Demagogue Spell

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

Ok... we are treading water here, but at least we agree on something - the spell is underpowered.

Jon - How you conserve flavour is a question of description, especially in a border case like this. Mind-fucking has always been a Mage specialty - making people happy and then letting natural events take their course is not outside of their purview... the things that made them unhappy will still make them unhappy and the realm will loose prosperity - that's what prosperity modifiers are for. If I increase prosperity and tax them too heavily, they will become unhappy. If I increase prosperity too high, it will naturally fall down again.
I see the instant effect as a "boost" - people are made more content and productive. The magical effect then disappears, but mood is self-reinforcing. Being productive helps them remain productive, so unless some other force reduces the contentness, the effect remains.

Alan - I agree that Destroying should be easier than building, it's a core tenent. However, I disagree on the examples you make. Demagogue has a higher cost than Bless the Sacred Land and a smaller effect. I ran the numbers a bit, +1 province level is huge. Especially on a province that's already high level. Celestial Bonus has a huge effect - those two spells will almost always make more money than they cost to cast... unless your province levels are very low.

The version of Demagogue I made above will earn it's GB cost back in 5 (~4.2) turns, if cast on 3 provinces of level 4 - assuming ideal collection. 3 (~2.67) turns if cast of 3 level 5 provinces... damnit, I think I just convinced myself that the version I made above is too powerful. If someone starts casting it on level 6+ provinces, the bonus is a little too big - especially considering how difficult agitating in a level 6+ province usually is.

I'll go back to the drawing board and come up with something better. I'm thinking of something that works similar to the Espionage action - it enables you to do a realm agitate without realm action penalty and to spend RP as if it was a magic action.

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

Ok, here goes:

Demagogue
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Caster level: Arcane 3
Components: A cake that is not a lie.
Regency: 3 RP/province
Casting Time: One free action (1 day)
Range: Long
Area: 1 province +1 province/2 caster levels after 5th
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Description: Instead of affecting the mood, loyalty and productivity through normal means, the Wizard resorts to magical power - making people more content. It is not foolproof, the Wizard must exert control and power to bend people's minds.
Spell Effect: Demagogue has the same effect as an Agitate action in the affected provinces. The Wizard must make a DAC check for each province against the standard DDC for an Agitate action.
The Wizard can use Advantage from holding levels to lower the DDC. He can also gain Advantage from other Holdings as normal, subject to the standard limitations (e.g. full Source levels + full Law = +6 Bonus to the DAC). Stability applies as normal.
The Wizard may also spend Influence on the checks, the Action counts as a magic action and thus Influence cost 1 RP per point.
This counts in all other ways as a normal Agitate action - a good check result can increase the Prosperity gain, other Regents may apply Hardiness or Influence to prevent the Agitate action. 
Even though this spell may affect several provinces, no Realm Action DDC modifier applies.

Example:
Bob the Wizard cast this on his 3 level 4 provinces, all of which have average prosperity. He's badass, so being level 9, he can do that. He has a stability of 0. It costs him 3 GB to prepare the spell, then 6 RP to cast it - he hasn't spent influence yet.
His initial DDC for each province is 14. He has full control of the Sources in each Province, so he gains a +4 bonus to each check. Additionally, he control 4 Law holdings in one of them, so he has a full bonus of +6 in that province.
He then spends 5 RP for influence on 2 of the provinces, 3 RP in the Province where he has full control of the Law.
He now has to make a DAC roll for each province with a DDC of 5+.
For Agitating in 3 level 4 provinces, where he has full control of the Sources in all of them and full control of the Law in one of them, he has spent the following:
1 Regent Action (or Realm Action) to Prepare the spell, costing him 3 GB.
1 Free Action to cast the spell, costing him 9 RP.
13 RP on influence.
3 Research Actions to learn the Spell (or he got it when he leveled).
Total of 3 GB and 22 RP for a 5+ Agitate action in 3 Provinces.

That is fairly cheap, but he can still roll below 5 on any of the actions. He has also spent at least one action on it. Assurance of success (barring Dispel or Protection) is one of the advantages of Realm Magic, this one does not have that. How does it look to you guys?

[DM B]

All very interesting points that will be taken into consideration.

[X-DM Jon]

I disagree that it's a case of flavor. There needs to be a marked difference between arcane and divine magic. Just as there is in vanilla D&D.

 As of this apparent major change in Bless land they just moved one step closer to each other. Both are now able to boost troops, cast protective magic, affects prosperity in the same way, summon troops (with a wider array of options for arcane), cause plague and warding against evil/chaos/etc.

