JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
Magic Shattering Strike for Solars, Spell Rending Talons for Lunars. Both are good ways of dealing with Sorcery.
[Emperors of the Fading Suns] [Emperors of the Fading Suns] OOC Thread
- Thread starter xarvh
- Start date
CrazyIvan
Two Thousand Club
Sorcery capturing cord, for double hilariousness.JayTee said:
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
Quite~ 
cyl
Creepy smile
Shooting the sorcerer between the eyes also works.
But that doesn't change the fact that this house rule makes sorcery do something it's not supposed to be doing. (going from 5 to 30)
But that doesn't change the fact that this house rule makes sorcery do something it's not supposed to be doing. (going from 5 to 30)
xarvh
Malevolent Entertainer
As mentionedalready, I'm more than available to amend the hrs in a dedicated thread.
CrazyIvan
Two Thousand Club
The problem is, if you're going to hamstring every time Sorcery might be a little bit good, then my personal rule of not doing the things that *are* game breaking about sorcery doesn't make any sense either, and I'm breaking out Imbue Amalgam the moment Fangs gets back to a library.cyl said:
Seriously, it's one spell, that's good but not amazing (Fangs is already doing 2/3rds of that with the Warstrider) if you manage to bottle up a large magnitude unit.
Somehow, I think we'll all survive.
xarvh
Malevolent Entertainer
I don't care that the rules are perfect, I care that they allow me to tell a story the way I want without getting too much in the way.
Improvements are always welcome, but right now they are simply not necessary.
Improvements are always welcome, but right now they are simply not necessary.
Kacie
One Thousand Club
Oh yes please. *grin*CrazyIvan said:
Setup stunt on its way.
Kacie
One Thousand Club
Hey, folks - I'm trying to find the right color for Mirror's text, what with all the background changes et all.
A. I like this mulberry color.
B. But this purple might be more readable?
C. This one seems too light.
Which of these three manages to 1) not spit in your eyes and laugh at you, and 2) get across Mirror's personality?
Thanks! This is mostly for you.
A. I like this mulberry color.
B. But this purple might be more readable?
C. This one seems too light.
Which of these three manages to 1) not spit in your eyes and laugh at you, and 2) get across Mirror's personality?
Thanks! This is mostly for you.
CrazyIvan
Two Thousand Club
I vote for B, despite my fondness for mulberry as a concept.
xarvh
Malevolent Entertainer
B seems to be a good compromise.
All in all I like to use a colour for direct speech, I find that variation breaks the text and makes it more readable, but it's a PITA for me to remember all colours of all NPCs, and not sure I'm doing things consistently.
All in all I like to use a colour for direct speech, I find that variation breaks the text and makes it more readable, but it's a PITA for me to remember all colours of all NPCs, and not sure I'm doing things consistently.
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
B is a a little too dark for me, but C is fine
CrazyIvan
Two Thousand Club
Just checking Kacie - Mirror is braced for impact?
xarvh
Malevolent Entertainer
Yes she is.
Kacie
One Thousand Club
Yep, braced for impact.
2 for B, 1 for C, and Xarvh, what does PITA stand for?
2 for B, 1 for C, and Xarvh, what does PITA stand for?
xarvh
Malevolent Entertainer
Pain In The Ass.
cyl
Creepy smile
It's not that one spell I'm worried about, it's the consequences of applying that rule to other spells.
Snowball effect n all.
If a 0 margin DOB can suddenly kill hundreds elite soldiers while it can't kill one in normal combat (even limiting the losses to a single dot of Magnitude is an enormous loss since it means halving the numbers), then anything stronger than DOB will most likely scatter units composed of tougher guys like Baidaks the same way.
That's not "a little good', it's rather out of proportion IMHO.
Only the highest ranked and most dangerous spells like Total Annihilation are meant to do stuff like that.
I agree that spells are poorly designed for mass combat, but they all have limits as to their shape or the area they affect.
There are ways to handle things more elegantly and less disturbingly than this house rule... perhaps attributing a minimum / maximum Magnitude to AoE spells and identifying the affected group as a distinct unit within the larger unit and then merging it back to apply the damage.
