Topic: [Sorcerer] Cure lite wounds and other "white magic"
Started by: Henri
Started on: 6/6/2004
Board: Adept Press
On 6/6/2004 at 4:56pm, Henri wrote:
[Sorcerer] Cure lite wounds and other "white magic"
Ron in the Sorcerer book wrote: Vitality. Dice of lasting damage up to the demon's power are removed when the user takes a rest following combat, as opposed to half the damage.
Is it possible to take Vitality in such a way that the "target" is not the user?
This comes up for me because I am very interested in exploring characters who are incredibly dedicated to [good cause X]. Unfortunately, they are so dedicated to X, that they are willing to sacrifice their own humanity for it. A particular instance of this archetype that I like is a doctor / healer who summons demons in order to fight against disease and heal the sick. However, I'm not sure how to best do this with the Sorcerer system. I was thinking of doing a healer with a parasite demon who had the abilities Cover (healer) and Vitality taken twice (conferred to the master, but targeted on either the master or others) and Perception (medical diagnosis). But I wasn't sure if this use of Vitality was legal.
Actually, this has relevance beyond just Vitality for other "white magic" or "support magic" type effects. I can see that it would be useful for the user (either the demon or the master) to be able to "cast" the following demon powers on targets other than himself: Armor, Big, Cloak, Cover, Fast, Perception, Protection (against Psychic Force), Shapeshift, Special Damage, Vitality.
Is this sort of thing allowed in Sorcerer, and if it is, would it require you to take the ability twice (once for yourself, once for others)?
On 6/6/2004 at 5:48pm, sirogit wrote:
RE: [Sorcerer] Cure lite wounds and other "white magic"
Vitality could be defined with a third person as the user, and therefore give the sorcerer the ability to reduce someone's wounds.
There's a different way to use Sorcery curatively in my Alchemist Sorcerer game, in which Transmuting(Summoning) parts of people is an effective but costly way to cure ailments, it's an aspect I'd really like to explore.
On 6/6/2004 at 7:26pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: [Sorcerer] Cure lite wounds and other "white magic"
Hiya,
Henri: yes, assigning a "third user" for Vitality is perfectly all right by the rules. Although that terminology isn't necessary, because if the demon is not the user of its ability, then it can assign the user as it sees fit, whenever it wants.
Furthermore, this same idea does apply to all of the abilities you've listed. Understanding this feature of the rules is key to realizing how widely and how strangely applicable the apparently-limited list of abilities really is.
The "conferring" part is indeed a little tricky. Vitality isn't really something you use, it's something you have, so ... the best way to do it is to have the demon confer it to another user, and leave that user unspecified (which is rules-legal; conferring is never required to be person-specific). Then the sorcerer-healer-guy simply tells the demon to assign it to whomever.
Thus the ability is not actually conferred to the sorcerer-healer - that would mean he's getting healed, not the patient.
Best,
Ron
On 6/6/2004 at 7:39pm, Henri wrote:
RE: [Sorcerer] Cure lite wounds and other "white magic"
Thanks Ron. That clears things up for me a good bit. For some reason, I had gotten the idea that the user had to be either the demon itself or the sorcerer bound to the demon. That's cool that it can also be a third party.