Zone attacks as maneuvers?

[Ghsdkgb]

Going with magic, here. Let's say I wanted to Pyrofuego and set the whole place on fire. I have Conviction of 4 with no particular foci (for simplicity's sake), so if I blast an individual with this, I have to roll a 4 to control it (with Discipline helping out), they dodge against my 4 and if they're hit, they take the extra stress they missed their roll by and 4 stress, besides. Easy enough.

Now as a Zone attack, the rules say to take 2 off the power. But I still have to roll a 4 to control this, correct? And everyone in the zone dodges against my 4-roll, right? If they're hit, they take an additional 2 stress, not 4, because I lost 2 to making it a Zone, correct? Or do they dodge against a 2, because I lose 2 on my control, too?

This is where Maneuvers come in. If I wanted to make a zone attack as a maneuver (let's say, instead of fire, it was wind to just knock everyone on their ass), the -2 would be off of power, but since we're not dealing damage, does that become irrelevant? Just a 4-shift dodge (or whatever my Discipline rolls to) and they're left standing or not?

Am I interpreting this right?

EDIT: looking at p325 of YS, it seems I am correctly interpreting this, but I'd like some confirmation, still.

[Mr. Death]

Now as a Zone attack, the rules say to take 2 off the power. But I still have to roll a 4 to control this, correct? And everyone in the zone dodges against my 4-roll, right? If they're hit, they take an additional 2 stress, not 4, because I lost 2 to making it a Zone, correct? Or do they dodge against a 2, because I lose 2 on my control, too?

They would have to roll against the 4, not the 2.

This is where Maneuvers come in. If I wanted to make a zone attack as a maneuver (let's say, instead of fire, it was wind to just knock everyone on their ass), the -2 would be off of power, but since we're not dealing damage, does that become irrelevant? Just a 4-shift dodge (or whatever my Discipline rolls to) and they're left standing or not?

Am I interpreting this right?

Nope. The control roll is not the targeting roll for a maneuver. For a maneuver, the difficulty to resist it is the maneuver's power, in this case, 2. Also, I think 3 shifts is the minimum you need to put into a spell's effect to make a successful maneuver.

Look at YS252 for specifics on maneuvers with evocation.

[Ghsdkgb]

Nope. The control roll is not the targeting roll for a maneuver. For a maneuver, the difficulty to resist it is the maneuver's power, in this case, 2. Also, I think 3 shifts is the minimum you need to put into a spell's effect to make a successful maneuver.

Look at YS252 for specifics on maneuvers with evocation.

Welp, settles that I think.

So he'd make the maneuver at a +2 difficulty instead of +4. Got it.

Though I think the +3 is only if it's not resistible, right? If it's on a scene or an item, it's a +3, but if it's on a person, they just roll against it?

[Mr. Death]

As I understand it, you don't need to beat their defense by +3, but the effect itself has to be at least +3. You could put a maneuver on a person with a 3-shift maneuver, but you might want to put more power into it to help make sure it lands.

[Orladdin]

You need higher than the greater of (someone's relevant defense) or (3) to land a maneuver on them.  You need (I believe) at least one additional shift to make it sticky.  there is no defense roll.

[Haru]

In a case like this, I would probably let you do the spell on the scene with 3-4 shifts,depending on whether it is supposed to be fragile or not, just like any other maneuver spell. After that it is an invoke for effect to create border values on the scene, that would of course affect everyone, including yourself.

[sinker]

Of note, you can't have a zone wide maneuver in the same way that you can an attack. Spending 2 shifts to make an attack zone wide is specifically part of the evocation attack mechanics (and if you want to get really technical, spending 2 shifts to extend a block to all allies only in a zone is part of the block mechanics). You can make what's called an environmental maneuver, where you effect the scene as a whole, but this creates one aspect that effects everyone in the scene, instead of placing multiple aspects on your enemies. This maneuver would require 3 shifts (4 if you wanted it sticky) and would not be resisted by anyone.

And Haru gets there first...

[Mr. Death]

Where does it say you can't do that? It would make sense to me that there would be a difference between, say, making the scene aspect IT'S REALLY WINDY and putting the KNOCKED ON YOUR ASS aspect on everyone in the zone. For one, knocking people down would have to have some kind of defense roll against it.

[sinker]

The whole "2 shifts to extend an attack to a zone" is specifically part of the evocation attack rules. If you look at the evocation maneuver rules, it mentions targeting a single enemy, or the scene. There is no mention whatsoever of spending shifts to extend a targeted maneuver to multiple targets.

Personally I would be leery of something like that anyway, that many free tags would be very powerful.

