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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: PirateJack on September 06, 2012, 12:28:09 PM
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So I'm in an argument with one of my players because he sees veils (and the way they're described in the rulebook) as going against the stated rules for blocks.
He's claiming that veiling a person renders them immune to attacks, manoeuvres and blocks from multiple targets (assuming they don't break through the veil), which according to the rules is not possible (you can either target multiple people/objects against one action or one person/object against multiple actions, not both). I've ruled it as this:
The veil does not 'prevent' anything. It can work in a variety of ways, but the most common one is to bend light around the target, not to directly block another person's vision (that would be an illusion rather than a veil).
The mechanics for it would essentially be:
1) Pick the target for the veil.
2) Declare what you want to block (bend light around the target, in this case).
3) Roll for strength.
4) If anyone tries to pierce the veil they must roll higher than its strength.
This is exactly the same method used to create a shield, and that's how the rulebook essentially describes it, so I'm going to go with that.
Am I right in this or should veils be restricted as he wants them to be?
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Veils tend to block all actions against oneself. The reason for this is that they can't see you, and thus cannot act against you. However, unless you spend 2 extra shifts, they also block all of your actions at the same strength.
However, my table has a few exceptions:
-Zone attacks are not blocked. They don't need to see you for the grenade they threw at the guy next to you to hurt you. Other zone-wide effects are also probably good too.
-Blocks are not blocked. If I'm throwing up a shield or laying down suppressive fire, the fact that I can't see you doesn't matter. You're still not going to get past my force bubble or run into my stream of bullets.
Other things are likely to bypass this as well, such as social attacks (if I know you're in the room, just not where), etc.
Most things which block attacks are likely to block maneuvers directly against the defended target. This doesn't prevent the character from maneuvering.
One thing to keep in mind: A veil blocks an enemy from attacking or maneuvering directly against ME. Not attacking or maneuvering at all. So my friends are still fair game, as are navel gazing maneuvers.
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The way we've always used veils is they're a block against anyone perceiving you--basically, any direct action against you fails if the attacker can't beat the veil strength with an Alertness, Lore, or Investigation roll (whichever applies). Zone attacks would work, and depending on the nature of the veils, spray attacks might work (if the veil is, say, an illusion of multiple copies of a person).
The +2 zone effect for a block is whether it's protecting multiple people, not whether it's stopping multiple people from acting. A straight up defensive block doesn't need extra shifts to stop gunfire from two sources instead of one.
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The +2 zone effect for a block is whether it's protecting multiple people, not whether it's stopping multiple people from acting. A straight up defensive block doesn't need extra shifts to stop gunfire from two sources instead of one.
"Veils often block detection in both directions. Perceiving things outside a veil while you are within it faces a similar block, at half the veil’s strength. Increase the complexity of a veil by 2 in order to create a veil that doesn’t impede looking out at all. (For an evocation veil, this increases the power requirement of the spell by 2.)"
YS276.
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"Veils often block detection in both directions. Perceiving things outside a veil while you are within it faces a similar block, at half the veil’s strength. Increase the complexity of a veil by 2 in order to create a veil that doesn’t impede looking out at all. (For an evocation veil, this increases the power requirement of the spell by 2.)"
YS276.
And how I've always run this is like D&D invisibility vs Improved Invisibility. If you don't put the extra shifts into the veil, then you can't see well and it's almost impossible to target anyone with attacks. To effectively attack someone, you have overcome your own veil, and if you succeed, your veil goes away. It's only really good for hiding from something you don't want to attack. If you add the extra shifts, the veil doesn't block any of your skills/actions.
I'm just curious (and maybe this is what the OP is asking): Let's say I know someone is in the zone, but I can't perceive them because of they are protected by a veil. Do I get an awareness roll and if I fail, am unable to attack the veiled person directly? (I could still use social attacks/zone attacks etc..) OR
Could I shoot wildly in the direction of the veiled person and if the attack beats the veil, I'd still hit?
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"Veils often block detection in both directions. Perceiving things outside a veil while you are within it faces a similar block, at half the veil’s strength. Increase the complexity of a veil by 2 in order to create a veil that doesn’t impede looking out at all. (For an evocation veil, this increases the power requirement of the spell by 2.)"
YS276.
I would probably judge that by the wizards aspects. If he is the sort to regularly use veils, his veil will be transparent from the inside. If not, the veil will be like walking through fog or whatever might fit the wizard. Like the difference between Harry's and Molly's veils. Molly certainly does not have the strength to spare 2 shifts of power, while Harry should easily be able to do so. Yet, their veils are described very different.
However, if you are attacking from under a veil, it should be dropped.
Veils are defensive blocks, and as such you don't put them on an enemy, you put them on yourself (or a friendly target). On the rest I'm pretty much on par with Mr. Death.
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However, if you are attacking from under a veil, it should be dropped.
Veils are defensive blocks, and as such you don't put them on an enemy, you put them on yourself (or a friendly target).
Why couldn't you do an offensive veil (blinding your target)?
Why would attacking break the veil? Doesn't it only block perception? So, maybe you perceive the attack and probably its origin, but you still might not be able to actual see/hear the attacker.
As an aside, I see Molly having all her specializations in spirt and veils as well as aspects. She probably could easily find the two shifts. In the first novels she was quite bad at veils - Murphy could even detect her, but later on she was quite a bit better.
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Why couldn't you do an offensive veil (blinding your target)?
That would be a blinding, not a veil. It would pretty much function the same if you were up against only one opponent, but it would be much different if more than 2 people are participating in a conflict.
Why would attacking break the veil? Doesn't it only block perception? So, maybe you perceive the attack and probably its origin, but you still might not be able to actual see/hear the attacker.
That's just my understanding of veils in general. And it is a common trope that veils are only good as long as you don't attack. You can attack and then veil again, but that will still leave you open for a moment.
Also, any character with veiling capacities would basically be able to do a constant stream of what will basically be ambush attacks, and that just doesn't seem very balanced.
As an aside, I see Molly having all her specializations in spirt and veils as well as aspects. She probably could easily find the two shifts. In the first novels she was quite bad at veils - Murphy could even detect her, but later on she was quite a bit better.
Murphy is a detective, she's got a high investigation skill and is aware of the supernatural. Also, she didn't see Molly, she detected her because Molly was quite clumsy in her attempt to hide her presence.
Putting everything together, I still think Harry would have more power to put up a veil than Molly. It's just not his style, so he's only able to put up a bad one at best.
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Also, any character with veiling capacities would basically be able to do a constant stream of what will basically be ambush attacks, and that just doesn't seem very balanced.
I don't allow ambushes past the first attack. Once a person knows they're under attack, it's hard to ambush them. But that's just me. I know not everyone does that.
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I don't allow ambushes past the first attack. Once a person knows they're under attack, it's hard to ambush them. But that's just me. I know not everyone does that.
Ok, probably not an ambush, but something along the line. If you can't see your attacker, you can't defend against them, nor can you attack them in return.
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"Veils often block detection in both directions. Perceiving things outside a veil while you are within it faces a similar block, at half the veil’s strength. Increase the complexity of a veil by 2 in order to create a veil that doesn’t impede looking out at all. (For an evocation veil, this increases the power requirement of the spell by 2.)"
YS276.
I wasn't referring to that bit, I was referring to the question of whether a veil placed on one character would stop multiple characters from acting against them (if Molly makes herself invisible, it'd stop everyone in the room from seeing her, not just one, to use an example). Though thank you anyway, I'd completely forgotten about that part.
As for Murphy detecting Molly the first couple times, that was probably a series of declarations on Murphy's part, and compels against Molly's trainee aspect--she hadn't covered scent and sound. If they're separate declarations, Murphy gains +4 to her roll to find her, which alone is probably more than enough to pierce Molly's veils even if Murphy had an abysmal Investigation score (her rote is listed as a 3-shift block in the book).
As to attacking breaking a veil, a veil works at least partially because you're not doing things that draw attention to yourself. Even if the veil is still there, people are going to notice if gunfire starts spilling out of an empty space, or if the air starts rippling as you move, etc. Think of the Predator's cloak--while he's standing still in camouflage, he's all but invisible. But once he starts shooting and moving, you can spot his outline a lot easier.
So attacking might not outright break the veil, but you could easily declare things against those actions to get a boost to seeing through it.
I don't allow ambushes past the first attack. Once a person knows they're under attack, it's hard to ambush them. But that's just me. I know not everyone does that.
Ok, probably not an ambush, but something along the line. If you can't see your attacker, you can't defend against them, nor can you attack them in return.
I agree that there should be some advantage to veiling mid-fight if you're attacking right after. Usually I allow it as a tag on a veiling aspect, rather than a block-to-ambush effect.
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My group hasn't run into veils all that much in previous games, but in the one we're starting, one player will be using them extensively, so like PirateJack, I want to make sure I'm adjudicating them properly.
Most blocks only block against a specified action. So a block against movement (like wrapping someone up in vines) only blocks movement, and it would seem weird to say that attacks don't work because the vines get in the way (although it would make for a good declaration). And just because an attack hit, it wouldn't break the block against movement.
For me, The same goes for veils. I don't like saying, "sorry, you can't even try to attack the guy you can't perceive".
This is how I've run it and you can let me know if I'm out of line:
Only Awareness breaks the veil (the enemy must perceive you). A person, if they somehow know someone is protected by a veil can choose to target the person. They have to guess which zone the target is in. If they choose the right zone, they can make an attack and if they beat the Block, they can do damage (minus the block to represent that you got a lucky, glancing hit). This does not break the veil - although, it might prompt new Awareness checks (maybe to see blood dripping etc).
Any offensive action by the person protected by the veil does not break the veil, but it would prompt new awareness checks which might be at a bonus based on the action. Talking would prompt an awareness at +1, but a gunshot might be at +3 or 4. Any successful Awareness checks breaks the veil.
What do you think?
EDIT: any attack that doesn't require you to perceive the target (like area attacks) are not blocked by the veil.
EDIT 2: Zone-wide maneuvers, or maneuvers on a scene would be an excellent way to break a veil. A maneuver to knock over a barrel of oil to see footprints would prompt a new taggable awareness check, or a spell maneuver to layer everything in a zone with dust could do the same thing.
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I've only browsed this, but I'd like to throw in my two copper pieces on attacking veiled people.
So you're veiled. Great. You're doing pretty good. Folks can't really see you. But then maybe someone makes an Alertness and overcomes your veil. Can they see you? Maybe. Do they have a general idea where you are? Yeah.
And here's the thing: in much the same way that a Guns attack could be a volley of bullets, a Weapons attack could be a few swings of the the sharp metal thing. The sharp metal thing doesnt care that you're invisible. You can't or shouldn't stand still if a guy is swinging an axe in your general vicinity. Maybe you trip and sprain your ankle in the process of getting out of the way.
Did the attacker ever actually see you or hit you? Not necessarily. Did his attack still inflict stress? Yeah.
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I've only browsed this, but I'd like to throw in my two copper pieces on attacking veiled people.
So you're veiled. Great. You're doing pretty good. Folks can't really see you. But then maybe someone makes an Alertness and overcomes your veil. Can they see you? Maybe. Do they have a general idea where you are? Yeah.
And here's the thing: in much the same way that a Guns attack could be a volley of bullets, a Weapons attack could be a few swings of the the sharp metal thing. The sharp metal thing doesnt care that you're invisible. You can't or shouldn't stand still if a guy is swinging an axe in your general vicinity. Maybe you trip and sprain your ankle in the process of getting out of the way.
Did the attacker ever actually see you or hit you? Not necessarily. Did his attack still inflict stress? Yeah.
I agree with this, mostly. I agree that you should still be able to swing at someone who is veiled...but your attacks are likely to be innacurate. This is why I like the veil being able to block attacks to a certain point. (see the post above).
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My group hasn't run into veils all that much in previous games, but in the one we're starting, one player will be using them extensively, so like PirateJack, I want to make sure I'm adjudicating them properly.
Most blocks only block against a specified action. So a block against movement (like wrapping someone up in vines) only blocks movement, and it would seem weird to say that attacks don't work because the vines get in the way (although it would make for a good declaration). And just because an attack hit, it wouldn't break the block against movement.
You're thinking of it the wrong way. The way blocks are described in the book, they either block a single target from doing multiple things, or they block a bunch of targets from doing something specific. Wrapping a single target up in vines would restrict them from more than one specific action. A veil would block several people from doing one specific action (perceiving you), just as a shield-type block stops several people from taking the specific action of harming you.
For me, The same goes for veils. I don't like saying, "sorry, you can't even try to attack the guy you can't perceive".
Well...too bad? I mean, that's pretty much just how things work: You can't directly attack something you can't find. If you can't see someone, how are you going to attack them? It's like going, "I don't like saying, 'Sorry, you can't even try to hit someone with a sword when they're 30 feet away.'"
Only Awareness breaks the veil (the enemy must perceive you). A person, if they somehow know someone is protected by a veil can choose to target the person. They have to guess which zone the target is in. If they choose the right zone, they can make an attack and if they beat the Block, they can do damage (minus the block to represent that you got a lucky, glancing hit). This does not break the veil - although, it might prompt new Awareness checks (maybe to see blood dripping etc).
I'd say this is the wrong way to do it--it makes it so veils are just like regular blocks, in which case why are you bothering with the veil? And the first bit means veils are only useful at all if you're in multiple-zone combat, which isn't as common as some might think.
This feels like you're trying to nerf how veils work, and I don't see a reason why.
Put it this way: Say you're Molly. You don't have a lot of power to work with, but you can veil like nobody's business. You're up against something with a huge advantage in attacking skill and power (say, they hit with Fists at Great, and they've got Supernatural Strength). Your main defense is simply not being targetable--you throw up a 4-shift veil, which the target has a hard time piercing with its only Average Alertness score. Ergo, Molly is safe because the guy can't target her.
But with your method, Molly is screwed--her specialization in veils is no advantage at all, because you're treating it like a shield block.
That's the purpose of veils--forcing your opponent to go through a (probably) lower skill to attack you instead of trying to overcome what's probably an apex attack skill. Using your method, there's no way that Molly could survive combat for more than a round or two.
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Perhaps Awareness should limit the attack skill? Or go a step further and create a penalty on attacks equal to the difference between the attack skill and Awareness?
Its worth pointing out that Molly's veils are mostly visual. In the beginning of White Night Murphy and Harry both pick up on her presence in the room without ever seeing her.
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Perhaps Awareness should limit the attack skill? Or go a step further and create a penalty on attacks equal to the difference between the attack skill and Awareness?
That seems to just make things more complicated. It's simpler--and better fitting with what we see in the books and how veils are described in the RPG--to just have it as "if you pierce the veil, you can act against them, if you don't, you can't."
Its worth pointing out that Molly's veils are mostly visual. In the beginning of White Night Murphy and Harry both pick up on her presence in the room without ever seeing her.
Yes, but by Small Favor, she's learned to cover that--when Harry finds her in Michael's workshop, she mentions that she had all five senses covered. In that case, as I mentioned before, Murphy declared or assessed Molly's inexperience and used those to pierce the veil--and therefore could attack as normal.
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You're thinking of it the wrong way. The way blocks are described in the book, they either block a single target from doing multiple things, or they block a bunch of targets from doing something specific. Wrapping a single target up in vines would restrict them from more than one specific action. A veil would block several people from doing one specific action (perceiving you),
You can look at that two ways: a veil blocks perception only, meaning it shouldn't affect attacks at all, since that isn't the action it's blocking. You'd therefore be able to attack unhindered; OR the veil blocks all action that rely on perception, in which case it would block attacks that require you to target the person who's veiled. The former doesn't make sense, so I was going with the latter.
I'd say this is the wrong way to do it--it makes it so veils are just like regular blocks, in which case why are you bothering with the veil?
They aren't like a regular block. The way I've done it is they block multiple actions that rely on perception, but can only be broken with an awareness check, so they are slightly more versatile. With a regular block, any action that overcomes the block also breaks the block (assuming the action was one being blocked).
Put it this way: Say you're Molly. You don't have a lot of power to work with, but you can veil like nobody's business. You're up against something with a huge advantage in attacking skill and power (say, they hit with Fists at Great, and they've got Supernatural Strength). Your main defense is simply not being targetable--you throw up a 4-shift veil, which the target has a hard time piercing with its only Average Alertness score. Ergo, Molly is safe because the guy can't target her.
