Hey all,

I haven’t read it cover to cover, but I haven’t seen anything yet about how to handle the strain inflicted on non-nemesis magic users. I assume this means they take wounds per normal rules about any strain inflicted on minions or rivals.

1) Is there a rule I haven’t read yet which covers this?

2) If not, does anyone see this as an issue which needs addressing?

3) If so, what are possible solutions?

I am not working with Terrinoth in particular and many rivals (or even possibly minions) will have magic skills. My leading 3 ideas (and criticism of them) for addressing this are 1) make any spellcaster a nemesis (some could be pretty weak, doesn’t address minions), make a “Magical X” ability where they get X free casts before taking damage from casting (adds a rule and something to track), or simply have NPCs not take strain from spellcasting (violates the base spellcasting rules).

Pretty sure the rules don't cover it.

Personally I'd just run it as minions/rivals just suffer wounds, and that generally spellcasters really ought to be nemeses. I don't really see an issue with them suffering wounds. They're minions/rivals. Its what they do.

What is meaningful to note is that "wounds" don't always represent literal wounds.

The price you pay for minions and rivals made tougher (or more flexible, at least) by magic is that they take wounds. It's the balancing factor.

That's how I would play it out, anyway.

26 minutes ago, Hinklemar said:

Hey all,

I haven’t read it cover to cover, but I haven’t seen anything yet about how to handle the strain inflicted on non-nemesis magic users. I assume this means they take wounds per normal rules about any strain inflicted on minions or rivals.

1) Is there a rule I haven’t read yet which covers this?

2) If not, does anyone see this as an issue which needs addressing?

3) If so, what are possible solutions?

I am not working with Terrinoth in particular and many rivals (or even possibly minions) will have magic skills. My leading 3 ideas (and criticism of them) for addressing this are 1) make any spellcaster a nemesis (some could be pretty weak, doesn’t address minions), make a “Magical X” ability where they get X free casts before taking damage from casting (adds a rule and something to track), or simply have NPCs not take strain from spellcasting (violates the base spellcasting rules).

1) See the CRB 131–133: minions can not voluntarily suffer strain, which means they cannot be spellcasters; rivals can suffer strain, but it is translated into wounds (due to lack of strain threshold)

2) & 3) See #1

If you want an NPC to be a spellcaster, they must be at least rival status. And if you do make a rival, make sure to give them a higher WT since they will be suffering wounds each time they cast a spell.

If you really want minions to be able to cast spells, then just give them one ability that mimics spellcasting. I mean, minions die so quickly that they're not likely to cast more than one or two spells anyway, so make them abilities that don't cost strain and you should be good to go.

alternatively, and I actually got this from Descent : Journeys in the dark - some enemies, ON DEATH, cast a spell (usually a curse or some kind of debuff) - sort of a fun way of getting back at the heroes even as they triumph over their enemies, and handily avoids the issue of whether the enemy should take wounds/strain, as they're already dead.

3 hours ago, Tex1013 said:

alternatively, and I actually got this from Descent : Journeys in the dark - some enemies, ON DEATH, cast a spell (usually a curse or some kind of debuff) - sort of a fun way of getting back at the heroes even as they triumph over their enemies, and handily avoids the issue of whether the enemy should take wounds/strain, as they're already dead.

That would be a great way to spend a Story Point:

Everyone: ”The witch is dead! Yay!!!”

*gm throws them a Story Point

Everyone: “oh shoot”

Gm: “aaaww yeah!!!! She explodes into a massive cloud of poisonous gas, let’s have some Hard Resilience checks people”

I like c_beck's idea of mimic'ing a spell ability for minions. And I mentioned this in another thread, don't forget about the Counterspell maneuver. All enemy casters within medium range have all spells upgraded once until the end of the "counterspeller's" next turn. ****, I'd have a whole group of minions just counterspelling and taking a guarded stance (+1 melee defense) as their action every round to make casting harder for the PCs. Now, if I had a second minion group counterspelling, would that upgrade the difficulty a second time? What would you all do?

Z