alright, hey everyone. I'm running my first campaign soon and one of my players was getting some assistance from another player who is a bit of a min-maxer, and tries to exploit the game and whatnot.

well we were going over one of the things he was told to get and that would be the lvl 36 essence spell Acquire Natural Capacities (the core exxet 2 translation attempt calls it powers). well basically the player wants to use it to increase his characteristics. which at first i saw as not too big of an issue, but then i saw that if he does that he gets things like +50 magic levels from increasing his int from 12 to 13. and he plans to spend those levels in game.

heres where the first issue comes in, if he were to spend those magic levels, maintain the spell for 6 days, and then drop the spell, what happens? at first i didn't think this was an issue, but then he had me read the spell over a few times and now i see plenty of implications.

and if you read the spell again it says "the spell grants the chance of acquiring the abilities and characteristics of existing plants or animals". now i don't know of some existing animals here that have a 13 int. but can't you also define a Dragon as an animal? can't you say that giovanni's panther counts as an existing animal and acquire its powers?

the next thing i read, it says "primary abilities may not be increased with this spell" and i had first thought this was straightforward, you can't increase attack and whatnot. but since I'm seeing more implications i decided to dig a bit more.

we've all seen the translations and errors in these books, and that can cause great confusion. hell, read this specific spell, the english hurts. so i just would like some of you guys to weigh in since you guys have likely encountered such a problem?

i personally think that this spell is really overpowered. hell chimera is a much higher level spell, with more dangerous implications. the only downside is the maintenance. which my player is getting around by taking superior zeon recovery 3 CP. he's also got the aptitude for magical development, so at 12 int he can cast it at the max level, granting him +200 DP at lvl 1.

thanks.

I would say that dragons aren't animals. Dragons are BBW if I recall.

Let me look and get back to you.

Well to answer Dragons, Dragons are in fact Natural creatures, only the ancient dragons are classified as Between Worlds.

Okay I have a problem with what your character is doing. Pretty sure that specific spell can only modify physical abilities such as STR DEX AGI CON. Though yes it says Secondary, I believe that applies all around, due to the fact it also states in horrible English translations that supernatural abilities can not be acquired through the use of this spell. Thus implying you couldn't raise your INT, POW, WP for the use of increasing any sort of supernatural abilities which would include Magic Levels.

So yeah not sure what your other player is doing telling him to do this stuff, but I think they are actually breaking the rules of the spell to do so. I may be wrong, but thats how I interpret the spell and thats how I've used it. You are the GM, put your foot down against things you don't find reasonable for your games.

In the book it says only Gn0 abilities and you can only use it once. And, increasing stats is the Creature ADV/DIS section not the abilities. It's the equivalent of using a spell to gain CP, which would never be allowed. So, I would rule no, not allowing that.

When it drops it, he loses all the skills from DPs gained by the spell.

In the book it says only Gn0 abilities and you can only use it once. And, increasing stats is the Creature ADV/DIS section not the abilities. It's the equivalent of using a spell to gain CP, which would never be allowed. So, I would rule no, not allowing that.

When it drops it, he loses all the skills from DPs gained by the spell.

Just so you know yes you can increase stats using this power. It says you can use it for Secondary, monster powers and essential abilities(which is the ADV/DIS section for monsters). But that doesn't allow you to raise INT POW or WP cause those would fall into supernatural which is excluded from what this power allows you to raise.

While I do think the spell needs to be monitored, I do think you are blowing +1 Int from it out of proportion. Especially when a wizard with any decent occult score could find the materials to create a permanent artifact fairly easy, GM willing.

Also something to take into account, even if you could use this spell to raise your INT which I'm pretty sure now you can't. Your characters Magical Learning Level would be somewhere within the 4th level of Magical Learning found on page 8 of Secrets of Arcana. So sure he may be able to learn some lowish levels of spells, but in order to learn i higher you really have to be devoted to doing it each day, or whatever the req, otherwise the difficulty goes up a degree. Heres the chart your player should be going off. Assuming his current used magical knowledge is somewhere within 70-148 (can't count unused magic levels.)

Another thing to keep in mind, mages do tend to outscale physical characters with the use of magic over time, so don't be surprised by every little thing a mage does. Just as long as they don't hit God Mage in my games I'm ok with it. Not gonna even bother explaining how one becomes a God Mage, its broken and destroys games.

Automatic 2-10

Each minute 12-20

Hourly 22-30

Daily 32-40

Weekly 42-50

Monthly 52-60

Quarterly 62-70

Biannually 72-80

Annually 82-90

Each decade 92-100

Alright, i showed him, and another GM we play with, this thread, we all agreed that there were some things, including INT that you couldn't increase using this spell, making it a lot more viable for only a lvl 32 spell.

thank you for the help everyone, it really helped. especially with some of the clarifications i read above.