Samael's Research

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Samael's Research

Postby TheDude51 » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:49 am

Sometime after he is found and raised, Samael calls a meeting with Jens and Kovis about researching a few new spells for the upcoming campaign. He has a few ideas, which he shares for criticism, improvement, and implementation. (Also looking for DM comment on balance and realism, of course)

The first three spells would be useful for most mages.

Spell Orb (Conjuration)
Range: Medium
This spell creates a small orb of ceramic called a spell orb. Similar to Casting Array, another spell (use the longer casting time of the two) is burned during the casting of this spell. The second spell is imbued into the orb, which then flies at the target, the second spell affecting anything the orb strikes or detonating at a specific range. For example, a Spell Orb imbued with Disintegrate would cause the target to be affecting by a Disintegrate, while an Orb imbued with a Cacophonic Burst would cause the burst to detonate at the target or at a targeted square. This spell would primarily be useful for penetrating Imperial Shields, on both vehicles and personnel, and for getting spells through the AMFs commonly employed by assault mages. The spell might be divided into Lesser, Normal, and Greater versions for 1-3, 1-6, and 1-9 level spells, respectively.
Suggested Level: 1/4/7, or maybe 2/5/8

Note: Metamagics would be tricky. Enlarge would work on the Spell Orb. Twin and Repeat Spell would need some consideration on their exact mechanics; most likely they would require two secondary spells to be burned. Maximize and Empower could be normally applied to the secondary spell, and most likely Twin and Repeat also.

Greater Sure Strike (Divination)
Grants +1/CL insight bonus to the next attack roll made (Max 20). Swift action casting time.
Suggested Level: 6
Note: Based on the spell Sure Strike from PHB. Level 2, grants +1/3 CL on the next attack roll, swift casting.

Mass Disintegrate (Transmutation)
As Disintegrate, except that it affects one target per level within range. In the case of very large targets, this spell can simultaneously target multiple 10 foot cubes.
Suggested Level: 9
Note: This spell might be a bit too powerful, but 9th level spells are supposed to kick ass. Easiest fix would be to require all targets to be within a certain range of each other

The last spell would be primarily for Samael and Kovis to use, since it is uniquely suited to the Glaivemaster's fighting style.

Disintegrating Touch (Transmutation)
Range: Touch
This spell causes a portion of the object or creature touched to simply vanish, instantly turning into a handful of fine powder. Against objects, it works exactly as Disintegrate, except with a touch range. Against creatures, it deals 1d10 damage per caster level (max 25d10), with no saving throw. Creatures killed by this are often damaged beyond resurrection, with large and vital portions missing completely.
Suggested Level: 8/9

Note: This spell is developed so that Samael and Kovis can take full advantage of the ability to imbue spells into our Eldritch Glaives. There is currently a complete lack of spells useful for imbuing during a fight with high-powered enemies, and this is the exact situation where a single, powerful attack is most useful, since often only a single attack can be landed in a round. This spell is basically a further development along the lines of Greater Combust, with a higher damage die and non-elemental damage.


Since Samael is busy retraining for most if not all of the free time available, he is looking for help with developing these spells, if Kovis thinks they are worth pursuing. Samael brings up the possibility of giving the ideas of the spells that are useful to a broader range of casters to the Airindale Loremasters, and, if they also feel they would be useful, asking them to work on developing the spells.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Zanaikin » Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:23 pm

A few points:
--Not reversing time for this.
--Samael doesn't have time, you've noticed this.
--Nameless NPCs doesn't have the talent for spell development, I don't care what their skills allow =P. Those who can even contribute does it at such a slow pace (weeks/months not days) that they won't fit into the current scope of the game.
--Kovis isn't huge on spell development, because his skills are very spread out, and he doesn't have a spellbook (he's a sorc - already got all the higher lvl spells he could use). Agnes is actually the best loremaster in the Misalin units for now, although she's not huge into developing spells either.
--Airindalians do a lot of spell research, but they're also very secretive about it. You notice that just the fact you're asking them to develop spells on your behalf offends them greatly.

