Great Haste is a source of a lot of talk in my games. It's very, very effective for its cost. You can use it to multiply the effects of your own spellcasting, too. Wizards usually cast it on themselves first, then use the sped-up casting to speed up fighter-types.
It's such an effective spell that it's basically impossible to make a wizard without it. You can try, but it's expected that you have it - players used to getting Great Haste in support of their own characters won't have high regard for a wizard who shows up unable to do it. It's also very easy to get (especially if you want Missile Shield and/or Phase and already have a bunch of Movement College spells.)
So it's a game-changer that is easy to get and is therefore part and parcel of almost all fights in my DF game. A few of my players and I have tried to figure out a less-powerful but still thematically appropriate approach to the spell. Here is Part 2 - here is Part 1 and a related post.
Here is another attempt to revise Great Haste so it's less of a game-breaker.
Great Haste
Speeds up the subject - a lot. This has the following effects:
- Your Move is doubled - or if you choose a Maneuver that allows a Step, you gain one additional Step over your normal amount.
- You gain Extra Attack 1 - or if you choose Concentrate, you gain an extra Concentrate's worth of actions.
- You gain +2 to all of your Active Defenses.
Spell is otherwise as written.
Notes:
- Basic Move effects and Step are not cumulative. It's either/or - if you have Move 7 and you take a Move and Attack, you have a 14. If you choose Step and Attack, you have 2 steps. You could Committed Attack (Step) and get 3 Steps, or choose All-Out Attack and run 7 yards up and attack . . . but you most specifically do not get 14+ move for a basic 2 steps, thus 3 with Great Haste, 4 with Committed Attack . . .
- The Haste spell adds to the final numbers - if you have Move 4 and Haste 3, your move becomes 4 x 2, +3 = 11, not (4+3) x 2 = 14.
- The wording should allow casters to cast 2 spells or cast one twice as fast, but not cast-and-throw Missile spells or cast-and-attack. I'm open to changing the wording to allow for cast-and-throw but you have to consider that it's shorting physical combatants (who lose out on Altered Time Rate) for wizards (who, effectively, don't.)
- The wording doesn't allow for ready-and-attack, either, which doesn't please me. I'd like to allow for Step & Ready & normal attacks, for example, or pulling and drinking a potion in one turn. That's hard to do without essentially sneaking in a full extra Maneuver in through the back door.
- the overall effect is to be quite an effective buff for fighter-types. It's +1 attack every turn, +2 to defenses, doubled steps. You can use this for very fast maneuvering around the battlefield or to pile on attacks on a foe. But it's significantly nerfed.
- Why is cost the same? I think 3s/5 energy is actually a good price for the above and very cheap for 10 seconds of Altered Time Rate. You could always reduce (or even eliminate) the cost in FP to the subject. That's probably fair; this isn't all that much more of a buff than other spells which carry no cost to the subject. I'd suggest dropping it to 2 FP.
I think this treatment is so far the most appealing one to me. Rather neat and avoids weirdness from ATR. There's actually a "Ready or Attack" type enhancement for Extra Attack in one of the recent books (MH:PU maybe?) that could be used in wording to facilitate extra Readies.
ReplyDeleteI don't have MH:PU.
DeleteEven without it, I could create an enhancement . . . I'm a little concerned though, that if I do I open the door to it I'm going to regret it later.
We used to play GURPS for "trade an attack for a Ready" and it had a lot of spill-on effects I didn't like. It's bad enough when people generally had one attack . . . but Rapid Strike and Extra Attack (and Great Haste!) mean the things I disliked would just multiply.
"the things I disliked would just multiply"
DeleteI get that in 3e trading Attacks for Readies was excessive (with warriors getting 3 attacks at skill 18 without ATR or Extra Attack or even AOA(Double)), but what in 4e is bad about it?
I'm into game prep for Sunday so I'll post about it early next week. Suffice it for now to say that I had this problem without using the Chambara rules. It's not unsolvable, but it does have spill-on effects that need to be considered.
DeleteI don't think this is going to make Great Haste any less mandatory. As long as it can double their output, it still makes sense as the first thing a wizard casts. And Extra Attack is still valuable enough to make it equal to or better than any other buff the wizard could be casting.
ReplyDeleteWhat about approaching the cost/benefit ratio from the other side? Raising the prerequisite count would make it "feel" more advanced, if nothing else. Raising energy cost would obviously make sense, but it would be more interesting to increase casting time -- perhaps double it to six seconds (Meaning a Great Hasted wizard now casts the spell in the time it used to take normally, a symmetry I enjoy), which both decreases the number of times it can be cast per battle, and forces the PCs to consider whether it's really more valuable than all the other spells the wizard could be casting.
If you feel like doubled casting rate makes it mandatory, doubling the time to cast just means it is even more important to cast it on yourself first.
DeleteIf you don't want that effect, take away everything in the sentence after "Extra Attack 1." It's a nice move and defense bonus for a wizard but that's it.
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DeleteInteresting. I have considered ways to implement some sort of limitation on Great Haste. I wanted to put a limit in-place before, rather than have to change the spell after it was established. However I received so much pushback from my wizard player that he would be ineffective without it, that I relented. I am still not convinced it won't be a problem though, based on what you and others have reported.
ReplyDeleteI need to think about this and re-read your earlier posts on the topic.
Thanks. I don't know that I will use this in my current game or not. It really depends on my players. If I played a new game, we'd definitely try something like the above.
DeleteOne thing I've toyed with is adding to the cost of the spell. It "plays with time" so I have toyed with having it require someone get Decreased Time Rate as part of the cost. Either the caster immediately, or the SUbject following the end of the spell.
ReplyDeleteThis has been a "noodle around with" idea so far, I haven't treid it on the field, but then again, as I've mentioned to Peter before, my group doesn't go for "buffing Wizards" so I haven't had the problems with Great Haste others have had (but I do agree, if it's considered a "must have" then there is a problem with the spell).
I think that any buff that comes with a steep, unavoidable de-buff is unlikely to get used. The 5 FP cost to the subject it has now is something you can mitigate at a cost; a de-buff that can't be mitigated is probably a dealbreaker.
Delete