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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: PolaroidNinja on November 05, 2011, 06:47:38 AM
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Hey guys, I'm about to start running a regular game soon, and I've been reading everything I possibly could about the game to learn.
My group and I played through the "Evil Acts" case file, and after we were all done I was left with a few questions.
Most of these I figured out by reading the rules and all the great resources on these forums and the blogs in the community. But one of the questions I have still that I can't seem to wrap my head around is about defensive evocation.
I just can't see why anyone would bother with defensive spells. Specifically, shields.
A shield is described in the rules as a evocation based block against damage, and as far as I can tell it is generally not a good idea to throw up a shield that can actually deflect bullets (with any sort of duration) than it would be to just use your magic to take out a gunner and then dodge the other shots as best as you can.
And in magic on magic combat, it seems almost always better to use maneuvers to set yourself up for a defense if you care to defend at all - in that case it almost always seems best to just fire first. To me this doesn't really seem to fit the feel of the novels - Harry uses his shield very often.
Am I understanding this correctly? Or am I missing something?
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A common houserule is to allow 'reactive' defensive evocations, that don't take an action to bring up. This allows the evocator to both attack and defend with magic in the same turn, but at the cost of running through even more stress.
Another option is to generate a powerful shield, and then use your next action to 'prolong' the shield (YS 259), so that it wil then last for considerably longer.
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Third option: Thaumaturgy. With it you can create a shield that both comes up reflexively and lasts for a while (Base duration would be a scene/15 minutes). You can set it to be reflexive with 2 extra complexity, and your nerve is the only thing limiting its power. It's something you might only want to do when you know you're heading into heavy battle that day.
Fourth Option: Enchanted Items. You can carry a Block on a stick, so to speak, which will come up reflexively, and you can add duration to it after. Also, you can increase its frequency, so you can wait until its last activation to extend it.
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I just can't see why anyone would bother with defensive spells. Specifically, shields.
The biggest single reason to use them is for groups / zones. You can cover yourself and all your friends for the price of 2 shifts. A second reason to use them is Armor - a 6 point/shift block that may get broken immediately may not be as good as a 3 point / 6 shift armor (block) which doesn't go away. Though which is better tends to depend on the type of incoming attacks. Which brings us to reason three...a 6 shift block may make you (and possibly your entire group) essentially immune to a group of minor attacks. If there are a hundred rats attacking, I'll take the block over trying to dodge. :) Finally, a fourth reason to use blocks is simply being lousy at dodging.
Am I understanding this correctly? Or am I missing something?
Basically it's situational. Unless you allow the reactive blocks CB mentioned you're probably not going to get them used as much as Harry does. But depending on the situation, they can be far better than your alternatives.
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Bit of a caveat here on reactive blocks. They're unbelievably game-changing and I'm pretty sure crusher_bob doesn't have a large or accurate enough sample to claim they're commonly house-rule'd in.
Now, evo blocks. If you're supposed to be the heavy artillery of your group, don't use defensive magic. If you have plenty of other heavy hitters, spec defensive and make them nearly unkillable.
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Bit of a caveat here on reactive blocks. They're unbelievably game-changing and I'm pretty sure crusher_bob doesn't have a large or accurate enough sample to claim they're commonly house-rule'd in.
Perhaps, however there is precedent for such a house rule in the books. A sidebar in Your Story, suggests the idea. I've used them, limiting it to rotes, as it makes themantic sense to me, and in all honesty I don't find them too unbalanced; No more so than enchanted items, high speed powers and the like; but then I guess it depends on how powerful players make their casters.
IMO, the speed at which a Wizard will burn through mental stress is enough of a balance, and a better representation of the limitations of magic.
Now, evo blocks. If you're supposed to be the heavy artillery of your group, don't use defensive magic. If you have plenty of other heavy hitters, spec defensive and make them nearly unkillable.
This I agree with. However I will add magic does, in great part, come down to a casters character. Not every Wizard will be suited to being 'heavy artillery'; think Molly.
