Hi all,

Yes I received last friday my copy of Hero's Call (bought in Ebay UK).

There is a spell called Final Hours that makes you inmortal, dont you think? You could cast this spell inmediately after you die, and when you die it rechargues. So you could play it again (it is a Reaction played when you die).

So you can keep casting the spell infinitelly and you never die!! Is that correct or may i am doing a wrong interpretation??

those of you who already have Hero's Call, please let me know what you think.

regards

Yamusha said:

Traits: Rank 4, Amethyst Order, Reaction

Play in response to dying

Effect: Play when you die. You do not die, instead. While this spell is recharging (recharge timer 10), you are alive and cannot be killed or KO'd by damage or injury. When the spell recharges, you die. This spell does not recharge following normal rules; instead remove 1 recharge tokens from it each time you roll delay, fatigue or chaos star.

I think you came across a loop hole in the rules. One can interprete it like that, I guess. I think that this spell is supposed to allow you to delay your death one time only. But nothing stops the caster to recast the spell when you die because all the recharge tokens are removed, if you interpret it literally.

This is a problem that can easily houseruled with common sense.

Just my two cents.

T.

Nothing in there about being KO'd by Stress or Fatigue, I doubt you can 'react' while unconscious. And nothing says you don't still accumulate the wounds/Critical Wounds, going to sleep will probably kill you!

Is there a roll associated with it that you can fail?

how much power does it cost to cast it ? i see that being a limiting factor. if you don't have the power on hand when you meet your untimely end it you cant cast it right ? you cant really predict when you are going to roll a delay, bane or chaos star. the final one could come in combat or in conversation or from trying to channel the power necessary to cast a spell so i dont think it would be possible to float enough power all the time to recast it. i think this is one of those things that seems insane at first blush but the opportunity cost makes it nearly impossible to abuse.

@Yamusha:
The interpretation I did was that when it recharges you die, and then you can't use the spell again, hence the name "Final Hours". I interpret the text "When the spell recharges, you die." as the final death, and you can do nothing about it this time. FFG could have been more clear about this though.

I haven't even considered your interpretation, and neither has any of my players. We also discussed of how fun it might be playing the unfortunate wizard (knowing he/she will die soon) and see what he does with his final hours/days in this life.

In my games at least it's a use only once spell, and I believe that was what FFG intended with the spell.

@Matchstickman:
It does say that enough wounds/criticals can't kill you. "you are alive and cannot be killed or KO'd by damage or injury." As wounds/criticals are damage/injury you can't die.
However you might argue that you can go unconscious by fatigue still, and maybe not react while unconscious. However, you do not roll much when you are unconscious either and since you must roll chaos stars/delay/exertion to recharge the spell you'll probably survive.

Also, no roll to succeed with the spell. You just play it as a reaction.

@Remorhaz:
Sorry, the spell costs no power.

k7e9 said:

That's... not what I said (or not what I meant). Eventually you will accrue enough wounds that you will be above your threshold and that every wound after that will be a critical wound, trying to function when weighed down by that many critical wounds will be very difficult, if not impossible. And "being alive" and "being alive in a place where you are not surrounded by enemies" are two very different things.

However this wouldn't be the first time that FFG has been known to eff up a card through poor wording, time to email them through their rules contact page?

Don't have the box yet but yup for all those criticalss stacking up - I see that as a route to "make a Willpower check to still have the will to keep going with all those aches and pains and not voluntarily die even if you could go on..."

I would also rule you probably "don't look right" to magic sight or any other "sniffing out things that need burning" abilities.

Treehorn said:

This is the way to handle it.

You are doing a very bold interpretation of this spell. Bad Yamusha. When the spell recharges you die permenantly. I think that is somewhere in the action. Which means if you wanted to cast it again, you would have to recharge the card. Ergo, U R DED.

All I got to say is COME ON.

Do you really need an Errata for this rule? You KNOW this card was not meant to make a character immortal.

This is sort of a silly oversight on FFG's part. How could this possibly make it past their internal play testing?

COREishere.com said:

Because they didn't reckon that we would even discuss this silly interpretation.

To be honest, this discussion is way more silly than the fact that they neglected to come up with a bulletproof effect discription for this spell.

I'd dather have my products quick than FFG brooding about every bit of wording for weeks because some smartypants could be able to come up with a far-fetched interpretation.

