Wards and Thresholds

[Selrach]

Hm.  My target is not here.  I shall wait for him ... and my bladder needs relieving in the meantime.  <Flips up the lid, and receives a fireball to the nether regions...>

There we go even if you survive you'd never try that again.

On a more serious note, yeah it says right out that the only places that have thresholds are from close-knit people living there for years. So unless a couple gets trapped in a bathroom for a year or two I do not see it happening.

[Becq]

Again, though, there is a distinction between thresholds and wards.  A toilet seat would not have a threshold (unless it was *reeeeeally* comfortable), but you could certainly put a ward on it.  All a ward needs is a boundary.

[Selrach]

Totally there nothing wrong with aforementioned toilet ward but it has been pointed out in the books that it is easier to anchor wards to thresholds than it is just to throw them up. Of course in some books there are examples of people  and things just throwing up wards.

(click to show/hide)

The fetch in Proven Guilty throws up a ward against Harry and Members of the Senior Council throw up one to hold up the Red Court in Death Masks.

Thresholds are much trickier to establish.

[Tbora]

Pretty sure that was more to the effect of public places have an effective threshold of +0 so they might as well not be their.

But that is a big difference though from NO threshold, because that means you can build wards on top of it, your just not given anything to work with from the beginning.

[Todjaeger]

Totally there nothing wrong with aforementioned toilet ward but it has been pointed out in the books that it is easier to anchor wards to thresholds than it is just to throw them up. Of course in some books there are examples of people  and things just throwing up wards.

Thresholds are much trickier to establish.

In my opinion, a toilet bowl ward would be a real pain in the...  gluteous maximus.

As for Thresholds, there isn't anything special done to establish them.  Thresholds are borders between things.  Night into Day is an example of a threshold.  The fence or wall around a cemetary is another example of a threshold.  Other examples of Thresholds would be the external walls of buildings like churchs and homes, or the internal walls separating different apartments in a building.  All of these are examples of Thresholds. 

Now, as a result of the Homestead laws (from Storm Front I think...) the metaphysical Threshold around a home (as opposed to an office building) or a church or other place of worship can be quite strong.  Things which tend to make the Threshold stronger are individual structures (a house vs. an apartment in an apartment building), a female presence instead of just being the home of a bachelor, a family living in the home, etc.  Basically all of the things which make and tend to reinforce a place as being a home, instead of just being somewhere to eat or sleep. 

The way they are established and strengthened is by having the building built, and then used over time, preferably by the same people and/or family.  As such, there is no real way for a wizard to 'build' a Threshold.  Either a place they're at has one (i.e. something other than a Threshold of Mediorce +0) or it doesn't, the only way for that to change is for the Wizard(s) to add Bless This House to their respective lists of Powers, or establish a family in the place where they want a strong Threshold, all the while doing the normal sorts of things a family does.

Mechanically, a Threshold would have a certain value, depending on many of the factors I mentioned aboved or as mentioned in the books (novels and RPG), on top of which a skilled Practioner would also like have a Ward of some kind.  Using the little stone cottage of Glenda, the Good Witch of the North as an example, there would be something like as follows:

Threshold:  Fair (+2), Glenda lives in the cottage by herself, but has lived there for the last twenty years.  Plus Glenda also has Bless this House (automatic +1 to Threshold strength).

Ward:  Legendary (+8)  Glenda has put some effort into Warding her home, enough so that if someone were unfortunate enough to crash into it, the cottage would likely escape major damage, but the car would not.

Now, if there was a hostile caster of some sort, attempting to cast spells at or into the cottage, in order to breach the Ward around the cottage, either to damage the Ward of someone/something inside, they would need to be able to direct a Legendary (+11) shift spell, just to get 1 shift of effect past both the Threshold and the Ward. 

[babel2uk]

Now, if there was a hostile caster of some sort, attempting to cast spells at or into the cottage, in order to breach the Ward around the cottage, either to damage the Ward of someone/something inside, they would need to be able to direct a Legendary (+11) shift spell, just to get 1 shift of effect past both the Threshold and the Ward.

