Sacrificing multiple animals at once?

[barna10]

Can a mage sacrifice and absorb the PPE from several animals at the same time? I don't see anything in the rules forbidding it.

My idea is to use Summon Rodents to summon a bunch of rats then burn them all at the same time (or within a minute of each other) to absorb all the PPE (2D4 each!, Nightbane main book, pg 68). At 30 rats per level, per summoning, that's not a bad return!

[Grug]

Hey Barna10, I don't think it states you can't in Nightbane, but I know in PFRPG, it's very much a one person/creature thing, because it is a ritual to draw the P.P.E., the character has to focus on the victim to absorb their P.P.E. at the moment of death. This is why they can not draw the P.P.E. from multipule people at once on a battlefield, they would have to go to each dying person and preform the ritual. Mysteries of Magic for PFRPG, has a lot of great info for this type of thing.

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

Not the first time I've seen this idea mentioned before.

I wouldn't allow it simply because you shouldn't be able to get more P.P.E. out of a spell than you invested into it.

A competent PF Alchemist or even just a Rifts Technowizard could rig up an apocalypse engine using a reciprocal rat summoning/murdering construct. How long would it take to gather up enough P.P.E. before you could crack a planet in half?

[barna10]

Not the first time I've seen this idea mentioned before.

I wouldn't allow it simply because you shouldn't be able to get more P.P.E. out of a spell than you invested into it.

A competent PF Alchemist or even just a Rifts Technowizard could rig up an apocalypse engine using a reciprocal rat summoning/murdering construct. How long would it take to gather up enough P.P.E. before you could crack a planet in half?

Interesting. Why do you day you can't get more PPE out of a spell than you put in? Also, what if you summoned a greater demon. I'm pretty sure they come equipped with more PPE than it takes to summon them.

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

If I was a wizard, I could probably answer that question.

Since I'm just a gamer geek, I'll just say that it's a quirk of the rules that can technically be exploited(I can't recall it being expressly forbidden anywhere) but makes little sense otherwise.

[Long Shadow]

I apologise ahead of time that I can't remember where I saw what I'm referencing. I had a player bring the exact same scheme to me and I remember pointing to a passage that indicated that for a ritual sacrifice the Mage can only focus on one sacrifice at a time and must deliver the killing blow. There was also some rule about how long that PPE could be held. When we did the numbers it turned out that the Mage would get to a certain amount before it started bleeding away, but it was never gather than the PPE that he originally expended.

ATM moment I don't have my book on me and it was a while back, so I can't give references but I believe it might have been within the Rifts Book of Magic.

[barna10]

I apologise ahead of time that I can't remember where I saw what I'm referencing. I had a player bring the exact same scheme to me and I remember pointing to a passage that indicated that for a ritual sacrifice the Mage can only focus on one sacrifice at a time and must deliver the killing blow. There was also some rule about how long that PPE could be held. When we did the numbers it turned out that the Mage would get to a certain amount before it started bleeding away, but it was never gather than the PPE that he originally expended.

ATM moment I don't have my book on me and it was a while back, so I can't give references but I believe it might have been within the Rifts Book of Magic.

What you are referring to is on page 21 of the Book of Magic and refers specifically to absorbing P.P.E. from the dying in combat, not a sacrifice. The only stipulations placed on a blood sacrifice, in the same passage, are that the mage needs to prepared for the release and within a certain distance.

Also, paxmiles mentioned about summoning "existing" rats. This may or may not be the case, but there is no limitation put on how far away the rats can be summoned from. Presumably, the spell could even be cast at the bottom of the sea, or in space! Not a huge population of local rats to draw from in either of those two cases! It's like summoning a demon, are you summoning one from the local ecosystem?

Also, paxmiles idea about the caster having to be evil is a bit humorous to me. Are you trying to say that a fantasy caster of any alignment would have qualms about killing rats? I think you need to put this into historical reference. Unless PETA is some sort of ancient secret society I have never thought about, one would have to have an insanity in most historical settings to argue that killing rats was evil. Also, even though the this idea is seen differently today, I doubt everyone would agree that killing a bunch of rats is "evil", even 100's of them.

[The Beast]

Can a mage sacrifice and absorb the PPE from several animals at the same time? I don't see anything in the rules forbidding it.

My idea is to use Summon Rodents to summon a bunch of rats then burn them all at the same time (or within a minute of each other) to absorb all the PPE (2D4 each!, Nightbane main book, pg 68). At 30 rats per level, per summoning, that's not a bar return!

AFAIK, as long as you're doing it as part of a ritual you're able to do what you're asking.