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Limit on magic object.


Tyrian Telbenj

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I was playing with a limit ages ago, a bit inspired by Talislanta I guess. The rationale was that a magic item had to be attuned to a chakra-equvalent with some rules around it. Think I found five or seven a good number as there is a high magic world where I like the players to have a fair amount of trinkets to play with.

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This is one reason why the Magic Point system doesn't really work, at least not as a limitation to spellcasting. Any PCs with a bit of experience will have enough crystals and matrices on them that MP expenditures become trivial. This way lies +1000% Sword Trances.

Edited by Akhôrahil
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36 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

This is one reason why the Magic Point system doesn't really work, at least not as a limitation to spellcasting. Any PCs with a bit of experience will have enough crystals and matrices on them that MP expenditures become trivial. This way lies +1000% Sword Trances.

Only if no one in your Game ever puts conditions on those things.

Yes "+1000% Sword Trances" are good, but there are many, many ways to take someone like that down like some Multispelled Disrupts or a Dispel/Dismiss Magic or setting a spirit or two after the person. 

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13 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Only if no one in your Game ever puts conditions on those things.

Yes "+1000% Sword Trances" are good, but there are many, many ways to take someone like that down like some Multispelled Disrupts or a Dispel/Dismiss Magic or setting a spirit or two after the person. 

Oh, sure. My point isn't that you always want this, but that MPs quickly stop being much of a limitation on anything. (Both dispel and spirits can easily get countered, though - defensive boosting for the dispels, and using that 1000+% sword in spirit combat against spirits.)

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10 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Oh, sure. My point isn't that you always want this, but that MPs quickly stop being much of a limitation on anything. (Both dispel and spirits can easily get countered, though - defensive boosting for the dispels, and using that 1000+% sword in spirit combat against spirits.)

Defensive boosting is a something that is not settled 100% the wording is certainly not clear (it has been discussed in another thread) and it has not been played that way in the past. Sword Trance +1000% would take 100 magic points, that's about 10 rounds of casting.

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2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

This is one reason why the Magic Point system doesn't really work, at least not as a limitation to spellcasting. Any PCs with a bit of experience will have enough crystals and matrices on them that MP expenditures become trivial. This way lies +1000% Sword Trances.

that is a concern for me, if we follow the rules and nothing more, after view scenarii players are happy only to visit dorastor and the challenge is to duel the crimson bat (well not really a challenge as magic will fail).

so as a gm, I manage to propose few opportunies to gain it ( market & plunder ) and a lot to lose it (gift, thefts, ... of course not the wonderful weapon, dream of the  player, but the lambda matrix, etc...)

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4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

This is one reason why the Magic Point system doesn't really work, at least not as a limitation to spellcasting. Any PCs with a bit of experience will have enough crystals and matrices on them that MP expenditures become trivial. This way lies +1000% Sword Trances.

IMO the magic point system works just fine. A 1000% Sword Trance would have a casting time of more than 16 minutes. Crystals and matrices don't fill themselves, you need MP donors. Bound spirits will do, but it takes a 100 POW spirit farm 24 hours to refill all that storage, and probably requires some form of enchantment to allow a bound spirit in one crystal to push MP into a different crystal.

There might be another limit to how many such storages can be used in a single spell casting - you usually need to actively touch one to draw out the stored MPs. I would ask for a concentration roll each time an MP storage is switched.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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5 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Most combats I ran do not last that long.

I'm trying not to drift from the subject, but this would clearly be prep-cast, and commonly Extended by a point while you're at it. You can slice up a dungeon or a smaller battlefield in an hour without much problem.

With regards to MP regain, it takes only a few days even at worst, and you will start every scenario with a full tank assuming any downtime whatsoever, which is what matters the most.

Edited by Akhôrahil
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3 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Most combats I ran do not last that long.

You've never run a scenario involving a prepared ambush on one side or the other? When I ran The Broken Tower for my group, they had plenty of time to do stuff like that before assaulting the tower. They didn't have Sword Trance available though. And not many MPs.

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Quote

this would clearly be prep-cast, and commonly Extended by a point while you're at it.

If they have to prep, sure why not, but anything that would require the PC to do something like this would be just as nasty and/or have ways of dealing with this. And, sometimes ... you let them get away with it just for fun.

 

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25 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

You've never run a scenario involving a prepared ambush on one side or the other? When I ran The Broken Tower for my group, they had plenty of time to do stuff like that before assaulting the tower. They didn't have Sword Trance available though. And not many MPs.

Humakti ambush by stepping forth challenging their opposition...

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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7 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Only if no one in your Game ever puts conditions on those things.

Yes "+1000% Sword Trances" are good, but there are many, many ways to take someone like that down like some Multispelled Disrupts or a Dispel/Dismiss Magic or setting a spirit or two after the person. 

In my campaign a Sword of Humakt who was in massive Sword Trance, and also had a Shield that had been pumped so full of MPs is almost impossible to remove, got a critical arrow in the chest from some lousy bandits, and would have died if his sword hadn't rolled a 1 for Divine Intervention.

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12 minutes ago, Brootse said:
7 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Only if no one in your Game ever puts conditions on those things.

Yes "+1000% Sword Trances" are good, but there are many, many ways to take someone like that down like some Multispelled Disrupts or a Dispel/Dismiss Magic or setting a spirit or two after the person. 

Expand  

In my campaign a Sword of Humakt who was in massive Sword Trance, and also had a Shield that had been pumped so full of MPs is almost impossible to remove, got a critical arrow in the chest from some lousy bandits, and would have died if his sword hadn't rolled a 1 for Divine Intervention.

This is almost exactly what has happened everytime one of my PCs has blown every resource and cooldown and is in full-on badass mode. They seem to become magnets for magical 01s to the domer. And our GM rolled dice on the table, with no screen or anything. So, no fudging. Lol.

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12 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

This is one reason why the Magic Point system doesn't really work, at least not as a limitation to spellcasting. Any PCs with a bit of experience will have enough crystals and matrices on them that MP expenditures become trivial. This way lies +1000% Sword Trances.

1000+% Sword Trance will rarely be significantly different to 100+% Sword Trance. They'll still need enemies within melee range, and will still get taken down by all the same tactics.

And if that's their only feather in their cap, they're woefully under-prepared to go up against anything that would usually require 1000+% for a single skill.

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19 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

1000+% Sword Trance will rarely be significantly different to 100+% Sword Trance.

Yeah, according to a literal reading of the rules, someone with a 10% parry skill will reduce the 1000% down to 100%. What it does give you is the ability to split to three (or four if you're really fast) 100%+ attacks.

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