Spells:
Spell Orb - denied. Most spells can't be 'shaped' to be contained with an orb, they simply don't work correctly afterwards. All orb spells I know thus far are conjuration (creation) spells which conjures physical entities to be confined within orb. Yes I'm very picky on what 'penetrates' an AMF, don't even try to abuse it =P. It's also the reason why Airindale Duskblades are so well regarded, because they do use a physical medium (arrows) to channel spells to penetrate a shaped AMF. Well, it's not impossible, and not completely 'denied', but given a change of this significance, you better be damn'd well capable of pulling off extreme DCs and spending weeks if not months research on it.
Greater True Strike - I'm fine with that.
Mass Disintegrate - I actually have a version for this (very few chars know it), it works a bit similar to Deadly Sunstroke. Reminder that 'mass' based spells are all buffs, not offensives.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Sajuuk » Mon Sep 08, 2008 6:00 pm

Judson, I am deeming you a certifiable nutcase. As your non-doctor, I advise you to stop looking at Great Old Ones such as Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath, and Hastur. Also, you should lay off the books that increase your ranks in Knowledge (Cthulhu Mythos).

That is all.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby TheDude51 » Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:38 pm

Samael has another idea, an item this time.

A small metal ball, exactly the same size as a Glyph Grenade, that acts as a single-use magic item. When thrown or fired from a Grenade Launcher, it activates a shaped Antimagic Field effect around itself. This allows it to penetrate magical defenses, and hopefully to deliver spells through the dead-magic zone that surrounds METAACs. When the sphere impacts something, it releases a Disintegrate spell, turning to dust along with whatever it hit.

Estimated Cost:
Antimagic Field, single use: 6*11*50 = 3,300
Disintegrate, CL11, single use: 6*11*50 = 3,300
Misc expenses (shaping, triggers): some more
Total Cost: ~8,000 gp

Samael will talk to the artificers to see if this type of device would be feasible. If so, he'll try to rush out a few prototypes to test before trying to mass produce them.
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And elect another?
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Zanaikin » Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:00 am

Shaped AMF costs a LOT more than normal AMF.
Find me the old Shape Spell and it's metamagic cost and I'll try to figure out how much this cost. You don't want to use Extraordinary Spell Aim, that means the item needs concentration ranks of its own and goes up rather fast =P.
Expect cost per item to exceed 15k, if not significantly higher.

A few other weaknesses the Artificers will point out:
Shaped AMF has an AMF penetration of 10ft (cancelling each other out), thus if the enemy has a wider AMF, or an unshaped one, a shaped AMF won't be able to negate the center of theirs.
Because of the AMF surrounding the item, the effects of the Disintegrate will also be significantly reduced - instead of a standard 10ft cube, it's size is limited by the center 'hole' in the AMF.
but other than that, nice idea.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Mr_Praetorian » Tue Sep 23, 2008 1:05 pm

Well, building on this idea (and I cite Derovarr's +15 Knowledge: Arcana mod), you could make the effect on the outside shell Ethereralness, and change the the spell on the inside to Symbol of Insanity or Fireball, etc. Assuming the idea would work, it would give us a great, albeit expensive, Barracks or "Bunker Buster." Keeping Disintegrate in the shell would make is useful for those pesky Plasma Turrets.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby TheDude51 » Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:03 pm

Drew: The main target of this is METAACs. Disintegrate spells and sonic/sacred glyph grenades can deal with the other vehicles in the Imperium armory.

Etherealness would probably not be worth it, given that most battles involving fortifications will take place within lockdowns.

