PC's underpowered in v2?

jadrax wrote:I actually think WFRP has the bet of both world, all spellcasters get a good starting selection and then get to hunt down rare rituals and lesser magic spells from tomes.

Except that 1) perhaps 90-95% of all existing spells are part of someone's starting selection 2) there aren't any rituals to speak of that aren't specific to a certain adventure 3) except to fulfil your career requirements, who bothers with lesser spells?

What I would like to see is a mechanic for the College Wizard to obtain specific individual spells. And removal of the mechanism where the spellcaster gains new spells automagically with increased power.

In most cases, the spells the player desires here are spells that are part of other lores. That is, an official matching up of the current mechanisms Dark Lores/Magic to Witchcraft/Extra Spell.

I far would have preferred it if new spellcasting characters were given their set of Petty Spells and perhaps a similar set of starting Lore spells. From that point on, the game system should only recommend the GM certain discoveries as to not stunt the PC's abilities, but leave it up to the GM (and the player) exactly with which spells the PC ends up with.

This way, those spell abilities will be tied much stronger to past achievements. Knowing Conflagration of Doom should perhaps only be awarded to characters who manage to enter the secret society of the Cleansing Flame or have managed to get access to the lost Bright Library in Tilea or whatever, not something you know simply because of your xp total.

(smilies re-enabled)

CapnZapp wrote:

jadrax wrote:I actually think WFRP has the bet of both world, all spellcasters get a good starting selection and then get to hunt down rare rituals and lesser magic spells from tomes.

Except that 1) perhaps 90-95% of all existing spells are part of someone's starting selection 2) there aren't any rituals to speak of that aren't specific to a certain adventure 3) except to fulfil your career requirements, who bothers with lesser spells?

Its nothing to do with Xp totals and everything to do with the fact you are a trained wizard and therefore have been taught how to cast what is still a very selection of spells. What this system avoid is the problem in version one where everybody learnt to cast there petty spells, fireball and absolutely nothing else, making every wizard basically a dull one spell wonder.

And as for the idea that there are no rituals or lesser spells worth taking, any wizard who isn't hunting down these spells is clearly missing out on their Characters potential. Mind that said, It is probably due to the fact that the Lesser magic spells in the Core book are particularly bland, it is only in the later books that they seemed to get into their stride with them.

I love the current magic system for the very reason that the player has a large selection to choose from at the beginning. The trick is that they may know a lot of the higher level spells, but they aren't necessarily able to cast them safely.

You might have 3 Magic Dice and a dragons tooth, but the chance of pulling off Conflagration of Doom are slim and the chances for TC are high. This poses an interesting dilemma for the caster : try and use a less powerful spell to achieve your aim with the potential that it isn't quite enough or go for broke and possibly waste the rare component and kill yourself and everyone else in the process. Depending on the situation, that choice might be the difference between life and death.

Me, personally, I've found that by using the 'building' TC level house rule that I mentioned earlier, magic remains dangerous enough that casting spells willy nilly isn't worth it for the caster because they won't want to build up a number of TC results in a single day that will make casting a powerful spell a death sentence later, when they really need it. They conserve their power.

Also, I'll allow the players to burn a fate point to succeed at really important rolls, as long as they have at least a 1% chance to succeed. So a wizard who is the only one standing between his party suffering a TPK and whose only recourse to drop the big bad is a powerful spell barely within his reach can burn an FP to cast it automatically without any ill effects. IMO, that's what Fate Points are for, not just keeping you from dying when you've copped a critical, but to help you in any critical, life or death, fate of the town/city/empire/world moments.

I also make up new lesser spells for various occasions. The first WFRP V2 adventure I ran was based on the 'Plague Daemon' novel by Brian Craig. In it, a nurgle sorceror, The Lazarite, is sneaking up on a rival wizards tower using a spell that creates a 'shield' of invisibility that only works when it is interposed bertween the viewer and those behind it. I created a Lesser Spell to recreate it:

BLINDSPOT
Casting Number: 12
Casting Time: Full Turn
Ingredient: An Eyeball (+2).
Description: This spell creates a circular disc, a Blindspot, with a radius in yards equal to the wizard’s Magic characteristic x2. The Blindspot can be moved to face any direction.
Any one on the other side of the disc from the caster will see niether the caster or any other beings whom the caster nominates at the time of the spell and who are completely out of sight behind the disc. Note that the Blindspot offers no physical protection, it just makes the caster invisible from a certain angle. Any damage to the caster will force him to drop the spell.

