Dare I ask?

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

A year is usually overkill; a month is usually more than sufficient to get everything set up. That requires a 12 Int.
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No. With 1 month duration, and considering the time needed to recover the MP to launch the spells, you will not be able to act for very long. 1 day per spell, 5 spells on the caster, and as described, the other members of the teams buffed up (let's say 6 total member in the team) and you can act ... 0 days buffed up. You need at least 6 month duration to buff up the team as described.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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You've assumed a longer duration than needed; you've also forgotten the ability to apply Intensity and/or Duration to enchantments.
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Nope. I've written 4 POW per enchantment (1 for the spell and 3 for the enchanted manipulation).

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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I think you're not looking at all the options, honestly. I wasn't speaking hypothetically when I said this started being a problem quite early; all it requires is someone who gets Int and Power spirits early on; once he also gets to the point where he can do Enchantments it ramps up quite quickly. And since a sorcerer doesn't have a lot he needs to do with Power sacrifices otherwise (unlike a priest or shaman) there's nothing much stopping him from doing that.
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Nope because:
1 - spells stored in INT spirits can not have enchanted manipulation. The only case when you can have enchanted duration is for a spell matrix.
2 - sorcerors are like all other spell casters, and have use for ALL enchantments (armoring, strengthening, binding).
3 - by putting POW in his fetch, a shaman can get rid of most of the binding enchantments AND becomes almost imunes to magical attacks.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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As I've said before, either the spirits or the enchantments by themselves would have been problematic; the combination was quickly overpowering with the system.

Just try some nasty POW spending tactics with a shaman or priest, with the same time, money and POW requirements, and compare the results.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Lord Twig]

I realized that I used Humakt as an example, but really Storm Bulls where even worse for the sorcerer. Find Enemy then 4 points (or 6 or 8 or 17) of Lightning, backed with as many magic points as possible did 4d6 directly to the sorcerer's head.

We actually imposed a lot of limits on spells and enchantments. Things like, you can only Armor Enchant something up to double AP. Strengthening Enchantment was limited to double HP, etc. So no one went around with 30 hit point heads or anything silly like that.

[frogspawner]

Well, it all seems a bit over-the-top to someone accustomed to the RQ2 limits of 4 points on spells like Bladesharp, Protection, etc (and the half-again limit on stat-enhancements/attacks, and the prohibition on bound spirits casting spells...).

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

No. With 1 month duration, and considering the time needed to recover the MP to launch the spells, you will not be able to act for very long. 1 day per spell, 5 spells on the caster, and as described, the other members of the teams buffed up (let's say 6 total member in the team) and you can act ... 0 days buffed up. You need at least 6 month duration to buff up the team as described.

Not with a set of bound Power Spirits you didn't. You could do it all in two or three days, tops. They only required 1 Power Point each for the binding, and each of them was bringing in 16 magic points which they'd recover over the course of a day. Then there was the sorcerer's own magic points, and his familiar's. It really wasn't hard; it required dealing with doing some spirit binding first to get it going, which had its risks, but most mages wanted to do that anyway.

Nope. I've written 4 POW per enchantment (1 for the spell and 3 for the enchanted manipulation).

Then you should know that obviates the need for some of the Intelligence involved.

Nope because:
1 - spells stored in INT spirits can not have enchanted manipulation. The only case when you can have enchanted duration is for a spell matrix.

You don't store the long term boost in those; you store your on-the-fly spells. You put the long term boosts in the matrices. That still can leave you with a virtually full free Int.

2 - sorcerors are like all other spell casters, and have use for ALL enchantments (armoring, strengthening, binding).

Except that they get more bang for their buck out these than they do for the others; armoring enchantments suffered from their expense, even after the errata, and strengthening was even worse.

3 - by putting POW in his fetch, a shaman can get rid of most of the binding enchantments AND becomes almost imunes to magical attacks.

But that doesn't help because his spells are limited to their actual points (barring that one exotic Lunar cult); all it means is if he has more spells he can actually find a place to put them. And it doesn't make him immune to magical attack; it makes him immune to attacks that are power versus power. That's far from all magical attack. It doesn't do a thing against a sorcerous FormSet Fire, or a divine Sunspear, neither of which make power attacks; the first has an (admittedly mediocre) to hit roll, and the latter is simply automatic.

