Magic rules clarification

By RagingJim, in Genesys

6 minutes ago, ubik2 said:

Oops. Good catch. I wasn't thinking clearly. The proper average strain is actually only 1.6.

The success chances weren't affected by that mistake.

But using one thread to inflict 2 strain is just an option? The GM could spend it otherwise like granting 2 blue to an NPC or do something narratively to the disadvantage of the PCs?

3 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

But using one thread to inflict 2 strain is just an option? The GM could spend it otherwise like granting 2 blue to an NPC or do something narratively to the disadvantage of the PCs?

Just an option. Since the threat penalties for magic are 2x as severe as usual, I figure that's what the GM will choose, but he's still free to choose something else.

At higher levels of threat, you may damage your implement, or end up hitting a party member as well. For simplicity, I just assumed the GM always chooses strain/wound (and the player chooses to take strain rather than a wound).

Just now, ubik2 said:

Just an option. Since the threat penalties for magic are 2x as severe as usual, I figure that's what the GM will choose, but he's still free to choose something else.

At higher levels of threat, you may damage your implement, or end up hitting a party member as well. For simplicity, I just assumed the GM always chooses strain/wound (and the player chooses to take strain rather than a wound).

So any uncancelled thread is becoming very costly for the caster. Casters won't become spell slinging machines in that case. Is the only method of regaining strain still advantages?

45 minutes ago, Grimmerling said:

Off topic, I'm afraid: Is it on the way, already? The premium (i.e. 50,- €) supplier in DE is having it in stock.

In lieu of an answer: Should have it in about 1 h; when the brat is finally in bed, I'm going to check.

Sphaerenmeister told me, the books are supposed to arrive today at his shop :)

21 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

Ah Amazon? Funny, Morgenwelt does not have it on ikn stock on their own website :D

Fantasy-In, actually.

16 minutes ago, ubik2 said:

Just an option. Since the threat penalties for magic are 2x as severe as usual, I figure that's what the GM will choose, but he's still free to choose something else.

At higher levels of threat, you may damage your implement, or end up hitting a party member as well. For simplicity, I just assumed the GM always chooses strain/wound (and the player chooses to take strain rather than a wound).

To me as GM, Strain is the lazy option, when you can't think of anything more interesting. Damaging the implement, on the other hand, that does sound interesting.

You can rain down Divine Fire, too, yes?

2 hours ago, Grimmerling said:

To me as GM, Strain is the lazy option, when you can't think of anything more interesting. Damaging the implement, on the other hand, that does sound interesting.

I agree in theory with this, but frankly running the caster's resources down even further sounds appealing. Unconsciousness is just a few fireballs away, so to speak, and getting much closer with every mistake.

4 minutes ago, Dragonshadow said:

I agree in theory with this, but frankly running the caster's resources down even further sounds appealing. Unconsciousness is just a few fireballs away, so to speak, and getting much closer with every mistake.

Cruel GM! :D

I guess it depends on how resourceful the players are. If they are too lazy with coming up narrative advantage resolution, some tough strain penalty could be a good tool to nudge them towards more roleplaying.

4 hours ago, ubik2 said:

P is the base at short range. Blast and Burn each add one more P, so PPP would require 4 advantage to trigger.

This is basically a 10% chance to trigger both effects (not counting triumph).

Including Triumph results, I get a 21% chance to trigger both effects for this maxed out character, which is pretty grim.

Strain averages around 1.6 points 4 points, since we're spending all our advantage on the effects .

The simple answer is that even a master wizard can't expect to trigger two active effects. Having an appropriate implement helps. With a wand or magic ring the chance goes up to 32%, but he'll still be failing more often than he succeeds.

I wasn't talking about activating everything on every roll. That dice pool is also devoid of Boosts which are added in nearly every pool all the time so the example is incomplete and frankly disingenuous. Furthermore the fascination with Blast is probably 'overblown' since in a fantasy setting you're going to have more melee focused PCs that will be engaged with opponents making Blast a bad option anyway.

5 hours ago, 2P51 said:

I wasn't talking about activating everything on every roll. That dice pool is also devoid of Boosts which are added in nearly every pool all the time so the example is incomplete and frankly disingenuous. Furthermore the fascination with Blast is probably 'overblown' since in a fantasy setting you're going to have more melee focused PCs that will be engaged with opponents making Blast a bad option anyway.

There's also no setback dice or adversity dice, and the target is at optimal range. I do think it's likely that casters will stand still and focus for boost dice. I also think Blast is a weak option. If your trying to take out minions, don't bother with Burn. If you're taking out rivals, don't bother with Blast.

Disingenuous means someone is deliberately misleading. It's a much stronger word than misleading, and probably not appropriate for a friendly forum discussion.

I haven't said that the magic system is broken because of this. I just pointed out the probabilities.

Boosts and Setbacks are not equal for Advantage v. Threat. You need 2 Setbacks for every Boost for a wash on Advantages. Challenges have a lower chance of generating Threat than Difficulty dice do, so when it comes to activating effects and crits they're better to be rolling against.