But with your method, Molly is screwed--her specialization in veils is no advantage at all, because you're treating it like a shield block.
That's the purpose of veils--forcing your opponent to go through a (probably) lower skill to attack you instead of trying to overcome what's probably an apex attack skill. Using your method, there's no way that Molly could survive combat for more than a round or two.
I think the veil is still good in this situation. If the creature has no reason to suspect Molly is there, he has to rely on his awareness to detect her. If she does something to give herself away(like attack), the creature can use his Great +4 attack to try to hit her. Her 4 shift veil will reduce the damage by that much. Of course She'll still take stress based on the supernatural toughness...
She enjoys the benefits of a 4 shift block for the duration of the combat or until the Monster can succeed on an awareness check... Also, if she tries to run away, or move zones, she's at a significant advantage over someone who's visible.
Maybe it's not a great way to run it. But that's why I posted it: to get feedback
For the most part, veils are used to hide, in which case you'd use awareness only. The method I presented was for using veils while attacking/in combat.
EDIT: and thinking about it, doing it this way makes veils almost always a BETTER option than a normal block although it seems more balanced than saying "sorry, now I'm immune to all attacks".
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They aren't like a regular block. The way I've done it is they block multiple actions that rely on perception, but can only be broken with an awareness check, so they are slightly more versatile. With a regular block, any action that overcomes the block also breaks the block (assuming the action was one being blocked).
And it's still more complicated than what's in the book and needs new rules rather than something that, to my mind, already works fine. I'm honestly getting a lot of "it ain't broke, don't fix it" vibe here.
I think the veil is still good in this situation. If the creature has no reason to suspect Molly is there, he has to rely on his awareness to detect her. If she does something to give herself away(like attack), the creature can use his Great +4 attack to try to hit her. Her 4 shift veil will reduce the damage by that much. Of course She'll still take stress based on the supernatural toughness...
She enjoys the benefits of a 4 shift block for the duration of the combat or until the Monster can succeed on an awareness check... Also, if she tries to run away, or move zones, she's at a significant advantage over someone who's visible.
Maybe it's not a great way to run it. But that's why I posted it: to get feedback
For the most part, veils are used to hide, in which case you'd use awareness only. The method I presented was for using veils while attacking/in combat.
And that runs counter to how we've seen veils used in combat in the books. By this reading, Molly is just plain screwed the second someone knows she's there, when what we've seen in the books is that she can go through combat almost completely unscathed (barring a can of paint here and there) relying entirely on her veils.
I think you're misunderstanding the size of a zone. A zone is, typically, a decent sized room--maybe 20 feet by 20 feet. You're in melee range of someone if you charge, but otherwise there's plenty of room to move, barring obstacles. So it's not like just randomly swinging an axe has that much of a chance of hitting someone--you really do need to have some idea of where they are beyond what zone in order to make any kind of accurate attack on them.
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The way I'd do it is each exchange, the person who wants to target the veiled combatant has to make an alertness check. If the check succeeds, they have detected the veiled combatant, and can attack. If the attack hits, the veil is dropped. If the attack is dodged (remember that, as a block, a veil doesn't preclude a defense roll), the veil stays in place, and the attacker must make another awareness check next turn.
not a perfect method, true, but it allows the veil to stay in place and meshes the two systems.
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I understand the size of a zone. usually a room. Most of the rooms in my house are 10X12. My living room is more like 15X20. Warehouses might be multiple zones. I think if you swung a sword around in someones living room, an invisible person might have a hard time avoiding being hit.
I seem to remember when the gruffs attacked Harry, Molly started throwing snow balls at them. She never went visible, did she? The gruffs tried to attack as well, didn't they? It's been so long since I read it.
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The way I'd do it is each exchange, the person who wants to target the veiled combatant has to make an alertness check. If the check succeeds, they have detected the veiled combatant, and can attack. If the attack hits, the veil is dropped. If the attack is dodged (remember that, as a block, a veil doesn't preclude a defense roll), the veil stays in place, and the attacker must make another awareness check next turn.
not a perfect method, true, but it allows the veil to stay in place and meshes the two systems.
Nope, if you beat a veil, you don't have to roll again against the same veil. Just like any other block. If you detect them, but your action is unsuccessful, you've still detected them. They'd have to cast another veil to hide again. Your houserule makes veils even better, actually.
The other thing to remember with veils is that they last a whole scene. However, in conflict you must roll to control the veil EACH ROUND. This can be avoided by spending extra shifts on duration. YS294, in the example.
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I understand the size of a zone. usually a room. Most of the rooms in my house are 10X12. My living room is more like 15X20. Warehouses might be multiple zones. I think if you swung a sword around in someones living room, an invisible person might have a hard time avoiding being hit.
I seem to remember when the gruffs attacked Harry, Molly started throwing snow balls at them. She never went visible, did she? The gruffs tried to attack as well, didn't they? It's been so long since I read it.
The Gruffs tried to attack, but none of them hit. Maybe an Alertness declaration would be required instead of an Assessment - if it passes, you can attack normally. If it fails, you can still attack, but the veiled combatant gets a free tag on a 'doesn't really know where I am' aspect. So the failure of the declaration introduces a false aspect. Since Declarations, IIRC, don't take any exchanges, this is a good way to model it.
Nope, if you beat a veil, you don't have to roll again against the same veil. Just like any other block. If you detect them, but your action is unsuccessful, you've still detected them. They'd have to cast another veil to hide again. Your houserule makes veils even better, actually.
The other thing to remember with veils is that they last a whole scene. However, in conflict you must roll to control the veil EACH ROUND. This can be avoided by spending extra shifts on duration. YS294, in the example.
Is an Evocation block broken if it's beaten? My recollection is that spell-blocks AREN'T broken when they're beaten, which is why they're better than normal ones. I'll have to check.
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Is an Evocation block broken if it's beaten? My recollection is that spell-blocks AREN'T broken when they're beaten, which is why they're better than normal ones. I'll have to check.
YS252, "Optionally, instead of block strength, you can opt to have the effect work as Armor or as a zone border instead. If you choose the Armor effect, the armor rating is equal to half (rounded down) the shifts put into the spell. The advan- tage to doing this is that the Armor effect only ends when the spell duration ends—the armor survives a bypassing attack."
Emphasis mine. This would imply that the do indeed end if beaten.
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So if you're detected once, you have to re-cast the veil? Surely that's not the way Molly does it? It seems to me she just moves to throw the detection.
I agree that normal attacks should not be able to hit a veiled combatant under any circumstances. Sure, swinging a sword, you *might* hit your enemy, but it would be easy to just move away.
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So if you're detected once, you have to re-cast the veil? Surely that's not the way Molly does it? It seems to me she just moves to throw the detection.
I agree that normal attacks should not be able to hit a veiled combatant under any circumstances. Sure, swinging a sword, you *might* hit your enemy, but it would be easy to just move away.
How do we know she isn't "recasting"? It could be flavored as her changing the veil or moving, but that still be what she does with her action.
And the rules don't model everything in the books verbatim. Much of it comes down to narrative flavor. You could easily describe one "attack" action as a series of very quick cuts and slashes, or firing off multiple shots, for instance.
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I still think this discussion is being hindered (at least for some of the participants) by a misunderstanding of how blocks work with regard to how many actions they block/how many targets they block.
As stated in this thread and in the books a block can either block multiple actions from one target or one type of action from multiple targets. This wording/example seems to be focused on blocks used "offensively" like pinning down one target with gunfire completely, or covering a door/zone so no one can move through it. If we want to talk about more defensive blocks we need to invert this wording. So a defensive style block would block multiple types of actions against one target or one type of action against multiple targets. This is meant to apply to normal (skill based) blocks, blocks from spells may be a bit different since you are paying your 2 shifts to hit more than one target, so you may get to have the single target type block against multiple targets (since you payed for it with your 2 shifts). This makes sense because "offensively" blocking multiple actions basically takes someone out of a conflict (until they beat the block) so allowing one character to lock down everyone is very strong. However, defensively blocking multiple actions really only locks out opponents if you deprive them of all targets, so stopping all opponents form doing anything to you is not that strong (they just change targets).
Our veil only defends one target so regardless of how you want to handle area spells it pretty clearly gets to block multiple types of actions. It is slightly different from a normal block because I would not allow someone to just roll an attack (one of the blocked actions) to overcome it. As written attacking from a veil forces you to overcome a block strength of 1/2 the veil strength (this also means that the targets defense is at least 1/2 the veil strength) unless you spend 2 shifts.
I do not really understand why we are having this argument. It is fairly clear form the rules that a veil is a block against all actions directly effecting the person veiled, that it can only be pierced by appropriate perception skills (and once it is it is gone, at least for the person that pierced it), and attacking out suffers a penalty, but does not drop the veil. This is not to say attacking out does not give the opponent another perception roll (potentially with a favorable circumstance bonus of +2/+4 depending on how obvious the attack was), or that the veil stops area actions, or that a particularly clever opponent wont introduce some aspect like "Spilled Paint" and then tag it for effect to perceive you if you walk through it.
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I still think this discussion is being hindered (at least for some of the participants) by a misunderstanding of how blocks work with regard to how many actions they block/how many targets they block.
As stated in this thread and in the books a block can either block multiple actions from one target or one type of action from multiple targets. This wording/example seems to be focused on blocks used "offensively" like pinning down one target with gunfire completely, or covering a door/zone so no one can move through it. If we want to talk about more defensive blocks we need to invert this wording. So a defensive style block would block multiple types of actions against one target or one type of action against multiple targets. This is meant to apply to normal (skill based) blocks, blocks from spells may be a bit different since you are paying your 2 shifts to hit more than one target, so you may get to have the single target type block against multiple targets (since you payed for it with your 2 shifts). This makes sense because "offensively" blocking multiple actions basically takes someone out of a conflict (until they beat the block) so allowing one character to lock down everyone is very strong. However, defensively blocking multiple actions really only locks out opponents if you deprive them of all targets, so stopping all opponents form doing anything to you is not that strong (they just change targets).
Our veil only defends one target so regardless of how you want to handle area spells it pretty clearly gets to block multiple types of actions. It is slightly different from a normal block because I would not allow someone to just roll an attack (one of the blocked actions) to overcome it. As written attacking from a veil forces you to overcome a block strength of 1/2 the veil strength (this also means that the targets defense is at least 1/2 the veil strength) unless you spend 2 shifts.
I do not really understand why we are having this argument. It is fairly clear form the rules that a veil is a block against all actions directly effecting the person veiled, that it can only be pierced by appropriate perception skills (and once it is it is gone, at least for the person that pierced it), and attacking out suffers a penalty, but does not drop the veil. This is not to say attacking out does not give the opponent another perception roll (potentially with a favorable circumstance bonus of +2/+4 depending on how obvious the attack was), or that the veil stops area actions, or that a particularly clever opponent wont introduce some aspect like "Spilled Paint" and then tag it for effect to perceive you if you walk through it.
So, you're basically agreeing with everything I've said. Or, at least, I agree with everything you've said because it sounds an awful lot like what I was trying to say.
Regarding the gruffs:
She had a veil up. The gruffs failed their perception and tried to attack Harry.
Molly threw a snowball at them prompting them to make another awareness check (which they failed).
They flailed around trying to attack her, but because her veil blocked the attacks(their attack roll was lower than her block STR), she never got hit.
The veil was never peirced by an awareness check and therefore there was never any need to re-cast it. Throwing the snow-ball did not break the veil.
That's how I interpret it.
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They flailed around trying to attack her, but because her veil blocked the attacks(their attack roll was lower than her block STR), she never got hit.
Or, because the veil blocked their perception, they simply couldn't attack her effectively. They can flail around blindly, but their attacks simply aren't going to hit. It's an action that's going to fail because they couldn't beat her block--not an action that's only marginally slowed down. You're essentially giving the Gruffs two chances to break the block and attack her--basically, a free reroll against anyone who depends on veils to defend, and the second roll is almost uniformly going to be at least 2 shifts higher than the first.
If you don't break through a block, the action fails. Simple as that. You're saying that if you don't break through a block, your action should succeed anyway with a free, and higher, reroll.
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Or, because the veil blocked their perception, they simply couldn't attack her effectively. They can flail around blindly, but their attacks simply aren't going to hit. It's an action that's going to fail because they couldn't beat her block--
That's a much better block! Why would I ever put up a 4-shift sheild against attacks? An enemy can target me and it would merely reduce the attack by 4 shifts. Veils are much better because they make me completely IMMUNE to all attacks.
You're saying that if you don't break through a block, your action should succeed anyway with a free, and higher, reroll.
I don't think I said that at all. If you walk around with a veil up, they make an awareness against the block. that's it.
If they suspect you and want to attack you, they have to attack against the block.
If you do anything that would give away your position, then I'd allow another awareness at a bonus, but that's only if you're going to do something to give yourself away.
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One of the things that I think helps balance veils:
I treat looking at things as a free action. This may not be RAW.
But it does balance veils. While a veil has the advantage of stopping nearly everything against you completely, because you can't act against what you can't see, it doesn't cost the opponent an action. So they can still do things other than try to attack you. Like shoot your friend. Normal blocks cost an action if you fail to break them.
"You don't see the wizard girl." "Okay, I'll shoot this werewolf."
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An enemy not aware of your presence/existence cannot roll an attack against you at all. This is fundamentally a player/character knowledge distinction. On the other hand a character that know you are present, but does not know where you are can attack you, it just is likely not effective.
In our Molly example, before she throws a snowball she is immune to physical attack (unless they perceived her somehow) since they do not know she exists. She then throws a snowball, since they are not looking at her the snowball is only a general indicator of direction, not a dead giveaway, so they get another Alertness roll (maybe with a +2 bonus, since they now know which way to look, maybe +1 or no bonus). They fail. Now they are aware there is something other than Harry, if they attack Molly she gets a block with strength equal to the Veil strength. This is mechanically similar to a shield, but is natively very different. Instead of softening the blow directly, it represents the fact that the attack was that much less precise (a graze, or a total miss that caused you to have to move awkwardly in the case of stress). If Molly takes a consequence that is appropriate (maybe one that involves lots of blood) this may be compelled/invoked for effect, to make the veil less effective.
The difference between a veil and a shield are many, and a veil is a more powerful defensive option. The veil protects you from attacks, but cannot be pierced by them, this is much stronger than a similar shield since not only does it protect you completely against weak attacks, but it also can protect somewhat against several strong attacks. The downside is that it is either 2 shifts weaker than a comparable shield or blocks you form effecting anything outside it (at 1/2 strength). This is a reasonable mechanical tradeoff.
It should also be noted that a weapons/guns/whatever roll is not always just a representation of how much force you swing your sword with or what level of accuracy you achieve. It can also represent your experience fighting with your method of choice, in this case your experience can give you a sort of 6th sense for where an enemy you are aware of but cannot see is (this is not an actual sense/blind-sense type deal, it is just a reflection of your skill with weapons or whatever helping you to predict where an enemy is), this is how I rationalize an opponent of a veiled target hitting them/getting close (causing stress) without seeing them.
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That's a much better block! Why would I ever put up a 4-shift sheild against attacks? An enemy can target me and it would merely reduce the attack by 4 shifts. Veils are much better because they make me completely IMMUNE to all attacks.
Yes, it is. Which is why Molly never gets hit even after the enemy knows she's there somewhere. Under your model, even if Molly's veil is never, ever pierced, she's going to be taking stress every single round. The balance is that it's not a physical defense, or a defense against zone attacks. A veil also makes a penalty on you if you want to perceive, and is severely weakened if you try to act in any obvious manner.
I don't think I said that at all. If you walk around with a veil up, they make an awareness against the block. that's it.
If they suspect you and want to attack you, they have to attack against the block.
According to you, they get an unimpeded attack roll even though they fail their alertness roll. They fail to overcome the block, but get to attack at full strength anyway.
What you're describing is going to play out as:
"Okay, you're veiled at 4 shifts. None of the badguys can beat that with their Alertness rolls."
"So I'm safe, then?"
"Well, no. The first one attacks you, and rolls a 7. He's got Inhuman Strength, so that's a 5-shift hit. His buddy tags the consequence, and he rolls an 8."
"So they can't see me, at all, but I'm still dead. Why the hell did I even bother with the veil?"