Ex:
DOB has a width of 30 yards, considering the worst possible configuration (a single horizontal line) and 1 soldier per 2 yards, that's 15 dudes hit, so the minimum is Magnitude 2.
It also has a 100 yards length, so in the best possible condition (a unit entering all the space) it can affect up to 15 x 50 = 750 people so that's Magnitude 6.
It's then up to the ST to determine, considering all the factors (deployment of the unit, area targeted, line of sight etc etc) if the affected group is large enough to have an impact on the Magnitude of the whole unit.
Practical case:
In your situation Fangs is fighting a Magnitude 5 unit.
Say she can only use DOB up to a maximum of Magnitude 3 (150 guys tops) but rolls enough to kill everyone affected.
Magnitude 3 can range between 10 and 50% of Magnitude 5, so it's definitely not enough to make the unit loose a complete dot of Magnitude, but still to wound it significantly (a good 2 to 3 health levels) and a second or third application will get the job done.
It makes things more complex, especially if you don't manage to get enough damage to kill, but it's closer to the spell description and more proportionate than what we have right now with the multiplying effect.
With the current house rule considering the same parameters (Magnitude 3 affected), the 5 psdmg scenario (which is not even enough to qualify for a kill on a single non extra creature btw) magically becomes 15 psdmg, which means most likely 5 to 7+ health levels lost and the unit passing from Magnitude 5 to 4 almost instantly, effectively killing between 150 and 325 soldiers.
Result: a damage who was supposed to wound but not kill can actually make twice the kill rate it should be allowed to make.
And that worries me... a lot.
@JayTee : I must warn you, I don't have enough essence to make a round trip for 2 (stunting may fix that however), we're facing a specialized assassin (the one that kills gods and made Argis loose an arm), I'll be low on essence and will be flashing anima (forget discretion then) and we'll end up on top of the Juggernaut's antenna, probably wounded and we'll still have to leave the city.
There's a solid a chance we don't survive this and both die covering Rhapsody and the mortals, so I'm going to need your approval as a player to proceed.
Needless to say that if you're okay I'll fight to the last mote and won't tp away and leave you behind.
Sadly I don't see another option than going up there and stop him. He's got the upper hand and can shoot us all one by one before we even make it out of Lookshy.
Snowball effect n all.
If a 0 margin DOB can suddenly kill hundreds elite soldiers while it can't kill one in normal combat (even limiting the losses to a single dot of Magnitude is an enormous loss since it means halving the numbers), then anything stronger than DOB will most likely scatter units composed of tougher guys like Baidaks the same way.
That's not "a little good', it's rather out of proportion IMHO.
Only the highest ranked and most dangerous spells like Total Annihilation are meant to do stuff like that.
I agree that spells are poorly designed for mass combat, but they all have limits as to their shape or the area they affect.
There are ways to handle things more elegantly and less disturbingly than this house rule... perhaps attributing a minimum / maximum Magnitude to AoE spells and identifying the affected group as a distinct unit within the larger unit and then merging it back to apply the damage.
Ex:
DOB has a width of 30 yards, considering the worst possible configuration (a single horizontal line) and 1 soldier per 2 yards, that's 15 dudes hit, so the minimum is Magnitude 2.
It also has a 100 yards length, so in the best possible condition (a unit entering all the space) it can affect up to 15 x 50 = 750 people so that's Magnitude 6.
It's then up to the ST to determine, considering all the factors (deployment of the unit, area targeted, line of sight etc etc) if the affected group is large enough to have an impact on the Magnitude of the whole unit.
Practical case:
In your situation Fangs is fighting a Magnitude 5 unit.
Say she can only use DOB up to a maximum of Magnitude 3 (150 guys tops) but rolls enough to kill everyone affected.
Magnitude 3 can range between 10 and 50% of Magnitude 5, so it's definitely not enough to make the unit loose a complete dot of Magnitude, but still to wound it significantly (a good 2 to 3 health levels) and a second or third application will get the job done.
It makes things more complex, especially if you don't manage to get enough damage to kill, but it's closer to the spell description and more proportionate than what we have right now with the multiplying effect.
