Noob Questions

[Silverblaze]

@silverblaze:

Driving is the defense skill if you are trying to defend against an attack on your car. No argument there.

The game is named that because the books are named that. Not because the players are supposed to play wizards.

@sinker:

Not that I don't appreciate the response, but you seem to have missed the most important part of my post.

Because your position is a heck of a lot more defensible if you do.

And the beacon attack can only be defended against with Stealth. The entity invoked is so deadly that absolutely no defense is even slightly effective against it. No dodge, no parry, no block. Just hide.

Does that sound like BS? Well, it is.

But the game lets you fluff things however you like within the mechanical limits. If you can force opponents to defend with Might, then nothing prevents you from forcing opponents to defend with Stealth.

To me, just about every example given of an attack that bypasses the guidelines I mentioned sounds about as reasonable as that.

Also, not all combatants will have high Might. It's actually not that terribly useful in a fight, if you aren't a grappler.

I more or less meant that a game based on a wizard from a novel will likely have wizards be the dominant force in that world.  Seems to be cannon in hte novels too.  I expect them to be very powerful, espeically late game.

The analogy to Star Wars was that "The power to destroy a planet is nothing compared to the power of the Force." - In every system that has been created for that universe Force users are the most powerful (at least in the long run).  That was all I meant.  Other things are viable to be played, but hte advantage of the magic users is usually pretty over powered or unfair.  Pretty sure it's that way in old World of Darkness and D&D too. 
Yeah those are all, not this game system, I know...but the trend still stands.

Magic targets certain skills...sounds bad right?   When it can blow up your heart for 36 shifts from pretty much anywhere; the skill thing is pretty mild by comparison.

[Sanctaphrax]

Magic is pretty damn strong, but it's not clearly stronger than an equivalently priced package of other powers.

The heart-exploding thing is impressive, but it requires part of the target's body. And if you can get that, you could probably kill the guy some other way.

Also, Toughness and FP could get you through Sells' trick.

[sinker]

And the beacon attack can only be defended against with Stealth. The entity invoked is so deadly that absolutely no defense is even slightly effective against it. No dodge, no parry, no block. Just hide.

Does that sound like BS? Well, it is.

But the game lets you fluff things however you like within the mechanical limits. If you can force opponents to defend with Might, then nothing prevents you from forcing opponents to defend with Stealth.

Again, you're trying to define your attack so as to eliminate all other options, but your definition contains no justification for this. What would occur if I try to dodge? I will face the exact same spell. Your mechanics don't fit your fluff and thus it doesn't work.

To be honest, what I see in the spell descriptions is not concrete, but is instead an attempt to save time. Seems to me that they did not mean that the only way to ever avoid the earth stomp spell was with might, but rather that without extenuating circumstances that is the default skill (just as athletics is often the default in other cases), and that mooks should probably be rolling that. If this is the case then your fears should at least be eased. There's no way to pigeon hole someone into defending with their worst skill.

I think we've reached a point where this is a little fruitless though. You've convinced me to be more moderate, but you'll never convince me that the intent is not that an attack defines the defense, and it seems like you're just as resistant to this concept.

[Silverblaze]

Magic is pretty damn strong, but it's not clearly stronger than an equivalently priced package of other powers.

The heart-exploding thing is impressive, but it requires part of the target's body. And if you can get that, you could probably kill the guy some other way.

Also, Toughness and FP could get you through Sells' trick.

I feel the spirit of my post is being ignored.  The point I'm trying to make willfully ignored.  ( I know it when I see it, I do it )  I think you were looking onlyh at specifics so easy counter arguments exist.

I'll rest my case but keep my opinion.

[computerking]

Sorry to have caused such an uproar. OK, No, I’m not sorry, I thrive on your polemics. But my initial question (Regarding Earth Stomp), made me consider the (unmentioned) concept of invisible spell effects. I mean, If you’re using Earth magic to do damage to someone, it’s not mandatory (And some may argue silly) for the spell to have a visible effect that someone could just Athletics Dodge away from. They might not even know what’s happening until their shins snap (Since spell effects are Instant).

I know this concept runs perpendicular to the cinematic nature of Roleplay in general, and DFRPG specifically, but it is a viable tactic. The easiest dodge to this problem is to say that the Mystic Perception trapping of Lore could allow for a Spidey-Sense-like tingle to warn you of incoming spells, but what if we leave the Lore issue out of it. If you don’t know that someone’s turning the air around you into Lucite (Earth evocation, I think), how could you justify using Athletics to avoid it, instead of, say, Might to break free before it can totally solidify?

[sinker]

To be honest there's a little bit of metagaming in this response, but in the interest of having a game that is fun, and not a game where you get shot to death every time someone points a gun at you, I usually try to be a little more lenient about my justification for defense.

