Could those who are pacted or otherwise strongly linked with a demonic power
please contact me? I'm trying to get a critical mass of keen lads for a
future event. I swear by His Infernal Majesty that this isn't a plan to get
your name on a black-list for the PoL.

I'd like Player name, Character name, indication of level (or at least of
level of mayhem you are happy to cause).

Andrew


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Clare wrote
> 
> I feel that Compel Obedience has been depowered too far. The example 
> given is that brigands commanded to flee wouldn't do so if they felt 
> they were winning the fight. You might rather be able to direct them to 
> a different target. 90% (perhaps even 100%) of the time that I have ben 
> attacked by brigands there haven't been any other targets available. If 
> the spell isn't meant to be able to be used on hostile targets rename it 
> Charm. If it is meant to be used on hostile targets then lets allow 
> their obedience to be compelled, rather than letting the Namer give them 
> suggestions and hope they'll listen.
> 

One could return Compell  to it's former glory but include an option for 
resistance which causes pain to the enity in the form of a positve penalty to 
dice rolls and damage (All rank based) if you wish to resist a sugestion and/or 
act of your own accord for a while. 

William


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Could those who are pacted or otherwise strongly linked with a demonic power
please contact me? I'm trying to get a critical mass of keen lads for a
future event. I swear by His Infernal Majesty that this isn't a plan to get
your name on a black-list for the PoL.

I'd like Player name, Character name, indication of level (or at least of
level of mayhem you are happy to cause).

Mandos - Dramus - Low End of High/High end of Medium - Happy to cause any
amount of mayhem :-)

Mandos
/s


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Clare Baldock wrote:

> I feel that Compel Obedience has been depowered too far.

<mock grimace>
Why can't people say these things _before_ we get a rule into play?!  :-)

But seriously, that's probably a fair comment Clare (or at least one that
bears further scrutiny), as the intent of the rewrite was to depower Compel
and it is quite possible that it went too far.

> The example given is that brigands commanded to flee wouldn't do so if
> they felt they were winning the fight. You might rather be able to direct
> them to a different target. 90% (perhaps even 100%) of the time that I
> have ben attacked by brigands there haven't been any other targets
> available.

You go out adventuring by yourself?  Different target = not the Namer. :-)

> If the spell isn't meant to be able to be used on hostile targets rename
> it Charm. If it is meant to be used on hostile targets then lets allow
> their obedience to be compelled, rather than letting the Namer give them
> suggestions and hope they'll listen.

It was still intended for use on hostiles... just not as a "resist or die"
option.

OK... previous Compel allowed more targets and total control, essentially
making it a 1 + 1/Rk Resist or Die spell... actually, worse than that, 1 +
1/Rk Resist or Kill your friends spell.

The one out clause was that the Namer and target had to speak a language in
common, and it was not unknown for GMs to err... "fudge" this so that the
intended targets, despite being bandits in the Seagate area, just happened
not to speak Common... or any other oft found language.

So... new version was intended to be depowered to be more appropriate in the
game... and more flexible too.  The Namer now issues commands in the "Namer
tongue" (same language as names) and is quite capable of commanding weird
language speakers... and animals.
The intent was to limit the commands to the "true nature" of the targets...
so it may well be a fair critisism to say that when directed at brigands,
(who by nature are evil and cowardly -- hey, this is a fantasy game and the
genre tends towards moral absolutes) then commanding them to flee should
perhaps work despite their morale.

Cheers,
Martin

--

 _/_/  Peace Software International     Email: martin.dickson@peace.com
_/     Martin Dickson                   Phone: +64-9-373-0400
       Senior Analyst                   Fax  : +64-9-373-0401


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This is interesting - it encourages passive resistance (I don't mean magical
resistance), rather than active resistance. If your compelled enemy all sat
down and started chanting, at worst they may be out of tune. They couldn't
hurt their friends, but they couldn't fight back. Running away would also be
fine while "resisting". 

Compel then becomes a "don't take hostile actions unless you don't mind
backfiring/fumbling occasionally and being ineffective" spell - like the
citizens of occupied Palestine being forced into suicide bombings by the
Israeli compel obedience - or doesn't that count as passive resistance?

Not sure its what Namers are looking for, however. 

Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: dworkin@ihug.co.nz [mailto:dworkin@ihug.co.nz]

One could return Compell  to it's former glory but include an option for 
resistance which causes pain to the enity in the form of a positve penalty
to 
dice rolls and damage (All rank based) if you wish to resist a sugestion
and/or 
act of your own accord for a while. 

William


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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Withy (DSL AK) [mailto:AndrewW@datacom.co.nz]
> 
> 
> This is interesting - it encourages passive resistance (I 
> don't mean magical
> resistance), rather than active resistance. If your compelled 
> enemy all sat
> down and started chanting, at worst they may be out of tune. 
> They couldn't
> hurt their friends, but they couldn't fight back. Running 
> away would also be
> fine while "resisting". 
> 

Subject to willpower checks to carry on resisting at GM whim/logic/judge of
flavour? This hurts, right? Actually, I was going to suggest Slowing
resistors(?), but making them concentrate (a la magical pass action) seems
elegant (Martin's prior copyright acknowledged).

