# EOM-R Scry skill question



## hilander75 (Apr 29, 2005)

I have a question about the EOM-Revised Scry skill.  I love the whole system and we are using it in my campaign.  We have the core 3.5 spell system coexisting with EOM-R and the psionics 3.5 and so far everything was just nice until this topic arise.

Generally speaking, in both the core and psionic systems, scry seems to be difficult and limited.  Taking an hour to cast, been block by lead, expensive to cast (costing XP and 7 pp for psionics) and limited to just creatures.  EOM scry would seem much more relaxed and powerful, allowing to scry on places and objects beside creatures and allowing remote casting with no extra cost compared to the psionic system that requires to expend twice as much pp for the raider power(and the scry ends as soon as the raider power is manifested).

I wonder what is your opinion about this.  In your own experience, have this skill been abused?  Do you think it is balanced or too powerful?  I have checked on other boards and seems that the designers of DnD 3.5 limited scry on purpose.  Any thoughts?


----------



## Primitive Screwhead (Apr 29, 2005)

*Scry*

Scry can be a game breaker, and TEOM does make it much easier. I have yet to see it in play, but have reservations about using as is.

 Casting through a Scry does nt bother me, the skill required limits the power of any spells cast this way.

 What does bother me is that you can fairly easily cause major campaign problems with a Scry/Move Force spell. I even half-drafted a Thief which used this combo to search through the target house, unlatched and moved items, then Imp Invis to waltz away with everything.

 It also bothers me as a DM that the party can preview and prepare for encounters much easier, reducing the CR of those encounters. In some cases, I want them doing this.. but not all the time. A simple Globe of Seeing could be nasty.
 That being said, I have used the skill to make military engagement maps, a magic item that projects an illusion of the Scry'd view from a couple 100 feet above the scroll/table.

 I just started a 1st level game and look forward to seegin how it works out in play.

 If I make any changes, I will make Scry a trained only skill that must be bought Cross-Class.


----------



## RangerWickett (Apr 29, 2005)

In hindsight, it is a bit more powerful than core scrying.  I personally never understood the value of scrying until the current campaign I'm playing in, where I'm a 12th level sorcerer who tends to fire off four or five scries a day.  No doubt before the end of the year we'll release a compiled version of EOM, with the benefit of a year of playtesting from everyone who bought the product.


----------



## DonTadow (May 9, 2005)

I'm thinking about putting in some type of time limitations as far as divination ans crying skills gomagic goes.  

Perhaps all spells of such take an hour to cast.


----------



## hilander75 (May 10, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> I'm thinking about putting in some type of time limitations as far as divination ans crying skills gomagic goes.
> 
> Perhaps all spells of such take an hour to cast.




I already implemented such changes in my campaign to test them.  I based my changes on the core rules hoping to use a similar balance factor.  

-In my world you can only scry for creatures.  Objects are partially covered by dowsing in the divination skill.  
-Scry, when using remove viewing, takes an hour, unless you spend additional MP (1 MP decreases 20 min).  The only exception to this rule is if you start the Scry centered on you and use Move Force to scout an area (like the wizard eye spell).
-The remote casting is limited similarly as in the Expanded Psionic Handbook.  The raider spell costs 1.5 times more than usual.

At the beginning my wizard was a little upset, but he agreed that it can be unbalancing at times so we agreed to test them and decide if the house-rules stay or go.

Regarding Divinations, so far I haven’t had any real trouble with them.   At some point I thought Dowsing was problematic, because once my players knew the type of enemy they where facing, they will start dowsing for common objects the enemy might be wearing or for particular creatures effectively having some sort of radar that will tell them kind of where the enemies were.  But then I took them out of dungeons and into open places and it seems fine now.


----------



## DonTadow (May 10, 2005)

Sounds good, I think I will implement those rules in my next rules upgrade?  Do you have any house rules for Idenitfy and Resserect?  I'm reading the 2nd eom book and believe I am going to make power components required for those spells. 

What other strong spells do you think should require components?


----------



## hilander75 (May 11, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> Sounds good, I think I will implement those rules in my next rules upgrade?  Do you have any house rules for Idenitfy and Resserect?  I'm reading the 2nd eom book and believe I am going to make power components required for those spells.
> 
> What other strong spells do you think should require components?




As far as my game is concerned, so far only Scry was a problem, the rest has worked pretty well and without balance problems.  I really love this magic system!


