Just in the final combat, and the heroes want to use fate to be able to use leadership withot having the talent, nothing wrong with that, but Necotec has Twist of fate, which is a push 4 spell. With 7 strain, can she cast it? Does she suffer strain damage? She has cast it recently and is under push 1 so to speak.

Twist of Fate is a Push 4 (+0) spell, which means that she would take no damage through strain as far as I am aware. The only time where strain damage comes in is if you cast a spell with a strain value (ie: 1(+2) for example).

That said, yes, as long as she is not under the effects of a Push at that time, she is more than capable of Twisting Fate to attempt to counter the fate point.

So, while under push she cannot cast it again then?

Correct

Interesting, but I believe you are mistaken. If you cast any spell while under the effects of strain (excluding spells cast with the Delay Strain adaptation) you will take the appropriate amount of damage and add your current strain to the spell's strain. (See p.347 of the core book.) Even if the spell has zero strain, you are still strained from your previous spell(s) and therefore suffer damage from casting a new spell while not fully recovered from the last one(s).

Now, if there's been a ruling that I'm forgetting or unaware of, please let me know. Otherwise I believe that this is how it works.


Scott

I'm okay with this interpretation, as it is consistent with the rules (even though I personally think my way is correct ). That said, though, Strain is not necessarily the thing which stops you from casting in this case: It is the Push. At least (with your interpretation) Twist of Fate doesn't add any MORE strain (and therefore damage) to you

uhh what?
Ok, Push first
(304 ARPG)

Simple enough, and i think that's what many of the above responses were saying

Now Strain:
(edited for clarity, ARPG 438)

I think the last couple of posts have been confusing on how to deal with strain and the spell's speed.

Twist of Fate is listed as:


So if a caster is already under push effect, they cannot cast Twist of fate.

If they are not under a Push effect, they may cast it, if they are under strain when casting it, they will take strain damage.

I agree with everything Josh just said.

I would also point out that Necotec and her son (the guys with the big sweaty gnomish hands) both have fate points so you have some additional options when running this fight to spice things up if you need a little "zing" to challenge PCs. I think its reasonable if you want (as a judge or player) to spend a fate point to "do the impossible" and reduce your Push by 1. In this case bringing her push to zero and allowing her to cast her spell. She'd still eat some strain...though you can also spend a Fate point to flush strain away. Should you do that? I don't know. I believe the answer involves questions like: How beat up are the PCs? Would using the fate negate something cool that the PCs did? Is Necotec going down next round? Still she starts the fight with 5 fate points. She probably shouldn't end the fight with all those points unspent.

How hard HP8's final battle plays out depends in large part on how beat up the PCs are after the chase. I have run the module where everyone gets there at (more or less) full health and I've had to pull out all the stops to make it interesting. I have also judged it where everyone limps in beat up after failing many checks and have eased up a little in strategy and tactics. I also judged it once with a wizard with entangling webs that kept Gnomie busy making athletic checks the whole fight. And when I played the mod we had someone miss out the final fight because they ran around on the ground and couldn't find the last scene. All that can wildly change the tenor of the fight.