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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Watson on October 23, 2011, 08:04:38 AM
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As moving people and stuff with Evocation has been discussed (and used) in the books, I would like to be able to do it in the game as well. It should be possible to do, but certainly not safe. So here are my rules for rules in this regard (please comment!):
Evocation Move action
An Evocation that moves an object (can be the caster). Every 2 shifts of power moves a human-sized object one zone. All moves must be in a straight line. Every 3 shifts of power moves a "large" object (creature with Hulking Size) one zone. Every 4 shifts of power moves a very large object (like a car) one zone. Every Border crossed costs one additional shift of power. The Evocation causes physical stress on the target equal to the number of zones moved (to represent that the body is not meant to move that fast) plus one for each border crossed (to represent things like flying through a window). It is possible to reduce the stress generated by one for each additional shift of power. The target is normally resisting using Athletics.
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Why not just use the rules for moving someone via grapple for others, and moving yourself via Athletics for self-targeted movement spells?
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Evocation movement rules look good-ish, though they're a bit complex for my taste.
Would recommend changing the 1-shift/border thing to shifts equal to border value.
Why not to use Athletics movement rules: Too easy. Makes Evocation movement into an effective way to get around.
Why not to use grapple movement rules: Slow, which is not always appropriate. Also, magical grapples are a dangerous area for balance.
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the one or two times evocation has been used to move a car out of the way or something like that in my games, i've used the tables on page 321 for reference.
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When I wrote the rules, I had the scene at Bock's where Harry blasts one opponent through the window and and out across the street.
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If you go to the downloads (http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/downloads/) section on the DFRPG's website, there are some really useful links - some of which are from Rick Neal; that are well worth reading. One of them details how he'd make an Evocation Movement spell (http://www.rickneal.ca/?p=642), and I think it works well.
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Thanks for your take on this Watson. I like it.
I think grapples can be managed, but they really aren't effective for the kind of movement we are talking about. The movement of a grapple is almost like a side effect. If you're grappling something, then your primary desired effect should be the block, not the movement.
I never liked Rick Neal's solution for the same reason Sanctaphrax threw up for using the athletics rules. It's too easy, and makes it much better than simply moving. It's all too easy for a submerged character to throw 8-10 shift spells around. With that in mind you'd have mages throwing themselves (or others) across the map with ease. We're talking complete control of where most targets are at any given time (especially if you allow them to hit multiple targets, either by splitting shifts or zone-wide evocation).
Anyway, I really do like your solution Watson. Seems like it works.
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Well there's always the option for the GM to say no. In Rick Neal's formulation the movement is uncontrolled and dangerous; not the type of thing a sane Wizard would engage in regularly. If a Wizard PC wants to get a tactical advantage on an NPC or as a last resort to get himself or a companion to some crucial goal it works perfectly. If the Wizard is using it as a regular means of transportation you're more than justified to either refuse outright or hand the victim a fate point and state that the hapless Wizard has just sent them into the middle of Lake Michigan (or whatever local body of water would serve your purposes.)
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I never liked Rick Neal's solution for the same reason Sanctaphrax threw up for using the athletics rules. It's too easy, and makes it much better than simply moving. It's all too easy for a submerged character to throw 8-10 shift spells around.
Perhaps, but they can't throw them around for long.
Evocation Move action
Every 3 shifts of power moves a "large" object (creature with Hulking Size) one zone. Every 4 shifts of power moves a very large object (like a car) one zone.
I tend to rule that Hulking Size is car-sized or larger, so I'd fold these two options together, or possibly even switch the costs.
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Anyway, I really do like your solution Watson. Seems like it works.
Thanks very much, Sinker. As the characters do this type of Evocation in the books, I wanted it to be available in the game too.
I see it as a powerful force push. It shouldn't be too powerful if used on an enemy (compared to a regular Attack) and it should be dangerous enough for the caster in case he wants use it on himself.
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Hm.