----------



## DonTadow (May 11, 2005)

I can see my game having a real problem with resserect somewhere down the line, as i got a new player in my game and her eyes lit up "you mean i can resserect anyone at any time in just 12 second... sweet".

I also have a problem with my spell caster identify items and using them right away in the middle of combat.  

To this i began reading over the phb spellbook and noting things.  I hate spell componenets but cost wise they balance out spellcasters (as warriors and fighters  always have to repair there wears and buy new weapons, spell casters rarely have to do such things.  I"m going to post in another thread my homerule changes and get the communities opinion.  I lovethe magic system but spells like identify, scry and resseruct need to have limits to prevent abuse.


----------



## Thomas5251212 (May 11, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> To this i began reading over the phb spellbook and noting things. I hate spell componenets but cost wise they balance out spellcasters (as warriors and fighters always have to repair there wears and buy new weapons, spell casters rarely have to do such things. I"m going to post in another thread my homerule changes and get the communities opinion. I lovethe magic system but spells like identify, scry and resseruct need to have limits to prevent abuse.




In practice I've rarely seen this actually be the case; most expensive, consumeable spell-casting components just end up being taken out of party funds (if they're used for a general purpose like Identifying) or paid for by the beneficiary (such as the case in Resurrection spells).

Some of the on-the-fly capability may be a bit more problematic, however, but I'm not convinced that will really matter in the field much.


----------



## Verequus (May 11, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> I can see my game having a real problem with resserect somewhere down the line, as i got a new player in my game and her eyes lit up "you mean i can resserect anyone at any time in just 12 second... sweet".






			
				EoMR said:
			
		

> Cure Affliction: The Heal spell cures one of the following afflictions. You can swap dice of curing to instead heal one of the following afflictions. You may choose the same affliction multiple times. For example, you could swap 5 dice of healing to heal up to 5 points  of ability damage to a living creature, or heal 3 points of ability damage and cure 2d6 hit points.
> 
> If the affliction is caused by a permanent spell, the Heal spell instead functions as a Dispel Magic check. See the Craft Permanent Spell feat (page 87) for more details.




Although a strict reading wouldn't support this ruling, Revive uses also dice and being dead is pretty permanent, so making it a Craft Permanent Spell could deter players from abusing this option. Having to pay XP and to choose a feat in advance isn't that well taken, although CPS has it other uses, too.


----------



## DonTadow (May 11, 2005)

I have managed to balance out the spell somewhat with the phb to the same price. Check out my thread http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131644


----------



## RangerWickett (May 12, 2005)

I had a very thorough comment typed earlier today before a black-out.  Suffice it to say, you still lose a level when you get raised; the quicker casting time and the "CPR" version of Revive at 5 MP just makes it easier for a mage to get a dead party member back into the fight, so that players aren't bored.

Bringing someone back from the dead after a fight is a miracle.  Bringing them back mid-fight to help turn the tide is _cool_.


----------



## DonTadow (May 12, 2005)

True, but I think the way the phb set up the revives with the time limit and the cost factor is to show how important life and death is.  I didn't want my games to get like Dragon Ball Z. 

" Oh, he's dead, well we can just bring him back .  Oh, seven of them are dead, we can just bring them back.  Go get the DragonBallz Goku". 

Revive is such a big spell I was a little taken aback by how easy it would be to do it.  A six second (prepared) Revive seriously lowers any ecl that you're in.  That would mean the characters would have to have lower levels of themselves on hand andsuch.  

I can see where a quick six second revivie fits in with my campaign (Final Fantasy and the phoenix downs) but in d and d it could break a ecl or adventure


----------



## RangerWickett (May 12, 2005)

Not really.  A 5 MP revive just gets you up to 0 hp.  It basically acts as if you were at -9 instead of dead.

When a revised version comes out (not any time soon, but I'm working on it), I'll include a sidebar to discuss what's fair for different types of settings when it comes to revive.


----------



## Thomas5251212 (May 12, 2005)

I think I have to agree with the Ranger on this one.  Among other things, I doubt many EL calculations are even based on the assumption a character will die in the course of the battle; it's quite easy to rarely have it occur, and then usually from dumb luck.  Most battles are balanced on resource consumption, and using the spells to revitalize someone, and then the healing magic to get him back to a useful level (a 12th level fighter is almost useless to bring back into most EL 10-14 encounters at 20 hit points; the first time anything hits him or casts a spell at him he'll go right back down, if not die again) is, itself, resource consumption.

