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I was looking through the Nethermancer spells, and trying to figure out how some of the spells would be synergistic with each other. I am also wondering what other great Talent / Spells combo's were out there.

My understanding is that "Fog of Fear" normally takes 3 rounds / actions to achieve anything. One round to pull the thread. One round to cast it, which causes the fog to form but does no other effect, and the third and subsequent rounds you may make Frighten tests against any opponents unwise enough to stay in the fog. My interpretation (and I would be interested in hearing discussion) is that each person in the fog is a separate target. So you would make one roll for each target. Each karma spent would only effect one of the rolls. If a 5th circle nethermancer spent a karma to add +2 to the penalty, it would only effect one target per karma spent.

Deaths head turns Frighten into a Simple action. The interesting thing here is that the rules state that there is no theoretical limit to the number of simple actions you can take in a round. So theoretically you could take an unlimited number of simple actions to Frighten everybody in LOS. I think it would be most reasonable to say that you can take One Frighten simple action per turn.

The Synergy of these two is obvious and powerful. You could cast Deaths Head on oneself, then immediately take your simple Frighten action. Then pull a thread for fog of fear, and take your free Frighten simple action on anybody in LOS. Then cast FoF and immediately take your simple Frighten action before anybody has a chance to get out of the effected area! So that seems like a winning combination!

Aspect of the Menacing Tyrant seems like it would give a +6 bonus to Frighten tests. That should be enough for at least an extra success, and since each extra success is a further -2 penalty, that is very powerful. Of course the downside is that having all 3 of these spells, while very powerful, would use up three spell matrices. You probably want to have SOMETHING other than these spells in your matrix. Still, AotMT plus Deaths Head would be an extremely powerful combo.
The other thing is that it looks like Aspect of the Menacing Tyrant can't be cast on yourself. The spell requires "The magician ... kneels before the target". And since " If the magician is not able to perform the required actions ... he cannot cast the spell". Since nobody can kneel before themselves, I guess the spell can't be cast on oneself. Discussion?


So what are some other good synergies? I know that there are single spells that buff things like silent walk and avoid blow, but what about other whole groups of spells that all perform different buffs to the same talent making it much more powerful? What other powerful synergies are out there?

Aspect of the Menacing Tyrant can be used on the casting it magician, he simply kneels.

Fog of fear. There is only one Frighten test compared to MD of all targets. Some will be more frightened than others, while some wont be affected at all.

I don't think kneeling is the same as being knelt in front of -- the Nethermancer kneels in front of the target to give them the aspect of, you know, a menacing tyrant, which is necessary to bind the correct kind of spirit into them. I don't think that kind of spirit would bind itself to someone who was, themselves, kneeling... so I think Chris is right. You can't cast Aspect of the Menacing Tyrant on yourself.

But I do agree with Razan's reading on Fog of Fear and Frighten. You weave Fog of Fear, cast the spell, and then on the third round you can use Frighten. You make one roll, which is compared separately to the Mystic Defenses of everybody caught in the Fog, giving them that -2 penalty to all tests per success -- so if you roll, say, a 14 on your Frighten Test, you'll give a -2 to anybody with a Mystic Defense from 9-14, and a -4 to anybody with a Mystic Defense of 8 or less, and, of course, anyone with an MD of 15+ would be unaffected.

I do see how Death's Head would let you roll your Frighten Test in the same round you finished casting the Fog of Fear. On the one hand, that's significant in that it doesn't give people time to move out of the Fog. On the other hand.. well, it's still on round 3. It's just instead of Weave FoF > Cast FoF > Frighten, now it's Cast DH > Weave FoF > Cast FoF and Frighten.

Well IMB no Warden/Master circle Nethermancer that created such spell would miss the fact it works best with his talent (most spells were created by high circle adepts). So yes "simply kneeling" is like victory pose.

something like that:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo ... /162983866

Like Warrior-Weaponsmith: "look I enchanted powerful sword, but only someone else can use it".

And once again, any other good synergies out there where 2 or 3 spells all improve the same talent?