One of the adaptations from Solidify Water allows you to change it into a sustained spell, if successful it causes the target to be helpless. If a helpless taget is struck in melee, that hit is a critical success, dealing an automatic wound, and if you withhold that wound, you can reduce their stamina to 0.

Does that work. It seems a bit... Overpowered? Not sure if it was intended to work that way. Or am I mistaken, and it doesn't work that way.

There is nothing in the rules to prevent it from happening. Honestly, seems a pretty good deal to me!

Seems a very cheap way to eliminate any enemy.

John

It is. During one of the BIs they put an unofficial errata on it saying you expend the source of water used to cast this spell. An attempt to try and prevent players and NPCs from abusing it. I personally think it should be errataed into a Binding though.

There are a number of changes we're considering for it.

FYI, it wasn't full errata... it was a reminder that an elemental source is consumed by the casting... some elements are just easier to keep around... but people who use Solidify Water can't seem to keep their canteen's full for long.

So I'm a little confused now. The spell's main purpose seems to be to turn normal water into something you can water on. Obviously you need a source of water for that to work. Is everyone saying that once the spell is done, whatever water source you used is suddenly evaporated?

John

The clarification was two-fold:

1. The target of the Solidify Water effect cannot also be water source for the spell.
2. The water source used to cast Solidify Water is consumed on each casting of the spell.

I can't recall if #2 was generalized to all spells, but certainly it applies to Solidify Water.

So yes, you need to carry around a whole wagon full of water skins if you want to keep casting Solidify Water every few ticks of combat.

So given the area of the spell, it could be used to destroy a lot of water in a short amount of time. That could be useful.

John

I'm very confused. The adaptation that makes people helpless says, "Adaptation:Increase the CTN by 6 to attempt to solidify the water within a living being. The spells type changes to Sustained with a Speed of 4(+6)/3, which attacks the Target’s Discipline. If successful, the Target is held Helpless. Any damage dealt to the Target automatically ends the spell.

How does that not make them the source of the water? It seems that the clarification that the water used to make the spell is destroyed just make the spell more dangerous, as when the spell ends up to 70% of their body is destroyed. If their own water isn't the source, than what is and how much do you need for each casting?

You need an elemental source to cast the spell. That's independent of the water in the target.

At said BI, it was clarified that the Restriction laid out in the spell is not mitigated by employing that Adaptation. The spell is an extremely potent one, particularly with this adaptation. I invite anyone who doesn't understand the need for the restriction to sit at a table and have a GM use the spell against them