Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[NexusEye]

Blood is a liquid while the majority of the body's solid, so set it to 'all liquids' rather than 'all blood'? Though since that would lead to every other liquid in their body dropping through them at the same time, it would be even messier and more unpleasant. Or maybe use your own blood as a reference point for the spell- everything that is similar enough to it gets made intangible? I wasn't really thinking of the practicalities of the suggestion, if I'm honest, just mentioning an idea for how to abuse intangibility spells.

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Blood targeting seems like something all Colleges could turn into an instakill spell.
Ulgu: Turn blood intangible, they die of blood loss in the most complete manner imaginable.
Azyr: Freezing a targets blood would kill them and while I don't know the exact effects of having lightning coursing through your blood I doubt they're pleasant.
Aqshy: Boil the blood, target dies.
Shyish: Age the blood cells into death or use magic to kill them directly. Shyish's "kill stuff" spells don't really rely on physical effects with the exception of accelerated aging, they usually just use Shyish to kill their target directly.
Chamon: Use magic to alter the physical properties of the blood making it solid, more viscous, less viscous, corrosive, unable to circulate oxygen, less dense(will cause heart problems) more dense(ditto), etc you get the point.
Ghyran: Use Ferment to make the blood alcoholic, on the low-end beer is 2% alcohol, 0.5% blood alcohol means you're almost certainly dead so the bare minimum is 4 times the lethal dose and it only gets worse if Ferment can be used to produce a higher alcohol content
Ghur: Doesn't really have any spells that would kill when aimed at blood, could try using transformative magic on the blood and hope the target dies from the mismatch between the body and its blood. Failing that using Move on blood moving through the heart could probably disrupt heart rhythms enough to cause cardiac arrest.
Hysh: The lore of light doesn't really have that much useful stuff here. There's Cleansing Glow which would instakill if it decides the "clean" state of blood is pure water but will much more likely decide that clean blood means blood without any contaminants or foreign microbes. Failing that they could try to kill the target by making the blood glow so much it overheats them but I'm not hopeful. Accelerating the subjective time of the blood seems promising but I'm unsure of what the exact effects would be and only high-level Magisters would be able to do it. The others'll probably have to use the Move method detailed above.


If we could make a Lesser Magic that covers targeting the blood and allowing the transfer of spells through it we would have an extremely powerful weapon, a Magister casts the Lesser Magic and uses their colleges spell of choice to kill the target. Unfortunately I suspect that the resulting spell would be too high energy to be a Lesser Magic and force each college to develop their own. That said I also believe that the Blood-Targeting spell is creatable by most if not all of the colleges though the details would vary due to the winds personalities. Ultimately I think this is a neat idea and warrants further investigation though I know that BoneyM will likely come up with some well-thought out reason it's impossible/impractical/much more limited in practice/the colleges have more promising research leads to follow up on for the foreseeable future.

 

[Godwinson]

You know, thinking about Doomfire Rings and how they're handed out to Journeyman Pyromancers...

@BoneyM
Would the Grey Order consider a similar practice, using items enchanted to produce Shadow Knives, useful? Greys aren't nearly as inclined to combat encounters as Pyromancers are, but fights tend to find you at the worst of times. I could see it being rejected on the grounds of encouraging bad habits, and that they prefer reckless journeymen to simply die...

 

[Vebyast]

If you're looking for a MC item to mass-produce for handing out to Grey Journeymen, here's the one you want:

K / Shroud of Invisibility: Makes you invisible for up to half a minute.
- No limitations. Attack, shoot, scream, do what you like, you stay invisible until it expires or is dispelled.

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As far as survivability goes, it doesn't get a lot better than that. Especially since Grey Journeymen are more likely to be breaking into people's mailboxes than they are to be 1v1ing orcs and undead. Mathilde is a hilarious outlier.


edit: Like, I'd be entirely happy if Mathilde filled an activated item slot with a ring of invisibility. Mathilde is consistently performing around the Lady Magister tier and a ring of invisibility would still be a good pickup for her. Shroud of Invisibility is that good.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

If you're looking for a MC item to mass-produce for handing out to Grey Journeymen, here's the one you want:
As far as survivability goes, it doesn't get a lot better than that. Especially since Grey Journeymen are more likely to be breaking into people's mailboxes than they are to be 1v1ing orcs and undead. Mathilde is a hilarious outlier.


edit: It's such a good effect that I'd be entirely happy if Mathilde filled an activated item slot with a ring of invisibility.