The whole point of doing a veil, thematically and mechanically, is to not worry about the attack roll at all. Molly uses veils for defense against a vampire because she doesn't have the brute force to stop its claws directly. A player uses a veil because it's easier to hide from Alertness than it is to stop a Fists roll.
A veil isn't supposed to be a shield with different flavor text.
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One of the things that I think helps balance veils:
I treat looking at things as a free action. This may not be RAW.
I think it is, if you consider it a declaration.
But it does balance veils. While a veil has the advantage of stopping nearly everything against you completely, because you can't act against what you can't see, it doesn't cost the opponent an action. So they can still do things other than try to attack you. Like shoot your friend. Normal blocks cost an action if you fail to break them.
"You don't see the wizard girl." "Okay, I'll shoot this werewolf."
That's how I've usually played it.
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One of the things that I think helps balance veils:
I treat looking at things as a free action. This may not be RAW.
But it does balance veils. While a veil has the advantage of stopping nearly everything against you completely, because you can't act against what you can't see, it doesn't cost the opponent an action. So they can still do things other than try to attack you. Like shoot your friend. Normal blocks cost an action if you fail to break them.
"You don't see the wizard girl." "Okay, I'll shoot this werewolf."
That's probably the best one I've yet seen. Still won't defend against zone-wide attacks, though, which fits.
"I don't see the Wizard girl, but I'm aware that she's here somewhere. I'll fill the room with fire."
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"I don't see the Wizard girl, but I'm aware that she's here somewhere. I'll fill the room with fire."
And let us not forget that sometimes fire happens even when you have no idea that your enemy just happens to be there.
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And let us not forget that sometimes fire happens even when you have no idea that your enemy just happens to be there.
Indeed. This is probably the best model for Veils we're going to get, TBH.
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Yeah, there's lots of ways around a veil for a creative player, even if it does prevent any kind of direct attack.
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Yes, it is. Which is why Molly never gets hit even after the enemy knows she's there somewhere. Under your model, even if Molly's veil is never, ever pierced, she's going to be taking stress every single round. The balance is that it's not a physical defense, or a defense against zone attacks. A veil also makes a penalty on you if you want to perceive, and is severely weakened if you try to act in any obvious manner.
According to you, they get an unimpeded attack roll even though they fail their alertness roll. They fail to overcome the block, but get to attack at full strength anyway.
What you're describing is going to play out as:
"Okay, you're veiled at 4 shifts. None of the badguys can beat that with their Alertness rolls."
"So I'm safe, then?"
"Well, no. The first one attacks you, and rolls a 7. He's got Inhuman Strength, so that's a 5-shift hit. His buddy tags the consequence, and he rolls an 8."
"So they can't see me, at all, but I'm still dead. Why the hell did I even bother with the veil?"
The whole point of doing a veil, thematically and mechanically, is to not worry about the attack roll at all. Molly uses veils for defense against a vampire because she doesn't have the brute force to stop its claws directly. A player uses a veil because it's easier to hide from Alertness than it is to stop a Fists roll.
A veil isn't supposed to be a shield with different flavor text.
Ummm...no. You're definitely misunderstanding.
If molly doesn't attack, then nobody gets to attack her. They don't know she's there because they failed to notice her. She's perfectly safe. This is Exactly how you say a veil should work.
IF she does something like, say, throw a snowball, they know she's there and may attempt to hit her. She's still there, afterall. If she didn't want to be noticed, then she shouldn't have initiated combat. That is an unwise choice for someone who doesn't want to fight.
When they attack, they still have to overcome her block. If it's 4, they need to have a total roll or higher. Failing that, they miss, because they can't see her...but they still know she's around somewhere.
Even if they hit, it reduces their attack by 4 - because they can't see her and it's harder to make an accurate attack against someone you can't see. It's not impossible, just very difficult. A normal sheild spell would reduce the damage as well but then dissipate after an attack, but because this is a veil it stays up because they still need to make a successful Awareness check.
So, no "unimpeded" attacks.
1. They have to have a reason to attack in the first place.
2. The block naturally impedes the attack
3. If there are multiple zones, They have to attack into the correct - which may or may not matter depending on the circumstances.
Now if you mean that they are unimpeded in the sense that they are "allowed to make attacks against an enemy they know is present during a combat", then yes, they are allowed to swing their weapons and fire their guns.
I like to give people the option to TRY to attack someone they know is there.
And actually, the more I think about it, the more I like it that way. At this point, I won't be convinced unless there is a third method of adjudicating the veil. Hopefully all this debate has given some kind answer for the question - one way or another.
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Now if you mean that they are unimpeded in the sense that they are "allowed to make attacks against an enemy they know is present during a combat", then yes, they are allowed to swing their weapons and fire their guns.
No, I mean unimpeded in the sense that they are allowed to make direct attacks against an enemy they cannot see or otherwise locate, and they are able to take action despite not beating a block existing specifically to prevent them from taking that action.
Have you ever seen people try to whack a pinata? You know, how they know it's there somewhere, within arms' reach, and consistently fail to land hits on it? Because they don't know where it is?
It's kinda like that.
"I know it's somewhere in this 100 or so square feet" is not nearly enough information to make any kind of effective attack unless you are literally covering that entire space with your attacks.
IF she does something like, say, throw a snowball, they know she's there and may attempt to hit her. She's still there, afterall. If she didn't want to be noticed, then she shouldn't have initiated combat. That is an unwise choice for someone who doesn't want to fight.
Correction. They may attempt to find her. If they still can't find her, they can't hit her.
When they attack, they still have to overcome her block. If it's 4, they need to have a total roll or higher. Failing that, they miss, because they can't see her...but they still know she's around somewhere.
Her block is not against their attacks. It's against their ability to target her at all. If they don't beat the block, they cannot target her. If they can't target her, they can't attack her in anything like an effective manner. That's what being able to roll their full-strength attack means: They are attacking her in an effective manner.
In combat, it means they get a chance to beat the block (the Alertness roll) and when that fails, they get to attack--another chance to beat the block, with a higher skill score, without so much as spending a fate point.
You're giving them a free, boosted reroll.
I like to give people the option to TRY to attack someone they know is there.
And there's ways of doing that without this needless complication.
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First, I do not this this method has any boosted complication, I think it is exactly what is allowed within the RAW. I think your method is ridiculously strong, even if you allow a free perception roll every turn and a boosted perception roll whenever you are attacked. Basically, it allows any caster with spirit to escape any physical encounter (against all but the most perceptive opponents, and I cant think of many foes with apex perception skills), for virtually free. You never have to conceded, you just veil. Further, you can just vanish whenever something comes after you, and give them no recourse at all while you re-position/have tankier friends get in the way. One of the few weaknesses of wizards is that they are often squishy (at least without enchanted item charges), and this allows them to use 1 charge to soak a hit, then veil and jump behind the beefy people, the downside of the bad guy hitting someone else is not really a downside, since that is what you wanted anyway. This does not even take into account the fact that you can attack. Say you have a 6 shift veil, you are unlikely to be perceived, then you use some evocation attack, this is unlikely to grant more than a +2 bonus on the alertness check (if that) unless you make it obvious which direction it came from. The 3 shift block is likely not a factor since you can easily get more than 3 with Discipline, and their defense is likely more than 3. And then they can make no reprisal. It is pretty plainly broken.
Second, it is a block against perception, not a block against attacking at you. Sure they cant see where you are, but since in order to do any sort of attack they have to know you exist (any also which zone you are in, or at least guess), they almost certainly have a general idea. They saw where the snowball came from, or heard you make a noise, or whatever. Then they swing their giant club all your zone, or shoot 5 shots with their pistol into your general area. They don't have to hit you to inflict stress or even consequences, they just have to make you move quickly to avoid them, this could drain your physical reserves some (small stress), have you scrape yourself/stub your toe (larger stress), or twist your ankle (potentially a mild consequence). They do not have to cover a whole zone to inflict stress on you (though if they did with a zone attack I wouldn't even let your block apply), an attack roll from then high enough to beat your block implies either they got lucky and hit you, they got close and grazed you, or they made you move akwardly to avoid your clumsy but close swing.
Third, if they cannot attack (target) her at all, her block is certainly against their attacks. You cannot prevent them from attacking you in any way and then say that you are not blocking attacks. Being able to roll their full strength attack against a block does not mean their attack is fully effective, if it did they wouldn't be rolling against a block. Further, one could rule that the veil places an I'm Invisible aspect, that, at least once, can be tagged for a defense/to reduce an attack, so you get to do that too if you want. Further, the attack is not another chance to beat the block, it is not a boosted re-roll. Even if the attack were successful the block wouldn't fade, you get to keep it until they actually see you. This is a special feature of veils that makes them already more powerful defensively than any other block, since they are the only block that (at worst) functions as a block against attacks, and doesn't fade once pierced by an attack.
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If they are aware of your presence, but can't pinpoint you - isn't there an option there for negative modifiers to their attack roll anyway - as if you were tagging the aspects 'you don't know where i am' and 'shooting/attacking' blindly
Not sure how exactly the rules would adjudicate such aspects, but i'm guessing its essentially compels against the attacker
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If they are aware of your presence, but can't pinpoint you - isn't there an option there for negative modifiers to their attack roll anyway - as if you were tagging the aspects 'you don't know where i am' and 'shooting/attacking' blindly
Not sure how exactly the rules would adjudicate such aspects, but i'm guessing its essentially compels against the attacker
There are rules for circumstantial modifiers. It makes perfect sense to give an attacker a penalty in that situation. I could also see the person using aspect and declarations to increase the power of their block:
Tagging Open Space in a big parking lot because it's hard to pin point someone in a big space
Windy Day because wind covers sound
Cluttered Room because random Stuff block line of sight/effect.
Have you ever seen people try to whack a pinata? You know, how they know it's there somewhere, within arms' reach, and consistently fail to land hits on it? Because they don't know where it is?
It's kinda like that.
It's actually nothing like that. If you blind someone, the blinded person would have those issues because when you're blinded you have no point of reference within the space they're in.
If a pinata was hanging in a doorway (but was for some reason invisible), it'd be pretty darn easy to hit it if you weren't blind-folded. It might take a whack or two, but because you can see the room and the door, your strikes are likely to be accurate within the space (not accurate to consistently hit the pinata.)
When I was a kid, we used to play "Dark Tag". Essentially, it was tag except everyone was in an almost pitch black room. We were intimately familiar with the surroundings, so for all intensive purposes, the room was "visible". We knew where the furniture was, how far we were to any point in the room from any other point but we didn't know where anyone was withing the space because it was too dark. We found people fine despite people hiding and/or running all over. Granted, we had audio cues, but you get the idea.
Dark tag always finished when someone inevitably fell off a bed and hit their head on the corner of the base-board heater. ;)
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First, I do not this this method has any boosted complication, I think it is exactly what is allowed within the RAW. I think your method is ridiculously strong, even if you allow a free perception roll every turn and a boosted perception roll whenever you are attacked. Basically, it allows any caster with spirit to escape any physical encounter (against all but the most perceptive opponents, and I cant think of many foes with apex perception skills), for virtually free. You never have to conceded, you just veil. Further, you can just vanish whenever something comes after you, and give them no recourse at all while you re-position/have tankier friends get in the way. One of the few weaknesses of wizards is that they are often squishy (at least without enchanted item charges), and this allows them to use 1 charge to soak a hit, then veil and jump behind the beefy people, the downside of the bad guy hitting someone else is not really a downside, since that is what you wanted anyway. This does not even take into account the fact that you can attack. Say you have a 6 shift veil, you are unlikely to be perceived, then you use some evocation attack, this is unlikely to grant more than a +2 bonus on the alertness check (if that) unless you make it obvious which direction it came from. The 3 shift block is likely not a factor since you can easily get more than 3 with Discipline, and their defense is likely more than 3. And then they can make no reprisal. It is pretty plainly broken.
Second, it is a block against perception, not a block against attacking at you. Sure they cant see where you are, but since in order to do any sort of attack they have to know you exist (any also which zone you are in, or at least guess), they almost certainly have a general idea. They saw where the snowball came from, or heard you make a noise, or whatever. Then they swing their giant club all your zone, or shoot 5 shots with their pistol into your general area. They don't have to hit you to inflict stress or even consequences, they just have to make you move quickly to avoid them, this could drain your physical reserves some (small stress), have you scrape yourself/stub your toe (larger stress), or twist your ankle (potentially a mild consequence). They do not have to cover a whole zone to inflict stress on you (though if they did with a zone attack I wouldn't even let your block apply), an attack roll from then high enough to beat your block implies either they got lucky and hit you, they got close and grazed you, or they made you move akwardly to avoid your clumsy but close swing.
Third, if they cannot attack (target) her at all, her block is certainly against their attacks. You cannot prevent them from attacking you in any way and then say that you are not blocking attacks. Being able to roll their full strength attack against a block does not mean their attack is fully effective, if it did they wouldn't be rolling against a block. Further, one could rule that the veil places an I'm Invisible aspect, that, at least once, can be tagged for a defense/to reduce an attack, so you get to do that too if you want. Further, the attack is not another chance to beat the block, it is not a boosted re-roll. Even if the attack were successful the block wouldn't fade, you get to keep it until they actually see you. This is a special feature of veils that makes them already more powerful defensively than any other block, since they are the only block that (at worst) functions as a block against attacks, and doesn't fade once pierced by an attack.
Actually, there's a very good reason the wizard isn't just going to veil and run away from every encounter: Because that would be boring as hell. And, as mentioned several times already, there are several ways any creative player or GM can counteract a veil. As mentioned in the books, any spellcaster with The Sight can do it instantly. Or you throw paint around. Or you create a scene aspect you can tag. Or you come up with any of a dozen creative things besides "roll Alertness and hope for the best."
It's actually nothing like that. If you blind someone, the blinded person would have those issues because when you're blinded you have no point of reference within the space they're in.
If a pinata was hanging in a doorway (but was for some reason invisible), it'd be pretty darn easy to hit it if you weren't blind-folded. It might take a whack or two, but because you can see the room and the door, your strikes are likely to be accurate within the space (not accurate to consistently hit the pinata.)
Yes, if you change all the parameters of my example to fit your argument to fit yours. Funny how that works. The same principle applies: If you don't know where something is, it's damn near impossible to hit. Especially if, unlike a pinata, the target is intelligent, watching you, and moving.
When I was a kid, we used to play "Dark Tag". Essentially, it was tag except everyone was in an almost pitch black room. We were intimately familiar with the surroundings, so for all intensive purposes, the room was "visible". We knew where the furniture was, how far we were to any point in the room from any other point but we didn't know where anyone was withing the space because it was too dark. We found people fine despite people hiding and/or running all over. Granted, we had audio cues, but you get the idea.
Dark tag always finished when someone inevitably fell off a bed and hit their head on the corner of the base-board heater. ;)
Irrelevant, because everyone's on an even playing field, and, well, you were all children and children playing a game aren't exactly silent stealth masters.
Bottom line is, going by the numbers, the way you're suggesting veils should work would mean Molly has been dead for four or five books by now. The whole point of a veil is to use a lesser amount of power to bypass attacks by preventing being targetted at all, otherwise it's just a shield.
It's a block against perception. Not a block against physical action.
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You just took 3 paragraphs of arguments about multiple points, and responded to one of them as if it were the whole point. And you even failed to understand where I was going with that point. That point was that there are concession rules in the game for a reason, sometimes you accidentally get into a fight where you are over matched/unprepared and you concede, allowing veils to work as you say they do pretty much negates this. Sure if the person has The Sight this doesn't work as well, but if you are just veiling up and running most other mundane things like paint or other scene aspects wont be good enough (unless you just run after the veiled person with player/gm knowledge and create them, but if you cant target them you certainly cant follow them well enough to throw pain on them).
There is a big difference, as Taran said between being blind and trying to hit something, and being able to see and trying to hit something you cannot see. For example, if I was in a warehouse and heard a sound when blind/in the dark, I likely couldn't hit anywhere near it with a gunshot, however if I could see, I could pinpoint where I thought I heard the sound and then spray bullets at that area, it isn't as good as seeing them (maybe a -2 circumstance penalty) and they get their block strength to represent the fact that I don't know where they are (in addition to athletics representing them trying to dodge).