With the current house rule considering the same parameters (Magnitude 3 affected), the 5 psdmg scenario (which is not even enough to qualify for a kill on a single non extra creature btw) magically becomes 15 psdmg, which means most likely 5 to 7+ health levels lost and the unit passing from Magnitude 5 to 4 almost instantly, effectively killing between 150 and 325 soldiers.
Result: a damage who was supposed to wound but not kill can actually make twice the kill rate it should be allowed to make.
And that worries me... a lot.
@JayTee : I must warn you, I don't have enough essence to make a round trip for 2 (stunting may fix that however), we're facing a specialized assassin (the one that kills gods and made Argis loose an arm), I'll be low on essence and will be flashing anima (forget discretion then) and we'll end up on top of the Juggernaut's antenna, probably wounded and we'll still have to leave the city.
There's a solid a chance we don't survive this and both die covering Rhapsody and the mortals, so I'm going to need your approval as a player to proceed.
Needless to say that if you're okay I'll fight to the last mote and won't tp away and leave you behind.
Sadly I don't see another option than going up there and stop him. He's got the upper hand and can shoot us all one by one before we even make it out of Lookshy.
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
I'm good with that, but I just thought of some alternate options:
1: Give Siham the teleport cloak, and you and Rhapsody bail. You have the mass-stealth charm needed to cover her. Siham can stall long enough for you guys to get gone, then 'port out.
2: Similar to option 1, except Siham and the Day engage in a cross-city shootout. You keep the teleport cloak and use it in an emergency.
1: Give Siham the teleport cloak, and you and Rhapsody bail. You have the mass-stealth charm needed to cover her. Siham can stall long enough for you guys to get gone, then 'port out.
2: Similar to option 1, except Siham and the Day engage in a cross-city shootout. You keep the teleport cloak and use it in an emergency.
Feantari
Water Sprite
re spells and mass combat: its a rule I'm actually ok with. Spells need to be good for something and mass combat is the perfect place for many of them to shine. Sure in solo one dude gets badly wounded, but in mass combat a giant chunk of dudes get badly wounded (if we say the per individual damage is the same). The trick then is remembering to separate damage into mass combat and individual buckets. In mass combat your damage reduces the magnitude of the unit, which is able bodied folks contributing to the cause. They take magnitude damage, but lost magnitude is not directly equivalent to dead things. Its just out of the combat things. By multiplying the damage per magnitude affected it makes the spells do damage in a way that makes sense. Because you just badly wounded a huge swath of dudes and the army is not impervious to that. At a min those guys are all standing there with wound penalties. Mass combat has to abstract some of this level of detail.
WlfSamurai
Maelstrom Engineer
cyl
Creepy smile
I should note that I have the exact same concern with the damage coming from the war machines (Fangs' insanely high damage means she can slay an entire Dragon of elite soldiers on her own within in a few minutes).
The fact that Magnitude does not act as a cap for damage will pose a problem when we will be fighting wars.
The fact that Magnitude does not act as a cap for damage will pose a problem when we will be fighting wars.
xarvh
Malevolent Entertainer
Guys, please bring the spell/mag discussion in another thread. 
cyl
Creepy smile
Except IIRC it takes 20 or minutes to attune yourself to an artifact. We'll all be dead in 5
Do you have range boosting charms ? I believe the nasty abyssal is rather far away and I fear that if you can't engage him right away more mortals, and possibly Rhapsody will get killed.
I can also focus his attention on Malek and make a series of teleportation (flashy enough to be spotted now I'm spending peripheral).
Trouble is the essence, I can spend some without blazing, we're in a very uncomfortable combat situation, and I don't have enough left to both cover our tracks and not go full totemic.
cyl
Creepy smile
It is. Those 3 bolts just made the plan go bye bye.WlfSamurai said:
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
Heaven's Eye Marksmenship gives my weapon a boost of range, so if you leave the cloak with me, you and Rhapsody could get everyone out with the stealth charms while I have my shootout as a distraction. Then once you guys are all gone, I bail and attune to the cloak to join you.
