As per the discussion board posts, I have now come to a decision over amendments to Power-hammer and the Cause [X] Disease invocations:

POWER HAMMER
Powerhammer, Lay
Rank 1 & 3
Range 20ft
Duration instant
Effect This invocation calls forth a hammer of invisible pure force to be hurled at a single required target. Damage caused by this invocation is as follows.

Rank Player Life Monster Hits
1 6 4
3 12 8

The hammer always hits unless the target, irrespective of dexterity although Power AC will protect against this attack, trying to stop the spiritual energy from fully manifesting as a physical blow; the target's A.C. against the Power-hammer will be an average of their locational Power A.C. Note that this is a kinetic assault and so causes no appreciable spiritual damage to the target.

CAUSE MINOR/MEDIUM/MAJOR DISEASE
Rank 0 & 2 & 4
Range touch
Duration 15 minutes (extendable)
Effect This invocation will give the caster the ability to inflict a supernatural disease of varying strength onto a target they touch. After casting the invocation the caster has 5 seconds to touch his victim with both hands at the same time. The disease causes the the following effects upon a victim:

Cause Minor Disease - After an onset time of 2 minutes the target begins to sweat and shake involuntarily. This effectively halves their Dexterity for the duration.
Cause Medium Disease - After an onset time of 2 minutes the target becomes hyper-sensitive to pain as well as developing tender boils and lesions. They bleed from the slightest wound, equivalent to a bleeding effect. (1 point of additional Player Life per damaging wound inflicted each minute until Cured on each bleeding location or the Disease is removed) This will cause 1 additional Monster Hit every minute per blow received for the duration.
Cause Major Disease - After an onset time of 2 minutes the victim becomes very nauseous and physically weaker as the disease ravages their body. In effect, after the first 2 minutes have elapsed and every 2 minutes afterwards until the 14th minute, the victim loses one Strength category, to a maximum of a 'helpless state'. On the expiry of the invocation or after receiving the appropriate Cure Disease invocation, the victims strength returns to normal.

The rank 0 invocation requires only a 1-handed touch. A 1 handed touch for a higher rank invocation has no effect and exhausts the invocation completely. The invocation cannot be stacked upon an individual although Cure Disease can be stacked to oppose it (see the Good sphere invocation Cure Disease). Any disease invocation can be extended as normal, such as a Major Disease dropped to a Medium Disease which lasts 1 hour (or dropped to a Minor Disease which would last 4 hours).
Any Disease which is not cured before the duration expires, will continue on as a natural disease until tended (or removed by a Cure Minor Disease invocation or greater, no matter what the original Cause Disease invocation was cast at). A character with the skills Discern Disease and Bind Minor Wounds can tend a diseased individual, removing the natural disease effects after 10 minutes of ministrations - and good roleplaying. This duration can be lowered by additional people assisting the tender. For every extra person tending with the Bind Minor Wounds skill, the duration is reduced by 2 minutes to a minimum of 2 minutes (note that the Bind Major Wounds skill would count as 2 people towards tending).
Any disease left untended reduces the effect of all Lay-ranked healing invocations upon the individual by one rank and stops the invocation Speed Heal from working. i.e. Good Sphere Cure Wounds, Neutral Sphere Cure Wounds and Nature Sphere Natures Healing.


The Spiritshield invocation will be adjusted accordingly to reflect the new rules on Power-hammer and the Ritual-ranked Neutral Invocation, Smite, will now be altered and added as a Lay-ranked invocation as follows:

SMITE
Smite 0 - 4
Rank 0-4
Range 20ft
Duration instant
Effect This invocation summons a bolt of spiritual energy that strikes at a single required target. Damage caused by this invocation is inflicted via the spirit world and only normally damages power-based creatures as follows.

Rank Total Life inflicted Monster Hits inflicted
0 6 3
1 12 6
2 18 9
3 24 12
4 30 15

The invocation always hits the target, although dexterity will reduce the damage. Power AC will also protect against this attack, deflecting some or all of the damage; the target's A.C. against the Smite will be an average of their locational Dexterity and/or Power A.C. Note that this is a spiritual assault and so causes no appreciable physical or magical damage to the target. In effect, this will harm no living creature unless they have been shifted into the Spiritual realm by some means.


Please go ahead and flame, comment, criticise, shower me with cake (no death, thanks).

Mike

Edited 1:45 AM to clarify disease tending and adding title to SMITE invocation.
p.s. Jem go to bed.

Does this mean if a medium it does 1 extra damage per hit per min.


Drop a major to a medium, If hit alot you could be taking (hits) damage per minute. people could be taking alot of damage per minute.



Does this mean that if a major is dropped to a medium it does 1 extra pamage per hit per min, near the end of the hour you would be taken near to death in a minute.

>>Does this mean if a medium it does 1 extra damage per hit per min.

I thought that's what the descriptions says... >>(1 point of additional Player Life per damaging wound inflicted each minute until Cured on each bleeding location or the Disease is removed)<<
1 extra player life (or monster hit) for every 'hit' the person takes that causes damage to them (not bruising as this is a 'bruise' not a damaging hit) per minute.

e.g. Bear is hit with a Cause Medium Disease. Westley and Greensleeves pretend or 'forget' they can remove it and after 2 minutes he starts to suffer symptoms. 5 minutes later and the fight is over. A battleboard is called and Bear reports he got hit with 9 blows _after_ the disease kicked in. This means he has taken 9 extra damage from the blows per minute. 3 minutes of bleeding has occured so he has taken an additional 27 damage. He received no curing during the 3 minutes he was taking 'hits' and so all of the blows were bleeding. He then gets a Cure mortal which is an intelligent cure and stops bleeding on all locations as well as healing 48 life. He is, however, still suffering from a Cause Medium Disease and will begin taking bleeding damage again if he's hit during the next 10 minutes.

