Hi All

I have a few questions in regards the magic system and I was hoping I could get some other peoples insights to how they handle these.

My first question is about the talent Burn Transfer. Assuming a caster has taken it twice, so they are able to use it upon unwilling targets, how quickly can the caster place a mark ? . The text doesn't specify but I would have to assume it isn't as simple as as many people as he wants to his maximum in one go. What would be a fair number in one combat round ?

The talent doesn't say that distance is an issue, so I assume once the mark is placed then the caster's proximity isn't relevant.

If we assume for a moment that a caster has marked three opponents and then casts a spell that has say incurred 4 burn, am I correct in thinking each of the three marked opponents receives 1 of the casters burn damage, or does the talent only allow for 1 point of burn to be transferred per spell. I worry that if the caster can mark enough people then he can do away with almost any amount of burn on his first few spells no matter how much burn he would incur (Though I realise the mark is used up, the talent allows for magic rating x 2 marks, which could be a lot of people).

My second question is in regards extra successes when spell casting. If a caster (Say sorcerer) was using Energy bolt to attack and rolled two additional successes, could he use them to enhance the spell to strike multiple opponents, per the range, area of effect, line of sight table on page 134. So could he take his two extra successes and use them to move up the number of targets from 1 to 4 or does the fact that the spell specifically says shoots at one target prevent that.

If the wording of the spell does stop it, could the caster then just do an energy bolt like spell free form that can strike up to multiple opponents ? If so, I assume the difficulty would just be the standard that's listed for damage spells with the range and numbers increasing the difficulty.

Thanks in advance for any help and insight offered . I'm enjoying the system and I aim to run a system test with my players of Saturday, so just clearing up some questions that came to mind as I read the rules through.

Mara

I'm in no way an authority but I have felt that it should take a combat round and that you have to make a successful unarmed attack in order to mark unless the unwilling party is restrained in some way.

I may not be an authority either, as I have yet to run the game. Work is steady, and I'm still brewing the world. But I'll share my thoughts, regardless.

l would say morton answered the first question pretty well, but if you are worried that it is too 'easy' for your game, you could change the time to an hour or so, requiring rituals to take place. It could take an entire day to cap the marks you can use, instead of an hour or two.

Magic in general is supposed to be free form. Any wording from the examples in the book shouldn't restrict anything your players want to do. I would say you have the right idea for dealing with extra successes, that is what I would do.

Hullo, Marachai,



I'll do my best. So whatcha got...?



What an interesting question, but oddly one that has never come up in my gaming experience with DESOLATION...

I always have gone on the basis that the Burn Mark takes no more than a Round to put on a target, unless one is placing a personalised symbol of some sort, in which case it can take longer than that. One should also require a Unarmed attack to be successful against the target, but this could be mitigated if the target is restrained.

On the other hand, to make the game a lot more magically strong and to make spellcasters even more feared, the Mark could appear by magic on the body of the target to be Marked if the spellcaster succeeds on an opposed Willpower roll or some such. But that would be nasty, now wouldn't it?



Given the way the rules are written on the Talent, Burn Transfer only allows for a number of marks equal to the Magic Rating, double that for characters who take the Talent a second time. Each time a point of Burn is transferred to someone so marked, the mark disappears so the transfer to that person cannot be used again unless they are marked again. In the example that you gave above, if the spellcaster incurred 4 Burn points, but has only marked three individuals, he would still take 1 point of Burn, unless he also has Burn Reduction (which would counter the last point).

If the rulings for Burn Transfer work differently than this, it's new to me.



Okay, here's the thing... Bear in mind that the spell descriptions listed under each Tradition are examples of how the Traditions should function. Nothing more, nothing less. But the tables and charts for the Spell Categories, Duration, and Range/Area of Effect/Line of Sight, and so forth are guidelines for creating the basics of spells (and modifying the base affect to the declared intention of the character when casting a spell.

