What if Scrolls followed ...

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Mamma ama Warlock
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What if Scrolls followed ...

Post by Mamma ama Warlock » Tue Feb 06, 2024 5:12 pm

Good time of day to everyone!

A simple thought experiment with potential large consequences. What if Scroll usage followed spellcasting rules? Rules in question are: verbal and somatic components. To cast a spell using a scroll you have to hold it up (somatic) and read the spell on it (verbal). What are your thoughts on it? Mine are down below, just skip if you don't want to read 'em.

The dev team, as some of their members mentioned in the past, tries to follow the design philosophy of meaningful choices: benefits incur restrictions, which in return foster creativity in mechanical expression. Right now the scrolls are direct and almost unrestricted access to spellcasting classes' most powerful feature - their spellbooks. You can get clubbed by an ogre, and a sheet of paper thrown at it will blind it save-free, along with savelessly unsummoning most things.

Would this render scrolls useless? No. Would it make Silence incredibly overpowered? No, you can still use potions and wands to run out, use a mords to dispel it. Having to perform the verbal component and being vulnerable to silence would give a meaningful weakness to a by far one of the most foolproof features. You also still have to cast Silence on yourself OR your summon to make it work, thus cutting your own access to scrolls along with trying to impose this restriction onto your opponent. Casting it on the enemy is: a) a double edged sword, as they can use it to silence you; b) imposes a save, which will be easily passed.

To be honest, the scroll usage looks somewhat oppressive, and doesn't adhere to one of the key principles under which the other features are designed to be. It will in no way disable the use of scrolls, but will add another element into consideration, along with a chance to lose concentration when getting smacked in the face.

If it is at all technically possible, that would be one restriction that shook up the existing meta and gave a new tool for avid PVPers. Also cloistered clerics would suddenly become cool, so there's that. :geek:


Kythana
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Re: What if Scrolls followed ...

Post by Kythana » Tue Feb 06, 2024 8:48 pm

Mamma ama Warlock wrote:
Tue Feb 06, 2024 5:12 pm

...tries to follow the design philosophy of meaningful choices: benefits incur restrictions, which in return foster creativity in mechanical expression.

So going by this own design philosophy, which isn't even universally true, you have to look at what a mundane sacrifices in order to get access to scrolls.

For the popular WoF, that is a 50 lore investment which usually comes from 33(base) + 2(int) + 10(rings) + 5(cloak).

So a full skill and some gear slots.

For 80 lore, it's a combination of dedicated gearing and either a class(loremaster) or a feat(epic skill focus: lore).

The benefit here already has a restriction, which is categorized by the skill, feat, and gear requirement.

To be honest, the scroll usage looks somewhat oppressive, and doesn't adhere to one of the key principles under which the other features are designed to be. It will in no way disable the use of scrolls, but will add another element into consideration, along with a chance to lose concentration when getting smacked in the face.

As someone who plays with 80 lore, I disagree. Scrolls are good, but they have other weaknesses. The first is the lower CL, which actually makes WoF have a decent chance of bouncing off both headband of protection 26 SR and SR summons. A scrolled mords/gdispel cannot dispel against certain CL thresholds at all, so the only use for mords is more so the breach and SR reduction. (This isn't taking loremaster into account, which is an entirely different topic.)

Secondly, the time taken to actually cast. This means that time stop can be countered pretty easily if you see it coming. You either heal above 50% or counter with another time stop. It's also precious action economy to do so, when...

Thirdly, there are often better alternatives. WoF, Mords, Gate, greater Breach all come in the form of grimoires or rods, which are faster to use. It's really only time stop that doesn't, which uses the worse version from a grimoire, or comes from a very expensive umd consumable that most people don't use.

I think the actual problem, which you highlighted at the start is:

You can get clubbed by an ogre, and a sheet of paper thrown at it will blind it save-free, along with savelessly unsummoning most things.

Summons are often the only line of defense a squishy caster has from a melee, or cc spells, but summons are deleted by a single spell(except warlock lol), and cc spells are pointless because saves are too high, and clarity exists.

Scroll usage would not seem so strong if WoF did not behave at it does now.

...But if you make it so that summons are impossible to remove, then it actually becomes oppressive. (Warlock, lol.)


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Mamma ama Warlock
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Re: What if Scrolls followed ...

Post by Mamma ama Warlock » Wed Feb 07, 2024 1:29 am

Kythana wrote:
Tue Feb 06, 2024 8:48 pm

...But if you make it so that summons are impossible to remove, then it actually becomes oppressive. (Warlock, lol.)

Ahaha, yeah, agreed on that. The warlock summon does have this feature prolly cuz anyone can use the WoF scroll.

But, again, I was talking about giving scrolls verbal and somatic component, not about the LM which is a whole different can of worms on its own (and they give benefits far beyond a boosted Lore score), along with the warlock. I felt like an additional variable in the equation (Silence) might’ve added some new options. Again, it’s not a LM rant, but a thought experiment on how this adjustment might affect the scroll usage. Cuz you know, spellcasters will also build Lore to use the scrolls anyway, so it does not just affect the martials. It would not disable the consumables, but would give them a natural counter with extra considerations.

And the easy solution to the tome question is: let them respect the same rules for components as scrolls. You reading from a page? Perform a verbal component, please. Rods, wands and potions are not affected.


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