Pieces gathered from The Chronicler's Corner and other
sources; with special thanks to Edi Birsan. Changes in LII are given in italics.
Contents:
A) All Blesses and Curses work off the BASE values of a target
character's Personal Combat, Tactics and Influence, the base values
as they were at the time of casting.
B) They will result in blessed up values for those statistics only -
the values between brackets {}. These values can be used in doing
Diplomacy (via raised Influence) or in making war (via a raised Tactics
for the commander of your army, see CAA p. 17); but they can NOT
be used for Training Soldiers (order T1).
C) Any increase in base values caused by spells that are cast before
or after the Blessing will not be multiplied by the bless.
D) Modifiers to the base values from statusses are added before the
effects of Bless take effect, and are thus multiplied by the bless;
whether you had the status before the blessing or got it after
the blessing is not important.
E) Modifiers to the base values from items equipped at the time of
blessing will not be multiplied by a bless.
F) The OVERALL blesses/curses from ALL sources cannot exceed +100% or
get below -85%.
G) Blesses counter curses, and curses cancel blesses.
Example: If you had a level 13 Curse and received a level 15 Bless,
then a net effect of a level 2 Bless would be the result. And this
saldo is what is relevant. Note however, that both the curse and
the bless are still operative 'under the surface', until production
decline [point I] gets rid of both. This means that if someone comes along
and slaps a level 20 Bless on you, you will only get a net result
of level 7 Bless - as the Curse is still there and only the maximum
Bless spell counts [see below]. (Thanks to Dean Johnson for this example)
H) The message "you received a level X curse" means that it has the
same effect as if someone did cast a Curse spell at you at X points
above your Magical Resistance (MAR). Or in plain words: 1 level
is 5%.
I) Blesses and Curses fade away by 3 levels (i.e. 15%) per Production.
J) Due to a little oddity in the system, blesses and curses only look
at the absolute value of an attribute, and raises resp. decreases that.
So if you had a attribute of -5, a full bless(!) would turn that
into -10...
K) Curses do not only have a negative effect on attributes, but also
on the outcome of most character actions (see final section).
It's perhaps good to linger a bit longer on points A to E:
Blesses work off of your 'Base' value (whatever the source of
blessing: spells cast or items equipped).
1) Does this 'Base' value, over which the blessing is calculated,
include the bonusses of the following things if they are
equipped/present/cast BEFORE the blessing was done? Answers:
- items: NO
- status: YES
- spells: NO
- titles: NO
Meaning their additions will not/will/will not be multiplied by a bless.
2) And if these were added [equipped, afflicted, cast] after the
blessing, are their adds multiplied by a bless? Answers:
- items: NO
- status: YES
- spells: NO
- titles: NO
3) Summery: Blesses will work off of your 'pure' Base + status
adds, but will not multiply up bonuses from Items, Titles or Spells.
And it doesn't matter when the status is received, before or after
the actual moment the bless was put on.
So calculate like this (for Personal Combat):
Take Base PC (the value to be seen by order V5)
Add in Status adds
Get total bless factors (from spells, items, etc)
Figure NEW PC with bless times (BASE+Status adds)
Add in item PC adds
Add in spell adds
Add in title adds
Effective PC results.
Some numerical examples:
[1] A hero with a base Personal Combat (PC) of 10 and two items
equipped that give a +3 PC bonus each, will, after a Bless of 100%,
have an effective PC of 26, not 32.
[2] A hero starting with: 'pure' Base PC of 12, Status add of +6 PC, Item
add of +4 PC, Spell add of +3 PC, will have a total effective PC
(reported on your printout) of 12+6+4+3=25. Someone comes along and
gives the guy a 100% bless; the new Blessed up value will now be:
2*(12+6)+4+3=43 (reported on your printout between {}). If in this
example the spell was not done then the value would be 40. If someone
came along and added a spell of +3 after the bless then the
new value would be 43. (Thus meaning that what is said under Bless on
page 9 of the Update May '95 is not correct - there is no 'before' or 'after'
difference.)
[3] If you had a racial specific bonus to Influence, f.e. because a
Turthian nomad racial adventure gives +20 to influencing Turthian nomads,
and you do have a 100% bless, then that +20 bonus will be a straight add
and will not get doubled by the bless.
Also look at the following Mentor Question from the Strategic Reserve,
answered by Edi Birsan:
Q: What is the affect of bless items on increase tactics spells and
statuses and bless spells in all combinations and conjunctions?