Lets go back to your original example. There is a troll with 4 Fists skill and Supernatural Strength charging Molly who throws up a 4 shift veil (which he cannot beat easily). This troll doesn't just give up because he can't see, he tries to guess where she is and hit her, he picks what zone he thinks she is in and attacks (if I was the GM I would give him a -2 circumstance penalty since he is trying to flail about in a zone, not attacking with precision), now he has to roll at least a +2 to hit her at all, not counting the fact that she has a free tag on I'm Invisible, or can make a declaration for an aspect like Open Space in response to get a free +2 if he is going to hit.
The next round is even better for her since she can sprint (likely several zones) and then the troll can't keep up while attacking, and if he tries he gets a further -1.
Thus, almost all the time, Molly will still live when she tries to run, it just gives the enemy a chance. Where this really comes up is in enclosed spaces, where you cant get free tags, and the penalties may be smaller, and when you try to fight from under your veil, where the enemy now gets the chance to fight back.
You keep saying that it is a block against perception, but then you keep saying that it completely stops all other physical actions against the target. That is not how a block works, a block does not stop actions that cannot be used to break it. As stated in the books veils are a special case of blocks, so they get some consideration to apply to physical attacks, but they certainly do not grant physical immunity until you are seen.
If this block was anything but a veil, and a player tried to tell me that it does not make sense for the enemy to attack him, I would say "So it is a block against attacks also?" And if he said yes, I would roll an attack, beat his block, and call the block done, and if he said no I would say "Well then it doesn't stop him, maybe you get a favorable circumstance bonus."
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Centarion:
NO. It's a block against perception, which prevents attacks from being initiated. This, of course, would make it considerably better than a simple block against attacks if it weren't for one thing: you can still do something else. Because it doesn't force the opponent to waste an action, it's limited.
Example: Caster veils to hide. Attacker can't see caster, so instead he starts shooting caster's werewolf friend in the head.
Example: Caster throws up a block against attacks. Attacker attacks caster, and fails. Attacker can't do anything else this exchange.
If it were a solo game, they might be broken. I'll grant that. But it's not. You play with a group, and shifting the burden of attacks can both be tactically sound or a mistake.
You may not like it, but it is the way the game works. You're welcome to house rule it, but don't say that everyone is wrong because you do so.
Here's another example. I throw up a wall of fire to block movement, so the giant troll can't move into my zone. He has no ranged weapons. This prevents him from attacking me, but he doesn't get to roll Fists to get through it. Would you really say
"So it is a block against attacks also?" And if he said yes, I would roll an attack, beat his block, and call the block done, and if he said no I would say "Well then it doesn't stop him, maybe you get a favorable circumstance bonus."
?
No because that would be dumb.
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Yes, if you change all the parameters of my example to fit your argument to fit yours. Funny how that works. The same principle applies: If you don't know where something is, it's damn near impossible to hit. Especially if, unlike a pinata, the target is intelligent, watching you, and moving.
Irrelevant, because everyone's on an even playing field, and, well, you were all children and children playing a game aren't exactly silent stealth masters.
Actually, you are doing the exact same thing. Choosing the excerpts from peoples arguments that fit yours and completely ignoring the ones that don't. Which is fine because that's how people generally make arguments.
There's no need to get bent out of shape here. We're both trying to defend our points. If I sound snarky it's probably because I'm trying to be Emphatic. I'm also bad at making my point in writing. I actually have quite a bit of respect for your opinions as I've read many of the very good points you've made on this forum.
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. 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. 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.
Irrelevant, because everyone's on an even playing field, and, well, you were all children and children playing a game aren't exactly silent stealth masters.
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. Also, while children aren't stealth masters, they also aren't masters at detecting intruders - so both sides are on even footing. If we put it into context, it would be a guard (someone who's a proffessional at detecting and shooting things) versus a master illusionist (who's a master at veils).
I don't think we'll agree, but this is how I'd play it:
John, under the cover of a 6 shift veil(tagged cluttered room to make the veil more powerful), sneaks into a large office to listen in on some thugs making plans.
The thugs make awareness checks and fail. For the rest of the scene John is safe to listen in.
When John hears what he wants, he leaves. He needs to open the door. GM makes him to stealth to do it subtely. He fails his stealth and one of the thugs notices the door open by itself. This triggers an awareness vs the veil. They all fail. But now they are suspicious because they are a clued-in bunch and doors don't often open by themselves.
Two go out into the hallway to investigate (that's the wrong zone), while the other two search the office.
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). They both fail their checks against the block and decide that they're paranoid and go about their business, Leaving John to sneak out the open door.
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. 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. He rolls well and gets a 7. He does 1 stress (7 minus the block of 6) + weapon damage. John is lucky the thug couldn't actually see him, because he'd probably be in really rough shape right now. Nonetheless, the attack causes a minor consequence (bloody wound)which the thug tags for a +2 to his awareness. He finally spots John and the spell dissipates just as the other two thugs run in from the hallway....
Is this scenario really that unrealistic?
Here's another example. I throw up a wall of fire to block movement, so the giant troll can't move into my zone. He has no ranged weapons. This prevents him from attacking me, but he doesn't get to roll Fists to get through it. Would you really say ?
No, but he might be able to use Might to push through it (instead of athletics), or Endurance to try to ignore the heat as he pushes through. Just because it blocks movement, it doesn't mean althetics is the only way to get around a block.
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?
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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).
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.
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.
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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.
This.
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Nope, an attack doesn't automatically negate the veil. I also enforce the requirements that the caster either face a block equal to have the veil strength or spend two extra shifts.
Declarations boost the Alertness roll (lore and scholarship the most common, but guns is also used a lot to declare trajectories) are used very often. If the veiled caster is fighting a group, they usually end up stacking these until one of the characters sees it. Enemy spellcasters'll simply open up the sight or counterspell. All it takes is for ONE character to see the veil for it to be beaten, just like all it takes is ONE attack to beat a normal block to stop it. Thematically, I usually assume that they communicate the position to their allies. And zone-wide attacks completely ignore the veil.
If you're too busy with the werewolf eating your face, it doesn't matter if you can see the person dropping fireballs on you or not.
Example: Squad of 4 goons are firing on Werewolf and Wizard, all in the same zone.
Exchange 1: Wizard veils (power 5) and retreats a zone. Werewolf attacks one goon (4 vs 4, goon takes stress). Goons all roll alertness to see wizard (free action), getting 3, 3, 4 results. Goons all shoot werewolf (3 vs 4 4 vs 5 4 vs 3). Werewolf takes stress.
Exchange 2: Wizard either has to concentrate to keep veil up (wasting his action) or prolong it (wasting this action). He prolongs for 4 exchanges. He's now used 2 spells (out of the 4 he's likely to have before taking consequences). Goons fail to notice again, more shooting and biting.
Exchange 3: Wizard throws fireball at Goon 1. Wizard only has 1 spell left. Goon has to take consequence. Goon 1 declares "Obvious Trajectory" using guns. Goon 2 declares "Lots of Choke Points" and Goon 3 declares "Lingering Smoke" with alertness. Goon 3 rolls alertness, tagging all of the declarations and notices the veil (the other characters pass the tag). Wizard gets lit up.
As far as the rules not stating that you cannot attack something you cannot see, veils block your ability to detect anything hidden under it. How do you attack something you don't know is there? I'm sorry, but that seems to be a big difference between RAI and RAW.
Hell, they don't say that a character who gets taken out, with Death as the effect, cannot continue to participate in the next scene. Because they don't have to. Just like they don't have to say "If you cannot detect something, you cannot attack it."
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How do you attack something you don't know is there?
That's the crux. The way I do it, if they don't know you're there, they can't target you. Why would they?
If you do something to let people know you're there(like fireball), they can attempt to target you.
The distinction is important.
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That's the crux. The way I do it, if they don't know you're there, they can't target you. Why would they?
If you do something to let people know you're there(like fireball), they can attempt to target you.
The distinction is important.
But veils block their ability to detect you. YS255. So I'd allow a pretty easy declaration to gain a bonus on the Alertness roll to detect them. But if they still fail that, they still don't know where you are.
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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?
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But you can attack something you cannot detect. Just because I cannot see you, or smell you or hear you, does not mean I cannot interpret the door to my closet opening and closing as something invisible having gone into my closet, and then shoot in my closet with a shotgun. I am not attacking you specifically, I cannot see you, but I am attacking in your general direction and in a closet, with a shot gun, that is pretty much the same thing (in a more open space, trying this likely gets me a penalty for poor circumstances).
If someone truly did not know you were there, for example if they failed alertness to notice the closet door, then they would have no reason to shoot at the closet, and as a GM I would not allow them to based on character knowledge. But just because I can't see you now does not mean I don't know you are around somewhere, human adults do have object permanence.
Also your example is a straw-man argument. This is clearly not an appropriate time to use a veil tactically. A better version would be something like the wizard using thaumaturgy to throw up a personal veil while doing surveillance, a quick 6 shift ritual (one easy aspect declaration, no time for more) for a 6 shift veil. Then, you chose a spell that is narratively really bad with veils (a fireball), instead of a much smarter choice like super-heating the air around a goon. This would maybe trigger a re-roll, but likely would not convey any bonuses, at least not easily gained ones. The wizard easily beats the 3 shift block. In this case the wizard fries the goon, and the other goons have almost no recourse under your system. Under my system (at least if they were clued in and decided what was happening was magic), they could each choose a direction and pump that area full of lead with their MP5's, and thus at least have a chance (though still a bad one, since they have to beat a 6 shift block to hit at all, and even if they do they don't take down the veil).
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But you can attack something you cannot detect. Just because I cannot see you, or smell you or hear you, does not mean I cannot interpret the door to my closet opening and closing as something invisible having gone into my closet, and then shoot in my closet with a shotgun. I am not attacking you specifically, I cannot see you, but I am attacking in your general direction and in a closet, with a shot gun, that is pretty much the same thing (in a more open space, trying this likely gets me a penalty for poor circumstances).
And in that very specific scenario, you declare and invoke for the effect. Why do people keep forgetting that?
If it makes sense to you, in the unique circumstances of your game, that something will break the veil despite the unlikeliness of making the alertness roll, invoke something. The Fate Point system is practically made to patch spots where you feel mechanics don't live up to the unique circumstances. You don't have to nerf every veil ever because of something that's easily handled by something already inherent in the system.
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That is a good point. Murphy didn't have any problems attacking Molly when she was veiled in a room in the crime scene. Maybe the reason Molly is still alive is because she spends all her FATE points on dodging.
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@ Mr. Death
You are ignoring whole parts of my posts. Which doesn't strengthen your argument but, in fact shows that you don't have a valid argument against those parts.
1. I'm not talking about screaming children. I'm talking about an analogy. 2 factions, in the dark at almost equal footing. Children vs children trying to find each other. People Trained Stealth people vs people trained in detection.
2. the +3 is a circumstantial modifier for detecting the veil after doing an obvious action. +3 may be too high.
3. I can shoot a gun in a general direction and accidently hit someone. It happens all the time when people accidently shoot other people.
4. The reason Molly is still alive is because she hardly ever attacks anything. She veils and sits quietly. There are many, many examples of this in the novels. It's only later, when she's a much more powerful caster that she starts doing offense. I've mentionned this in almost every post, that if you don't do anything to give yourself away, there's no need for anyone to try to attack you.
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Lets go back to your original example. There is a troll with 4 Fists skill and Supernatural Strength charging Molly who throws up a 4 shift veil (which he cannot beat easily). This troll doesn't just give up because he can't see, he tries to guess where she is and hit her, he picks what zone he thinks she is in and attacks (if I was the GM I would give him a -2 circumstance penalty since he is trying to flail about in a zone, not attacking with precision), now he has to roll at least a +2 to hit her at all, not counting the fact that she has a free tag on I'm Invisible, or can make a declaration for an aspect like Open Space in response to get a free +2 if he is going to hit.
I think Molly's veil is certainly more than 3 shifts (or even 4 shifts), if it was only 3 shifts, then she is pretty bad at veils and is likely dead. Also, veils are not always mental stress, a well prepared PC, especially one who is specialized in veils, will often throw up one with thaumaturgy before a fight. Thus getting a higher strength veil, for no stress cost, that lasts at least a whole scene (if not pierced).
Also, a troll flailing with Supernatural Strength is certainly an attack of some sort, if you get hit is is going to hurt you, though likely not as much as at full power (thus the -2), this also represents him being less likely to hit.
I think you are also hung up on letting the veil provide a block against the attacks, this is not because the veil is in any way like a shield (softening the blow), this is to help represent, in conjunction with circumstance modifiers, the fact that any blow on you is likely to only be glancing (because the attacker is just spraying bullets near you, not shooting at you or whatever), or to miss you entirely. If they fail to beat the block, this just means they were shooting into the wrong part of the zone. If they beat it by a little bit, that means they grazed you since they were actually not aiming right at you. If they still crush you anyway, this represents the fact that sometimes they just get a lucky guess (and the fact that this is modified by skill is appropriate since a skilled fighter is likely to have better instincts for something like this).
Also, blocks do not disallow actions, they block them. You are allowed to attempt a blocked action, you just have to overcome the block strength. Disallowing an action entirely is not something that can/should be done by PC's.
Edit: To respond to your post while I was writing this.
There are many scenario's like that, this specific scenario is somewhat unique because the veiled person is in a confined space, but there are similar circumstances when someone leaves a meeting they were eavesdropping on into a narrow hallway, or tries to flee captivity through an underground tunnel, or many other things.
Yes the FATE system is perfect for this, which is why in an open field a character under a veil could invoke the Open Field aspect for effect, saying that the baddie chose the wrong direction to chase her. This is basically mirrors your scenario. I just think the default should be that people can shoot their guns at where they think you are, and you think that for some reason people are not allowed to pull the trigger if they cannot see the target. Do people performing a drive by shooting see the people they are shooting at in the house? Clearly they don't, but they think they are there, so they unload. I would also note that I don't think this is a zone attack (maybe you could call all 3 people shooting 1 zone attack, but each persons action is not enough to be a zone attack).
This is not a nerf to veils, this is how I think they were intended to work form the beginning, I could just as easily say that your method is a buff to veils. No one is making a house rule here, we are just interpreting what is written in YS differently. I think your method makes veils way to powerful (especially considering wizards are powerful enough already).
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Do people performing a drive by shooting see the people they are shooting at in the house? Clearly they don't, but they think they are there, so they unload.
And sometimes they hurt or kill the people inside.
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@ Mr. Death
You are ignoring whole parts of my posts. Which doesn't strengthen your argument but, in fact shows that you don't have a valid argument against those parts.
If I don't quote something, that doesn't mean I'm ignoring it, it means I'm just not specifically ansering it.
1. I'm not talking about screaming children. I'm talking about an analogy. 2 factions, in the dark at almost equal footing. Children vs children trying to find each other. People Trained Stealth people vs people trained in detection.
And it's an analogy that falls apart from being too different.
3. I can shoot a gun in a general direction and accidently hit someone. It happens all the time when people accidently shoot other people.
And I can fire an aimed shot and completely fail to hit someone. How is this relevant?
4. The reason Molly is still alive is because she hardly ever attacks anything. She veils and sits quietly. There are many, many examples of this in the novels. It's only later, when she's a much more powerful caster that she starts doing offense. I've mentionned this in almost every post, that if you don't do anything to give yourself away, there's no need for anyone to try to attack you.
Molly is, canonically, not a high-powered combat wizard. She doesn't have a lot of Conviction power to throw around, which is why she isn't throwing fireballs at anyone--she relies on low-power, high-efficiency spells like focused veils for her defense.
She may not attack, but a large part of her strategy is distracting enemies--deliberately letting her enemies know she's there, and then veiling so her attacks miss entirely. According to your reading, Molly should have been pasted by the Ick and the Gruffs because they had a vague idea that she was somewhere in the zone.
I think Molly's veil is certainly more than 3 shifts (or even 4 shifts), if it was only 3 shifts, then she is pretty bad at veils and is likely dead. Also, veils are not always mental stress, a well prepared PC, especially one who is specialized in veils, will often throw up one with thaumaturgy before a fight. Thus getting a higher strength veil, for no stress cost, that lasts at least a whole scene (if not pierced).
