Question for GMs: enchantment question

[Pentallion]

yeah, the "if it worked that way everyone would use it." argument sways me too.  I think I'll apply that all the time.

Edited February 16, 2019 by Pentallion

[Sumath]

If your players want the elemental to manifest inside a person's body, I'd say that the victim should at least get a resistance roll against that, for similar reasons that one gets to resist a spirit trying to possess one's body - spiritual integrity/autonomy is being violated.

An impaled spear head is a physical wound, but not proof of overcoming someone's spiritual defences. Yes, the spirit is manifesting physically, but it is still fundamentally a spirit, so should have to overcome its victim's POW in order to share the same spiritual space. IMG I'd disallow this, because I think the elemental would have to completely defeat the target in spirit combat first, just as a possessing spirit has to. I don't have the Bestiary in front of me, but I'm not sure that elementals can even initiate spirit combat in the Middle World.

The argument that's been put forward about the need for air for the elemental to manifest is also a compelling one. If the elemental were manifesting outside the victim's body, then neither of these objections would apply. But the trigger condition still seems a bit iffy to me.

[Darius West]

Firstly.  No.  You can't summon a salamander inside someone just because you impaled them.  It's a spear not a lava syringe.  All you can get the spear to do is release the salamander.  Besides, there isn't enough room inside the person for the salamander to manifest.   You CAN summon a  salamander around the person and have it engulf them, but there is a good chance it will attack you too, especially if it is a big one and your spear isn't long enough.

Sheesh, this is not even close to the worst attempt at an enchantment exploit I have heard.

[womble]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

All you can get the spear to do is release the salamander.

I'm not even sure you can do that. The Binding Enchantment's only target is the spirit bound within it, and any Target Conditions have to apply to that entity, not the Enchantment. It doesn't care and can't know that it's stuck in someone. A Target Condition for a Binding Enchantment would be something like "only Cult spirits from Cults who are enemies of Orlanth" or "Only Dehori". I don't think "not on spirits housed in a spear head that's currently stuck in someone's meaty parts" is a valid condition.

[soltakss]

On 2/19/2019 at 7:43 PM, Darius West said:

Sheesh, this is not even close to the worst attempt at an enchantment exploit I have heard.

We had a Wailing Void spell enchanted into an arrow, with a trigger condition that it is cast when the arrow impales into someone. Broo shoots you with an arrow and you get consumed by a Wailing Void. 

[Darius West]

On 2/20/2019 at 10:39 AM, womble said:

I'm not even sure you can do that. The Binding Enchantment's only target is the spirit bound within it, and any Target Conditions have to apply to that entity, not the Enchantment. It doesn't care and can't know that it's stuck in someone. A Target Condition for a Binding Enchantment would be something like "only Cult spirits from Cults who are enemies of Orlanth" or "Only Dehori". I don't think "not on spirits housed in a spear head that's currently stuck in someone's meaty parts" is a valid condition.

Well, the very act of shedding someone's blood is a powerfully magical effect that has runic consequences.  As spirits and deities alike seem to enjoy having sacrifices performed for them, I suspect that they can in fact sense the shedding of blood and the approach of death through injury.  This would likely fall under Target Conditions on RQG 251, wherein you can define who is affected (or not affected) by the enchantment.  There is probably a necessary Attack Condition (RQG250) that will be needed as well.  That is 2POW, and is reasonably expensive for simply applying conditions imo, but it would allow for a "trigger and summon around the living body whom your spear-home is stuck into".  If you think that isn't the correct interpretation of the new rules, please let me know your grievance, as I like to get these things right.

[womble]

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

Well, the very act of shedding someone's blood is a powerfully magical effect that has runic consequences.  As spirits and deities alike seem to enjoy having sacrifices performed for them, I suspect that they can in fact sense the shedding of blood and the approach of death through injury.  This would likely fall under Target Conditions on RQG 251, wherein you can define who is affected (or not affected) by the enchantment.  There is probably a necessary Attack Condition (RQG250) that will be needed as well.  That is 2POW, and is reasonably expensive for simply applying conditions imo, but it would allow for a "trigger and summon around the living body whom your spear-home is stuck into".  If you think that isn't the correct interpretation of the new rules, please let me know your grievance, as I like to get these things right.

I think my disagreement is that you're applying the conditions to the Spirit rather than the Enchantment. Specifically, you can't command the spirit to take any action except by releasing it (unless you whack a Control/Command/Dominate on it beforehand), and Target conditions have to be 'interpretable' by the Enchantment not the Spirit. All a target condition can do is make a target valid or invalid, and for my money, that doesn't count as releasing the spirit, for the purposes of "you get to give it one command, then it clears off" nature of the Binding: if the Binding suddenly "stops working" (on the bound spirit) because the enchantment detects it's "bathed in the viscera of an enemy", the Spirit is simply no longer bound (so the inherent one-command function of the binding doesn't apply either) and can do as it wishes, including disappearing whence it was originally summoned, if it wants.

Regarding the specific condition: 'blood shed' would be fulfilled by any damage inflicted by an edged weapon beyond armour, for starters.

Attack conditions cause spells to be cast. So you could have a matrix of Command Spirit, linked to a POW store to fuel it with an attack condition of 'anyone struck by the weapon', or even, if you're feeling liberal 'anyone impaled by the weapon', but that just casts Command Spirit on the subject of the attack condition (which can't be the Spirit, else the spell would get cast on it as soon as it was put in the Enchantment). I don't see Attack Conditions on Enchantments as "release the contained spirit if the Enchantment is stuck in someone's innards" as valid and within the scope of what a Condition can determine. Replace "stuck in someone's innards" with "bled on" or "touched", and you've still got to get past the fact Attack Conditions are for casting spells, not controlling them; that's the obvious design intent (to cast Disruption/Sever Spirit on someone who touches something you don't want touched) and going beyond that is permitting exploit in the purest senses of the words.

In the end it's your game, and if you want the players to have it, you're going to let them. There are plenty of reasons to disallow it within the Enchantment rules; they're not designed, and I'd imagine, not meant, to generate sophisticated decision-chain effects containing intent beyond when and who along pretty coarse delineations. Unless you decide otherwise.