 Divine has a couple of specialities, like lowering upkeep, increasing province size, investiture, protecting a mundane holding (whereas arcane can protect source holdings), affecting guilds and trade and of course healing.

 But arcane has a long list of special abilities; ward whole provinces, turn armies invisible, paralyze an army, subvert an asset, greatly increase or lower income, throw up a castle in a blink of an eye or tear a fort apart, cover lands in a blanket of winter, teleporting units across vast distances and obviously a variety of kaboom magic.


 I'd think it logical that divine and arcane magic would affect prosperity in different ways.

 Just like vanilla D&D has divine magic giving blessings/curses, an outside influence affecting the individual's prowess, but not taking direct command. Whereas arcane has more of a controlling/directly affecting aspect, people grow to double their size, turn invisible or the mind is "fucked" as you say.
 This was exemplified by bless/blight land giving a one-time bonus/penalty to prosperity, increasing "base prosperity" so to speak, whereas demagogue boosted prosperity up/down for as long as it worked, not affecting base prosperity.

 And now they're doing the same? I'd much rather prefer making bless land a 2nd level spell or give demagogue a duration of more than 1 turn, than let divine and arcane magic be able to do more of the same.

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

Absolutely agreed Jon, there needs to be a mechanical difference between Arcane and Divine magic. However, , the current rules have it so that there is no difference - Bless the Holy Land temporarily boost Prosperity for 1 Turn, Demagogue does the same. Both classes have access to Chains of Loyalty, which is a permanent magical effect - essentially the same deal. It can be dispelled.

Arcana magic should be given no way of increasing Province level - that is the province of Divine Magic. In addition, I think Divine Magic in general should be more effective at increasing prosperity - which is why Bless the Holy Land is so low level... compared to it's effect (which, if cast on one or more high level provinces, is massive).

Some areas of magic are exclusive (Province level, healing) and some are differentiated by effectiveness (prosperity, destructive magic). That's the way it's always been - in 2nd ed Demagogue was also an Arcane spell and it did the same thing - it was a more effective substitute for the agitate action.

Btw, don't take this like snubbing your gm authority. I simply disagree on a few points, but as always I'll abide by your guys' decisions.

[DM B]

Province lvl and healing stays divine.

Prosperity is the province of both; and both will be either temporary or Permanent (dispellabe).

After due consideration: Under no circumstance will Bless Land work like it did in RoE I; it is a temporary benefit that lasts as long as the magic does (1 turn). This is especially important now that we have prepare realm spell available as a realm action.

Otherwise Bjørn the Player would do this:

Drop taxes a bit if needed to make any negative mods go away. Bless Land massively (x4) for several turns + Free Agitate + Sovereign/vassal agitate.

Stabilize all prosperity levels at Prosperous. Tax to heavy. Enjoy the income/action bonuses/cheering of the masses. All in a years work.

God is good - too good actually!

If you bother to do the math you find that with a perm bonus prosp goes up one lvl every turn blessed until it reaches Healthy. Then it stays there (or goes up to Prosp with one more agitate, and then stays there).

If you do this with moderate taxes instead its even worse...

So yeah, its a game-breaker and it annoyed the hell out of me last time...its all coming back now...

[X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy)]

Hmm, I've always seen the arcane/divine split as primarily fluff - the crunch split was always counter productive to me - why would priests be so keen on burning wizards at the stake if the demon-worshiping scum wizards didn't compete with the church?

Jon's point on internal boost vs external compulsion point sounds good - priestly free agitate actions were a nod to reality rather than the usual DnD system, so if any thing you'd say that bless the holy land should affect province level only, and demagogue affect the province loyalty only.

In practice however why not encourage the overlap?  It makes wizards and priests compete more...  Plus if you make the two completely distinct then you generally get 'priests get the core, wizards get the weird stuff in the fringe' which makes the wizards suffer.

One possible distinction could be priests get 'wide', wizards get 'tall' - to reflect priestly encouragement of existing feelings vs wizardly dominance.  So a priest can bless (say) 4 provinces, a wizard can make one province have a huge gold rush of +4 levels...

Alternatively change bless the holy land into affecting 1 province for 1 turn + 1 turn/2 levels and have demagogue have the breadth of multiple provinces for a single turn to give a crunch shift - although you'd have to make a note on the spreadsheet (bless: 1 turn left or some such under the province name)

I'd note that a key benefit of bless the holy - a boost to actions next turn - is unlikely to aid the wizard at all, whereas the church will often use bless as a precursor to an action to save 2 RP/permit a take-10...  Similarly a church is more likely to own law/temple/manor than a wizard (Tornilen aside) so is more likely to directly benefit from the casting.

