Unless you have a rules reference I've overlooked, a grapple is nothing more than a superior form of block. Essentially, you can use it as your defense roll. Once I roll past it, I'm still going to hit.
It also increases the amount of power you need to control. But if you roll high enough to overcome the block, you've rolled enough to control the spell.
He decides that casting a spell while
grappled is too chancy, since the Superb grapple
blocks his target roll to control even a minor
evocation.
So even if I
was trying to
cast a, uh, Fair
spell, it’d be
as difficult as
trying to cast
a Superb one
when the block’s
that big?
Exactly right.
Reminds me
of that time
MacFinn put me
in a headlock.
it's not exactly clear what they mean here. It doesn't say you have to draw 5 shifts of power. It only says his target for control is Superb. So, what happens if you fail your control? I wouldn't think you'd take backlash as if it's a Superb spell since you didn't actually put 5 shifts of power. You'd probably just take the difference of how much you failed, capped by the power of the spell. So, if you failed by 3 but it's a fair spell, you'd take 2 shifts of backlash since there's not enough power in the spell to do more than that.
In any case, your actual control roll goes up as well as your targeting roll, which is meaningless because it's essentially the same thing. If you roll equal to the grapple, you still hit, regardless of the power of the spell. With a control roll of +11, you'd need an equally effective grapple(assuming the wizard is allowed to use large foci in a grapple) which means:
Might +5
Mythic strength (+3)
Grapple stunt (+2)
For a total of 10...and that's 7 refresh.
Speed doesn't boost grapples, nor is athletics used for grappling. But Bellial's example didn't include a grappler - just a speedster who maneuvered.
BTW, physical attacks can also scale. Highest I ever saw was Weapon 16 without any stress cost, custom powers or invokes. Then again that was an undead giant wielding a mordite blade so it was kinda justified in a "splat, you're it" kinda way.
This is true but...
I made a character that did +19 stress and was +9 to hit.(Fantastic Skill Cap) It cost me 14 refresh and that's the absolute best I could do and it included questionable custom powers. And I had no other powers or stunts that let me do anything but kill things with a single hit. I'm fairly certain a wizard with the same refresh could do better - especially with accuracy. And they still have more options.