[Mr. Death]

Well, you'd only really be able to use each free tag on one target. Sure, you could use all those tags on something like a follow-up zone attack, but that would be a very bad idea if you--or any allies--are still in that zone since you'd have to try and dodge your own absurdly boosted control/targeting roll.

My issue with only allowing it target one target or a scene is that it means if you throw out a big wind spell on the scene to disorient, say, a half-dozen goons, you're going to need to spend several fate points to really make use of it.

[Orladdin]

The whole "2 shifts to extend an attack to a zone" is specifically part of the evocation attack rules. If you look at the evocation maneuver rules, it mentions targeting a single enemy, or the scene. There is no mention whatsoever of spending shifts to extend a targeted maneuver to multiple targets.

It could be a reasonable extension of logic, however, as long as it was handled correctly.  One thing that's easy to do in the DFRPG is use the way one thing is done to directly calculate another-- look at all of thaumaturgy.  What I wish they did more of in the books, though, is reasoning or notes related to recommended practice for doing or not doing things certain ways. 

It's easy to fall into the two general RPG traps of "if it doesn't say I can't then I can" and "I can only do what is explicitly laid out in the books."  Both of which lead to a lame game experience, IMHO.

Personally I would be leery of something like that anyway, that many free tags would be very powerful.

I think I saw in another thread that something like this is best handled if those tags can only apply specifically to the targets that they are on.  For example, if you followed up the zone-wide Covered in Oil aspect on 23 people with a zone-wide fire attack, instead of tagging all the aspects for +46, you would instead get a single tag on each of the targets for +2 to each one that has it.  So, if you hit the 23 people with Covered in Oil, and a 24th person walked in after; you'd target the zone with the fire spell, getting +2 on all of the original 23 targets but not on the 24th.
This seems to work rather well.

[Mr. Death]

Or, alternatively, have the +2 boost damage instead of the roll on an individual level.

[Haru]

My issue with only allowing it target one target or a scene is that it means if you throw out a big wind spell on the scene to disorient, say, a half-dozen goons, you're going to need to spend several fate points to really make use of it.

That's because disorienting a zone full of people would be easier accomplished by putting it up as a block, not as a maneuver. Or you could put it up as a maneuver and tag for effect, so everyone (including you and your allies) would be disoriented or would have to roll against it.

Or, alternatively, have the +2 boost damage instead of the roll on an individual level.

There would be no real difference if you would tag 1 aspect on a zone wide attack or 1 aspect per target for +2 per target.

The one aspect per maneuver can be pretty powerful, if you use it right. Especially since a scene aspect can be tagged for effect to change the layout of the scene fundamentally.

[Mr. Death]

That's because disorienting a zone full of people would be easier accomplished by putting it up as a block, not as a maneuver. Or you could put it up as a maneuver and tag for effect, so everyone (including you and your allies) would be disoriented or would have to roll against it.

Isn't that basically the same thing as a zone-wide targeted maneuver, only with the added step of tagging for effect?

[sinker]

It could be a reasonable extension of logic, however, as long as it was handled correctly.  One thing that's easy to do in the DFRPG is use the way one thing is done to directly calculate another-- look at all of thaumaturgy.  What I wish they did more of in the books, though, is reasoning or notes related to recommended practice for doing or not doing things certain ways. 

It's easy to fall into the two general RPG traps of "if it doesn't say I can't then I can" and "I can only do what is explicitly laid out in the books."  Both of which lead to a lame game experience, IMHO.

Usually I agree, but in this case when you look at how the section is written it seems like an intentional omission. Both attacks and blocks mention how you can spend two shifts to achieve a zone-wide effect, but maneuvers are laid out differently. If they intended that 2 shift rule to apply to all actions taken with evocation, then I would have expected them to either state it once and not again, or state it every time. Instead it's mentioned in two specific actions and not in the third. Seems meaningful to me.

It isn't only the +2 invoke that worries me, it's the invoke for effect that is the true power of the aspect, and that many invoke for effects could be incredibly powerful. Also since we can use appropriate aspects as power sources what's to prevent me from laying down a zone-wide "Smoldering" aspect on five guys, tagging the first four to draw the ambient heat to power my spell (putting it up in the 10-12 shift range, which is controllable) and then tagging the last one to add to my control and hit one of them for 24 shifts? Or if I spend some of those shifts to make it zone-wide and tone it down a bit (so that I don't have to tag to control it) and hit all of them for 18-20 shifts.

I did just go back and look over some of the old stuff we had on this, and it does appear that Lenny/Fred don't directly object to the concept of a zone-wide evocation maneuver, but for the previous reasons I'd still worry.