Book 2 – Page 21

[atteSmythe]

Could you reference where in the tale that, "Can't cast on the enemies turn" was revealed? I can't find it.

It was also linked earlier in the thread : http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F064.jpg (third panel)
Clarification from the Word of the Titans: http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/ ... ns#5931853

[Ditto]

Finally jumping in from the GITP boards...

'No casting on another's turn' I think is pretty straightforward, based upon the Thinkagrams etc. that float around in direct contravention of a strict reading of that rule. You cannot cast in a way that substantively alters other units. The links atteSmythe provided spell this out well. Jack could have veiled *himself* while in a stack of dragons when Jillian arrived in that panel, but not floated illusory duplicates or hidden dragons as trees. A Shockmancer could not have fired a bolt at Jillian, but could perhaps have cast a spell on himself to the tune of 'If anyone touches me, blast with a stun discharge'. Healomancer, surrounded himself with a 'Healing aura for myself or anyone who touches me'.

The Turnamancy trick here obviously has some major mitigating factors going on here. It does seem consistent with the outlined speculation on the wiki.

Both of these are consistent with the idea of the Turnamancer "storing" their turn on the first turn, then granting the stored turn to the city on the next turn. This may be how Turnamancers do it. Turnamancers may also be able to "steal" another unit's turn in battle, effectively paralysing both units.

Turnamancers may be able to store up their turn (or multiple turns) / save a juice stockpile, and use it to cancel out the remaining action/juice/move of an opposing unit. In this case, the "PLACE: GOBWIN KNOB" stole the turn of the capital city. Here is some speculation based upon the aforewiki'd speculation:
--Forcibly ending the turn of a King/Overlord automatically ends the turn of the side, similar to how as a general rule units disband when their King/Overlord disbands. Therefore a Turnamancer would only have to *directly* end the turn of one unit (or hex) in order to end the entire side's turn.
--A benefit of the Charlie-powered super-rocketfuel link-up may be to allow Vanna to store up more Turnamancy turns/juice than a turnamancer's "stock" might normally hold, allowing her to expend it in a big burst like this/at such great range like this.
--This ability *is* of extremely specific utility, since the casting restrictions mean this could only be used as a defensive measure on not-the-Turnamancer's-turn while she is either being a) attacked or b) visited by an enemy unit in a friendly/allied city
--Being able to use this at range can only be done with the above condition being fulfilled to 'transmit' the Turnamancy 'attack' through, similar to how Vaarsuvius used to dragon's head as a focus in the Familicide spell in OOTS.

I expect Parson & co. will begin to piece together the conditions necessary to accomplish this gimmick over the next few turns, and they might even be in line with my chain of reasoning here. But I certainly wouldn't expect a trick like this to work regularly - or even have been seen before - because it would necessitate having an enemy King proximate to an enemy Turnamancer on the King's turn while in the Turnamancer's hex/city. As Slately said, Jillian's conduct is quite unseemly - side leaders *rarely* leave their capitals due to the extreme risk their vulnerability levies on their side.

[Novelworm]

People are perfectly right point out that we should go on the information we have.

For example... we know for a fact that Charlie sent some of his people along with JIllian into this battle. We know based off of previous posts that Charlescomm has turn before Gobwin Knob does. So if Charlie was in a link or involved in any way with this spell, Gobwins turn would have to be over because in turn order Charlescomm goes first.

If this is the case then this spell might not be so much gamebreaking as much as a player with higher turn ordered just entered the field, causing GK to end its turn in order that Charlie can work his magic. They say nothing about whether or not the turn is permanently over for the day, just that the turn is over for right now.

Thoughts?

[gazes_also]

This is my last post on this page, the fact that it generated such a reaction shows Rob knows how to jerk everyone's chain.

On the cries of 'authorial fiat' besides being something an Italian writer would drive, to me it occurs when a lazy writer paints himself into a corner and pulls some ridiculous contrivance out of the air to get out of it.
This reverse was obviously planned from the start - you can argue that it wasn't 'foreshadowed' or 'signposted' enough, too bad - the Rocky Horror outfits alone show this was the plan all along.
The question then is why this and not something else? Because it allows the story to move and develop in directions that other reverses would not and I for one look forward to seeing where it goes from here.

[dan2178]

If Charlie (or his casters) are responsible for the link, why does Vanna reference the action as "KingWorld". Of course, King World productions used to produce Wheel of Fortune but there's also the probablity of it being associated with Don King.

[Shoki]

Im pretty sure that's just a spellword like when wanda said aggro or when the shockamancy scroll said tubgirl.