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... that sounds like a security nightmare if they get stolen the same way a lot of the doomfire rings did.

also, mathy can cast invis, why the hell would she need a item for it?

 

[Vebyast]

also, mathy can cast invis, why the hell would she need a item for it?

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Because this right here:

[Getting out of the room: Intrigue vs Martial, 1+21=22 vs 92+15=107.]
[Positioning for imminent violence: Martial, 49+23=72.]

Your words to your Ducklings echo in your mind: It's far too easy to underestimate the Orcs. They have proven reliably unable to prevent your assassinations, but they've just demonstrated one of their greatest strengths: they are always ready for a fight. In seconds a roomful of shocked Orcs becomes an airtight cordon to prevent the escape of what to them appears to be the Silver Fang Orc that just struck down their Warboss. The best you can do is put your back firmly against a wall and wreath yourself in Ulgu before battlecries echo through the tunnel as the Orcs throw themselves at you.

[Mathilde vs Orcs 1: Martial, 74+23+10(Master Swordswoman)=107 vs 76+15+10(Charge)-10(Terror)=91.]

The charge of Orcs is terrifying, but as your shadow stretches along the wall behind you and sprouts hungry tendrils, so are you. The moment of hesitation costs the Orcs as Branulhune slices neatly through the first two and your shadow impales a third, but a fourth gets a blow through your guard and you bite back a grunt of pain from the portion of the impact that gets through your Aethyric Armour.

[Orc morale check: 73.]
[Mathilde vs Orcs 2: Martial, 52+23+10(Master Swordswoman)=85 vs 21+15-10(Terror)=26.]
[Orc morale check: 59.]
[Any ideas?: 1.]

With the charge blunted, you're able to fall into a rhythm of lopping off the limbs of any that approach too closely while your shadow keeps the rest too intimidated to strike as one, but even though none of them want to get too close, nor do they seem to be about to run, and you're not able to snatch a few seconds to try to think your way out of this predicament between the probing of choppas.

[Mathilde vs Orcs 3: Martial, 39+23+10(Master Swordswoman)=72 vs 92+15-10(Terror)-5(Casualties)=92.]
[Orc morale check: 66.]
[How about now?: 3.]

Though the Orcs are wavering and their casualties are mounting, they press on nonetheless and a second impact sneaks through, and you can't keep yourself from grunting in pain, though the definitely un-Orcy sound is swallowed by the din of combat. You're a Grey Wizard, damn it, you should have a thousand different ways to get out of a situation like this, but you need to spend every scrap of attention on keeping yourself from being struck down by the constant mass of Orcs...

[Mathilde vs Orcs 4: Martial, 35+23+10(Master Swordswoman)-5(Injured)=63 vs 54+15-10(Terror)-5(Casualties)=54.]
[Orc morale check: 68.]
[Seriously, think of something: 74.]
[Rolling...]
[Orc reactions: 3]

Finally, the hesitations of the Orcs closest to you sync up and give you a blessed fraction of a second to take in the room and think. As that second comes to a close, inky blackness explodes from your hands and fills the room with impenetrably dense fog, both to mundane eyes and your own Magesight, but you were ready for it and the Orcs definitely weren't. As exclamations of shock fill the room, you strike through where a second ago you could see an Orc and feel the faintest sensation of impact through the hilt and then you charge forward, sending the injured or dead or dying Orc toppling backwards as you break for the door you entered through.

[Orc pursuit: 6]

A few seconds is all you need, as you tear a torch from the wall and hurl it down the corridor, plunging your section of the tunnel into blackness. Outraged Orcs bellow renewed warcries as they pour out of the room in all directions, shouting for all to hear of the oddly quiet Silver Fang git that killed the Warboss, and once they've passed you gingerly activate the Seed and try to calm your heartbeat as roots burrow through your body and close your injuries. Another good hit and you would have been open for several more and that would have been it for you, and not against a Master Vampire or a Warboss or a Skaven assassin, but by regular Orcs that caught you against a wall with nowhere to run. Even though you accounted for - you glance back into the room, and take in the dead and wounded - at least a dozen of them, you'll not be including this part in future tales of your adventures, that's for sure.