After a bit of thought, I realize that this might or might not be abusable. It depends on how it works.
Question:
If I throw an 8 power push spell with 8 control at a normal-sized guy who defends with a Superb Athletics roll, what happens? Does his defense reduce the 4 zone push to a 1 zone push? Or a 2 zone push? And how much stress does he take?
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Hm.
After a bit of thought, I realize that this might or might not be abusable. It depends on how it works.
Question:
If I throw an 8 power push spell with 8 control at a normal-sized guy who defends with a Superb Athletics roll, what happens? Does his defense reduce the 4 zone push to a 1 zone push? Or a 2 zone push? And how much stress does he take?
It is a very good question. My initial thought is that as long as the "target roll" (i.e. the Discipline roll) is at least matching the defese roll, the evocation works as intended. If one compares with an Attack spell, the Weapon value is unaffected by the targets defense roll. So I would say 4 zones and 4 stress (if the same power would have been used to Attack, it would have been 8+3=13 stress and obviously no zones moved). Or is that too powerful? Other suggestions?
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You can also adjudicate "blast him into a different zip code" as a narrative device. If the target is taken out the result is, well, a long and annoying walk. If consequences are applied they should be appropriate to hitting solid objects at high speed, and stress is just stress.
If it's cast to try to get out of a conflict then it can be dealt with as a concession, just require the caster to take a mental consequence reflecting the extra effort he put into the casting.
Really, the only time zones moved becomes important is when the purpose of the spell is tactical within an ongoing conflict.
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That might be too powerful. A wizard who simply cast one of those force pushes every turn could completely shut down a melee fighter under some circumstances.
Narrating it as a take-out result would deny people the chance to do what Harry did to the Loup-Garou, which would be a shame.
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It certainly seems appropriate though. There is no other spell where the effect is reduced by the defense roll, why would we change that?
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Attacks are reduced in effect by defense rolls.
And if it makes things more balanced, then that's reason enough to deviate from the standard approach.
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Attacks are reduced in effect by defense rolls.
The shifts of the spell are never reduced even with attacks. The total shifts of effort may be decreased, but the shifts of the spell are never affected (unless you consider the spell missing as a reduction of shifts).
Seems like there are plenty of ways in which this spell can be worked around. If the wizard is casting this against a single target then any compatriots will be working against him in the meantime. If the wizard casts this spell zone-wide in their own zone then they go flying too. As long as the melee targets are in the same zone as the wizard (which they should be) then he's limited to one target at a time, and I think the wizard is on the loosing end of that one.
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Even if the fighters start in the same zone, the wizard can step back supplementally and shove the melee dude(s) away.
And if the melee dude(s) is/are pushed back at least 2 zones, he's/they're not attacking the wizard next turn.
So as long as the wizard can keep the pushes up, melee dude(s) is/are doing nothing of importance.
This is essentially the same as the kiting issue with Supernatural and Mythic Speed, actually.
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That's when the melee fighters get creative. Filling zones around the wizard and throwing up blocks to his movement (which a supplemental move would never surpass as it has no shifts of effort). A creative tactician can easily work around this.
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Also, consider that the target is blasted in a straight line - in a relatively closed environment, it might not be possible to move the target more than a single zone.
What I also wanted is to allow the caster to be able to cast this type of Evocation on himself (without being too powerful).
Using it on a whole zone is interesting - it is not what I intended and I think that would make it too powerful.
I have also think that the Evocation is quite balanced if using it to push a target a short distance directly into a solid object (sure, this could easily be solved by using a straight Attack, but I wanted the Move Action to be able to handle this as well). Let's say that a wizard want to push a target only one zone away, into a solid concrete wall (which we for the sake of this example have a border value of 20 = way higher than what the wizard can handle). The wizard summons two shifts to move a man-sized target on zone. Then there is the solid wall, so the target can not be pushed further. The wizard then adds 6 shifts of power to try to go through the wall (but obviously fails). The effect of the spell would be that, regardless of the defense roll of the target, the target suffers 7 shifts of stress (1 for the zone movement, plus 6 for the attempt to go through the wall = stress equal to the border value, regardless if the border is crossed or not). Compare that with an Attack spell of power 8, which generates 8 shifts of stress, plus any additional stress based on how much the caster beats the defense value (which is stress that is not added in the case of the Evocation Move action). I think that it still feels OK, what do you think?