Nope. Read Our World again, where Molly's rote veil is explicitly a 3-shift effect, and this is what Harry's referring to--in that book--as a really good veil that makes her all but invisible.
And you can't always count on thaumaturgy before a fight. In fact, I'd venture that the vast majority of times, you wouldn't have time to do a ritual in preparation for a fight.
Also, a troll flailing with Supernatural Strength is certainly an attack of some sort, if you get hit is is going to hurt you, though likely not as much as at full power (thus the -2), this also represents him being less likely to hit.
Flailing blindly to find someone is not a focused attack. It might pierce the veil, but letting anyone use their apex skill to pierce a veil is nearly as bad as allowing stunts to always use the apex skill to dodge.
I think you are also hung up on letting the veil provide a block against the attacks, this is not because the veil is in any way like a shield (softening the blow), this is to help represent, in conjunction with circumstance modifiers, the fact that any blow on you is likely to only be glancing (because the attacker is just spraying bullets near you, not shooting at you or whatever), or to miss you entirely. If they fail to beat the block, this just means they were shooting into the wrong part of the zone. If they beat it by a little bit, that means they grazed you since they were actually not aiming right at you.
So what's the point of a veil, then, if it's going to act exactly, mechanically, like a shield block? What's the point of hiding from sight if it's not going to actually be a different effect?
If they still crush you anyway, this represents the fact that sometimes they just get a lucky guess (and the fact that this is modified by skill is appropriate since a skilled fighter is likely to have better instincts for something like this).
Yes. And you can declare and invoke for this instead of negating the entire purpose behind veils in the first place.
Also, blocks do not disallow actions, they block them. You are allowed to attempt a blocked action, you just have to overcome the block strength. Disallowing an action entirely is not something that can/should be done by PC's.
And the action it's blocking is perception. If you can't perceive something, you can't meaningfully attack it.
Yes the FATE system is perfect for this, which is why in an open field a character under a veil could invoke the Open Field aspect for effect, saying that the baddie chose the wrong direction to chase her. This is basically mirrors your scenario. I just think the default should be that people can shoot their guns at where they think you are, and you think that for some reason people are not allowed to pull the trigger if they cannot see the target. Do people performing a drive by shooting see the people they are shooting at in the house? Clearly they don't, but they think they are there, so they unload. I would also note that I don't think this is a zone attack (maybe you could call all 3 people shooting 1 zone attack, but each persons action is not enough to be a zone attack).
A drive-by is a completely different scenario, by virtue of it being a 'spray and pray', i.e., they're hitting everything in the zone. Unless you're going to have that flailing troll hit everyone else in the zone too, it doesn't apply.
They can pull the trigger all they want, but they're not going to hit, because they can't see the person in the veil.
This is not a nerf to veils, this is how I think they were intended to work form the beginning, I could just as easily say that your method is a buff to veils. No one is making a house rule here, we are just interpreting what is written in YS differently. I think your method makes veils way to powerful (especially considering wizards are powerful enough already).
You think it makes them way too powerful because you appear to be ignoring the fact we've given a dozen ways to easily get around a veil. Because there's a lot of them. Against a creative opponent who can figure out how to maneuver and declare, a veil's worse than a straight up shield.
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The characters in the books are almost universally more powerful (especially by the point we see Molly) than any character at the YS refresh levels, even Molly (at the time of Small Favor) is at least 10-11 refresh. And OW almost universally low-balls the power levels of most things, also mechanically, conviction is much more important for non-attack magic than it is for attack magic, a 3 conviction 5 discipline caster is much better at attacking than a 3 discipline 5 conviction caster, so I would not put too much stock into that.
Flailing blindly to find someone is not a focused attack. It might pierce the veil, but letting anyone use their apex skill to pierce a veil is nearly as bad as allowing stunts to always use the apex skill to dodge.
No one is piercing any veils without some sort of perception roll, even if they flail/spray and prey and hit, this still does not pierce the veil (though a consequence involving bleeding may help them). One does not need a focused attack to inflict stress. That is the beauty of the stress system and the narrative structure of DFRPG, you don't have to hit them to do "damage," you don't even necessarily have to be close.
So what's the point of a veil, then, if it's going to act exactly, mechanically, like a shield block? What's the point of hiding from sight if it's not going to actually be a different effect?
A veil is much better than a block defensively under my interpretation. First, it prevents people from attacking you if they do not already know you are there. Sine if they don't know someone is there, they can't attack. It only starts to behave like a shield at all once they notice signs of your presence besides actually seeing/smelling/hearing you(by sensing something that the veil explicitly does not block). Second, once they know you exist, they still have to choose where to attack. This is a huge advantage, especially in open spaces, since you can sprint, and the can only move 1 zone and attack (normally). Further, each passing turn the number of zones you could occupy increases dramatically. Third, the veil can only be pierced by perception skills, which are often much lower than attack skills, so it is better than a shield this way as well (as it can "reduce damage" from multiple hits, and not just vanish once overcome by 1 attack).
No one is negating anything, I just prefer to allow characters and NPC's to take actions, even if they are not likely to succeed (on the off chance that they do), instead of completely disallowing them. Also, this is the way I think the writers intended veils to work, because it is mostly how other blocks work. There are no other blocks in the game that prevent a class of actions and cannot be pierced by those actions.
As we have stated multiple times, I think it is reasonable for most creatures/characters to be able to attack the open space where they think you are. They may look crazy, they may pick the wrong zone, they may take a huge circumstance penalty, but at least they can try. I can have a burst fire weapon (take a G3 rifle for example) and reasonably expect to hit about 1/4-1/3 of a zone in an action (one or 2 bursts), similarly, I could swing one of those huge troll swords and cover half my living room (especially if I was a 9 foot tall troll with long arms). And anything either of these actions hit could consider themselves "attacked," at least enough to cause stress getting out of the way.
Sometimes there is a convenient can of paint, or you have a bag of dust, and sometimes it makes sense to declare that stuff. But most of the time, for most enemies especially, it makes no sense. I do not like to depend on tricks t make anything happen, especially with mooks like guards. Creative and interesting tricks are usually reserved for the plays, and sometimes the smart villains.
Anyway I am done arguing, nothing you say is convincing me and you seem to be saying the same thing over and over and "not specifically answering" most of my responses, instead choosing only certain parts to argue. I also do not seem to be able to convince you. So there is no point continuing.
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The characters in the books are almost universally more powerful (especially by the point we see Molly) than any character at the YS refresh levels, even Molly (at the time of Small Favor) is at least 10-11 refresh. And OW almost universally low-balls the power levels of most things, also mechanically, conviction is much more important for non-attack magic than it is for attack magic, a 3 conviction 5 discipline caster is much better at attacking than a 3 discipline 5 conviction caster, so I would not put too much stock into that.
This isn't a failing of the book or the system, it's the result of the player mindset--we put everything we're going to use as high as we can, so 3 isn't "good" anymore in that mindset, when it really should be. This inflation seriously skews how we look at the game.
No one is piercing any veils without some sort of perception roll, even if they flail/spray and prey and hit, this still does not pierce the veil (though a consequence involving bleeding may help them). One does not need a focused attack to inflict stress. That is the beauty of the stress system and the narrative structure of DFRPG, you don't have to hit them to do "damage," you don't even necessarily have to be close.
Well, yes, it does pierce the veil. If you make contact with something, you know where it is, and the veil's broken.
Second, once they know you exist, they still have to choose where to attack This is a huge advantage, especially in open spaces, since you can sprint, and the can only move 1 zone and attack (normally).
And entirely meaningless if you're in a one-zone combat, or if there's a barrier.
Third, the veil can only be pierced by perception skills, which are often much lower than attack skills, so it is better than a shield this way as well (as it can "reduce damage" from multiple hits, and not just vanish once overcome by 1 attack).
Well, no. By your reading, a 4-shift veil is exactly the same as a 4-shift shield spell. It doesn't matter in the slightest if the Alertness roll works or not, because the badguy gets an immediate reroll to hit something that the dice just said he can't even find.
No one is negating anything, I just prefer to allow characters and NPC's to take actions, even if they are not likely to succeed (on the off chance that they do), instead of completely disallowing them. Also, this is the way I think the writers intended veils to work, because it is mostly how other blocks work. There are no other blocks in the game that prevent a class of actions and cannot be pierced by those actions.
Actually, a lot of blocks would. A block against movement from one zone to the other would prevent all melee attacks to that second zone, and a melee attack wouldn't break that block. A mental grapple type block would prevent all kinds of physical actions that couldn't break the block.
If you need to be able to take a specific action in order to do other actions, and that specific action is blocked, then yes, those other actions are blocked too.
Here's a thought. Maybe, sometimes, the veil just freaking works. You don't have to make the PCs take stress when they've taken prudent steps to make sure they won't be perceived and attacked in the first place. I know I, personally, would not like it one bit if I went to the trouble of making sure I wasn't seen at all, and couldn't be found by my attackers, and they got to attack me anyway.
Again: What's the point of a veil if they still get to hit you?
As we have stated multiple times, I think it is reasonable for most creatures/characters to be able to attack the open space where they think you are. They may look crazy, they may pick the wrong zone, they may take a huge circumstance penalty, but at least they can try. I can have a burst fire weapon (take a G3 rifle for example) and reasonably expect to hit about 1/4-1/3 of a zone in an action (one or 2 bursts), similarly, I could swing one of those huge troll swords and cover half my living room (especially if I was a 9 foot tall troll with long arms). And anything either of these actions hit could consider themselves "attacked," at least enough to cause stress getting out of the way.
Yeah, they can try. That's, essentially, the Alertness roll. They might maneuver with Weapons or Guns to boost that roll, but if they don't make the Alertness roll, then they can't find you. And if they can't find you, they don't hit you.
How are you going to spray that much of a zone without hitting your allies, whether you're spraying machinegun fire or swinging a massive arm?
Sometimes there is a convenient can of paint, or you have a bag of dust, and sometimes it makes sense to declare that stuff. But most of the time, for most enemies especially, it makes no sense. I do not like to depend on tricks t make anything happen, especially with mooks like guards. Creative and interesting tricks are usually reserved for the plays, and sometimes the smart villains.
So you're saying if the guards aren't creative, there's nothing to give the veiler away, and it "makes no sense" for those tricks to come into play, the person under a veil should still get attacked?
I mean, do you have something against the ideas of the PCs just plain succeeding in this situation? What is wrong with the PCs' actually working?
Your argument seems to stem from the idea that, even under a veil, the person has to take some kind of stress, and the goons have to be able to succeed in hitting them.
Say you're looking for clues in a room. You think maybe someone hid something in there. Your investigation roll and alertness rolls fail. Can you then roll Guns to find it? Or Weapons?
Edit: I should have clarified. When I say I'm not specifically answering something, more often than not it's because I don't find anything objectionable about it to respond to.
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One more try, since I still think you are misunderstanding/misrepresenting what I am saying (or maybe just being intentionally dense?).
This isn't a failing of the book or the system, it's the result of the player mindset--we put everything we're going to use as high as we can, so 3 isn't "good" anymore in that mindset, when it really should be. This inflation seriously skews how we look at the game.
3 is actually good, I agree. But Molly is described at being more than good with a veil.
Well, yes, it does pierce the veil. If you make contact with something, you know where it is, and the veil's broken.
And entirely meaningless if you're in a one-zone combat, or if there's a barrier.
No, it doesn't. I am the one making this interpretation, and I explicitly stated (multiple times) that it doesn't. You do not have to make contact with something to produce stress, or even consequences (as I also have said multiple times). So you can swing your sword, in my general vicinity, and cause stress, but that does not mean you hit me, grazed me, or got any other indication that you were close, it could just be that I had to expend a lot of energy avoiding you. Even if you did hit me, that does not mean you know where I am next round. Since the veil is a block against perception, the only skills capable of piercing it are perception skills.
Further if you are in a one zone combat, or a fenced in space, it makes sense veiling yourself from someone who knows you are there isnt all that helpful in avoiding their attacks.
Well, no. By your reading, a 4-shift veil is exactly the same as a 4-shift shield spell. It doesn't matter in the slightest if the Alertness roll works or not, because the badguy gets an immediate reroll to hit something that the dice just said he can't even find.
No false. It appears you read exactly 1/3 of the detailed differences I outlined and then just decided to ignore the rest. If the bad guy does not know you are there (fails an alertness roll), he does not get to just attack for no reason. It is only after you reveal your presence somehow, like a failed stealth roll when opening a door/taking an object, or if you attack that the opponent can react to your presence in any way. Second, as I already addressed, a successful attack does not break a veil, so it is better that way as well.
Of course if you are already in combat when you veil up, it is very similar to a shield. It is not some sort of super shield that is going to take them multiple actions (worth of maneuvering) to break through. And it shouldn't be one. Veils are not supposed to be better than shields in combat. We never (in the books) see a character veil up after already being spotted. When Molly wants to defend herself mid combat she uses illusionary clones. Further, the description of the fight with the gruffs supports my interpretation (they get to try to attack her, they just happen to miss).
Actually, a lot of blocks would. A block against movement from one zone to the other would prevent all melee attacks to that second zone, and a melee attack wouldn't break that block. A mental grapple type block would prevent all kinds of physical actions that couldn't break the block. If you need to be able to take a specific action in order to do other actions, and that specific action is blocked, then yes, those other actions are blocked too.
The first block we have already discussed. A block against movement into a zone would prevent mele range attacks against a target in that zone for a character not in that zone. Fine. But only because it explicitly states in the rules that you have to be in the same zone to mele attack someone. No where does it say you have to be able to see someone to attack them. For the second block, I would say that if you beat the block strength of a mental grapple with your attack roll you get to attack (this represents your attack/will to attack being strong enough to overcome the grapple). Just like if you are in a real grapple you can break it by casting a spell. If someone complained about that I would say that if you intended to make the block only breakable by certain skills, those are the only skills you should have blocked.
Here's a thought. Maybe, sometimes, the veil just freaking works. You don't have to make the PCs take stress when they've taken prudent steps to make sure they won't be perceived and attacked in the first place. I know I, personally, would not like it one bit if I went to the trouble of making sure I wasn't seen at all, and couldn't be found by my attackers, and they got to attack me anyway.
Yes, most of the time a veil will just work (or have one opposed alertness roll, likely a failure). But when the character decides to take an action that gives themselves away, they have made a choice to be noticed (or at least potentially be noticed), and if they are, then the enemy can attack in their direction, even if they cannot see them.
Again: What's the point of a veil if they still get to hit you?
Yeah, they can try. That's, essentially, the Alertness roll. They might maneuver with Weapons or Guns to boost that roll, but if they don't make the Alertness roll, then they can't find you. And if they can't find you, they don't hit you.
The point is, that veils are not supposed to be the most potent shield type spell ever against most bad guys (the ones with higher attack than perception skills, so almost all of them). The point of a veil is to avoid detection in the first place. Once you somehow are detected (but not seen, and have not had your veil pierced), the veil is not also physical immunity with a catch of people with huge alertness rolls or tons of time to waste.
How are you going to spray that much of a zone without hitting your allies, whether you're spraying machinegun fire or swinging a massive arm?
So you're saying if the guards aren't creative, there's nothing to give the veiler away, and it "makes no sense" for those tricks to come into play, the person under a veil should still get attacked?
Maybe you allies are not in that zone? Maybe they are not in that part of the zone. The fact that you don't hit them is what makes it not a zone attack (which would ignore the veil altogether).
I am saying that if you give yourself away to the guards in an obvious way, they are likely to start shooting, even if they do not see you. And you may (or may not since they have circumstance penalties and have to beat your fairly high block) get hit/grazed/have to roll awkwardly to avoid getting hit.
I mean, do you have something against the ideas of the PCs just plain succeeding in this situation? What is wrong with the PCs' actually working?
Your argument seems to stem from the idea that, even under a veil, the person has to take some kind of stress, and the goons have to be able to succeed in hitting them.
No, my argument stems from the fact that the character under the veil did something to give themselves away. Be that opening a door or stealing something unstealthily (failing an opposed stealth vs. alertness check), walking through a pool of water, or attacking. Really, it is mostly about attacking. If you attack the guards from under the veil, they get to attack back. It may be hard for them, but they get to try. Note that my rules still make it very hard for the goons to actually hit them, since they have to beat a (likely) 4-6 strength block with a -2 to -4 penalty. It may not even be tactically correct for them to attack (instead trying to maneuver or something to see you), but some dumb guards may just start shooting. Most of the time this produces results similar to your method, they just miss, but sometimes they will get lucky (or if the guards are Kincaid, maybe the get lucky a lot, as they should).