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Casting spells in combat is never something we can assume we'll be able to do.

And this:

"With enough Skywalks to keep downwards velocity down." He looks out at the view he'd just teleported his way up. "Your Magesight must have gotten pretty good to pick up an Ulgu chain-cast."

"Speaking of, I seem to recall you lecturing me at length about why one doesn't chain-cast."

"Normally I'd stick by that, but I honed this particular chain-cast rooftop-hopping across Marienburg back in the sixties. Only have to fall in the river a couple of times before you learn not to."

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Using short-duration spells for more than a few seconds at a time is a recipe for flubbing them and becoming visible or, worse, becoming visible while you're dealing with the fallout of a miscast.

In short, an item would be easier to use in an emergency - which is precisely when we'd need it most! - and would be more stable if we want to use it for minutes or hours at a time.

 

[MooseHowl]

I'm thinking strongly of adjusting the Explosion item, in that after thinking about it, what we actually want out of its functionality is a Dragon's Breath item, rather than explosion.

We want an item which would blast open an escape route in a cone so we can summon Shadowsteed, mount up and ride off into the horizon through the hole, not destroy all our equipment before we try to replicate Regimand's feat of chain casting Smoke and Mirrors to get out of the rest of the army.

Wand of Fuck Everything In That Direction essentially.

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I've been ignoring the Big Explosion discussion and wasn't planning to vote for it, but fire breath sounds much less indiscriminate and I'd probably vote for that. Safer indoors, too, or underground. Less chance of causing a collapse.

I find it reassuring that it's also in the quest spellbook.

Fiendishly complex (CN 20+):

Breath Fire: Incredible fire damage, cone AOE.

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I also find it reassuring that it specifically says "incredible" damage. Noice.

Riding through the blaze and ashes and becoming a horrifying smoke-and-shadow wreathed mounted monstrosity would be fun. Once we get our smoke arcane mark under control, that is. Or if not: gas mask. Because Mathilde just can't possibly look terrifying enough.

Remember to bully the Golds to send us one.

It might now be covered under College purchases, come to think of it. Has anyone asked BoneyM yet?

 

[picklepikkl]

It might now be covered under College purchases, come to think of it. Has anyone asked BoneyM yet?

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If we buy items with the "we're buying it for the job" subsidy so we don't spend personal Favour, it is the property of the Expedition. If you mean something else, could you rephrase?

Breath of Fire is a solid effect to build on, but I feel we'd want Battle Magic levels of killiness if we're investing in a killiness item. Luckily, the Brights are really good at LEGO-ing effects together.

 

[MooseHowl]

If we buy items with the "we're buying it for the job" subsidy so we don't spend personal Favour, it is the property of the Expedition. If you mean something else, could you rephrase?

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College favour to buy a gas mask, because the Golds have them now. Presumably.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

So as there is plans to enchant robes next turn, but I can't get behind the reasoning behind focusing on the stamina mastery over multi-wind. (I just prefer the extra angles they give us. over a skill we already have) so I'm going to work out some counters I'm interested in throwing into the ring.


[ ] Enchant an item with a Fiendishly Complex or easier spell ( Shadow: Aethyric Armour /Gold: Guard of Steel: Shimmering orbs of steel orbit and protect the caster for several minutes.: Max and Johann)

this is the extra defence idea. really doubling down on being able to take a hit if we get unlucky.

[ ] Enchant an item with a Fiendishly Complex or easier spell (Shadow: Aethyric Armour/Celestial: Wings of Heaven: You can fly for several minutes.: Hubert )

this is a way to escape or as a utility option (remember we will have to scale mountains)

[ ] Enchant an item with a Fiendishly Complex or easier spell (Shadow: Aethyric Armour /Gold: Secret Rune: Engraves invisible text similar to Inscription, or reveals/re-hides text from another casting of Secret Rune: The holy symbols of Ranald: Max and Johann)

maybe not useful, maybe Ranald will like them enough to bless them, but its a fun idea.

