Calemnon,

As a cleric I haven’t used Heroic strength, so I cannot comment on how well it works or doesn’t work. But I am very familiar with held mana spells and clerics have a spells that boosts strength also. First of all lets discuss clerical benediction- with roughly 250 in PM, I can cast (without POM) at maximum a 14 mana Benediction spell- which will last roughly 4 minutes, and give me a boost of around 3-4 strength to my 35 strength(I also get a boost to my reflex). Because Heroic Strength boosts only one stat it would probably last longer or be a slightly higher boost- but still lets say with these stats you would get a 6 minute duration to Heroic Strength for a 14 mana cast- would this be useful to you? Because I can tell you right now Benediction is of minimal value to me in combat- I cast it if I have tons of mana to spare, and I am fighting things not harmed by HE, and I have some spare time to cast. Of course this spell gets more useful at higher levels of magic. That is the trade off you would be looking at.

Now on the other hand, I can use centering- a held mana spell and hold 8 mana for it for a long, long time and not even notice it. I suspect if your nerves are getting fried quickly with a held mana spell, then your magical skills are lower than mine, in which case, I think any duration based Heroic Strength would be worse for you than Benediction is currently for me.

I think held mana spells are great for combat boosts for characters who don’t feel a need to cast a lot of other spells in combat. It seems to me that Paladins have far less need to actually cast in combat than most mages, and that therefore Heroic strength as it currently stands is probably pretty beneficial compared to what you would likely get. If I wasn’t didn’t have DR to unbalance creatures, I would gladly have a held mana spell to increase strength- against non-undead it would give me the edge I would need.

Flavius

>Held-mana spells are only useful if you can hold large amounts of mana... which paladins can't.

This isn't true. Pureblade is much better at magic than Flavius or I.

I hate him for it, too. ::evil scowl::

-Gheist

>I talked to my cleric friend and found out that Benediction gives a bigger bonus to reflex than it does to strength, so the argument saying that HES would be like Benidiction is invalid...

I've not heard this. I know of no way to quantify a reflex bonus as can be done with strength, and since the messaging for the two bonuses is the same, I assumed that the bonus is also the same.

-Gheist

"Benediction gives a boost to reflex sooner than it gives one to strength, that is why."

Ummm no. the order is strength, reflex, and then agility.

The boost is covered by universal limits, but essentially the boost will be larger for your larger stats- i.e. I get a larger boost to my strength because my strength is larger than my reflex.

It still seems to me that if you are having this much trouble with holding 8-10 harness for any length of time, that the problem might be your magic skills- I doubt that Pureblade has an issue with nerve damage.

If its an issue of not wanting a held mana spell so you can cast others- well thats understandable- just understand the trade off- with 250 PM be prepared to be casting every 5-6 minutes. If you have less than that- are you prepared to cast every 2-3 minutes during combat?
Flavius

>>It still seems to me that if you are having this much trouble with holding 8-10 harness for any length of time, that the problem might be your magic skills- I doubt that Pureblade has an issue with nerve damage.

It's really random how often I see "You sense a tiny bit of mana slip away" or whatever. I can sometimes hold the mana without it for a long time, sometimes its all the time. It's wacky I tell you, wacky! :P

Generally, I'm okay holding 12, maybe even 16.

The maximum benediction bonus is the same across all three stats. There is not only a hard cap, like all spells, but also a soft cap (like Heroic Strength I'd assume). As PM goes up, the soft cap gets slightly higher. 100 ranks gives you like 2 or 3% extra to the soft cap. At 500 or 600 PM, it can make a difference, but.. for most players it's insignifigant.

>Wasn't the order of stat-boosts affected by your race? That is, you boosted things that were easier for your race earlier, and grow into the others?

No. Race nor stats effect how soon you get what bonus. It's static.

I'd guess that Benediction butts up fairly close to the global caps. It's also an incredibly hard spell to cast. At legendary levels of PM, I cannot get maximum duration (but I can get maximum bonus, due to my stats).

---

- Master Cleric of Harawep

I think the boost from HES or Benedictions are a good example to explain why HES is good as it stands. Would you rather have a say..8 strength boost for 10 mins with 70 mana or have a 5 strength boost (holding 15 mana) as long as you want?

I don't see the trouble on keeping harnessed mana. With 200's I can hold 15 and not get the minor twitching message for a long while. It's a trade off, you either get a 'small' bonus which is capped after a while like courage is capped on 60 mana with folks casting it with 150 pm or so. Or you can get a very large bonus (20 strength) but pay for it if you're not skilled enough to hold the mana (twitches). HES is also good cause it's proportional to skills and it'll pretty much never stop growing, even though it's capped at 20 strength bonus, it's a long way to run to reach a HARN/PM point where you can hold 60 mana harnessed without having to 'worry' about it.

I think on your specific case Calemnon, you should use HEs with the bonus 'it wants to give you' and not the bonus 'you want it to give you'. If you can harness 10 without getting twitches and use that mana to cast shatter or something like that during combat like you want to, then harness 10. Not 15.

No offense intended.

I also think that maybe we could have two options. One would be prepare HES <amout> to use it as a standard spell. And the other one would be prepare HES. To use as a held mana spell which you would harness while it got ready.

Phanton

>Benediction also boosts two stats OTHER than strength.

At 400 PM.

