A Call to Arms: CKG

[moriarty777]

re: Illusions.

The problem with some of the recent spells and rationale provided is that an Illusionist isn't really dealing with illusions but re-shaping reality under the possible premise that life is an illusion anyway.

While vagueness is fine and to allow a CK and players decide what role illusions have in their campaign is perfectly fine, the illusionist healing spells present a stumbling block or two.

The question which needs to be looked at is whether or not an unconscious recipient would be able to receive any benefits from a Cure Light Wounds or if an Illusionist believes his own spells are actually 'real' or not (like Dragon Mount).

M
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[serleran]

Are illusory healing spells reversible? I forgot to check, as I do not use them at all.

If I were the Trolls, I would introduce a new spell for this called Phantom Injury which has an effect similar to that suffered by amputees.
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Serl's Corner

[Go0gleplex]

[quote="moriarty777"]re: Illusions.

... the illusionist healing spells present a stumbling block or two.[/quote]

Which is why I've tossed the healing spell out and substituted it with a spell more along the lines of Aid, illusionary hp in advance that can be lost "free" before more serious injuries occur, the recipient believing themselves tougher than they actually are.

[quote="moriarty777"]The question which needs to be looked at is whether or not an Illusionist believes his own spells are actually 'real' or not (like Dragon Mount).

M[/quote]

Dragon mount is a decent spell, in concept. But I'd hesitate to think of it as pure illusion so much as more "shadow" type magic. The spell description seems to insinuate that it is nothing more than figment at which point, were that the case, I would rule against it being able to be ridden at all since there is physically nothing there to ride. But as Pat said, some of the ambiguity is useful, some of it, such as this, is not so much.
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[dunbruha]

Go0gleplex wrote:
To say that just believing an illusion of a bridge makes it physically real or that a pit becomes actuality, displacing real matter is, IMO, malarky.

I agree that it is malarky, but it is RAW malarky. Even putting aside the (IMO bogus) concept of failing a save when you know it is cast by an illusionist, if an unknowing character/NPC fails the save, he can walk across the chasm on the illusory bridge. I just think this is too powerful. I would love to see an alternate mechanism for illusions, more in line with the AD&D model.

[Piperdog]

On a different note....

I would like to see alternative methods for magic use, including a mana point system rathern than fire and forget. And as to fire and forget, I would like to see some options there as well, like making siege checks to actually retain the spell so it is not lost (just an example).

As to the illusionist healing spells, they just don't jive with me either...unless illusions are not merely tricks of the eye and mind and actually summon a quasi-real force.

Magic may just need it's own CK compilation book, including new spells and categories. I like how some systems have similar spells grouped together, and some spells have requisites. In Gurps for example, you can't learn fireball until you learn how the spell Shape Fire, and you can't learn that one unless you first learn Create Fire, and so on.

Just throwing some ideas around.
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[Lord Dynel]

Go0gleplex wrote:
To say that just believing an illusion of a bridge makes it physically real or that a pit becomes actuality, displacing real matter is, IMO, malarky.

I agree with this. To me, most illusions should not replace real matter. Illusions are just that - illusions. Now, maybe there's a new line of thinking, this "shape reality" line of thought. I don't agree with that, and like someone else said, it's usually going to come down to the individual CK and how they percieve illusions. For me, it's the old way - illusionists blanket reality with their spells in an attempt to trick a target.
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[artikid]

LordSeurek wrote:
Since they (TLG) don't include them, I use the ones given in the MM 3.5

L.S.

Hmmm.... I don't like very much the idea of bringing with me an extra book.

I think I'm not alone in this. BTW it's not a solution that complies with the way C&C works and has been written.

moriarty777 wrote:
If there is a temporary boost or loss to the physical stats, just apply them as straight bonuses or penalties. It gives monsters an edge but not one that would create a huge imbalance IMO.

I think this is a lot better, also it should even out with heavier penalties caused by effects that lower ability scores.

I actually do something similar myself (i halve the penalties/bonusses).

Still it does not fully tackle problems caused by magic items similar to the sword of wounding, which have long term effects (Con reduction) that can have drastic effects in the shor term.

That's why I think some guidelines in the CKG would be helpful.

Fiffergrund wrote:
I personally can't stand illusionary healing

Me neither. I haven't yet bought C&C 4th printing, but I don't like what I hear about illusionists. I probably would keep the old spell lists, so I don't care that much about clarifying illusions.

In the same way I'm not particularly interested about alternative magic systems.

Instead I would like some tweaks on the basic systems: domains for Clerics, Specialists instead of MU/ Illusionists, using spell slots to memorize lower level spells, counterspelling.

I know these can be taken straight out of 3.x, yet as I stated above I hate the idea of bringing with me extra books.

Best regards

artikid
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[Troll Lord]

Fiffergrund wrote:
I think illusions need a LOT of clarification.

I personally can't stand illusionary healing UNLESS the recipient has no idea the caster is an illusionist. Once someone knows that a caster is an illusionist, they aren't going to believe ANYTHING that the caster produces, including healing.

This idea that they can fail a save and believe it is bunk. Once they know the caster produces illusions, they don't work anymore on those people, period.

This is why illusions are so powerful - because most of the entities on the receiving end won't know they are illusions - because they don't know the caster!

This whole illusion idea really breaks up plausibility to me, and it needs serious clarification. I cannot stomach the concept that my fighter knows Bobo is an illusionist, yet will "play stupid" just so the healing actually works on him.

