Forums of the Megaverse®

On page 109 of my first edition book it talks about the diabolists Ward Arsenal.
Please describe what this means to you and how you prepare your arsenal.

What surface are they on? What were they prepared with? And how were they used? Did you walk into the middle of combat and speak the final power word or draw the enemy into the warded area?

I've yet to play or GM a diabolist but one thing that does occur to me is the more detailed the ward (including all your groups real names along with multiple wards, etc) the surface size would need to accomodate that.

The ward arsenal is a bunch of prepared wards that a diabolist carries un-energized. The diabolist can then emplace and energize to create magic land mines, or alternately, the diabolist can force-activate prepared wards out of an arsenal.

Ways I've seen it done: A dog-eared book the diabolist carried with her full of phrases ready to force-activate. This allowed plenty of space for writing in the group's true names. Weather and water can mess this up, though.
Just about any stackable small objects can work for a ward arsenal. I've seen diabolists with dog-tag-like metal tabs covered in ward phrases that could be tied on to an object, a pad of sticky-notes (in Rifts), a deck of playing cards, large coins, and thin tree bark (the latter is more of an "in a pinch" medium, but it can work fine).

The most-recent diabolist I created was an N.P.C. who carried his ward arsenal on thin wooden panels that he could tuck into slots on his walking stick. These were generally area-effect infliction ward phrases, and he preferred to incapacitate enemies and attackers with these wards. Then he'd give them some funky drugs to allow him plenty of time to tie them up, get away, turn them into addicts/minions, or anaesthetize and murder them with a death infliction ward or poison. Meanwhile, he'd leave allies incapacitated by his AoE force-activated wards alone, so they'd wake up to find their enemies either tied up, subservient, on a drug trip, or dead with hardly any sign of violence.

For some reason a book never occurred to me but good to hear! I was thinking they had to be on something more dense like your thin panels idea.
Not sure if you feel the same but my interpretation of the rules, at this point, is that only one infliction is allowed per ward phrase. Otherwise it seems like things can get out of hand pretty quickly and negates some need for "multiple wards."
Your N.P.C. sounds like someone I'd like to GM through a game or run a sword through quickly if faced as an enemy! : )

You may be right about the solid object criteria; I honestly don't remember. If it's an issue, you could always do something like a board book.

I agree on the "one infliction per ward phrase" guideline.

As for the N.P.C., what I gave you was just the tip of the iceberg. I made him to be a totally nonviolent villain. Dude doesn't even have a hand-to-hand skill and will not strike another living person, not even in self-defense. And he's scary. That bit I described is insignificant next to what he's planning to do.

I play 1e so have been going by that to get my interpretation of Wards. However, I just read the 2e Diabolist and it sure clears up a lot of the confusion and questions I had.

It seems all AoE wards have to be on large stationary objects or surfaces so my thinking of waking into combat with plank boards setting off AoE's won't work. It describes this in 1e but is very clear in 2e.

Having said that I'm still interested in hearing how others have created their "arsenals," and how they use them.

Cheers.

I was under the understanding that one couldn't walk into combat carrying energized wards, but that fixing wards on a portable object and energizing/activating them in the moment was fine. Perhaps I need to re-read the text.

Well, essentially a ward arsenal is any set of wards, created by the diabolist, that haven't yet been energized. They can be in most any form.

-Vek
"And arsenal doesn't always mean weapons, although it should."

I just read through the 2E diabolist section, and I don't see an issue with the "inscribed on some portable panels" approach. The ward arsenal book is a bit more iffy. They can't be painted on a fabric to be unrolled, and this is rather like the concept of the ward arsenal book. Do you have a reference for the AoE limit you mentioned?

I think it was reading these in 2e:

Some Ward Limitations & Reminders:

Wards cannot be placed on any object that is handled frequently.

Area Affect Wards

Such wards can be placed on large stationary objects such as floors, walls, ceilings, archways, locked doors, large trunks, crates, and so on, but not items that are frequently used or carried.

In first edition it says:

Area Affect Wards

They can be placed on large immobile objects such as floors, walls, door ways, ceilings, etc, but no on portable items...