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In order to get your money's worth on a block you really have to put some power into it. A five shift block is going to be overcome by someone with good skills making a decent roll (even worse if their skills are great). Now an eight or ten shift block? That's literally going to take some fate points to get past. I had a chest deep character that was capable of blocks of that magnitude (she took a some backlash, but that was kinda part of the character concept) on a regular basis and it made the GM have to work that much harder. An eight shift block, extended to all allies, and prolonged for six or seven exchanges can be real effective.
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They're pretty good for protecting a group and for pre-fight preparation. Remember to crank power as high as possible and to get a decent duration. Prolonging evocations are good for this.
Reflexive blocks change the game by making wizards not glass cannons without Crafting.
Normally, a fight between two serious wizards is basically rocket launcher tag. This changes that. And it's a significant power boost to pure evokers.
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Third option: Thaumaturgy. With it you can create a shield that both comes up reflexively and lasts for a while (Base duration would be a scene/15 minutes). You can set it to be reflexive with 2 extra complexity, and your nerve is the only thing limiting its power. It's something you might only want to do when you know you're heading into heavy battle that day.
I'm not sure about this. To be purely technical I don't think thaumaturgy is capable of blocks outside of wards, and wards require a threshold.
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I'm not sure about this. To be purely technical I don't think thaumaturgy is capable of blocks outside of wards, and wards require a threshold.
It is, admittedly, a contentious issue, far from clear in the RAW.
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Okay, so it sounds like without a house rule (ie reflexive evocation blocks) evo blocks are really more the prominence of a planned thing.
Prolonging the sheild on the second exchange is a great bit of info I had not seen - and that does make them a bit better as you can focus all your efforts into getting a really powerful shield up on the first exchange then layer on some additional time the second exchange before moving in to attack.
I may run the houserule by my players to see what they think, but I think we'll run a few sessions without it either way so we can fully experience the rules as intended before we change anything.
Thanks for all the quick advice!
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Depends, too, on how you use it... with the way blocks work (ie, you can block anything- a shield spell is simply a block vs damage centered on yourself)... instead of setting up a block vs incoming damage on yourself, you could aggressively set one up on a given enemy. They'd get an initial chance to dodge your spell, but instead of it doing damage, they find themselves in a bubble of force that hinders them attacking anyone.
Given enough power, it's a quick, effective, non-lethal way to neutralize a single enemy for a round (assuming they can't overcome it), then extend it the following round if need be.
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To be purely technical I don't think thaumaturgy is capable of blocks outside of wards, and wards require a threshold.
But Thaumaturgy is capable of recreating any evocation effect, which should include Blocks that aren't Wards.
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Truthfully, I think Wards require a threshold because they aren't strictly speaking blocks... or rather, aren't just Blocks. They're Blocks with benefits... and it's important that those benefits be limited in some way to rebalance them.
For just a straight up block- like Harry's shield- I see no reason it couldn't be done with Thaum... and done very well. Scary well. I'd be careful with it, in fact... since it conceivably sets up massive, high-quality defenses that just DON'T go away... potentially ever.
Course, that's not any worse than thaumaturgy already is, given the same investment in spell-casting effort.
I'd want to limit it in some way, just to make sure casters don't go around saying they backstoried a Damage Block:18 or Armor:9 for the rest of their life or something.
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Actually if you read the thaumaturgy section every time it mentions blocks it does so in the context of wards. It never mentions a non-ward block, even in the "What can you do with it" section. That's the last I'll say on that though, cause we're kinda getting off track.
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I'm not sure if this applicable (since they are trying to map an item from the books to the game) but Harry’s Duster (page 303) is clearly the product of Thaumaturgy and provides armour - having "defensive spells" woven into the cloth.
Veils are also blocks (YS 276), ones that duplicate the effect of a spirit evocation block but allow for longer duration. If Thaumaturgy can do that for spirit evocation block then I can't see a reason why it couldn't duplicate other evocation blocks - but there doesn't seem to be any place with the rules explicitly say that Thaumaturgy can do anything other than the "special kind of block called a veil".
Richard
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I'm alright with evocation-style blocks with Thaumaturgy as long as they have evocation-style durations.
Otherwise there is really no reason for a Warden with base ward complexity 5 not to have a 5 shift ward on himself at all times.
And it's not that hard to crank duration up to effectively permanent. Obvious problem is obvious.
If you don't like this, use the Enchanted Item rules.