Quick question - if I am playing a paladin with say WIL 3 and 4 ranks in Divine. I roll up to heal the fighter who's 6 wounds down and has 3 strain. It's an easy check, and the GM said "no you can't have boost you plum you're already going to slaughter it!"

I roll. 4 success, 2 advantage.

The rules state that I heal 1 wound per uncancelled success and 1 strain per uncancelled advantage.

If I elect to be a bit of a naughty paladin and take those two advantage to recover my own strain, is that ok? I mean, is it having the effect of rendering the 2 strain I rolled as "cancelled"?

I'm asking because I could see my group looking for ways to manage strain in probably a bit munchkiny ways...

Is there a chart for Divine effx results? I'm AFB. If you're talking the combat results chart in general and the encounter is over you could be stickler and say it's not a combat check. If the person you're healing didn't need any Strain healed I'd probably just let you recover Strain with them.

1 hour ago, Endersai said:

Quick question - if I am playing a paladin with say WIL 3 and 4 ranks in Divine. I roll up to heal the fighter who's 6 wounds down and has 3 strain. It's an easy check, and the GM said "no you can't have boost you plum you're already going to slaughter it!"

I roll. 4 success, 2 advantage.

The rules state that I heal 1 wound per uncancelled success and 1 strain per uncancelled advantage.

If I elect to be a bit of a naughty paladin and take those two advantage to recover my own strain, is that ok? I mean, is it having the effect of rendering the 2 strain I rolled as "cancelled"?

I'm asking because I could see my group looking for ways to manage strain in probably a bit munchkiny ways...

There is nothing in the magic section that says the normal advantage chart is null, so you can still use those options.

4 minutes ago, c__beck said:

There is nothing in the magic section that says the normal advantage chart is null, so you can still use those options.

Yeah, I was allowing players to do that for the GenCon module. It was sometimes the only way they could keep conscious...

8 minutes ago, DarthGM said:

Yeah, I was allowing players to do that for the GenCon module. It was sometimes the only way they could keep conscious...

That's part of why I think they'll want it, but also so they can just keep on healin'.

I get the impression Phil that a paladin character - say, an ordinary human Knight career who picked Divine as an extra spell, and who took BRA WIL AGI as their defined attributes - could be an intensely powerful character with some ranks in Grit and skilling up Divine. There's nothing to stop them (save GM) casting "fireballs" before bashing people with their swords.

Does this align with any of the GenCon experiences?

16 hours ago, c__beck said:

There is nothing in the magic section that says the normal advantage chart is null, so you can still use those options.

Though they have been deliberately vague on whether you can heal multiple strain with a single roll.

In the FAQ Thread, someone asked FFG the question about Healing Strain. In short, the qualifier was removed because if felt that Healing Strain may have been the only option allowed to be done multiple times (because it was the only one to have the qualifier). In short, all the Advantage/Threat options can be utilized multiple times, if possible.

41 minutes ago, ApocalypseZero said:

In the FAQ Thread, someone asked FFG the question about Healing Strain. In short, the qualifier was removed because if felt that Healing Strain may have been the only option allowed to be done multiple times (because it was the only one to have the qualifier). In short, all the Advantage/Threat options can be utilized multiple times, if possible and if the GM allows it .

Fixed it for you (also based on Sam's reply). ;)

On 12/8/2017 at 4:31 PM, DarthGM said:

Fixed it for you (also based on Sam's reply). ;)

Isn't it all based on the GM's call? :D

On 12/3/2017 at 7:28 AM, ArtWend said:

I'd also think about adding a Tier 1 Talent that reduces the difficulty of spell casting by one difficulty die. Maybe make it ranked, though if I did that, I'd probably give it a higher Tier so it wouldn't decrease the roll by 5 difficulty die by Tier 5. Maybe have it give one Success automatically each time it's taken.

Or something like that.

I'm off for coffee so I can get my thoughts straight.

Instead, what about a ranked talent that allows a caster to spend one strain to add advantage equal to the number of strain suffered. Strain suffered cannot exceed ranks in the talent.

Now you roll as normal but have a way to activate the spell effects you added so long as you succeed.

Sorry if this was already mentioned!

8 hours ago, dfrost303 said:

Instead, what about a ranked talent that allows a caster to spend one strain to add advantage equal to the number of strain suffered. Strain suffered cannot exceed ranks in the talent.

Now you roll as normal but have a way to activate the spell effects you added so long as you succeed.

Sorry if this was already mentioned!

Or make it an unranked incidental t3 Talent that costs 2 Strain to trigger a spell effect that costs 2 Advantage. This way a character doesn’t have to negate Threat, they suffer the penalties of Treat but get the benefits of 2 Advantage at the same time.

4 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Or make it an unranked incidental t3 Talent that costs 2 Strain to trigger a spell effect that costs 2 Advantage. This way a character doesn’t have to negate Threat, they suffer the penalties of Treat but get the benefits of 2 Advantage at the same time.

Pretty clever!