Anyone else find the idea of a flat 20% chance of blowing your batteries up a bit high for a 3rd level spell?

[Senko]

I've been browsing the technology guide and the 3rd level recharge spell (only one that exists) has a 1 in 5 chance (20%) of destroying your battery rather than recharging it. I'm just wondering if I'm the only one who feels that's a rather high chance of permanently bad consequences for a 3rd level spell?

[Bob Bob Bob]

Blindness/Deafness is permanent awful consequences for a level 2 or 3 spell. That's when you use it against someone though. If you mean that it's a permanent downside to the spell, well, maybe you should actually read the stuff you're talking about.

Battery wrote:

Placing a battery in a generator's charging slot can recharge it. However, each time a battery is recharged, there's a 20% chance that the battery is destroyed in the process. A destroyed battery is worth only 10 gp. The bulk of "silverdisks" in circulation today are destroyed batteries; one can tell a functional battery from a destroyed one by the way the circuitry seems to shimmer slightly when reflecting light. The circuitry in a charged battery glows with a soft blue radiance equal to that of a candle.

So the spell does exactly what recharging it naturally does.

[LazarX]

Senko wrote:

I've been browsing the technology guide and the 3rd level recharge spell (only one that exists) has a 1 in 5 chance (20%) of destroying your battery rather than recharging it. I'm just wondering if I'm the only one who feels that's a rather high chance of permanently bad consequences for a 3rd level spell?

Of course it's rather high... that's the design INTENTION of the spell.

It's one of those things that keeps Golarion a primarily magic driven world, instead of turning it into Shadowrun. Long term usage of the tech is ultimately tied to having access to generators which are large, non-portable, and non-replicable. It basically keeps the tech. (and the Technic League) tied to Numeria. If you think that's severely limiting, contrast that with Barrier Peaks since the starship's toys could only be powered by disks which had NO means of recharge, even within the ship itself.

[sunbeam]

Yeah but that is exactly why I think most people aren't really interested in these technological items.

20% chance of destroying the battery per charging? Then you have to dig up more batteries?

Not to mention the bookkeeping pita.

No thanks.

[LazarX]

sunbeam wrote:

Yeah but that is exactly why I think most people aren't really interested in these technological items.

20% chance of destroying the battery per charging? Then you have to dig up more batteries?

Not to mention the bookkeeping pita.

No thanks.

I kind of miss the days when people would play Barrier Peaks have fun blowing things and themselves up with the tech and simply be satisfied for the short term fun the items gave.

You're also kind of missing the point that you CAN have long term use of the items IF you make Numeria your setting and your players members of the Technic League or some other appropriate setting changes.

The rules as they are are there to keep Golarion the setting as it is... a primarily fantasy magic based setting with different aspects of weird stuff in different places.

[Senko]

I think I was unclear my objection isn't so much to do with the chance of blowing up the battery (although that does seem odd when you plug it into a generator charging slot) as that the recharge spell which comes with that chance is a 3rd level spell. I think it'd do better as a 2nd or even 1st level spell rather than requiring a 5/6th level caster to magically recharge a common power pack.

[wraithstrike]

I dont mind it working that way. It limits the use of high tech items, which seem to be designed to keep them limited. Now if I were to run a campaign setting where magic and technology were more equally represented I would alter the recharge rules, and the spell level needed to recharge a battery.

[Cerberus Seven]

Senko wrote:

I've been browsing the technology guide and the 3rd level recharge spell (only one that exists) has a 1 in 5 chance (20%) of destroying your battery rather than recharging it. I'm just wondering if I'm the only one who feels that's a rather high chance of permanently bad consequences for a 3rd level spell?

No, I see it as a good thing. Spells have too little chance of anything ever actually going wrong with them (like in 2E / 3E) as it is. The occasional reminder from the multi-verse that "when you bend reality, sometimes reality bends back" isn't a bad thing.

[Orfamay Quest]

Senko wrote:

I think I was unclear my objection isn't so much to do with the chance of blowing up the battery (although that does seem odd when you plug it into a generator charging slot) as that the recharge spell which comes with that chance is a 3rd level spell. I think it'd do better as a 2nd or even 1st level spell rather than requiring a 5/6th level caster to magically recharge a common power pack.

Shrug. Game design. The higher the level of the spell to recharge, the less likely you are to run into parties packing tech equipment far away from generators, and the less likely those parties are to be low-level.

If you want a more SF feel to your fantasy, house rule it to be lower. If you want tech to be positively awe-inspiring, make it higher level. This is an easy knob to twiddle.

[LazarX]

Senko wrote:

I think I was unclear my objection isn't so much to do with the chance of blowing up the battery (although that does seem odd when you plug it into a generator charging slot)

You've obviously never had a battery explode upon you while charging in real life. It happens, it was even more frequent in the old days when people were misled into believing you could recharge carbon batteries.

[Senko]

LazarX wrote:

Senko wrote:

I think I was unclear my objection isn't so much to do with the chance of blowing up the battery (although that does seem odd when you plug it into a generator charging slot)

You've obviously never had a battery explode upon you while charging in real life. It happens, it was even more frequent in the old days when people were misled into believing you could recharge carbon batteries.

No I haven't but the only batteries I've recharged are phone/laptop ones.

@those supporting this
I think the reason I have a problem is even if you assume these are more power packs than aa batteries is that this is the same level spell as lightning bolt. That is a massive lethal blast of electrical energy enough to kill a person is at the same spell level as this battery recharging one.

@Cerberus
I don't actually mind that and do have some house rules of things that can go wrong. Like I said if it were a 2nd level spell with the chance of something going wrong I'd have less of a problem with it.

[GeneticDrift]

Well if wizards knew anything about tech they would come up with a better way. Like the technomancer

They don't use lightning bolt to charge their toys.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Well, unless you're trying to use this to make an enemy's battery explode, I'm not sure why you're comparing it to lightning bolt. As an offensive spell it's terrible. 1 round casting time, expensive material component, and only a 20% chance of success? Awful. Of course, that's not what it's intended for, presumably. And using lightning bolt on a battery just destroys it. Batteries need a steady stream of regulated energy, not a sudden blast of a terawatt of energy. That's the reality explanation, the game explanation is "because it doesn't say it does".

The spell works exactly the same as any other generator with respect to a battery, and if you don't want to risk the battery exploding you can just use this part of the spell: "or half that number of charges to a technological item capable of being charged by a battery". So you can charge tech items directly with no risk of damage.

[Senko]

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

Well, unless you're trying to use this to make an enemy's battery explode, I'm not sure why you're comparing it to lightning bolt. As an offensive spell it's terrible. 1 round casting time, expensive material component, and only a 20% chance of success? Awful. Of course, that's not what it's intended for, presumably. And using lightning bolt on a battery just destroys it. Batteries need a steady stream of regulated energy, not a sudden blast of a terawatt of energy. That's the reality explanation, the game explanation is "because it doesn't say it does".

The spell works exactly the same as any other generator with respect to a battery, and if you don't want to risk the battery exploding you can just use this part of the spell: "or half that number of charges to a technological item capable of being charged by a battery". So you can charge tech items directly with no risk of damage.

I was comparing it to lightning bolt because tehy're both 3rd level spells but one charges a battery while the other creates a huge crackling bolt of lightning, a significant difference in amperage and voltage. My problem may be I've been doing an electrical apprenticeship and have a very clear of the difference between the power in a battery and the power in a bolt of lightning.