When the mage touches a cleric while this spell is in effect, the target cleric is drained of 1d4 ranks of spells (1d6 at rank 10, 1d8 at rank 15, 1d10 at rank 20 and 1d12 at rank 22). If the cleric has no spells remaining, then the spell has no effect. If the cleric gets critical success or better on their save, no spells are drained.
Drained spells are determined randomly. For example, if the mage successfully drains 3 levels of spells, the GM will roll 1d3 to determine what level spell was drained. If he rolls a 1, then the cleric loses a 1st level spell and the GM rolls 1d2 to determine additional spell loss until 3 levels of spells have been drained. Thus, the cleric could lose a 3rd level spell, a 1st and 2nd level spell, or three 1st level spells. Exact spells lost are also determined randomly.
Note that the duration of this spell refers to how long the mage can continue to touch clerics and drain their spells, not the duration that the spells are drained. The drained spells must be recovered/prayed for normally.
The mage can choose to cast this spell on an item, such as a weapon, in which case touching a cleric with the item will have the same effect. Thus, the mage can cast this spell on an ally's sword and when the sword hits a cleric, the cleric is drained. The duration is the same in either case (1 round per rank). Drained spells can be prayed for normally the following day.
Note that a target cleric can only be affected by this spell a maximum of once per round. Even if the attacker is able to attack and hit multiple times, only the first hit applies for the purpose of this spell. For example, Delana casts this spell on Harlan's spear and Harlan then engages in melee combat with a cleric. Harlan gets three attacks per round. He misses the cleric with the first hit. He hits the cleric with the second hit, does normal damage, and rolls a 3 for the number of spell levels drained. The cleric makes his save so he only loses two spell levels. On his third attack, Harlan also hits but the Drain Cleric spell has already resolved for this round so no additional spells are drained. |