Am I the only one that sees the obvious solution as being just giving him a power that says "Damiel always wins the scenario, and passes all checks, period"? He's a beast and I feel like that is going to be true no matter how this power comes out!
At least they officially depowered the "never banish any Alchemical card for any reason" power to the more sensible "never banish an Alchemical card if you play it".
Am I the only one that sees the obvious solution as being just giving him a power that says "Damiel always wins the scenario, and passes all checks, period"? He's a beast and I feel like that is going to be true no matter how this power comes out!
I look forward to testing to see if he or RotR Lini is better.
We know.
I'm thinking that the designers want Damiel to be able to recharge spells, but don't want Damiel to gain the arcane/divine skills long enough to be able to cast attack spells. If that is indeed the case, it seems like the designers have written themselves into a corner with the wording they went with.
May I cautiously suggest his power be modified to something like
"When you play a spell that does not have the Attack trait, you gain the skills Arcane and Divine equal to your Craft skill until the end of the step. You may then use your craft skill in place of the listed skill to attempt to recharge that spell."
I'm sure there's a shorter better way of wording this, but that's what I came up with in the 4 minutes I spent thinking on it ;)
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The whole problem with the current wording still exists with yours Captain, "the step". Encounter step? Or if I play Detect Magic, do I have the skills until my explore step is done and can use it to attack with Fireblade? Most likely not their intention, but "the step" is vague.
We all seem to agree that they problably meant his power to allow you the skills for that card, the whole card, and nothing but the card. We're just waiting on something official either way is all.
Fair enough. I'm pretty sure they mean "step" as a part of your encounter, not as part of your turn. I vote for using "phase" for the parts of your turn (i.e. explore, move, etc.) and "step" for the parts of any particular phase. but that's just me.
Still, the wording I suggested would at least answer the question of recharges, so it at least has that going for it. Though, off the top of my head I can't think of many non-attack spells that actually need to use the arcane/divine skills for something other than the recharge check (there probably are some out there, I just can't think of any right now).
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That I can see looking through S&S or RotR, there are no non Attack spells that use the skills for anything besides recharge. My big question is less on recharge (because none of the cards referencing the skills makes it, to me, very obvious it lets him recharge), and more on things like, can I lay Aid on my check to acquire a spells and use Arcane or Divine equal to my Craft to acquire it?
Also, using "step" as a part of an encounter means that the non-attack Cloud spells don't get recharged. Based on the fact that they FAQ'd him to recharge displayed potions at the end of the turn that are normally banished, I'd guess they want him to recharge those EOT spells as well.
I'm pretty sure aid would have to be played after determining the difficulty of the check, meaning determining which skill you'll be using to make the check. So, I don't see it working that way myself, though of course I could be missing something.
I think part of the reason they don't just say "He gains the Arcane and Divine skill equal to his Craft skill for attempting to recharge the spell" is that if they later create a spell that doesn't have the Attack trait but does use your Arcane or Divine skill they want him to be able to use it. It's less about what the current spells do and more about how they want future spells to work with his power. Otherwise the wording is incredibly simple.
I still like:
When you play a spell that does not have the Attack trait, you gain the skills Arcane and Divine equal to your Craft skill for skills determined by the spell and for recharging the spell.
That covers all possible bases. It's a little wordy, but I think it makes sense.
You know, since the recharge text is now part of the powers section of a card, and since the S&S Rulebook describes powers as "special rules", which would seem to include the recharge text. Why not...
"For the powers of a spell that does not have the Attack trait, you may replace the Arcane or Divine skill with the Craft skill."
That would seem to mean replacing any reference to using your Arcane/Divine skill. It would cover the Arcane/Divine skill being used when you played the card, the Arcane/Divine skill being required to not banish the card, and the Arcane/Divine skill being used to recharge the card.
The one difference being, you wouldn't actually ever be using the Arcane/Divine skill. But is that a problem? If the spell was somehow played to "Determine the skill you're using" it would also have the Arcane/Divine trait and therefore the check would still be an Arcane/Divine check. And if it wasn't played to "Determine the skill you're using" it never would have been an Arcane/Divine check in the first place. Blessing of Pharasma would still apply, because you are still playing a spell.
