Say Hello to my little friend….

Straight up there is no spell that makes people Helpless and vulnerable, Bury a Tier 4 spell renders them helpless, but essentially puts people out of reach pf attacks, censure heretic is T3 but only renders them helpless for 1d4 ticks.

I think the original intent of the (adapted) spell was to act similarly to a hold person spell

An 8 for your casting stat (passive 16). 3-4 ranks at creation (pass 19-20). Raise it three ranks in Tier 1 (passive 22-23). Three more ranks at Tier 2 (pass 25-26). Also at Tier 2 the possibility of a bump through a path and/or Sabaticle (pass 27-28).

CTN 24 is very much a something you auto cast sometime in Tier 2. Even a casting stat of 6 plus three ranks at start and a bare 3 ranks advancement at T1 & T2 will get you to 24.

Yes the spell is probably overpowered related to other options. Not sure what the best option is to “fix it.”

It does seem like it is very like overpowered and needs to be errata’d. However, I don’t know what a good fix would be. Possibly Josh’s original idea. Immobilize+Stun seems to go to far (target is free to do anything except move, free strike, or use a maneuver with recovery).

I honestly wasn’t sure as I haven’t really looked at spells over early tier 2 CTN (eg 20-22).

I’d like to see the insta-kill portion of the spell removed (the helpless condition)

You may want to re-read the “Helpless” rules.

Attacking them does not reduce them to 0 stamina; it inflicts an automatic *wound* in addition to normal damage.

Not that overpowering for creatures with more than one wound.

As the friend that Josh is referring to in this post. I want to say that i use the spell only in dire circumstances as it is very over powered. (Minus the first time i used the spell just to show how bad it was… )

I am in favor of seeing the spell changed, it is much too powerful especially at the tier it is available at. With my build my passive caster stat is 28 so i have no issues casting the spell. I am interested to see how folks will address it. I have my own idea which i will post later.

Anyways the spell results in limiting condition: Helpless, which is defined as from page 318 of the Arcanis Main Book (Please take note of the very last line if you don’t believe it can reduce you to 0 Stamina.):

Helpless:
A Helpless creature cannot defend itself, cannot
act, and is typically prone unless otherwise propped up.
Such a creature is completely at the mercy of the environment
and the actions of others. Helpless characters
have an Avoidance of 11. Successful melee attacks
against Helpless characters are automatically Critical
Successes. The attacker may, at his option,
elect to withhold Wound damage inflicted
by a melee attack against a Helpless creature
to reduce its Stamina to 0.

And I am intentionally performing thread necromancy on this thread because this is an issue that has never been addressed, and has seen a lot more use of late.

#1 I’d like to point out it take a melee attack to take someone out, more than a few people just glossed over that.

#2 That being said I’ve realize that psions and only psions have a lot more facility in dealing with this condition, as they can continue to cast while imobilized (Ward of shielding and advantageous positioning come to mind, as well does unravel)

#3 If i was running a character without the psion options, I’d probably start walking away from the table when these tactis are used, mainly because they just arent any fun to most players

#4 the suggested solution is in the first message, and is in line with the intent of the spell as I read it, and allows for other similar effects to still be deady.

#5 even taking #4 a step futher, I think we should take that text out of helpless because its really a coup de grace, and add an interuptable maneuver called coup de grace that uses those rules.

Rules to move out into its own maneuver

The attacker may, at his option, select to withhold Wound damage inflicted
by a melee attack against a Helpless creature to reduce its Stamina to 0.