Frequently Answered Questions
Magic Qs & As
General FAQ · Game Mechanics FAQ · Magic FAQ
No, you can't. If you fail mastery, you have failed. Sometimes, disengagement is a better option. And repression can be a good tactic, if avoiding delays is crucial.
What the encounter description implies is that if you see a Shifter and don't elect to repress or disengage, your only option is to engage, in which case you either succeed or don't.
No. The encounter occurs first, and if it makes you move somewhere else, the encounter is resolved, but you are in the new Dreamland. You may then cast a spell.
You cannot plan to cast a spell that would reduce you to 0 dream points or less. This will always result in an automatic spell failure. You may get to zero dream points by different ways: mastering a magic object (such as an enchanted healing potion...), failing against a Black Lotus, Whirlwind or Black Whirlwind, and spending 150% of spell cost due to a fumble.
You only make a dragon dream for the hour in which you rolled a dragon. If this does not result in an effect that forbids sleep, you may continue dreaming the next hour. You might wake up after the dragon dream, but this happens at some point in the hour, not during the full hour.
After dealing with - or being dealt with by - the Dragon, you go on sleeping and keep rolling for additional dream points - unless you already have reached or exceeded your Dream Threshold.
At what rate do you lose excess dream points? (pg. 18)
One point at the end of each day (the end of the Sleeping Castle hour).
Page 18: "End of Sleeping Castle. At the end of the hour of the Sleeping Castle, any character with dream points exceeding her Dream Threshold loses 1 dream point, until her dream stabilizes at the threshold. Note that stress conversion is rolled prior to ticking off any excess dream.
Yes. In the first edition, Draconic was a written (though not spoken) language. In the current edition, of course, it is a purely symbolic, personal language not DIRECTLY communicable in any form. Grimoires, therefore, only transmit knowledge indirectly - - I suppose it would be analogous to a fencing manual: only by actually fencing can you train your hand and eye to respond, say, with a parry in four to an attack in six, yet a fencing manual can help you on your way. I would say, therefore, that knowledge gained from grimoires is permanent - - i.e., a grimoire is not a "scroll". In fact, first edition had magic scrolls and these no longer exist in the second edition (current English edition).
Do you come out of the Dreamlands between each casting of the spell? Do you have to master any Dreamland you come to while casting it? (pg. 33)
Yes, these are absolute rules. Reading a magical object is a very tiring process.
The official rule is up to three.
The first casting tells you the Dreamland type, any specific sanctuary that has a spell cast on, and the details of any spell cast on your current sanctuary.
Then, you have to move to the next Dreamland type to get details about spells cast on it. If it was a Transfiguration (Mountains), you have to cast the spell on a Mountain to determine the specific mountain it was cast on (Burning Mountains, E5). If you are lucky to get to the correct mountain, you get the full details of the spell.
Then, if you still don't have the details of the spell, you have to move to the specific mountain (usually a long journey) and cast the spell one last time.
The other official rule is that when you cast a spell, your concentration is broken (excepted for reserved spells). So, for Read Aura, you come out of the Dreamlands every time (and remember that you can't reserve a ritual).
Counterspell Self is used to counter one's own Oneiros spells. Counter Own Illusions is used to counter Hypnos spells.
CSS is an Oneiros ritual (only) and COI is a Hypnos ritual (only). Still, the description does not strictly prevent you from using CSS on your own Hypnos spell, and vice-versa - - which it should.
Wrong. Dragons don't dream centimeters.
It is the size in grains. The same as the size used to determine the price of a gem (in Book Three, Alchemy).
Dragons don't dream zero either!
I suppose this was due to the fact you are usually considering the most pure to be the highest, hence the value of 7.
The second reason is the place occupied by the number seven in Rêve cosmology. Seven elements in the world; seven base colors (or heats) and seven consistencies (or textures) in alchemy;one chance out of seven to meet something in the Dreamlands; life is the seventh element; seven is a dragon's base dream when recovering dream points; seven days days in a week.
