Redefining and Reviewing

Robb Graves said:
because fire is not correct. fire burns things... flame is an eldritch energy that does not burn anything... it is just eldritch force summoned from elemental flame.
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Flame burns things too, but just living things. And there's no such distinction between normal ice and ice from eldritch force, so this doesn't pass the sniff test to me. I know fire is not correct. My question was: why is fire not correct when it's clearly more intuitive for new players.
 
umm.. i'm pretty sure the distinction between eldrich magic and regular real world elements is in the rule book but since my cat puked on mine, i can't help you. anyone with a rule book, feel free to enlighten us.
 
As most of my games are run at boy scout camps, it's very nice not to have 20 people yelling 'fire' in the middle of the night...
 
Eldritch ice can't make water freeze so you can walk across a lake... Stone can't break windows. My copy of the rulebook s on my computer and I'm on my phone, but I know the rulebook at some point drew a distinction between the two.

Plus, correct verbals are correct verbals. If someone incants a "fire bolt" at me, it's blown.
 
  • I know the difference between eldrich evocation and normal fire, ice, etc. It is in the rule book.
  • I know "fire" is not part of any incant, and is not an element in our system. It's wrong to say it as such. We are discussing potential ways in which to change the rules here.
  • The fact that there's a difference between eldrich magic and actual fire doesn't explain why we use flame instead of fire, because there's no such distinction between ice and ice, or lightning and lightning
  • Lurin's explanation is at least a reason. Was that the actual rationale behind the decision, though? Boy scouts talk about building fires all the time.
 
This is indeed the type of suggestions that are seriously being looked at for the future. When we talk about simplifying the rules, the intent is to make it much easier for a new player to jump right in and understand easily what is happening.
 
"Fire" vs. "Flame" ...

We don't say "Exothermic" or "Heat" for "Flame". We don't say "Electric" or "Shock" for "Lightning". We don't say "Rock" or "Dirt" for "Stone". We don't say "Cold" or "Endothermic" for "Ice" ...

The rulebook used to have "Fire" in it in specific locations (like Traps I believe), but to keep damage consistent (i.e. have just Flame damage instead of Flame, Heat, Fire, Burning, etc.) the nomenclature in the book was changed to just use "Flame" since the spell was "Flamebolt" and the damage described in the description of the spell was "20 Flame damage". The rest of the game's slang followed suit both IG and OOG.

As far as I am aware there really wasn't any other reason...
 
jpariury said:
Dragon's Breath should be Flame Storm.
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May I ask why this isn't true? Why did it get to be special, while all the <Element> Storm spells remained just Storms? It doesn't particularly bug me, but for continuity reasons, it seems there should either be a Flame Storm, or a Dragon's Breath + something like "Blizzard" instead of Ice Storm, etc.
 
Gandian Ravenscroft said:
jpariury said:
Dragon's Breath should be Flame Storm.
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May I ask why this isn't true? Why did it get to be special, while all the <Element> Storm spells remained just Storms? It doesn't particularly bug me, but for continuity reasons, it seems there should either be a Flame Storm, or a Dragon's Breath + something like "Blizzard" instead of Ice Storm, etc.
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Because I couldn't get enough owners to change it. I wanted it for consistency, but I lost.

That's what happens when rules are written by committee! :thumbsup:
 
I agree that it should be flame storm, but Dragon's Breath just sounds cool. :) I miss Doom...
 
I can see the argument for "Flame Storm" (I made it myself when I first started playing), but I have grown to rather like the fact that Dragon's Breath is different. While completely inconsistent, it's endearingly grandiose and self-important, and the imagery is quite evocative, too. Yes, it's silly and it would make so much more sense to have it be "Flame Storm", but there's something amusing and frankly butt-kicking (imo) about screaming the words "I call forth a dragon's breath!" at someone. So much more so than "I call forth a flame storm".

Simple? No. But it gives the game a bit of flare (not to be confused flame or fire), and I don't think too many entry-level players will be throwing dragon's breaths anyways (or getting hit by them, I sincerely hope).

((I suppose if one wants to continue the argument a step further, I think the terminology fits in well with the idea of "be all that you can't be". Anyone with a bottle of hair spray and a lighter can "flame storm" someone. Not too many folks can toss the breath of a dragon at you. :D))
 
Not to be all slippery slope, but the problem is that if we accept that argument for Dragon's Breath, we need to accept it for "Thunderstorm" and "Blizzard" and "Forge Spark"... it moves away from an easily absorbed list of effects towards fifty pages of disparate names of shtuff.

