Embrace of Earthen Armour (spell idea/help)

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi all,

Had an idea for a spell that I thought would be pretty cool, but havent really designed spells before and wanted people opinions on the spells validity/legality and level etc.

The idea is its a rego-terram spell which calls the earth up around you and surrounds your body in it, encasing you, but that the earth remains under your control, ie you are now walking around in an earthen suit of armour (in my mind its not a polished armour looking thing, its more like a big earth elemental with a magis face sticking out).

I was thinking the following, but again welcome all corrections:

Base 5: This is just based on the guidelines, it seems 4 will let you control earth highly unnaturally, and 5 keeps it away from your body. So i went with 5 as this is the direct opposite of keeping it away from your body.

Range: Touch - The earth you stand on will literally "ooze" up your body to surround you.

Duration: Concentration - The armour lasts as long as you can concentrate.

Target: Part - You are summoning up the earth from directly around you.

This brings my total to (if my maths are right) a level 25 spell.

The way I saw this working, (but I want to be told if this seems too game-breaking or anything) is that you can move freely in the armour as long as you are maintaining the spell, you gain a +2 to Strength and a benefit to soak (see below) but a -2 to Quickness and Dexterity, and any precision movement (picking up a quill) requires a finesse roll of 9-12 (depending on the object you want to manipulate).

Regarding attacks, this is obviously meant to be defensive, so its no use if its dispelled as soon as somebody hits you, so I was looking at grasping earthen hands, and it has a soak score of +25 given for the hands, so I was thinking, that the armour gives the magi +25 soak (slicing weapons do double damage), and that any attacks which do not get through the soak do not count as distractions (which seems fair as you wouldnt really notice it) but I fear may be the sticking point of this spell.

What do people thing? The other possiblity would be to use two spells, one to summon the earth (give it a duration of 2 mins) and one to control it. So the first spell armours you up, and you will stay armoured for 2 minutes regardless of attacks or anything, but the second spell will actually let you act within the suit as long as you maintain concentration. For instance if you failed your concentration roll due to an attack the suit would "freeze" in place, as you lose the 2nd spell, but the armour would remain as the 1st spell is of 2 minutes duration.

I would really appreciate peoples opinions even if its as brief as "you crazy!".

Cheers

2

Based upon the intent cited, I humbly recommend:

(Base 3, +1 Touch, +1 Diameter, +1 Part, +1 affect stone).

Due to the reduced level (15), you'll probably want to reduce Soak for balance purposes, but adding an additional Magnitude for complexity may also be appropriate...

3

The main thing I would fear of such a spell is that is cover the face and so blind and suffocate the wearer if the spell are not performed perfect.
So maybe even a finesse roll is needed to keep it in correct shape.

4

Or a Rego requisite - necessary for the spell to work (ie, not kill the magus!), so no levels need to be added

Eric

5

Interesting, I completely read that wrong your right it should be base 3, in your calculations is the +1 for stone because you see it being more viable if the material acting as armour is stone? I had just imagined hard packed earth, but I suppose in order to balance things out that makes more sense.

As a matter of interest (I am extremely ignorant of a lot of spell building) if a spell duration is Diameter, will that still allow the caster to control it the entire time, or does that need to be concentration. I guess I am just a little confused on if you are allowed to have a spell ongoing that you control, but that you dont need to add any requisites or concentration to it somehow!

I would have hoped as Eric says that the Rego would be enough to control it, but my intent would be that a botch would most likely result in the magi being completely encased in the earthen armour and take fatigue/suffocation damage while he tried to claw his way out.

6

For an ongoing spell that you want to control for its duration you need a Rego requisite. However, since you are using a Rego spell in the first place, that is not problematic. It is important if you are using another Technique, though.

So yes, you can control yur earth golem all the time.

I would go with earth. Stone is good et al, but earth is EVERYWHERE and frankly, it is difficult for an axe to pass through 20 inches of packed earth with much strength. Beware of pickaxes, though. Not as though as other materials, but enough earth and you are difficult to stop by sheer violence.

Nice one there. I was working around the concept of an Augustan mech master building around wooden armor golems. You just made the eartht version of it at level 10 (if you remove the need for stone). And I like it :slight_smile:

Xavi

7

You could go all cosmetic on that and say that you are just Rego-creating a suit of armor with an earthen elemental look. Now you don't have metal or stones to craft into, same problem as The Crystal Dart, so having a Muto requisite would allow unnatural hardening. I'd still limit it to a full chain mail +9 Soak.

You still have the problem: does it naturally follows your movements and you gain no Strength, or does it multiply your force but you have to concentrate for every move. The second choice makes it hard to cast spells while concentrating.

