Hi there this is the Professor's Daughter.

i really like the GOO Ithaqua but you have to roll successes to keep items. In my opinion, I don't think that you should roll for spells considering you can't freeze a spellbook or a memorized incantation.

The Professor said:

I've dropped spells off of a shelf, breaking them. I have had the Sheldon gang steal my spells. I've lost spells in hail storms. You get used to it after a while.

The Professor said:

Dear Professor's Daugther,

welcome to the forums :-) Indeed, you're right while saying that it's rather unlikely that cold freezes books or erases memory of the spell, but the rulebook is pretty clear, Spells are considered Items for all purpose, thus you have to roll even for them. If you'd like to have a thematic interpretation, try to figure it out in this way: the greatest cold hinders you to browse books to search the proper spells, and makes you babble while casting them, making your efforts worthless!

With the hope my interpretation could meet your likenings, my most joyful wishes of a Merry Christmas to you, your daddy, and everyone else in this forum

JULIA

I interpret the start of battle ability as either freezing the items or blowing them away. Certainly, you can blow away a scroll.

Anyway, it's little compensation for Ithaqua's pitiful doom track, modifier, lack of resistances, and the fact that his attack and defense skills are both Fight, requiring no sensitive balancing act.

Offhand I can only remember a few examples of spells in Lovecraft's writings, but they weren't typically the usual "wave your hand and utter a couple words" sort of deal so much as very long and detailed recipes to be laboriously pored over and referred to throughout the process, so it's not too far-fetched to imagine that spells are heavily constituted by their written components, and that it only takes a little damage to smudge a few crucial phrases into uselessness.

to Julia

Hi Julia, thanks for the welcome to the forum. Your interpretaion was very helpful and I hope to get more feedback on other things soon.

The Professor's Daughter

Tibs said:

Somewhere on the icy plains of Leng, Ithaqua sheds a single bitter tear.