Say you're looking for clues in a room. You think maybe someone hid something in there. Your investigation roll and alertness rolls fail. Can you then roll Guns to find it? Or Weapons?
Well, if the thing is the size of a person, rolling guns may not let you find it, but it may let you shoot it (and still not be able to see it). I don't know why you would want to do that though. Unless the thing you were trying to find was actually an intruder and you really didn't care about finding it, and wanted to kill it instead.
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Can we keep things civil, please? Calling each other names will get this thread locked.
Personally, I agree with Mr. Death. While Stress does not necessarily represent damage from a narrative standpoint, it does mechanically. If you allow an enemy to inflict stress even though they can't detect you, you're effectively penalizing success, which is obviously wrong.
I think you're underestimating the size of a zone here. While a zone can be a small bedroom, it can also be half a warehouse. No matter how big your sword is, you're not going to hit someone by randomly swinging it around in an open space. Maybe we should adjudicate this depending on the size of the zone. Randomly swinging your weapon in someone's kitchen probably would hit an invisible person, but doing the same thing when the zone is one third of a football pitch is only going to make you look like a fool.
Also, a more practical method that already exists is to pick up dust, paint etc. and use that to pierce the veil.
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I'm going by what we see in the books, and how veils are described in the RPG.
Multiple times, Molly only veils after the shit is flying--several times, after she herself has directly gotten the enemy's attention in melee combat. Each of those times, Molly has come off without so much as a hair mussed--the only time the enemy's ever made meaningful contact was with a jar of paint, and that didn't even slow her down for more than a second.
By your reading, Molly throwing snowballs at the Gruffs should have ended with Molly seriously injured (Gruffs, as I recall, have Good or better attack skill, claws, and inhuman strength--any kind of hit against Molly's veiled form would be a consequence, and it only escalates from there). Molly directly taunting the Ick and then veiling should have ended with her dead--it likely has Inhuman Speed, so doesn't get the penalty for movement, it likely has claws and Supernatural Strength, and she was telling him which zone she was in. Neither of these happened.
Ergo, going by our major canonical example of someone using veils in combat in the books, the evidence indicates that the veil prevents her from being meaningfully targeted at all. And that's what I'm talking about, using veils in combat, because we agree on the use of a veil up to that point.
Yes, once the veiler does something that grabs attention, the goons should get another alertness roll, probably with a bonus for whatever got their attention, or a lowered difficulty for figuring it out. They should not, however, be immediately able to directly target and attack someone with their apex skill if they do not pierce the veil. With your reading, you're letting them skip right from, "Huh, there was a noise" to "There's an intruder right over there, attack!" without having to pierce the veil at all.
That's what a successful Alertness check against the veil means: They realize someone or something is there. A failed Alertness check against the veil means they don't know someone is there, or they don't know where someone is. If they don't know someone is there, how can they attack them?
The way I see it is, the "Huh, what was that noise?" is an aspect the goons can tag to boost their alertness roll. Them checking and blowing the Alertness roll means they conclude that there's nobody there, or they can't find the person they thought they saw. You get the full attack when you can confirm there's a target at all in spitting distance.
To me, the "There is definitely an intruder here in this general direction" is the result of a successful Alertness roll. Otherwise, the goons don't know where to point their guns or swing their knives, and without that successful Alertness roll, they're pointing in the wrong place by default.
Maybe they can spray bullets as a maneuver to help reveal the intruder (by, at the least, establishing where they are not). Maybe they swing their arms as a maneuver, like Harry checking where Molly is in SmF by tossing a jar at the empty corner. But they shouldn't get the full value of an attack if they don't know for sure where the person is, and that's my bottom line.
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Stuff
I quite agree. Although, for me, The progression goes: Goons are unaware -> Goons fail alertness roll -> Goons are unaware -> Veiled combatant attacks (with Ambush rules) -> Goons get another Alertness roll, maybe tagging a temporary Aspect like 'It came from over there!', depending on the action -> Goons fail roll -> They can't attack the veiled combatant directly this exchange, but they can spend their exchange making an Investigation/Lore roll to pierce the veil, maneuver to throw paint/dust, or make Zone attacks.
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I think you're underestimating the size of a zone here. While a zone can be a small bedroom, it can also be half a warehouse. No matter how big your sword is, you're not going to hit someone by randomly swinging it around in an open space. Maybe we should adjudicate this depending on the size of the zone. Randomly swinging your weapon in someone's kitchen probably would hit an invisible person, but doing the same thing when the zone is one third of a football pitch is only going to make you look like a fool.
Also, a more practical method that already exists is to pick up dust, paint etc. and use that to pierce the veil.
A zone is whatever you want it to be. I'd break a football feild up into multiple zones. That's beside the point though. Throwing a can of paint or dust in a zone the size of a football feild isn't going to net you much. Also remember that scene aspects can be defended against. If you use guns to do a "trajectory" maneuver to triangulate where that last fireball came from, the wizard could use althletics to defend. "I WAS over there when I fired the fireball...but now I'm over here." Assuming the zone is the size of half a football feild, you don't need to cross borders to be no-where close to the origin of your last casting.
Now, while that last comment hinders my own arguments, I'm writing it to point out that having a veiled person that can attack without breaking a veil and yet cannot be attacked is over-powered - especially when maneuvers (that can be defended against) are your only recourse. The reason I like using the block method is because I feel it's more balanced. I'd be more willing to say that you can't attack someone, as long as they cannot attack back without breaking the veil - which, I beleive, is how Mr. Death plays it. At least this is balanced.
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During both the fight with the Gruffs, and the fight with the Ick, the monster made a move to attack her. In both cases, they missed. Her veil strength (by Small Favor) is at least a 5, possibly higher (specialization on veil power, and maybe a focus item), so it is totally feasible that with a -2 (or higher) penalty they did not reach a 5 (or even without one). The veil certainly presents a negative circumstance for your opponent whenever the fact that he cannot see you would hinder him (ie. you are not restricted to a small area or similar).
Well, first I would require alertness to notice the noise, this would also likely double as their roll against the veil. So piercing a strong veil may have a difficulty of 6, but hearing the noise may be a difficulty of [insert stealth check hear]. It is totally reasonable for them to hear a noise, decide it is an intruder (especially if they are touchy clued in guards), and know which way to point their guns. The fact that they cannot see their target may impose a penalty (maybe a really large one if you judge there are multiple circumstances hurting them, like Invisible Target and Large Space) but it shouldn't stop them from trying to shoot. They got a successful alertness roll (against a difficulty of, say, 3 which is good), to know there is an intruder over there, but they did not beat the veil strength. If they failed the first alertness roll they wouldn't even get the chance to act since they would be on coffee break (or pointing in the other direction, or whatever).
I do not think it is penalizing success to let an opponent that somehow succeeds at beating you veil strength with some sort of penalty inflict some minor injury/stress as you scramble out of the way. I think it would be penalizing success to say that a goon that hears you cannot shoot in your general direction. Again, this is likely not the optimal choice, the optimal choice is to declare a bucket of dust and chuck it and roll alertness again. But most goons in my games are not that smart. In the situation of a zone the size of half a football field, you would likely suffer -2 from Invisible Target, -2 from Open Space, and maybe another -2 from Really Large Space, of course it isn't effective and you look like a loon, but that never stopped cops in movies form shooting at a car speeding away with their handgun at 200 feet (likely also a -6 penalty, for extreme distance, poor tools, and moving target).
My bottom line is that you do not need high enough perception to pierce a 6 shift veil to see a door swing open, or hear a breaking twig, and once you do nothing is stopping you from at least trying to shoot the source of that disturbance.
I will say that this attempt may not be successful, and unless the fact that the target is invisible poses no hinderence (like if they are in a closet) to the attack it is likely an abject failure. In light of that it looks like our bottom lines are actually not the far apart, we both agree that that if oyu don't know where someone is, and that will hurt your attempt to hit them, then you don't get to attack at full value.
I think you are going about this from a "you can't attack unless you have a good reason, and if you do you should invoke an aspect for effect" viewpoint while I am going about it from a "you can always fire your gun/swing your sword, but when you don't know where your target is you have to get really lucky to succeed" viewpoint.
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Uh, what kind of guards are you running that immediately progress from "I heard a twig snap!" to "GRAAGH INTRUDER DAKKADAKKADAKKA!"? :P
I like the imposition of difficulty penalties, but I think that if the veil is not pierced, then the goons should be re-rolling Alertness each turn to detect the veiled combatant. If they can't detect the invisible enemy, then they take their action as normal, doing whatever, and can either still attack with another -2 on top of the other -2s (which should still apply) or should not be able to attack
I also think that you shouldn't be able to do this with Weapons or Fists unless the zone is really small (or you should face extra penalties, like 'Trying to punch a field').
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If the zone is a room small sized room and you have a semi auto and fire 5 or 6 shots, then you likely get a -2 penalty in the same circumstance weapons or fists likely gets a -4 penalty (for both invisible target and the room being larger than the space you can cover). In a football field sized zone weapons or fists would likely be impossible, unless the alertness roll/other factor that made them aware of something amiss gave them much more detail than "that way." (For example, this could be an alertness roll of 5 to see a character with a stealth of 3 and a 6 shift veil pick something up a few feet away, this would allow a mele attack at around -2 or -4 depending on how well they pinpointed the location). The amount of -2's should be dependent on how unlikely you are to hit/how many circumstances are hindering you.
There are plenty of instances of guards with itchy trigger fingers or guards with orders to shoot intruders on sight when dealing with paranoid supernaturals.
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A zone is whatever you want it to be. I'd break a football feild up into multiple zones. That's beside the point though. Throwing a can of paint or dust in a zone the size of a football feild isn't going to net you much. Also remember that scene aspects can be defended against. If you use guns to do a "trajectory" maneuver to triangulate where that last fireball came from, the wizard could use althletics to defend. "I WAS over there when I fired the fireball...but now I'm over here." Assuming the zone is the size of half a football feild, you don't need to cross borders to be no-where close to the origin of your last casting.
Thing is, you're generally using a veil (or any kind of magic, really) to defend because your athletics either isn't up to the task, or you're not willing to risk the roll. So the wizard having to defend the maneuver with athletics is still going to be to the advantage of the attacker.
Now, while that last comment hinders my own arguments, I'm writing it to point out that having a veiled person that can attack without breaking a veil and yet cannot be attacked is over-powered - especially when maneuvers (that can be defended against) are your only recourse. The reason I like using the block method is because I feel it's more balanced. I'd be more willing to say that you can't attack someone, as long as they cannot attack back without breaking the veil - which, I beleive, is how Mr. Death plays it. At least this is balanced.
As we've said, maneuvers are not the only recourse. Declarations, scene maneuvers, and zone attacks will all either hit someone with a veil, and declaring "They threw a fireball, that's going to make them real noticeable" is perfectly valid.
Generally, yes, I tend to have making direct attacks end a veil, or at least provide a bonus to anyone looking to spot the person through the veil, on the basis that a veil at least partially depends on the person not making themselves too noticeable.
During both the fight with the Gruffs, and the fight with the Ick, the monster made a move to attack her. In both cases, they missed. Her veil strength (by Small Favor) is at least a 5, possibly higher (specialization on veil power, and maybe a focus item), so it is totally feasible that with a -2 (or higher) penalty they did not reach a 5 (or even without one). The veil certainly presents a negative circumstance for your opponent whenever the fact that he cannot see you would hinder him (ie. you are not restricted to a small area or similar).
Well, no. Molly's write-up is explicitly in the Small Favor time frame, and her veil rote is explicitly three shifts, and she has no focus item listed. So please stop trying to argue that she's throwing around hugely powerful veils when it's explicitly not the case.
Well, first I would require alertness to notice the noise, this would also likely double as their roll against the veil. So piercing a strong veil may have a difficulty of 6, but hearing the noise may be a difficulty of [insert stealth check hear]. It is totally reasonable for them to hear a noise, decide it is an intruder (especially if they are touchy clued in guards), and know which way to point their guns. The fact that they cannot see their target may impose a penalty (maybe a really large one if you judge there are multiple circumstances hurting them, like Invisible Target and Large Space) but it shouldn't stop them from trying to shoot. They got a successful alertness roll (against a difficulty of, say, 3 which is good), to know there is an intruder over there, but they did not beat the veil strength. If they failed the first alertness roll they wouldn't even get the chance to act since they would be on coffee break (or pointing in the other direction, or whatever).
So in addition to throwing out these high-powered veils, the person also has to have high stealth rolls to remain undetected, even though--in all likelihood--they're using the veils because they don't have good stealth rolls? And these are guards somehow know that the noise they heard is definitely an intruder, and can just start shooting immediately (despite probably not wanting to shoot up whatever the hell it is they're guarding)?
When you're using a veil, you're using it to replace the stealth roll. It should never be, "Okay, you made a successful veil. Now, roll your basement-level stealth skill to make sure it actually works."
This is, again, all a lot more complicated than just "Does the veil work? If yes, they don't shoot at you. If no, they know where you are."
I do not think it is penalizing success to let an opponent that somehow succeeds at beating you veil strength with some sort of penalty inflict some minor injury/stress as you scramble out of the way.
Except they don't. The alertness roll fails--which means they did not beat the veil strength.
I think it would be penalizing success to say that a goon that hears you cannot shoot in your general direction.
And them not beating the veil strength means they don't detect you--don't see you, don't hear you, don't know where you are. That's what the veil strength means--as above, it's a wholesale replacement of the stealth roll.
Again, this is likely not the optimal choice, the optimal choice is to declare a bucket of dust and chuck it and roll alertness again. But most goons in my games are not that smart.
Then, as before, maybe that means that they just plain fail. Why do the goons have to succeed in piercing the veil and attacking, even though the caster has done everything right?
In the situation of a zone the size of half a football field, you would likely suffer -2 from Invisible Target, -2 from Open Space, and maybe another -2 from Really Large Space, of course it isn't effective and you look like a loon, but that never stopped cops in movies form shooting at a car speeding away with their handgun at 200 feet (likely also a -6 penalty, for extreme distance, poor tools, and moving target).
Again, a lot more cumbersome and complicated than, you know, the veil just working to make sure the person isn't a target in the first place.
My bottom line is that you do not need high enough perception to pierce a 6 shift veil to see a door swing open, or hear a breaking twig, and once you do nothing is stopping you from at least trying to shoot the source of that disturbance.
Agreed--but all of those should either be declarations to boost Alertness rolls, or outright compels to have the veil fail. Without the successful Alertness check, the goons shouldn't have any idea where the person is--that is the whole purpose of a veil, to remain undetected, not just unseen.
I will say that this attempt may not be successful, and unless the fact that the target is invisible poses no hinderence (like if they are in a closet) to the attack it is likely an abject failure. In light of that it looks like our bottom lines are actually not the far apart, we both agree that that if oyu don't know where someone is, and that will hurt your attempt to hit them, then you don't get to attack at full value.
I think you are going about this from a "you can't attack unless you have a good reason, and if you do you should invoke an aspect for effect" viewpoint while I am going about it from a "you can always fire your gun/swing your sword, but when you don't know where your target is you have to get really lucky to succeed" viewpoint.
I think we do agree on the flavor text angle of it--where we differ are the mechanics. You're suggesting that someone should have a substantial, successful attack despite not being able to break the target's block against being attacked.
Remember, a veil isn't a block against just being seen. It's a block against being perceived. Failing to account for sound and other senses are aspects of a veil you can declare or assess to boost the alertness roll--but without actually passing the veil's strength with that alertness roll, that means the person being veiled is still hidden from the person doing the snooping.
If the guards are able to conclude, "There is someone here, and we know within a few feet of where he is," that means they made the Alertness check.
If the zone is a room small sized room and you have a semi auto and fire 5 or 6 shots, then you likely get a -2 penalty in the same circumstance weapons or fists likely gets a -4 penalty (for both invisible target and the room being larger than the space you can cover). In a football field sized zone weapons or fists would likely be impossible, unless the alertness roll/other factor that made them aware of something amiss gave them much more detail than "that way." (For example, this could be an alertness roll of 5 to see a character with a stealth of 3 and a 6 shift veil pick something up a few feet away, this would allow a mele attack at around -2 or -4 depending on how well they pinpointed the location). The amount of -2's should be dependent on how unlikely you are to hit/how many circumstances are hindering you.
