For those of us with some of the newer held mana spells, there's some info in the last paragraph for ya.

Category: Strategy, Tactics and Experience
Topic: A Matter of Magic -- Spells
Author: DR-SHALNHH
Posted: Jul 20, 1998 11:06:19

No, I'm still not reading this folder, and still not planning to start
again any time soon. But I figured some of you might want updates about
some stuff. :)

I set up NEWS 17 to track which entries you have already read, notify you
about new entries when they log on, and show you ALL items if you've
already seen the latest, or just the newest ones if you haven't. I'm going
to make an effort to mention every little fix and tweak as well as new
spells and systems there, since I'm not mentioning them here. :)


If I'd known when the various guild meetings were at Simucon, I'd have made
an effort to attend as many as possible. (I didn't even realize we were
having guild meetings at all until the MM meeting was already over.) As it
was, I came out of there with some notes on Warrior Mages, LOTS of notes on
Clerics (Alnilam is the most organized GM in the history of gaming), and a
few general notes.


For those who wonder how that talk about light vs. dark vs. both went, I
think most of the folks who were worried about "Cleric package deals" will
be pleased. Though I still think those people had misinterpreted what we
had been saying, I will admit that I had misplaced the basic idea that the
"dark gods" and "light gods" are not separate beings in active conflict but
are aspects of each other.

The conclusion we came to is that any Cleric who chooses to can cast
"light" or "dark" spells as they wish -- but must face the consequences.
Not as a "Hodierna doesn't like it when you curse people" thing, however.
The dark aspects tend to be twisted and capricious, and may, when you try
to cast some of their spells, go "nah, I don't think so" or "wouldn't it be
amusing if I did that to you instead of your intended victim?" every once
in a while. Other spells work that way simply by their nature -- such as
Soul Attrition or that Winds of Asketi idea (it doesn't matter whether you
cast it or not, if you don't have PFE going, you're gonna get bit).


One thing mentioned at SimuCon that I'm seriously considering may affect
several guilds. Rather than awarding experience for CASTING held-mana
spells, we would award it continuously for keeping the spell going. That
would eliminate some of the repetition of "prep, harness, cast, release."
If anyone has a rational objection to the idea, please email me. I don't
currently see any flaws with the plan that can't be handled by making the
experience gain proportional to the difficulty of keeping the spell up.