The Dangers of “Pre Buffing”

The way I see it, especially if the spell has an obvious visual component (ebon orb, ebon shield), walking around with spells up is akin to walking around with weapon drawn. Not much of a problem if you are foraging through the Faerwolden, but might cause some issues in Grand Coryan.

Meh. The tactical advantage of Benediction of the Gods is real but not game breaking. IMO buffing like healing counts less in Arcanis than in other game systems. If it makes sense I don’t mind letting players buff before charging in. But if it doesn’t make sense I’m also happy to prod them along. Or … “Hey look its a new scene!”

If it ever made sense that the PCs should be able to buff because they know the fight is coming BUT also I thought it was a danger to break an encounter I could always add another enemy or add one to their defenses … or AR, or even a combination of all three.

But that’s something to be very very careful about. Its not the job of the judge to vanquish adventuring parties unless they’re doing something really really dumb. And I’m probably not using dice at that point. Its also okay for player to know in a vague generic sense that their judge sometimes fudges things in the name of the story…but its almost never a okay when everyone at the table knows *that specific thing there* was fudged.

My understanding based upon comments I received in my old forum post of “PC Improvements vs. Enemy Improvements” (Which sought to compare the rate at which PC skills, defenses, etc. go up by Tier compared with NPC defenses, skills), is that the numbers chosen for the NPCs assumes the Players are using buffs, tactical edge and talents to their maximum.

Now, this doesn’t mean they have to have all their buffs up at all times. However, I take it to mean that the numbers for NPC’s are chosen based upon buffed PC’s. I don’t usually see a problem with pre-buffing your self buffs (especially those that aren’t real visible or that are done in a dungeon setting), but I do have issues with the party pre-arranging to cast 3-4 buffs on all party members before a fight unless there’s ample time to do so.

then “allowing pre buffs all the time makes casters better in general than non casters” as an argument come into play

There are going to be times when pre-buffing doesn’t make sense (GM’s call) but in an actively hostile environment, I’m okay with casters saying they have their Arcane Shield, or Vestments of Larissa, etc. up. I might allow 1 party-wide pre-buff as well (Usually Benediction of the Gods).

The other side to the argument is, if the casters have to spend the first 12 ticks of combat casting all their buffs (that they would need to have the correct ‘stats’ for a fight), that makes them non-participatory for a lot of things.

There’s no ‘easy’ answer and a lot of times it’s going to depend on the adventure. I don’t think I’ve yet had any of my bad guy spend time buffing things that they would generally have up in a hostile environment or when the threat of attack was imminent.

John

My issue with pre-buffing is that too many players want each and every possible thing cast and often they have some ‘perfect’ combination that makes their character (or the party) significantly more powerful.

I like the situations, like often happens in a BI, where there is something ‘coming’ and the group has 2-3 rounds to cast buffs, then its on. I think is realistic, story-appropriate, and pretty balanced.

Thanks for bringing this up. It’s been an interesting discussion.

I think a number of really good points have been brought up. Anything with a duration of Scene obviously expires and needs to be refreshed periodically. Scene spells have “real” durations measured somewhere between minutes and hours. Whether these should be available and up prior to box text ending should in my mind either

1. Be specified by the mod as to whether there’s time to do buffing in advance
2. Be at the discretion of the GM

So much of the above is situation dependent. As a player however the GM wants to handle it is fine by me.

Responding to some specific thoughts, I agree with Matt that having obvious effect spells are about the equivalent of walking around with weapons drawn. Certainly not recommended in civilized areas.

To I think it was John’s comments about as tiers go up, buffs are expected, I’d say yes, but. Many of the buffs stage up with higher CTNs. I don’t think that it’s expected that they’re up going into a combat. That buff may be the best choice for a caster or not in combat, but it should be their choice. As mentioned above, I think whether it’s reasonable or not is situational. More importantly, the combats aren’t going to be built with a set of combat monster builds in mind. Henry’s been clear he doesn’t want an arms war. Also consider that mods have to be playable by as few as 3 people.

One other thought is that Eldritch casters who do this should be reminded that constantly having active spells up is likely to attract the attention of Harvesters. If they had this mindset, I’m not sure how long they would have lasted without being discovered.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

so 3 AR and 3 Avoidance isn’t much of a buff to a PC? that’s what Delbert throws down if he has a long opportunity, I think that’s quite a bit.
Can you auto-cast that?

One thing players need to remember is that just because the judge says you have time to cast a buff spell or two does not mean that you can auto-cast your maximum adaptation. I don’t know any PC that can hit a 30 TN even 50% of the time. (assuming tier 2.3 with a D12 casting stat and +10 to Arcanum, the average roll is 27.5. A PC could easily try 2-3 times and fail that.

Players need to remember that they still have to roll, even when combat hasn’t started, yet.

Scott