Zone wide evocation attacks to strong?

[Viatos]

It would not be consistent with attack mechanics, or with the mechanics in general. The only place in the entirety of the book a high roll can be bad for you is with Demonic Co-Pilot, and you get to defend against that. Rolling high on your DISCIPLINE roll logically grants a player much more control, and attempting to deny them their NORMAL ability to declare the effects of their take-out as a punishment for good luck makes no sense within the system or within the circumstances.

If this happened at my table, I would call it antagonistic GMing and caution whoever was in that chair to remember that they need to be able to control the antagonists without becoming one, or else the game turns way too personal and friendships rather then character sheets start feeling the stress. The player chose electricity and explicitly stated he wanted a nonlethal effect. He did well, and should be rewarded, not penalized. If he had flubbed the Discipline roll and dumped a bunch of fallout on the Zone, it would of course be a different story, but he didn't.

Zone-Wide evocation attacks are not too strong. Powerful single antagonists go down to high-powered single target spells; mooks go down to zone-wide evocations. Combat is fast and dangerous in DFRPG by design, and characters generally should not be getting into lengthy slugfests with things that can hurt them or they're dead characters. If you want to draw out a combat, ramp up the defense, ramp DOWN the offense, and stop sending mortals with a maximum of four physical stress to gank a wizard.

[Wordmaker]

This is why I like my solution of using a compel. It fits with the philosophy of the game, and if used fairly it can add some nice drama to moments when a character comes to take down an enemy who has caused them trouble for a while, regardless of whether it's a zone-wide attack or one on one.

[Viatos]

This is why I like my solution of using a compel. It fits with the philosophy of the game, and if used fairly it can add some nice drama to moments when a character comes to take down an enemy who has caused them trouble for a while, regardless of whether it's a zone-wide attack or one on one.

As long as they have a relevant Aspect like Take No Prisoners or Merciless, that's fine. I would not call murder a valid compel on a wizard's High Concept; that's just another form of punishment, making the player spend a Fate Point to get the result he already, by the dice, has won for himself.

[Wordmaker]

A lot of what it takes to run this game well is maturity from the players and GM, as well as a lack of the typical "GM vs Players" attitude found a lot of the time some groups and games. Obviously, compelling a wizard PC who already has -9 Refresh and is on one or even zero Fate Points is totally unfair. But if you're at a dramatic moment, even the climax of a scenario, and the character has some Fate Points to spare, and an appropriate Aspect.

The wizard in my Boston game, for example, has the Aspect "Boston Is My Town," so if he was about to take down a necromancer trying to set up shop and prey on innocents, I'd consider it fair to compel that Aspect to push him towards particularly savage responses.

Similarly, when the character's sister was about to be killed by a rogue pyromancer, I compelled his "Head Of The Family" Trouble Aspect to make him attack without warning or negotiation.

[Ala Alba]

I can't help that the thread is missing the point of why mooks don't take consequences. It's not because they can't, it's because they generally aren't committed enough to keep going after injury, and being taken out can represent everything from losing consciousness to simply losing the will to fight.

Stress =/= damage done to a character. That's what consequences are for. It's perfectly fine to hit a bunch of mooks with a weapon: 6 attack and have them simply get knocked out from the attack. Even with only two stress, that's only a moderate consequence.

A similar example would be if a PC got hit by a weapon: 4 mundane weapon. Without any extra shifts, it's completely possible to get "hit" by the grenade or whatever and still not take any damage(consequences).

In any case, in zone-wide attacks, everyone in the zone makes a defense roll, and the attacker's attack roll is applied to each individual target. The drawback is that the attack is indiscriminate. My point is that the people in the zone all get a chance to dodge. I don't see why extra shifts from the attack roll wouldn't apply.

The real question is why you'd send four 2-stress mooks after what is obviously a capable wizard.

[ahunting]

I think the risks of zone wide attacks do make up for the advantage they offer.
Its happened more then once in our game that I didn't dare use AoE, b/c other characters
were in that zone. I also have had minions nearly die thing happen, and honestly i can't say i judge
my GM harshly for ruling mortals hit by 9 shift magical attack described as a hail of force bullets is gonna die. He was nice enough to accept spending a fate points to attach the aspect "Not Dead yet". Which worked out well for both of us, cause he then had the Warlock kill himself and use a death-curse, and my poor character didn't become an npc due to refresh lose.

The Alternative with splitting successes is useful but so far i have found that focusing is usually the best way, anyway. 

[Slife]

I'd rule that the taken out results would all have to be the same.

[Papa Gruff]

I have thought a lot more about this topic during the last couple of days and discussed it at length with my players over G-wave.