Just try some nasty POW spending tactics with a shaman or priest, with the same time, money and POW requirements, and compare the results.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

We did. The sorcerer was still more dangerous when viewed as member of a team than they were. Keep in mind he did this all with something on the order of about a dozen Power Points invested; one for an Int spirit, a few on matrices, and two or three on Power Spirits. The issue was he _didn't_ have anything else to do with his power; Divine mages use it just to have their divine spells, and the shaman was feeding it to his fetch; they also wanted Power spirits of their own (as having enough magic points in fights was of a concern to everybody; the sorcerer just got to double dip out of them, having them in the fight, and earlier when setting up for the two weeks or month before setting out). No one bothered with either armoring or strengthening enchantments except a couple tossed on shields, because they just weren't useful enough on armor.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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Then you should know that obviates the need for some of the Intelligence involved.
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The case I described is 18 free INT AND 4 points of POW per matrix.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Not with a set of bound Power Spirits you didn't. You could do it all in two or three days, tops. They only required 1 Power Point each for the binding, and each of them was bringing in 16 magic points which they'd recover over the course of a day. Then there was the sorcerer's own magic points, and his familiar's. It really wasn't hard; it required dealing with doing some spirit binding first to get it going, which had its risks, but most mages wanted to do that anyway.
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If you are in that case (sorceror AND familiar AND spirits), yes, it is faster. But the sorceror will have to:
- have been an apprenctice long enough.
- learn 3 spells (create Intelligence spirit binding matrix, summon Intelligence spirit, control Intelligence spirit) and bring them to a sufficient level (with summon and enchant) to avoid risking too much.
- spend 2 POW per Intelligence spirit (I would say 3 to add a condition and avoid having them controlled) .
- put all the spells he wants to store with enchanted manipulation to matrix (1 extra spell: create spell matrix) AND spend 3 to 10 POW per matrix, depending on the security he wants and the number of manipulations he wants to store.
- learn the create familiar stats spells.
- sacrifice some of his own stats (not necessarily POW) to create the familiar.
- learn 3 spells (create power spirit binding matrix, summon power spirit, control power spirit) and bring them to a sufficient level (with summon and enchant) to avoid risking too much.
- spend 1 POW per power spirit (I would say 2 to add a condition and avoid having them controlled).

That means learning 14 spells (among other things, 14 weeks of study, if the spells are available), spending minimum 20 to 30 POW, and the other stats for his familiar.

This can not be soon in the campaign. And when the sorceror has reached this kind of level, everybody is able to have this kind of trick.


Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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You don't store the long term boost in those; you store your on-the-fly spells. You put the long term boosts in the matrices. That still can leave you with a virtually full free Int.
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This is exactly what I understood and am using. And I have my full INT free.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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But that doesn't help because his spells are limited to their actual points (barring that one exotic Lunar cult); all it means is if he has more spells he can actually find a place to put them. And it doesn't make him immune to magical attack; it makes him immune to attacks that are power versus power. That's far from all magical attack. It doesn't do a thing against a sorcerous FormSet Fire, or a divine Sunspear, neither of which make power attacks; the first has an (admittedly mediocre) to hit roll, and the latter is simply automatic.
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This is not a big limit as he can find the spell he wants. The real weakness for the shaman is (compared to the sorceror) the impossibility to have the spells up full time. They can be brought up fast, but not instantly. And yes, I know, the protection works only in case of MP vs MP, but this is most of the attacks.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

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We did. The sorcerer was still more dangerous when viewed as member of a team than they were. Keep in mind he did this all with something on the order of about a dozen Power Points invested; one for an Int spirit, a few on matrices, and two or three on Power Spirits. The issue was he _didn't_ have anything else to do with his power; Divine mages use it just to have their divine spells, and the shaman was feeding it to his fetch; they also wanted Power spirits of their own (as having enough magic points in fights was of a concern to everybody; the sorcerer just got to double dip out of them, having them in the fight, and earlier when setting up for the two weeks or month before setting out). No one bothered with either armoring or strengthening enchantments except a couple tossed on shields, because they just weren't useful enough on armor.

I'm not contradicting your experience, but mine is completely different. With similar money, time and POW spent, a shaman is as efficient as a team member for buffing the whole team. I have never checked for a priest.
By the way, you need 2 POW per INT spirit, and it will store only 1D6 spell points (IIRC), so you need several. And if it is working that way, I presume your GM never took control of your bound spirits (that's why I am putting conditions on my enchantments), taking away the spells stored in it if it is Intelligence spirits.

I am not contradicting the fact that a sorceror can be a great improver for the whole team. I am objecting that:
- he is not the only one, because the shaman can also do it.
- this is not early in the campaign, and when he can do it, the other character have also access to it.

Last point I am objecting is that armoring and strengthening enchantments are for us much in use, especially because it allows lighter armor, and thus lower ENC, for the same protection. And more HP are always good.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

The case I described is 18 free INT AND 4 points of POW per matrix.

And is a far higher result than is needed for this to start becoming a problem. A month long Damage Boost 4 on a whole party is more than enough to start to tilt this.