Is there something I'm missing with that? It seems short and sweet and pretty clear.
I think I see where you're trying to go there, but I'm not sure any skills would be "determined by a spell". You also don't want to falsely imply that he can use his craft skill for other checks the spell may require.
Incidentally, the play-test Damiel didn't even have a power like this as I recall. I think his power back then never actually gave him the arcane/divine skills at all, but just said he could (in effect) get it back (I don't recall if it was using craft or not). Not sure why they eventually changed that wording; I personally found it much less confusing, though it probably had something to do with how "reaquiring" a card works.
Temporarily giving a character a skill seems rife with logistical problems to me, really.
How about "You may use your craft skill in place of the divine or arcane skills when playing any non-attack spell." ?
Seemingly, that would apply to recharge checks for the spell, as well as any future design space that uses arcane/divine skills on non-attack spells. It also avoid the troublesome "step" language.
"For the powers of a spell that does not have the Attack trait, you may replace the Arcane or Divine skill with the Craft skill."
Looks like we're thinking alike, eh? I guess the troublesome part is still wording on the spells themselves that says "If you do not have the arcane/divine skill, banish this card." (or whatever the actual wording is)
Hmm...I see that idea was actually already discussed. Don't know if Genadier power was meant to apply to him playing these spells or not.
Ah well. We'll just have to wait and see.
The problem with literally turning recharging spells into a Craft check is this:
□ When you succeed at a Craft check, you may examine the top card of your deck; if it is an item, you may add it to your hand.
So now every time he recharges a spell he gets to activate that power. With the old wording it is still an Arcane/Divine check so he doesn't get to use that power.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why would that particular power be broken if recharging spells activated it? Afterall, it wouldn't be that different from Ezren's spell power....
I wouldn't say it is necessarily broken, but it is better than before. It may be better than was intended. Based on discussions around other errata/potential errata (Restoration, Radillo) I expect they want to playtest that and see if it does feel OP or not.
The recharge check is always meant to be optional. It's been stated that the wording on some of the new cards makes it sound as though the recharge check is mandatory, but that is not how it should be. Just as in RotR, recharge checks are NEVER supposed to be mandatory.
I wouldn't say it is necessarily broken, but it is better than before. It may be better than was intended. Based on discussions around other errata/potential errata (Restoration, Radillo) I expect they want to playtest that and see if it does feel OP or not.
That's certainly possible. Still, given the ramped up difficulty of S&S (at least compared to how it was in the play-test) I really don't think this power would prove to be too powerful. There are certainly some useful items, but my recollection is that using allies well was the biggest key to success; items tended to be pretty situational and Damiel is likely to be built in such a way that the items he'll have are mostly (all?) potions, many of which will be for combat. Also, at max, his deck can only have 4 spells, so we're not talking about a huge number of extra craft checks here as far as I can see.
My big question is less on recharge (because none of the cards referencing the skills makes it, to me, very obvious it lets him recharge), and more on things like, can I lay Aid on my check to acquire a spells and use Arcane or Divine equal to my Craft to acquire it?
I'm pretty sure aid would have to be played after determining the difficulty of the check, meaning determining which skill you'll be using to make the check. So, I don't see it working that way myself, though of course I could be missing something.
I don't see any reason you can't determine that you're using Arcane for a check (e.g. to acquire a spell), and later during that check play a power that gives you the Arcane skill.
Isn't this, in fact, how the "Finesse" characters in S&S gain their Melee: Dexterity + 1 skill? The check has to be set to Melee by the weapon before the power can be played and create the Melee skill.
Actually, the finesse/melee issue works somewhat differently. You gain the melee skill when you play a weapon, which is during the step which defines which skill you'll be using for the check.
