New Erfworld Campaign - "Darkness Rising" - Rules

[MarbitChow]

I think we're kind of saturated on casters right now. I'd prefer not to add any more, to be honest. But if you're not having fun with your current character, you can swap it out for another one with the same XP.

[CroverusRaven]

I'll consider it. Mostly I wanted to see if I can help work on one of the other caster schools though playtesting.

Edit: I might like trying out a Thinkamancer

[MarbitChow]

Thinkamancers will not be implemented in this game as anything but NPCs. The potential for abuse is too great; the tri-caster link ability is completely uncontrollable.

[CroverusRaven]

Ah... what casters do we have a spell list for but no one is playing?

[ETheBoyce]

That would be Hippiemancer

[CroverusRaven]

Hmm... I might try my hand at one. See what kind of crazy antics I can add to the battle.

[Nnelg]

Well, Hippiemancy does have a lot of excellent source material coming from Olive.

(So much in fact, that'll be hard to come up with a character that isn't a clone of some kind...)

[tigerusthegreat]

Well, Hippiemancy does have a lot of excellent source material coming from Olive.

(So much in fact, that'll be hard to come up with a character that isn't a clone of some kind...)

Little Shop of Horrors....enough said

[0beron]

Okay, here is how I would like to see Phantasm reworded for clarity. Does it make sense?

Phantasm [Requires Glamour]- Create an illusionary unit (single-square, 2x2, or 3x3 in size) with 0 Combat / 0 Defense / 0 Hits / 2/Caster Level Move that can be targeted by other effects. When combined with Aggression, unit can inflicts Fatigue damage and has actual stats equal to it's apparent stats. (4 Juice)

[MarbitChow]

Better, but as Nnelg pointed out, Fatigue can be converted to real damage in the Subdue rules. How about this:

Phantasm [Requires Glamour]- Create an illusionary unit (single-square, 2x2, or 3x3 in size) with 0 Combat / 0 Defense / 0 Hits / 2/Caster Level Move that can be targeted by other effects. Unit inflicts Illusionary damage based on apparent stats (as modified by Glamour), and vanishes after attacking (unless modified by Aggression). (4 Juice)[/quote]

[0beron]

Ah that is true, I was focusing more on the clarity issue so I forgot about the Fatigue thing.
However this raises new questions. 1, why did we decide that fatigue should convert to real damage? and 2, if we stick with this "illusionary damage" idea, what does it mean?

[Exate]

Phantasm ... 2/Caster Level Move

Does this include overland move?

Actually, thinking on it I suspect that lasting when moved between hexes might not be a standard feature of Foolamancy spells; we have the example of the veiled-as-bats dwagon becoming obviously itself when it left the hex, at minimum. Maybe that should be rolled into one of the modifiers somewhere.

[MarbitChow]

Ah that is true, I was focusing more on the clarity issue so I forgot about the Fatigue thing.
However this raises new questions. 1, why did we decide that fatigue should convert to real damage? and 2, if we stick with this "illusionary damage" idea, what does it mean?

1) To add risk into attempting to subdue. There's a strong chance that if you have to hit a target a lot to subdue him, you could end up killing him instead.
2) Illusionary would behave similarly to Fatigue, except that instead of being converted to real damage when a unit is hit, it vanishes completely.

Actually, thinking on it I suspect that lasting when moved between hexes might not be a standard feature of Foolamancy spells; we have the example of the veiled-as-bats dwagon becoming obviously itself when it left the hex, at minimum. Maybe that should be rolled into one of the modifiers somewhere.

Good catch. I'll add the notice that all veils drop when they cross a hex border, and update Persistence to specify both damage and crossing a hex border.

[Nnelg]

Actually, thinking on it I suspect that lasting when moved between hexes might not be a standard feature of Foolamancy spells; we have the example of the veiled-as-bats dwagon becoming obviously itself when it left the hex, at minimum. Maybe that should be rolled into one of the modifiers somewhere.

Good catch. I'll add the notice that all veils drop when they cross a hex border, and update Persistence to specify both damage and crossing a hex border.

No, no, no... That would be horrible. Foolamancy already has a hard enough time being cast during battle, we mustn't make it impossible to prepare before a battle without an extra modifier (unless you're willing to reduce costs across the board to match).

However, adding this as a cost-reducing restriction wouldn't be bad.

[Nnelg]

we have the example of the veiled-as-bats dwagon becoming obviously itself when it left the hex, at minimum.

You know... I have a sneaking suspicions that illusions in-comic aren't one-time costs, but have to be maintained by the caster. After all, there's that one time that Jack got hit by an arrow, and all the veils dropped.

So, he could have just stopped paying the upkeep cost because the veil wasn't needed anymore. Actually... That could explain Bogroll's and Jack's (when healing Wanda) veils dropping as well.....

[MarbitChow]

I agree on the in-hex as a cost-reducing limitation. I don't want to go the upkeep route, though. The Bogroll veil drop seems pretty clearly triggered by his attack, though - recall that it was cast from a scroll.

[Nnelg]

Well, Maggie was the one who cast it, and she may have only missed the initial cost of the spell. Still, I'll admit that's the less likely case.

Anyways, I wouldn't presume to even try to run a constant-upkeep system in a hand-driven game like this.

[tigerusthegreat]

we have the example of the veiled-as-bats dwagon becoming obviously itself when it left the hex, at minimum.

You know... I have a sneaking suspicions that illusions in-comic aren't one-time costs, but have to be maintained by the caster. After all, there's that one time that Jack got hit by an arrow, and all the veils dropped.

So, he could have just stopped paying the upkeep cost because the veil wasn't needed anymore. Actually... That could explain Bogroll's and Jack's (when healing Wanda) veils dropping as well.....

When jack got hit by the arrow, he was incapacitated. I believe all spell effects you generate end when you are incapped or croaked in cannon.

Bogroll could be explained as Ansom, a high level warlord, finally seeing through the spell (the archons had already seen through it apparently), or it dropping when attacking because its a simple veil cast from a scroll.

And Jack healing Wanda, he no longer needed the veil (if it needs maintaining) or casting another spell broke the veil.

[CroverusRaven]

Yep, after this fight I think Whump will be heading home for reassignment to a contingency of Heavies for the next siege, and I might be replacing him with Seymour, the Hippiemancer, who follows a Survival-of-the-fittest attitude when he's lucid.

[MarbitChow]

CrovuerusRaven, you may want to hold off until I rewrite the Hippymancy (Flower Power) rules, which are not slated for this rules update, if you want to play a hippymancer.

All : I want to apologize for the lack of updates in the campaign threads. Twice now I've loaded up all files, started working, and something else has come up. Hopefully, saturday morning will be completely free, at which point I will most likely resolve and conclude the primary Dis City scenario (since I don't believe there are any major tactical decisions left to be made) as well as advance (and, if the resolution is straight-forward, complete) the New Batch.