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Mechanically, there's no reason thaumaturgy can't create long term blocks as long as it adheres to the two inherent limitations - casting time and symbols. The symbol requirement probably does mean such blocks need to be tied to items.
For game play purposes, I ask players to pay for any long term powers with refresh. It can be justified by thaumaturgy, but they'll still need to spend refresh on that "Toughness" spell (or other result).
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Mechanically, there's no reason thaumaturgy can't create long term blocks as long as it adheres to the two inherent limitations - casting time and symbols. The symbol requirement probably does mean such blocks need to be tied to items.
For game play purposes, I ask players to pay for any long term powers with refresh. It can be justified by thaumaturgy, but they'll still need to spend refresh on that "Toughness" spell (or other result).
I go for the simpler solution. I'm just an arbitrary and uncompromising bastard about Thaumaturgy.
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I was under the assumption that if you used Thaumaturgy to create an item that will provide a block of some kind when worn/activated that was basically what enchanted items were.
In the one game we ran, the wizard-in-training "warded" one of the NPC's clothes against attacks using invisible inks and such. We had him do some Thaumaturgy to basically tack a lasting Aspect on her of "BULLETPROOF OUTFIT" that she could tag for a defensive bonus when/if she needed it.
We ruled this way because there is a rule specifically in place for creating "magical armor" like Harry's duster - enchanted items. And those rules talk about needing to constantly take care of the item as well as spending tons of time aligning the magic and such so just "whipping one up real quick" didn't seem plausible.
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Well said.
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I find that blocks are great for self and group buffing. They are one of the best ways to increase the effectiveness of an entire group. Granted, they only work really well if you have enough other heavy hitting characters to mean that you're not wasting those precious starting actions.
Common opening tactic for my group:
Wizard lays down armor spell on entire group.
Illusionist cast spell to disorient (lay aspects) on group of enemies.
Olympian hero throws thunderbolt at greatest threat.
Veteran merc opens fire or throws grenade.
Pure mortal reporter runs and hides, usually.
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Wizard lays down armor spell on entire group.
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This may be the best use of a block I've seen... I hadn't thought about a zone wide armor spell. And to be honest, this would probably be the best bang for your buck. An 7 or 8-shift block applied to a whole zone as armor would effectively be able to deflect most small gunfire as well as any Kevlar (Armor:2) for a few exchanges - or else it could be able to stop larger bullets (Armor:3) for the current exchange, ready to be re-upped next round. And both of those would only cost a few mental stress (maybe a consequence if you've got a low conviction).
This may well have sold me on evo blocks.
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This may be the best use of a block I've seen... I hadn't thought about a zone wide armor spell. And to be honest, this would probably be the best bang for your buck.
Until the enemy melee specialist enters the party's zone, possibly?
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Until the enemy melee specialist enters the party's zone, possibly?
Actually the RAW prevents that from becoming an issue. It clearly states that two shifts of power allow you expand the block to all allies in the zone.
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Ah, yes:
"2 shifts of power allow the effect to cover multiple allies within the same zone (typically the same zone the wizard occupies). Covering multiple zones requires 2 additional shifts per zone"
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One small problem with zone armour spells: armour doesn't usually stack. So if you are already wearing armour 2, there's not much point to an armour evocation.
Unless I misremember, of course.
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One small problem with zone armour spells: armour doesn't usually stack. So if you are already wearing armour 2, there's not much point to an armour evocation.
Unless I misremember, of course.
I think you're right, but in a situation when you aren't expecting a fight and so most of the party isn't wearing their Kevlar and such this would be a great use of the evo block.
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I think you're right, but in a situation when you aren't expecting a fight and so most of the party isn't wearing their Kevlar and such this would be a great use of the evo block.
That and Armor 5-6 is generally considered better than Armor 2.
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True enough.
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It seems to me that in general if you aren't seeing the usefulness of evocation blocks, then you aren't making them strong enough. I remember the first game I played with a non-optimized character. I would throw up 5 or 6 shift blocks and they would immediately be battered down, especially the offensive blocks because they are opposed by any action. But now I know that they are much more effective when your character is capable of throwing 8 or 10 shifts regardless of whether they are block or armor.