Improvement of Bolt- + Ball-spells
– Bolts may developed as soon as the spell is learned i.e. A Firebolt can be developed when the
Fire Law list is known to level 6, which – if one wants to – is possible even at first level.
Weakening of Base Attack Spells
– A Base Attack roll is no longer done. Instead the result of 51 is always looked up on the
appropriate base spell attack table column to get the RR modification. Additional modifications
are only applied for range and cover i.e. a caster which closes up to 10′ to the target can look
up a result of 61 on the base attack table.
– Instantaneous Attack spells require 75% activity instead of the standard 10% (i.e. are similarly
handled as in RM2). Instantaneous non-attack spell still require 10% activity.
(The background of these changes is that with the current RM rules it is easier for a single 15th
level Mage or Cleric to overcome a powerful enemy like a Titan or Dragon using a Word of Sleep
or Golden Slumber spell with a good attack roll giving -55 to the beast’s RR, especially if the list
with the attack spell was learned to a very high level, than for a whole party of Mages to overcome
such an enemy using bolt attacks.)
- Heal I, II, III,. Etc és considerat un encanteri instantani que sempre costarà el 75% d’activitat
“Disarming” of some of the Utility spells
– Anticipate Missile and Anticipate Melee only grant the same DB bonus as Turn Missile and Turn
Blow i.e. +20 DB.
– For the ‘Sly Ears’ spell it should be taken into account that also noises from the surroundings
are amplified. This means that only in silent environments the full +50 bonus can be gained.
Furthermore on the negative side a RR vs. SD should be required if suddenly a very loud noise from the surroundings arises e.g. the clang of swords in combat.
‘Invisibility’ spell
Invisibility is a very powerful spell which can easily be misused by PCs to approach enemies
undetected and assassinate them, or to spy every place and person without even a real risk of
being detected. Therefore the following suggestions to avoid such misuse without restricting the
spell too much:
– It should be noted that Invisibility only protects from visual perception but not from being heard
or smelled (e.g. by guard dogs).
– One should mind that the radius of especially the low-level Invisibility spells is relatively low. An
Invisibility 1′ (4th level) spell will hardly be able to make a warrior including his halberd and wall
shield invisible. The latter two items would require a separate Invisibility or Unseen spell. If that
would be considered more often then making PCs invisible would at least require more power
points or Invisibility spells with a higher range would need to be learned and used (the latter with
higher chances of being detected, see below).
– Invisibility now grants a bonus to stalking and hiding which is depending on the radius of the
spell (see the ‘Fringe’ effect description in the appendix of Spell Law). The higher the radius the
more items can be made invisible and the easier the target is to spot. Suggested bonuses for
the stalking & hiding maneuvers:
– +100 : Unseen, highest bonus as there is no „Fringe“ effect
– +90 : Invisibility II or comparable (0-1′ variable) and Invisibility Sphere II or similar (0-10′
variable), high bonus as the radius can be adjusted almost in an „optimal“ way with a very
low resulting „Fringe“ effect
– +70 : Invisibility I (1′ fixed), lower bonus due to the fixed but low radius and therefore a slightly
higher fringe effect than above.
– +50 : Invisibility Sphere I (10′ fixed), low bonus due to fixed and wide radius with a string
fringe effect.
– In a world where every 4th level mage apprentice can cast an Invisibility spell, it is not unlikely
that persons protect themselves from such spells. Therefore the GM should consider the NPCs
to have guard dogs which could give alarm if the smell persons but cannot see them, if the PCs
seem to abuse Invisibility spells. Also the NPCs could themselves employ spells like ‘Detect
Magic’, ‘Detect Invisible’, ‘Alarm Staff’ (the latter keyed to invisible persons) to detect invisible
PCs. Furthermore guards could be trained to use sand or dust to try to mark persons they
heard but could not see (remember that items which enter the invisibility sphere after the
casting do not become invisible!). The same applies to similar spells like ‘Shadow’ which also
only affect the visual perception of the opponents.
‘Fly’ spell
Also the diverse spells with which a PC can fly may be abused. For example flying bowmen can be imagined which cannot be reached by the foot soldiers, or mages which cast their fire balls from the air.
Therefore the suggestions to change the duration of the ‘Fly’ spells from 1 min/lvl to 1 min/lvl (C)
i.e. the spell requires concentration. Breaking concentration leads to the flying person stopping i
mid-air (similar to the Telekinesis spell i.e. Fly spells are a special version of the Telekinesis spell
specially tailored for the locomotion of persons).
Analogous to mounted combat and the modification of those rules versus the standard rules (see
below) the OB for the attack while flying is multiplied by min(100, <Flying/Gliding skill>)/100. The
Flying / Gliding skill can only be learned once the PC has access to the Fly spell or another means or training aerial combat.
The same rules apply to Levitation and other similar spells.
Also the fly spell changes from target to self.
‘Teleport’ spell
In the case of a failure of a Teleport spell the target of the spell receives D5 E-Impact criticals.
(Background: To only appear a few meters off the intended target with a spell that may move the
target more than a hundred miles is not really a handicap. To prevent the characters from avoiding
dangerous travel by the simple use of a Teleport spell the failure of the spell should be
dramatically more dangerous. This should lead to the spell being used only in case of emergency
or with a destination the caster knows very well and which therefore have a low probability of
failure.)
Unscheduled Instantaneous spells
Utility spells which are marked as instantaneous can also be cast without being declared as action
during the Action Declaration Phase. This is especially true for
– Landing
– Leaping
– Deflections
– Bladeturn
– Unstun
The action(s) which basically were planned for the phase were the spell is cast are then moved to
the next phase or need to be cancelled if no further phase follows. If for example during the
Deliberate Action Phase a Bladeturn spell is cast an attack which might have been planned for this phase can no longer be executed during the current round. Had the Bladeturn spell been cast
during the Normal Action Phase then the attack would have been postponed to the Deliberate
Phase.
If no activity is left for the current round as already 100% was spent then the instantaneous spell
can only be cast in the following round.
What is allowed though, is to cast such an instantaneous spell also in the case that another spell
was already cast during the current round. In that case the caster may not cast a normal spell in
the following round (except such an unscheduled instantaneous spell).
(Background: Some spells often make the most sense if the situation suddenly changes. E.g. a
mage will preferable cast a Landing spell when he suddenly falls down a cliff and not know
beforehand when he comes to a cropper. If you don’t want this flexibility and e.g. don’t want a
Landing spell to be used when a PC suddenly falls off his horse, then you should not use this
rule.)
Dispel Essence/Channeling/Mentalism
Similar to the usage of the Remove Curse spell also a Dispel Essence/Channeling/Mentalism spell can only be attempted once until the character gains a new level. The same is true for Dispelling Spheres.
Cancel Channeling spell of the Cleric
The ‘Cancel Channeling’ spell of the Cleric has a duration of 1 min/lvl instead of, as listed in Spell
Law, a duration of ‘C’.
(Background: The same spell also exist, also at 2nd level, on the Paladin Base Spell Lists and also
on the Priest lists in Channeling Companion. In both cases it has a duration of 1 min/lvl. There is
no obvious reason why it shouldn’t have the same duration for the Cleric, especially as the spell
seems quite useless if concentration is required.)
