Author Topic: How bad are the optional material components?  (Read 2985 times)

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the_shadowmind

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How bad are the optional material components?
« on: July 04, 2010, 01:12:49 AM »
How bad are the optional material components in the Complete Mage book(or other books if there are more)?  ???
And can a factotum make use of them, since factotums use material components for their SLA's ???

geniussavant

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Re: How bad are the optional material components?
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2010, 12:45:11 PM »
I would assume that because the factotum uses material components that they could use optional components, but that is just my interpretation....

I have used the components a few times, and as long as they are relatively hard to get, they work great. If they are easy to get a hold of, they can cause problems. tjmot....
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Bozwevial

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Re: How bad are the optional material components?
« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2010, 03:10:13 PM »
Bah, those components? They won't cause any problems, even if you can buy them from a street vendor. You need one dose per level of the spell you cast and all they really do is make the spell bigger/longer/slightly harder to resist/in one case a move action faster. Hell, primal essence is worthless if you actually buy it--it costs 150 gp for enough essence to substitute for 100 gp worth of components, which means that the only reason to use it is that you found the stuff somewhere.

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: How bad are the optional material components?
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2010, 07:55:53 PM »
Hell, primal essence is worthless if you actually buy it--it costs 150 gp for enough essence to substitute for 100 gp worth of components, which means that the only reason to use it is that you found the stuff somewhere.
Well, theoretically you could craft it, and it does give a bit of versitality for people who have a lot of expensive material component spells to cast
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Bozwevial

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Re: How bad are the optional material components?
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2010, 08:01:36 PM »
Hell, primal essence is worthless if you actually buy it--it costs 150 gp for enough essence to substitute for 100 gp worth of components, which means that the only reason to use it is that you found the stuff somewhere.
Well, theoretically you could craft it, and it does give a bit of versitality for people who have a lot of expensive material component spells to cast
I don't know about crafting it...maybe harvesting the stuff from the Ethereal Plane.

veekie

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Re: How bad are the optional material components?
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2010, 01:27:14 AM »
Bit too unreliable for my taste, since they don't always work either.
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Bozwevial

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Re: How bad are the optional material components?
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2010, 03:44:17 AM »
Bit too unreliable for my taste, since they don't always work either.

You're thinking of the UA optional components.

Viletta Vadim

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Re: How bad are the optional material components?
« Reply #7 on: July 05, 2010, 01:26:05 PM »
You're thinking of the UA optional components.
Quite a few of the optional components from BoED and the like have an X% chance of working.

Bozwevial

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Re: How bad are the optional material components?
« Reply #8 on: July 05, 2010, 02:12:52 PM »
You're thinking of the UA optional components.
Quite a few of the optional components from BoED and the like have an X% chance of working.
Yes, but the Complete Mage components don't have that chance of failure. Unless, of course, you use too little of them, in which case they're expended without effect.