Enchantments🔥🔥🔥

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, Crel said:

A similar item I like is Ring of Speedart. 1 POW for the spell, 1 POW to link it to a POW Storing crystal (or burn another POW creating a Magic Point Enchantment), and 1 POW for the attack condition "when the enchantment touches an arrow." Wear the ring, make sure it touches your arrows as you fire, and free speedart for your first few arrows. Helps fire multiple times per round if your initial DEX SR is low enough, since you're not taking the time to cast the spell. Also good with Multimissile and Firearrow, but Speedart's cheaper, making it something you don't need to plan a long time to create.

Very fine use.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

I don't think I'd allow an enchantment to auto-cast an active spell. Sure there's no rule that specifically says that, but it doesn't seem right to me.

You could say that the sword cast it, so if the sword clangs against another sword, it has to make a concentration roll to keep the spell up. As it has no INT, it has a 0% chance. But that is silly, reading the rules in a lawyerly fashion, which is not the intention of the designers.

Completely agree. The rules don't say anything on the subject. Hence my 'In RQG, I'm not sure'. In fact, RQ3's rule were also silent on the active spells subject. It was purely our decision on it, to stay coherent on the spells cast by object. By the way, the 'No INT roll' is not a problem, because they have no POW, but are able to cast spells as long as they have a MP reserve linked (RQG p250, RQ3 Magic book p56), but I agree with you on the ambiguity and the designer's intention (who most probably didn't had a thought on it).

[PhilHibbs]

49 minutes ago, Kloster said:

By the way, the 'No INT roll' is not a problem, because they have no POW, but are able to cast spells as long as they have a MP reserve linked... the designer's ... most probably didn't had a thought on it.

Sure, the "It's magic!" option is equally valid, according to taste. I know some people don't like that answer!

Edited April 12, 2021 by PhilHibbs

[Kloster]

11 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I know some people don't like that answer!

Same for me.

[Lordabdul]

8 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I don't think I'd allow an enchantment to auto-cast an active spell. Sure there's no rule that specifically says that, but it doesn't seem right to me.

Same. My initial gut feeling is to rule that only sentient creatures (mortals, spirits, etc) can cast active spells. It's easy to overlook the "Active" keyword in the spell list, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if even people who agree with this have been playing with enchanted active spells for a few sessions before realizing the "mistake".

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Same. My initial gut feeling is to rule that only sentient creatures (mortals, spirits, etc) can cast active spells. It's easy to overlook the "Active" keyword in the spell list, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if even people who agree with this have been playing with enchanted active spells for a few sessions before realizing the "mistake".

On the other hand, I don't think I would play Fireblade as being active. Back in the playtest draft stage I was really surprised to see that it was active in what was then RQ4 but became RQG, but when I checked back in previous versions, there it was all the way back.

Most "active" spells it should be pretty obvious that you need an intelligence. Control, Darkwall & Lightwall (for moving it), Summon, that's it for the spirit spells.

Accelerate Growth, Beastmaster, Clairvoyance, Enthrall, Group Defense, Illusiory Motion, Mind Read, those are the rune spells, and those are all pretty obvious too. Fireblade is the odd one out, really. I guess the "active" nature is part of the balance (akk-ptoo) of such a powerful spell.

[Bill the barbarian]

12 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I don't think I'd allow an enchantment to auto-cast an active spell. Sure there's no rule that specifically says that, but it doesn't seem right to me.

You could say that the sword cast it, so if the sword clangs against another sword, it has to make a concentration roll to keep the spell up. As it has no INT, it has a 0% chance. But that is silly, reading the rules in a lawyerly fashion, which is not the intention of the designers.

Good eye Phil, still I wonder what @Scottymight say to the above posts.

[Bill the barbarian]

4 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Same. My initial gut feeling is to rule that only sentient creatures (mortals, spirits, etc) can cast active spells. It's easy to overlook the "Active" keyword in the spell list, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if even people who agree with this have been playing with enchanted active spells for a few sessions before realizing the "mistake".

And again, nice catch lordabdul!

[Kloster]

13 hours ago, lordabdul said:

My initial gut feeling is to rule that only sentient creatures (mortals, spirits, etc) can cast active spells.

Nice. Easy ruling that allows to avoid said problem.

10 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

On the other hand, I don't think I would play Fireblade as being active. Back in the playtest draft stage I was really surprised to see that it was active in what was then RQ4 but became RQG, but when I checked back in previous versions, there it was all the way back.