I'm going to throw them into the ring anyways, but what do people think?


overall, I'm thinking Shadow: Aethyric Armour/Celestial: Wings of Heaven would be the most useful in a pinch.

 

[kingreaper]

I'm going to throw them into the ring anyways, but what do people think?

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I really like the utility of flight in an enchantment rather than having to recast our walking-on-air repeatedly.

I also think that secret runes of Ranald done without enchanting would be cool on their own - but they might need to be on a buckler or something, because engraving with a gold spell probably prefer to be on solid materials.

 

[picklepikkl]

So as there is plans to enchant robes next turn, but I can't get behind the reasoning behind focusing on the stamina mastery over multi-wind. (I just prefer the extra angles they give us. over a skill we already have) so I'm going to work out some counters I'm interested in throwing into the ring.


[ ] Enchant an item with a Fiendishly Complex or easier spell ( Shadow: Aethyric Armour /Gold: Guard of Steel: Shimmering orbs of steel orbit and protect the caster for several minutes.: Max and Johann)

this is the extra defence idea. really doubling down on being able to take a hit if we get unlucky.

[ ] Enchant an item with a Fiendishly Complex or easier spell (Shadow: Aethyric Armour/Celestial: Wings of Heaven: You can fly for several minutes.: Hubert )

this is a way to escape or as a utility option (remember we will have to scale mountains)

[ ] Enchant an item with a Fiendishly Complex or easier spell (Shadow: Aethyric Armour /Gold: Secret Rune: Engraves invisible text similar to Inscription, or reveals/re-hides text from another casting of Secret Rune: The holy symbols of Ranald: Max and Johann)

maybe not useful, maybe Ranald will like them enough to bless them, but its a fun idea.

I'm going to throw them into the ring anyways, but what do people think?

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Two things:

1) We can't collaborate with other wizards on an enchanting project if they aren't enchanters. Max and Johann aren't. I doubt Hubert is, either. So we'd need to hire from the Colleges for a Windherder project until we get them trained, which means we cannot do it next turn.
2) While it is technically true that the Tireless mastery is a skill we already have, I disagree that the robe would be redundant with our capabilities for the simple reason that the entire reason we have this as a goal is to have Tireless be always-on. This is a capability we currently lack, because the base spell lasts only a few minutes and we have Word of Boney that we cannot chain-cast Aethyric Armour without courting miscasts. The difference between "you are immune to physical fatigue for the duration of this several-minute fight" and "you are immune to physical fatigue all day" is massive, and absolutely represents an expansion of our capabilities on the level of Wings of Heaven.

 

[defenestrator]

I've been checking the Approved spell list and "Threat level manipulating Eye of The Beholder" had me thinking. I have no idea if this is already a canon spell, or already proposed before but what if we could make a Mist of Antagonism of sorts that would turn an enemy Army on itself? For possibly easing the spell complexity, it doesn't completely reverses someone's IFF. The targeted ork/skaven/chaos army still sees Imperials as hostile, but there is an immediate threat right beside them (their allies) that they really should facestab first. And this could maybe have a slower-acting and subtle setting where it makes the guy right beside them have a more punchable face, and every slight or annoyance even more aggravating. Ideal for infiltrating fortresses and Mathilde needs a very loud distraction to assassinate someone, or to disrupt a meeting of tense allies.

 

[NuclearConsensus]

You know, thinking about Doomfire Rings and how they're handed out to Journeyman Pyromancers...

@BoneyM
Would the Grey Order consider a similar practice, using items enchanted to produce Shadow Knives, useful? Greys aren't nearly as inclined to combat encounters as Pyromancers are, but fights tend to find you at the worst of times. I could see it being rejected on the grounds of encouraging bad habits, and that they prefer reckless journeymen to simply die...

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The problem with this is that the Grey College are also not as inclined to enchantment as the Pyromancers, and it also runs into the same problem they have with the Turner in that likely no one would want such a position.

