narcissus wrote:There are a couple of spell pairs that I just can't wrap my head around why one of the pair exists, and I'm wondering if I'm misinterpreting something or it's just good ol' Palladium editing...
Level 3:
Resist Fire
Range: Self or others ("The spell can be cast up to 60 feet" in the description)
Duration: 20 melees per level
PPE: 6
Impervious to Fire
Range: Self or others up to 60 feet (18.3 m) away
Duration: 5 minutes (20 melees) per level
PPE: 5
Why does Resist Fire even exist? It costs more PPE, has the exact same duration and range, but only offers resistance, not imperviousness.
One thing worth pointing out is Book of Magic 75 only gives a duration of 2 melees (30 seconds) per level for the 1st level Fire Elemental Spell used by the Warlock OCC...
BOM 83 gives the 5 minutes / level for Resist Fire which is a 2nd level Water Warlock spell which is Self-only.
If anyone is worried about this making them weirdly better than Fire Warlocks for self-protection: I did too until I remembered Fire Warlocks have an automatic fire-halving already as an OCC ability. However this DOES oddly still make water warlocks better for doing long-term protections for allies.
BOM97's version of ITF having a longer duration than the Fire Warlock version on BOM75 rubs me the wrong way. Changing 30 seconds to 5 minutes (300 seconds) is 10x as long! I guess you could justify it by it being a 3rd level spell which should be better than a 1st level one, but I still don't like it... as a house rule I'd say if you don't inherently boost the 1st level Fire Warlock spell from 30s/level to 300s/level then you should at least give the 300s version as a 2nd or 3rd level Fire Warlock spell too, so they can also do long-term protections for cheap PPE.
As for BOM98: I would posit that we could opt to interpret "melees" in the PRPG original sense (minutes) and have it last 20 minutes per level
That of course creates a similar problem with balance in relation to the 2nd level Warlock spell, where we could take a similar approach of either option A (buff the warlock spells to match the longer durations of the standard spells) or option B (just float them over as 3rd level fire/warlock spells.
narcissus wrote:Negate Magic spell covers what the Dispel Magic Barriers spell can do,
but cost more PPE and had a shorter range
With the Dispel Magic Barriers tattoo costing more PPE than the Negate Magic tattoo,
what's the point of its existence?
Based on your prior summary: DMB would still have a longer range?
BOM115 (100ft) vs BOM123 (60ft)
Another difference is actually how the spells function in terms of savings throws:
DMB "spell being attacked automatically gets a standard saving throw"
NM "roll a saving throw. If the roll is a successful save against the magic in place, its influence is immediately destroyed/"
Also compare...
DMB "If a successful save is made, the negation spell has no effect;"
NM "a failed save means the negation attempt did not work"
To paraphrase:
DMB : barrier vanishes if barrier fails save against DMB, barrier remains if barrier passes save against DMB
NM: meant to give a reroll to save vs magic in cases where this applies: unclear if this would even work on a barrier, what exactly are you targeting, the air/space/ground where a barrier like Carpet of Adhesion was cast? What exactly is failing the save?
Basically they work in opposite ways:
Using DMB, the spell strength of the original spell doesn't matter, because the spell itself is rolling to save vs the DMB spell. This gives casters with a high spell strength an advantage in using DMB.
Using NM, the spell strength of the original spell DOES matter, because it's just allowing the target to reroll their savings throw against the original spell. This gives casters with a high spell strength NO advantage in using DMB, rather what matters is the save vs. magic bonus of the target. IE the best combo is to first cast Invulnerability (+10 vs magic) on something prior to casting NM, so that it is likely to pass this reroll.
The small details here make it seem like NM wouldn't be useful unless you had a target. I guess I'm fine with "target is the air the barrier occupies" but it would have no magic bonuses unless you could also do stuff like cast Invulnerability on a section of air so as to give it a +10 vs magic and make it likely to pass it's savings throw against the "spell strength" of the original magic barrier.
I guess if that's possible you could also cast Invulnerability to guard a spell (or the space it occupies anyway) against DMB.
It's VERY easy to overlook the distinction in the wording of these spells, in fact the writers themselves do! You can see this in BOM120 for Force Bonds
Dispel Magic Barriers and Negate Magic can be used to make them disappear, but the Forcebonds get a +2 to save.