See above about how assigning a bunch of penalties and bonuses is just a lot more work than "veil works or veil doesn't work."
There are plenty of instances of guards with itchy trigger fingers or guards with orders to shoot intruders on sight when dealing with paranoid supernaturals.
Yes, but those guards aren't on the inside, where shooting wildly around will, at best, destroy a lot of stuff or, at worst, kill a bunch of people the guards don't actually want to kill.
Shooting wildly to find someone while you're inside a building is, quite frankly, among the stupidest things you can do with a gun.
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Well, no. Molly's write-up is explicitly in the Small Favor time frame, and her veil rote is explicitly three shifts, and she has no focus item listed. So please stop trying to argue that she's throwing around hugely powerful veils when it's explicitly not the case.
Unless I am mistaken (and feel free to point it out if I am), Molly's write up does not say what time period it is from. I interpret this to mean it is he stat block at the earliest point she enters the story (because that is how Harry and Murphy and Michael are done). Which means it represents Molly before/at the start of Proven Guilty, before she had any training from Harry. Between the beginning of Proven Guilty and Small Favor she receives about 1-2 years of training, and participates in 2 large scale adventures. It then stands to reason that Harry helped her hone her skills (especially in veils, which he also improves at over this time because of the teaching) and helps her with foci (like McCoy did for him). She could easily be capable of 5 shift Veils by Small Favor, and more by Changes/Ghost Story. So while it may not be her stats as they are in OW (which, for almost all characters are universally considered to be on the low end anyway), it certainly isn't an explicit contradiction.
So in addition to throwing out these high-powered veils, the person also has to have high stealth rolls to remain undetected
What I meant by that section was that if you do something likely to let them detect you, you get to roll stealth to conceal it, and they get to roll alertness to see/hear it. I do not mean that just walking around while Veiled you have to roll Stealth to remain unheard. What I do mean is that if you try to open a door while veiled, you roll stealth to try to do it stealthily, and anyone who could see it rolls alertness. Or, if you walk over a patch of bubble wrap or something, you have to roll stealth. A veil may hide your footsteps, or breathing, but I do not think they are designed to stop all sound from leaving your area (and if they were, you would likely not be able to hear while veiled). I may allow a player to choose that option, if they know they are going to be walking through dense/dry underbrush, or on bubble wrap, but then they will also suffer from the block on any effort to eavesdrop.
Under normal veil circumstances (you put it up beforehand, then you go spy), it just works, as you describe (alertness vs. veil, if they fail you are completely undetected). It is only when you choose to make risky moves that any of this comes up. I think it is fair that in order to steal things while invisible from under the noses of the guard you need to be stealthy as well as veiled. Gotta let a character actually built for stealth/burglary shine sometimes and not let the wizard just win at everything.
Except they don't. The alertness roll fails--which means they did not beat the veil strength.
Their alertness roll failed, which means they get a -2/-4/whatever penalty to their roll, and have to roll against a block way higher than your likely defense skill, and they still don't pierce the veil. That is pretty harsh. You are getting a pretty good deal here (way better than a shield on defense).
The veil certainly can be a replacement of the stealth roll, when it applies. When normally moving about, it does. When opening a door, it does not. I don't think anyone would argue that your veil makes it more difficult for a guard to notice a door opening on it's own (though the lack of a person there may make them less alert, maybe another application of circumstance penalties/bonuses, or aspect tags on I'm Invisible).
Then, as before, maybe that means that they just plain fail. Why do the goons have to succeed in piercing the veil and attacking, even though the caster has done everything right?
I think you missed the entire point of the section you are responding to here. As we have already discussed the goons only get to do anything at all after the caster has already "screwed up" by doing something noticeable. If they just walk in and walk out, the guards would just fail. But if you walk in, blow up a car, open the gate in the fence, and then try to walk away the guards may try to shoot where they think you are (you did just blow up their car after all). The point of the section you quoted is that shooting is likely not the optimal course of action for the guards, since because of the -4 penalty they likely have no chance (either literal 0 chance or getting a 4 on the die, so <2% chance) of hitting you. But they still get to try, even if they have no chance, the PC's may not know that, and it adds tension/makes things more interesting IMO.
I also do not think this is more complicated. If you do not want to deal with it, then just say that someone does not exercise the option to attack. This is really only here for when you have an enemy that for some reason (blood thirst, pissed off, whatever) wants to attack someone they know is around here somewhere and can't yet see them.
I think we do agree on the flavor text angle of it--where we differ are the mechanics. You're suggesting that someone should have a substantial, successful attack despite not being able to break the target's block against being attacked.
Remember, a veil isn't a block against just being seen. It's a block against being perceived. Failing to account for sound and other senses are aspects of a veil you can declare or assess to boost the alertness roll--but without actually passing the veil's strength with that alertness roll, that means the person being veiled is still hidden from the person doing the snooping.
If the guards are able to conclude, "There is someone here, and we know within a few feet of where he is," that means they made the Alertness check.
I do not the the attack's I have described are likely to be either substantial, or successful. Also, the block is explicitly not a block against being attacked (if it was, the attack skill could just strait pierce it, and you could always just roll an attack). Yes a veil is a block against you being detected. And the way I modeled it it does do that. But it is not a block against the consequences of your actions being detected and mental inferences. If the guards are able to think that, that means that you did something so obvious, that they were able to spot, and seriously narrows down where you could be (like walking into a closet). Otherwise, it is more like "There is someone here, and we know they are somewhere within a 25 foot radius through that door (based on how far they expect you to have moved since they saw the door open), lets empty our handgun magazines in that general area (at a -4 penalty)."
Shooting wildly to find someone while you're inside a building is, quite frankly, among the stupidest things you can do with a gun.
Then either the guards don't do it, or they are stupid. You can have smart guards, who care about collateral damage. They will not use this set of rules. You can also have blood crazed monsters, and they might, even if it is stupid.
I never said you apply these rules whenever anyone is veiled. Only when the circumstances are right (blood-crazed guards inside when you open a door, twitchy guards outside in the middle of the woods when you just broke off a tree branch) should you apply this. Other times the guards know they can try to shoot, but think better of it.
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Unless I am mistaken (and feel free to point it out if I am), Molly's write up does not say what time period it is from. I interpret this to mean it is he stat block at the earliest point she enters the story (because that is how Harry and Murphy and Michael are done). Which means it represents Molly before/at the start of Proven Guilty, before she had any training from Harry. Between the beginning of Proven Guilty and Small Favor she receives about 1-2 years of training, and participates in 2 large scale adventures. It then stands to reason that Harry helped her hone her skills (especially in veils, which he also improves at over this time because of the teaching) and helps her with foci (like McCoy did for him). She could easily be capable of 5 shift Veils by Small Favor, and more by Changes/Ghost Story. So while it may not be her stats as they are in OW (which, for almost all characters are universally considered to be on the low end anyway), it certainly isn't an explicit contradiction.
I checked, yes. Her Notes section specifically says that this is her as of the Small Favor case. And where is everyone "universally" considered to be on the low end? I mean besides those write-ups which, themselves, note that they're lowballing something because they just don't know?
So please, once again, please stop trying to argue along the lines of, "No, the stuff in OW isn't correct, but what is correct--even though it's not represented or said in the gamebook--supports my argument."
What I meant by that section was that if you do something likely to let them detect you, you get to roll stealth to conceal it, and they get to roll alertness to see/hear it. I do not mean that just walking around while Veiled you have to roll Stealth to remain unheard. What I do mean is that if you try to open a door while veiled, you roll stealth to try to do it stealthily, and anyone who could see it rolls alertness. Or, if you walk over a patch of bubble wrap or something, you have to roll stealth. A veil may hide your footsteps, or breathing, but I do not think they are designed to stop all sound from leaving your area (and if they were, you would likely not be able to hear while veiled). I may allow a player to choose that option, if they know they are going to be walking through dense/dry underbrush, or on bubble wrap, but then they will also suffer from the block on any effort to eavesdrop.
That's not how blocks work, though. Just like an attack that gets through your shield, you'd only have to roll stealth if the alertness roll succeeds in breaking the veil's strength. Things like opening a door, going over bubble wrap, etc. should either be compels (you opened a door, they can see the door open and know something's up) or declarations (Pop pop pop! They hear it, and gain +2 to the alertness roll). The veil's strength is against being perceived--if the veil's strength holds, then you don't have to roll anything else to remain hidden.
Under normal veil circumstances (you put it up beforehand, then you go spy), it just works, as you describe (alertness vs. veil, if they fail you are completely undetected). It is only when you choose to make risky moves that any of this comes up. I think it is fair that in order to steal things while invisible from under the noses of the guard you need to be stealthy as well as veiled. Gotta let a character actually built for stealth/burglary shine sometimes and not let the wizard just win at everything.
Again, what is the problem with making those compels? It's a lot simpler, works within the system, and does everything you've got in mind without having to introduce a lot of complications.
Their alertness roll failed, which means they get a -2/-4/whatever penalty to their roll, and have to roll against a block way higher than your likely defense skill, and they still don't pierce the veil. That is pretty harsh. You are getting a pretty good deal here (way better than a shield on defense).
Tell me where, in the books, it says that if a block isn't broken, the person being blocked gets to take exactly the same action the block is supposed to prevent anyway.
A block does not mean "they just get a penalty to their roll". It means the action fails. The action here is perceiving the target. If perceiving the target fails, then things that depend on perceiving the target are also going to fail, barring declarations and compels.
What you're saying is, mechanically, if you fail to find someone, then you should find and attack them anyway.
The veil certainly can be a replacement of the stealth roll, when it applies. When normally moving about, it does. When opening a door, it does not. I don't think anyone would argue that your veil makes it more difficult for a guard to notice a door opening on it's own (though the lack of a person there may make them less alert, maybe another application of circumstance penalties/bonuses, or aspect tags on I'm Invisible).
Once again: That is a compel. The game has a whole system already in place for the kind of exceptions you're worried about. The situations you think are going to be a problem aren't the rule, they're the exception, and exceptions are what compels and fate points are there for.
I think you missed the entire point of the section you are responding to here. As we have already discussed the goons only get to do anything at all after the caster has already "screwed up" by doing something noticeable. If they just walk in and walk out, the guards would just fail. But if you walk in, blow up a car, open the gate in the fence, and then try to walk away the guards may try to shoot where they think you are (you did just blow up their car after all). The point of the section you quoted is that shooting is likely not the optimal course of action for the guards, since because of the -4 penalty they likely have no chance (either literal 0 chance or getting a 4 on the die, so <2% chance) of hitting you. But they still get to try, even if they have no chance, the PC's may not know that, and it adds tension/makes things more interesting IMO.
All of that can, and should, be handled with compels, or with plain higher difficulties. The stealth check isn't just against people personally perceiving you. You could say, "Blowing up this car and getting out undetected is going to be a Legendary test of stealth. Your veil just plain isn't up to that, so once the car goes off, someone is going to detect you."
Or maybe the compel is, "Your veil works, but because you're a wizard and not a master thief, you didn't account for the pressure plates in the floor, and you're detected that way."
That said, blowing up a car doesn't mean you're standing right next to it, or even anywhere near it--in fact, it usually means exactly the opposite. It might mean the guards know someone is about, but it can't possibly tell them where that someone is.
The -4 penalty is an entirely arbitrary number, when the game has a system set up for exactly this kind of thing. And yes, they do get to try. That's the Alertness roll.
I also do not think this is more complicated. If you do not want to deal with it, then just say that someone does not exercise the option to attack. This is really only here for when you have an enemy that for some reason (blood thirst, pissed off, whatever) wants to attack someone they know is around here somewhere and can't yet see them.
Any point where you're assigning a bunch of additional penalties and such is going to be more complicated than pass/fail. If they know someone is around here somewhere, that means someone's Alertness roll succeeded. That's the bottom line here. You're giving the goons the benefit of the successful alertness roll (knowing someone is in a general area well enough to attack that area) without them actually succeeding at the roll.
I do not the the attack's I have described are likely to be either substantial, or successful. Also, the block is explicitly not a block against being attacked (if it was, the attack skill could just strait pierce it, and you could always just roll an attack).
No, that would be for a block against being hit or harmed, like a shield. A block against being attacked succeeding means you don't get attacked.
Yes a veil is a block against you being detected. And the way I modeled it it does do that.
Except the part where they're detected anyway, and then attacked.
But it is not a block against the consequences of your actions being detected and mental inferences. If the guards are able to think that, that means that you did something so obvious, that they were able to spot, and seriously narrows down where you could be (like walking into a closet).
Which is the result of a compel, declaration, or assessment on someone's part. Not a successful stealth check.
Otherwise, it is more like "There is someone here, and we know they are somewhere within a 25 foot radius through that door (based on how far they expect you to have moved since they saw the door open), lets empty our handgun magazines in that general area (at a -4 penalty)."
Again, anything where the guards know someone is reasonably close like that means the Alertness roll succeeded. I really don't see why you're against using compels--the whole thing this system is built around--to work with this instead of assigning arbitrary difficulties after letting the guards attack when they failed their roll to see if there's anyone around they should be attacking.
I never said you apply these rules whenever anyone is veiled. Only when the circumstances are right (blood-crazed guards inside when you open a door, twitchy guards outside in the middle of the woods when you just broke off a tree branch) should you apply this. Other times the guards know they can try to shoot, but think better of it.
Anything that starts "only when the circumstances are right" means it's better handled with a compel, not by altering the rules with a bunch of complicated modifiers.
I guess that's what it boils down to. You're talking about keeping things interesting, in certain circumstances, etc. This is all stuff that is pretty explicitly in the realm of compels and fate points according to the rulebook, so what is your objection to handling those situations with fate points and compels when they come up?
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I love compels. And you could use them here if you really wanted to. But I do not think it is appropriate. The problem is that compels can be refused. I do not think it is appropriate that refusing a compel for your veil to fail when you open the door means that no one detects you when you open the door. It just means that you do not automatically fail. In my opinion, compels should be used to enforce/reward players playing in line with their aspects when that is not the easiest/most optimal course of action. A good example would be a curious player being compelled to open the door, and loose their veil, even though the player knows this is likely non-optimal. I think "You opened the door, take a compel for the guard to see the door open" is fairly weak/boring. It feels mechanical, and compels to me are about narrative moments and progressing the story.
Your point about how blocks work, a block prevents a specific action/actions, any of the affected actions can be used to overcome the block. Certain blocks like blocks against movement stopping mele attacks work because mele attacks require (explicitly) that you be in the same zone. On the other hand no where does it say that seeing/knowing for sure where a target is is a prerequisite for you to attack them. It certainly makes it harder if you do not, but it isn't required. Just like you do not have to know exactly (or even close) to where a person is to shoot them, you are capable of thought, inference, and guessing.
I do not feel alertness rolls are appropriate substitutes for a spray and pray attempt with a hand gun. Both likely have the same result, but one is more interesting.
I do not feel piercing the veil is required to have a good idea of where someone is. A successful alertness roll to notice the effects of actions they chose to take (knowing you could see the effects) should be sufficient to allow a guess as to their position and act on it, even if you cannot see them/perceive them themselves. Veils are not blocks against someone guessing where you are based on the information they possess, it is a block against them directly detecting you.
When guards know someone is around here somewhere, that is the result of a successful alertness roll. Just because they didn't detect you doesn't mean that they didn't detect something that aroused their suspicions, and the veil specifically does not block that.
Just because someone is firing their gun at you, and has the potential to cause stress, does not mean you have been detected.
Anyway, we have gone from a point where I thought we could maybe agree on something to a point where I feel you are interpreting some my statements way out of context, ignoring some of them, or acknowledging all of my statements peicemeal and not looking at the big picture. To me that big picture is that sometimes, people shoot their guns at the air in an attempt to hit someone they know is somewhere (maybe not often in real life, but I have seen it in so many movies and TV shows, it certainly exists in fantasy). That means that they get to make an attack roll. It isn't effective. They do not detect you. But they find out you are here (with alertness based on the action you chose to perform that tipped them off). And once they know you are somewhere, aggressive/stupid goons may try to hurt you, without seeing/smelling/hearing you. Sometimes this is a compel (likely one to make you veil fail when you do something risky), sometimes the compel is refused, or it doesn't feel appropriate. In those cases, it can be an attack roll with poor circumstances.
