Sorry if this has been brought up before.. i tried a search but came up empty handed.

My question is, the rulebook presents a set of guidelines for resisting spells and says its done on a spell by spell basis. The example spells kind of confuse me though.

Taking the examples from the Conquer spell list...

The spell Suicide states you resist via a WP contest against a TN of 7 + 1 per caster success. Therefore you could have quite high TNs depending on the success of the sorcerer...

The spell Transfixion on the other hand, states that the TN for resisting is the TN of the spell (8) with success cancelling out the sorcerers successes.

Now i'm not a probability guru but I'm not sure which of these makes more sense. Add the successes of the caster to the TN of the resistance roll, or simply have the successes from the "naked" resistance roll TN count against the sorcerer's successes? Elsewhere its somewhat confusing as well, with the whole "Contested roll" and statements like "Resisting the spell requires a contest of WP; the caster adds any casting successes to those of the contest".

So with these confusions (on my behalf) noted, I guess the questions I have are:

1) Is this a true contested roll, ie does the Caster roll a WP versus the Target's WP roll after already casting the spell, with successes from casting counting towards his/her successes here. Or is this a different type of "contested roll" where the only roll the sorcerer is required to do is his initial sorcery casting roll?
2)which of the errr three posited setups do we go for in terms of contested TN determination and how they relate to casting successes.
a. Is it TN = TN of Spell + successes ( eg Suicide spell),
b. or TN = TN of Spell vs Casting successes (eg Transfixion spell),
c. or TN = TN of spell (eg Duplicate spell) versus Casters roll.
d. or TN = TN of spell + 1 per casting success versus number of casting success
e. or.... anyway...

I was thinking a single rule for this would be far more elegant and clear up confusion when designing/adjudicating spells. So which one would you use?




Jason K...

I was wondering about that, too. The explanation I came up with was

a) for all-or-nothing effects (e.g. suicide), use TN = CTN + casting successes, and a single success on the resistance check negates the spell

b) for gradual effects (e.g. damage), use TN = CTN and have successes cancel casting success

Actually, there seems to be a third variant. I don't have my books here, but IIRC the Pain spell does not allow you to cancel casting successes. Instead, resistance successes reduce the spell's effect (CP dice lost). Whether you use b) or this option seems entirely up to the Seneschal.

Maybe the designers can enlighten us some more.