Shattered Kingdoms

Also the main difference between "concentrating on a target" with spells

is that if you consider the necessary magic. You're looking at someone,

focusing your magical energy at them so you would stop focusing quickly

if they left the room. However if you're reading a scroll, you'd have to

continually glance up (no matter the fact that scrolls are instant). The

power itself would be lesser as would be your focus on the target. Hence

why you wouldn't quit reading if they darted out. However wands are a

little different since you're looking at someone to level a wand at them

and I don't think wands require the same concentration as say firing a

gun.
I could agree with you on wands, though I can't with the scrolls.

However since there are more immediate changes that some of the

players would rather see, as well as some of the Imms I'm sure, I doubt

this will be a high priority for a long time.

It does infact matter that scrolls are instant, because even if everyone has their own preconcieved notion of how fantastical characters read spells off pieces of paper, mechanics wise scrolls fire immediately, if you're target is in the room when the command is registered the scroll will cast the spell at them.

The problem exists in the fact that scrolls and wands will default to a null target(to say one that doesn't exist), and waste a scroll/wand charge anyways, if there isn't anything to recite/zap it on. I don't really care how scrolls are read or wands are zapped, however it is neither of them have any concentration time what-so-ever, the problem that exists is simply that you can zap/recite them on non-existant targets.

Just to bring up Pushing40's example again because it was a good one:

<look>
You see a barren room, nobody but yourself for hundreds of miles.

<recite napoleon>
You recite a small scroll of colorspray

That's the problem, Napoleon wasn't in that room, in fact he died some 187 years previous, yet you're still able to waste wand charges/scrolls trying to recite/zap at imaginary targets.

You should instead get the "They aren't here" message, like any other skill gets when trying an action on an unavailable target.

The situation in the original post has happened to me several times as well, but I have no problems with the mechanic. The risk of wasting the item seems a fair trade for being able to invoke the spell with no casting time, mana cost, or concentration.

Also, the proposed change to the mechanic would complicate what is currently a simple rule. There would need to be special coding for wands/scrolls of gate/teleport/rift/summon, where the target is usually not in the same room. Then there would need to be more special coding for scrolls containing more than one spell with different targeting mechanics (create food + cure serious, resist elements + fireball, lightning bolt + heal, to name a few). That's far too much complexity for the benefit it would give, in my opinion.

You can already create food with a target, to my knowledge most self cast/non targettable spells already work this way, even if you select a target, the spell is simply cast on yourself.

Not to mention your last example, a lightning bolt + heal scroll wouldn't work anyways, as both of those spells require targetting. You can either cast both on your enemy, or both on yourself. The proposed change wouldn't affect any of that.



You make it sound like this would be a horribly complicated ordeal. Just use the same coding that the casted versions of the spells already use?

There also already is drawbacks for using scrolls/wands even without the risk of wasting the item/charge. While they are instant, and come with no mana cost, in most cases the scrolls are significantly weaker than their casted versions. Even in the case of the so called 'uber' scrolls, the triple FoD/triple harm scrolls. The scrolls only have strong charges, which is equivalent to about a mentorish level casting of the spell. They aren't GM versions of the spells.

These scrolls with the 'multiple targeting mechanisms,' as was mentioned, already exist. Since these scrolls exist, either the coding for the multiple targeting mechanisms exists or a different mechanism has been put in place to replace the multiple targeting mechanisms. This would mean any necessary complicated code has already been written.

What is in play in this discussion is merely the order of events in the code, not a whole rewrite. And to placate certain legitimate concerns, there is a willingness on the part of the advocates to add a brief lag after the recitation/zapping to prevent a stacked spam.

While it may not be quite as simple as moving 2 lines of type further down the list in the code and adding 1 additional line of type, that's roughly what I imagine it would be.

Sure, we can trade this off.

Scrolls and wands won't be wasting their charges if aggressive uses of them break the sanctuary spell.

They don't? That's pretty awesome, I didn't know that.

I'd bug log it though, I'll bet that's not intended.

Wands do not provoke.

Scrolls... I don't remember. So yes you can zap an agg spell on someone, not provoke, and you can go report them.

I buglogged that like four years ago and I don't think it ever got changed.

I'd like to bump this, just wasted a scroll from the Iron Citadel today because my target left the room a second before the recite command entered. It's really ludicrous to go to such lengths to acquire these objects, only to have the game code screw you over.

I know you think I'm being vindictive when I say this, but I really still disagree, for the same reason you disagree with tweaking enchantments.

In comparison to an uberleet suit, scrolls are HELLA easy to get, and every bit as easy to lose.