if I don't want the PCs to conquer the item, well, there are Limiting Enchantments, so it only would work for my NPC...


BTW: one of my players Hangs Suspend Mana, which can be a little bit nerving for me as GM. She specialised on this, so she has skill level 35 in this combo, meaning she can do so for free.
And now I'm waiting for the question: "How many CP does she have?"

I, personally, prefer Suspend Spell in combination with Maintain: No spell on, a pre-set "reactivation condition" which doesn't even call for a concentration maneuver to re-trigger it, and you only lost the first one or two seconds of the normal spell duration. Of course this works only with (1) lasting spells on (2) yourself. But nevertheless there are lots of useful combinations.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by dds_ks

Some will remember that I already started a thread on Ensorcelments (M60).

As David mentioned in your earlier thread, Ensorcel is one of the problematic spells that came from Grimoire. IMO, most games would be better off just not allowing it, or at least disallowing its use with beneficial spells.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

As David mentioned in your earlier thread, Ensorcel is one of the problematic spells that came from Grimoire. IMO, most games would be better off just not allowing it, or at least disallowing its use with beneficial spells.

Pretty much no good reason to have the spell at all, since using Ensorcel on a harmful spell is not at all worth the effort; if you want permanent harmful spells, just write up permanent spells that are harmful and actually practical to cast. There's already examples, such as Permanent Shapeshifting.

[starslayer]

on the topic of 'when would a mage ever KNOW to use remove curse on an enscoreled individual

Depending on the game world it may not be possible to enchant a person, mage sense will identify enchantment (but not WHAT enchantment)- so if a person has an enchantment (rather then 'the ring on his finger is enchanted') then it has to be an enscorelment of some kind.

on the topic of wizards going to the trouble of hanging remove curse Remove curse is also really good for stopping a lot of scary combat magic, like flesh to stone, entombment, burning/rotting death, charm, madness, and enslave so I would say it's a pretty important spell for any wizard who expect to fight other wizards to have at the ready even without other considerations; in a universe where enscorel exists and is sometimes used to enchant individuals it would be something that a wizard who deals with countering magic would be looking for. (they might ALSO have suspend enchantment hung for similar reasons).

On the topic of using suspend spell with maintain I enjoy this concept to occasionally have a wizard shout 'Shazam 1', 'Shazam 2', 'Shazam x' each time loading a fully charged ball spell of some kind (or a regular spell cast with throw spell; like any of the 'wizards should hang these spells' from above.

finally on the topic of 'who will know to use remove curse on the enscoreled individual'

While it may not be fair to have any given battle have someone who will think suddenly 'I'll use remove curse on that guy!', it is an entirely other thing for a recurring opponent to not study foes that he won/lost against in the past- and unless the game in question is exceedingly brutal (or a light hearted dungeon crawl) people will survive and return possibly with research on there opponents; and if your opponent KNOWS you have a powerful enscorelment they might either dispel that pre-empitively; or use the THREAT of dispelling it to manipulate you.

[fictionfan]

Divination that is all.