Could you, or anyone, please quantify "way too good" in terms that can be discussed that removes personal opinion? You're asserting that it's overpowered, right?, but how is it any more "way too good" than the beast-of-a-warrior that does smacks a single target using two weapon fighting, mighty swing, unbalancing attack, and has been buffed to high heaven? The fighter is just using the tools at his disposal, how - quantifiably - is that any different than the mage?

What I want is to take personal opinion out of the picture, because that will vary greatly, as we've seen. I'm looking for someone to show me that A is actually much better than B and therefore shouldn't be allowed. In doing so, you also cannot simply ignore the cost or potential risks involved with trying to perform A. This particular example, using the average mage, has something around a 30-40% of actually getting cast, then has to hit and (to be effective) has to hit two defenses, then has to roll enough damage to make it 'worth it'. That's a heck of a lot of opportunity for this combined spell to go sideways and be useless.

I would point out that this concept of part succeeding, part perhaps not is already embedded in weapon tricks and martial techniques. A number of them state "If your attack roll also bypasses X Defense then Y effect happens." I understand your point here, but it's fairly consistent. To be completely consistent I guess you could specify which effect must succeed in a combined spell before the 2nd part is considered, but I don't think that's necessary.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

ypou guys know that partial pass fail things dont happen for spells right?

I see your point, Paul, and don't necessarily disagree, however my contention is that that section of the description of combined spells is self-contradicting. Consider this: the intent of a combined spell - at least per the description and how the rest of the mechanics are dealt with - is to create a new, single spell that is better than the individual parts (in a way). The first sentence of the 'Effects' section says the two effects of the spell are combined, but later it says for the purposes of defenses they are treated individually. That right there violates the spirit and flavor of the combined spells. It sure seems to read, to me at least, that the mage has twisted and warped the energy of creation used to cast spells and moulded it into something of his own - he's reached out into the primordial ether and created something 'new'. The effects aren't independent, they are now woven into a singular entity. That being the case, I wouldn't picture, say, an earthen spike coated in ice (elemental bolt)... I'd imagine something more like 'living' ice (for you comic book fans, see Iceman), shooting from the ground with the raw energy of an earthquake, but the brittleness of an icicle - the high kinetic energy of the earth unleashing its power accounting for the damage, the fragile nature of ice explaining why the target isn't blasted into the stratosphere.

Josh that is *expressly* contradicted by the book:

[q]Effects: The effects of both Spells are combined; if
the new spell attacks two different Defenses, then
a single roll is used to determine the success of the
spell. If the spell fails to bypass one of the target’s
Defenses, only apply the effect that successfully bypassed
the other Defense. If the spell fails to bypass
either of the Defenses, the spell fails as usual. Regardless
of the combined effects, when combining
two damaging spells only one of your primary casting
Attribute die may explode.[/q]

The emphasized portion of the text indicates that "fails to bypass either" means, in this context, "fails to bypass both". It was a very poor wording choice there, but there you have it. If you're saying "fails to bypass either" means "if the spell fails to bypass one or both defenses", then that is yet another self-contradiction within a very short paragraph.

Let's take a theoretical innocuous 5'R 30' Primary damage spell and combine with Pound of Flesh as you were suggesting. If you hit 3 targets, they each take Pri*2 damage and your ally heals Pri*6 damage. Not only does that do decent damage but it heals better than any other spell in the game (read very broken). Now combine Pound of Flesh with a larger aoe damage spell like Elemental Bolt and it just gets silly (16 targets max for d6+2*Pri damage (bypassing AR) and 16d6+32*Pri healing). Even at CTN 27, that is ludicrous. For even more fun, find a way to combine with a spell to do a sustained aoe vampiric spell...

I usually tend to side on the "power" side of things but this is just flat-out broken.

nope i was misremembering maneuvers my bad.

i would request, that you guys make this a topic in rules and rulings, rather than player commons

What you are asking is for someone to objectively quantify something that is inherently subjective. Sure, if every spell simply did X or Y damage to Z targets, you could "run the numbers" and compare average results. But spells don't all work that way. Some provide a benefit to the caster, some provide a benefit to the caster's allies, some do damage, some push clocks, some don't even affect combat. How can one yardstick exist to objectively compare them all? You won't get an objective proof that any advanced spell is balanced or unbalanced. It doesn't exist.

Second point... Even if one takes the most restrictive reading and considers advanced spells to simply be the casting of two spells at once (much like advanced combat maneuvers) they are still better than casting the base spells individually. You achieve economies in both casting time and strain, at a cost of a higher CTN, which is only a problem when trying to cast advanced spell that are too powerful for your tier, unlike martial techniques that are out of tier, where you can't even attempt them. Additionally, you get both effects right away, unlike casting both spells separately, where you get the effect of the first spell and then the effect of the second. So it's not like there's no reason to make advanced spells. And the argument that an advanced spell becomes, "worthless" (as some posters have suggested) when one attack misses seems a bit of an exaggeration to me. Sure, it's not as nice as quintupling your healing from Pound of Flesh, but I agree that this particular advanced spell seems out of line with other spells that have similar casting requirements.

Scott

You're assuming A LOT and it makes for very hinky math...

First of all, the CTN of said spell is going to be pretty damn high; thus the odds of making it are low. There's a high risk the spell doesn't even go off. With high risk SHOULD come high rewards.

Next, you actually have to hit all 16 of those targets (from your completely made up, not happened AT ALL thus far in the campaign, example). That means you have to meet or exceed two defenses on 16 individuals.

AND you only heal the damage you actually do - so if those 16 targets are all minions, congrats you just healed 16 points at most. When was the last time you had 16 non-minion targets grouped together like that?

And 'A Pound of Flesh' + 'Elemental Bolt', even before any adaptations, has a speed of 7 - that makes it interruptable AND gives said targets an opportunity to get out of the blast radius before the spell goes off.

APoF+EB has a base CTN of 21, add 6 to make it an AoE that can affect at most 12 targets (using a square map). A 2.10 character will have, at most, 10 ranks in Arcanum (I'm assuming 4 at character creation, +3 each tier, not looking into Paths). Then +1 from Prodigy. If they REALLY want to get the spell off, they can boost the Arcanum roll by their Fate Score, let's say 3. Assuming no other Arcanum boosts, they still have to roll at least 13 on the dice. The dice are likely to be 3d10. The odds of that are 78%, I agree that's pretty likely. Take away the Fate boost and the odds drop to 57.7%. That's just to CAST the spell, now they have to hit the Avoidance of every target. THEN they have to roll decent damage, and only one of the primary dice can explode.

Compare that to a fighter that doesn't have to roll anything but To Hit and Damage in order to two weapon fight, mighty swing, sweeping strike, plus exceptional weapons, plus might buffs, plus rune damage, plus talents (wolf pack tactics, etc) to hit 4 targets -- and that's just mid-Tier 1!! 3 targets from Sweeping Strikes, 1 for the follow up attack from two weapon fighting. Oh, that's not interruptable and, depending on weapons, can be done twice before the mage gets that one spell off (I'm assuming the fighter uses a Fate point to wipe the Recovery).

I wanted to address a few points.




If you use Castigate (I know Pound of Flesh can't be used with it, but humor me), the resultant CTN is 25. That's not damn high at Tier 2. If you use Elemental Bolt, it's 27, still not too bad for a 30' (10' Radius) Pound of Flesh.



You only make one attack/damage roll for an AE, and unless they are minions they take half damage. Therefore at minimum you're damaging all the non-minions in the area (Since you have a max healing equal to the damage, killing minions with it won't heal a lot anyways) and healing something.

John