Full discussion can be found starting at this post: http://www.fasagames.com/forum/viewtopi ... 2068#p2055
This replacement seeks to bend, not break, the original Talent while incorporating much of the valuable discussion that occurred over this topic. The name change is merely a clarification of intent that allows other Knacks, including the one provided here which many considered a necessary feature to make the basic Talent valuable.
As always, I hope this is useful, but at the end of the day, feel free to use this, modify this, or ignore this as you and your table feel best.
<TALENT>
Hold Magic
Action: Standard
Duration: Rank Minutes
Strain: see text
<This Talent Replaces “Hold Thread”>
When a magician would make a Spellcasting test to cast a fully woven spell, they may instead choose to hold the spell at the ready rather than casting it. The magician must first pay one Strain for each thread they wove to the spell via a Threadweaving test (or any test that replaces this Talent for the purpose of weaving spell threads). The magician then makes a Standard Action Hold Magic test versus the Attunement Difficulty of the spell. If the test is successful, the magician holds the spell at the ready for RANK minutes (+2 for each extra success). At any time, the magician may cast this spell as a normal Spellcasting test or Concise Casting test. Once cast, the Hold Magic effect ends, the spell is expended.
The magician cannot use Spellcasting to cast any other spells while this effect is active. Concise Casting can still be used as normal. At any time, the magician can release the captive spell energy to end this effect without casting the spell. Any time the duration for this effect would end, the magician can perform another Hold Magic test to continue the effect. If the test fails, the spell must be cast in the following round or be lost.
<KNACK>
Resiliant Thread
Talent: Hold Magic
Circle: 5
Strain: see text
A magician can fashion a portion of his True Pattern into the shape of a particular spell’s thread to expedite future spell casting. The magician must pay a number of Strain equal to the Circle of the spell to which the thread belongs. Then, the magician makes a Hold Magic test against the spell’s Reattunement difficulty. If successful, the magician may cast the target spell for Rank turns (+1 for each extra success) as if the spell had one fewer base threads or, if it is already at 0 threads, has one free extra thread. Every time the magician chooses to use this extra thread, they must pay 1 Strain at the time of the Spellcasting or Concise Casting test. If this effect creates an extra thread, then the effect of the extra thread must be chosen at the time of the successful Hold Magic test; it cannot be changed until the Hold Magic effect ends. A magician can only have one such Hold Thread effect active at any time. A magician may end an active Hold Thread at will rather than waiting for the duration to expire.
---------- Summary to date, 2017/02/03 ----------
- Talent summary is: For a single thread and immediately after the thread is woven via Threadweaving test, Adept can pay 1 Strain and make a Hold Thread test against the spell's Weaving Difficulty. If successful, they hold the thread for later casting. Each turn held costs 1 Strain, and if the effect would expire, the Adept can make another Hold Thread test to continue the effect.
- Talent has been around in varying forms since ED1. It started as a Knack, then a 1 Strain Talent exclusive to Wizards, then a 2 Strain Talent exclusive to Wizards, and now a 1 Strain/turn Talent for all magicians.
- In all the discussion in these posts, no one can cite a time it was really used in their campaigns, and none of the players in the community really stood up to say "I like this as a Talent," let alone "I like that Talent as it is."
- Core problems with the Talent are:
- Only works with one thread, which is at odds with the extra thread concept in ED4 (note: there is a Knack that improves it to multiple threads)
- 1 Strain/turn is crippling for magicians (note: the multi-thread Knack makes this even worse)
- Not reactive, only proactive - this is only useful for planned situation, can't be used to suspend a Spellcasting on the turn you would cast the spell
- Very little value in ranks - no Strain cost savings, extra successes do nothing
- Reduce cost to something manageable
- Allow multiple threads out of the gate without a Knack
- Allow on the turn the spell would be cast (reactive)
- "Hold" is reinterpreted as holding a thread for reuse, allowing Spellcasting during Talent effect to use the thread over and over again.
- Leave the Talent where it is but improve it as above
- [Lightweight] Swap the Talent into the Option Talent pool and move a specified Option Talent in as the new Discipline Talent. Still leaves room for improvements to Hold Talent as above.
- [Middleweight] Move the as-written effect into a Threadweaving Knack and (a) move a published Talent not in the Option Talent pool in as the new Discipline Talent, or (b) move one of the Option Talents in as the new Discipline Talent and move a published Talent not in the Option Talent pool in as a new Option Talent.
- [Heavyweight] Move the as-written effect into a Threadweaving Knack and define a custom Talent not otherwise published as the new Discipline Talent.
- Elementalist, Nethermancer: Banish
- Illusionist: Dispel Magic
- Wizard: True Sight
- Commentary can be found in the following posts:
Has anyone every actually used this or seen this used in their games? It just seems ... bad. BAD bad. Which is such a shame for eating the 7/8th Circle Discipline Talent of every single magician Discipline...
The ability to hold a fully-woven thread could be useful in combat. You've spent a lot of effort getting a spell off the ground, and suddenly, your desired target is no longer viable (out of range, out of sight, or has some form of temporary protection). With no way to hold that chambered round, you have to let it fizzle or burn it on a secondary target.
But, snag #1: this Talent can't hold thread(s) at the last minute. Hold Thread, at least based on the description, needs to be used in the same turn as a/the Threadweaving test. So, on the turn when the magician would roll Spellcasting and the desired target has become nonviable, too late, so sad - burn it or let it fizzle.
Snag #2: assuming this Talent DID still apply, it can only hold a single thread. This seems very out of place given that the extra thread mechanic is such a prominent feature in ED4. Moreover, one thread doesn't feel like "a lot of effort" getting a spell off the ground - with any other viable target, seems like things would be much better off just using the spell and starting again rather than losing a turn and incurring Strain.
Snag #3: since this is a separate test, you have yet another chance at failure. This Talent could be great if it allowed a magician to hold onto a thread woven against unfavorable odds (stacked penalties, same difficulty as Threadweaving Step, etc). But it doesn't do that: the magician still gets to overcome more or all of those unfavorable odds again to hold the thread. Again, seems like it makes much more sense to just throw the spell at any other viable target.
All that aside, seems like the only place this Talent is useful is for ambushes. What would a normal adventurer want in an ambush? Hit the enemy hard, as hard as you can, right out of the gate, lay them out, potentially end the fight before it even begins. Maybe this Talent accomplishes that? No, not really. Snags #2 and #3 apply again - no iron-fist gut punch enabled here.
I've got to be missing something. As it is, as a Discipline Talent, something the Adept is FORCED into maintaining, this seems depressing. But I also get depressed at the idea that Thief has Haggle as a Discipline Talent and was overjoyed when Weaponsmith lost it.
