[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: (TFT) Magnetic ink
DMG wrote:
Personally I have always had the hardest time dealing with UCV. As a
GM I have never had a player go for it. Just too many IQ points to buy it. ...
Yes. I saw very few users of UC higher than level 1. UC seems to me like
one of the best examples against the sensibility of the "IQ capacity"
talent system in TFT.
More to the point, what does UC V have to do with "write scroll" spell?
Not that I mind, but did you ever really answer this?
Generally, game theorists are in agreement on one point about these two
schools of thought. That they are not useful and are just there as a form of
game balance.
Not "useful"? I'd say instead they are not "necessary", but that they can
be interesting, and that another consideration is that it just "seems
wrong", and doesn't match most wizard fiction, for most wizards to choose
heavy armor.
"The cost of a scroll is determined by ....
IQ 8 - $300"
- AW page 8
That's an awful lot of money for a few pages of spell. Particularly when
one considers that the IQ 20 spell for command word costs $1,500 ...
Well, some spells are more useful than others, but even low-IQ TFT spells
can be extremely useful and might not be available any other way in some
circumstances. However, I agree that it does at first glance seem expensive
on the low end, and relatively cheap on the high end, for what it might get
someone, and how rare it might be. On the other hand, you're wasting the
time of a wizard who knows Write Scroll if you want a Magic Fist scroll...
... and seems to take 20 pages to write that "one word." Not a big issue,
but one that is easily solved.
Um, funny D&D comics aside, that's not what Advanced Wizard says. Writing
an actual written word of command as just one word is a use of Greater
Magic Item Creation, and causes people who look at it to get impelled by
the word of command! Writing a _scroll_ of the Word of Command spell for a
certain word of command, would not have just one word on it - it would have
an enchanted script which is "a device for patterning a wizard's mind" to
allow a high-IQ (or very lucky and dexterous) wizard to effectively speak
that word of command once. It's also still one scroll of unspecified length
- may or may not be the equivalent of 20 "pages" long.
Write Scroll is IQ 16 and having such a wizard write an IQ 8 spell's
scroll would take at least 8 days of his time, during which he needs to
make a DX roll each day... even one failure ruins the scroll... so he needs
to be high-DX too, or else he'll usually average rather longer to write it.
No wonder it's expensive! Imagine being an IQ 16+, DX 14+ wizard, being
asked to waste a couple of weeks or more to write a scroll for some IQ 8
spell that you also still bother to know (not a big chance there either). I
expect I would want more than $300 for that, but it's more or less in line
with the standard Jobs table in ITL. The effect of which is that only
spells that are really useful to have in scroll form for some purpose are
ever going to get that treatment, and then it will be more work than it's
probably worth at market value unless someone needs a scroll for something.
It's not going to be efficient for industrial magic except maybe for some
spells and then only if you have someone very gifted with lots of patience.
Even when you find an IQ 16+ DX 14+ wizard who finds it relaxing to write
scrolls, he can only know so many spells, and he can only write so many per
year.
Meanwhile, the Word of Command _book_ is what in theory would take
approximately 20 pages to write. In theory it would allow speaking the word
of command it would not BE the word of command. However spells over IQ 14
aren't even castable from books. You'd only have a theory or textbook about
the spell, which would help you learn the spell.
Actually, making the greater magic item that is a written word of
command itself, will require a book approximately 125 pages long... (see AW
page 7), and creating it will take at least 25 weeks. Really puts a crimp
in the style of would-be IQ 20+ pranksters...
...
Additionally allow a ready scroll to be used as a Shield against thrown
spells. Not because it is magnetic, but because it is enchanted. It works
as a shield against the front hexes. It subtracts 1 from the DX of the
attacking
wizard for each point of IQ difference between the casting wizard and the IQ
of the spell. I mean . . . come on. $1500 is a lot of money for a consumable
one time use, takes 20 days of perfect DX rolls to write kind-of-item.
Oh I dunno. I can see preferring spending $1500 to memorizing such a spell
for some purposes. With this proposed effect, however, I can also see
buying a $1500 scroll just to use as a magic shield. Can I get it glued to
my shield, please? How about wall-papering my fine plate armor? After all,
my Fine Plate cost me $5000. I'll glue one scroll to my shield to cover the
front, and one to my backpack to cover sneaky mages coming from behind. ;-)
p.s. for extra credit offer a house rule on why metal arrow heads, and other
weapons, sticking in the wizard do not cause a DX-4 for spell casting.
What Rick said. There was a detailed house rule described in some detail a
year ago (maybe longer) on this list, which gave gradual penalties based on
the amount or iron carried (or impaling).
PvK
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"