Fixed spells Question

[Kublai]

How would a sorcerer evolve a "carrot"-ed spell from a fixed result spell?

We'll use my new Silent Step spell, which has a fixed Obstacle of 2 which results in a +4 Ob to any one trying to hear him.

I now want to make it an open-ended result spell, with +1 Ob hearing penalty per every success over casting Obstacle.

There isn't a facet for this, so what would be the process?

[luke]

Technically, all spells are carroted/open-ended coming out of the distillation process.

I was thinking of adding a final facet modifier to the distillation process wherein a player could make a spell flat obstacle. Some spells this would raise the obstacle, some spells this would lower it.

Needs playtesting, of course.

Right now, it's up to the player to declare open-ended or flat obstacle in distillation. But, I admit, there is no mechanical/systemic incentive to do the latter.

:(
-L

[Kublai]

No incentive to do the latter? :?

If by latter you mean "flat obstacle" then I think you're totally wrong. There is a huge incentive in terms of Resources! Flat spells are half the cost of Open ones.

Anyway, the point of my post wasn't about this, it was about transforming flat spells into open ones (or vice versa) in game.

How do I do that?

[luke]

i dunno. What are you talking about? Once a spell is distilled, that's it. You'd have to redistill a spell in order to change its flatness or openness.

:?

[Kublai]

I am talking about the many, many spells in the Character Burner with flat obstacles, as well as flat-obstacle distilled spells using the Abstractions chapter.

So, you are saying that it's impossible to develop an open spell from a flat spell? :(

[luke]

i am so utterly confused.

[Kublai]

Was that an Obfuscation or an Avoid? :?

It's hard getting old men to understand new ideas, isn't it?

Say my sorcerer buys Wolf Snout, a flat spell taken directly from the Character Burner that grants +2 dice to Perception tests. Time passes and our sorcerer wants to improve that spell by making it an open-ended spell, transforming the effect from a fixed +2 dice to 1 die per success over Obstacle. He doesn't have the facets to build the spell from scratch.

Is this possible and how would he do it?

[luke]

he would have to redistill the spell using the appropriate facets.

-L

[Kublai]

I don't like that answer at all! :oops:

Why is it easier to upgrade Breath of Wind to Breath of Fire and Lightning than it is to increase the potential of a spell without changing any of its facets?

What's the philosophy there?

[LordSmerf]

I think the idea is that distillation creates something that can't be easily reverse engineered. It is essentially easier to start from the components than it would be to reverse engineer the spell, make the changes you want, and redistill. It makes a lot of sense if you think about final spells as being a single conglomerate character (in the written language sense) of considerable compexity. You can't be sure which lines effect which part without experimenting, which could easily get you killed. Imagine that you create a new character by superimposing and X, a T, a B, a S, and a P over each other, now consider how difficult it would be to know how to completely remove one letter from the character and then replace it with a new one. Especially if you learned it in its entirety. Now up the complexity of the component letters by a signifigant amount. It's much safer to start at a known point and work from there.

Did any of that make sense?

Thomas