spells doing more than damage

[stitchy1503]

Is there rules for spells that inflict damage as well as throw people around? Like when harry hits people with force magic it hits and throws them into walls and such.

[Belial666]

That IS the damage - throwing them into walls is damaging.


In DFRPG it doesn't matter mechanics-wise how the damage is dealt (except in the case of catches). The shifts of power only reflect how much damage is dealt.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'd rule that each zone of movement is worth one shift of power, and that you can mix and match damage and movement. So if you throw a 6 shift evocation and hit with a margin of 3 shifts you could choose to inflict 9 stress, or to move the target 4 zones and inflict 5 stress, or to inflict any combination of movement and damage that adds up to 9.

[Belial666]

On the other hand, you don't need to custom rule it. Extra shifts can do more than damage already. Movement is one such option.

[eberg]

Page 326 makes reference to Special-Effect Attacks, too, which I allow in Evocation. Basically, the power goes towards placing an Aspect on the target, and they also take stress based on the attack roll. One of my players has a spirit attack rote that puts a KNOCKED ON ASS aspect on the target in lieu of the Weapon rating and only does stress if she gets shifts on the attack roll.

[JesterOC]

Interesting but this seems like it makes attacks with special effects potentially much more powerful that standard maneuvers.

For 5 shifts of power an attack with a special effect can do damage AND place an aspect that the target can only escape from by rolling a 5 on an appropriate skill.  If the target has a bad skill, the maneuver can last a very long time, and they have to use their action to remove it.

With a standard maneuver 5 point of power (against a target with a target attribute of 3 or less) will have the effect last for 3 exchanges and do no damage.

JesterOC

[stitchy1503]

Cool thanks for the responses guys

[JesterOC]

I'm not saying I would not want to have spells do this.. I think it would be nice. I just would want some way of balancing it to the existing rules.

With the existing rules to pull off nearly the same effects you would use two exchanges, and take a minimum of 2 mental stress.

Perhaps allow the caster to cast two spells simultaneously at the mental costs as if they are casting one big spell (which will severely limit how powerful it can be), and consider doing so to be a supplementary action thus forcing a -1 on the die roll (this should make up for the extra exchange one gets by combining the actions).

At that point the maneuver spell acts just like a standard maneuver spell so their is no discrepancy.

At least that what I think off the top of my head.

JesterOC

[mostlyawake]

Actually, I've been using just this to model things like Taser Guns, harpoons through legs, and such.  If anything, it seems not to deal enough damage.

Taser gun - weapon 0, if hits applies Tasered aspect, if hits by +1 or more aspect is sticky and extra successes go to damage.

[devonapple]

Interesting but this seems like it makes attacks with special effects potentially much more powerful that standard maneuvers.

For 5 shifts of power an attack with a special effect can do damage AND place an aspect that the target can only escape from by rolling a 5 on an appropriate skill.  If the target has a bad skill, the maneuver can last a very long time, and they have to use their action to remove it.

With a standard maneuver 5 point of power (against a target with a target attribute of 3 or less) will have the effect last for 3 exchanges and do no damage.

I'm not sure it's that bad:
"These weapons [stun guns, tazers, tranc darts, some poisons] should still get ratings based on the guidelines given in Playing the Game (page 202), but instead of applying the Weapon rating as stress on an attack, the attacker might instead opt to impose a temporary aspect on the target (as though he'd performed a maneuver) in addition to the stress from the attack roll... [nets] can have their ratings sacrificed to enter the target in a grapple...
In either case, rolls to overcome these secondary effects are made against the weapon's rating; use the rating as the basis for rolling the opposition -- i.e., Weapon:2 = Fair (+2)" (YS 326)

So it sounds like the caster has to commit to a Weapon Rating for the spell, just like a tranqulizer gun has to have a Weapon Rating even if it is only meant to knock out its target or achieve some other Special Effect. Wish I had found this section when I was trying to model tranq guns!

If I understand it correctly, it means that for such an attack option, it doesn't matter what the Weapon rating is (even as low as Weapon:1), it still places the Aspect if successful, but the target rolls against the Weapon rating itself, not the final roll.

Or would the attacker's Weapon + shifts have to equal at least 3 to place the Aspect?