Was the Gift "school" hard to grasp?

[mikestrauss]

Why do we think that undead are still immune to Death? The new Death seems more akin to the old Doom. Undead are affected. Golems are affected. Only creatures immune to curse aren't affected. I think a lot of the exceptions that people are assuming don't exist if the spell is looked at in that context.

Also, on the note of adding Cleanse to Healing...
If you do that, then you need a necromantic version of the spell as well. Every healing spell has a necromantic version. What would it be, since the healing version removes curses? And would Cleanse also remove that necromancy spell as well as cure curses. That would arguably create a more complicated situation.

Cleanse in curse makes a LOT of sense. You know it can work on a creature, because the creature was affected by the curse in the first place (thus, isn't immune to the school). On the other hand, if you add it to healing, you could potentially create a situation where a creature could be cursed, but not healed (like a golem that is affected by curse, but immune to healing).

-MS

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

Alternately, you COULD look at moving Cleanse, Awaken, and Release into Protection/Enhancement.

 

[kalindra]

Why do we think that undead are still immune to Death?

Because Undead, constructs and elementals crumble at 0 body and cannot achieve the state "dead."
Plus they're already immune to the Paralysis curse at level 8.

Alternately, you COULD look at moving Cleanse, Awaken, and Release into Protection/Enhancement.

Now that's an interesting idea. So you would have "I grant you the power to Awaken/Release/Cleanse"?

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

Because Undead, constructs and elementals crumble at 0 body and cannot achieve the state "dead."
Plus they're already immune to the Paralysis curse at level 8.

By this logic, all these things should also be immune to Eviscerate and Terminate, since they can never get to -1 body. In fact, the intention was that Death would now work against all these monster types, barring specific monster immunities.

Now that's an interesting idea. So you would have "I grant you the power to Awaken/Release/Cleanse"?

Yes. Hell, you could even make them all into Cleanse, and allow the caster to select an effect group at casting, e.g. "I grant you the power to Cleanse Command/Binding/Curse!"

 

[ASFDan]

Hell, you could even make them all into Cleanse, and allow the caster to select an effect group at casting, e.g. "I grant you the power to Cleanse Command/Binding/Curse!"

From a design standpoint I think this would be an amazing change. However, given our current system replacing three spells at different levels with a single one would be a crippling blow to earth casters' ability to remove status effects so it would need some extra work to make a successful change.

 

[Draven]

From a design standpoint I think this would be an amazing change. However, given our current system replacing three spells at different levels with a single one would be a crippling blow to earth casters' ability to remove status effects so it would need some extra work to make a successful change.

Scholars are also gaining the ability to memorize spells at higher levels than base slots, so that's not entirely true anymore.

If anything, it would give Earth Casters versatility and a bit more effect removal power.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

Yes; if Cleanse goes in at 4th level, then it can also be prepared at 5th, 6th or even 7th level if that's REALLY important to you. At 8th, obviously, you would prepare Purify.

 

[kalindra]

By this logic, all these things should also be immune to Eviscerate and Terminate, since they can never get to -1 body. In fact, the intention was that Death would now work against all these monster types, barring specific monster immunities.

Hmm, ok fair enough, though if I wanted to be that guy about it I would argue that with Eviscerate you have to get to 0 body on the way to -1, and would therefore crumble anyway but if curse-Death is intended to affect undead, I'll have to concede the semantic argument.

Mechanically it mostly works or can be made to work; I guess I have a vague thematic objection to Death being a curse because of game world consistency? Like Death and Life should be opposites, but now Life is opposite Corrupt, but a Life spell (presumably) doesn't revivify an undead, so that's a (small) inconsistency in Healing vs Necro. And with the magistarium planes (Life/Death, Order/Chaos) the cosmology will be slightly different--not that that's the worst thing, I just like my head canon for how magic works and this is different.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

Yeah, I agree, the change is a little jarring from a cosmological standpoint. If it helps, consider that Necromancy may not be raw chaos, but rather what happens when you mix Chaos with Life/Earth.

 

[mikestrauss]

Hmm, ok fair enough, though if I wanted to be that guy about it I would argue that you have to get to 0 body on the way to -1, and would therefore crumble anyway but if curse-Death is intended to affect undead, I'll have to concede the semantic argument.

Mechanically it mostly works or can be made to work; I guess I have a vague thematic objection to Death being a curse because of game world consistency? Like Death and Life should be opposites, but now Life is opposite Corrupt, but a Life spell (presumably) doesn't revivify an undead, so that's a (small) inconsistency in Healing vs Necro. And with the magistarium planes (Life/Death, Order/Chaos) the cosmology will be slightly different--not that that's the worst thing, I just like my head canon for how magic works and this is different.