The problem with the arcane language is that you're gaining the skill "when you play the spell" which can easily be interpreted as "if you play a spell you gain the arcane skill". That's a big issue because one of the first things you'd have to do after playing the spell is banish it if you didn't have the arcane/etc. skill. The designers, I think, meant for you to gain the skill literally "as you play the spell" but that's not really a specific step in the process. So it's unclear whether gaining the skill happens before or after you would see if the spell gets banished.
Again, the various wording suggestions made by myself, Hawkmoon and others in this thread would all be perfectly acceptable except PERHAPS for the issue of letting Damiel peak/draw a card for making the recharge check; something I personally do not think is overpowered at all, and is only even an issue for players taking that particular roll card.
Given that non-attack spells never seem to actually use the arcane skill for anything but the recharge check, another possible wording is just
"After playing a spell without the attack trait, you may attempt to recharge that spell instead of banishing it, using your craft skill instead of the listed skill."
There's also
"After playing a spell without the attack trait, you may attempt to recharge that spell instead of banishing it. For this check you gain arcane and divine skills equal to your craft skill."
How about "You may use your craft skill in place of the divine or arcane skills when playing any non-attack spell." ?
This has my vote as the simplest, clearest way to express his power.
I honestly think he should have the Arcane/Divine skills, and lose them when he plays an attack spell. That honestly makes the most sense to me.
I know, it let's him make checks like closing locations, but it feels more appropriate.
To be fair, thematically, an alchemist doesn't necessarily even use spells much. Perhaps he shouldn't have been able to recharge non-attack spells in the first place. That would be a hard sell though, since his character always has at least 2 spells in his deck.
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This has my vote as the simplest, clearest way to express his power.
How about "You may use your craft skill in place of the divine or arcane skills when playing any non-attack spell." ?
Except it's not what the designers intended. Damiel later gets benefits for passing Craft checks. He doesn't need to be using Craft to recharge, he just needs to have Arcane and Divine equal to his craft, and there's a reason they wrote it that way. He isn't supposed to be making Craft checks, just doing something with equal skill.
To be fair, thematically, an alchemist doesn't necessarily even use spells much. Perhaps he shouldn't have been able to recharge non-attack spells in the first place. That would be a hard sell though, since his character always has at least 2 spells in his deck.
That was actually my initial interpretation of the power, he had it for the spell, but not for the recharge. That was because I was thinking of "steps of the encounter" vs "steps of the turn" and in an encounter, the recharge is a different "step" than the one in which the spell would be played.
Which leads to one of the problems: There are two different meanings to the word "step" in the rules. I'm hoping in WotR they will change the steps of the turn to something else, like phases, which will clear some confusion up.
Regarding the "step" issue, I completely agree. The issue of timing has been one of the least well defined parts of the whole game. It still makes my head spin that we've been told that "when you encounter" a card literally means "when you flip the card over and read it", yet plenty of those cards also talked about doing something "before the encounter"... I mean, how do you do something you haven't done "before" something you've already done? Little did I know PACG was actually a game played by time travelers!
Except it's not what the designers intended. Damiel later gets benefits for passing Craft checks. He doesn't need to be using Craft to recharge, he just needs to have Arcane and Divine equal to his craft, and there's a reason they wrote it that way. He isn't supposed to be making Craft checks, just doing something with equal skill.
I'll let the designers speak to what they intended (if they want to anyway), but I can say that during the play-test, the power was worded in such a way as to be clear that Damiel could make a check (it was a craft check for at least part of the play-test, I don't remember if that lasted through the whole thing) to keep his banished potions and non-attack spells. So I'm fairly certain the INTENT is that he somehow recharges those spells. Making that work through a craft recharge check is almost certainly the easiest way to go, so long as it doesn't break the power on his roll card. So far, I'm not seeing anyone really even arguing that would happen, only that it's something to pay attention to.
To be fair, thematically, an alchemist doesn't necessarily even use spells much. Perhaps he shouldn't have been able to recharge non-attack spells in the first place. That would be a hard sell though, since his character always has at least 2 spells in his deck.
No. If you mean "thematically" as in the theme of the actual Pathfinder class, he "uses spells" just as much as a bard. And as I've said before, although his spells take the form of special potions (extracts/infusions), they act just as much like spells in every other way as a wizard's spells so he should definitely be able to recharge spells in the card game.