As an example, over the run of my D&D campaign, which went up to about 16th level (and therefore had about 45 sessions) I beleive there were a grand total of about 7-10 fatalities, or one every 4-6 sessions; better than half of those occured at levels low enough where the EoM resurrection spells would not have been doable.

A far bigger issue is the reliability of resurrection magic, and that's just as big an issue with standard D&D magic as EoM.


----------



## DonTadow (May 12, 2005)

Thomas5251212 said:
			
		

> I think I have to agree with the Ranger on this one.  Among other things, I doubt many EL calculations are even based on the assumption a character will die in the course of the battle; it's quite easy to rarely have it occur, and then usually from dumb luck.  Most battles are balanced on resource consumption, and using the spells to revitalize someone, and then the healing magic to get him back to a useful level (a 12th level fighter is almost useless to bring back into most EL 10-14 encounters at 20 hit points; the first time anything hits him or casts a spell at him he'll go right back down, if not die again) is, itself, resource consumption.
> 
> As an example, over the run of my D&D campaign, which went up to about 16th level (and therefore had about 45 sessions) I beleive there were a grand total of about 7-10 fatalities, or one every 4-6 sessions; better than half of those occured at levels low enough where the EoM resurrection spells would not have been doable.
> 
> A far bigger issue is the reliability of resurrection magic, and that's just as big an issue with standard D&D magic as EoM.





Your arguments were well said and you convinced me on teh lower revive I believe i will change this and allow the lower revive to be cast without the limitations of the other two higher revives.  I still want to keep the higher resserections as a bit more important campaign wise and more for story context. The lower revive does make sense to not to put so many penalities on.


----------



## Thomas5251212 (May 13, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> Your arguments were well said and you convinced me on teh lower revive I believe i will change this and allow the lower revive to be cast without the limitations of the other two higher revives. I still want to keep the higher resserections as a bit more important campaign wise and more for story context. The lower revive does make sense to not to put so many penalities on.




Well, there are certainly some campaign impact issue with higher order resurrections in D&D; I haven't looked to see if EoM mimics them, but if it does, I'm not sure making them expensive really solves the worst problems.


----------



## DonTadow (May 13, 2005)

Thomas5251212 said:
			
		

> Well, there are certainly some campaign impact issue with higher order resurrections in D&D; I haven't looked to see if EoM mimics them, but if it does, I'm not sure making them expensive really solves the worst problems.



When you compare EOM resserection to the PHB they do the same thing except for the cost factor.  Once you make them the same cost they are identical.  

It doesn't solve the problems with bringing someone back to life.  However, I have already used a higher level resserect on an npc (the pcs do not know they believe they killed the individual).  However, he didn't come back "right" because of the length of time.  IHe didnt' come back quite human.  

I got the idea from Buffy the Vampire slayer.


----------



## Thomas5251212 (May 14, 2005)

Well, the issue with raise dead spells is that leaders should be extremely long lived; given any number of mages of any level, the only thing that should ever kill them for good is old age (since raise spells are useless there).  That has a whole bunch of setting implications that D&D mostly ignores.


----------



## DonTadow (May 14, 2005)

I agree.  I think the system ignores the spell's implications on a real world.  Powerful people would only die of old age and consistently come back to life.


----------



## Primitive Screwhead (May 15, 2005)

*Setting effects...*

Grab Steven Brust's Taltos series to see a world with common revives/rez...

 The short version: The assasin guild *kills* people as a warning and as a way of impacting thier pocket book.....   

 You have to have some trusted freinds who are willing to pay up the gold... you are proven to be completely vulnerable...
 And there are ways to kill permanently, where a Rez won't work.


----------



## Thomas5251212 (May 15, 2005)

Primitive Screwhead said:
			
		

> Grab Steven Brust's Taltos series to see a world with common revives/rez...
> 
> The short version: The assasin guild *kills* people as a warning and as a way of impacting thier pocket book.....
> 
> ...




Well, its easier to deal with the problem in Draegera, for two reasons:
1. You can't raise someone who's head has been destroyed, or if you wait too long (as in days as I recall or a few other things>
2. Morganti blades.

D&D doesn't have anything like the latter, and the former is a nonissue for higher level raise spells.


----------