One thing that Ala Alba said is true. Stress ain't damage. It even can be disputed if consequences are equal to damage. As a matter of fact I have come to the impression, that the creators of the RPG avoided the term damage by design. It just doesn't work like this. What could be called damage is a very very abstract thing in the FATE system and it works differently to anything else I have encountered in other systems so far. It takes some getting used to.

To further clarify: Tsunami didn't describe his Attack Action as non lethal. But it doesn't matter all that much. It comes down to what is reasonable in the given situation. That's a very good rule of thumb whenever a situation comes up that has the potential of disrupting the peace of the gaming table. It's totally cool if it comes to a discussion about what's reasonable. As always the last word lies with the GM. The problem I can see with this is, that everybody at the table has to show the maturity to accept the opinion of the others (as Wordmaker said). Also if the description of an Action is sound, that drastically limits how it can be interpreted and what is an reasonable outcome to it. By describing exactly what you want the effect to be, any disputes about the nature of a take out can be easily avoided and it's even good for the role play of an exchange.

So fare I have to thank all participants of this thread for their input. It has helped me a great deal to revise my interpretation of several rules and I can see now, why the zone wide evocations are not necessarily overpowered. All it takes is good effect description to make an potentially lethal effect of raw power into a non lethal stun.

What I like to steer the thread towards now is, if a stun should be allowed to be the effect of an Attack Action. In some situations it might be more elegant to describe the stun as a maneuver or even a full block. What are your thoughts on this?

[Ala Alba]

I think it's appropriate do stun people through attack actions.

After all, if a character attacks someone with a taser, is that a maneuver placing the aspect "Shocked Numb" or is it an attack that can place the consequence "Numb Leg" on the target?

In this case, I think the latter is more appropriate.

[Belial666]

It depends on what you want to do. Stress goes away when the scene changes. So if you blast someone for stress and describe it as nonlethal, the opponent might be stunned or knocked out for a short time. Appropriate consequences added to physical blows that don't cause "lethal" damage are stunned, concussion, severe concussion and coma.

Think boxing; the boxers wear specialised gloves designed to make their punches just as damaging but as nonlethal as possible. In a boxing match, you take no stress from simple contact (because fists are weapon 0) and might take no stress for standard blows (because you have "tough stuff") but you do take stress from good hits. An especially powerful and lucky hit or repeated good hits can add alot of stress in an exchange. You may tough it out and take minor consequences like being stunned or a mild concussion but continue or just give up, take stress and get knocked down or knocked out.
Unless you pushed yourself beyond your limits and took consequences, when the bell rings and the round ends, accumulated stress goes away but not consequences. You then repeat the round. If you are knocked out, you usually stay that way for a very short time-half a minute or less but even ten seconds count in boxing. You might get up with some help but you're in no condition to fight.


That would be how nonlethal magic works; you "blunt" the spells, either spreading the impact area or spreading the "duration". An exchange is a few seconds in a fast combat. Consider these examples:

A lethal blast of fire would be an inch-wide bolt that lasts a fraction of a second to deliver killing blow with that energy by burning through the target's chest. The same blast as nonlethal would have just as much power but would be a wide torrent -spreading the impact on the target's entire body- and last for a couple of seconds, taking out the target not by lethal blow but by extensive burns, unfathomable pain and enough heat to make his body temporarily collapse from it.

A lethal zone explosion would be a blastwave that lasts a second and is concentrated in a fraction of a second in a single powerful sweeping blow that pulverizes internal organs. A nonlethal zone explosion would be a similar-sized explosion that distributes the same energy into fire, sound, a flash of light and a much milder blastwave that would take out targets by stunning them, searing them, and overwhelming their senses like a gigantic flashbang grenade.

[Tsunami]

To further clarify: Tsunami didn't describe his Attack Action as non lethal.

Didn't I ? I'm pretty sure I did... but let's not go there... Like you said, it doesn't really matter.

What I like to steer the thread towards now is, if a stun should be allowed to be the effect of an Attack Action. In some situations it might be more elegant to describe the stun as a maneuver or even a full block. What are your thoughts on this?

Lets say, for the purpose of this thread, "stun" means to take someone out without killing him/her.

That is not a maneuver, except maybe if you'd allow aspects like "unconscious" to be set by a maneuver. Which would basically be the same as a taken out result.
Which would basically make it a "consequential conflict" of some kind... but still, not really.
Personally, playing a Wizard... I'd like that... Stun someone with a X shift maneuver, no stress to bypass... taken out in one hit. but i think it would be overpowered.
Maneuver stuns are for things that hamper the target, but do not take it out. Like "blinded" or "deafened". But "unconcious"... nah, i don't think so.