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Except it's not what the designers intended. Damiel later gets benefits for passing Craft checks. He doesn't need to be using Craft to recharge, he just needs to have Arcane and Divine equal to his craft, and there's a reason they wrote it that way. He isn't supposed to be making Craft checks, just doing something with equal skill.
I'll let the designers speak to what they intended (if they want to anyway), but I can say that during the play-test, the power was worded in such a way as to be clear that Damiel could make a check (it was a craft check for at least part of the play-test, I don't remember if that lasted through the whole thing) to keep his banished potions and non-attack spells. So I'm fairly certain the INTENT is that he somehow recharges those spells. Making that work through a craft recharge check is almost certainly the easiest way to go, so long as it doesn't break the power on his roll card. So far, I'm not seeing anyone really even arguing that would happen, only that it's something to pay attention to.
I say it's not what they intended because if they wanted him to use his Craft, they would not have said he gains the other skills, I think it's extremely obvious that they did not intend him to use his Craft. No-one saying the intent wasn't to have him rechargethe spells, I think we all agree that was the plan. However, the power clearly states the other skills are gained, so I don't think anyone can logically think the intent was for him to recharge with his Craft. The playtest is borderline irrelevant when determining the way the final product works.
The easy fix isn't necessarily the right one. His power doesn't need any changing at all, it just needs a clarification on how it works.
Would you suggest that wording implies the spell is banished csouth? Or not? Since the banishment is not a check, rather an automatic effect of playing the spell without the listed skill, I'd think that wording would result in the spell being banished.
Side note: perhaps another way to go would be to make a rule that says recharge always takes priority over banishing as well as discarding, then your wording would allow those spells to be recharged. That might prove to be too extreme of a change though, I'm not sure.
Would you suggest that wording implies the spell is banished csouth? Or not? Since the banishment is not a check, rather an automatic effect of playing the spell without the listed skill, I'd think that wording would result in the spell being banished.
Side note: perhaps another way to go would be to make a rule that says recharge always takes priority over banishing as well as discarding, then your wording would allow those spells to be recharged. That might prove to be too extreme of a change though, I'm not sure.
His wording says "you may play them... as though you had the arcane or divine skill[s]..."
Good point, I somehow missed that. In that case, I think that wording would probably be just fine.
Damiel encounters Disintegrate, which seems like a nice spell. He chooses to use Arcane in the check to acquire, plays Guidance for a +1 and suddenly his Arcane ability is much higher. (Obviously, Aid would work much better.) This is clearly all within a step, even a single check. Intended behaviour?
I doubt that is the intended behavior mlvanbie. The wording csouth provided a few posts up would, however, avoid that case (and would avoid the problems with aid-type cards as well).
"You gain the skills Arcane and Divine equal to your Craft skill while you play or when you would banish a spell that does not have the Attack trait."
This handles the recharge question, but still perhaps leaves open the question of whether Damiel can play a spell like aid to be able to use his craft spell to acquire arcane check cards or defeat arcane check barriers. How should we interpret "while you play" a card?
(Yes, I'm fully aware that this wording may not be the final official wording)
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We are in the process of battling over the meanings of the words "when" and "while."
Consider me in the "while" camp... but then, I think it should have been "while" all along; and I *think* some of the rules don't quite agree with that (I'm thinking back to the Blessing of Pharasma debate).
Does Damiel need a 'would otherwise banish' a card, similar to Disintegrate (I find that ruling confusing, so I have a hard time arguing this point).
Looking forward to finding out what 'when' and 'while' mean.
Has Damiel's Q been answered yet?
Or if not an official errata has been finalized yet; is there someone that can say to his Abilities Intended use? (Would like to know so I can at least use him to what the creators intended with the ability)
Example:
1. Can he only recharge Non-attack spells with Divine/Arcane = Craft? (Which seems if he can't his ability is basically useless)
2. Can he recharge Speed/ Strength "Display" type Non-Attack spells, or only Support spells that discard right away with use?