{a lil clipped, but busy}

8

Cheers :slight_smile: and thanks for the explanation of control, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah I think I prefer Earth myself, Just let it ooze up out of the ground and protect the magi, as you say hard packed earth is strong enough.

So final spell I would be looking at is (I will leave it another day before throwing it into the Grimoire thread in case anybody wants to chime in with any criticism):

Embrace of the Earthen Armour (Level 15)
The earth around the caster flows up to surround the caster entirely except for the face, forming a hard earthen shell, for the duration of the spell the armour moves with the caster.
The earth provides a +25 soak (Slashing weapons do double damage against the soak) and +2 to strength, but results in a -2 to Dexterity and -2 to Quickness.

Base +3, Touch +1, Diameter +1, Part +1, Magnitude +1 (soak to 25)

9

+25 soak is quite massive. +9 as T>ellus points out (the protection of a full suit of chain armor) would seem more adequate.

I would also make it give you +2 damage instead of +2 strength. It is basically a bludgeon, but you are not stronger for surrounding yourself in earth. The limit to dexterity sounds OK since you will lack a lot of tact with your hands, but you could ignore it as well, since no armor affects dexterity in the game, even full mail (that was used with mittens).

Cheers,
Xavi

10

On my most generous day I would not even come close to accepting a +25 soak bonus from a level 15 spell. Probably not from any spell.

11

Good points, but I prefer the feel of actually having your entire body surrounded by earth in an almost Iron Man esque way (albeit with earth). And I wouldnt be looking for unnatural hardening, the idea would entirely be to use rego to pack it tightly in a dense suit (but not unnaturally so), which would result in the size of the caster probably increasing noticeably, ie a 6ft thin caster would become an immenselly stocky 7ft earth "creature".

Regarding the soak score, I was taking that completely from the earth hands spell which are said to have a soak of 25. (half vs slashing), I see what you mean about chain mail being only +9, so I wouldnt want to unbalance the game, but at the same time, chain mail is +9 permantly (not just for 2 minutes), it is not halved for slashing weapons, it is non magical, and probably most importantly it doesnt cover everything (almost literallty). So maybe just make it a flat soal, regardles of weapon type on par with mail.

Regarding the Damage instead of Strength, that makes a lot more sense, It also lead me down the road of a more advanced version of this spell, so I guess I would know look at it like:

Embrace of the Earthen Armour (Level 15)
The earth around the caster flows up to surround the caster entirely except for the face, forming a hard earthen shell, for the duration of the spell the armour moves with the caster.
The earth provides a +9 soak and unarmed damage is adjusted as if the user is wielding a bludgeon, but results in a -2 to Dexterity.

Base +3, Touch +1, Diameter +1, Part +1, Magnitude +1 (soak to 9)

Sanctuary of the Stone Skin (Level 25) (Muto Requisite)
The stone around the caster flies up to surround the caster entirely except for the face, forming a hard rock shell with protruding spikes, for the duration of the spell the armour moves with the caster.
The stone provides a +12 soak, additionally unarmed attacks against the stone result in +5 damage to attacker.
Unarmed damage by the magi is adjusted as if the user is wielding a mace (but uses brawl ability), however this results in a -2 to Dexterity.

Base +3, Touch +1, Diameter +1, Group +1, Magnitude +1 (soak to 12), Affect stone +1,
*Note- Bumped to group as this assumes that stone must be gathered from the ground all around the caster.
**Note- Muto Requisite required to form unnatural stone spikes.

In regards to the concentration for ever move, thats what I was worried about, I would think the fairest way to do it is to have it so that movement within the "suit" requires concentration, but that as soon as you stop moving the concentration can stop. So you could cast spells or you could move, but not both (without a concentration check). Also anything that disrupts your concentration when moving (ie a successfull attack which beats soak) will result in your magi freezing as he has to restablish concentration in the next rount. Still not sure how this should be handled, should it be a concentration check, or as Xavi said, just part of the spell?

12

Again, I am new to creating spells and stuff, and was just trying to find something in the book for the soak of earth, and all I found was the earthen hands which was 25, I really wasnt trying to "game" the system, If anything I posted here because I was worried about the spell being too powerful, so thanks for all the feedback, its really helping refine it :slight_smile:

13

That's what "cosmetic" means.

Yes, but the hands don't have a gooey center. :smiley:

No gesture is -5 to casting roll. But I wouldn't go that way since the armor is not a powersuit but just follows the natural movements of the magus. Just treat it as an armor with a big cosmetic effect on top.

Packed earth seems more Muto than Rego but that's ok. The fact that you end up with half the soak of HoGE fits the bill that you have a gooey center. All in all a spell with a powerful image. Now you have to gain approval of your Troupe I guess.

14

Fair enough - I really should have looked at your post count and made my reply a little friendlier :blush: Thank you for taking the content from my post and ignoring the attitude!