Consider how sanctaphrax responded to a similar statement I made earlier. You can't technically dodge bullets either, but we use athletics to get out of the way of that too. The way I figure it is that you aren't actually dodging the attack, but rather making yourself a harder-to-hit target. If you're diving from cover to cover, and moving all over the place it makes you much harder to target in the first place, so this is how I would justify it, and that kind of justification works for almost any kind of attack.

[ways and means]

Personally I would allow a wizard to create a cloud full of poison engulfing a zone as an attack vs endurance and zone with 100 times the normal gravity as a an attack vs might, though I admit I see both of these as evocations that create literal environmental hazards (which even Sanctaphrax agrees should be resisted by endurance).  But then I see evocation being able to do most types of attacks under the sun (including illusion attacks against alertness to force someone to walk off a cliff or to the path of bullets etc [obvious examples abound in ghost story] and mental attacks vs discipline [whole other argument]), so the ability to create environmental hazards being under the remit of evocation makes sense to me (the obvious example in the novels being Harry's volcano spell).

[Sanctaphrax]

@Silverblaze: I may be missing your point, but I promise it isn't intentional. Care to explain?

@sinker: Would you allow nonmagical attacks to require unusual defences?

@ways and means: I disagree with you to the greatest extent possible.

[ways and means]

Would you allow pc's to dodge mustard gas or dodge gravity Sanctaphrax? if you wouldn't then why would you let PC's dodge there magical equivalent? 

[Sanctaphrax]

You could escape the area of effect of such a spell with Athletics. Therefore dodging it.

Also, I don't think you can make poison gas with Evocation. Mustard gas is not a simple elemental effect.

The root of the problem here is that you are allowing wizards to subtract significantly from their opponents' defenses at no cost whatsoever.

Your average Chest Deep fighter probably has physical defense 5-9. If you make him rely on Endurance, he probably has defense 3 (although other numbers are possible too). And if his Endurance is too high for your tastes, you can be sure that he'll have another skill at Average or Mediocore that you can attack.

So you get a rather huge advantage in exchange for absolutely nothing.

This is bad. People already squawk about Evocation being too powerful.

What's more, I can't see why you want to make this possible. What does it add to the game?

PS: Do you have a list of skills that can be attacked? If so, where did you get it?

[ways and means]

Your right about mustard gas but you could replace the example with radiation (which would fit into the earth element next to gravity) and the arguement still stands. Technically you can't attack a skill you can only attack a character the skill just determines how they defend. I was just argueing that certain skills don't make sense for defence against certain attacks for example the rule against parrying bullets. I was also argueing that evocation is capable of making attacks that shouldn't be countered by athletics such as radiation or gravity things that are nearly omnipresent in the zones they affect, attacks that unless you allow pcs to use their supplemental movemet to get out of the affected zone could not be dodged.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

I was just argueing that certain skills don't make sense for defence against certain attacks for example the rule against parrying bullets.

Usually true. I've seen some extremely creative solutions using oddball skills for defense but it's not the norm.  There is a hard and fast rule for this type of situation though, so it's had far too much debate.

That rule: Convince The GM.

If you can, defend away.  If not, pick a different skill.  GMs vary too widely for something that's been this thoroughly argued to ever be universally agreed upon.

[sinker]

@sinker: Would you allow nonmagical attacks to require unusual defences?

Yes, however this touches on something that I realized a long time ago. Mortal skill and evocation are capable of everything the other is capable of and work exactly the same. In both cases you have to come up with an effect you are trying to create (something that is within the realm of possibility, I.E. justified), and roll a skill to see how successful it is. The one difference I see (and the thing that makes evocation so powerful) is that, while a mortal has to come up with a reason for how it works, the wizard says "It's magic." Magic is it's own justification. To be fair this is just an attitude I've developed while looking at the source material, an inference, rather than a direct reference, but I like it.

[computerking]

Usually true. I've seen some extremely creative solutions using oddball skills for defense but it's not the norm.  There is a hard and fast rule for this type of situation though, so it's had far too much debate.

That rule: Convince The GM.

If you can, defend away.  If not, pick a different skill.  GMs vary too widely for something that's been this thoroughly argued to ever be universally agreed upon.

The Buzzard has a point. But I want to drop in one further thing I thought of.
I believe the "Defend with this other skill" mechanic is supposed to give the characters more of a chance, not less of one. If you assume a certain effect is invisible, you would not be able to see it to effectively Athletics dodge out of the way, Rendering Athletics to Zero, much like being ambushed. Instead of that being the only option, perhaps the designers allowed the chance of another skill defending against it, so the target is not stuck with a Mediocre stat to roll against.

[sinker]

...If you assume a certain effect is invisible, you would not be able to see it to effectively Athletics dodge out of the way, Rendering Athletics to Zero, much like being ambushed.

Again, this is something that I no longer believe is good for the game. If you can dodge bullets, then you can dodge sudden magic spells.