Omniflex in dT&T

[giant2005]

Is it just me or is it now near impossible to cast this spell on anything but targets considerably weaker than yourself?
I understand that in previous versions of the game the spell was broken (it combined with a combo of Bigger is Better and Smaller is Smarter meant a high level Wizard could just basically choose what he wanted his stats to be), however they already fixed that by adding durations to the other spells required to break the game.

To be able to cast Omniflex on yourself or someone with a similar number of attribute points as yourself, you need to be making use of the Energize spell and still have your Wiz score account for about half of your combined attribute points (which is unlikely to say the least). I just don't see the point of this spell anymore - its only use now is as an offensive weapon against fully statted enemies far, far weaker than yourself, but that seems really pointless when you realize you could deal with such weaklings far more efficiently with lower level spells.

Although now that I think about it some more... Maybe I have just misinterpreted that spell for the decades which I have been playing this game. I always assumed you had to cast the spell on all of a targets attributes at the same time, but maybe you can just hit two of the attributes at a time and rearrange all of the attributes through multiple castings. Is that how it is supposed to work, or does it basically just not work at all anymore?

[khaboom]

I've never had a player cast it sadly. I've used it as an enchantment to knock players off balance but then as GM you can do what you like!

[giant2005]

Now that I think about it, it was probably intentionally pushed as far as possible outside of the player's hands. With the new ep system, a plyer with that spell could keep casting it to essentially get all of his attributes upgrads at the cost of 10 ep (or at least much cheaper than a high level character would ordinarily be paying for their attributes).
I think the spell has basically been rendered to be NPC only, but it pretty much had to be anyway.

[mormonyoyoman]

It was meant to be replaced by the Bowflex, but operators were not standing by and the website's shopping cart was hacked.

[jeffepp]

Keep in mind, you don't have to rearrange ALL the targets stats, just the ones you want. So, let's say one warrior character wants to do a strength thing, and the GM tells him the level of SR is just high enough that he will need doubles to make it. The wizard can cast the spell, shifting 10 points from Dex, or whatever stat(s) the warrior is willing to sacrifice, and do so for a cost of 10. It only costs for the stat pointss changed, not the full value of the changed stats.

Now, if you're thinking of this as an offensive spell, then yes, it can/will get expensive.

[giant2005]

Oct 13, 2017 4:43:47 GMT -5 jeffepp said:

Keep in mind, you don't have to rearrange ALL the targets stats, just the ones you want. So, let's say one warrior character wants to do a strength thing, and the GM tells him the level of SR is just high enough that he will need doubles to make it. The wizard can cast the spell, shifting 10 points from Dex, or whatever stat(s) the warrior is willing to sacrifice, and do so for a cost of 10. It only costs for the stat pointss changed, not the full value of the changed stats.

Now, if you're thinking of this as an offensive spell, then yes, it can/will get expensive.

That makes it much better! Actually with that interpretation, the Deluxe version of the spell is actually quite a bit more powerful than the previous versions. I just wasn't sure how it worked.
All my life I just assumed it required redistributing all of a target's attributes, not just picking and choosing like that.

[jeffepp]

It's all about scale. The old version was all or nothing. Extremely expensive, and very high level. But for that cost, you could do almost anything to the target. The deluxe version is able to scale with the usage need. And, if it's a combat usage, we are looking at opponents that are scaled up to threaten a characters with stats in excess of 150. So, turning that evil warrior brimming with hundreds of combat adds, to a cute intelligent helpless blob of flesh may cost far more that the wizard has available. So, in a way it's more powerful as a utility spell, than as a combat spell, where it's less powerful.

Yes, you could change every stat. But, is that necessary? Is that the casters intent? Why is the wizard casting it in the first place?

[mahrundl]

Oct 13, 2017 4:43:47 GMT -5 jeffepp said:

Keep in mind, you don't have to rearrange ALL the targets stats, just the ones you want. So, let's say one warrior character wants to do a strength thing, and the GM tells him the level of SR is just high enough that he will need doubles to make it. The wizard can cast the spell, shifting 10 points from Dex, or whatever stat(s) the warrior is willing to sacrifice, and do so for a cost of 10. It only costs for the stat pointss changed, not the full value of the changed stats.

I think that I disagree with this. These are the relevant pieces of spell text:

Permits the caster to rearrange the target’s
normal attributes into any other configuration
that equals the same total number of points.

Cost: Casting cost = value of total attribute
points being rearranged

Unless you assume that 'total' is referring to different things in the description and the spell cost, that suggests to me that all of the attribute points need to be factored in.

Opinions?

[mormonyoyoman]

Sounds almost as if you could (IF you had enough WIZ) reduce all but one attribute of your victim to 1 each, then dump all the leftover points into, say, CHA. The victim would be a puny, sick, unlucky idiot - but he would be SO CHARMING that you'd feel guilty about doing this to him.

[khaboom]

Or into SPD - any you'd never get to see what he looked like.

[jeffepp]

Right, that's the combat usage I was referring to. You make them so weak they can't fight. But, as I said, you aren't going to waste that spell on something you can already TTYF into oblivion, for next to no cost. You're going to do that to a real threat, which means a near equivalent to the wizard doing the casting.

[jeffepp]

OK, now to the cost question.

The rules state, as mentioned above: value of total attribute points being rearranged.
This, to me is very specific. It says that you are only talking the value amount that you are shifting.

If we were talking about the cost being the attributes being changed, it would be: value of total attributes being rearranged.

If the cost was the total attributes of the target, then: value of total attributes of the target character.

[ProfGremlin]

As I read the spell, it says to me that the cost of the spell is the number of attribute points you are moving from one attribute to the other. F'ex, if I want to drop my Dex by five points and use those to increase my Con by five points then the Wiz cost to the caster is 5 Wiz. This seems out of alignment with other spells near the same level, though, unless one is considering massive numbers of attribute points being moved around.

This does make me wonder if, perhaps, an enterprising wizard hasn't setup an 'Attribute Surgery' clinic to serve those who aren't happy with their current state of being. See a few clients a day and help them redefine their state of being to be something more in line with their inner vision.

'Ideal Identity', redefining who YOU want to be!

Could be a great side venture for a party of delvers who want that elusive edge when delving. Gotta spend that dragon's hoard on something, right? I could also see it being used in a nefarious manner. Imagine a cadre of wizards whose sole task is to make their liege lord's army more effective. Using Omniflex they could 'sculpt' their lord's soldiers into a more effective fighting force by sacrificing attributes less necessary for armed conflict.

[mahrundl]

jeffepp, your interpretation means that the assumed minimum level (15th) Wizard with a staff needs to spend only 1 WIZ to change a pair of someone's attributes permanently by 16 points. That doesn't sit well with me. I definitely prefer the 5th edition version, with its fixed cost - a spell that powerful, and of such a high level, should not be cheap.

I think that the spell is poorly thought out in Deluxe, however one interprets it.

[khaboom]

Oct 14, 2017 3:43:59 GMT -5 mahrundl said:

jeffepp, your interpretation means that the assumed minimum level (15th) Wizard with a staff needs to spend only 1 WIZ to change a pair of someone's attributes permanently by 16 points. That doesn't sit well with me. I definitely prefer the 5th edition version, with its fixed cost - a spell that powerful, and of such a high level, should not be cheap.

I think that the spell is poorly thought out in Deluxe, however one interprets it.

I think there probably was little or no play-testing- lack of resources. But that's kinda why we've always been encouraged to house-rule - much more interesting!