Talk:2004 Rule Changes
I've added the detailed Geas changes. It seems to be ignoring my <CR>s however - I pasted from an email, sequential <CR>s are accepted, single ones ignored? This still happened after I did <CR>s in the edit screen. I didn't bother playing any more as it looks OK.
Cheers, Errol
The wiki treats one CR as a Space unless the following line uses paragraph level formatting at the beginning of the line. 2 CRs (ie. a blank line in between) are treated as a new paragraph and about half a line is added as spacing between paragraphs. More than 2 CRs are treated as 2 CRs.
It's a "feature" of the Wiki. :) It isn't configurable, but it is documented in the main Wiki documentation, a link to which is available in our local Help page.
Stephen 18:36, 16 Apr 2004 (NZST)
I noticed the following item in the rule changes:
(Correction) The following has gone missing from the v1.1 Necrosis write-up: Note that only living entities will be affected by this spell.
This is noted as a correction to something which was accidently omitted. I have the original v1.1 college writeup for Necro and it does not include this rule, so it must have been added sometime as an explicit change. When was it added? I tried to find a reference to this addition in the version history, but it escaped my notice. Could someone point me in the right direction?
Andrew.
Hi Andrew,
I posted the request for the "correction" -- however, having seen your note I have checked back through old copies last night to try and find the original. The version of Necro 1.1 that I have html-ed on my DQ Vault site has the note, but its providence is unclear -- I don't recall adding the note, but some older versions don't have it either.
Looking back to the oldest document I can find on the subject, which covers conversion to the "new" necro college (and is dated in 1994) it merely says that conversion from Hellfire is to a differently flavoured spell, and that the EM is close enough (stated as 75 EM higher) that no special conversion should be necessary.
DQ2 Necro has Hellfire with an Em of 375 (Range of 15+15, and BC of 1%) and references Fire College Hellfire. Fire College has an EM of 675, (Range of 10+10, and BC of 5%). Black College references Necro and has the same attributes. Dean and I exchanged Necrosis for Hellfire and set a BC of 450.
I don't recall whether there was discussion over the anomalous EMs of Black and Necro at that time. That said, Witch's Hellfire was brought in-line with Fire's during one or other College rewrite, Necrosis has stayed at 450, and from my point of view is correct given its limitation.
I do remember that Dean and I were intent on making Necro an effectively "Death" elemental college and we had a number of chats about them having limited effects against non-living and undead -- basically they are good at channelling death, but like Fire mages having limited facility to stop fires or prevent fires, Necros have most power against the living, and less against the not.
The description of Necrosis as doing its damage by rotting and internal haemorrhaging is very consistent with our original intent -- and I would have thought a clear indication that the spell would not (for example) effect Skeletons, or Iron Golems (which have nothing to rot, and no blood to haemorrhage), or Zombies (who are already rotting).
All of which goes to say -- I cannot find the original of the "Only Living" note, but, for what it is worth, unlike our one-time discussions of whether the original designers meant X or Y in DQ2, I can confirm that the spell was intended to effect living entities.
If you'd prefer we can take this the GMs: reverse the "correction" and ask instead for a "clarification, based on the EM of the spell, and the intent of the designer".
Conversely, if there is a preference among the GMs for the spell to affect undead, golems and the like, then its EM really needs to be brought in line with Hellfire. It does not have the MR reduction of Hellfire, but there are more common protections against Fire magic / damage than Necrosis (and Necrosis does not have the double/triple damage limitation of Hellfire) so I wouldn't expect the EM to be lower than 650. I would also suggest that the range be reduced from its current 15+15 to something more consistent with Hellfire's 10+5.
Martin Dickson 12:37, 13 Jul 2005 (NZST)
Hi Martin,
Thanks for the clarification. I am happy for the note to stand as it is - there is no need to make a fuss over something like this. I always thought that this was the intention of the spell. I think that it makes the most sense to only affect living entities, although I can see it possibly affecting some special non-living entities if they had the right kind of bodies. I was just wondering where the "correction" came from. You have cleared that up for me :)
Personally, I would prefer that such things are left up to the GM to decide. After all, they have to make decisions about almost all the other spells. For example, should an Iron Golem be affected by Whirlwind Vortex? IMO, probably not - although I imagine that it would depend on the GM.
Ciao, Andrew
