The limits on Veils...

[Richard_Chilton]

In the books Veils seem to be "don't draw attention to yourself" type things.  In Fool Moon Harry severely degraded the duration of his 'veil in a bottle' when tried to get someone's attention.  In the game they are a block against being perceived.

That said, what are people's thoughts about attacking while veiled?

I'm torn on the subject.  On one hand there are few things that draw more attention to you than going hand to hand with someone, but on the other there bits in the books where it more or less happens.  Then there is the play balance aspect of the invisible attacker who you can't counteract.

So, what are people's thoughts? I'm thinking that a good midway point would be to give a bonus to breaking the block when someone interacts with you - say 2 - 4? Say a free aspect like "It just hit me" or "I felt it coming from that direction.

So, what do people think?

Richard

[Ala Alba]

In Turn Coat, Molly uses a veil to land a punch on Luccio. That's all the justification I need to accept that veils and fighting can mix.

On the subject of mechanics, I'm not sure how to best work it, though. One problem is that beating the block strength of the veil, IIRC, doesn't mean that you can see through the veil, you just notice that something is wrong about whatever the veil is. Now that might be enough to justify an attack against the veiled character, in which case you don't really need to invent any mechanics to handle it, just roll alertness whenever the veiled character does anything. Either you eventually overcome the block, in which case the fight proceeds as normal, or the veiled character easily wins.

Just remember that any attack made be a veiled character is handled like an ambush.

[wyvern]

My ruling is that veils function like stealth rolls; if you were being mundanely sneaky (in a situation where mundane sneakiness was plausible), and could remain hidden while doing action X, then you can remain hidden with a veil while doing action X.

So, in general, making a melee attack will break whatever veil you're using (though some exceptions exist).  Direct ranged attacks, and some maneuvers, will merely give your opponent a bonus to spotting you (or, potentially, give them the option to spend a fate point to declare that they spot you).  Indirect ranged attacks, opening doors, pressing buttons, etc, won't.  (Though in the case of the door, that might let someone make an area attack that'd hit you anyway.)

If you want better than that - a veil that can protect you even in full-on combat - you need to spend refresh on some kind of upgrade (if you're using glamours - consider a stunt that, when you're veiled, shifts physical defense from athletics to deceit/discipline), or possibly just re-define your spell; for example, a basic evocation block against being attacked could be flavored as a sort of a kaliedascope veil that prevents people from accurately targetting you, but doesn't completely block seeing where you are.  Or, if you've got an appropriate sponsored magic, use the thaumaturgy with the speed & methods of evocation option to create a veil that simultaneously blocks against alertness & investigation & attacks.

[Becq]

I think it's something of a sliding scale, depending on the skill of the veil's caster.  Harry is none too good at veils, so he has to stay reasonably still or move slowly, whereas Molly excels at them and is less restricted.  Here's one possible way of dealing with this:

* If you perform only a supplemental actions, your veil is maintained as normal.
* If you perform some other action that involves significant movement or concentration, anyone in a position to pierce your veil has an opportunity to do so.  Each observing character rolls Alertness, and the veil caster rolls Discipline plus applicable control specialization.  Modifiers might apply to this roll; for example if the observers are actively searching, they might get a (+2) bonus; if the veil user attacked someone, they might get a +2 bonus.  (Think about this in terms of modifiers that might apply to Stealth rolls, but with the veil making it possible (though with some difficulty) to remain unseen even when mundane Stealth would not.)
* Any observer who beat the veil user's roll can see through the veil.

[MijRai]

In the books Veils seem to be "don't draw attention to yourself" type things.  In Fool Moon Harry severely degraded the duration of his 'veil in a bottle' when tried to get someone's attention.  In the game they are a block against being perceived.

His potion wasn't a veil (thmatically, at least). It was more like a glamour or a seeming, 'Don't look here, nothing to see but some 'ole janitor, move along.'

The veils in the books are more like Molly's, ones that completely hide the target.

My two cents on the matter.

[Belial666]

Veils hide the target in combat just fine. This worked for Mavra, Molly, Tessa, a certain Stygian witch, Harry Dresden when he made a Grendelkin look like him to make his allies attack him, and Shagnasty.


So they do work.