Sorcery: Concentration trait spells

[GoingDown]

We had first real game yesterday, and we had one sorcerer on our group. He has spells Phantom touch and Smother spells. Both have concentration trait.

Concentration: The spell’s effects will remain in place so long as the character concentrates on it. Concentrating on a spell is functionally identical to casting the spell, requiring the spellcaster to continue to gesture with both arms, chant and ignore distractions. This trait overrides the normal Sorcery spell default Duration.

Now, when brave sorcerer cast Smother spell to an opponent, and concentrates to it, opponent will start to "drown on dry land". And so long sorcerer concentrates to a spell, opponent cannot do anything to get rid of it (except to cast dispel or something to it)?

Does sorcerer need to do any skill test to remain concentrated with his spell, or is his concentration automatic, if assumed that no enemy is causing any harm to him?

In our fight, sorcerer just cast that spell, and then he just waited until opponents passed out. It did seem really too easy - concentration continued easily entire battle and all opponents just passed out without being able to do anything to prevent it. And of course sorcerer was using enough targets so that he was able to smother all opponents in battles, his fellow adventurers just keeping all opponents away from sorcerer.

Am I missing something?

 

[Rurik]

You got it right. The sorcerer only needs to roll if he gets damage/distracted.

If the opponents cannot damage the caster in any way to break his concentration they are pretty much doomed.

Missle fire (hand weapons that can be thrown, such as spears and axes - are a good way to balance foes against this spell) or spells like disruption should be effective at attempting to break concentration. Actually the rules allow any weapon to be thrown at a penalty (-20 I think). If I were one of the opponnents being smothered I'd have thrown anything I could get may hand on at the Sorcerer.

 

[GoingDown]

Yes, it sounds right. I will try it on next session. We had situation where sorcerer was on roof of 5-meter building - and enemies did not reach him.

 

[Rurik]

Yes, it sounds right. I will try it on next session. We had situation where sorcerer was on roof of 5-meter building - and enemies did not reach him.

Proper placement of Artillery assets is key to a winning battle plan. :wink:

Yup, sorcerer out of range is bad. Some other spells that could disrupt him are silence or similar spells (like Babel) and Befuddle.

I'm going to ignore Skybolt.

I would think any professional or semi-professional group of fighters of decent experience in a world as magic rich as Glorantha would be prepared for disrupting spellcasters (I'm not saying give every opponent disruption, just that 1-2 in a party would commonly have something to attempt to mess up a spellcaster).

I know in RQ3 any time a sorcerer went into a prolonged spellcasting everyone would do everything possible to disrupt him. I had a character who once started chanting gibberish to draw fire from the party's front line fighters who were in a tight fight.

 

[GoingDown]

I'm going to ignore Skybolt.

Skybolt is great spell for powerful NPC's with chaos rune integrated. And if player character somehow gets chaos rune and integrates it, there will be "interesting" side effects. So, it will be really rare and heavily related to chaos, even if rulebook doesn't state so.

I would think any professional or semi-professional group of fighters of decent experience in a world as magic rich as Glorantha would be prepared for disrupting spellcasters (I'm not saying give every opponent disruption, just that 1-2 in a party would commonly have something to attempt to mess up a spellcaster).

Yes, that is true. Myself (as a GM) just must remember to include some badasses with ranged weapons or something to try it.

 

[Gnarsh]

A useful rule for concentration spells is to require that the same conditions one must have to cast the spell must be maintained for the entire time its being maintained. The biggie here being line of sight. You have to see the target to hit him with a spell, so it stands to reason that if you break line of sight you can't continue to maintain the spell on that same target.

Thus, all one needs to do to break a smother is to run into or out of a building, around a corner, etc. Those types of spells can be incredibly nasty/powerful, so you have to make it relatively easy to protect against them. Good planning and prep still makes or breaks the spell(s) though. If you've got a clear view of the battlefield from a prepared spot, you can use these types of spells to great effect.