[multilis]

"This reverse was obviously planned from the start "

A Deux Ex can be planned from the start, gods/titans are going to appear in end to save the day.

The problem is losing peoples credibility, what is point of cleverness if you win by with crazy super powers? Eg Superman Movie, he goes back in time to save the day when he couldn't stop both missiles.

In this case, it seems pretty hard to defeat a ruler who can end your turn when you try to attack him. What limits are there to this power?

Mancers here are *hired* rather than owned, so it sounds like anyone can hire 3 from magic kingdom for a turn, pop them through portal and give random big surprise to whoever is attacking their capital.

[splintermute]

I expect Parson & co. will begin to piece together the conditions necessary to accomplish this gimmick over the next few turns, and they might even be in line with my chain of reasoning here. But I certainly wouldn't expect a trick like this to work regularly - or even have been seen before - because it would necessitate having an enemy King proximate to an enemy Turnamancer on the King's turn while in the Turnamancer's hex/city. As Slately said, Jillian's conduct is quite unseemly - side leaders *rarely* leave their capitals due to the extreme risk their vulnerability levies on their side.

This might even be the first time in Erf history that a Turnamancer has been in a combat situation. Based on the other Turnamancer functions we've seen - i.e. reducing production times and turning captured enemy units in dungeons - there's no reason to ever have your Turnamancer leave your capital. Yes, Jillian suggested Vanna could help Wanda break free of GK, but I don't think she was suggesting an instant turning (that would be as imbalanced as the KingWorld spell). More likely, she was suggesting Vanna could act en route to get an early start on the dungeon games.

[normalphil]

In Text Update 13, we learn that thinkagrams cost casters "juice" and that Maggie needed to preserve some of her "Juice" for even after their turn, so that she could use her Thinkamancy on other sides' turns, which does indeed seem to suggest that the actual caster does not need to be directly engaged to cast on someone else's turn.

...or that there's a '"talking" is a free action' sensibility to the Erfworld mechanics, and thinkagrams and thinkamancer contact are lumped in with things that aren't proper spells as far as the restriction is concerned (natural magic), or they have an outright exception going for them.

[gatherer818]

ya know, in the interest of crazy DEM theories, I know there's a few people wondering if the third caster is a Dittomancer, to open up the phrase we ALL know is coming: "Let's do the time warp again!"

But it could be worse. The Arkendish is obviously a communication device... but why does it point to the SKY to communicate with other people on Erf? We know it was made by the Titans, what if it communicates with the TITANS?

The Dittomancer might be able to get the Time Warp to work twice, maybe even four times ("double 'em? Double 'em?! I'll quadruple 'em!"). But a Turnamancer/Arkendish/RETCONJURER link could "remove" the previous castings of Time Warp so it's like Vanna hasn't cast yet at all, meaning she's at full power to do it again, and again, and again. They do they say that phrase a lot in the song, after all.

The only question is whether Ansom and Jillian are gonna get together for that part that drives them insane....

[Welf von Ehrwald]

Some people complain that the use of this spell wasn't appropriate narratively, I say it is.

The first thing I thought when I read the page was "this is like at tBfGK", just reversed and with the dwagons instead of the Archons.

At the BfGK Charley sent his Archons into GK's air zone and parleyed with Parson, and the ended his turn. His troops were stuck in this zone and couldn't escape. And then Parson changed the whole game with his caster link. What we see now is similar, just with reversed positions. Charley layed a trap for Wanda and essentially recreated the situation at GK by using the very elements Parson used. Charley uses jillian to manipulate Jillian, like GK used Wanda to manipulate Jillian before the battle over the lake. Also he picked up Parson use of an link. Maybe this is the first time Charley attempted to link with a caster, because before he never saw the need or even tried. Parson changed warfare, and the smarter leaders are starting to copy and improve his ideas. Tremannis copied the idea of the dwagon relay, and Ossomer was allowed to use casters in combat against conventional lore. Janis wished that Parson may war so hard the world itself may brake, and we just saw the second step towards that.

[Ditto]

For example... we know for a fact that Charlie sent some of his people along with JIllian into this battle. We know based off of previous posts that Charlescomm has turn before Gobwin Knob does. So if Charlie was in a link or involved in any way with this spell, Gobwins turn would have to be over because in turn order Charlescomm goes first.

We haven't seen any Charlescomm units in the city. And if they are allied with Faq, then they take their turn with Faq. We know Transylvito has at least one unit in the city (Third Bat On The Left, from the text update) and they are obviously aligned with Jetstone and thus the coalition did not go.

The question of what happens when a late-move team moves into the space of an early-move team is interesting, though.

