Is high powered combat rocket tag?

[crusher_bob]

Looking at the write-ups that Deadmanwalking has posted up on the spoiler thread (and that people seem to like), members in the senior council power level tend to produce evocations in the power 12, control 12 range.  But what happens when they fight each other?  If you can hit with a power 10+ evocation, you'll blast someone to bits in the first hit.  So if, say, the Merlin (power 12, control 12) throws a spell at LTW (power 10, control 10), he's likely to beat LTW's defense by two, and deliver 14 stress right?  Even if LTW had an power 10 defensive magic item, to add 5 armor, he'd still be looking at taking a 9 stress hit.  So high level combat would depend on not getting hit at all, since any actual hit at this power level is going to be deadly. 

Am I missing something? 

[Deadmanwalking]

Nope. Wizards are kinda fragile.

Though, in fairness, Defensive items to provide some armor might be a bit more common than I was suggesting in those writeups, helping to alleviate the problem a little.

Also note that, at 9 stress, every Wizard on the White Council can take a Mild and Moderate consequence and be okay. Not, y'know, good but still up. It'll take one or two more hits like that, maybe even three before they actually go down. How is that inappropriate?

And LTW specifically, can have Supernatural Toughness if he's in the mood, meaning he can take only a Mild Consequence (which he can then heal with Inhuman Recovery...at least potentially) from the hit mentioned.

[crusher_bob]

But it does make marginal success much more important as the combatants become higher powered.  I'll need more system mastery to really see how things fall out. 

I'd be tempted to look at a slightly different rules space where magical power bonuses were harder to come by, though.  For example, if refinement and focus items could only provide control bonuses.  Exactly how magical defenses work would also need to be changed.  But in this rules space, the Merlin would be throwing out something like power 6, control 12 attacks instead.  So even the Merlin would have some trouble beating down something with, say, legendary defenses and mythic toughness.

It would have 3 armor and 10 stress boxes, and the Merlin's normal hits would be doing around 8 stress to it (5 bonus damage from accuracy, -3 for it's armor), so he'd have to hit it several times to get over it to overflow it's stress meter.  Three or four senior council members together could hammer it right into the ground, but one senior council member by himself would really need to apply the things toughness catch to take it out by himself. 

This would also Harry's comments about him being in the top tier of raw magical power would ring more true, since Harry can throw power 5 attacks around.

[Deadmanwalking]

I don't think that's a good idea. Mostly because I'm betting the Merlin wouldn't have any trouble beating down someone with Mythic Toughness.

And the 'problem' is more or less the same (if to a slightly lesser degree) for non-magic users. Or at lower levels of play (examples below). It's a feaure, not a bug. Attacks are lethal in this game very intentionally, particularly those of supernatural creatures. You get out of the way, or you get seriously hurt.

A few examples:

High End Physical: A guy with Mythic Strength and a car as a melee weapon (they count as Weapon: 5), hit's a guy with Mythic Toughness. He's doing a minimum of an 8 stress hit after the second guy's natural armor. Now the Mythic Toughness guy can take a few of those, but not many, and if he hits by, say, 2 like your example? That's a 10 stress hit and the Toughness guy can't take more than one of those before Consequences start piling up.

Low End Magical: Harry Dresden (ala Storm Front) goes up against Victor Sells, Sells fires his Killing Flame Rote at Harry and Harry gets a hit. If he's hit with 0 shifts, Harry'll take a 5 stress hit, and enough that he'll need to take a Consequence not to be taken out. If he's hit by 2 (like your original example) he'll take a 7 shift hit (only two lower than your example) and need a Moderate Consequence to avoid being Taken Out. The same applies to Harry's attacks on Victor.

Low End Physical: Meryl has a large axe (Weapon: 3) and is fighting a Red Court Vampire (Weapon: 2 Claws). Both have Inhuman Strength, though the vampire's a bit tougher. If Meryl hit's by 0 her attack deals a 4 stress hit and the Red Court can just barely take it without Consequences, if she hits by 2 it's a 6 stress hit and the vampire needs to take a Consequence or be Taken Out. The same applies to it's attacks on her (since it does less damage but she lacks armor).

This would also Harry's comments about him being in the top tier of raw magical power would ring more true, since Harry can throw power 5 attacks around.

Actually he can throw Power 6 attacks around, maybe more like 7 by Small Favor, but what he's really referring to is raw Conviction...he has the potential to be one of the most powerful.

[JosephKell]

This is why Wizards are so defensive.  Wizards and GLaDOS like to stay inside.

Remember that blocks still mitigate the action that supersedes it.

See the example on page 210.

A 10 shift block that is overwhelmed by an 11 attack only grants 1 shift of effort instead of whatever the normal defense would be (instead of being 11 verse Athletics of... 3?  8 shifts hurts).

That said, it is still pretty crazy for people to be tossing Weapon:10+ spells when Weapon:4 is supposed to be the scale of field artillery.

I am thinking that the Spray rules could maybe do with being changed to be imposing a penalty to the accuracy of your roll equal to the number of targets.  Then you just divide your shifts of power as you want.  So spelling at two targets means you roll at -2.  Now instead of throwing a Weapon:10 with a Zone effect, you might have a senior council wizard throwing 4 Weapon:3's with a -4 penalty to the accuracy.

To use the 4 Weapon:3 attacks, the Wizard rolls Discipline as usual verse the 12 shifts of power gets a result of 13.  So the power is controlled just fine (no additional backlash or fallout).  But since it is 4 attacks the accuracy is treated as 4 less, so 9 (13-4).

Just remember though, throwing around even an 8 shift spell can blow out certain clockwork devices.  At this end of the spectrum you are talking about causing power blackouts.  Actually blackouts occur at 6 shifts of power.

To further encourage "small power" spells, I can see an argument for allowing a practitioner to get a number of "stressless" shifts of power equal to their power specialization (maybe also their focus's power bonus).  For instance, Harry could (in Storm Front anyway) throw around 1 Shift of Power Fire spells because he has Power (Fire +1) as a specialization.  It is totally worth going "small" on spells if it means no stress.

[Korwin]

Well Wizards can have the potentially best defense (with Magic Items) and those Defenses dont have an Catch...

[surarrin]

Do keep in mind most wizards who are that powerful aren't going to unleash on your average joe. For them to pull up that sort of firepower it's gotta be an actual threat, not just your average Cthulhu.