It's nonsense.

You know why horror movies with terrible imagery don't have lasting traumatic effects once we leave the theater? Because we know they are FAKE.

The same goes for illusionists. Once it is known they are fake, even on the most subliminal level - THEY DON'T WORK ANYMORE.

Casey, I"m not real clear here. So your saying, that you don't like the illusionist heal rules?

Steve
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[Troll Lord]

You guys went a little off reservation with this. I was looking for more things like

Continual flame is broken because I can cast 10 a day for 100 days and light up the entire southern coast of Spain.

Curse you philosophical gamers!!!

Steve
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[Fiffergrund]

Troll Lord wrote:
Casey, I"m not real clear here. So your saying, that you don't like the illusionist heal rules?

Steve

ROFLMAO

Yeah, I guess that sums it up. I still have a tendency to get verbose, don't I? Ahh, just like the good ol' days. Good times.
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[Fiffergrund]

Troll Lord wrote:
Continual flame is broken because I can cast 10 a day for 100 days and light up the entire southern coast of Spain.

Teh Awesome.
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[Breakdaddy]

I dont know about broken, but I could use some really useful spells like "detect pork" and "rain of bacon".

[Omote]

Troll Lord wrote:
You guys went a little off reservation with this. I was looking for more things like

Continual flame is broken because I can cast 10 a day for 100 days and light up the entire southern coast of Spain.

Curse you philosophical gamers!!!

Steve

There's a few instances of this type of post here Steverino.

~O
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[Christina Stiles]

Breakdaddy wrote:
I dont know about broken, but I could use some really useful spells like "detect pork" and "rain of bacon".

What about S#@t Storm! Nothing like a pile o' poo to tick off your enemy. You can even have a mass spell for use in covering swaths of enemies in your Fields of Battle game.
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[serleran]

Magic Stones and Goodberry is "broken" in the traditional sense -- for very low level spells, they allow the creation of permanent magic items, and in the case of magic stones, extremely potent weapons as they deal double damage to undead and work for other people (not just the caster) so the druid can hand a bag of free stones that kick skeleton (or wraith, or vampire, or mummy, or lich) ass to the fighter... and go to town; goodberry creates a massive amount of single HP healing fruits which never spoil and have, apparently, absolutely no encumbrance -- each casting makes 2d4 and a druid can have like 3-4 of them a day which yields, for a first level druid, the ability to heal half the party (practically) all on his own, every day.

Now, these can get somewhat reduced in ability slowly with level gains, but eating a berry for 1 HP is still useful since there is no (that I recall) limit to how many a day a character can munch... so, make 40 of them in the course of a week and that's like 5 free potions of cure serious wounds.

It gets worse if you have hench-druids.
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Serl's Corner

[Relaxo]

Without checking, i think Goodberry is limited to 4 hp healing per day, but still, you make a point, that's nothing to shake a stick at for a non-healer class.

I mean, it's not like a druid is an Illusionist or anything.

[LordSeurek]

artikid wrote:
Hmmm.... I don't like very much the idea of bringing with me an extra book.

I think I'm not alone in this. BTW it's not a solution that complies with the way C&C works and has been written.

It's not an extra book if you care to pick it up in pdf for easy access for like 40 cents. If not, its one bloody book, big deal.

Sure, there may be better ways to handle it, I just posted how I handle it. And where is it written that it doesn't complies with how c&c works and has been written? Many of my players agree with it, and they all have/had run c&c for years.

Bottom line, it works for us.
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[Lord Dynel]

artikid wrote:
Still it does not fully tackle problems caused by magic items similar to the sword of wounding, which have long term effects (Con reduction) that can have drastic effects in the short term.

That's why I think some guidelines in the CKG would be helpful.

I agree with you. I don't know if I would go about setting stats for every creature from M&T. I think the save system has simple elegance now, and I feel some of that would be lost if we start looking at attribute scores for the monsters, then looking at "primes" (physical/mental). Bleh.

Like I said, I do agree with artikid. I think there should be rules for what happens when creatures are affected by spells/effects/magic items that affect an attribute score. I just think that would be easier than to stat out all the monsters from the books.
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Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[serleran]

A simple, natural progression of attribute loss seems self-evident....

Strength affects to hit. Intelligence affects spell-level effects if the creature can cast/activate (perhaps only those of an arcane-like nature or which emulate such spells) and Wisdom does the same but for clerical abilities. Dexterity either hits AC or ranged attacks (maybe even both) and Constitution hammers HP (I would not, actually, have it reduce HD as that affects everything about a monster), which leaves the oddball... Charisma. Hmm. Yeah. They're monsters. Who cares.
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Serl's Corner

[Dragondaddy]

Any rules in there for designing your own spells?

How about Magic Item Creation?

[Secret Skeleton]

Magic Item Creation is a hell of a thing in C&C. A hell of a thing.

[Go0gleplex]

As just came to light with a question in the Rules forum Steve,

Further edification on the "ritual ceremony" spell mentioned in M&T...might be in order for the creation of magical items.

If not already included.
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Baron Grignak Hammerhand of the Pacifica Provinces-

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[Lord Dynel]

I agree about the ritual ceremony. I'd appreciate some clarification on that, to be honest.
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[TheMetal1]

+1 on the Ritual Ceremony in the CKG. Perhaps an example would be in order as well.
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