[Alexei P]

I think the degree of gamebreakingness of this is gonna depend on whether Stanley's next phrase will be "Inconceivable!" or "Drat, must be a turnamancer!".

[Sinrus]

I think the degree of gamebreakingness of this is gonna depend on whether Stanley's next phrase will be "Inconceivable!" or "Drat, must be a turnamancer!".

Which one would make it gamebreaking?

[Alexei P]

I think the degree of gamebreakingness of this is gonna depend on whether Stanley's next phrase will be "Inconceivable!" or "Drat, must be a turnamancer!".

Which one would make it gamebreaking?

The first. If everyone acts like this stuff is normal, we must assume its a well-known feature of the rules. What I mean is, we should wait to see if normal Erfworlders act as baffled as we do.

[MarbitChow]

I think the degree of gamebreakingness of this is gonna depend on whether Stanley's next phrase will be "Inconceivable!" or "Drat, must be a turnamancer!".

Which one would make it gamebreaking?

The first. If everyone acts like this stuff is normal, we must assume its a well-known feature of the rules. What I mean is, we should wait to see if normal Erfworlders act as baffled as we do.

Stanley: "Inconceivable!"
Sizemore: "Actually, it's something a master-class turnamancer is rumored to be able to do..."

Erfworld isn't a game. People aren't issued copies of the rulebook before they start their first turn.
They're popped knowing what they need to know to do their job.
If that job is simple, they don't know much (poor Wrigley...).

Sizemore appears to be exceptional in that he sought out knowledge for its own sake - other casters seem to revere him for such dedication.

-----

And can we PLEASE stop referring to "Deus Ex Machina" in a world with MAGIC?
By definition, anything is possible in a world where magic exists.
A DEM event would be to pull a wizard out of nowhere to resolve the issue.
There's no need for that - the story is already crawling with casters.
Any spell, no matter how powerful, is fair game as long as it's internally consistent with the known rules of Erfworld: the spell must be appropriate to the caster (either by logic or wordplay), and the more awesome the pop culture reference, the more powerful the effect (4CHAN!).

The Summon Perfect Warlord spell is still substantially more powerful than any other spell (including the trimancer volcano), and the whole story requires that spell to exist.

[MonteCristo]

The first. If everyone acts like this stuff is normal, we must assume its a well-known feature of the rules. What I mean is, we should wait to see if normal Erfworlders act as baffled as we do.

Stanley: "Inconceivable!"
Sizemore: "Actually, it's something a master-class turnamancer is rumored to be able to do..."

I think one tip off that this is not a normal Turnamancer trick would be Parson's calculation.
He was giving wanda a range on her chances of victory, a range which was largely dependent on the unknown caster... meaning his bracer likely would have taken into the possibility of a masterclass turnamancer...

However, what the bracer would not consider is something like a long range link up by the arkendish to augment the turnamancer's power... Unfortunately for Wanda, Parson did not take charlie (or any other unknown elements) into account when he calculated Wanda's chances of victory

[Alexei P]

I think one tip off that this is not a normal Turnamancer trick would be Parson's calculation.
He was giving wanda a range on her chances of victory, a range which was largely dependent on the unknown caster... meaning his bracer likely would have taken into the possibility of a masterclass turnamancer...

Ah, but the bracer never actually predicted 100% odds. Seventy to ninety percent doesn't mean no chance of defeat. The idea that they'd destroy the tower and be back before breakfast was all Wanda's personal assumption.

@MarbitChow: very true indeed.

[durandal]

The first. If everyone acts like this stuff is normal, we must assume its a well-known feature of the rules. What I mean is, we should wait to see if normal Erfworlders act as baffled as we do.

Stanley: "Inconceivable!"
Sizemore: "Actually, it's something a master-class turnamancer is rumored to be able to do..."

I think one tip off that this is not a normal Turnamancer trick would be Parson's calculation.
He was giving wanda a range on her chances of victory, a range which was largely dependent on the unknown caster... meaning his bracer likely would have taken into the possibility of a masterclass turnamancer...

However, what the bracer would not consider is something like a long range link up by the arkendish to augment the turnamancer's power... Unfortunately for Wanda, Parson did not take charlie (or any other unknown elements) into account when he calculated Wanda's chances of victory

I don't think its a matter of the bracer ignoring such a possibility. It was just that the probability of a turnamancer tri-link was very low. Something along the lines of 100% chance of ruining plan if turnamancer * 1% chance of turnamancer = 1% chance of ruined plan.

[Dr Pepper]

My prediction: Wanda has an extra trick of her own in reserve. It won't counteract the effect of the End Turn spell, but it will greatly reduce the advantage the RCC just gained.