uncursing oneself

[Horace2]

Has anybody successfully uncursed themselves with a power 4 or less dehex spell? I went to the trouble of buying the spell and building up divination for it but it seems like unless it's cast at full power it's useless.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Dehexing is linked to your character's experience level:

In the following chart, Casting Level is the first column, maximum Player Level the spell is effective at is in the right column.

Code: Select all

CL    Max PL
1  ...  2
2  ...  4
3  ...  6
4  ...  8
5  ...  10
6  ...  any

If casting level 4 fails for you, then you must be above level 8, right? Basically, the higher your character's level, the stronger the curse is and the more effort it takes to remove it.

[jinnes]

Just as a balancing observation... isn't it unlikely that a low-level character would be able to cast Dehex -- or even acquire it for that matter? Or heck -- where would a level 2 character even GET cursed in the first place!

Seems to me that for the vast majority of players, only level 5 Dehex will ever be effective. Why even have the lower levels? I guess the current implementation of the magic system leads to issues like this; the dissonance of casting an uber spell at power level 1. But still, this is confusing for the player, since the system leads you to assume that the first time you start needing a spell, power level 1 will be the place to start.

I had a similar experience with the Lore spell. I never raised my Lore skill at all. Yet when I started finding unidentified items, I needed Lore power 3 or higher to identify them. What would Lore possibly do at power level 1 if I was able to identify those items naturally?

Just seems like a balancing hole in the current system that relates spell level, power level, skill level and character level.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Yeah, it's not perfect. Next week we hosting a 2-day meeting with some of the people who helped make Book I and we are going over the changes to be made for Book II. Every skill, attribute and spell is getting reviewed and updated for the next game.

[Horace2]

Seems to me that for the vast majority of players, only level 5 Dehex will ever be effective.

Unless one intentionally blows through the game fast, only level 6 Dehex will ever be effective, seems to me.

Thanks for the info, BW. It seems arbitrary to link the power of a Curse with the player's level. THe power of the curse should be a function of the power of the thing which did the cursing. I'm not sure why the PC should be penalized for gaining levels, as is the case in the current system.

[BasiliskWrangler]

The thinking was that the more powerful the character is, the stronger the curse must be to have an effect.

As you pointed out, the flaw in the system is that there is only one type of curse. Curses should have multiple levels based on the creature/object from which the curse originates.

This will be addressed in Book II.