Aiming at wards

[The Mighty Buzzard]

It occurred to me a little bit ago that aiming a spell at a ward is much like aiming at the broad side of a barn.  You can't really miss.  You can't really hit badly even.  So, why do we use the aiming mechanic?  Just because it can get us more shifts of damage?  Doesn't seem to make much sense.

Should we just assume +4 on the attack roll and roll to control separately?

Should we consider the aiming roll to be just a bit of randomness from spell to spell?  Do rotes just take zero and assume a hit or do you still aim?

Could you declare an aspect on the ward of I'd Have To Be Facing The Wrong Way To Miss?  Would you invoke it for a +2 to hit?  Or for effect and what would the effect be?

Thoughts?

[Haru]

I'd say you'd still have to "hit" in a sense, that you need to find a weak spot in the ward for your counterspell to be effective. That could mean actually targeting a weak spot or changing the "magical frequencies" to match the ward or whatever you can think of as a description, but the mechanical part would be a targeting roll.

[computerking]

If it's not a counterspell, perhaps your aiming roll becomes the aiming roll of the spell bouncing back at you... Dodge this!

[Todjaeger]

It occurred to me a little bit ago that aiming a spell at a ward is much like aiming at the broad side of a barn.  You can't really miss.  You can't really hit badly even.  So, why do we use the aiming mechanic?  Just because it can get us more shifts of damage?  Doesn't seem to make much sense.

Should we just assume +4 on the attack roll and roll to control separately?

Should we consider the aiming roll to be just a bit of randomness from spell to spell?  Do rotes just take zero and assume a hit or do you still aim?

Could you declare an aspect on the ward of I'd Have To Be Facing The Wrong Way To Miss?  Would you invoke it for a +2 to hit?  Or for effect and what would the effect be?

Thoughts?

Quick question (really a confirmation...)  When you mean "aiming" a spell at a Ward, you're talking about using an Evocation, correct?

If so, then you're not really "aiming" the spell at all.  You make a Discipline roll* to control the number of shifts of power you put into the Evocation.  Assuming you make the Discipline roll to control the spell, then the number of shifts for control also count towards targeting the spell vs. a Dodge or Block.  Since the Ward attempting to Dodge, then the need to target it basically goes away.  Now this could mean that someone attacking a Ward using a Rote basically automatically 'hits' however spellcasters aren't realistically going to have a Rote Evocation attack powerful enough to damage most decent Wards, and there is the little matter of whatever doesn't penetrate or damage a Ward gets reflected back...

An alternate way to think of it (depending on how ones group wishes to play it since the RAW doesn't specifically) is that the discipline roll to control and/or target the Evocation is looking for weak points in the Ward.  This would then have the Discipline roll contested by the block strength of the Ward, with anything equal to or under the strength of the Ward doing nothing, and any shifts of success past the block strength of the Ward adding to the power behind the Evocation to either harm those protected by the Ward, or used to weaken the Ward.

-Cheers

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Yeah, I'm aware that controlling all the gathered power and aiming get lumped together for evocation (probably) by dint of both being Discipline rolls and the writers not sharing my fascination with things that are overly complicated.  It was the rotes that threw me off onto this tangent since the roll on a rote is nothing but targeting.  I could see a quick and dirty no-prep ward being used in a combat/flight situation, in fact there was a thread started about it recently.  That's usually going to mean a 3-5 shift ward that's good for little but slowing pursuit down, so it also means it's well within the range of most rotes.

The other questions were all just my brain trying to confuse itself again but they could still arguably be valid under some circumstances.

[Becq]

It might be best to think of the Discipline roll less in terms of "aiming" the spell, and more in terms of "focusing the energies of the spell to maximize effectiveness".

[Belial666]

Becq has the right idea. The discipline roll in magic is not an attack roll. It's a control roll on how well you can direct the energies. Against a person, you need to direct the energies well enough to hit him and any shifts you got beyond that is focusing the energies to maximize effectiveness. Against a ward, all the control roll does is maximize effectiveness against the Ward.


Think of it this way; the Ward is a wall with a certain block strength. If you direct X power at it and splash it over its entire surface, it isn't going to do squat. If you focus the blast on an area of about a square foot, you might have a chance of breaking through if you're lucky. If you concentrate the energy on an area of about a square inch, it is going to smash through the Ward like a bullet through glass.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Against a person, you need to direct the energies well enough to hit him and any shifts you got beyond that is focusing the energies to maximize effectiveness.

Sounds quite similar to the definition of aiming.  Rest is about the best line of reasoning here so far though.