In all cases, the GM uses these charts and tables to determine the final Difficulty of any given spell that a player character or NPC spellcaster decides to use at a given time. Thus, if the player says that they're casting that Energy Bolt (Base Diff of 2) at a single target some 25 feet away, the final Difficulty is 2. Let's say that the player rolls 4 dice from his Magic Rating, and gets 4 successes. You declared that you're casting the spell at one target, not two, and the success you've achieved is translated immediately to whatever the overall description was that you gave for casting the spell. You can't change the Difficulty of the spell (which the additional target would mean, since that adds +1 to the Difficulty, all other things being equal), because it would be like turning as the energy bolt is going out and changing its direction. However, extra successes can be used to reduce Burn or to enhance the spell. In the case of the Energy Bolt, common sense says that you would enhance the damage done by the spell, since that would be the only enhancement to the spell you could make.

Basically, you can't aim a spell that you originally cast at one target towards a second target as well hoping to get the enhancement from excess successes to do so. Same thing as if you tried to hit a target 50 feet away from you (+1 Difficulty) by stating originally that you were going after a target 25 feet away, and hoping to get the extra success on the spell roll to get the target farther away.

I hope that answered the question on this. And if anyone believes this isn't correct, please feel free to tell me why.



DESOLATION is really good system, and has a lot of great stuff to offer. The free-form magic system is one of the things I really like about the game.

Any other questions, please feel free to bring 'em up in some thread or other.

Hi Mara

I'd like to take a stab at answering your first question if I may.

Burn Transfer: Here are the facts as I see them,

It does not take any significant time to mark, if it did take time it would say so.
It does not require a touch attack, if it did it would say so.
It is not resisted because it is not a spell and if it could be resisted, it would say so.
You can maintain multiple marks up to your magic skill rating at level one and twice that at level 2, it says so.
You can use multiple marks, it says so.
You can transfer one point of burn per mark, it says so.
You can only place a single mark on a person at any one time, it says so.
A mark persists until used or the death of the person marked, it says so.

So, you can place multiple marks and transfer multiple burn and still cast a spell in the same round. It may seem overly powerful but I do not think it is because of the following reasons.

Burn Transfer: limiting factors,

It has prerequisites: Magic aptitude and a magic skill rating 8.
It only works on people, no people, no marking and no transfer of burn.
It is a very overt Talent: "Marked people can sense which direction the magic user is and vice versa.", unwilling people may seek you out and discover that you are indeed a magic user, this could lead to unwanted attention and being hunted or if used on the battlefield, have the people marked seek you out en masse and you cannot hide from them.

I see this talent being used more behind closed doors by a coven or cult of magic users trying to create or conjure something big and or scary in secret and sharing the burn amongst them to prevent anyone dying. Any other less secretive use of Burn Transfer is in my opinion going to have consequences.

So here is my only real problem with Rhetorical Heretic's interpretation.
If you have a magic skill of 8 and your run into 16 bad dudes you could perhaps mark all 16 then just cast spells and have them take the burn till they die without them getting to resist you in anyway. Now if you say marking is physical this takes care of that problem. If its just claiming someone is marked your going to have to set some sort of time to make this mark or I can just mark all 16 in one action.

I am not saying you can mark all 16 in one action, I am saying you can mark all 16 and still take your action, I thought I had made that quite clear there is no mention of time to mark or of any resistance to said marks or any requirement to physically touch the person being marked, but and it is a big but, all 16 can sense the direction of the magic user as stated on page 87 under Burn Transfer, this suggests that they know they have been marked and the direction of the marker.

The maximum burn damage the magic user could produce is 8 points with a botched roll, so 8 of the bad dudes take 1 point of burn each, I think they can take that and then all 16 get to act. On average the magic user will have 4 successes and 4 burn, so 4 bad dudes take 1 point each, the magic user may get to hit 4 with the spell max, assuming the magic user is very lucky and kills all 4 that still leaves 12 angry bad dudes with actions who will seek out and do harm to said marker of bad dudes, which could come in the form of a volley of arrows which is probably going to put paid to said magic user.

Hullo, Rhetorical,

Based on your original stab at answering the question of Burn marks, what you're saying is that a character is limited by the number of Burn marks as per the game, but that the Burn marks are placed on targets automatically once you take the Talent. True?

Hi JohnK,

I am saying the marks are placed automatically, no time taken,no attack required and no resistance, as the description under Burn Transfer mentions nothing about the time taken or the method used to apply or any resistance to said marks.

