Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

[Brett]

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

 

These are all really great ideas, and I really like how these ideas are used to promote more description and roleplaying.

 

That being said, however, even if the spell caster can negate 10 points of the -21 penalty on the Waterspout (or similar) spell, he or she is still left with a -11 penalty. To have slightly over a 50% chance of success, the caster would still need to pay 2 points a level to get his Water Magic Skill up to 22- or buy a bunch of 5 point Casting Magic Spells Skill Levels to get his roll to 22-.

 

That expense with the addition of the preparation seems to be a lot of work to get a final 11- roll. Also, as I mentioned earlier, a spellcaster with a Water Magic skill that high would almost automatically succeed at any other spell in that arcana. A caster with a lot of Casting Magic Spells skill levels would automatically succeed in all but the toughest of spells in any arcana. This seems to go against requiring the skill roll to start with or adding flavor to the magic use in a campaign.

 

One possible solution that just occurred to me is that maybe the GM could allow the character to buy 1 point skill levels for an individual spell.

 

Therefore, a Water Mage could have a good Water Magic Skill of 16-, +4 skill levels with Casting Magic Spells, and 10 points (+10 skill levels) with Waterspout. This would give the caster 20- with all Water Magic Spells, +4 to the skill roll of other arcana she knows, and a 30- with the Waterspout spell (which would be 9- without any additional preparation other than what is required by the spell).

 

This would represent the additional practice and training the wizard invested into learning that one particularly difficult spell. This would also make that wizard more unique in that powerful wizards may have great enough skills for moderate spells, but only a few select wizards in a campaign world will be able to cast each of these extremely powerful spells. A wizard who does have a reasonable chance of casting one of these spells with huge penalties could soon get a Reputation for that skill and be sought after, feared, or identified by using the spell.

 

"Admiral, Admiral!!! A huge waterspout has appeared out of nowhere and is tearing through the fleet!"

 

"Calm down Captain. Only Aquilas the Sea Mage can cast such a spell in this region, but our reports indicated that she was dead."

 

Brett

[LordGhee]

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

 

Caveat: a spell such as this should be hard to cast, I would not allow 1 or 2 pt levels for a plus on only one spell. I allow complementary rolls and suchs but I think a 50 or so chance to kill a fleet is perrty good

 

Lord Ghee

[Outsider]

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

 

If the defending fleet is completely wizard free, it -deserves- to get waxed. YMMV, of course, depending on how common magic is in your campaign. But, depending on how the GM runs counterspells*, a few lesser magicians, each tossing off counterspells, should be able to prevent the destruction of the fleet. Coming up with a mechanism to prevent wizardry from dominating the battlefield seems almost necessary in any game where there are to be knights, armies, castles, and the like. Usually magicians are either too rare (it just never happens), too weak (they cant effect more than a few people at a time, then EVERYONE shoots them), or too common (Everyone has them, and they all cancel eachother out, leaving the decision up to the folks with swords)

 

*As in, are cumulative dispells -only- cumulative with themselves? Or will they accumulate with any other cumulative dispell, or maybe just with other cumulative dispells of the same school of magic? Does the GM allow Suppress based spells to be used in the 'counterspell' fashion as described in the Dispell rules.

[tesuji]

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

 

First off, i think most of the time RSR is taken because it is mandated by the GM, not by player choice or a sense of efficiency. Given the typical lims for fantasy spells, its of dubious benefits in terms of efficiency. if you make it optional, its likely it will vanish.

 

Second, i think it comes down to the Gm to make such things possible if he allows them, or rather, approves someone spending on them.

 

LL has the basics right, IMO, in that you would have bonuses for skill rolls applicable.

 

Extra time will aid you for roughly from +1 to +6 or so.

 

Special materials (which could be expensive crafty stuff or could be water from enchanted ponds or scales from a triton and such) could easily provide anothe r+1 to +3. (These become a sort of "treasure" when found.)

 

Special Areas or even times could be put into play, say for instance if the sea god is also the god of storms.

 

Finally, if its not covered, a form of complimentary skill rolls thing for multiple casters.

 

of course, most of these you prob'ly covered whenever you built your campaign's magic system.

[DrFurious]

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

 

IMO, the RSR mechanic is somewhat flawed in that the active points impose penalties to the skill roll. For this reason, you have a "skill" that needs to be at outrageously high levels for a reasonable chance of sucess. At these high levels, it becomes relatively meaningless in judging the proficiency of two spellcasters.

 

To judge accurately, you'd need to have an idea of what the active point penalties for all spells in the campaign - meaning how good you are at magic depends heavily on the specific campaign. Contrast that with two campaigns where characters have 18- stealth rolls. Both characters would be considered masters at stealth. I'd rather replace the RSR limitations with something like the following:

 

requires an easy skill test

requires a difficult skill test

requires a challenging skill test

and

reqires a skill vs skill test on target

 

where the limitation values would be related to how often the skill test would fail. This would be different than an activation roll in that situational modifiers would come into play. For example, the alignment of the planets and stars, enhancing materials, the skill of an opposing wizard.