(As for not having dragon's breath - you clearly haven't seen Mark Mensch's fire breathing routine, or tasted my chili. :) )
 
I had some more thoughts.

I know it was stated earlier that adding the damage to the end of the verbal would increase the length... which is "not awesome."

Would it possible to make the damage call a requirement and then balance that out by increasing the damage?

Also, by adding the damage to the incant to the spell we eliminate the need for any real pattern to the damage increase... meaning we could stagger the damage as it increases.

What do we think of that maybe?
 
I think I'm kind of in favor of leaving the damage as is, letting people pick the element and just making it <incant><damage>. That should, inherently, actually buff evocation across the board since you can select your element against monsters, thereby possibly hitting a vulnerability.

I mean, how much does it suck to have nothing but ice bolts and ice storms left against some undead?

To be fair, at that point, earth might need a little love...
 
JP: Actually, I think it's the breaking of the pattern that makes it as special as it is. If everything had a grandiose name, it would become mundane, and no one would recognize it for the charming excess that it is. Leave behind Blizzard and Bouldertoss, or what have you, because if you include them, it just becomes boring.

As for the rest of it... chili. Mmmmm. Egads, now I'm hungry. I'll have to try this chili some time. If it can turn the average person into a fire-breathing maniac, I am all for it! :D After all, "not too many folks" does mean that there are some who can manage. ;D
 
I'm not certain that buffing celestial to be element on the fly would be enough of a buff to not take the binding/command spells at the same levels.


5 damage of any element is still strictly worse than a disarm.... unless you live in claw-land.
 
As a Celestial scholar, I like Dragon's Breath as is. It's the highest power damage spell anyone takes, and it has a certain flair. One unique evocation spell is enough, though, like Prashka said.

Of the ones suggested after me, I like "I call forth a Dragon's Breath! 40 Flame!" best. I'm usually not casting fast enough for the extra words to matter. Another option is to require the IG incant to be done before throwing, but the damage can be called as the packet is going through the air, sort of how a fighter can call "two normal" as she's swinging, as long as it's done by the time it hits.

And Inaryn? It sucks very, very much. I like the idea of being able to change out elements for my spells. I assume the incants would be levels 1-4 blasts, 5-7 storm, 8 (Dragon's breath... and you'd probably have to come up with other names for the other elements, like Blizzard, Thunderstorm, Avalanche) for the highest level. If the damage incants were included, that kind of flexibility would possible... 'Course, I wouldn't say no to a damage buff. Aside from wands, celestial damage doesn't scale with level, and with monster body creep, it often takes a flame bolt to drop the endless respawn minions.

RiddickDale, binding isn't that useful in large quantities. Nearly everything I've run into resists, is immune, or rips free from binds. Those same things are often immune to commands, too.
 
I've had some ideas for evocation spells for a while. Some of which have been brought up by others already.

Turn all the "bolt" spells into one spell, which does the same damage regardless of element. You can make it element-on-the-fly, or have the caster pick it at memorization. Either way works. In fact, both ways work - you could have level 1 be a pick-at-memorization spell, and level 2 be a pick-on-the-fly.

No matter what, if a spell verbal calls forth a "bolt" it does 10 damage.

Add higher damage spells by using new nouns to call forth. Level 3 - Elemental Spear (level 4, an on-the-fly version) does say, 20 damage.

The best part (IMO) of my idea were to turn the "Storm" spells into mini multi-packet spells. A caster could throw a number of packets equal to 1+the number of spell slots at that spell's level. Use all the same rules as Magic/Earth/Chaos storm. This would give the caster versatility - they could damage or drop several weaker targets (yay sorta-AoE spells), or pile it into a single big monster (possibly burning through several defenses.) You could have a higher level spell that does more damage per packet.

(Note I thought about this before wands came into play. I'm told they're great, but haven't played since they were introduced.)

I think if you have a limited number of "things" that get called forth (bolt, spell, storm, blast, etc.) and each thing does the same damage regardless of element, then it will be easier to remember how much damage to take without having to put the number into or after the verbal.
 
A thought occurs to me.

You incant a spell. You have 2 seconds to throw it.

Adding number and damage on the end kind of it just helps makes sure you finish the incant before throwing.
 
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