Personally, I rule the character has to take at least a turn to place a mark on someone. I ran it a few different ways and magic seemed much too unlimited it a character took Burn Transfer and could place tons of marks each turn for free. I kept a ruling after one game session where a player used them in a favor sense "If I do this, I would ask you allow me to place a Burn Mark on you, I will ask of you once for this sacrifice to bear a short period of discomfort for the task I am willing to perform for you here." It worked fantastically and that's what I saw as the method of doing this. Of course, then he ran around in combat, marking one opponent at a time (one per turn, the players actually ruled it themselves) until they were all marked and then blasted them with damaging spells.

Hullo, Rhetorical,



Frankly, when I started running Desolation in the beginning, I ran it this way but found magic was too unlimited for characters that took Burn Transfer. After experimenting with several different ways of handling it, I settled on the method that I now use. There's certainly nothing wrong with handling it the way you suggest, but it will be interesting to see if you change your mind on this later on.

Hi Arsenal and JohnK,

I was only trying to give my interpretation of Burn Transfer and the limitations it has within the system and rules as written, I was also trying to point out ways within the rules of curbing the abuse of the talent without making changes.

Here are a few ways within the rules to limit Burn Transfer, first battlefield use, limit the number of opponents that are people if for example there are only two people then maximum marks equals two, therefore only two Burn Transfer, which is not much better than two levels of Burn Reduction, now you could be really cruel at this point and only use opponents that aren't people and then the talent becomes useless. You could have the people against the magic user have the talent Weave Warped and burn him right back if he spell casts.

The only other limit which can be used in or out of combat is the marked being able to sense the direction of the magic user that marked them. Assuming they were unwilling marks, they could start following him/her around, pointing at him/her, shouting for all to hear, "What have you done to us, some kind of magic!", now this kind of attention in a population centre where magic users aren't too popular might be an adventure in itself.

As to the more secretive use of marks and Burn Transfer even adding limits that aren't in the rules like you need to take a round/scene to mark someone and or a touch attack is required to mark, this is not going to stop said magic user from keeping 16+ hostages chained up in a dungeon and using them as Burn Buddies and have magical servants take care of their needs until said magic user returns for a refill, or have those same hostages secured in a wagon for refills on the move, don't forget to make sure that they can neither hear, speak, or read and write wouldn't want anybody finding out why they're really chained up.

A magic user could even bring 16+ devoted followers who are indebted to him or her and willingly allow this marking, the only limits to this are that said magic user is now responsible for the lives of his followers or hostages.

Hullo, Rhetorical,



I understand that is what you were trying to do, mate. What it really comes down to is that most of us who've been running the game for a while haven't really had problems with this, but have experimented a bit with ways in which to handle it. In actual fact, most of the spell casters in the Desolation games that I've run and seen and heard about haven't a lot of time to Burn mark other characters or NPCs simply because they have other priorities.

Insfar as the limiting Burn Transfer on the battlefield, I suspect that given the length of combat rounds, the need for the spell caster to concern themselves with things going on on the battlefield, I wouldn't be overly concerned about them being able to mark someone.

I'll leave the other limits that you discuss here for others to comment on, but I think the easiest way to limit the use of Burn Transfer is very simple: Ask the player why they are taking it. When it comes right down to it, the characters who are most likely to take Burn Transfer to be useable on unwilling targets is likely doing so because they figure they are going to take lots of Burn damage. That implies higher Difficulty spells as well as very high Magic Skill Rating. So what does that say about the character?

Well this is what we ran into as a group and why I think it should take a round and a touch attack.

You have 10 or so goblin archers firing arrows at you. The spell casters mark as many as they can and attack one (in our group I'm the only one without some kind of magic) the spell casters kill their one each (4) and the other 6 all take 4 burn and dropping them (potentially). My fighter is now a useless member of the party...

Hullo, Morton,



In all honesty, regardless of how the mechanic of Burn marks works, I would never allow the spell caster to mark targets in the middle of a fight. Just not enough time. It should require a modicum of concentration to do so, and if the arrows were flying as you seem to suggest here, the spell casters should be taking some serious wounds in the process.