Another oddity my players came up with - not Kevin this time but Lloyd. Julia invents a Creo Herbam spell that makes a fairly nasty wooden javelin falling from the sky above a target. Fair enough: not very accurate, but it falls.
We will call it Julia's Javelin - R: Sight D: Mom T: Individual
the the odd bit -- he argues that a R: Sight D: Mom T: Group (+2 magnitudes) spell creates a 1000 of said javelins, useful for destroying armies. I'm pretty sure this is not allowed by the rules?
I can't think of what excludes it, but otherwise Ball of Abysmal Flame at group is what Crig45, and produces ten balls of flame?
Any thoughts???
cj x
Of course, as every apprenticeship includes strict moral and ethical training, it's obvious that these spells are for entertainment purposes only, as no magus would dream of abusing their power in such a gross fashion.
Reduce damage by 5 and then add +size to reach CrIg50 and you get 1000 flamy balls...
OR, instead you could, say just put all of those magnitudes into upping size for a single ball...
So, a level 50 spell with original damage would give a "ball" 1000 times extra big and crispy.
IIRC, i measured that to be a somewhat flattened sphere of around 7m radius. Or a true sphere of around 5m radius.
According to wikipedia, a modern sports javelin for use in competition has a shaft 2.5cm at it's widest point and is 260cm long.
r = 1.25cm
h = 260cm
V = πr2h = 1277 cm3 (rounded up)
A standard individual for herbam is equal to 729,000cm3
Thus, by my accounting, a standard Group (mass equivalent to 10 individuals) would produce 7,290,000 / 1277 = 5709 javelins!
That being said, I'm not quite sure the javelins would be able to be simply created within the target's area to do damage like a Creo Ignem spell. I'd probably require either a Rego requisite to drive them into the victim's flesh. Alternately, they might be made to appear in the air above the enemy with Diameter duration so that natural motion provides the striking force.
I don't think this effect is illegal per se, but I don't really thing it would be particularly effective either. Javelins only do +5 damage, well within the ability of a knight to Soak. I'd also suggest that there's a limit on how many javelins can hit a single person (more for the sake of realism than any consideration for game-mechanoics),
My Impression is that CreoIgnem 45 BIG Ball of Abyssal Flame creates a fireball big enough to engulf an entire room (instead of just 1 person as standard), so the explosion would hit 10 people, rather than being 10 seperate balls. Its just a matter of scalling up the Ball as it were.
With duration Mom, those Javelins wouldn't have time to fall very far before they dissappeared again, so maybe add another magnitude for diameter duration?
Well, I would argue against the idea that a plant consists of a solid wooden block covered with leaves on the outside. I don't know what kind of mass a plant with the volume of 1 cubic pace have, but not more than enough for a single Javelin I think. It is mass and not volume that counts after all (ArM5, p113).
There would be +2 magnitudes for group (10 javelins) and +2 magnitudes to get one thousand of them (x100). So +20 levels compared to the one Javelin version. It might also be a good idea to include a Rego requistite to ensure that they all fall with the pointy end down and don't collide with each other (+1), and if not included already a duration longer than momentary will also be needed since its a Creo spell (+1), for a total of up to +30 levels. Which might be tricky to add to a spell with sight range.
And finally, the targetting roll against Perception+Finesse. Personally I would try to extrapolate the spell mastery rules for multiple targets, so -1 per target including the first. The Javelins are ofc many, but small and pointy and a human targetted from above is quite small area wise. So the Javelin cloud get maybe +4 or so to aiming (it ought to be possible to miss a single but lucky target). So against a small army of 100 soliders the targetting rolls could be Perception+Finesse-100+4. Okay, maybe it was a bad idea to include individual targetting, nobody will get hit by that. Perhaps it's better to just give the spell a bonus to targetting, and roughly estimate how many % of the soldiers that will get hit instead of rolling for each soldier.
There are of course alternatives to brute force. A Herbam mage could for example trap or divide an army with thorny bushes, those thorny bushes hurt something bad (ArM5, p135). Another way could be to ruin any plant based food they have with a bit of Perdo Herbam magic, a starving army can loose a lot of morale. If the army is using wagons to move their stuff (like tents and food) they are also nice targets for Perdo Herbam magic, forces the soldiers to carry all of it themselves. A bit of Rego Herbam magic could also bend an armies wooden weapons into unusable shapes.
I agree with Bardus' analysis, except that the Herbam individual seems large enough to me for a few javelins (1 square pace is quite a lot of plantstuff). Regardless of how difficult this particular spell is in practice, however, ultimately the guidelines do allow for some killer-spells. The solution is always not to stick too closely to the rules, and make rulings on what makes for a better game.
I see no problem with the spell. Of course, hitting anything that way requires a (rather difficult) Finesse roll, and if you create a thousand javelins, well, the best you can hope is put them in a cloud above the army and count on the law of averages.
You must be joking? Please! You´re almost making it easier to use metal javelins(metal base individual is a cubic foot, plenty enough for more than a single javelin, 3-5 shouldnt be impossible).
Cubic pace IS either mass OR volume already, it isnt defined as either...
And base individual is potentially a lot more than 1 cubic pace as its described as "roughly 1 pace in each direction". That can be interpreted as having a radius of 1 pace...
And that also does not say a word about what kind of plant or how it looks like, ergo you can make it a fluffy big flower just as well as a solid piece of wood. As you should have noticed.
Even a highly restrictive guess will allow one individual to provide enough material for dozens of javelins.
Why bother? And if you add a requisite why add a magnitude as well? Thats extreme overkill.
Colliding doesnt matter at all, that will just keep them "point end down" without anything additional.
"pointy end down" isnt an issue as you can easily create the javelins with fins or tails, either imparting stabilisation perfectly fine.
Based on the time available for other "momentary" spells, you should be able to create them at least 50m (quite potentially twice that) up in the air and still have enough time for them to impact anyone on the ground before disappearing.
No kidding... "The unstoppable legion of doom" defence here we come...
More likely, what the average number of hits on each soldier will be.