The way I understand wards is that the caster would only need to get +9 shifts to breach the ward. Thresholds don't add on to wards, they simply allow them to be created over a large area. Without a threshold you can only establish a ward over a very small area (so there's no problem with warding a locker, or a toilet seat). If you have a threshold to work with you can cover the area covered by that threshold. Thresholds generally are very weak compared to what's easily achieveable with a ward. You have to be somewehere really special to have a threshold above 4 or 5, a basic ward can quite easily be double that, with bells and whistles on top.

From YS p277

Wards don’t have a “scale” concern, the way that veils do, and they cannot move. They are almost always tied to a particular place’s natural
thresholds—think of them as a super-boosted immune system—so they are limited by the size of that threshold. Without a threshold they can only be set up to cover a small area at most—usually a point of transition such as a doorway or intersection.

[Belial666]

Several ways wards benefit from thresholds;

1) Size; like someone else said, no threshold means your Ward would be tiny and if you really wanted to make it larger (and it was thematically appropriate for it to be allowed to be bigger) you'd have to spend shifts to cover zones. On the other hand, even an appartment building with crappy threshold will immediately give your Ward several zones in size.

2) Power; while not numerically boosting the complexity of the ward, thresholds do make them effectively stronger. Say that you Ward a home with a threshold of 2 with a 6-shift Ward (quite weak) and an alley with no threshold with a 9 shift Ward. Then comes a black court vampire with Supernatural Strength and Good Might, getting a result of +9 on average for the purposes on breaking things - including just breaking through your Ward with sheer strength.
Alley Ward: the vampire rolls against your Ward of 9 normally. With its effective might of +9, it has even chances to break through.
Home Ward: the vampire rolls against your Ward of 6. However, the threshold imposes 2 refresh worth of penalty to the vampire's powers and the vampire loses its supernatural strength - it is reduced to inhuman. Furthermore, the threshold imposes a -2 penalty to all of the vampire's rolls. Therefore, the vampire rolls at +4 against your Ward of 6, and its chances to break through are lower.



Also note that, unlike blocks, Wards do NOT break when breached. You simply got some overflow from the attack which you can apply on the defender or against the ward to reduce its strength. The Ward still remains in place in either case, unless your attack is powerful enough to reduce its strength enough to destroy it. And if your attack fails, the Ward will REFLECT it back to you. Which might be bad if you got lots of shifts in your attack and only missed breaching that 20-shift Ward by 1 point.

[babel2uk]

However, the threshold imposes 2 refresh worth of penalty to the vampire's powers and the vampire loses its supernatural strength - it is reduced to inhuman. Furthermore, the threshold imposes a -2 penalty to all of the vampire's rolls. Therefore, the vampire rolls at +4 against your Ward of 6, and its chances to break through are lower.

I'd have thought that since the ward and the threshold occupy the same boundary, and wards are supposed to be an advanced immune system for thresholds, that the ward takes precedence, so there's no reduction in the vampire's power until they try to breach the threshold itself (i.e. once they've reduced the ward to the same value as the threshold). I may be wrong - if so point me to the relevant paragraph.

I'm also puzzled as to how it reduces the vampire's attack roll as well as their damage bonus from their strength - the rulebook says that it only reduces damage by reducing the atatck roll if the damage bonus has been reduced to 0 - which it hasn't been if they've still got inhuman strength.

[Belial666]

A creature does not have to be inside the threshold for the threshold to affect it. For example, a wizard outside the threshold that attempts to affect something inside, his magical powers would take a penalty. Similarly, the vampire is not inside the threshold. But it is attempting to affect something inside - namely, the Ward in this case. Thus its efforts take the normal penalties. The only difference is that creatures of the Nevernever to which thresholds are highly inimical will not take the continious irresistible attacks from the threshold if they are not inside.


As for the penalties, a threshold gives three different penalties. a) a penalty in powers equal to its strength in refresh, b) a penalty to all rolls equal to its strength and c) a barrier against certain creatures that, if they cross it, it keeps attacking them at its strength and said attacks are irresistible and indefensible. Not all creatures take said penalties from thresholds though - only the really unnatural ones.

[Papa Gruff]

A creature does not have to be inside the threshold for the threshold to affect it.

That's not true actually. The rules repeatedly and clearly state that the loss of powers only takes place if the supernatural being crosses the threshold.

