quick question on additional threads

[ottdmk]

Late to the party on this, but a couple of thoughts:

The main advantage I can find to using a thread for improved damage over simply casting the spell twice is Armor. If your target is shrugging off the base Damage Step due to high Armor, then adding Damage Steps to a single attack is more valuable then just being futile twice.

Secondly, as far as action economy and Thread Weaving: The intent is clear, Thread Weaving is meant to be slow. The only speedup I've seen other then really high Thread Weaving rolls is the Spliced Weave talent from the upcoming Companion, and that's a Discipline Talent for 15th Circle Wizards.

[Slimcreeper]

It's nice in a well-scouted situation where you've got a little prep time for the first round or when you've got Enhanced Matrices. And of course, non-combat situations.

[Wicket Warwick]

Can someone explain to me the limit of additional threads. Why is there a limit of additional threads depending on the adepts circle. In my opinion there is no difference to a bonus like adding +2 to damage by throwing an extra success in melee weapons.

What is your opinion? Haven’t thought it through enough to start a house rule, but I think it would make sense, if there are many successes in performing “Thread weaving”, it should be rewarded, shouldn’t it?

[Belenus]

There is a big difference between a simple meelee attack and extra threads:
You can use additional rounds to weave more and more threads while additional successes are completely based on luck (+you already have the additional successes on your spellcasting test, increasing the spells damage too).
In combat you normaly don't have the time to do so, but outside of combat, who is going to stop you?
In 1 minute (~10 rounds) you could weave 10+ additional threads and a simple Fireball spell would be able to reduce a whole town to ashes.

[Wicket Warwick]

Good to see you here Belenus

Still not 100 percent convinced

Actually I cannot tell, why and i‘m afraid of destroying the balancing of the fourth. I just think for magic discipline players it would be more attractive if lucky dices have an effect.

Cheers

[Bonhumm]

Can someone explain to me the limit of additional threads. Why is there a limit of additional threads depending on the adepts circle. In my opinion there is no difference to a bonus like adding +2 to damage by throwing an extra success in melee weapons.

Spells can also get bonuses if you roll extra successes on your SPELLCASTING test. But, although the bonuses might look the same on paper when you just add them up, the source of bonuses gained through additional threads changes how it works.

First, lets forget 'extra' threads and just look at the reason why there IS threads at all on some spells. Basically, its because the pattern of the spell is too 'big/complicated' to 'fit' in your Matrix. You thus need to 'finish drawing' the spell's pattern before casting it.

Now, lets see how a spell with threads usually work. You need to spend at least a round to weave the thread(s) and then you MUST do your spellcasting during the next round or you loose all threads you have woven so far (yes, there are talents to make the threads last longer but that's not the point here). This therefore means that threads have very limited 'shelf life' and that its reasonable to assume the spell's pattern will start destabilizing if you try to 'hold it' for longer than its supposed to.

I would therefore assume that, as he gains experiences, a caster would learn 'tricks' to stabilize his spells for a longer time. Thus a Novice could only add one additional thread before seeing his spell's pattern crumble while a Journeyman could manage to hold it for a second thread etc.

[Mataxes]

Can someone explain to me the limit of additional threads. Why is there a limit of additional threads depending on the adepts circle. In my opinion there is no difference to a bonus like adding +2 to damage by throwing an extra success in melee weapons.

What is your opinion? Haven’t thought it through enough to start a house rule, but I think it would make sense, if there are many successes in performing “Thread weaving”, it should be rewarded, shouldn’t it?

It's primarily a balancing/complexity factor.

The equivalent to the extra success damage from melee (and similar) attacks is the extra successes from the Spellcasting test (as mentioned). This is fixed for each spell -- some do extra damage, have their effect last longer, or have other bonuses.

The "extra threads" mechanic reflects the magician's ability to manipulate the magical energy ahead of time, to alter the spell pattern to produce increased effects, which they can choose (extra damage, range, multiple targets, etc.). Their experience tier (Novice, etc.) reflects how much of this they can do. But you need to decide ahead of time, because shaping magical energy into spell patterns is a deliberate act of will.