-gheist

<<I've not heard this. I know of no way to quantify a reflex bonus as can be done with strength<<


before the changes to appraisal and magic this could be done and quantified quite easily by appraising critters with different characters that had different levels of Reflex and then using whatever spell or ability and then appraising the same critter.

this gave a general idea what certain critters reflex was, and how much of a "boost" the spell or ability gave.

now this can only be done with base stats, not modified stats <dancing or other abilities,spells, etc>

>>Hey, trade ya...you guys get bend and we'll take HS...Well, just the part where HS is mana held and Ben is just cast. I wanna keep Ben strenght, reflex and agility bonus

Sure thing, Mr. "Our Guild Got an OM Orb" :P

This is a post I made to back my argument of why HES should be made into a non-held form, like all our other stat boosting spells. The post was as follows:

<hr>

Here is my current theory on how stat-boosting spells work.

I've tested HES. I've tested the held mana aspect of it.

Min HEs is 4 mana, which gives a 2 point strength boost. I tested this by using a lance that I had 3/4 RT on, casting a 4 point HES, and I got 1/3 RT. I trained my strength up 1, without HES, still 3/4, so was more than 1 point boost at min mana. Trained agility up 1, and was back down to 1/3 without.

At 60 mana, and 35 strength at the time, my point RT dropped 14 seconds. Which means I had a 17 point boost. Odd, I thought. But then I tested it at 51 mana, and still got the 17 point drop. So the maximum bonus is 50% of your existing stat, rounded down, I figured, since 17 was 50% of my 35, rounded down. Increasing strength to 36, I found I could get an 18 RT reduction, so this was sound. HES gives a 3 strength increase per mana, minimum of +2 strength.

NOW....

I tested DIG. It seemed to give me a +50% bonus to my intel. I also read my spellbook when DIG first came out. The GMs had forgotten to taken the technical OOC info out of the spell description. My spellbook said it gave a 5-20 point boost to INT. GUESS WHAT. They haven't changed it since it came out.

Courage seemed to give me a +50% boost to stamina. None of my stats are at 40, so none can cap at a +20 boost. HOWEVER.... my current theory is that ALL of our stat boosting spells max out around 60 mana, for a +20 boost to our stat, Or 3 mana per point.

So the argument of saying HES gives more boost because it's held-mana is WRONG. It gives the same. The difference?

Well, anyone can harnes 60 mana. But it's pointless to harness that much unless your strength is 40. And if your strength is 40, you've either power-trained strength, like Phanton has, or you're significantly high circle-wise. If you're significantly high circle-wise, there's no reason you shouldn't have the PM skill to cast at 60 mana. And if you don't have that kind of PM skill, you're not incredibly reliant on magic, so you don't NEED to cast it at 60 mana.

I figure if HES is made into a regular non-held spell, it will be much like Courage, DIG, and MO. I've not been able to experiment with MO, but don't see why it should act differently than all our other spells.

Meaning if I have enough magic skill, I'll be able to cast a 54 mana HES and get +18 to my strength for, say, 20 mins.

Ever tried holding 54 mana for 20 mins? Even if you use the BEST tactics for minimizing nerve damage, you WON'T come out with less than minor twitching.

And minor twitching is absolutely HAZARDOUS if you're going to try going about snap-halting and snap-shattering in combat. You'll backfire unless you wait for near-full prep.

My conclusion?

Making HES non-held mana will give the same boost, longer duration, and allow you to use other spells without losing the boost.

Sure, it'll make it impossible for you to keep HES up while prepping another spell. But instead, HES will be up the WHOLE TIME and you won't NEED to keep it up while prepping another spell. And I, personally, see VERY LITTLE point to having a 7 point strength boost for about 1 minute. I'd rather have an 18 point boost for 20 mins.

Are any of the magic GMs reading this discussion? I'd like to hear any of your comments, if you have any.


Cavalier Calemnon

>>But a boost that large and that long would start hitting global caps I would imagine

Nope. There are some spells that boost stats to 20+, non-held mana.

Some spells boost multiple stats rather high, even.

Need a babelfish for DragonRealms?

http://www.bakshiloa.com/libraryindex.html

>>and that can boost, with quite incredible skill, strength, reflex and agility up to 12 points each, I believe.

A 36 point total boost is rather nice, wouldn't you say? I don't see how that many points boosted is a bad thing.

Right now, every stat boosting spell gives a boost of 10-20 points when cast at cap.

>>I know that with a little less than 300 PM I can cast a 16 mana benediction which mildly boosts my strength and reflex? for about 4 minutes. Is this what Paladins would like Heroic Strength to be like?

16 mana for 4 minutes is a pretty good deal. And I have no issues requiring magic to have some real skill behind it to get good effects.

Need a babelfish for DragonRealms?

http://www.bakshiloa.com/libraryindex.html

>>I have heard of the rangers and paladins held mana stat boosters. What are the others?

Paladins have HES and Rangers have Bear Strength, I think.

Not sure if cheetah swiftness is held or not.

Don't empaths have some held-mana spell that increases their agility and reflex? Maybe their evasion, too. I forget what it's called, or if it's held mana. :P

Need a babelfish for DragonRealms?

http://www.bakshiloa.com/libraryindex.html

Guild	Spell	Boosts
Empaths	Aesandry Darlaeth	Reflex
Paladins	Heroic Strength	Strength
Rangers	Bear Strength	Strength
Rangers	Cheetah Swiftness	Reflex and Agility

~S.T.

---

"...someone will find offense in the smallest of words and the most innocent of sentences if it suits their purpose." - GM Jzara
"But for now, if it ain't broke..." - GM Maece