15

Lol, relax I didn't take any attitude from your post except perfectly justified shock at my proposed 25 soak :smiley:

Genuinely thanks everyone for all the help.

16

Sorry, I explained that very poorly, I mean I prefer the feel of the powersuit, as opposed to the look, I think the main difference being that the "powersuit" model would enhance the mages abilities but would need to be "fueled" (concentration).

Oh so very true!!! :slight_smile:

Excuse my ignorance, I couldnt find it in the abbreviations thread, but what does HoGE stand for :blush:

I think maybe I should reboot this slightly and take a different tack, instead of adjusting the spell I will summarise what I (now) want the spell to do, and give my suggested level (which may well be way off):

So:

Embrace of the Earthen Armour: (MUTO Terram) LVl 20 (Rego Requisite)
Base 3, Touch +1, Diameter +1, Part +1, Magnitude +1, Rego +1

The idea as above, Earth flows up to surround the caster completely.

Results:
Size - The magis size increases by 1.

Soak - There is an increase to the magis Soak (yet to be agreed on, but probably 9)

Characteristics - +1 to strength, -1 to Dexterity (I dont wan't to "outdo" creo-corpus, so this doesnt enchance the magi themselves, and its also balanced by the lowered Dex)

Combat - Unarmed combat statistics are treated as if the magi is wielding a bludgeon (however if the magi's speciality for brawl is unarmed then this bonus still applies)

Due to the Rego requisite, the magi can move in the armour as if it is his own skin (albeit a less dexterous version), and so can attack, and cast as normal. Im not sure why exactly but maybe this is too much for lvl 20 and should be 25 for some reason? It could be the rego requisite, as it is so crucial to the spell should add +2??? Not sure/.

Statue of Death: (MUTO Terram) LVl 35 (Rego Requisite)
Base 3, Touch +1, Diameter +1, Group +1, Magnitude +2, Rego +1, Affect stone +1

The idea as above, however stone flies up to surround the caster, this forms completely around the magi, with a large number of protruding stone spikes and ridges. The target sized is increased to represent having to pull up a sufficent amount of stone

Results:
Size - The magis size increases by 1.

Soak - There is an increase to the magis Soak (yet to be agreed on, but probably 12-15)

Characteristics - +1 to strength, -1 to Dexterity (I dont wan't to "outdo" creo-corpus, so this doesnt enchance the magi themselves, and its also balanced by the lowered Dex)

Combat - Unarmed combat statistics are treated as if the magi is wielding a mace (however the mages ability and specialty for brawl/unarmed are used)

Defense - Any unarmed attacks, grapples etc against the mage result in the attacker receiving +5 damage from the sharp spikes and ridges of the armour.

Due to the Rego requisite, the magi can move in the armour as if it is his own skin (albeit a less dexterous version), and so can attack, and cast as normal.

So these two are the spells I would "LIKE" to research, so with that in mind do the levels seem right, or do they need to be adjusted, or is what I am looking for flat out impossible (ie I am trying to do too much)?

Again to re-iterate, this is in no way me trying to break the system and get a great spell at a low level cost, its just an idea that I really like, so if you guys tell me the spell should be level 45 or something thats fine, I will just research it when I get nearer that level! And again thanks for all the pointers so far. :slight_smile:

EDIT: Just looking at some other spells and soak seems to be costly enough, so maybe this really is overpowered, maybe drop the soak to just 6 and 9, for the respective spells?

17

Where you got that 25 Soak : Hands of Grasping Earth. Yeah it wasn't clear.

Powersuit means magic moves you, you use Finesse to roll.

Overall, your idea has lots of flavor and it getting close enough to RAW. You should discuss it with your Troupe.

18

Not enough facepalms in the world :blush:

Finesse, facepalm yet again, yeah that makes sense, that makes a lot of sense. I think I will bring it to my troupe, with the addition of attacks are made with the aiming roll (Finesse+Perception+Die) instead of Dex and Ability, and that casting spells require either a finesse roll of 9 (to adequately gesture) or must take a -5 penalty to the casting total to cast without gestures (decided prior to casting)

Thanks everyone for all the help :smiley:

19

You might consider additional magnitude for 'sudden changes' especially if you want to add damage using your earthen armor, especially as you are combining multiple spell effects: protection & bludgeon weapon.

For reference you can have a look at Magi of Hermes' example Terram spells. I don't have the book with me, but I remember some of the terram dmg spells he (Valkyre mythic blood Flambeau ) is using also got an additional magnitude for sudden changes.

Also, you can use clay and you could be very well become one of the famous clay golems, especially if you botch. :wink:

20

Unless you want increased strength (piloting an earth mecha, basically), you can move around without using Finesse. No strength increase in that case, though.