Nullifying ongoing magic effects
Nomenclature
In universe, Scarterrans refer to beneficial ongoing magic as "augmentations" or "enhancements" and harmful ongoing magic has "hexes" or "curses". Out of character, players and game masters tend to call these things "buffs" and "de-buffs".
The basics of nullifying ongoing spells
"Dispel magic" from the
Arcane Abjuration Spell list will nullify all magic in a five-foot radius. "Reactive Dispel Magic" works exactly the same way as except it may be cast as a B-action. "Greater Dispel Magic" works exactly the same way as "Dispel Magic" except it is cast at -1 difficulty.
Divine Purification ●●● only removes mind control and mental hexes. Purification ●●●● removed all magic from a subject. Purification affects one person or beast and anything they are wearing or carrying.
A lack of precision
In all these cases, the dispelling of magic effects is nondiscriminatory. It wipes out good and bad with the exact same efficiency. In other words it wipes out buffs and de-buffs alike.
You can use dispel magic and purification magic to remove de-buffs from yourself and your allies and you can use dispel magic and purification magic to remove buffs from your enemies.
If you have two rival groups fighting and both groups have lots of magic, there is a good chance that multiple combatants will end up with buffs and de-buffs on them concurrently. You cannot target an enemy or ally and only target the spells you don't like and leave the rest. The following dice rules do not care whether the magic they are removing is helpful or harmful.
Some buffs and de-buffs target a specific person or a specific object, we are going to call these Type 1 spells. Others target several people, either multiple specified targets or everyone in an area of effect, we are going to call these Type 2 spells.
One success is all that is required to completely remove the buff or debuff from a person or object with a Type 2 spell. That said, if a Type 2 spell was initially cast on six people and only one person has the spell effect removed from them, the spell remains just as potent in the other five people.
Type 1 spells are more resilient. If the type 1 spell is originally cast with three successes, the dispeller must score at least three successes on his roll or
nothing happens to the magical effect all.. Remember that spells that are cast from wands, potions, scrolls or other stored magic
always create three success effects.
These means if you have two groups casting magic at each other and their aliles while also occasionally dispelling magic, you have to keep track of what all your type 1 spells were originally cast at.
Lets say the enemy you are fighting has Stone Skin on himself with six successes, shield with four successes, A potion of Blur and is subject to a hostile Type 2 spell.
If you cast dispel magic at him with one or two successes you are only going to remove the Type 2 spell. If you get three successes you are going to hit the Type 2 spell and the Blur. If you get Four or five successes than you knock out the Shield, Blur, and Type 2 spell. If you roll six successes, you get everything.
In the above scenario, it doesn't matter if you roll four or five successes several times in a row, the Stone Skin is going to stay in place until the spell duration ends normally.
Oh wait, there is an exception
The Fourth Circle Abjuration spell "Remove Curse" removes harmful de-buffs but leaves beneficial buffs untouched. You still need to meet the same success thresholds as a normal dispel magic attempt though. A divine caster can mimic this arcane spell's effect with Purification ●●●●●. In no case can this be used to remove beneficial spell effects from an enemy.
Oh Wait, there is another exception
Regular all purpose dispel or purification effects cannot wear down a very well cast spell with repeated castings, they are all or nothing.
If you have a spell or effect that counters very specific magic as opposed to countering all magic, you
can achieve a partial success. An invisiblity purge spell cast with three successes against a five success invisibility spell with turn it into a two success invisibility spell. That means a second casting of invisibility purge will probably knock it out.
Note, that counterspells of this nature are fairly rare in Scarterra D10.
Nullifying Magic Items
Divine Purification magic has no effect on magic items. There is nothing to purify because magic is intrinsic to magic items.
Dispel magic has limited effect on many magical items
Scrolls, potions and similar one-use magic items are functionally immune to magical dispel them.
It is difficult but not impossible to target a permanent magic item with a dispelling effect and achieve limited results.
You cannot affect magic items with an area of effect with the Dispel Magic, you have to specific cast all your dispelling effort on
one object, a sword, suit of armor, magic ring etc. It must be in clear line of sight of the caster and it must be with ten yards of the caster. The magical item is rendered inert for one cinematic combat turn (30 seconds) per two successes rounded up. It doesn't make the item
useless, a magical sword becomes a perfectly functioning non-magical sword and it retains a magical weapon's resistance towards mundane breakage, it just loses any other special traits it had for that duration.
A wand or other magical item with charges in it probably does become useless. Without its magic, a wand is just a stick. The wand of course becomes a stick for however long the dispelling effect remains in duration, but the wand is unharmed, it doesn't lose charges or anything.
If you use the spell "Greater Dispel Magic" it will nullify magic items for a full 30 seconds per success rolled.
Dispelling a spell as it is being cast
This does not work with divine Purification magic, you must have the Abjuration spell Dispel Magic or one of its improved variants.
If you cast a dispelling effect at an enemy spell
at the same moment the spell is being cast, the dispeller's successes remove the enemy's spell successes on a one-for-one basis. You do not have to meet or exceed the enemy to have an effect.
If a dispeller rolls three successes against a four success invocation, it becomes a one success invocation...much less deadly, but not completely harmless.
Am Abjurer wth Dispel Magic or Greater Dispel Magic must declare a targeted dispel action and then hold his A-action until an enemy tries to cast something. If at the end of the round, no one casted a spell for him to dispel, he can roll Wits reflexively difficulty 6 to instead cast an ongoing dispel or roll Wits difficulty 8 to cast a different spell entirely.
An Abjurer with the spell Reactive Dispel Magic or Greater Reactive Dispel Magic can swap out any unused action on the fly to dispel something even if she declared something different.
For the Masters of Divine Protection Magic
Divine Protection ●●●●● is pretty versatile able to mimic multiple spell effects but still costing five mana a pop no matter what effect you are going with.
You can mimic "Greater Dispel Magic" and enjoy the same -1 difficulty bonus, stacking with a relevant bonus for a favored sphere if applicable. This can be applied to ongoing spells or at the moment of casting the same way as the arcane spell.
Alternatively you can mimic "Reactive Dispel Magic" casting a dispelling effect as a B action casting the spell at normal difficulty.
You can mimic "Remove Curse", at a +1 difficulty penalty.
You can temporarily nullify a magical item as regular "Dispel Magic" does at normal difficulty.
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