The Dresden Files > DFRPG
Earth magic responsible for weapons skill?
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: Sanctaphrax on May 20, 2019, 09:22:57 PM ---Discipline and control, not Conviction and power.
Anyway, it's probably okay at 2 Refresh. But as Mr. Death says, those control bonuses are a big deal.
--- End quote ---
Honestly, I wouldn't allow it at all.
With the way it stacks the already hefty bonuses to Evocation, there's no reason any spell-slinger wouldn't take this and immediately be able to completely dominate in a straight fight.
Sanctaphrax:
Four weapon 9 accuracy 10 sight-ranged (potentially zone-wide) attacks is in most battles much stronger than an unlimited number of weapon 3 accuracy 10 weapon-ranged attacks.
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---At that point it hardly matters what the weapon rating is, since most monsters' dodge skills top out at 3.
--- End quote ---
Really? I thought that dodging was based on the Athletics skill, and that it got a bonus for speed powers.
--- Quote ---This isn't a mere skill substitution. It's allowing for high-powered, free attacks that would not be possible otherwise.
--- End quote ---
No. It's upping the power of attacks that would definitely be possible otherwise. If you don't have a sword, then you can't attack your monsters with a sword. If you have a broken wrist, that should be compellable to make a punch not possible.
If this power is such a game-breaker, you're not being particularly creative with your monsters.
--- Quote ---With the way it stacks the already hefty bonuses to Evocation, there's no reason any spell-slinger wouldn't take this and immediately be able to completely dominate in a straight fight.
--- End quote ---
Because wizards and such tend to be rather short on refresh, and there are other things they can spend it on. (Also because some people care about giving their character appropriate powers rather than just strong ones.)
--- Quote ---Anyway, it's probably okay at 2 Refresh.
--- End quote ---
Okay, I don't mind making it 2 refresh.
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 21, 2019, 12:20:56 PM ---Really? I thought that dodging was based on the Athletics skill, and that it got a bonus for speed powers.
--- End quote ---
Check Our World sometime; the average monster is statted so that its dodge is at 3, with Ghouls and a couple others something of an outlier at 4 and 5.
And the Speed bonuses top out at +3; so even if a monster is starting from a 5 in Athletics, every attack the person with this stunt throws can be 2 above that.
--- Quote ---No. It's upping the power of attacks that would definitely be possible otherwise. If you don't have a sword, they can't attack your monsters with a sword. If you have a broken wrist, that should be compellable to make a punch not possible.
If this power is such a game-breaker, you're not being particularly creative with your monsters.
--- End quote ---
It's not possible to have 10-base attack rolls for something without taking stress for each attack.
And if you have to rewrite all the monsters in the game to accommodate it, yes, it's a game-breaker.
--- Quote ---Because wizards and such tend to be rather short on refresh, and there are other things they can spend it on. (Also because some people care about giving their character appropriate powers rather than just strong ones.)
--- End quote ---
One of the caster's few weaknesses is that their stress tracks effectively limit how many big attacks they can pull off, especially as they might want to use that stress for maneuvers or blocks instead.
This effectively removes that limit, and given how the attack roll stacks damage on top of the weapon roll, that's a pretty big deal, especially since further refinements can keep stacking it.
It also means the four refresh you'd have to divide between attacking and defending are completely free to defend, lessening the burden of the Paranet Papers' suggestion of using instant spells for defense rolls.
--- Quote from: Sanctaphrax on May 21, 2019, 04:28:11 AM ---Four weapon 9 accuracy 10 sight-ranged (potentially zone-wide) attacks is in most battles much stronger than an unlimited number of weapon 3 accuracy 10 weapon-ranged attacks.
--- End quote ---
Maybe, but there's still a functional limit and real risk associated with it. Evocation is powerful, sure, and it's supposed to be, but it's also not supposed to be something you can use all day.
I mean, look at Breath Weapon, which would work similarly to this. For one, it's only Weapon:2, and it doesn't allow for a bunch of stacked bonuses to make it auto-hit every round.
Mr. Death:
Looking at the actual passage, it says
--- Quote ---Instead of some
electromagnetic distortion zapping people, an
earth attack might look as though the wizard
was really, really good at hand-to-hand fighting,
always managing to slip past the opponent’s
defense.
--- End quote ---
I honestly don't see any reason you couldn't represent that by just rolling an Earth evocation like normal and flavoring it as him using the sword, because that's more what it seems to be saying.
I had a warden NPC of the Eastern school of magic that used her metal evocations the same way.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version