>>Drop a major to a medium, If hit alot you could be taking (hits) damage per minute. people could be taking alot of damage per minute.

Explain further what you mean please. The description states dropping a Major to a Medium means the Medium lasts an hour, not 15 minutes. This does not state that it increases the effect of the Medium Disease, just the duration. If by this you mean he will be bleeding for up to an hour, yes. Get someone who can cast Cure Disease on the mission or make sure the affected person doesn't get hit much. You will only be bleeding continuously if you receive no curing, no stop bleeding or your wounds are not bound. As per the skill and invocation descriptions. To be honest, if you let a party member go that long without uring or having their wounds bound, you deserve to die. Twice.

>>Does this mean that if a major is dropped to a medium it does 1 extra pamage per hit per min, near the end of the hour you would be taken near to death in a minute.

Again I'm sorry but your question doesn't read very well. Untended is after the Disease invocation has expired. In the circumstance you show, this would mean that if, after an hour, the Medium disease has not been removed by a Cure Medium Disease or greater, then they will now begin to suffer the healing reduction. The description states what happens after the 'supernatural' disease has run it's course and the 'normal one' begins. >> Any Disease which is not cured before the duration expires, will continue on as a natural disease until tended (or removed by a Cure Minor Disease invocation or greater, no matter what the original Cause Disease invocation was cast at). A character with the skills Discern Disease and Bind Minor Wounds can tend a diseased individual, removing the natural disease effects after 10 minutes of ministrations - and good roleplaying. <<

Mike

Medium Disease: If you are subject to a medium disease and you are hit for 10 (sharp/claw - ie anything that would cut your skin) blows, after 1 minute you would take 10 bleeding damage.
If you were hit for 10 blows in the 1st minute, 8 blows in the second minute and 12 blows in the 3rd minute before you were cured you would take a total of 58 bleeding damage. 10 for the 1st minute; 18 (10 +8) for the 2nd and 30 (10 + 8 + 12) for the 3rd minute.
If you did not have the disease removed or receive curing before it's duration ended you would've continued to take 30 damage per minute for the remainder of the invocation's duration.

As I understand it, curing is 'intelligent' and goes to where it is needed - ie to stop bleeding.




Extending the disease and damage received thereof - Yes.

Disease is one of those special invocations where it is in fact an instant effect - it's the result of the invocation that is chronic.
This is why should you kill the person who cast the disease on you it will not negate it.




To take your example if you were inflicted with a medium for an hour you would then take 1 extra point of damage per blow per minute as discussed above, for that hour.
After 1 hour should the disease not been taken care of it would progress to a 'natural disease'.
A 'natural disease' in the game mechanics would mean curing works less effectively *on the victim* and speed heal no longer has any effect. Thus a cure mortal becomes a cure grievious etc.

The natural disease would kick in after rany rank disease regardless of the rank it was initially cast at or the duration it was extended to. (Assuming no remove disease was applied)


Remember Bind Wounds would help to reduce the amount of bleeding per minute.

I've been thinking about this and for the purposes of statting and monstering power-based creatures that would take damage from Smite it should be appropriate to double the amount of dex required to dodge each rank completely (in terms of monster hits).
Thus a Rank 0 Smite (3 Power Hits) requires 6 Dex to dodge - or it turns out to be very very rude.
(In exactly the same way Cloak/Shroud can be with an inexperienced monster)

Thus Seb playing the evil sneaky Fetch (undead scout type) has 18 unarmoured Dex, so he completely dodge a Smite Rank 2. Finnius the Neutral Priest then opens up with his mighty Smite rank 3's, pummelling poor Seb; forcing him to retreat from the hospitaller treating the downed warrior.
(Admittedly Seb comes back 5 minutes later having invoked [yes fetches are that gross] flicks some V's at Finnious and kills all three of them.)

I had considered Hits vs. total damage before writing up the invocation, however I must admit I hadn't considered the possibility there may be another power-based creature with Dexterity apart from a Fetch (whereby the Fetch would be encountered so infrequently that the damage it could dodge would make Smite less of a useful weapon).

Having checked my bestiary, I cannot locate any purely power-based enemies that use Dexterity, so for this reason, I see no reason to alter the invocation as stated.

A secondary consideration is that any monster given Dexterity AC _should_ have less Hits than normal to compensate for dodging a players attacks (and they normally have 4/8/12/16/20 so easier to work our 1+ Hits taken after Dexterity AC taken into account).
If a monster does have Dexterity AC then they should be using the player damage total initially and doing a quick conversion afterwards - this is the way monsters with Dexterity ought to be statted and I believe almost always are. AT least in H&H anyway.
e.g. Rank 3 Smite on a 16 Dex Fetch = 8 damage. 8 damage is equivalent to a Power 2, so 2 Power Hits to the Fetch. (Rank 4 would do 12, so Power 3).

Bear in mind there are Anti-undead invocations to increase damage on Undead, as well as Curses, Weld, dexterity reducing abilities/spells and so forth.