The spell itself only makes a savings throw when DMB is used against it. A +2 to save doesn't even really make sense against Negate Magic: the way NM functions is a SUCCESSFUL savings throw negates the spell, so bonuses to whatever is being rolled makes it MORE likely to be negated.
BOM141 also seems confused about it for Energy Sphere. A "successful" negate magic drains it of PPE... but what determines a successful NM? Passing your savings throw! But who is making the savings throw? DMB having no effect on ES doesn't make much sense either, surely the "magical globe" containing the PPE is a barrier...
BOM166 mentions Negate Magic can dispel Perun's Fire Scourge, but that's fine since it has a specific target taking ongoing damage.
BOM191 for Grip of Death interestingly says "Negate Magic and Dispel Magic Barrier may offer a means to eradicate the entire magic spell." In the case of using DMB, the GOD spell would roll to save vs magic (failure = DMB wins, GOD ends .. success = DMG fails, GOD continues) but in the case of using NM, ??? rolls save vs magic (success = NM wins, GOD ends ... failure = GOD continues, NM failed)
What is the ??? who rolls to save vs magic to resist GOD in the case of using NM?
All I can figure is the spellcaster themself, even if they aren't even the target of the magic?
Or just "the empty space resists" ?
Keep in mind that Grip of Death may not have actually entangled any victims, you might want to destroy the spell before anyone got caught.
GOD is funny because it doesn't even have a magic save to begin with, it's a HF save and failure means auto-ensnare (no dodge) while success means you can roll dodge vs 16.
BOM 151 note for Impenetrable Wall of Force is one I think many recall:
Only a Dispel Magic Barriers spell or a powerful Negate Magic will destroy the wall
That's an interesting one though...
"powerful" negate magic makes it sound like Spell Strength would matter for Negate Magic... but does it?
Reading the description of NM: nope, it just gives the target a reroll vs magic.
Rather it is DMB where power matters: because the spell you target rolls (as if a person) against the DMB spell.
All I can figure is a house rule where you NM targets a spell instead of a subject (ie how DMB works) then you have the spell save vs NM (and caster's spell strength) instead of giving a save vs magic to the target of the spell.
As to which version you use, I guess that could be caster's option depending on what you think is more likely to work....
If you're a starter mage with spell strength 12 trying to help your +10 vs magic friend who happened to roll a natural 1 against a spell strength of 12.... then you should use NM as originally written. Using it like DMB works wouldn't have as high a chance of success, it has a 45% chance of resisting you!
If you're a "Spell Strength 17" archmage trying to help your -2 vs magic friend who got hit by the Spell Strength 17 of another archmage... a reroll probably won't help him much, but having that spell roll with no bonuses (always 12) against your spell strength (as DMB works) is FAR more likely to succeed.
BOM64's note on Electro-Magnetism (like IWOF) similarly seems to imply that Negate Magic has a (sadly unwritten in the actual spell description) capacity to function like DMB and target spells themselves to resist (spellfail = dispel, rather than targetsucceed=dispel like NM is defined):
A Dispel Magic Barriers or Negate Magic spell can destroy the field, but the magnetic field has a +5 to save against them.
Another interesting thing is that many other elemental spells ONLY mention using Dispel Magic Barriers, there's no mention one way or the other for Negate Magic.
BOM46 mentions "Dispel Magic Barriers or Negate Magic can destroy it" for Storm Cloud, but BOM62 "A Dispel Magic Barriers spell will destroy it completely in the blink of an eye." for Invisible Wall, in contrast. Why mention BOTH for SC, but ONE for IW?
Perhaps with NM it's a "never add bonuses or penalties" raw roll in most cases, but then why would you say +5? It's still defined as "failure = spell CONTINUES", while DMB is "failure = spell ENDS". So if anything you would want to invert a bonus to save as a penalty to save in NM if you wanted to make it harder to dispel certain things.
- - -
BOM142 "Remove Curse" for comparison: merely a 10ft range, and here is how it functions:
"A successful save means that the curse is instantly gone. A failed roll to save means the curse is still in effect."
IE it is coded how Negate Magic is, and unlike how DMB is.
NM normally functions like RC but in practice based on how other spells are worded, it's implied to have an alternate application similar to DMB.
Why RC is higher level and costs more PPE is it gives a bonus to the d20 roll. This would especially make sense if NM was always a raw d20 without bonuses instead of allowing a reroll at usual bonuses.
There are also spells which explicitly are immune to NM but not AC, or sometimes instead of d20 rolls have % chances of working depending on which one is used.