Read a few of the older novels and you'll find plenty of gems such as this one. They were rife with weird magic and didn't rely on spells that could only be found in WFRP or WFB. Also, if you have the V1 rulebook, try and convert some of those spells into Lesser Magic spells. A casting value of 1 die (an average Casting number of 5-6) per 10mp seems about right, just off the top of my head. The effects should be easy to convert (just go from D6's to D10's in most cases) and the durations and casting times should be similar.

Also, and this is a point most people miss, Lesser Magic doesn't mean that the spells are weak. That's what Petty Magic is for. Lesser Magic spells are simply utility spells that are developed outside of the standard college applications. When you go to the college, you learn the basics (i.e the Lore list). Then, you branch out and research or create other spells on your own.

So, every mage might have a version of Ethereal Armour, they are just created differently using a different wind. This is only a visual difference and in game turns it doesn't matter if your Ethereal Armour looks like you are encased in flames, shadow or gold, it all works the same. So use Lesser Magic as you would normal magic spells in V1. Have them found in tomes or on scrolls in libraries, temples, dungeons, etc. and then have the players spend 100xp to study and learn them. You'll never run out of interesting spells for your wizards to learn...

jadrax wrote:Its nothing to do with Xp totals and everything to do with the fact you are a trained wizard and therefore have been taught how to cast what is still a very selection of spells. What this system avoid is the problem in version one where everybody learnt to cast there petty spells, fireball and absolutely nothing else, making every wizard basically a dull one spell wonder.

And as for the idea that there are no rituals or lesser spells worth taking, any wizard who isn't hunting down these spells is clearly missing out on their Characters potential. Mind that said, It is probably due to the fact that the Lesser magic spells in the Core book are particularly bland, it is only in the later books that they seemed to get into their stride with them.

First off, let's reiterate that we are both proponents of the v2 system (I believe).

That doesn't mean I feel a need to defend its every detail.

If you don't see the weaknesses inherent in the v2 system where you don't actually learn powerful spells when you become a powerful caster, but already right when you become a Journeyman; and where there are few Lesser Spells and almost no Rituals to be had, then I don't think we should argue about it anymore.

As for wizards hunting down spells, that's a great idea, but again, if you don't see that this type of adventure is more or less made irrelevant by the v2 system, then fine.

You have shown yourself to be a lucid and insightful contributor to these forums and I certainly don't have anything I can add if you are determined not to be swayed.

Cheers,
Zapp

CapnZapp wrote:If you don't see the weaknesses inherent in the v2 system where you don't actually learn powerful spells when you become a powerful caster, but already right when you become a Journeyman; and where there are few Lesser Spells and almost no Rituals to be had, then I don't think we should argue about it anymore.

I think its more that I think the best solution to the issue is to add a lot more Lesser magic Spells and Rituals. If we where back in time before Tome of Salvation, Realm of the Ice Queen and a few other books, then yes - the system is broken. But at this point I think its just about workable, and the more lesser magic and Rituals that are added the better it becomes, without having to water down the collage system which is such an important part of the background.

CapnZapp wrote:
3) except to fulfil your career requirements, who bothers with lesser spells?

Are you serious? There are at least 4 Lesser Magic spells that are almost obligatory (aethyric Armour, Blessed Weapon, Silence and Dispel), that leaves only 2 slots for Wizards (and 1 for Priests, who don't need Aethyric Armour) for any of the other 20 or so (with ToC, ToS, and a few others) Lesser Magic spells, which all are at least 'limited but occasionally usefull'. If anything, I think the problem is that PC's have too few slots for Lesser magic.

To solve this problem I allow Characters to use the "Extra Spell" Talent to buy lesser magic spells in the same way as Petty Magic and Lore Spells.