3. Is he not suppose to ever have Arcane/Divine long enough to Effectively use an Attack spell. (Which seems a bit OP if he was able to).
I have been playing him as he can play and recharge Non Attack spells, and only has d4 for any attack spells (with banishing), but Strength/Speed, should I still be banishing?
Yes, these issues have been addressed by Mike's Temp FAQ:
Can Damiel recharge spells with the Arcane or Divine skill he gains?
Yes.
Resolution: In the Powers section of Damiel's character and both of his roles, change "When you play a spell that does not have the Attack trait, you gain the skills Arcane and Divine equal to your Craft skill until the end of the step." to "You gain the skills Arcane and Divine equal to your Craft skill while you play or when you would banish a spell that does not have the Attack trait."
Since it is the temp FAQ, the exact wording is not set in stone, but I do believe it answers all of your questions.
1. Yes, he can only recharge non-attack spells using the Divine and Arcane skill he gains.
2. Yes, with the new wording, whenever the banish-the-spell triggers, he gets his Arcane/Divine, so he can recharge displayed spells.
3. No, he never has the Arcane/Divine skills long enough to use it for Attack spells because he only has it while playing a non-attack spell or when he would banish a non-attack spell. He doesn't have those skills for any other situation. (I'm still kind of wishing he would have the skills when he encounters non-attack spells, but that's just me maybe wishing for too much)
Has Damiel's Q been answered yet?
Or if not an official errata has been finalized yet; is there someone that can say to his Abilities Intended use? (Would like to know so I can at least use him to what the creators intended with the ability)
There is a temporary, make-do-until-Vic-is-back-from-vacation answer here:
Thanks to pluvia and orbis! I hadn't found that temp FAQ yet, useful.
3. No, he never has the Arcane/Divine skills long enough to use it for Attack spells because he only has it while playing a non-attack spell or when he would banish a non-attack spell. He doesn't have those skills for any other situation. (I'm still kind of wishing he would have the skills when he encounters non-attack spells, but that's just me maybe wishing for too much)
Yes, I was hoping there was a way to get it for Acquiring, but after playing with him for awhile without that, he still seems pretty good if you balance your potions well, and maybe run him with a Caster to help him acquire good Support spells.
Yes, I was hoping there was a way to get it for Acquiring, but after playing with him for awhile without that, he still seems pretty good if you balance your potions well, and maybe run him with a Caster to help him acquire good Support spells.
Indeed. There is also plunder to help you gain spells that would be rough to get otherwise.
Yes, I was hoping there was a way to get it for Acquiring, but after playing with him for awhile without that, he still seems pretty good if you balance your potions well, and maybe run him with a Caster to help him acquire good Support spells.Indeed. There is also plunder to help you gain spells that would be rough to get otherwise.
Wait a second, he DOESN'T get it for acquiring??
I've been using "Aid" to give me the 1d6 bonus AND the fact that I now have Arcane/Divine temporarily while Aid is in play.
Is this incorrect??
Yes, I was hoping there was a way to get it for Acquiring, but after playing with him for awhile without that, he still seems pretty good if you balance your potions well, and maybe run him with a Caster to help him acquire good Support spells.Indeed. There is also plunder to help you gain spells that would be rough to get otherwise.Wait a second, he DOESN'T get it for acquiring??
I've been using "Aid" to give me the 1d6 bonus AND the fact that I now have Arcane/Divine temporarily while Aid is in play.
Is this incorrect??
Let me clarify::
Determine which die you’re using.
Determine the difficulty.
Play cards and use powers that affect the check (optional).
Assemble your dice.
Attempt the roll.
Take Damage if you fail a check to defeat a monster.
If I choose Arcane as my die. Difficulty is 8. Play Aid to add 1d6 (and modify my base arcane die to 1d10). Grab a 1d10, 1d6, add bonuses. Attempt roll. Etc.
Is "Determine which die you're using" supposed to imply the PHYSICAL die, or simply the check type? Until you've "Assembled your dice" I see no reason that the base die can't be modified. (No different than a stat stone!)