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Even if the fighters start in the same zone, the wizard can step back supplementally and shove the melee dude(s) away.
And if the melee dude(s) is/are pushed back at least 2 zones, he's/they're not attacking the wizard next turn.
Of course, the caster is taking at least 1 mental stress every time, and if the melee dude(s) have knives or other throwing weapons they'd have to be chucked at least 3 zones to be made ineffective. Unless the spells are also causing stress to the melee fighters it's a losing proposition for the caster.
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Of course the spells are causing stress on the melee fighters. It says so in the OP.
And there really isn't much you can do about repeated pushes without compelling your target. Zone border won't work, because you need to be in close combat to do that if you don't have ranged combat capabilities.
I admit I'm being paranoid here, but the counter-arguments I've heard have been less than convincing.
PS: I think that the stress aspect here is quite balanced.
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Would it be better to do move evocations as Special Effect attacks, where the shifts of power of the spell go to movement and only movement, and the spillover shifts from the control roll - defense roll represent themselves as stress? Narratively a 0-sum attack roll still knocks them back (and into/through barriers) but does no stress out of blind luck (eg. a weak spot in the wall), while attack roll stress can be considered to come from the initial hit and hitting barriers.
Moving yourself, however, would be highly dangerous, because you would not be resisting, and therefore would have the potential to go too far (So beware the sum of your Control Roll and intended Shifts of power), and take damage if you go through a barrier or three (perhaps an Endurance roll to brace yourself for the impacts).
And the idea of a Zone-wide version brings to mind a large-scale Force Push, throwing people all in the same direction.
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Using it on a whole zone is interesting - it is not what I intended and I think that would make it too powerful.
Yeah, I wasn't sure either, however it's definitely something that should be addressed, 1) because all of the other evocation actions address how to extend them to more than one target, and 2) for the same reason you came up with this whole idea in the first place, people are going to envision throwing a bunch of thugs.
Something that occurs to me (and I'm not entirely sure about this) is that with multiple targets we could almost treat it like a spray attack, splitting shifts of effort between targets. I don't know if that would reduce it below even being effective, but it would certainly make it harder to knock a bunch of guys around.
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Something that occurs to me (and I'm not entirely sure about this) is that with multiple targets we could almost treat it like a spray attack, splitting shifts of effort between targets.
This could work. A power 8 Evocation Move action would either move one human-sized target 4 zones or two targets of the same size 2 zones each. Note that the targeting roll needs to be split as well (even though the targeting roll does nothing more than enabling the spell to hit the target - any extra shifts does nothing).
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Targeting question: I cast an 8-shift push, but I only roll 5 to control. I take 3 backlash to get the spell off. My opponent rolls an Athletics defence of 6. What happens?
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Targeting question: I cast an 8-shift push, but I only roll 5 to control. I take 3 backlash to get the spell off. My opponent rolls an Athletics defence of 6. What happens?
He defends. Any time the defense is higher than your targeting roll the effect is avoided.
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You sure?
I don't even think non-attack evocations even have targeting rolls. But this looked like an exception.
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Maneuvers are resisted. The only thing that isn't resisted is a block.
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Resisted, yeah. But I think you roll to resist the shifts, not the control roll.
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Hmm, you're right. I think I like the idea of a targeting roll for this one. Though I guess there's some advantage to doing it the other way.
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I like the idea of a targeting roll for this too, actually. These evocation pushes are very attack-like.
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I like the idea of a targeting roll as well. Think of it as an invisible hand pushing in a straight line - if the target moved away, it will miss.