However, then it says this in 2e:

Limitations: Area effect wards can only be placed on immobile or stationary objects, because the area affected becomes magically centered on the spot where the ward is first activated, not on the ward or the object itself. If the warded object is moved, it goes off instantly, affecting that area. Tossing the object away will not change/move the area currently being affected. Only the Diabolist who made the wards can move the object without causing them to go off. Area affect wards will not work if placed on a living being or cloth/fabric.

So these statements seem contradict each other. But the "limitations," makes it sound like the plank idea would work.

In the context of those quotes, I interpret "place on" to mean "placed on and empowered." In the context of the diabolist energizing and force-activating AoE effect wards on his staff, I don't see a problem. There's a passage in there describing how many diabolists paint un-energized wards on personal possessions, which look scary to other people but aren't a threat since they aren't energized.

So in this case, a diabolist can take a prepared, but un-energized ward phrase, energize it, and force-activate it. It costs some extra PPE and might involve two actions (one to energize, one to activate), but it should work.

Hey Hotrod,

I certainly won't argue how someone interprets the writing. Personally, I would prefer that AoE wards can be placed on potable planks, etc, just to make adventuring a little easier for the diabolists.

Once again, some in-game examples of arsenals would be interesting hear about from the peeps here.

Cheers.

Here's another ward arsenal trick I saw a few years ago: When sneaking into an enemy stronghold, apply (but don't energize) a ward phrase on each door you pass on the way in. If you have to run away, pause for a moment to energize one of these ward phrases on the way out. If the ward is inscribed on the side that doesn't face your pursuers, they'll almost certainly trigger the ward phrase. Alternately, have your wards face towards the pursuers and activate the first door's wards and place wards on subsequent doors, but don't activate them. Your pursuers will become very reluctant to press forwards after dealing with the consequences of the first door if they can see wards on subsequent doors.

It's funny you mention that. We played the other day and the group had the choice of closing a door and running or face an encounter in a room. They chose to stay and fight. But, after I was thinking if they chose to flee and draw them out a diabolist could have trapped the door and any pursuing baddies would've faced a prepped ward.

We always used to play what looking back now seem quite hardcore rules. That any and all wards had to be created and activated on the fly. Really limited my diabolist in the normal run of play, but forced me to try to plan encounters and/or exploration as much as possible.

Made for a really big sense of achievement if I managed to survive more than a couple of levels, too!

The issue is the definition is different depending on whom you ask. My definition is the literal sheaf of papers you pull-out, stick down or on a wall, etc., and activate. I had a GM that insisted that all wards had to be drawn when used. He didn't like the "magic landmine" of a pre-made ward phrase.
In one game, I had the rail of a ship heavily warded with death / pain / energy AoE wards. We had a pirate ship pull aside and attempt to board us... I don't remember anyone more than a small handful of them surviving in something in excess of 144 dice of damage...because they were set to do damage to evil characters only. (Some of the crew had to stay as far from the rail as possible while the wards were active...)
Some of my gnome's typical ward arsenal was as follows:
Protection from + Fire + Power (7PPE, 1/6 damage normal fire, 1/4 damage magic fire)
Protection from + Magic + Power (7PPE, +4 vs Magic)
Protection by Infliction + Cold +Power + Area of Effect (10PPE, Triggered by exposure to extreme/magical fire/heat - Protects by infliction of an aura of extreme cold)
Trap phrase: Magic + Unbridled Forces + Power + Peace + Afflict + Invisibility + Sleep + Soul + Alarm (14PPE?, Triggering victim is rendered asleep, immobile and invisible, and the Diabolist is notified the trap was triggered)

In one encounter, the party he was a member of managed to obtain some dragon bone. He managed to carve a ring with a flat "bed." Two ward phrases were inscribed around the face of the ring:
1) Area of Effect + Protection from + Magic (+4 vs Magic)
2) Triggered by + Magic / Supernatural + Protection from + Energy (1/4 damage)
The face of the ring had a Permanence ward carved into it.

I had wards to be able to be carved onto special tiles, that could fit together like jigsaw pieces. The diabolist would predraw them and then fit them together as he saw fit, with a chance of failure if he put a ward phrase together that had more wards than his level, and the chance of failure including the chance of them going up in his face and effecting everything in a certain radius.