It isn't an inconsistency. All undead effectively have a special ability that says "No Effect" to everything when reduced to 0 body points or fewer. In fact, that is probably the way it should be written on the monster card. Life only works on targets that are at fewer than 0 body points (and are dead, but since dead creatures are defined as having fewer than 0 body points, that actually isn't important). Thus, they are immune to Corrupt. New cards will probably need to include No Effect to Life, though that is only a minor change to a line already on undead monster cards.

EDIT: I am leaving my mistaken interpretation in for discussion purposes only, but I am correcting it here. Undead do not need a note that they are immune to Life. A Corrupt spell starts by killing the target (which reduces the target below 0 body). A Life spell cast at an undead would acts like a Corrupt on a living target. Thus, the undead is reduced below 0 body. At that point the undead becomes immune to all effects, negating the remainder of the spell (the part that raises the undead as an, ironically, greater undead). Thus, a Life spell acts like a Death spell on an undead, which is actually a common request for years and pretty darn cool.

-MS

 

[Daedric]

I'm just going to play devil's advocate here. I know this interpretation under the proposed rules is not correct, so don't jump all over me.

Here goes...

If "death" is a curse, reducing you to -1 body, and requiring you to count 5 minutes before resurrection, is it really an instant effect?

One could argue that by the very nature of a curse, using a "cleanse" to remove curses during that 5 minutes would also remove the curse of death.

Just sayin'. It's like there's an obviously glaring gray area created by changing the schools of effect, and the only way to fix it is by creating the dreaded "exception."

 

[Tevas]

Daedric,

I'm a bit confused by your lead in as well as what follows. I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting or asking for. Would you mind clarifying please? I would appreciate it! I don't see any gray areas or exceptions with Cleanse versus Death as a Curse, so any detail would be great!

 

[mythic]

I'm just going to play devil's advocate here. I know this interpretation under the proposed rules is not correct, so don't jump all over me.

Here goes...

If "death" is a curse, reducing you to -1 body, and requiring you to count 5 minutes before resurrection, is it really an instant effect?

One could argue that by the very nature of a curse, using a "cleanse" to remove curses during that 5 minutes would also remove the curse of death.

Just sayin'. It's like there's an obviously glaring gray area created by changing the schools of effect, and the only way to fix it is by creating the dreaded "exception."

Pretty simple. Things like this need to just be written into the Effect/Spell itself. ex:
Death: Curse. This is an instant effect where upon the target is reduced to -1 BP and begins their 5 minute Death Count. During this time the only recourse is a Life spell.
Cleanse: (Curse/Healing*) This effect removes the following curses: xxx, xyz, aaa, 123 etc. (do not include any wording about Death).

These are no longer "exceptions" they are just the rule. Things can be written to avoid exceptions. Stating "Cleanse will remove all Curse effects EXCEPT Death" or something similar puts in the exception. No wording in either of the above that would lead to confusion to a new/regular player. Behind the scenes it would look like an exception (which, yes, it would be) but there is no room to argue the effects. This is where we have to remove exceptions. Again, we will never have a system without exceptions, but we can word them or work with them to ensure they do not creep in.

Hope that helps.

*hoping to have Cleanse moved to Healing, but that is another conversation.

 

[kalindra]

So, um... I don't know if I'm going to be helping by pointing this out, but I feel like we're using exception/inconsistency in two different ways? Like Group A is saying "Death would be different from the other Curse effects" and Group B is saying "it's consistent because we would write it in such a way that it isn't confusing."

So to avoid getting sidetracked by an argument about language rather than the rules we're discussing, setting aside whether anyone thinks inconsistency is inherently bad or not...

Group A says:
--Weakness/Silence/Destruction/Paralysis are ten-minute status effects; Death is not
--Weakness/Silence/Destruction/Paralysis are removed by Cleanse; Death is not
==>Death is not consistent with other Curse effects in 2.0
Group B says:
--Cleanse removes only the ten minute Curse effects
--Death by Curse, KB or bleeding out are all fixed by Life
==>No one will be confused and it's not inconsistent with the rules at large

I feel like we need to agree on what we're arguing about before we can make progress on the consistent/exception thing.

 

[Tevas]

Just wanted to refer back to some highlights that might help here on how the packet is currently set up. There seems to still be some confusion on this item, so hopefully this provides a benefit!

