This post is coming shortly ahead of the Prime and Platinum releases of the new versions of Heroic Strength and Courage. I will make a second post to confirm when they are released. There are some significant changes to these spells and I want to make sure they're communicated and we have a post to point to before I pull the trigger.
Heroic Strength and Courage have been rewritten in various ways:
HEROIC STRENGTH
Now functions like Courage, applying its effect to the caster's entire group (minus cursed group members).
Buffs both Stamina and Strength at the same time.
Cost has been increased to two slots (I'll discuss this in more detail below).
COURAGE:
Now functions as a SvS barrier against Fear and Spirit attacks, instead of buffing Stamina.
Changed from an Augmentation to a Warding spell.
Cost remains the same.
So, the reason I'm setting up this documentation ahead of the release is the Heroic Strength update. With the slot cost increase any Paladin with Heroic Strength permanently memorized (which is nearly everybody) will see their available slots go down by one. If you did not have any spell slots available, it will be set to -1.
This is fine. The system should react intelligently to negative slot values; you are not going to be forced to give up a spell or face errors because of it. However, you will need to "pay back" the heightened cost of Heroic Strength if you intend to spend more spell slots going forward, by progressing from -1 to 0 slots in your next increase.
While we designed Magic 3 to accept negative slots, this is the first time we've ever needed to use the mechanic outside of internal testing. As such, wonkiness may occur. If something appears wrong, please feel free to post here (in the Paladin category) and I will correct it.
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
