rumtap wrote:
Thanks for that.
It seems that holy water (or oil) is a lot more subtle in nature than I was thinking.
So if a player threw holy water over an undead/infernal/demonic creature would it:
just get wet?
inflict some damage? (1d4, 1d6, ?)
some other affect? I like the idea that it could send them into a berserk rage, perhaps with an intelligence test to resist?
a combination of the above
or a random affect? roll on a table to see what happens
Perhaps those with the priest secondary skill (I prefer to think of it as religion) get a bonus depending on their level?
So what does the group think?
I'd be reluctant to give Holy Water an obvious 'game effect'. My reasons for this are that I'm not sure it matches what we see of Legend. In the introduction to the 2008 edition, James Wallis wrote the following:
In Legend, human emotion is just as strong as magic. The scenario ‘A Box of Old Bones’, which originally appeared in White Dwarf magazine in 1985 and which is bound to re-emerge before long, makes it clear that the miracles associated with holy relics are sufficiently rare and vaguely manifested that a fake relic can go unnoticed for years, getting by on the strength of its placebo effect and the willingness of clergy and believers to collude in seeing evidence where they want to see it. Our rule was never to evoke magic if a non-supernatural plot point would do.and I think that matches Legend pretty well. The power of faith is not something that I think should be clear and unambiguous. So I wouldn't have holy water causing damage because that really makes it clear.
If I wanted a rules effect, I think I would do something like having
true holy water having an effect like reducing ATTACK, DEFENCE, MAGICAL ATTACK, and/or MAGICAL DEFENCE if it is used on an undead or demonic creature - especially one or both of the last two. These effects are ambiguous to the 'character' viewer (if not to the GM and players who can see the mathematics behind the scenes) - or maybe it makes them more susceptible to damage - once hit by holy water, they take an extra point of damage from any subsequent attacks.
This is, to an extent, based on type of effects relics have in the game.
I'd be inclined to go with a random table. I don't like the fact that it adds an additional roll to the game, but I like the idea that its unpredictable. I might also make it so the GM knows what effect the water had, but not the players.
So - perhaps roll 2d4
2: -1 to targets MAGICAL ATTACK and MAGICAL DEFENCE
3: -1 to targets MAGICAL ATTACK (or MAGICAL DEFENCE if they have no MAGICAL ATTACK)
4: -1 to targets MAGICAL DEFENCE
5: +1 damage from subsequent attacks
6: -1 to targets DEFENCE
7: -1 to targets ATTACK
8: -1 to targets ATTACK and DEFENCE
I think I might also say that if a creature can only be affected by magical weapons (or has a partial immunity to non-magical weapons) that if they are successfully hit with holy water, they become susceptible to damage from other weapons for 1d6 rounds).
I'm not sure this is particularly balanced - the idea is more important to me than the precise balance at this point, if others want to help refine it, that would be appreciated.
I would stress that I am talking about what I'd call
true holy water - I would say a lot of Holy Water is just water.
True Holy Water would be that that comes from particular identified springs associated with saints or other particular holiness, made in vessels associated with such things, or where the necessary ritual to make it holy has been performed by a priest of genuine strong faith (this last may not be a high barrier - I would say a lot of priests would be able to make it, but I would want it to be clear that just calling yourself a priest isn't enough because in my games, there are plenty of priests who really aren't that religious except for appearances sake - not necessarily bad people in any way, either, just not unusually pious, either.)