Also from what I remember of wards the wards can only be made to not effect someone unless their true name is inscribed into the ward sequence, so you can make it so a ward sequence will only go off if an evil person enters the radius of effect, but everyone in that radius will take damage unless their true name is part of the ward sequence.

If you can't pre-draw wards, then the entire concept of having a ward arsenal (which is a think in the book) would be pointless.

You can have an arsenal, Top of page 122 under ward Energizing

Was there ever any official clarification on this? Seems strange it would be left a bit ambiguous after all this time.

What's great about this class is that it helps separate PF from D&D as a world and system.

So, here's my take on the Ward Arsenal.

Your limits are on energized wards per day. However, you can pre-scribe most of your runes (and the idea of hex tiles with ward symbols on them, arranged into phrases, is pretty great; slap down some glue and make magnetic poetry).

Now, one of my diabolists liked to carry a shield, with several, unactivated, area affect wards on the inside. Get into a scrap? Take cover for a moment, activate the wards... then force-activate them. Hey, look, that area just turned into an inferno of fire that has absolutely no effect on the diabolist.

any similar ideas for summoner prep, like carpets with pre-drawn sealed protection circles?

I don't think circle arsenals are a thing like ward arsenals are.

Best one I used for a summoner was a flying castle.
The moving island out of first ed high seas also works nicely for water campaigns.

I think circles should on a ship are ok, but otherwise they’re not really portable. I don’t remember the reference, though.

So, we had a summoner whose preferred mode of travel was a wagon. Like, Congesto-style, open platform that you can cover with a cloth top. Worked really well for circles. I would not allow a carpet without a SIGNIFICANT investment, except, perhaps, of some of the circles that can be drawn in anything.

Mark - would you consider a specially commissioned rug with specialised threads (like silver, etc.)?

I wrote-up a killer power circle combination centred on a Power Matrix circle, which allowed the user to levitate and "fly." Had several other functions as well.

Basically, I'd require the summoner to be the rug-maker, and to score really well on making it (using my skill rules, I'd likely set a high success threshold for the work).

So, let's look at the Power Matrix idea. First of all, you have to use gold thread to embroider or weave your central rug... that is going to be a LOT of gold. My rule of thumb for circles is 1 pound of material per foot of diameter; doing it in thread, I'd probably push that to 1.5 or 2 pounds per foot of diameter (for all intents and purposes, I would count the longest axis of the Power Matrix as the diameter). You're going to need to either weave the rug yourself, or embroider it carefully if you want to make sure you make no mistakes. Because if that carpet shifts, and a gap that you hadn't noticed opens up? You could wind up in a world of trouble.

Now, that's just for a single circle; with a power matrix, you're going to need a rug that has several circles worked into it. It's going to need to be large enough to stand on comfortably. And, while it can be rolled, it is going to be HEAVY. And not properly shutting the circles down before rolling it could case the same issues.

Hmmm...sounds like I'll have to leave it with my original idea of stone with a permanency ward.
(Alternatively, I at one time thought a REALLY big sheet of paper, and at least one of the runes being in silver ink...)

Parchment, not paper. That big of parchment is going to be a neat trick, since you make it out of skin.

Find a REALLY big sheep or goat...
Maybe one from a "Heroic" realm where the animals are all 5x larger than normal?

That being said, the text does use parchment and paper interchangeably.
Also, for the life of me, I can not remember where, but I've seen mentions of using silver runes on paper to make it indestructible.

This brings to mind a couple things in PF2....

Pg 258 has a Flying Carpet which could deal with the problem of needing to carry a rug. Not much in the way of SDC but there are probably ways to buff that. VERY expensive just as a base cost before we even hypothesize about stuff like potentially applying pg 249 armor enhancements to soemthing like a carpet.

Poor-mage options would be more like
*pg 191 Levitation or Weioghtlessness
*pg 192 Float in Air
*pg 197 Fly

This is where a party working together, or multi-class casters like Alchemists/Gods can really excel, and we should probably expect that a lot of them do this sort of combination. The diabolist ones in particular probably have some of this permanence-warded w/ demon bones either for their own or minions' use.