Most "active" spells it should be pretty obvious that you need an intelligence. Control, Darkwall & Lightwall (for moving it), Summon, that's it for the spirit spells.

Accelerate Growth, Beastmaster, Clairvoyance, Enthrall, Group Defense, Illusiory Motion, Mind Read, those are the rune spells, and those are all pretty obvious too. Fireblade is the odd one out, really. I guess the "active" nature is part of the balance (akk-ptoo) of such a powerful spell.

Completely agree.

[Shiningbrow]

15 hours ago, lordabdul said:

My initial gut feeling is to rule that only sentient creatures (mortals, spirits, etc) can cast active spells.

Ah! That explains why Yelmalians can't cast Fireblade... 😋😋😋

[Scotty]

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I don't think I'd allow an enchantment to auto-cast an active spell. Sure there's no rule that specifically says that, but it doesn't seem right to me.

Enchantments cannot auto-cast active spells in the way described. You could however have a bound spirit auto-cast with a Control Spirit spirit magic trigger. The spirit would then roll to cast. This all gets very expensive in POW though.

[Crel]

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

You could however have a bound spirit auto-cast with a Control Spirit spirit magic trigger. The spirit would then roll to cast.

Ooh, that's an interesting idea...

[Kloster]

56 minutes ago, Crel said:

Ooh, that's an interesting idea...

Yes, the munchkin in me sees a dagger with a fireblade matrix, a bound spirit, a control spirit matrix with a trigger (someone wields the weapon while shouting 'flame on' and a few linked MP to power the control spell. You even don't have to provide the MP for the spell, as it replenish by itself. No more problems maintaining the spell and a 3D6 damaging dagger. Quick to the egregious munchkinery thread. The only point is that you now have to wait for the SR and there is a roll to cast the spell, but it is worth it.

[Shiningbrow]

12 hours ago, Kloster said:

Yes, the munchkin in me sees a dagger with a fireblade matrix, a bound spirit, a control spirit matrix with a trigger (someone wields the weapon while shouting 'flame on' and a few linked MP to power the control spell. You even don't have to provide the MP for the spell, as it replenish by itself. No more problems maintaining the spell and a 3D6 damaging dagger. Quick to the egregious munchkinery thread. The only point is that you now have to wait for the SR and there is a roll to cast the spell, but it is worth it.

Personally, I wouldn't allow it all as you're suggesting, for the simple fact that the command for the spirit to cast the Fireblade couldn't be built in. Although, that's really just a few more SRs.

Also, as above and in the corrections thread, you don't need to cast a control spell everytime you want a bound spirit to cast a (touch) spell. 

You can still have your "Flame on" trigger, just not set up like that.

[Lordabdul]

17 hours ago, Kloster said:

Yes, the munchkin in me sees a dagger with a fireblade matrix, a bound spirit, a control spirit matrix with a trigger

• Wallace: "So you see, Gromit, now any time we may get ambushed, we can say aloud 'I don't like the look of this' and it triggers a condition on a bound spirit that will auto-cast a Control Spirit spell on a spirit that knows Control Spirit itself. It casts it on another stronger spirit and this chains up to 6 different spirits of increasing sizes, until the last 3 ones respectively cast Summon Earth Elemental under us, Mobility on the summoned Earth Elemental, and Command Cult Spirit on said Earth Elemental, commanding it to swallow us and hastily escape in a random direction. Now, at the same time, the original spell matrix will also cast a spell to ignite a candle under this rope that's attached to my backpack. The heat will be calculated so that the rope is severed exactly at the same Strike Rank that the Earth Elemental swallows us. This will make these confetti explode above our head, confusing the enemy while this ferret in this box, who has a bound spirit inside it, casts Befuddle on that enemy just to be sure. Meanwhile, the rope itself was enchanted with a Darkwall on condition of rupture, which means our escape is further concealed! Finally, the confetti box contains an Air Spirit that will be, upon release, instructed to dive into our lungs in order to provide breathable air while we're inside the ground. And there you have it, Gromit! The perfect ambush-escape device! It fits in any resonably sized backpack, with some spare room for a picnic for two!
• Gromit: ".....woof?"

Edited April 14, 2021 by lordabdul

[Kloster]

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

You can still have your "Flame on" trigger, just not set up like that.

In RQ3, yes, but according to Scotty's answer (due to his position, I assume it is official), a trigger on an active spell won't work. This is why I went along his 'suggestion' of using a spirit casting the spell, directed by a triggered control matrix.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Kloster

[Shiningbrow]

6 hours ago, Kloster said:

In RQ3, yes, but according to Scotty's answer (due to his position, I assume it is official), a trigger on an active spell won't work. This is why I went along his 'suggestion' of using a spirit casting the spell, directed by a triggered control matrix.

