Seed of Life spell

[Surgo]

Inspired by the Guild Wars spell of the same name, for my healer character. The idea is: whenever the subject of the spell is hit for damage, it heals all allies in an area. At first it seems like an application of "Time Limit" and "Trigger", but I'd like to have some amount of cap on how many times it's allowed to trigger. This is what I have so far:

 

Simplified Healing 1d6; Limited Range* [20m] (+1/4), Time Limit [up to One Minute] (+3/4); Trigger [When hit; Non-action to activate; can expire with spell] (+1/4); Area of Effect [Radius Heal, when hit] (+1/4); Selective [Only Allies] (+1/4); Charges [4 Recoverable (by recasting the spell)] (-1/2); Costs Endurance [Only to Activate] (-1/4); Does Not Work on Drains (-1/2).

 

This is one of the more complex things I've built, and I'm not entirely sure I'm doing it right. I'm not sure I'm applying Charges correctly -- I want the spell itself to create the Charges, which are used when the target is hit, not apply to the casting of the spell. The Costs Endurance limitation was added because of Charges; it should only cost the caster END, not the target. Similarly, I'm not sure about the Area of Effect advantage -- I want it to apply to the healing when the target is hit, not the casting that puts the spell on the target.

 

Am I building this correctly? Is there a better or simpler way to do something like this?

 

* The power is part of a magic system that lets the base effect be boosted, so the Limited Range instead of Ranged makes sense here.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Seed of Life spell

 

Let me first say I am not familiar with Guild Wars, so my comments are primarily about the build, not the flavor. You could build this with either Trigger or Time Limit, but I don't think you need both. For the Time Limit option, that would just have the Heal running all the time, so then you would slap a custom limitation on it "Only works on Phases in which caster is hit", say -½.

 

For the Trigger route, you would have Trigger (when caster hit +¼), Trigger resets as Zero Phase Action (+¼) OR resets automatically (+½), Trigger expires after 1 minute (-¼) for a total advantage of +¼ or +½ depending on whether you want it to reset automatically or not.

 

Also, you purchased Limited Range, but I am not sure that is necessary. If you just buy AoE Radius with no range, then the effect is centered on the caster. If you buy it with Range, then you can center the AoE Radius somewhere else. Since I am not familiar with the original spell I don't know which you are looking for. Also, the Limited Range you purchased was 20m, but the AoE Radius at +¼ is only a 4m radius so you aren't affecting a large area particularly if that is important.

[Surgo]

Re: Seed of Life spell

 

Thank you for the advice. Given what you said I think Trigger makes sense more than Time Limit because the goal is to have it activate whenever damage is taken, not just once per phase.

 

The reason for the Limited Range is because I want to be able to use the spell on someone who is on the other side of the room. This brings up a general problem I've had with the spell though, which I'm still not sure what the answer is: which advantages apply to the spell effect, and which to the "casting" of the spell?

 

By that I mean, Limited Range ought to apply to the spellcasting -- I can use it on somebody who is across the room, not have to go up next to them. On the other hand, Charges should mean "how many times the spell, once cast, can trigger" -- not how many times I can cast the spell.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: Seed of Life spell

 

I'm not too familiar with 6e but in 5e this sounds like Uncontrolled. With Uncontrolled, you can pour END into the spell to power it once it "detaches" from the caster so to speak. Since you'd like for it to work four times, the caster would pour four times the END cost into it (or however many charges he'd like, why not?).

 

Simplified Healing, Limited Range (to cast it across the room), AoE (Radius, Selective), Trigger (when target takes damage, resets automatically), Uncontrolled, Custom Limitation: Spell only lasts one minute or until all the END is spent

 

I think that'll do it. It's actually a neat power idea, I hope it works well in your campaign. In the end, keep in mind that the exact writeup isn't important. You've described the spell exactly how you'd like it to work and the cost will be within a few points so just go with it and don't sweat the small stuff.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Seed of Life spell

 

Normally Healing doesn't have any range. If you buy only Ranged for it, you can heal across the room, but only one person at a time. If you buy only AoE for it, you can heal everyone nearby, but you can only heal across the room if the radius of the AoE encompasses the whole room. If you buy both Ranged and AoE, you can stand on top of the castle wall and heal a crowd of soldiers fighting below, but that won't heal yourself unless the AoE is really big so that you are still inside the radius.

 

The Charges are trickier, because normally you can only use a Charge once a day. But because you bought it as Recoverable, a reasonable GM would let you recast the spell to "recover" the charges. Otherwise you could only cast it once a day, and after the charges were used up you would be out of luck until the following day.

 

And just for my own nitpicky rules clarification, in 6e the Trigger advantage is reduced by ¼ when you slap a time limit on it, so it lowers the overall advantage rather than requiring a custom limitation.

[Surgo]

Re: Seed of Life spell

 

Oh, this is interesting. I just completely read Usable On Others, and it has a mechanism at the end for separating the power activation from the power use. This makes it a (somewhat) straightforward Usable By Others:

 

Simplified Healing 1d6, Trigger (Activating Takes No Time; Resets Automatically (immediately after activation); Can Expire (one minute time limit); Character Does Not Control Activation; +1/2), Charges (6 Recoverable; -1/4), Area of Effect.

 

The cost for this part is then applied to Usable On Others (Limited Range; Only Grant to Others) (+0), and there it is.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: Seed of Life spell

 

I think you still need the Ranged advantage in there, otherwise the caster needs to touch the subject to begin the spell. But yeah otherwise it looks good written up like that too.