I don’t understand. Are you suggesting that the ability to lie and be believed three times a day and the ability to make a weird galvanising potion are right up there with insta-sleep in terms of potential for ridiculous abuse? Really?
The lying one I think is actualy kind of cool. But I guess it can be abused. The invention ability lets him do all those things. Make potions that require xp and ressurection potions and a cannon. Anyway my point wasn’t that they’re as bad as elementals. My point was I still think they’re a little above what the other 4 races get.
edit:
Lie: If you don’t sleep with me right now the world will end. (More funny than powerful)
Lie: The elven high council demands you give me 300 gold. (More annoying than powerful although still kind of abusive.)
Lie: I have been named the new council member for the humans. (Well . . .)
And then on day 2. . . .
Didn’t this just end up coating Sir Xenith in a thin layer of zinc? And as I recall this ability was also used to ‘invent’ the fistbump. I don’t really have a stance on this whole argument, but Cornelius’ racial ability is in my opinion the most hilarious.
It’s still just a lie, not a compulsion to do something. Besides, what about the people who just lie and get away with it because they’re really good at lying? That’s way more dangerous than a power that lets you do that.
The potion of galvanising coated you in a thin layer of zinc, and made you immune to paralysis for ten minutes. The side effect was that directly after, you were paralysed for ten minutes. That’s a game winning potion, that one 
He invented the fist bump? Now that is kind of awesome. Maybe that should be in the other thread too. The one for good role players.
Anyway I just put in the human stuff for the sake of completeness. I’m not saying there powers are as bad as 20 point fireballs or multiple instant sleeps or you can’t attack me.
Dylan you are generalising the abilities of a few you have heard about and assuming all the others are the same. This is simply not the case. Vidar has a sleep power that could have horrendous balancing factors here that you simply do not know about because all you see is the fact he put two people to sleep in quick succession.
I dont know what those restrictions are, but I have trust in the GM’s to balance it out.
There are a number of people of cormere that have quirky abilities. All Humans and all Elementals have a power that is not in a rulebook. And if I am being honest I think what underpins the discussion here is that balance only matters if the power can effect a PC, and secondly fear of the unknown. The powers of the Humans and Elementals is something other cannot know about until it is revealed in game. So when it happens you may get players go WTF BBQ, he can do that! And feel that a little blindsided.
I have no problem with that. Know your enemy and all that jazz.
So specifically one shot instant lockdown like sleep can be abused. But in saying that there was almost equivelents in Wolfgangs with very little restrictions. It wasnt a huge problem, although the command power for flee or kneel or other is probably less relevant to the spell packet hold person.
Hold person required a spell packet but was similarly instant death, but was inexhaustable. Is the issue then that there should be some chance of failure? Because well if thats the case, then is a chance, however remote, still enough?
I don’t like the manta “It has restrictions” It instantly defeated 2 PCs who should have been tough to beat together. They were full characters. One power without any of the stuff he spent xp on beat 2 full character sheets instantly. No restrictions were evident. If his only restriction is it only works 3 times a day then thats not enough of a restriction to come anywhere near claiming its balanced. Even if it only works after lunch then that also means nothing. The power however much you think it is restricted instantly took out 2 people.
[quote=“Derek”]I quite like sleep spells. Stun spells and all that kind of thing. But I think that having a spell to cast before you did it, and/or a spell packet to throw at the target would be fairer to the victim.[/quote]Yeah, I had quite a bad time at one of the Chimera larps last year where my group had some enemies who would emerge out of the darkness, say “Are you undead? Sleep!” and variously run off giggling or finishing blow one of us. It meant there was no point in roleplaying any time they were around, just try to tag them before they got us so that we could get on with the game in peace. Some kind of time delay or spell packet requirement would at least have given us a chance, y’know?
I think that the main difference is whether the power is being used PVC (Player vs Crew) or PVP (Player vs Player). Wolfgang’s was PVC most of the time, with a little bit of PVP that was normally non-fatal. Teonn has from the outset been a little more PVP.
I normally try not to kill PCs without a damn good reason, because people put a lot into their characters. But I’m now playing a character who is on the run from the law. He had front row seats to watch the shrub elemental sleep two powerful warriors which was an eye opening demonstration of power.
So I’m now in a quandary: as a player, I prefer not to kill other characters. But as a character, I recognise that the shrub elemental may only need to get line-of-sight on me to kill me. What should I do? The only plan that makes sense is to start the next game with the intent to make murdering the shrub elemental my number one priority. I cannot be safe while he lives because all I have to do to die, is be seen by him. I can’t dodge a spell packet and I can’t outrun the sound of his voice.
The only thing I’m aware of that might resist the spell takes 5 minutes to do and would only resist a single cast of the “spell” and I’ve seen him sleep two people in two seconds, so all that’ll do is slow him down by a second.