There's no need to put more than required. Only, sometimes, it takes longer to complete the various enchantments than expected, and since the object loses 1 dream point each morning (before Permanency is applied) a point or two extra is sometimes welcome...
Restoration is ONLY used to recharge an amulet of protection. For items that are not protection amulets, it is useless... Plus, it costs a point of Dream Threshold and is harder (d-6) than Enchantment (d -4).
Other magic items only require one active point before being made permanent.
You can continue to cast curses. As long as there is one point of possession, the victim is still considered as possessed, p. 57:
Possessions and curses may be detected by means of Read Aura and dispelled via Counterspell. Counterspelling a curse does not break the possession, but dispelling a possession automatically breaks any curses based on that possession. Just as possessions may be cast incrementally, they may be countered incrementally. In that case, so long as there is at least one point of possession, any dependent curses remain in effect.
These are the only ways to be sure. You might suspect that you are subject to a spell, if it is "logical" due to the effects of the spell of course. Also, some very rare individuals have gained the Dragon Gift of Witch Sight.
No, you only need to master the gem corresponding to the power. If it were all gems some magical items would be impossible to use.
Each effect must be mastered separately, BUT you can use a magic item with multiple effects even though you haven't mastered all of them. E.g., a sword that is efficient and casts, say, Magnetism (bou who wha ha ha ha), would allow its user to attempt to master the efficient function just by wielding it, even though he might not even realize it was magical. On the other hand, casting Magnetism would require that the user point the sword and imagine a magnetic effect (and a separate mastery roll).
When recovering dream during sleep, you roll a dragon die every hour to see how much dream you recover. This is a base of 7 points plus a d8-1 with 8 being 0, and 7 necessitating a reroll with the results of all rolls adding up in the end. On a 7 however, you summon a dragon. Right?
There are in fact two different dragon dice. To recover dream points, there is no base of 7.
So, if you roll 0 on the dice (either rolling d8-1, or considering 8 as a 0), you don't recover any dream points.
If you roll 7, this is a dragon dream. You roll again, until you don't roll 7s. The sum of all rolls is the the dragon dream total points. Therefore, a dragon dream can have from as low as 7 to much more dream points ...
It’s not unheard-of for a character to stand watch at night for an hour, then roll a 0 in their first hour of sleep, have a dragon dream in the next, and finally recover one or two points in their last hour of sleep. Sometimes it’s hard to recover all dream points in one night. For that reason, my players as a rule don’t require High Dreamers to keep watch at night. Now there’s an incentive to play one: you get to catch up on your sleep!
No. When you roll a dragon dream, you get NO points back from that hour, UNLESS you defeat the dragon (Book Two, p.18).
Nitouche has spent dream points today and is down from her threshold of 13, to 5 dream points. In the first hour of nocturnal sleep she rolls a ddr (a dragon die) and it comes up 2 (3 on a d8 minus 1). She now has 7 dream. The next hour she rolls a 7 (8 on the d8)!! A dragon dream! Her dragon has an initial Power of 7, and she'll now roll another ddr to determine its Power; she rolls another 7 (8 on the d8), and so has to roll AGAIN--an "open-ended up" roll as RoleMaster calls it, I believe), adding it's result to the previous 7. This time she rolls a 1 (natural 2 on the d8). Whew! Her dragon thus has a Power of 7+7+1=15. All of this took no game time, and furthermore she doesn't get any of those points; she's still at 7 dream points. She must roll 7 at -15 (modified by her best Draconic); chances are she has at least a Dragon Tail to look forward to, possibly worse. In any event, unless she defeats her dragon, she gets no dream points that hour.
The next hour, she gets to continue rolling her dream recovery. This time she rolls a 5, so she's up to 12. In her final hour of nocturnal sleep, she rolls again, coming up with a 6. She will awaken with 18 dream (5 above her Threshold), losing one point per day in the hour of the Sleeping Castle until she is back down to 13 dream points. She also probably now has an obsession or other Dragon Tail, or worse.
(This demonstrates, too, one of the Rêve magic system's great strengths: magicians in this game lose a great deal of free will in exchange for their power; something one often sees in literature but which many games ignore on a mechanical level).