On top of that, allowing additional random enhancement from both Thread Weaving and Spellcasting offers a bit of "double dipping" that isn't present in physical combat to the same degree -- that usually requires multiple additional talents to pull off. It also slows down play a bit -- the magician needs to decide (from a list of several options) how to spend these extra successes.

I don't think it's necessarily broken to allow it as a house rule, but... it's a power boost to magicians (and one of the constant struggles is how to balance magicians against non-spell types), and I would be a little concerned how that would interact with higher-circle abilities and effects that are designed with the assumption characters only have "X" extra boosts they can bring to bear.

[Sharkforce]

i definitely think it is broken to allow unlimited additional threads. consider, for example, air armour. you could stack on armour until nothing is able to hurt you. it would also change the setting substantially if, for example, earth darts or astral spear could be prepared over the course of an hour to be able to destroy a building from miles away. if heat food could create an arbitrarily large bonus to a recovery test, you could use that in the morning with a +500 bonus and a last chance charm would just instantly heal you to full regardless of how much damage you had taken. shield willow could be used to give entire armies near immunity to the attacks of their enemies, and night edge could be used to make weapons so powerful they would instantly kill anything struck by them.

i'm not going to bother going further into that, because i believe i have already demonstrated adequately that unlimited threads causes problems. there is a good reason to have some limit (in this case, 4 being the maximum once you've reached the highest circles of the discipline; whether or not you could have a higher maximum without straining things too much is much more hazy).

so that's why there is a limit in general. as to why there is a limit based on circle, i believe that serves at least 3 valuable purposes:

first of all, it gives a sense of progression. your warden tier elementalist can do things with air armour that your novice elementalist simply could not have hoped to accomplish. with non-magicians, this is generally accomplished by having high-tier talents interact with their lower circle talents to improve them. that happens a lot less with magicians, so this mechanism is there to help instead.

secondly, so much of a magician's power is tied into their spells that there would be a heck of a lot less noticeable of a difference between a 10th circle magician and a 1st circle magician with high talent ranks if they had the same cap on threads, in spite of one of those investing a truly absurd amount more legend points into being a magician than the other. you'd be able to dip 1 circle of wizard (and then just increase the rank of your wizard first circle talents) on a high circle warrior and be, say, 50% as good at being a wizard as if you had spent your legend points more or less evenly into both disciplines, which would eventually mean that if you're *not* dipping into some magician discipline you're almost falling behind.

thirdly, it helps keep the uniqueness of a discipline within the discipline. it isn't the only tool for doing that, mind you, but it helps distinguish the magician who is a master of elementalism and a novice in nethermancy from the magician who is truly a master of both. someone who is truly dedicated to nethermancy will be able to power up a few quivers of arrows with night's edge as well as the blades of several warriors, while a dabbler may only be able to manage a few warriors and a handful of arrows (and a versatile human will only be able to manage it for a single weapon).

[Mataxes]

Pretty good analysis, actually, but one point:

(and a versatile human will only be able to manage it for a single weapon).

A character who knows another magician's thread weaving through Versatility can't take advantage of extra threads at all. They are not a member of the Discipline, and so do not get that bonus.

[Sharkforce]

Pretty good analysis, actually, but one point:

(and a versatile human will only be able to manage it for a single weapon).

A character who knows another magician's thread weaving through Versatility can't take advantage of extra threads at all. They are not a member of the Discipline, and so do not get that bonus.

yes, i know. the spell in question by default targets one weapon, and additional threads give +rank. thus, a versatile human (who cannot create additional threads) will only be able to manage it for a single weapon

(but hey, as far as it goes, that isn't all that bad... at least the spell does something for the versatile human. some spells have an effect based entirely on your circle, which i interpret to mean that the spell does absolutely nothing whatsoever for anyone gaining access without being the proper discipline )