Logic dictates, he must die if I am to live.
Fair enough. Then can we keep the discussion on topic, rather than tar and feather all Elemental and humans with the same brush. Not all elemental and human powers are ‘broken’. Its a little misleading to say so.
And other Human PC’s have similar powers.
It appears from the thread there are two discussions going on around the same event.
- Spells like sleep should not be cast instantaneously and either a chant or spell-bag should be used to restrict them somewhat.
I agree with this. Either solution is good and easy to implement.
- A character has an ability that is powerful enough to take down 2 PC’s.
I disagree here. There are other abilities out there that are on similar levels of toughness and frankly one instance in 4 games doesn’t sound like a problem that needs to be fixed.
All up I think focussing on issue 1 is far more important than dwelling on issue 2.
Agree as post above 
[quote=“Derek”]
snip… Hans Motivation.[/quote]
I agree it places Han in some bother. But Han broke the law, was sentenced to death and now is paying the price of his decisions. He wouldnt be in this predicament worrying about Vidar and his come uppance if he had been a good boy now would he?
I think it probably means that if Han decides he wants back to Cormere then he better have a plan for defeating Vidar but also all the elemental guard and any who want his blood. One sleep power probably doesn’t change his jeopardy that much
Come back to the crew of the Lady, we’ll look after you. 
What are you talking about? Han was innocent!
Oh sure, I’m really not that worried for Han. His inevitable and crushing defeat is pretty much on the cards already.
But what happens if someone starts logging the forest and Vidar suddenly goes bush and starts playing the PVP game? You’ve then got the sniper who can probably solo a group of three other players with zero chance of resistance. 
I’m just arguing for a rule set that is balanced. To me balanced doesn’t just mean that the characters who were ‘good’ took out the characters who were ‘bad’.
To me ‘balanced’ means that characters with a similar amount of experience should have a similar amount of influence over the game.
We had two orcs in the woods who were freaking maxed out combat characters. They had found a fortified position, they had heavy armour, a truck load of weapons, berserk rage, a bow and poisoned arrows. They had set themselves up for a last stand and it should have been an epic battle.
Should have been.
Shall we discuss a few more then. Added to the list of “You can’t hurt me” , “Sleep” and “Uber fireball” theres “You’re all blind” , “Poison elemental who also fires poison bolts” , “I can’t be hurt while I spin but I can still hurt you”
The list goes on but these powers are certainly not in balance with the rest of the PCs and while there are some elementals whose powers may be a little more balanced that doesn’t really address the issues of imbalance at all.
How many heavily armed Mohrkin with heavy armor would it take to equal those 6? Or orcs. Or elves? or Ovidians?
Derek’s point is valid, regardless of the exact nature of the situation.
As has been pointed out to me the races inequality is not just in there stupid racial abilities of doom. The elementals who are all allowed to join the guard no matter what there mental status then also have a crazy armount of rights to interfere with other people. This is one reason I’ve tried to keep them down a bit with reguards to what they can get away with especialy with nobles. The intrinsics of elementals seems to be so far beyond other races that its debatable if they even need there starting xp to be completely viable characters.
I don’t like point and click magic. I wouldn’t want to be at the receiving end of it and I wouldn’t like to wield it. It doesn’t strike me as fair.
I’m not a fan of spell packets either, however they at least require some effort/cost/skill.
I’d feel better about someone using point and click magic if they suffered an immediate and obvious counter-effect so there as some sacrifice. I.e.; if you cast sleep you too fall asleep.
Questions for my interest:
If a mage type, rips a card/transfers mana/otherwise visibly loses resources during a brief chant (3-5 seconds) and then “casts” a spell which is point (to target) and click (effect word) then is this still a problem? Seems ok to me right? Plenty of variations on this theme exist.
Or what if said spell can be pre-cast, with the loss of resource (casts per day plus blood/coin/written contract etc) before hand and then they are able to release the spell quickly later on? This represents several spells in Teonn. Are these generally an issue? Some of them are very powerful.
Or is it just intrinsic abilities we have a beef with? I see Vidarrs sleep ability as the release of spores etc. I expect it is limited to say 3 per day. But its not really something that needs to be “cast”.
Or is there a deeper problem? Is it the way we are being killed in the game that irks us? Killing blow is very deliberate action. Its balanced in many respects with the fact that when we’re chopped up we just kind of exist on 0HP, bleeding and helpless. This can lead to horrific side effects, such as being tortured, maimed and robbed. So when you are killed in this way it is typically very deliberate, either on the part of another player (by the act of killing blow) or by the victim (strong RP reasons that should be dead).
On the flipside, if we removed killing blow, replaced it with a 2 minute bleed to death count (unless first aided or healed) then instant sleep would actually be far less of an issue…
I guess that depends on what the effect is, and whether you’re the target.