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Hi!

Please use this thread to post feedback and report any typos or errors in Chapter 5 of the version 3 Beta PDF of the Dragonbane Rulebook. Guidelines to remember:

• Before reporting an error, please check and see if it already has been reported, and if so, don't report it again.
• If you feedbacked on something in the the first version of the BETA but it's not changed in the version two of the BETA, it's not because we missed it - it's because we made a different assessment. (Typos are a different thing.)

Please report your feedback no later than February 28.
Thank you!

Just wanted to say I like the changes and updates around magic overall, especially the new version of resurrection and that it and Permanence cost permanent WP!

p.62 Typo in the Permanence spell description, "This costs the mage one point of WIL permamently" - should be permanently.

These two are serious concerns and really need to be addressed before the game goes live.

Page 58 - Grimoire: What happens to learned spells in your grimoire if you lose your grimoire or it gets destroyed? Do you lose any spells not in memory? If so, can those no longer be used as prerequisites for learning higher rank spells? Or perhaps you still 'know' all your spells and can write them all in a new grimoire, but can only keep a few 'in memory' for purposes of casting it during an adventuring day? If that is the case, how long does it take to fill in a new grimoire from scratch with all your learned spells?

Page 58 - Magic and Iron: Define direct contact? Only touching the skin? Being 'At Hand'? Being wielded/worn? Can a mage use metal armor or weapons if there is some material in the way to prevent skin contact, for example gloves? If this remains unanswered, I'll house rule that it means mages cannot *use* metal armor and weapons as wearing gloves or armor padding really cheapens the restriction's intent in my opinion.

Others:

Page 61 - Schools of Magic. Just to be clear, if you pick up the ability and succeed in your Int training roll, you get the skill at the base level? So for example, a Mentalist mage with 16 Int who picks up Magic School (Elementalism) and succeeds in his training will pick up the skill Elementalism at 7 points? That's how I'm interpreting it, but just wanted to make sure I read that right.

Page 59 - Sphere: Can the mage elect to include themself if they so choose? Also, listed range is the radius, correct? So if a spell says Range 4 (Sphere), it means it affects everything within 4 meters range of the mage?

Page 65 - Sleep: A rank 2 spell that has a prerequite of another rank 2 spell (Heal Wound)? Intentional or should this prerequisite be Treat Wound instead? Or perhaps Sleep is supposed to be a rank 3 spell?

Page 68 - Firestorm: Lists range as "4 meters (surface)". There is no surface area description in the rules. Is it a sphere perhaps?

Just wanted to say I like the changes and updates around magic overall, especially the new version of resurrection and that it and Permanence cost permanent WP!

While i am fine with the cost of pernament WP, i feel that making Permaence not work with "instant" duration spells a big restriction. It drastically reduces the kind of magical items you can create by a large margin which i feel might be a bit extream.

Also, hot take, but i think the nerfs of resurrection was a bit too harsh. I get that bringing a player back from the dead shouldn't be easy to do and that death should have meaning, i agree on this, but when i showed it to my players their reaction was "Why would we ever use this?", which i think is not an ideal reaction for a powerful spell that the players likely would have to go on a difficult adventure to learn in the first place.

I would personally like to tweek the spell so that either

A: You do not lose that WILL point until AFTER you cast the spell and it is a success. This means the Mage won't risk losing anything if they wanna try but fail, thus they are not punished for wanting to try and bring a dead player back.
B: You do not lose a WILL point, but you roll with a Bane, and can not benefit from any boons in casting of this. This means your odds of success is lower, and on a fail the "death is pernament" still kicks in, so you only get one chance to try.

EDIT.

I was thinking about how you now have a box on page 33 regarding how npcs uses skills, and i was thinking maybe you could have a similar thing for using Attributes against certain spells in the magic list (Such as DOMINATE and ENSNARING ROOTS), perhaps something like this.

Using Attribute rolls as an NPC
Certain spells require the target to make an Attribute Roll such as STR or WILL to avoid its harmful effects. As NPC's do not have their attributes listed, you can use the following methods to see what value they roll for each.

-For STR, you determine the value the NPC uses based on if they have a STR Damage Bonus Die, using a 9 if they do not have one listed, 13 if they have a D4 and 17 if they have a D6.

-For WILL, the value they use is equal to their maximum WP value, excluding any points they gain from the FOCUSED Heroic Ability. If they do not have any WP listed, use a default value of 9.

