Here is the spell from HMG.

Breath of Dh¤vu
Od¤vshÿ III
Projects a cone of very cold ethereal ice from the caster (who is unaffected). The affected area is an equilateral, sixty-degree cone. The ethereal SHOCK IMPACT of the blast is determined by distance to target in relation to the maximum blast Range.

Range Area (Hexes) Impact CS
Point Blank (5’) (2 adjacent) 5d6+SI +SI
Close (15’) (7 hexes) 3d6+SI +SI
Long (SI×5’) (Variable) 2d6+SI +SI

CS increases Impact by SI.

Cover: Reduce impact by 1d6 for light cover (bushes) and by 2d6 for heavy cover (human body) at GM discretion. A large campfire (etc.) would be excellent cover.

NOTE that the spell causes atmospheric moisture to condense rapidly and may produce spectacular visual effects reminiscent of a small blizzard. The primary effect is achieved by means of a variety of ethereal ice. Inanimate objects are rarely affected. The victim accrues the indicated number of fatigue points and makes a SHOCK roll.


- Now. With HMG i expect that the fatigue points accrued are instead condition points (most people have 60 or so instead of 12).

Question is;

(1). Would the fatigue damage last more than one round. Does the spell shock you with cold then the effect dissapear. So that on round 2 if I had to make a shock roll, I would make it without the penalty of accrued points.

(2). Would armour protect? It does vs frost and frost is avaialable when your skill reaches 80+ with this spell.

Thanks.

My understanding is that "Ethereal Damage" is damage to the spirit - it does not effect body parts but is "whole body "damage". It is counted as fatigue and "heals" more quickly than physical damage (ie: fatigue recovery). "SHOCK IMPACT" seems to be a poorly worded descriptor for "Ethereal Damage" that causes shock and fatigue. (It is cold not electrical).

In general "Ethereal Damage" does not affect purely physical objects. It causes damage to people, disembodied spirits and creatures with aura. Spells may protect from the ethereal damage but armor will not. (GM option: if a ray or beam was totally blocked by solid magical armor like an enchanted breastplate it might be considered stopped). It may have an effect on other spells or energies.

Ethereal cold damage directed at a fire might put it out if sufficiently concentrated (GM option for normal fire or one of weaker enchantment). Fire might also provide protection from Ethereal cold (the HMG description of the effects of "cover" for "Breath of Dhivu" would seem to confirm this interpretation).

If you opted to have armor block the impact it would be difficult to determine the overall effect of different levels of protection across the body.

At ML80+ causing physical frost damage it would logically mean doing damage to all exposed areas (20 or so zones) and each zone would have cold protection based on the armor worn there. However, if one applied that logic the overall effect would be something like 200 injury points (10 injury to each area of the body) - I'm guessing that is not what the spell intended. Probably just assume the damage is calculated the same as a whole body ethereal damage but as physical damage to a single body part (chest?) and ignore armor as before. Maybe the damage only translates into physical damage after the ethereal damage is applied.

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Excellent.

Though it does seem pretty tough for a 3rd level spell.

Large area of effect, though with 3d6+SI, you might not knock people down on the 1st go. The 2nd and 3rd would prove more successful.

Thanks for the passage read. I'm going through the rules but at 140+ pages, it's a long slog.

I haven't really looked at the HMG version but the earlier versions from HM1 and SP2 I upped to 4th...er actually 5th complexity IMC. But it did physical damage from the start.

The latest in SPgold may be a bit toned down in that it doesn't do physical damage til 80+ - but it doesn't tone down the impact at that point so that really doesn't change the overall power of the spell (just delays it to ML80).

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It is to powerful in my opinion. A party with an Odivshe Shek Pvar could easily defeat 3 times their number as long as they kept the spellcaster up an going. After i saw this happening once in my own campaign I removed the point blank impact, that helped.

Breath of Dhivu is the only hope of any group of PC's surviving an interesting encounter under their own steam if you want my honest opinion

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

I agree with Peter--I wouldn't nerf it. There was an Odivshe PC in a recent campaign whose EML with BoD was around 50. Knowing they had access to this spell always tempted the party to take on risky encounters: if the spell went off, game over. If not...

I recall one such overreach against a dozen or so gargun. A failed spell test three rounds in a row left the party running in retreat (the last failure might have been a CF, to boot).

No need to "nerf it" just put a reasonable complexity on it for the effects. It's not like there is a huge penalty to cast for the complexity being higher.

And in desperate situations a bad critical failure can be as good or better than a spell going off as intended.

OTOH leaving the complexity but "nerfing it" by taking away the physical damage effect at 80+ doesn't change the usefulness of the spell at all. Just a sudden increase in spell power that makes it overpowerful for the complexity.

More reasonably if the spell is left at the same complexity then at ML80+ the effects are the same as ML80- except that for every die of ethereal damage one point of the damage is actually physical and doesn't recover as fatigue. Maybe even make it a bonus effect at ML56+ instead.


IMC I don't allow any spell bonus effects that at ML70+ or higher suddenly multiply the effect of the spell by 2 or more.

A spell at ML66+ might go from being touch to SI feet but never from touch to ML yards. Preferably the bonus effects expand from the bonus level. For example a spell at ML66+ might go from being touch to (SI-5) yards. That way even if the spell went to ML feet it would be (ML-60) feet starting near touch and growing from there.

A fireball that did SId6 ethereal damage but at ML80+ optionally doing (SI-6)d6 of physical damage instead.

Or Breath of Dhivu might do 1 point of real damage per die at ML80+, increasing to 2 points at ML100+, 3 points at ML120+ and real damage at ML130+. (Or at a higher complexity 60+, 80+ 100+ and 110+).


As a minimum I assume that the adjustment is at least half the level at witch the bonus effect appears: for a ML60+ bonus effect the effect might be based on (SI-3) or (ML-30) [A fireball that did SId6 ethereal damage but at ML60+ optionally doing (SI-3)d6 of physical damage instead].

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