Dr. Rudolf von Richten wrote:

CapnZapp wrote:
3) except to fulfil your career requirements, who bothers with lesser spells?

Are you serious? There are at least 4 Lesser Magic spells that are almost obligatory (aethyric Armour, Blessed Weapon, Silence and Dispel), that leaves only 2 slots for Wizards (and 1 for Priests, who don't need Aethyric Armour) for any of the other 20 or so (with ToC, ToS, and a few others) Lesser Magic spells, which all are at least 'limited but occasionally usefull'. If anything, I think the problem is that PC's have too few slots for Lesser magic.

I always thought the "slots" were only a minimum... to move to the next career.

jadrax wrote:To solve this problem I allow Characters to use the "Additional Spell" Talent to buy lesser magic spells in the same way as Petty Magic and Lore Spells.

Assuming you mean "Extra Spell", this sounds very reasonable.

jericho wrote:I always thought the "slots" were only a minimum... to move to the next career.

Not quite.

Let's take the priest careers as an example.

Anointed Priest has "Lesser Magic (any two)" listed among its talents. This means you need to have learnt two lesser spells to be able to complete the career. It also means you can learn two lesser spells, but no more. (Unless the GM allows the use of the Special Training rule, page 212 - or, as Jadrax suggests, a houserule for increased flexibility)

High Priest also has "Lesser Magic (any two)" listed. Again, this means
1) you need knowledge of two lesser spells to complete the career
2) you may learn two lesser spells
The important feature (of the entire career and talent learning system) is that these needn't be the same two spells! Note the emphasis on "need" and "may" respectively.

That is, one priest may learn spell A and B as an Anointed Priest, and then point at those two spells when the GM checks for completing even the High Priest career. The same two spells satisfy the condition both at Anointed and High stages.

Another priest may learn A & B as anointed, and then C & D as High Priest; pointing to any two when checking for completing the High Priest career.

So, yes, you are right, the "slots" are a minimum needed to complete a career (as in the High Priest example). But I hope to have shown that doesn't mean you can learn any number of talents (including individual spells) - the Anointed Priest, for example, can't learn a third or fourth lesser spell even if he wants to (again, unless the GM agrees to make an exception one way or other).

The minimum number of spells you must learn to complete an entire career path (such as Journeyman Wizard through Wizard Lord) is the highest individual career requirement. The maximum number of spells you can learn is the sum of all individual career requirements. Thus a completed Wizard Lord might have learned anything between 2 and 6 lesser spells, inclusive.

This latter number (6) is presumably what Dr Richten finds low.

Hmm, never read it that way. If it says Lesser Magic (any two), Academic Knowledge (any two), or similar, I always assumed that you need two to complete the career, but can learn as many as you like assuming you spend the exp. Much like if you have Academic Knowledge (X or Y), you only need X or Y to complete the career, but can learn both if you want to.

CapnZapp wrote:
This latter number (6) is presumably what Dr Richten finds low.

Yes.

Of course, you can houserule this away, but as a RAW it makes little sense; suddenly, you are unable to learn no more Lesser Magic, for no good reason at all.

I presume the designers thought "Oh well, there's only 8 Lesser Magic Spells anyway, so it's not a huge loss", and did not realize that they would eventually crank up that number quite a bit!

Then again, it may be some issue of game balance, badly implemented, but as such understandable.

Solmyr wrote:Hmm, never read it that way. If it says Lesser Magic (any two), Academic Knowledge (any two), or similar, I always assumed that you need two to complete the career, but can learn as many as you like assuming you spend the exp. Much like if you have Academic Knowledge (X or Y), you only need X or Y to complete the career, but can learn both if you want to.

In a way, these options are similar in that for "X or Y" you can learn both if you want to, and for "any three" you can learn all three if you want to (assuming you don't need to).

But "learning as many as you like" will definitely have to be chalked up as a houserule.

Good luck with your game!

jadrax wrote:To solve this problem I allow Characters to use the "Extra Spell" Talent to buy lesser magic spells in the same way as Petty Magic and Lore Spells.

I didnt use the limitation to begin with, but your solution is a good way to make it 'formal'.

Edit: No matter