Winds of Chaos

Question in the post subject. The rules seem a bit unclear on this. Would this ability make touch miracles overpowered?

Shallyan wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 11:00 am Question in the post subject. The rules seem a bit unclear on this. Would this ability make touch miracles overpowered?

If you look at the Healing example given on p220, under "Success Levels," it appears that blessings with a 'touch' range can be extended. The limitation given on page 222 appears to be on miracles with a range of 'you.' Those you cannot extend to other people; they only ever (directly) affect the caster. But 'touch' is different from 'you', and it looks like 'touch' can be extended to a range with SLs while 'you' cannot. At least, that's the way I'd interpret it.

converse to easl, the rules for magic list largely identical rules for expanding effects under "overcasting" on page 238 and state that a range of touch cannot be extended, which meshes with the description of expanding miracles being done by the range listed (touch + touch is still just touch range) so by touch miracles cannot be expanded.

there's a roughly equal argument for both sides of this, so i've consulted the miracles themselves to judge if it's overpowered to let them be extended. yes. ranged healing, corruption removal, and critical recovery is much too powerful, particularly at later levels when they would be largely assured of having several bonus SLs to burn.

Orin J. wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:39 pm converse to easl, the rules for magic list largely identical rules for expanding effects under "overcasting" on page 238 and state that a range of touch cannot be extended

magic /= blessings and miracles. They're in different chapters in the book and clearly follow different rules.

i've consulted the miracles themselves to judge if it's overpowered to let them be extended. yes. ranged healing, corruption removal, and critical recovery is much too powerful, particularly at later levels when they would be largely assured of having several bonus SLs to burn.

I have no problem limiting touch miracles to touch if the GM finds them overpowered. But I'd try it before I'd gank it.

Orin J. wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:39 pm converse to easl, the rules for magic list largely identical rules for expanding effects under "overcasting" on page 238 and state that a range of touch cannot be extended, which meshes with the description of expanding miracles being done by the range listed (touch + touch is still just touch range) so by touch miracles cannot be expanded.

there's a roughly equal argument for both sides of this, so i've consulted the miracles themselves to judge if it's overpowered to let them be extended. yes. ranged healing, corruption removal, and critical recovery is much too powerful, particularly at later levels when they would be largely assured of having several bonus SLs to burn.

This seems like a good assessment to me. As there are no clear rules for extending touch miracles (touch+touch=touch is too vague), we have to guess the intent from other rules. Rules for blessings indicate that extending is possible, rules for overcasting that it is not.

easl wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 6:04 pm

Orin J. wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:39 pm converse to easl, the rules for magic list largely identical rules for expanding effects under "overcasting" on page 238 and state that a range of touch cannot be extended

magic /= blessings and miracles. They're in different chapters in the book and clearly follow different rules.

both miracles and magic follow the same rule of "spend two SLs to expand the reach of an effect by its current reach" while blessings follow a separate formulae. magic explicitly states that touch spells cannot be expanded because of this, while blessings are ambiguous about the matter, so i'm inclined to say "two systems following the same upgrade system share the same restrictions unless they state outright there is a difference since you're paying SLs to increase it by an additional range of "touch" which isn't any defined range.

EDIT: maybe expanding the range of a touch spell should extend to the number of people you can touch? that would make a fair bit of sense....

Orin J. wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2019 3:22 pm i'm inclined to say "two systems following the same upgrade system share the same restrictions unless they state outright there is a difference

I agree with that logic. But I would start with the premise that "the same upgrade system" here is blessings -> Miracles, not Arcane Spells -> Miracles. So my default assumption would be: where the mechanics governing miracles are unclear, use the blessings rules as a template.

I also don't think allowing Rhya's Touch or most of the Shallya spells to extend out 6' per 2 SL is unbalanced. Characters with access to those miracles "pay" for that ability with some pretty hefty strictures on how they can behave in combat scenes. Moreover, the spell Earthblood provides mass healing at range, and nobody's complaining about how overpowered that is. So what's unbalanced about a miracle that heals less damage that Earthblood does, requires extra SLs to achieve the same range that Earthblood does, and requires extra SLs to achieve the same number of targets Earthblood does? I bet you could double the healing power and boost the range of all of the relevant Rhya and Shallya miracles, and still very few players would opt for those character choices as 'healer' archetype, simply because the strictures are pretty crippling for a typical (combat-scene-practically-every-session) campaign.

EDIT: maybe expanding the range of a touch spell should extend to the number of people you can touch? that would make a fair bit of sense....

I agree, that makes sense...and would seem to be a good 'middle way' for GMs concerned about healing at range getting out of control. Everyone's MMV. I can only say that personally, I'd be pretty kind and liberal to the player choosing to play a Shallya priest. They've got to grapple with those 'always render assistance' and 'never take up arms' strictures, they don't need the mechanics interpreted in the most stringent way possible also heaped on them.

easl wrote: ↑Thu Dec 19, 2019 6:55 am

Orin J. wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2019 3:22 pm i'm inclined to say "two systems following the same upgrade system share the same restrictions unless they state outright there is a difference

I agree with that logic. But I would start with the premise that "the same upgrade system" here is blessings -> Miracles, not Arcane Spells -> Miracles. So my default assumption would be: where the mechanics governing miracles are unclear, use the blessings rules as a template.

per page 222, the rules for miracles allows you to spend 2SLs to increase the range, duration, or number of targets by the listed amount in the description, this is mechanically identical to the rules for expanding effects under "overcasting" on page 238 barring some different language focus. i'm not making an argument here, i just want to make sure that an already-confusing edition isn't made any worse for the OP by misconstruing the printed material.

blessings have a separate system of expanding with fix increases baked in. i don't claim to know WHY, but it works differently from systems for miracles and magic which seem to share the mechanics between each other.