My problem with the way you're doing Veils is I feel it ignores certain principals of the game. You're disallowing an action, which seems weird to me.
"Disallowing an action" is exactly what blocks are made for. Veils are not blocks against taking damage. They're blocks against being attacked at all.
Once more, going by the numbers, explain to me how Molly survives any encounter with her 3-shift block against creatures whose fists and weapons rolls are almost always Great and over. Going by this model, Molly--whose whole play style is "you can't hit what you can't see"--should be dead.
It's a block and people are coming into contact with the block with their actions. It seems hand-wavey to say that you're not allowed to do this arbitrary list of actions.
Well, no. It's not arbitrary at all to say you can't make an aimed attack against something you can't locate.
I also know that many people make the veil go away as soon as they do somthing offensive - or that would give them away. I don't really like that either, because most blocks don't work like that. Just because I fire my gun, it doesn't mean my sheild goes away.
Because the shield is blocking something different from a veil. But I'd argue firing the gun might not work if you're trying to fire it
through the shield.
It's actually relevant. My "dark tag" example would be exactly how it would work if the veiled person didn't spend the extra 2 shifts to see through their own veil. Both parties are now hampered by the veil.
Well, no. The block against the veiler is
half the strength of the veil itself, so that's not equal or even footing.
Also, while children aren't stealth masters, they also aren't masters at detecting intruders - so both sides are on even footing.
You really don't have to be a "master" of detecting intruders to find children running around and shouting in the dark.
One thug uses Investigate but fails, the other one pulls out a knife and starts swinging it around. (He's actually much better at guns, but isn't going to start randomly shooting - that's crazy).
Um, so is randomly flailing around with a knife. That's generally not how people search unless they know someone's invisible, and even then, the smart thing to do is to do a maneuver--throw dust or something around the room to create a scene aspect, then tag that. Your method is encouraging things that are, frankly, ludicrous to do.
Escalate Scenario
John decides, if he can take one thug out quickly, under the cover of a 6shift veil, he can probably take them all out. He attacks with an Air Evocation and successfully ambushes one thug, killing him instantly.
This prompts another awareness at +3.
Where exactly is this number coming from?
Unfortunately (for the sake of the example), the remaining thug fails. Seeing piles of papers from the "cluttered Room" fly from a specific direction, the thug declares that he knows the general direction of the intruder. He pulls out his shot-gun and shoots john.
Shotguns really don't have so much of a spread that you can point in a general direction and hit. And tell me, why can't he just tag and invoke that declaration to break the block, or just plain compel John to have blown the veil?
Is this scenario really that unrealistic?
Well, yes, as I've mentioned--people generally don't search by wildly flailing with their knives, and shotguns spread at most about two feet wide over a distance of 50-60 yards or so.
I'm curious. How do you adjudicate a veiled caster blowing people up from a zone away when no-one can even target him? I know people can set up creative maneuvers, but they may be too busy with the werewolf that's eating their face. Does an attack automatically negate a veil?
I'm not sure what the question is here. If the attack is something noticeable--like a plume of fire coming from the guy's hands--then yes, it should break the veil, just like shouting at the top of your lungs would blow it if you're trying to sneak around in the dark.
There is a very large difference between blocking movement so he cannot be in my zone and thus cannot attack me in mele, and blocking perception and now arbitrarily saying he cannot attack at me.
Namely, the first one makes sense, he cannot get into range to attack (if the wall was something vulnerable to fists, like earth described certain ways, I may let him attack the wall though), thus he cannot do it. The second one does not make sense, if you put up a veil, the toll may not be able to see you, but he can move into your zone and flail around (which as I said before would have a -1 from supplemental movement, and -2 from poor circumstances).
The second one makes perfect sense. It's not arbitrary at all. If you can't see something, you can't effectively hit it. I
might allow that random flailing can break a veil, but not that it would be a full-powered attack, because a full-powered attack includes things like hitting with directed strength. Seriously, punch a punching bag, and then randomly flail in its general direction and incidentally happen to tap it as you walk by. Which do you think is going to do significant damage?
In a group game, any well built party will have some characters (like the wizard) who doe tons of damage, and some characters (like a werewolf) who are designed to be tankier (higher defense skill, likely also toughness). Sometimes it may be wrong to change focus to the werewolf, but it is almost always right, and one of the few tools the GM has against a wizard run amok is targeting it, taking that away entirely presents a balance issue.
It's not taking it away entirely. As we've pointed out before, a veil is going to do nothing against zone attacks, and any GM with an ounce of creativity is still going to be able to find and hit the wizard--or at least force the wizard onto the defensive to maintain and improve the veil instead of blasting.
And, most importantly, a veil is mental stress that the wizard is taking--mental stress they're not using to attack. A wizard has limited resources, and one that's focused on staying out of sight is not going to have the juice to go blasting.
The book says a veil is a block against perception. No where does it say you cannot attack something you cannot see. What I am saying is not a house rule, it is a perfectly valid interpretation of the rules in the book. there are rules for adjusting difficulty due to poor circumstances, there are also rules for aspects/declarations. There are in fact no rules that state that veils make you immune to targeted attacks.
You can try to attack something you can't see, but it's not going to be an effective attack. The entire purpose of a veil is to not present a target. It is not to soften a blow, or block an attack, it's to make sure the attack never finds you in the first place.
Once again: If all Molly's best veil could do is provide a -2 to her opponent's attack roll at the most generous interpretation,
how is she still alive?