 

[Vebyast]

Breath of Fire is a solid effect to build on, but I feel we'd want Battle Magic levels of killiness if we're investing in a killiness item. Luckily, the Brights are really good at LEGO-ing effects together.

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I'd be okay with spending 20 CF on "Breath of Fire but scarier". Depends on how well it focuses all the fire toward the enemy - I expect high-level Brights to have fire resistance the way Mathilde can see in the dark, so it might not actually end up safer than just danger-close with a juiced-up greater fireball.

 

[ReImagined]

College favour to buy a gas mask, because the Golds have them now. Presumably.

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They have a single gas mask, which I don't think they're in a hurry to sell back to us any time soon. Boney mentioned that a lack of rubber may cause issues in reproducing it.

From Mathilde's study of the Ratling Gun, there's a material the Skaven have access to but the Old World doesn't that we would recognize as rubber. Airtight seals are tricky if you don't have rubber or plastics.

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[Jyn Ryvia]

1) We can't collaborate with other wizards on an enchanting project if they aren't enchanters. Max and Johann aren't. I doubt Hubert is, either. So we'd need to hire from the Colleges for a Windherder project until we get them trained, which means we cannot do it next turn.

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god, what a useless pick of a trait.

I've tried not to be salty about it, but it feels like the obstacles to using it just increase every time we look at it. (Like, the 'other wizards have to be enchanters too, instead of having mathy guide them or do the heavy lifting' was a word of Boney, well after we got the trait and were actually thinking of asking the duckling to do some stuff with us.

then after people (me included) started asking if we could train them in enchanting, we got another world of Boney that non of them are interested. even the ones that was built up to actually like that sort of area of stuff (Max and Adela)

Like, maybe i should just pretend that the traits not there for the stuff below 'narrative time' like the Eye.

because it might as well be.

 

[picklepikkl]

then after people (me included) started asking if we could train them in enchanting, we got another world of Boney that non of them are interested. even the ones that was built up to actually like that sort of stuff area of stuff (Max and Adela)

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He didn't say they aren't interested in learning enchantment, he said:

None of them have shown an affinity for enchantment.

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This is not quite the same thing. We had an affinity for enchantment; we started the quest with minor skill in it and we have a +10 boost on all actions to enchant stuff or learn to enchant stuff better. But we could still, like, send our Golds to enchanting classes and see if they pick up the skill and like it. Or we could just pay the CF to get not-our-pet-wizards to come out and cast spells with us.

I didn't vote for Windherder either, but let's not overstate the barriers.

 

[Boney]

Strange. Mathilde certainly seems to think it is possible to cast a single spell in such a way that it auto-casts hundreds of smaller spells. The same method should theoretically apply to enchanting.
Of course what is theoretically possible and what can be achieved in practice are often not the same. Even Petty and Lesser grade enchantments are by no means trivial in the way an optimised Lesser spell is.

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Spellcasting and Enchanting are very different. Winds strongly object to being forced into static forms, so a thinking mind needs to be focusing solely on each enchantment to counter however it tries to wriggle free.

A thought: Depending on how the full spell works out, there may not be a reason why the Fog Path spell need follow the ground when, like skywalk, it could go above the ground instead. Fog bridges, fog stairs, fog hills; even Obi-Wan's favorite: foggy higher-ground. So long as the wizard casting the spell doesn't loose concentration... but then, would an enemy force know they're climbing up a Fog hill instead of a foggy hill until it's too late?

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Fog hugs the landscape. Flying is Azyr.

Hell @BoneyM would the other people affecting arcane marks even do anything to dwarves with their low level anti-magic?

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Yes, they would. Marks are caused by magic but they are not precisely magical. They are a change in the nature of a being's soul.

@BoneyM is there any functional difference between Pit of Shades and Dwellers Below?

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Yes. Pit of Shades is the ground not being there any more, Dwellers Below is a grappling swarm physically pulling people down. The former requires reflexes to escape, the latter raw strength.

An enchantment can do it when it's a Grey Wizard activating the enchantment, in the same way that Mathilde doesn't need to cast Burning Shadows when using the Eye of Gazul but she can finely target it as if she had cast it.

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The Eye of Gazul is rather more complex than your typical enchantment.