I'd note incidentally that making bless L2, or even L3, will have very little practical effect - to cast realm magic you have to be at least L5 surely (rank 8 skills required), so really all that level 1-3 means in practice the priest can't cast other Lx spells that turn - or given most treaties, ever cast spells of the same level as bless the holy. 

Edit: sorry Bjorn we cross-posted.  As noted by Alexander obviously what you/Jon say goes.

[X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander)]

The point that Wizard's rarely have land holdings is muddled by the fact that nearly all realms have a court wizard. Getting your court mage to cast spells for you can be useful

Otherwise I kinda agree with you, except that increasing the level of spells have a big effect on their cost effectiveness. Bless as a L3 spell would be a loss let attractive - 3 GB to prepare is a lot.

[DM B]

Demagogue remains unchanged; with a duration of 1 turn that is, and a '2 bonus to prosperity.

[DM B]

Update: We'll try a +/-3 effect instead. See how that works.

Although Bless and Demagogue do not stack, the combined effect of +1 Prov lvl and +3 Prosp is quite attractive.

Try means: If I don't like how it works it gets changed back.

[X-DM Jon]

Absolutely agreed Jon, there needs to be a mechanical difference between Arcane and Divine magic. However, , the current rules have it so that there is no difference - Bless the Holy Land temporarily boost Prosperity for 1 Turn, Demagogue does the same. Both classes have access to Chains of Loyalty, which is a permanent magical effect - essentially the same deal. It can be dispelled.

Arcana magic should be given no way of increasing Province level - that is the province of Divine Magic. In addition, I think Divine Magic in general should be more effective at increasing prosperity - which is why Bless the Holy Land is so low level... compared to it's effect (which, if cast on one or more high level provinces, is massive).

Some areas of magic are exclusive (Province level, healing) and some are differentiated by effectiveness (prosperity, destructive magic). That's the way it's always been - in 2nd ed Demagogue was also an Arcane spell and it did the same thing - it was a more effective substitute for the agitate action.

Btw, don't take this like snubbing your gm authority. I simply disagree on a few points, but as always I'll abide by your guys' decisions.

 Respec' mah authoratay!

 I'm assistant DM, Bjørn makes most of the decisions, so on this matter as well as on others, I'm in it for the fun

 And for the record I don't believe the old version of bless land was or is a game breaker. The rule affected all parties the same and gave good reason why a temple could feasibly acquire great power over the land. By removing this, you've made the playing field much easier for the nation ruler, because now he can use the wizards instead of the temples - and they work alot more efficiently than before. Countering the effects of extreme taxation.
 I think that's a far greater game breaker in comparison.

[DM B]

No; the increase in PROVINCE level is the core effect of Bless Land/Boon (or was supposed to be), not the prosperity matter. I'd still work very hard to have each and every province under my rule blessed each and every turn...I mean, +1 to province growth every turn AND increased province level? Why would you NOT have it cast 

Granted, its a LITTLE less powerful now, but still the most cost-effective spell in the game.

[DM B]

Actually, I had an interesting MSN chat with the lovely MS. Sword Mage. And there I pointed out that Bless Land is a poor spell to balance things against, because it was INTENTIONALLY made to be unbalanced!

The real reason the spell is there is to make realm rulers lean on temple regents and have them spend resources on something that the realm ruler benefits the most from.

In effect a way to A) Make sovereigns and temples interact and B) Create the possibility of conflict between said parties.

Come on...+1 PROVINCE LEVEL??? For a first level spell? At 1GB? Get serious 

[X-IHH/Wallac Isilviere (Kasper)]

Please tell that Bless is not planed to be nerfed

[X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy)]

Hm, given that I lose an action every season from bless I'd be very happy if it was nerfed!

As it is, the bless 'counter cost' is that everyone benefits - not just the priest - now a spell which bumped just the priest's income/chances of success would be tougher, as it is the priest has to bless everyone - even their rivals such as opposing priests.  And as Bjorn points out, that means that the priest gets clobbered by all sides by demands to cast the ### spell - not a total killer if the temple is in only 1 realm, but if they are a sprawling mass (like me in 5 realms) then someone - probably several someone's, are going to get very unhappy with the priest for being missed out...

Incidentally, if you memorise bless (l1) in the L2 slot, does it does 2 Gb to memorise?