A Block has to be maintained, if I remove someone from the conflict by rendering him/her unconscious... how would that need to be maintained to go on? I don't see it. Blocks are to prevent targets from doing something in a controlled fashion... I don't think it fits.

If the goal is to have the target be "taken out", attacks are the way to got here.

And why wouldn't a competent wizard know ways to take someone out without killing them?
Competent Fist-Fighters know ways to do that in their style of combat as well, so why wouldn't wizards ?

Take Rashid during TC for example. When he showed up at demonreach and took out Molly, Will and Georgia. To me that definitely was a Mental-Stun attack. (damn... i gotta steal that one... *g* )
Maybe the outcome was forced by the GM handing out compels, but still. A Stun attack.

[Papa Gruff]

The boxing example is interesting. Would that mean that the caster would have to concentrate on making the spell blunt? Does this merit raising the difficulty of the spell by a level? Is it reasonable to say that fire can stun a target without inflicting second or third degree burns which in itself might be life threatening? These are things that have to be taken into account when you try to stun someone with any kind of Attack Action if you ask me. Using electricity or fire your targets might get burned bad if you try it that way. If you try to stop someone from breathing by extracting air or flooding his lunges that might lead to brain damage or something. Side effects basically.

If you use evocation to render someone unconscious or stunned you have to be really really careful in my opinion. Harry worries about these kind of things constantly and would most probably try to take an other course of action. A simple solution that comes to mind is to just handle an appropriately described Evocation Attack Action as a Special-Weapons-Attack (YW 326), not inflicting stress but setting a temporary aspect on the target. Overcoming the effect would then be a Maneuver Action against the Weapon strength WITHOUT extra shifts. Does that solve the hole problem?! I don't know if i'd allow this for all elements though. Fire is surely out of the question...

[luminos]

Make sure the effect you are going for is thematically appropriate to what you are doing.  If you really just want to stun them, then Papa Gruff's suggestion about using the rules for special Weapons Attacks is the best way to go, sacrificing weapon rating to represent an effect like "stunned".  I really cannot imagine how you can describe a weapon:6 effect as being essentially non-lethal and up to the player to decide, but if the weapon: 6 was converted into the difficulty to resist being stunned, instead of damage, it works.

And why wouldn't a competent wizard know ways to take someone out without killing them?
Competent Fist-Fighters know ways to do that in their style of combat as well, so why wouldn't wizards ?

Consider the fact that competent fist fighters don't have anything approaching a weapon: 6
If you want your wizard to take someone out of combat without the risk of killing, use low weapon value attacks, or grapple style spells.

[Wordmaker]

I don't think there should be any increased difficulty to let a player describe an attack in non-lethal terms. It's definitely worth agreeing as a group what kinds of descriptions can be non-lethal, and in what manner.

Using a gravity spell to pull people to the ground and knock them out is a non-lethal description. But then, frying someone with a flame spell but stopping before they die, leaving them with severe burns all over their body and in need of medical treatment is also non-lethal, at least in the short-term.

One habit I'm trying to get into with my players is, each time an attack is made, specify whether the attacker (be it a PC or an NPC) intends to try and kill.

[Tsunami]

Make sure the effect you are going for is thematically appropriate to what you are doing.  If you really just want to stun them, then Papa Gruff's suggestion about using the rules for special Weapons Attacks is the best way to go, sacrificing weapon rating to represent an effect like "stunned".  I really cannot imagine how you can describe a weapon:6 effect as being essentially non-lethal and up to the player to decide, but if the weapon: 6 was converted into the difficulty to resist being stunned, instead of damage, it works.

Consider the fact that competent fist fighters don't have anything approaching a weapon: 6
If you want your wizard to take someone out of combat without the risk of killing, use low weapon value attacks, or grapple style spells.

The problem then being that 6-shift Evocations are not necessarily the same thing as a mundane Weapon:6 attacks.
A mundane Weapon:6 attack is akin to a tank-cannon, or a bomb. That's lethal, no questions asked.
A 6-shift evocation might be something like that, a heavy blast of fire, a cascade of lightning, a cannonball of raw force... that's lethal, no questions asked.
But it may just as well be something that is designed to render an average (3 stress) human being unconscious (taken out) while leaving them with a lasting headache (mild consequence). Like for example, a low amperage, high voltage electrical attack, or maybe some form of Mental attack, or maybe an earth evocation creating a fluctuating gravitational field to induce a state of vertigo that leads to unconsciousness.
6 stress attack translating into: 3 stress to fill the track + 2 stress going into a mild consequence + 1 to get over the stress track
Taken out, non lethal.
And since i can chose not to use eventual shifts from the discipline roll to increase the stress, that's really all it should do.