I think this card is pretty clear. The only house rule required is to say that is is not subject to the "add or remove a recharge token from any card / any ally card" effect that some actions have. Basically you cast it and put off death for a while. It wont take long to roll 10 chaos stars, delay or fatigue results (unless you cast this and then go and hide under a rock for the rest of your life).

Matchstickman said:

I re-read your post, and well I misinterpreted. Totally my bad, sorry.

But isn't it when a character is KO'd they suffer critical wounds each time they are hit? All the places I can find in the rulebook right now talks about "After a character is knocked unconscious" and that that's when they suffer criticals each time they are hit (I always assumed this is due to their inability to defend themselves as they ar KO'd) and as the wizard can't be KO'd he/she wouldn't autamatically suffer the criticals from each hit.
If I'm wrong please give me a reference, I can't seem to find it and I've been flipping through my book for a while now.

Stacking up criticals the way you describe, and become less and less useful would be a cool way to waste away. It would fit the warhammer feel as well.

I would rule that a character that had this spell recharging would not be subject to critical wounds caused by damage over his threshold for being KO'd. However, the character most likely has at least 1 critical wound from when he was killed the first time and the spell was triggered. That will stay with him and affect him fully. Also, if the character receives further critical damage from certain actions or monsters, he would still suffer from those attacks (i.e. +1 critical effects). He just doesn't have to worry about additional regular wounds knocking him out. I don't have the card but from what I see here, he'll eventually turn into a walking slab of cut up meat if he tries to abuse the spell's power and wade into melee combat.

COREishere.com said:

Game design, especially in an RPG, sometimes does not account for players' silly interpretations of rules. These abilities are printed on cards, so they can't be too elaborate. They don't need to have elaborate explanations. As several experienced players have said, it's quite obvious that when you die when the spell ends, you cannot recast the spell. It's at the heart of the spell. If you can't see this and you're looking to exploit the rules, you'll find lots of problems in many RPGs.

Otherwise it would be called Infinite Hours

And also Morr would get jacked and come scyth the sod. If the eventual build up of chaos energy didn't end up corrupting the dirty spammer.

I am fascinated by this thread.

Interesting take on how to become a liche. Kill yourself, cast the spell, live a quiet life in a remote castle going quietly mad and pulling the wings off insects. I like it.

Huh.

Thinking about it you could be an effective character and live in this 'limbo state' for quiet a few sessions without ever having to roll a challenge die or conservative/reckless die again, the key would be to only participate in actions where you were actively competing with another character (and yourself in a neutral stance).

Step right up ladies and gentlemen! Come and test your arm against the strongest dead man to reject Morr's embrace! It's the arm wrestling Liche!

Just a point: If you put your character in a neutral stance. This is, dont use reckleess or conservative dice, then you will not roll fatigue or delay. Also, if you cast spells without purple dice you will not generate chaos stars. This will make your character live longer....

For those of you who think this thread is silly: Silly questions? yes, maybe. Just relax, guys. I just found this "contradiction" in the card and I just wanted to share wit the people. Sorry for make you waste your precious time.

regards

Yamusha said:

I enjoy silly discussions now and then. And actually, I don't consider this discussion silly, just if a GM really allowed this interpretation.

Well you can still receive purple challenge dice on other types checks, not just spells, so you can still roll chaos stars. And avoiding using your stance just so you don't roll fatigue or delay symbols is a pretty big precaution, because those dice are better than blue characteristic dice.

If the spell worked this way, the Empire would be full of immortal amber wizards. Clearly either it doesn't work that way, or Witch Hunters pour buckets of acid on any amber wizard they meet so they never get to learn this spell.

Either way, problem solved.

I suppose the spell could be used in a perverted amethyst order pseudo anchorite / anchoress type situation whereby the said mage bricks him / herself up in a room and accepts donations of food, etc from the surrounding populace for sage advice / education in magic, lore, history / protection of a sacred relic / etc. Thereby he / she removes almost all risk (apart from age) from their lifestyle, but hangs onto the last glimmers of life.

As I see it the spell is a once only as it can not be cast again whilst recharging, and the mage would die the instant it does stop recharging leaving no chance to recast it.

I do like the idea of a pseudo anchorite bad guy directing his mineons, but unable to take direct personal action. Shouting at walls because they messed up, but not being able to affect them physically apart from the odd ranged spell in line of sight.

Alp