20 point spell burn

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CapnZapp
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by CapnZapp »

Finally, do you treat spellburn healing differently from other ability damage?

If a Wizard sacrifices 5 points from Strength, Stamina and Agility (15 points total) as far as I can read the rulebook, all this damage heals in five days. You heal one point of ability damage per night. Naturally you would think this is for each damaged Ability Score.

But you CAN read the rules as saying "only one point of ability damage heals per day" though it's frustratingly imprecise about it.

"Ability score loss, except for Luck, heals at the same rate: 1
point with a good night’s rest, and 2 points with a day of
bed rest.
A character may heal both ability score loss and hit point
loss on the same night’s rest."

This studiously avoids answering the case where you have taken one point of Strength damage, say, and also one point of Personality damage.

Why would these points heal simultaneously? Why wouldn't they?

Also the passage in the Spellburn section remains non-precise:

"Ability scores lost in this way return as
the wizard heals. Each day he does not
attempt spellburn, he recovers 1 point
of ability score."

Does this mean the rules assume you can only spellburn ONE (physical) ability score at a time? (I'm discounting this possibility since that would limit most mages to perhaps 11 points of Spellburn in practical play)

Does it mean Spellburn heals like "regular" ability damage, and the phrasing is just slightly unfortunate?

Does it mean Spellburn heals in a specially restricted way, and that you can only recover 1 point of ability score per night?

Or does it mean ALL ability healing is limited to one point per night?

In summary, if you spellburn 15 points of ability score, will it take 5 days (assuming 5 points of each physical score) or 15 days to fully recover?
dustle
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by dustle »

CapnZapp wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 4:19 am That's a serviceable houserule that fixes the ambiguity and incompleteness of the rulebook, I guess.

But the rules say
"A wizard who sacrifices a full 20
points of ability scores in one fell
swoop automatically treats his
next spell check as a roll of natural
20."

To me, that part is pretty unequivocally telling me you put down the die with the "20" face on top and say "look, I rolled a natural 20!"

Right now, I'm focusing on something else, though. I'm wondering whether the rules put a ceiling on the total amount of spellburn you can make, and if so, if you have a rules passage to back this up with.
Raven_Crowking wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 10:16 am B, excepting the 20 is the limit for spellburn
Again, do you mean there's a maximum of 20 points of spellburn you can do in total or do you not, Raven?

The natural assumption is that a Wizard with Strength 8, Stamina 10 and Agility 12 can burn all those points for a +30 on the roll, and I can't find anything in the rules to say otherwise. But it sure does seem there are people upthread saying otherwise, so, and now I address everyone, I would like to know your thought process on this.
The way I see it, "natural" is the key word in "natural 20." You get the benefits of a natural roll (i.e. crit). And you also get the spellburn bonus to your roll. But the roll is still a roll added to the 20.
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Feirsteax
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by Feirsteax »

As someone who is a DCC newbie, I would definitely defer to the experienced judges and players here on how this stuff actually plays out in game, however my initial interpretation of the rules as reading them would be:

1. 20 is not a hard ceiling for spellburn. It's possible to spend more. "A wizard who sacrifices a full 20..." could imply that 20 is a maximum due to the implications of that "full" phrasing, but it isn't 100% clear to me, instead looks like it's just emphasising the large nature of the number of points burned.
1.a. If a wizard burns 24 points at once, they are still burning at least 20, and so they should still get that "natural 20" benefit. This one is again just implied, and open to interpretation.

2. It seems to me like one ability score point of healing per night, that's it. Not one point from each ability score per night, but simply one per night. Meaning in your scenario of 5 STR, 5 AGL and 5 STA, it would take 15 nights to recover those points.

Interested to read what other more experienced peeps think though.
CapnZapp
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by CapnZapp »

dustle wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 5:57 am The way I see it, "natural" is the key word in "natural 20." You get the benefits of a natural roll (i.e. crit). And you also get the spellburn bonus to your roll. But the roll is still a roll added to the 20.
You have made your interpretation clear. Thank you.

Now, what do you say to the question of regaining spellburned ability points?

Do you require 5 or 15 days of recuperation in my example?
CapnZapp
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by CapnZapp »

Feirsteax wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 6:42 am As someone who is a DCC newbie, I would definitely defer to the experienced judges and players here on how this stuff actually plays out in game, however my initial interpretation of the rules as reading them would be:

Interested to read what other more experienced peeps think though.
When I read older threads, like this one:

http://goodmangames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44762

Everybody seems to take
* maximum 20 points of Spellburn
* healing only one point per day
for granted.

But where do they get this thinking from? The rulebook certainly is not clearly supporting those interpretations...
dustle
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by dustle »

CapnZapp wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 8:07 am
dustle wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 5:57 am The way I see it, "natural" is the key word in "natural 20." You get the benefits of a natural roll (i.e. crit). And you also get the spellburn bonus to your roll. But the roll is still a roll added to the 20.
You have made your interpretation clear. Thank you.

Now, what do you say to the question of regaining spellburned ability points?

Do you require 5 or 15 days of recuperation in my example?
When playing RAW, I allow 1 point of spellburn recovery and 1 point of HP per day, so fifteen. Though I also have my own homebrew that allows 1d3 instead of 1.
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Raven_Crowking
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by Raven_Crowking »

CapnZapp wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 8:07 am
dustle wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 5:57 am The way I see it, "natural" is the key word in "natural 20." You get the benefits of a natural roll (i.e. crit). And you also get the spellburn bonus to your roll. But the roll is still a roll added to the 20.
You have made your interpretation clear. Thank you.

Now, what do you say to the question of regaining spellburned ability points?

Do you require 5 or 15 days of recuperation in my example?
15 days if I am running the game. Longer if you spellburn during that time.

"Ability scores lost in this way return as the wizard heals. Each day he does not attempt spellburn, he recovers 1 point of ability score."

I do not interpret that is meaning each ability score.

Of course, I treat other ability score damage the same way: 1 point per day, or 2 with full rest, not 1 or 2 per ability.
SoBH pbp:

Cathbad the Meek (herbalist Wizard 1): AC 9; 4 hp; S 7, A 7, St 10, P 17, I 13, L 8; Neutral; Club, herbs, 50' rope, 50 cp; -1 to melee attack rolls. Hideous scar.
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GnomeBoy
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by GnomeBoy »

Thinking of it as the "20 points of Spellburn" thing is coming at it the wrong way... The heading on the paragraph is "Automatic Criticals"

If you burn 20 pts, you get the benefit of doubling your bonus, as you would with a critical without the need to actually roll the critical success.

Normally, Tovenaar casts with a +4 (Int Mod + Level). He burns 20 pts of Attributes for his Spellburn. If his roll is a 10, he's adding 20 and +8, to get a magical 38. If his roll was a 2, he'd have still generated a 30. It's a 95% chance of spectacular result option, at the cost of becoming a tissue paper simulacrum of a Wizard...

This is all baseline. There's nothing to say that in an "anti-magic zone" results couldn't be penalized or rolled with a smaller die on the Dice Chain. There may be situations that come up in play that make it not as much of a sure thing as it may seem to be at first... Just one example: Mercurial Magic result 63 trades out your usual d20 spellcheck for either a d16 or a d24, depending on the time of day. On a d16 you can't get a crit, and may decide to opt for the Automatic Critical rule in a tight spot.
...
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GnomeBoy
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Re: 20 point spell burn

Post by GnomeBoy »

Oh, and you don't get 1 or 2 back on each Attribute simultaneously, you pick where the 1 or 2 points of Attribute healing goes.
...
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