Casting and Advantage

[mattchandronait]

Seemingly simple question: can casting gain advantage? For example, does a successful cast of Dart gain advantage the same way a successful melee hit does? Our GM and I were trying to interpret the rules and came to an impasse. He eventually ruled that it doesn't gain advantage because magic has other bonuses that, say, firing an arrow doesn't. Which makes sense to me, but while I was searching for the answer here and reading threads I saw a lot of posts about casters building advantage so that even spells like Dart can become effective in combat, but it wasn't clear to me if folks were talking about using other methods (like perhaps dodge or melee attacks, or passing with leadership) to build advantage or if they were using their spells to build said advantage. Apologies if I've simply overlooked the answer here!

[Shambler]

Hi! Page 236 of the rulebook says (on the bottom right) that advantage in combat applies to casting tests. It even gives another way of gaining advantage (if the target already has a spell from the same lore successfully cast on it the same round). And page 164 says you gain 1 advantage when you damage an opponent without an opposed test. So yes, if you damage your target by casting dart on it, you gain advantage.
Hope that helps. Of course, houserules supercede that. And you should consider limiting the amount of advantage one can has (I-Bonus e.g.).

[mattchandronait]

Okay, that part on page 164 about damaging an opponent without an opposed test definitely seemed to me to apply to casting, too, but when we were discussing it my GM disagreed. I was Googling around looking for some kind of definitive answer, but the fact that I didn't see a lot of people asking this question in places makes me think that it's supposed to be kind of an obvious/simple answer and is already in the rules, we were just reading too much into it!

Also, yeah, we saw the box on page 236 you're referring to. I assume an example to gain that additional advantage would be like if two red wizards cast a spell in the same round then that second wizard could perhaps gain +2 advantage: one if they damaged their target and another for, as it says, if the first wizard was also successful afflicting the target with a red wind spell. I got that right?

Thanks much for the reply!

[Orin J.]

the rule on page 236 requires you both be targeting the same thing. you gain the first advantage when you target them (which affects your casting roll) and then the second when you inflict damage.

[Shambler]

Okay, that part on page 164 about damaging an opponent without an opposed test definitely seemed to me to apply to casting, too, but when we were discussing it my GM disagreed. I was Googling around looking for some kind of definitive answer, but the fact that I didn't see a lot of people asking this question in places makes me think that it's supposed to be kind of an obvious/simple answer and is already in the rules, we were just reading too much into it!

Also, yeah, we saw the box on page 236 you're referring to. I assume an example to gain that additional advantage would be like if two red wizards cast a spell in the same round then that second wizard could perhaps gain +2 advantage: one if they damaged their target and another for, as it says, if the first wizard was also successful afflicting the target with a red wind spell. I got that right?

Thanks much for the reply!

Hmm, from how I read it, I find the rules to be rather obvious. So, your GM is of course in his rights to change that rule but I really don't see how he can interpret those text passages differently. On the other hand, English is not my mother tongue, so who knows?

And for the example you gave on gaining two advantages: yes, that's how I understand it too.

[adambeyoncelowe]

If that rule (causing damage without an Opposed Test) didn't apply to magic, it would be more specific. E.g., 'causing damage with a Ranged attack'. It's broad for a reason.

[Visitor Q]

When you look at the CN of some of the higher level spells my thought was that the design of the system was meant to be a magic user builds up their advantage through lower level spells and then unleashes the really powerful stuff.

If a caster can't build advantage I don't really know how the higher level spells ever get cast.

[Orin J.]

When you look at the CN of some of the higher level spells my thought was that the design of the system was meant to be a magic user builds up their advantage through lower level spells and then unleashes the really powerful stuff.

If a caster can't build advantage I don't really know how the higher level spells ever get cast.

channeling and a party that takes too long resolving combat, that's how.

[adambeyoncelowe]

Yeah. Magic is not a new problem, sadly. It's been talked to death but there isn't one easy solution, as people disagree on whether it needs to be more or less powerful, and which parts therefore need more or less juice.