This gives the GM a quick and simple guide on what to roll if the Player characters cast such a spell.

Page 63, now that Banish is a damage causing spell (rather than a protective spell) the Duration should be changed to Instant. It's currently listed as Stretch which is a hold-over from the previous version.

Permanence and instant duration spells. I have to chime in on this. Not counting tricks, there are 48 spells in the current version of the book and 26 of them are instant duration (including banish which needs to be corrected). Add the 3 spells related to creating magic items and the available list for spells tied to magic items is now 19 (again, not counting tricks). This is really limited and it removes the possibility of some classic types of magic items...at least classic from my perspective since I'm not familiar with what kinds of magic items are "typical" in DoD.

I consider things like a staff of thunder and lighting to be pretty classic fantasy stuff, but it can't exist according to the current rules because all of the thunder and lightning spells are instant duration. Yet we can have things like a staff that can cast ensnaring roots and engulfing forest, or a staff of summoning that can cast gnome, salamander, sylph and undine.

Even more baffling to me is that the rules don't allow for a staff of healing, because treat wound, heal wound and restoration are all instant duration, but we can have a staff of resurrection that presumably could also negate the permanent loss of willpower to the user by losing willpower from it's own pool. That staff of resurrection is far more overpowered and game breaking in my mind than a staff of healing.

I get that most of the instant duration spells are damage causing spells and maybe the designers don't want to see adventurers running around with fistfulls of fireball wands, but ultimately that's a play style thing. I think the cost of making permanent magic items is sufficient to keep characters from making stockpiles of magic items, so how available they are is really up to the GM and how frequently magic "loot" is found in the game.

Permanence and instant duration spells. I have to chime in on this. Not counting tricks, there are 48 spells in the current version of the book and 26 of them are instant duration (including banish which needs to be corrected). Add the 3 spells related to creating magic items and the available list for spells tied to magic items is now 19 (again, not counting tricks). This is really limited and it removes the possibility of some classic types of magic items...at least classic from my perspective since I'm not familiar with what kinds of magic items are "typical" in DoD.

I consider things like a staff of thunder and lighting to be pretty classic fantasy stuff, but it can't exist according to the current rules because all of the thunder and lightning spells are instant duration. Yet we can have things like a staff that can cast ensnaring roots and engulfing forest, or a staff of summoning that can cast gnome, salamander, sylph and undine.

Even more baffling to me is that the rules don't allow for a staff of healing, because treat wound, heal wound and restoration are all instant duration, but we can have a staff of resurrection that presumably could also negate the permanent loss of willpower to the user by losing willpower from it's own pool. That staff of resurrection is far more overpowered and game breaking in my mind than a staff of healing.

I get that most of the instant duration spells are damage causing spells and maybe the designers don't want to see adventurers running around with fistfulls of fireball wands, but ultimately that's a play style thing. I think the cost of making permanent magic items is sufficient to keep characters from making stockpiles of magic items, so how available they are is really up to the GM and how frequently magic "loot" is found in the game.

The limit on instant spells is only for PERMANENCE.
To make a magic item you bind a spell into MAGIC SEAL and then cast PERMANENCE on the MAGIC SEAL.

For a staff of Lightning you make a MAGIC SEAL of LIGHTNING FLASH on a staff, and then you cast PERMANENCE on the MAGIC SEAL.

Ranks are not explained in the book at all, as far as I can read. When I first read it I thought it was equal to the base power level you needed to cast them. But I think that's not it.

The only thing that is clear is that you can only start with rank 1 spells, but after the start, all ranks look the same. Closer inspection reveals that a higher rank apparently means that you need a lower ranked spell as prerequisite to take it. I would like that to be clarified in the rules about ranks. Nothing too long, just stating that that is what rank means mechanically.

Ranks are not explained in the book at all, as far as I can read. When I first read it I thought it was equal to the base power level you needed to cast them. But I think that's not it.

The only thing that is clear is that you can only start with rank 1 spells, but after the start, all ranks look the same. Closer inspection reveals that a higher rank apparently means that you need a lower ranked spell as prerequisite to take it. I would like that to be clarified in the rules about ranks. Nothing too long, just stating that that is what rank means mechanically.

This was part of the feedback for v2, didn't seem it made it over
I for instance suggested rank being changed to text, novice, intermediate, expert evt.