[UA] Pharmomancy

[Chris Milne]

On Tuesday, April 04, 2000 3:36 AM, Peter Hindman 
[SMTP:strev at arches.uga.edu] wrote:
>
> I hope I have the attribution correct here:

Yep, certainly do
:-)

>
> From: Chris Milne <khris at clara.net>
> >D'oh! Something I forgot to add to the post. I envisage
> >the
> >blast's effects as doing psychological damage to the
> >target
> >- forcing them to take Madness checks (most likely Self,
> >but dependant on the hallucination), in addition to the
> >"standard" Rank-5 Unnatural check for being successfully
> >attacked by magick. A minor blast hits on one gauge at
> >rank-3, a significant blast on more than one gauge at ra
> >nk-6 (roughly speaking). That was my idea anyhow...
>
>    How about:  For the minor blast, the rank of the 
madness check is equal
> to the tens die of the aleetheiamancy check; for the 
significant, make one
> check at a rank equal to the tens die and another at a 
rank equal to the
> ones die.  Thus, the minor blast is unlikely to force 
more than an extra
> rank-5 check unless the adept is very skilled, but the 
significant blast
> has a decent chance of forcing a check at rank-6 or 
greater.


I like it. I reckon it'd take a bit of playtesting to 
choose between the "fixed" and your "variable" method in 
terms of balance, but it's a nice idea. Thanks. Just one 
question: is the adept allowed to flip-flop the minor blast 
roll? If they can, then they've got a much better chance of 
forcing a high-rank check.

I have two concerns about the blast effects.
Firstly, that it's going to be very ineffective against 
hardened targets. I'm not sure whether to include a 
Distraction Penalty for the target, even if they pass their 
madness checks. The question is: would Eponymous ignore the 
hallucinations completely, or would they still have a 
disorienting effect upon him?
Secondly, that I envisage any significant charge as being 
precious to the adept. A formula requiring multiple 
significant charges comes at a serious cost to the adept, 
and I don't like the idea that it could have little or no 
effect thanks to the luck of the dice.

Hmmm. This school just gets trickier and trickier
:-)



Chris

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