October 22 Updates Options

[sonof]

Hello,

Myself and Duncan have had our semi-regular catch up and a few things have come out of it.
The first thing seems to be a lot of people aren't playing the spirit of the game, this has really come to light in recent ask the gsm questions and from what people have been saying. The system is complex and unless you want it to become as big as the UK tax legislation playing fair is important. If an ability is 60 points but could do something that costs 600 if you read it on a Tuesday backwards in a mirror standing on one leg it probably doesn't do it.
Same goes for blagging, which seems to have reached the point of rather than pushing abilities become almost outright cheating.
We both have our theories on why this is happening, but rather than bringing them up I thought it would be easier to just say stop, and play fair.

Guilds
First change that people might like. With the shift in player base, desire to run more young players, and a few other things the requirement to do a guild special a year for guilds will be removed.
Tempo's
Second tempos. I'm sure what I am about to say is obvious:
Unless it specifically says otherwise Tempo requires you to be actively involved in the combat, so tempoing an earthmeld is a no. Tempoing a walk through walls when all you do is hide in the wall and not engage is a no.
Any non-offensive prep breaks a tempo. So getting a prepped total breaks it. 30 seconds prep for a sever (for example) is fine.
Tempo is one encounter, not moving on and around. Some suitable examples of what is covered by a temple:

Holding area D while a ritual in the middle is broken fine.
An undead defender on an extended length
A mittlenacht walk fight providing there's not too much stop/start and walls of start.

What's not ok:
You're on a world and there are 6 rituals spread out to deal with while being attacked by black orc battlemasters.

It's also important to remember enhancing a published spell (etc.) means that the published tempo of power doesn't apply unless the enhancement specifically notes it does.
There are a few people that have "Tempo" style spells of miracles. I believe these all have the restriction of "must be cast at the point the spell is cast" or similar. If they don't, consider that they do now.
I also remind people about the previous ruling around things that extended durations.

I have no objection to a properly used tempo, so please stick to the above so they don't just get removed from the game.

Batteries
"Batteries". These are all apps, so fear not if you don't understand them. If you have a "battery" (pool of power that gains power in it by casting other power) it now has a restriction of:
Power cast from this pool does not charge the pool.
And
Only effects cast with power, or personal (not item or guild) innates can charge a pool

Fake force of arms
Finally I've had a few apps in about this so I thought I'd deal with it now.
As much as people disagree with me I got rid of force of arms because I hate it. It penalises battlemasters for more than power up casters. I'm not going to start the debate again.
So I will not pass any ability that means you inflict a minimum amount of damage. I have also seen people applying for immunity to these sort of things so I assume they are being set. I personally dislike them being set, but that's up to individual refs. If however I find it is going to far and effectively ignoring the removal of force of arms or similar I will just published a 0 point ability of immunity to them, which will ruin it the rare times they are used in an appropriate way.

Thanks

Lee