> Compel then becomes a "don't take hostile actions unless you 
> don't mind
> backfiring/fumbling occasionally 

Who said anything about occasionally - +25% + 3/rank ?

> and being ineffective" spell 
> - like the
> citizens of occupied Palestine being forced into suicide 
> bombings by the
> Israeli compel obedience - or doesn't that count as passive 
> resistance?
> 

Compel Disobedience?

> Not sure its what Namers are looking for, however. 
> 
> Andrew
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dworkin@ihug.co.nz [mailto:dworkin@ihug.co.nz]
> 
> One could return Compell  to it's former glory but include an 
> option for 
> resistance which causes pain to the enity in the form of a 
> positve penalty
> to 
> dice rolls and damage (All rank based) if you wish to resist 
> a sugestion
> and/or 
> act of your own accord for a while. 
> 
> William
> 

Cheers
Errol


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Just as an outside of the cube idea....

Why not make it similar to the Necromantic Hand spell. Ie give the namers a
number of command words.

Maybe 2 +1 per 4 ranks.

So at rank 1 you could say kill them or sit down, but you could never get
them to stop killing or stand up :-)

Mandos
/s


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> Clare Baldock wrote:
>
> > I feel that Compel Obedience has been depowered too far.
>
I agree with Clare, too.

My impression of the spell was that it was too powerful for 2 reasons.

1. It was VERY cheap at the price. One could reasonably argue that a spell
as effective as Compel Obedience should have an Exp. Mult. of at least 1000.

2. The fact that you could cast the spell at Rank number of creatures made
it very nasty.

If the spell is reduced to a single target per cast, then I don't mind how
powerful a compulsion it is.

The spell was further increased by making the Namer cast the spells in a
kind of magical meta language. This is, in fact, a powerful increase in the
power of the spell.

I would get rid of the meta language, and leave the original language
stricture.  It encourages Namers to pursue language skills, and this is a
good thing. It allows the DM to place language skills as treasure. What
Namer is going to pass up learning 'Fyre', where 'Fyre' is the language
spoken by all fire elementals, for example? This is  a Namer thing, not a
Bard thing, by the way, and it's irrelevant that a Bard gets bonuses to
learn languages.

>
> > If the spell isn't meant to be able to be used on hostile targets rename
> > it Charm. If it is meant to be used on hostile targets then lets allow
> > their obedience to be compelled, rather than letting the Namer give them
> > suggestions and hope they'll listen.

As I understand it, Charm can be used on an hostile opponent. It is, in
fact,  a relatively nasty spell to use because it makes the target like you,
which is an advantage that Compelling Obedience doesn't have.

That said, however, one has to ask what the point is of having two mind
control spells not only in the same college, but in the same body of
knowledge.

I see no major problem with them having it, but as a Namer, I don't think
I'd bother learning charm. Especially now that Compelling Obedience does
pretty much the same thing AND lets me issue instructions in any language.

> The one out clause was that the Namer and target had to speak a language
in
> common, and it was not unknown for GMs to err... "fudge" this so that the
> intended targets, despite being bandits in the Seagate area, just happened
> not to speak Common... or any other oft found language.
>
> So... new version was intended to be depowered to be more appropriate in
the
> game... and more flexible too.  The Namer now issues commands in the
"Namer
> tongue" (same language as names) and is quite capable of commanding weird
> language speakers... and animals.

It IS true that it has increased its scope. At the same time, the various
rationalisations for why Compelling Obedience wouldn't work against various
NPCs is simply because DMs in general didn't accept that the spell should be
that effective.

If DMs percieved that the spell was reasonable, then there would be less
victimisation of it. Perhaps the most effective way of balancing a spell is
by ensuring that most DMs believe that the spell is, in fact, fair and
reasonable.


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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Arona [mailto:jimarona@ihug.co.nz]
> 

[snip good points, especially the bits about closing GM loopholes after
down-powering the spell]

Clare
> > > If the spell isn't meant to be able to be used on hostile 
> targets rename
> > > it Charm. If it is meant to be used on hostile targets 
> then lets allow
> > > their obedience to be compelled, rather than letting the 
> Namer give them
> > > suggestions and hope they'll listen.


Jim
> That said, however, one has to ask what the point is of 
> having two mind
> control spells not only in the same college, but in the same body of
> knowledge.
> 
> I see no major problem with them having it, but as a Namer, I 
> don't think
> I'd bother learning charm. Especially now that Compelling 
> Obedience does
> pretty much the same thing AND lets me issue instructions in 
> any language.
> 

Sorry, I don't follow this point. Namers only have Compel, Clare suggested
renaming it to Charm (any presumably making it the same as the E&E to save a
bit of hassle) as it now seems too wimpy. They used to have Charm too?

I asked someone a while back 'why do Namers have Compel anyway?', and was
told that it reflects the power of Names. This is now covered in the college
intro, and it all seems to hang together reasonably IMO.

Cheers
Errol

PS any other feedback on Namer?


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