You know, thinking about Doomfire Rings and how they're handed out to Journeyman Pyromancers...

@BoneyM
Would the Grey Order consider a similar practice, using items enchanted to produce Shadow Knives, useful? Greys aren't nearly as inclined to combat encounters as Pyromancers are, but fights tend to find you at the worst of times. I could see it being rejected on the grounds of encouraging bad habits, and that they prefer reckless journeymen to simply die...

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Knives are easier to acquire using conventional means than fireballs are, and Grey journeyings tend to be less combat-focused than Bright ones.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

I didn't vote for Windherder either, but let's not overstate the barriers.

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no actually, I am very willing to call bull on this one, windherder was very miss represented during that vote. (and awhile after it)

[ ] Karak: Windherder
It's said the High Elves can achieve miracles by using the Winds in parallel. You'll have to make do with using them in series, having other people handle the other Winds, and making sure they keep a safe distance from each other. But cultivating this ability expands the possibilities exactly eightfold.

Windherder: You've developed an intuitive grasp of how Winds interact, when they'll interfere with each other, and when they'll mix and curdle into Dhar. Makes basic multi-Wind Enchantment and Spellcasting possible, as long as other Wizards provide the other Winds.

the wording in this implies that the other wizards are providing the wind while mathy does the technical bits.

the caveat that the other wizards need to correct skills too do the technical bits were not implied in anyway, shape or form until way later in the quest. and I would argue that there would have been a very different debate if they were. (people would have wanted to train the duckings earlier for one)

it not even in the trait itself, it says that they just provided the winds.

 

[picklepikkl]

I mean, Boney expressly steered clear of providing mechanics for any of the traits, not just Windherder. The fact that Windherder would even allow for multi-wind enchantments wasn't stated until we took it, much less the details on how that would work. People went for the cool-sounding mystery box and it turned out not to be bullshit OP. C'est la quest.

After we get back from Hell's suburbs, putting at least one of our Golds on learning enchanting sounds like a plan. It was something people were actively planning to do before we got drafted for this project, after all, and it's not like it isn't useful for purposes other than Windherder. I do not think relitigating a months-old vote and asking the QM to change the results is a good use of anyone's time.

 

[me.me.here]

So I couldn't help but notice that people were talking about trying to develop our own form of 'save or die' type battle magic, only the justifications as to how we might do so were pretty tortured (the best of them being along the lines of 'shoehorn the word mist in and hope it triggers a staff bonus').

Naturally, I had a terrifying thought on how we might plausibly go about doing so. Namely, weaponizing miscasts.

Hear me out, it's not actually as crazy as it sounds - our Fog Path spell is built upon the concept of a spell casting another spell at a distance, and we know that the single best miscast mitigation approach is to generate/increase distance between you and the miscasting spell (hence why grounding rods and such are so popular).

So we already have a theoretical framework for being able to cast a spell that would induce a miscast at a targeted location rather than right next to us - we also know of at least one experienced Grey Wizard with strong insight and/or traits on the matter (Regimand and his deliberate miscasting as a feint) that could help give advice. This would basically end up producing results vaguely like counterspelling/dispelling enemy casters would (not super dangerous to us in most cases), only we'd be able to use it even if our prospective target was unaware of us or otherwise not casting magic at the moment.

We'd probably want something other than our Skywalk macro for this (being able to cast something hundreds of times a second is probably not something we'd want to optimize for, miscasts are dangerous enough when you aren't rolling a bajillion times on the table of bad stuff), but the general idea of using a sort of 'spooky action at a distance' spell to induce a miscast near something is surprisingly plausible and pretty darn close to being a save or die spell.

I bet if we scrounged up another brass orb and studied it we could probably figure out a way to bias the miscast chance towards 'portal to the chaos/shadow realm', at which point we'd have a discount pit of shades, only with better understanding of the spell due to having developed it from first principles.

 

[SCO]

Can someone make a omake about mathilde developing a shadow clone like spell which functions like the We and then making a Mathilde Network (like in the railgun anime?).