Cleanse, given its current wording, already fixes everything that is intended to work on. It states that it removes all Curse effects that are active on the target. The Death Effect, being instantaneous, does not leave anything lingering on the target for Cleanse to fix. Being "dead" is not an Effect, like being Silenced or Weaknessed is.

Cleanse in its current form is a Curse, with an instantaneous duration. So in that respect Death is not the only Curse that does not last for ten minutes.

 

[mikestrauss]

Just wanted to refer back to some highlights that might help here on how the packet is currently set up. There seems to still be some confusion on this item, so hopefully this provides a benefit!

Cleanse, given its current wording, already fixes everything that is intended to work on. It states that it removes all Curse effects that are active on the target. The Death Effect, being instantaneous, does not leave anything lingering on the target for Cleanse to fix. Being "dead" is not an Effect, like being Silenced or Weaknessed is.

Cleanse in its current form is a Curse, with an instantaneous duration. So in that respect Death is not the only Curse that does not last for ten minutes.

And there is the best evidence yet that Cleanse is not an exception. Every other removal effect (Release, Awaken, etc.) is an Instant effect. Thus, there is at least one spell in that school that the removal effect doesn't remove (itself), because the spell is an Instant spell. So, despite the fact that we inherently think that Release removes all Binding, we have always understood that it doesn't affect Release (which is in the binding school), because Release is an Instant.

I think the player base has a strong grasp of Instant spells and won't have any difficulty understanding that Death is an instant and thus can't be removed.

-MS

 

[Gilwing]

Just wanted to refer back to some highlights that might help here on how the packet is currently set up. There seems to still be some confusion on this item, so hopefully this provides a benefit!

Cleanse, given its current wording, already fixes everything that is intended to work on. It states that it removes all Curse effects that are active on the target. The Death Effect, being instantaneous, does not leave anything lingering on the target for Cleanse to fix. Being "dead" is not an Effect, like being Silenced or Weaknessed is.

Cleanse in its current form is a Curse, with an instantaneous duration. So in that respect Death is not the only Curse that does not last for ten minutes.

Amnesia...do I need to say more?

 

[Gilwing]

Why do we think that undead are still immune to Death? The new Death seems more akin to the old Doom. Undead are affected. Golems are affected. Only creatures immune to curse aren't affected. I think a lot of the exceptions that people are assuming don't exist if the spell is looked at in that context.

Also, on the note of adding Cleanse to Healing...
If you do that, then you need a necromantic version of the spell as well. Every healing spell has a necromantic version. What would it be, since the healing version removes curses? And would Cleanse also remove that necromancy spell as well as cure curses. That would arguably create a more complicated situation.

Cleanse in curse makes a LOT of sense. You know it can work on a creature, because the creature was affected by the curse in the first place (thus, isn't immune to the school). On the other hand, if you add it to healing, you could potentially create a situation where a creature could be cursed, but not healed (like a golem that is affected by curse, but immune to healing).

-MS

I'm pretty sure that undead will be immune to death.
As for making an opposite they don't have tomake an opposite, but guess then it will be an exception lol sorry had to say that. Let me add that death doesn't have an opposite.

 

[Gilwing]

Pretty simple. Things like this need to just be written into the Effect/Spell itself. ex:
Death: Curse. This is an instant effect where upon the target is reduced to -1 BP and begins their 5 minute Death Count. During this time the only recourse is a Life spell.
Cleanse: (Curse/Healing*) This effect removes the following curses: xxx, xyz, aaa, 123 etc. (do not include any wording about Death).

These are no longer "exceptions" they are just the rule. Things can be written to avoid exceptions. Stating "Cleanse will remove all Curse effects EXCEPT Death" or something similar puts in the exception. No wording in either of the above that would lead to confusion to a new/regular player. Behind the scenes it would look like an exception (which, yes, it would be) but there is no room to argue the effects. This is where we have to remove exceptions. Again, we will never have a system without exceptions, but we can word them or work with them to ensure they do not creep in.

Hope that helps.

*hoping to have Cleanse moved to Healing, but that is another conversation.

You can call something a crate and I'll call it a box, but either way it still has the same purpose.
The "exception" that I was referring to was how cleanse removes all curse effects EXCEPT death as it states it does not remove the death effect.

 

[Draven]

Death's effect is self-deleting.

It does not persist, because the effect of death is to put you into the state of Dead.

It also deletes all other persistent effects that do not specifically persist through the state of Dead (Enslavement/Amnesia).

There is no exception, because the moment a character is put into the state of Dead, all other Curse effects are immediately removed, along with a host of other effects.

Can we move on?