Nuclear Beasts

Spell Durations II

Well, I don't think I like the Ritual = longer-lasting stuff.

Having a secret that lets you extend the duration sounds better.

I'm not sure on maintained spells, though... I mean, in Ironclaw, they balance that by saying that only specific spells can be delayed... whereas I was thinking more that any spell could be delayed... which might be overpowered. Certainly some of them are worse than others.

Perhaps it should be more like Bound Spells... ones that are delayed until needed. Very few spells should be able to have indefinite durations.

Balancing bound spells by...

• Each person can have a max of X bound spells safely: this makes spell-selling very profitable, since there's no special cost to the mage. (Example: World Tree)
• Each bound spell costs the mage X mana until it is released: this limits spellcasters a lot... a given person can have a bunch of bound spells, but only at the cost of crippling a mage. (Example: Ironclaw)
• There are very few bound spells, and most of them are caster-only. This probably isn't suitable for a system with more freeform magic. (Example: D&D)

Okay, I'm kind of inclined towards "invested" mana (probably 1 per spell, since most folks won't have many) with limited circumstances that the binding can be triggered by.

Stuff like "when hit with a spell resisted by Willpower", or "when critically wounded". The trigger has to be established when the spell is bound.

Posted by Kiz at March 26, 2005 02:23 PM