For example, a wizard outside the threshold that attempts to affect something inside, his magical powers would take a penalty.

This stands true, as the wizards attacks are directed from outside the threshold onto something inside the threshold. They get reduced by the thresholds value.

Similarly, the vampire is not inside the threshold. But it is attempting to affect something inside - namely, the Ward in this case. Thus its efforts take the normal penalties. The only difference is that creatures of the Nevernever to which thresholds are highly inimical will not take the continious irresistible attacks from the threshold if they are not inside.

What makes you think that the ward is set behind the threshold? I can't find any indication for that to be true. To me it's logical to think of a ward as something attached to the threshold, so that it is either in front of it or takes the same place. I'd rule that the vampire does not get penalized until he crosses the threshold, witch leaves him free to attack with full strength. However: you are perfectly free to rule otherwise.

[babel2uk]

But it is attempting to affect something inside - namely, the Ward in this case. Thus its efforts take the normal penalties.

Like Papa Gruff - who posted while I was still typing - I've always understood wards as being on top of existing thresholds, not within them, kind of like a protective layer over the threshold. In the same way that a magical shield and a dodge roll layer (shield first then dodge).

As for the penalties, a threshold gives three different penalties. a) a penalty in powers equal to its strength in refresh, b) a penalty to all rolls equal to its strength and c) a barrier against certain creatures that, if they cross it, it keeps attacking them at its strength and said attacks are irresistible and indefensible. Not all creatures take said penalties from thresholds though - only the really unnatural ones.

I can only find the following effects from thresholds in that section of the rulebook:

1. Works as a Block with a strength level equal to its rating
2. Works as a target to attack - the rating becomes stress boxes for purposes of tearing it down.
3. Works as a surpressor - which reduces powers used against it based on its rating: 'all affected abilities and spell effects lose a number of shifts of effectiveness equal to the strength of the threshold'. It's specifically supernatural abilities and powers though, so won't affect mundane skills, and it does seem to be specifically when the threshold is crossed by the entity - if you're attacking the ward, you're not crossing the threshold, you're hammering away at something outside it (like a shutter on a window). In the case of attack powers: 'this most often manifests as a reduction of the damage bonus provided, acting as a penalty to the actual attack roll only after the damage bonus has been reduced to zero.'
4. As a source of harm - an attack that the creature usually cannot defend against.

I'm not seeing a penalty to all rolls in there at all. The closest is the block that sets a target number for all actions through it.

[evileeyore]

Yes, yes, I know thread necro... but I think that's better than creating a new thread to discuss the same topic.



Elsewhere I'm talking about creating a magic item to create a Ward...

If I am inside a Threshold protected area, say a client's home, and I create a small Ward, a circle only around myself and the client to protect us, does an outside acting force have to "deal" with the Threshold before being able to get my Ward?

[sandchigger]

I'd say so, yes. If you want to drill to the earth's core, you still have to get through the crust before you can deal with the magma after all.

[BlackMage]

From my understanding of things, a threshold is not needed for a ward, it's just needed to make wards with stronger attributes/any sort of longevity.  See Proven Guilty where Harry is limited to a detection web at the convention.  Or his amazement at Elaine's wards (which are permeable to the living but not to smoke) in White Knight, specifically because she lacked a threshold to anchor them to/build on.

I don't have nearly enough grasp of the game rules and mechanics to answer the initial question with certainty or in the correct terms.  ... But, going by Harry's extensively powerful wards (both the offensive ones and the full on lock-down ward used in Death Masks) built on/anchored to his relatively puny threshold, I'd guess the strength of the threshold has little or no effect.  The presence of any threshold will allow the wizard more options for the ward and longevity once completed, and from there it is entirely dependent on the level of power/skill/imagination of the caster as to how it turns out.

[Tedronai]

a female presence instead of just being the home of a bachelor

It is my understanding that an unattached female living alone would not, all else being equal, have a stronger threshold than an unattached male living alone.
'A female presence' is sometimes mentioned as a potential path Harry could take to increasing the strength of his own threshold because his own presence is already a given.

Yes, I'm dredging back fair a bit for a relatively minor nit-picking, but I'm just in one of those moods...