Forging the Runesmith

Raise Dead? A good thing I upgraded!

Today we have a question from Alzrius regarding Lerandor’s Rule and the Runesmith Build.

• According to Lerandor’s Rule, anything that can be done with magic can be done with basic spells; it simply takes at least two specialized spells of level “N” to duplicate the effect of a spell of level “N+1”.
• The Runesmith takes advantage of Lerandor’s Rule to build up high-level effects out of low-level component spells – thus gaining access to magical effects of higher level than he or she could normally attain.

Looking this over, I’m slightly confused as to where some of the rules regarding runesmithing are coming from. While the total number of cantrips that can be used per day is a function of specializing Heart of the Dragon, that doesn’t seem to be the case for the rule that they can only hold (Int mod) pre-set spells (I’m also curious if that means pre-cast cantrips, or full spells formed from multiple cantrips).

More dramatic is the limitation that Spellcraft checks must be made to successfully runecast spells. This and the above limit on pre-set spells seem to be limitations that were made up whole-cloth. In and of itself, that’s not surprising for Eclipse – as it’s part-and-parcel of specializing and corrupting abilities – but those two limits specifically don’t seem to be part of any sort of cost-reduction or ability-enhancing uses of specialization or corruption.

-Alzrius

Since the answer is far too long and complex for a comment, here it is as an article…

In this case those two restrictions aren’t really a part of the build; they’re simply extrapolations of Lerandor’s Rule (under the far more general rule of “you’re only allowed so much cheese”).

Lets say you have an unlimited supply of make-up-your-own cantrips – and an equally unlimited supply of use-activated “add metamagic; give a cantrip up to a one hour delay with a simple trigger condition”.

That’s mildly expensive, but fairly readily doable.

OK: in an hour you could cast 600 cantrips – enough to build up to a level nine spell effect under the simplest interpretation of Lerandor’s rule.

Of course, this also implies that you’ve very very quickly – and CORRECTLY, or at least workably – broken down that ninth level effect into 512 precisely-ordered steps, spontaneously designed and built (“cast”) 512 little magical mechanisms designed to be chained together to produce the final effect in six seconds each, and cast all of them in sequence without making any error of any kind along the way.

That really does seem a bit much to assume – but two basic limits spring to mind;

1. Considering that all your steps interact and feed into each other, there’s obviously some limit on how many steps / subspells you can keep in mind at a time. That’s pretty obviously a function of Intelligence in game terms – but (Int Mod) is too few; no one would bother with the technique if all it got you was access to spells one or two levels higher than usual at great expense and difficulty. There are plenty of other – and often better – ways to do that. Allowing (Intelligence) steps works considerably better; getting access to spells three (eight subspells) or four (sixteen subspells) levels early is a substantial boost – enough to be worth the character-point investment considering that this system allows access to any spell effect that the game master is willing to permit at a given spell level.
2. It’s generally assumed in d20 that there aren’t any ordinary errors in spellcasting. No one ever makes the wrong gesture while casting a Fireball and has it go off right at his or her feet unless there’s some sort of external interference (armor penalties and interruptions requiring concentration checks come to mind) – and, even then, spells normally just fail. On the other hand, d20 spellcasters are normally only dealing with one spell at a time – not trying to juggle a dozen or more. Getting all the steps in order and right is going to be pretty tricky – probably calling for a rather difficult spellcraft check.

Neither of those problems really apply to characters who are actually researching specific spells to chain together; they have plenty of time to find and correct small problems and unforeseen interactions – but spontaneous spellcasters really should have some trouble.

As for the Runesmith’s specific problems…

• The limitation on “hanging” spells is fairly straightforward; those aren’t prepared spells; they’re chains of small spells a lot like chains of dominos. Their initial key will probably be a gesture or word – each of which should be unique (to prevent accidentally triggering multiple chains at one time), associated with a particular spell, and something that you’re very sure will not be set off by accident. You also don’t want any identical segments in two different chains; that risks setting off the next spell in a differing sequence – guaranteed a spell misfire, since the preceding spells in that sequence will NOT have been properly triggered. They might even be set off by external activity which too closely resembles a trigger condition. Ergo the limitation to (Int Mod) preset chains. Of course, since a chain may well include sixteen lesser spells, the (Int + Con) cantrips per day limit usually takes precedence. Thus this will really only affect higher-level Runesmiths who have bought off large chunks of their limitations – in which case they can just buy Augmented Bonus or an Immunity to get around the limitation.
• The Spellcraft check is there to represent problem #2. It’s actually fairly easy to get around; buy a specialty, augmented bonus, a specialized skill enhancement feat, or luck (for rerolls on the relevant check) and you’ll soon be able to succeed automatically on your checks.

Thus those limitations aren’t grounded in Specializing or Corrupting the abilities in question; they’re based on “how things work” – which is considerably harder to get around.

Related articles

• [Emergence Campaign] Eclipse d20 — Mayhem and Mad Science (ruscumag.wordpress.com)
• Kitsune of the Eclipse, Part II (ruscumag.wordpress.com)