I got that.

I'm saying that I don't think you can put a condition in the Control Spirit spell that would include the command to cast the Fireblade spell..

The spirit will be commanded (by...??? That in itself raises questions!), but it will still need to be commanded to do something - adding extra SRs.

OTOH, just having the spirit bound (into the sword?), which doesn't require a Control spell to command it to cast the spell (as per above), would be a better way to go.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Shiningbrow

[Kloster]

38 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm saying that I don't think you can put a condition in the Control Spirit spell that would include the command to cast the Fireblade spell..

The spirit will be commanded (by...??? That in itself raises questions!), but it will still need to be commanded to do something - adding extra SRs.

Oh, so I misunderstood your point. Yes, you are right, but I think you can play on the conditions (target, trigger) to say 'the spell (which automatically works, because the spirit is bound) commands the spirit to do <programmed> task, in that case, 'cast fireblade'. I agree this is not written as such, but Scotty's comment gave me the idea.

38 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

OTOH, just having the spirit bound (into the sword?), which doesn't require a Control spell to command it to cast the spell (as per above), would be a better way to go.

Yes, of course, but the point was to have an automatic casting of an active (in that case, Fireblade) spell. I think I will stay with Bladesharp.

[Nevun]

Ages back - in a RQ3 campaign.

Very early on in my characters career - the very first fight in fact, I lost my shield. By the time I could get it replaced I had somehow managed to get really good at parrying with my arm and by sheer luck, had kept it attached.

So building on the flavour of that, I opted for an armouring enchantment on that arm. Several over time in fact. Learning how to improve my skills at enchanting to build on the original enchantment, became a focus for character development.

That plus some GOOD heavy armour on that one arm, made for an interesting character. Parrying with the arm was in fact the first skill that character mastered.

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, Nevun said:

Ages back - in a RQ3 campaign.

... I opted for an armouring enchantment on that arm. Several over time in fact.

Oh yeah I’ve seen that done many times, a character in my game had 34 general hit points through strengthening enchantments. The question here is specifically about making spirit spell matrix enchantments.

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, Kloster said:

Yes, of course, but the point was to have an automatic casting of an active (in that case, Fireblade) spell. I think I will stay with Bladesharp

Automatic on parry? Hmmm

"Automatic" upon saying the words "Flame on"... Easy.

As for sticking with Bladesharp, if you do it via Spirit Binding, you can have both 😄

Speaking of parrying, how about a Dullblade autocast on successful parry? (Although, the obvious question here is - who actually uses Dullblade?)

[Kloster]

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Speaking of parrying, how about a Dullblade autocast on successful parry? (Although, the obvious question here is - who actually uses Dullblade?)

Ouch. Never thought to this. I defer to your Machiavelian mind.

[PhilHibbs]

9 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Speaking of parrying, how about a Dullblade autocast on successful parry? (Although, the obvious question here is - who actually uses Dullblade?)

If you're parrying every round, then it casts every round, so it would soon run out of MP. You could spend an extra POW on a target condition to avoid that, "only on targets that don't have Dullblade on them already".

Edited April 15, 2021 by PhilHibbs

[Shiningbrow]

59 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

If you're parrying every round, then it casts every round, so it would soon run out of MP. You could spend an extra POW on a target condition to avoid that, "only on targets that don't have Dullblade on them already".

Good point! Nice fix.

[icebrand]

21 hours ago, Kloster said:

Oh, so I misunderstood your point. Yes, you are right, but I think you can play on the conditions (target, trigger) to say 'the spell (which automatically works, because the spirit is bound) commands the spirit to do <programmed> task, in that case, 'cast fireblade'. I agree this is not written as such, but Scotty's comment gave me the idea.

Yes, of course, but the point was to have an automatic casting of an active (in that case, Fireblade) spell. I think I will stay with Bladesharp.

Meanwhile I'm playing without enchants (#TeamRQclassic). I'm not a monster though, i give them rune points as per RQG, and some other stuff (like 1 skill per weapon, etc)

[Godlearner]

Quote

Speaking of parrying, how about a Dullblade autocast on successful parry? (Although, the obvious question here is - who actually uses Dullblade?)

There is always a delay in casting a spell. In this case Dullblade would go off after the damage has already been applied. If you want something like this you are better off with a Heal instead.