Then make the ending a series of horribly right reports in Algard desk.

report 1: decided to spread out, limit of the network unknown, Ulgu may help confuse distance
report 2: tired of using shadowsteed to coordinate physically, received secrets of the forest elder spirits about the worldroots for helping with some beastmen herds, in the condition that no one but 'mathilde' can use them. Little do they know.
report 3: met some interesting frogs, they want to talk to the colleges, currently carving teleportation focus prototype for scaled in the colleges, since worldroots not available to either party.
report 4: some bloodthirster tried to kill one of me again today. I placed him on a box.
report 5: saw a cool dark locked pyramid but it stank of dhar so i didn't try Substance of Shadow. Maybe get mundane explosives.
report 6: was asked to help defend nagarythe against some kind of city ship today, 3 of me are going to bribe the emperor dragon, arsanil and the empire dragon, since there are no worldroots in water.
report 7: accidentally killed the horned rat, maybe. Hard to tell. Met this cool dwarf there, Gromdrindal ... sounds like... nah.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

I mean, Boney expressly steered clear of providing mechanics for any of the traits, not just Windherder. The fact that Windherder would even allow for multi-wind enchantments wasn't stated until we took it, much less the details on how that would work. People went for the cool-sounding mystery box and it turned out not to be bullshit OP. C'est la quest.

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That still doesn't explain why the trait itself doesn't explain any of the caveats.

I'm not the type to want to change stuff after the fact, but I would like to use this as a learning point for future traits or other stuff. That the trait should have the hurtle cavets in the character sheet (if mathy would know them)

To avoid feel bads like the above 'not trying to train a duckling or gold boy' because we didn't out of character know something that mathy know is in character.

I would just like it to be recognised that while hiding the details was fine in the vote, the trait should have had this information. And to use the lesson going forward.

 

[wakshazi]

We'd probably want something other than our Skywalk macro for this (being able to cast something hundreds of times a second is probably not something we'd want to optimize for, miscasts are dangerous enough when you aren't rolling a bajillion times on the table of bad stuff), but the general idea of using a sort of 'spooky action at a distance' spell to induce a miscast near something is surprisingly plausible and pretty darn close to being a save or die spell.

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"This is going to do something. Probably something at least one of us won't like, but I feel like rolling the dice. Do you feel lucky punk?"

 

[Ericwinter]

So I couldn't help but notice that people were talking about trying to develop our own form of 'save or die' type battle magic, only the justifications as to how we might do so were pretty tortured (the best of them being along the lines of 'shoehorn the word mist in and hope it triggers a staff bonus').

Naturally, I had a terrifying thought on how we might plausibly go about doing so. Namely, weaponizing miscasts.

Hear me out, it's not actually as crazy as it sounds - our Fog Path spell is built upon the concept of a spell casting another spell at a distance, and we know that the single best miscast mitigation approach is to generate/increase distance between you and the miscasting spell (hence why grounding rods and such are so popular).

So we already have a theoretical framework for being able to cast a spell that would induce a miscast at a targeted location rather than right next to us - we also know of at least one experienced Grey Wizard with strong insight and/or traits on the matter (Regimand and his deliberate miscasting as a feint) that could help give advice. This would basically end up producing results vaguely like counterspelling/dispelling enemy casters would (not super dangerous to us in most cases), only we'd be able to use it even if our prospective target was unaware of us or otherwise not casting magic at the moment.

We'd probably want something other than our Skywalk macro for this (being able to cast something hundreds of times a second is probably not something we'd want to optimize for, miscasts are dangerous enough when you aren't rolling a bajillion times on the table of bad stuff), but the general idea of using a sort of 'spooky action at a distance' spell to induce a miscast near something is surprisingly plausible and pretty darn close to being a save or die spell.

I bet if we scrounged up another brass orb and studied it we could probably figure out a way to bias the miscast chance towards 'portal to the chaos/shadow realm', at which point we'd have a discount pit of shades, only with better understanding of the spell due to having developed it from first principles.

Click to shrink...

Uh... while the idea of "random horribly bad thing happening in your general vicinity" sounds really good on paper as an attack, doing that on any scale beyond one desperate gamble against an overwhelming foe is a really good way to get the wrong sort of attention, from allies and enemies both. It would practically be begging Chaos to screw us over, at least if the assassins didn't get to us first.