A: You just got to love these simple questions...where to start?
The real question is a player has an item that gives him a bunch of
free points towards increasing tactics. He also has an item that gives
him a 100% bless. The question is: will the tactics after the spell
be doubled by the bless so that in effect the bless affect multiplies
up the spell values? (Actually even that question isn't so crystal clear and easy!)
This is what we have: a character has a base value of tactics from the wonderfulness of
his set up and from those experiences he has lived to remember. Statuses that add to tactics such
as Enchanted or the big time Centurion are values which are added to the Base. When a bless
spell or a bless item increases the base + STATUS value by say 100% (or doubled) then only
that base+ status is increased. If a player comes along and pumps into his tactics the increase
leadership spell of the Warlock then that increase will be only to 'Effective' or the value after the
base and the bless have had their computations. In practical terms if a player has a base tactics
of 10 and a 100% bless item and a 6 point increase in tactics from spell points. Then regardless
of the sequence of events the ending number will be 26 composed of the Base 10 plus the 100%
bless effect of an additional 10 and the final component of 6 from the tactics spell.
There are three ways of getting blessed or cursed:
1) Via Spells that Bless/Curse
2) Via Bard Bless/Curse
3) Via Items that Bless/Curse
And of course you can become cursed by failed Spell Research...
ad.1) Blesses via Spell#214/215 are not additive; they function by the
highest value of a single spell cast. They are individually
capped at a maximum of 100% and a minimum of -85%. This means, that any
spell points above 100% are lost. The effect is:
5%*(current level - MAR).
ad.2) Blesses via Bard Order S10 are not additive; they function by the
highest value of a single blessing done. They are individually
capped at a maximum of 100% and a minimum of -85%. In LI, the Bard Bless
has an effect that is very much like that of Bless spell #214, or actually
a bit less than 5% per level. In LII it has been rated down, to about 3% per Bard
level - 'about', for the formula is no longer linear!; also the MAR of
the target plays no role. A possible approximation is (by Michael A. Keller):
below bard level 20 -> about (Bard level + 4)*2.5%
over bard level 25 -> about (Bard level - 4)*2.5%.
Designers hint that for low Bard levels the effect is around 5% per level, and
for high Bard levels around 2.5-3%, however with +/- random rounding
kicking in.
Note that a Bard's Bless is not always succesfull: there is
approximately a 25% chance at bard level 5, a 50% chance at level 15
and a 75% chance of success at level 20; a chance of failure always
remains.
ad.3) Blesses via Items are additive and are individually not capped.
What is the use of this, you may ask, if the Overall Bless is always
capped at +100% anyhow [see point F]?? Well, if you have an item giving a
200% bless, then having that item in use/activated alone, the overall
bless would indeed still be capped at 100%, but the ‘excess' 100% bless
from the item could be used to compensate a full-out curse by your enemy!
There are also items that give both a blessing and an addition to a base
value. In such a case, these bonusses are added after the bless taking
effect [cf. point E].
Example: if you started with a Base PC of 10, and you had an item that
gave 100% bless and +5 Personal Combat (PC), then your Blessed up
Effective PC would be 25, and not 30.
Less known is that Curses, like wounds, also have a negative effect
on nearly all Character actions (point K). They reduce your chances
with:
* all covert actions [C 1-6,9,10,12]
* all diplomatic actons [D1-4]
* all study, practice and research actions [S1-2, S11]
Of course from a visualisation point of view this is perfectly logical! It's hard to concentrate
with an arrow in your eye and ringing ears from all that swearing.....
Note that some special rules apply in this case:
1) Curses have a negative effect on most actions, but blesses do NOT have a possitive effect in such cases. So there is an asymmetry here.
Example:
If you had a Curse of 13 levels and was given a bless of level 15, then
a bless of level 2 is effective. Not having any effect on your
actions. In the reverse case the saldo would be a curse of level 2,
having a negative effect on your actions. So: the saldo is relevant;
the underlying curse and bless are NOT applied seperately, i.e having resp.
a negative effect and no effect on your actions.
2) As said under point G, Blesses counter Curses. However this is
primairily valid for Bless spells versus Curse spells. So if someone
cursed you, you can bless yourself to prevent getting any negative results
on your character actions. The same if you got a Curse from failed
Spell Research, then you can negate this by a Bless spell. But there
is one major (and illogical) exception: if you got a curse from failed
Research, then you can NOT negate that by the Bless from an ITEM!!