Dai: I'm not sure I understand exactly how the AMF negation works. My immediate thought is to simply change it to an unshaped AMF. If I'm understanding this right, that would make it nonfunctional against normal targets, but would be able to affect targets with an AMF of their own. If this is right, it would limit the item's use to METAACs only.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Zanaikin » Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:08 pm

so is that shaped AMF or not shaped? You're flipflopping.

and unless you want this a lot more expensive than you'd probably like, I suggest you figure out where Shape Spell is from.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Mr_Praetorian » Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:14 am

Well, excuse me for deviating from the main plan. It simply occurred to me that your original idea might have applications beyond METAACs, but clearly such thinking is forbidden.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby TheDude51 » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:09 am

Ok, if I understand correctly, AMFs are negated in areas where two overlap, except for the exact point of origin. So, a grenade emanating an unshaped AMF will negate the target's AMF around the grenade, but the grenade itself, the point of emanation, will still be affected by antimagic, and so the Disintegrate will not be able to trigger.

Would it work to make the grenade a hollow sphere, with a small ball suspended in the center. The small center ball would project an unshaped AMF, while the Disintegrate would be triggered by the outer outer sphere. The point would be to remove the Disintegration mechanism from the origin of the AMF, so that it would be well inside the area where the two AMFs negate each other, and thus would be able to trigger normally. (Assuming that the target was protected by a normal AMF, obviously it would have no effect on a non-AMF'd target).

I'm not sure if this interpretation is right. I'm still not sure I understand why a non-shaped AMF grenade on an AMF target would fail.

If this is valid in principle, theres a couple problems I can see. If the solid outer sphere blocks the emanation of the AMF, we could change it to a wire mesh type outer layer, with holes to let the emanation through. The hollow sphere design, especially if it has holes in the outer layer, would also probably not fly very well. This could limit range when throwing the grenades, but shouldn't be a problem with the telekinesis-powered Grenade Launcher.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Zanaikin » Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:32 am

To be frankly, I'm not completely decided if overlapping AMFs cancel each other out, because that doesn't necessarily make much sense either.
One AMF will prevent another AMF from extending beyond it's own area though... think of it as an AMF "wall" that will also stop other AMFs.
The overlapping area? I'm more likely to go with either the AMFs don't really cancel out one another... or freak things happen and I get to roll dice and make things up (similar to concept of what happens with Spell Reflection meet Spell Reflection).
What happens when one source of AMF-emanation tries to break into the area of another AMF? Well that's a sticky issue I have no intention of layering out all mechanics for just yet. - now I'm even more tempted by the 'freak happening' idea, since it's just allow me to roll more dice for 'freak occurances"... maybe I'll just roll in a Rod of Wonder.

The moral of the story is : don't munchkinize excessively on contradicting rules which ends up giving DM headaches, you'll likely force me to rule not in your favor because I got annoyed with it.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby TheDude51 » Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:45 pm

The exact mechanics are pretty important, given the number of AMF assault mage vs AMF assault mage battles there are likely to be.

Also, the fact that METAACs have AMFs and form an integral component of the Imperium army means that a detailed understanding of AMFs is vital for forming tactics to counter them.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Zanaikin » Thu Sep 25, 2008 7:26 pm

In which case I think I'm going to make this simpler for my mind and just say freak things happen to creatures who are within the area of overlapping AMFs - this won't affect two users of Shaped AMFs since there is no overlap where they are - but anything else I won't promise. What happens will be at the discretion of the DM's dice =P.

on another note: I'll maybe post about the Mass Disintegrate stuff if someone around you gets the time to pick that spell up. Regarding Greater True Strike however - draft up an official spell description proposal ( with the right formatting & syntax based on SRD or my custom spell ) and fire it over if you want it.
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Re: Samael's Research

Postby Laharl » Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:02 pm

I just got a fun idea: trap some enemy between two friendly shaped AMFs.


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Re: Samael's Research

Postby TheDude51 » Fri Sep 26, 2008 3:24 am

I don't think Shape Spell is a real feat. Googling didn't turn up anything remotely close to a Wizards source for it.

I could try using Sculpt Spell to change the AMF into 4 10-foot cubes. These cubes would be formed around the the grenade in flight to form a non-AMF area in the shape of a triangular pyramid, with each edge 10 feet long. I have no idea if the cubes can be oriented like this, but its worth a try.

This is a +1 level metamagic, so the cost from AMF would increase to
7*13*50=4,550gp
Plus whatever additional costs there are for metamagic use and oddly positioned cubes.
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