Unless you want to give real consideration to what I am saying and stop arguing in circles I am done here. As I admitted before, I do not feel I can agree with what you are saying, I feel it is wrong and extremely unbalanced, and extremely unfun/uninteresting. Nothing you have said has changed my mind on that. I feel this system better models what it is trying to do, and is more in keeping with what is written in the book and is more fun for everyone, including the player using veils. I do not feel you will be able to change my mind on that either. So unless you want clarification from me on what I mean (and I think you do need that in order to make a persuasive argument, because right now I feel you just do not understand what I am saying), I am done with this thread.
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I love compels. And you could use them here if you really wanted to. But I do not think it is appropriate. The problem is that compels can be refused. I do not think it is appropriate that refusing a compel for your veil to fail when you open the door means that no one detects you when you open the door. It just means that you do not automatically fail. In my opinion, compels should be used to enforce/reward players playing in line with their aspects when that is not the easiest/most optimal course of action. A good example would be a curious player being compelled to open the door, and loose their veil, even though the player knows this is likely non-optimal. I think "You opened the door, take a compel for the guard to see the door open" is fairly weak/boring. It feels mechanical, and compels to me are about narrative moments and progressing the story.
Then your idea of compels is at odds with what they're for in the book. Compels are, essentially, the mechanic for making things happen a certain way despite what the dice say. If you're detected even though nobody around you can see through your veil, that's a fate point your way. Likewise, if you want to make that headshot even though the Random Number God flipped you the bird, that's a fate point you have to spend.
Though I will say I do agree that compels should be proactive instead of responsive. The compel that I would do is more along the lines of, "If you try to open that door, you'll be detected" than "You opened the door, so now you're detected."
"Compels can be refused"? Well, yes. And the players can spend a fate point to negate the arbitrary penalties you're assigning. Player choice is the most important thing. Saying you don't like compels because it means that they can be refused just means "I want this to happen no matter what" and that is straight up railroading.
Buying out of the compel doesn't mean you open the door right in front of everyone and nobody notices. It just means you get through the door without anyone noticing--maybe there's a convenient distraction, or someone else comes through and leaves it open just long enough, whatever. A compel/refusal is about the situation as a whole, not just one aspect of it.
Hell, even taking the compel should have potential for remaining hidden. Maybe the compel causes the player to sit and wait for the right opportunity to get through the door undetected, and that costs them crucial time and mental stress in maintaining the veil.
If you're making a player fail despite them succeeding by the mechanics of the game (and that is exactly what letting them be attacked without the veil failing is) then you are cheating them out of the choice the entire system is built around and doing them a huge disservice.
Your point about how blocks work, a block prevents a specific action/actions, any of the affected actions can be used to overcome the block.
The directly affected actions, yes. If you're bound, gagged, and blindfolded, that's a physical block that would stop your perception rolls too, but you can't roll Alertness real high to break out of the bonds.
Certain blocks like blocks against movement stopping mele attacks work because mele attacks require (explicitly) that you be in the same zone. On the other hand no where does it say that seeing/knowing for sure where a target is is a prerequisite for you to attack them.
Only because it's basic common sense.
It certainly makes it harder if you do not, but it isn't required. Just like you do not have to know exactly (or even close) to where a person is to shoot them, you are capable of thought, inference, and guessing.
Again, you are confusing things. A veil or stealth roll is not solely about sight. It's about detecting the person is there at all. If you have any idea of where to shoot, close enough that you can hit them, that means the Alertness roll succeeded. Not that the alertness roll failed, the veil held up, and you still get to attack them.
I do not feel alertness rolls are appropriate substitutes for a spray and pray attempt with a hand gun. Both likely have the same result, but one is more interesting.
And one makes sense and one does not. One should be the main mechanic of a game, and the other should be a compel. "A compel can be refused" is not reason to muck up the mechanics of the game to railroad your players.
I do not feel piercing the veil is required to have a good idea of where someone is.
Then, to be perfectly blunt, you are wrong. It's like saying, "I do not feel beating the defense roll is required to cause stress." The veil exists explicitly to keep someone from knowing where you are. That is its whole purpose. If you have a good idea of where someone is, that means the veil failed.
A successful alertness roll to notice the effects of actions they chose to take (knowing you could see the effects) should be sufficient to allow a guess as to their position and act on it, even if you cannot see them/perceive them themselves. Veils are not blocks against someone guessing where you are based on the information they possess, it is a block against them directly detecting you.
"Based on the information they possess" is a declaration or a compel. A modification of the Alertness roll to make that educated guess. It is not an automatic reason to land a successful attack, unless you're giving a fate point over to the player who's being detected.
When guards know someone is around here somewhere, that is the result of a successful alertness roll. Just because they didn't detect you doesn't mean that they didn't detect something that aroused their suspicions, and the veil specifically does not block that.
The suspicion that "someone is around here somewhere" is not justification to make an accurate attack. It's justification for the guards to start maneuvering and declaring to boost their investigative rolls.
Just because someone is firing their gun at you, and has the potential to cause stress, does not mean you have been detected.
Yes it does. If you haven't been detected, why are they shooting? If they are the type of guard who think every little noise has to be answered with a hail of gunfire throughout the whole room, that is the exception to the rule, and therefore is a compel.
Anyway, we have gone from a point where I thought we could maybe agree on something to a point where I feel you are interpreting some my statements way out of context, ignoring some of them, or acknowledging all of my statements peicemeal and not looking at the big picture. To me that big picture is that sometimes, people shoot their guns at the air in an attempt to hit someone they know is somewhere (maybe not often in real life, but I have seen it in so many movies and TV shows, it certainly exists in fantasy). That means that they get to make an attack roll.
If they know someone is somewhere accurately enough to shoot them, that means either they made their Alertness roll, or the player is getting a fate point because the unique circumstances are making their otherwise-good veil fail at keeping them from being detected.
It isn't effective. They do not detect you.
If they know where you are close enough to start shooting, they have detected you, and the veil has failed. "Detect you" doesn't necessarily mean "they know exactly where you are standing and can actually see you." It means "They know you are here, accurately enough to start attacking."
But they find out you are here (with alertness based on the action you chose to perform that tipped them off). And once they know you are somewhere, aggressive/stupid goons may try to hurt you, without seeing/smelling/hearing you. Sometimes this is a compel (likely one to make you veil fail when you do something risky), sometimes the compel is refused, or it doesn't feel appropriate. In those cases, it can be an attack roll with poor circumstances.
If the compel is refused, is not appropriate, and the guards have no mechanical reason to know the person is there, accurately enough to attack, then they should not be able to attack. You're saying that the person being veiled should still be forced to take stress, even when there is no mechanical or narrative reason for them to do so, without them getting a fate point.
Once again, "Once they know you are here" is the definition of a successful Alertness check.
When the player's goal (don't be attacked) fails without those plans ever being mechanically beaten (through a roll), then they deserve a fate point for it. What you are arguing for is forcing the player to fail without any compensation for it, and that is wrong.
The game even has a section that says maneuvers and aspects are "the death of situational modifiers" for this system, and you're trying to introduce a bunch of situational modifiers for exceptional situations.
Unless you want to give real consideration to what I am saying and stop arguing in circles I am done here. As I admitted before, I do not feel I can agree with what you are saying, I feel it is wrong and extremely unbalanced, and extremely unfun/uninteresting. Nothing you have said has changed my mind on that.
I can say the exact same thing to you. Your proposal, quite frankly, screws the person using the veil out of the whole purpose of the veil, without even the courtesy of offering a fate point for it. It is railroading the player into failure despite them mechanically succeeding.
I feel this system better models what it is trying to do, and is more in keeping with what is written in the book and is more fun for everyone, including the player using veils.
You're describing a system where a player who specializes in veils, whose veils are never pierced, and who--by the numbers--is never detected by his enemies, can still be gunned down, without so much as being offered a fate point for his troubles. How is it fun for him, when the system is built to make him fail no matter what he does?
I do not feel you will be able to change my mind on that either. So unless you want clarification from me on what I mean (and I think you do need that in order to make a persuasive argument, because right now I feel you just do not understand what I am saying), I am done with this thread.
I think I've got a clear idea of what you're saying, and, quite frankly, I think it's the wrong way to play the game. What it seems you're saying is that a player who uses veils should be railroaded into being attacked, even when his enemies can't beat his veil and therefore do not know where he is.
Edit: One last thing. The section on evocation blocks (YS252) outright says that veils are not blocks against damage. The section on Spirit as an element (YS255) says a veil's strength in particular "serves as the difficulty for using skills or other magic to detect anything that’s concealed by the veil" (Emphasis mine). Not the difficulty of hitting something, or a block against causing damage like you've been suggesting, but a block against being detected at all--so if the veil isn't surpassed, whoever's looking doesn't discern your presence. The book refers to veils as an alternative approach to defense, and even a "special type" of block. The book is, in fact, pretty clear that a veil is a different way to prevent getting hit from a usual shield-type spell.
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Question:
A PC is trying to sneak out of somewhere under the cover of a veil where a guardian is actively guarding a door. Assuming the player doesn't use some kind of declaration/compel against the guardian and instead chooses to open the door. Let's also assume he wasn't compelled to open the door. We can even call it player stupidity. How would you adjudicate that? Does that ruin the veil?
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Question:
A PC is trying to sneak out of somewhere under the cover of a veil where a guardian is actively guarding a door. Assuming the player doesn't use some kind of declaration/compel against the guardian and instead chooses to open the door. Let's also assume he wasn't compelled to open the door. We can even call it player stupidity. How would you adjudicate that? Does that ruin the veil?
A few immediate declarations (sort of, the 2nd one should already be present):
1) The door opened on it's own
2) Guard right in front of the door
3) Violated the guards personal space with a veil.
The guard makes an awareness check, tags the ones needed to beat the veil (or fails, "Must have been the wind" or "Faulty catch?") with the others left for his action, and you likely drop into initiative if you were not already there.
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GryMor's method works.
Alternatively, he might not have been compelled to open the door, but you could certainly compel either a scene aspect, the guardian's aspect, or one of the player's (call it a self-compel) to say "Okay, doors don't open on their own. A veil isn't going to be enough to hide that."
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No Declaration, no Compel, no veil-breaking.
The guardian sees the door open. She does not see you. What she does then is up to her.
That's how I'd handle it, anyhow.
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Another way to handle veils in combat is to not have them be blocks at all, but maneuvers. That way it can be a maneuver on your target(s) you can tag to compel them not to attack you, or some other effect (have them looking the other way to justify invoking to boost your attack roll the next exchange, to make them think they know where you are so they swing their axe into power lines instead, etc.)
Actually, swinging the axe into power lines would probably be using a veil as an attack, come to think of it, with the enemy defending with Discipline or Alertness to see through the veil.
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Another way to handle veils in combat is to not have them be blocks at all, but maneuvers.
Actually, swinging the axe into power lines would probably be using a veil as an attack, come to think of it, with the enemy defending with Discipline or Alertness to see through the veil.
Maneuvering while veiled makes way more sense than attacking, in my mind. And seems more in the spirit of it. Distracting enemies while your allies attack, levitating objects to make enemies think you're somewhere else in order to lure them into dangerous situations.
Another Question:
A wizard and his gun-toting ally, Shooty McShootiker, walk into a room. The wizard puts up his Sight and sees an enemy veiled with a glamour in the corner, watching them intently. He discretely points it out to Shooty McShootiker. Shooty, despite tagging a the appropriat aspect "my friend pointed him out" fails his awareness. The wizard makes a declaration that there is a painting directly behind the veiled enemy and tells Shooty to aim for the lower left quadrant of the painting.
How do you adjudicate what happens next? What are Shooty's options?
BTW, I'm asking these to see how people would adjudicate. I have my own ideas, but I want to see what other people would do.
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Maneuvering while veiled makes way more sense than attacking, in my mind. And seems more in the spirit of it. Distracting enemies while your allies attack, levitating objects to make enemies think you're somewhere else in order to lure them into dangerous situations.
Depends on the situation. "Veil as an attack" might be better used with illusions, honestly.
As the gamebook says, decide on the result, then work out the mechanics to fit it. If the object of a veil is to take someone out, then it's an attack. If it's to create a momentary advantage, it's a maneuver. If it's to prevent some action, a block. In that way, I think it's fine to have a veil or other illusion work as an attack. Hell, I once had a player take out a Goblin using Intimidation as an attack, to goad him into tackling a veiled bit of iron.
Another Question:
A wizard and his gun-toting ally, Shooty McShootiker, walk into a room. The wizard puts up his Sight and sees an enemy veiled with a glamour in the corner, watching them intently. He discretely points it out to Shooty McShootiker. Shooty, despite tagging a the appropriat aspect "my friend pointed him out" fails his awareness. The wizard makes a declaration that there is a painting directly behind the veiled enemy and tells Shooty to aim for the lower left quadrant of the painting.
How do you adjudicate what happens next? What are Shooty's options?
The wizard using The Sight is basically forcing a successful Alertness check, so once the wizard has notified Shooty, that means Shooty doesn't have to make his awareness roll, the veil is already broken.
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Another Question:
A wizard and his gun-toting ally, Shooty McShootiker, walk into a room. The wizard puts up his Sight and sees an enemy veiled with a glamour in the corner, watching them intently. He discretely points it out to Shooty McShootiker. Shooty, despite tagging a the appropriat aspect "my friend pointed him out" fails his awareness. The wizard makes a declaration that there is a painting directly behind the veiled enemy and tells Shooty to aim for the lower left quadrant of the painting.
How do you adjudicate what happens next? What are Shooty's options?
BTW, I'm asking these to see how people would adjudicate. I have my own ideas, but I want to see what other people would do.
Veils aren't D&D invisibility spells...in this case it's probably a block. As a block against anything perception related, Shooty needs to beat the block with his Guns roll. If successful the assistance was good enough or the veil was poor enough for Shooty to hit.
The veil is just a second defense roll once the attacker knows its there. It's not an automatic miss card. ;)
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Veils aren't D&D invisibility spells...in this case it's probably a block. As a block against anything perception related, Shooty needs to beat the block with his Guns roll. If successful the assistance was good enough or the veil was poor enough for Shooty to hit.
The veil is just a second defense roll once the attacker knows its there. It's not an automatic miss card. ;)
This is probably a better statement of my point than I made in 2.5 pages of heated argument.
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This is probably a better statement of my point than I made in 2.5 pages of heated argument.
And I disagree with it just as much.
But I'd allow him to tag the "My friend pointed it out to me" for effect, allowing him to shoot. Rather than tagging for a bonus to Alertness.
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The friend pointing it out (which is, in effect, a successful Alertness roll) is the game changer in that example, as I said. Without someone making a successful assessment to the effect of "There he is," then there's nothing to shoot at.
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The friend pointing it out (which is, in effect, a successful Alertness roll) is the game changer in that example, as I said. Without someone making a successful assessment to the effect of "There he is," then there's nothing to shoot at.
The only difference (if it makes a difference) is this is a veil created via Glamours which, as far as I know, does not dissipate the veil even after a successful alertness check. So while the wizard - or anyone else who's made a successful roll to see through the veil, everyone else would still be hampered by it.
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But that is the whole point. All of my previous examples relied on someone making a successful assessment/declaration/skill check to the effect of "There he is." Some of them were trivial declarations of "I know where he is" because you saw him less than 2 seconds ago while you were charging in his direction and he was casting the veil. Some of them were alertness skill checks to notice a floating object or door opening by itself.
The main point of contention may well be that I feel it is possible to roll such a successful declaration/skill check, while not beating the veil itself and you do not agree. The reason I think this is that the veil is only making the caster, not all of his external actions, undetectable. Add to this the fact that directly perceiving someone is not the only way to know where they are and it should be possible to make a successful declaration of "I know where he is" without taking an action, and with a lower difficulty than beating the veil.
This is just a long way around to exactly what I had before, which was in effect allowing people who could justify making a good guess as to your location to attack you. Since the declarations like these are trivial common sense things (in the example I was using), and they do not take an action, there is no need to jam the mechanics in (and I never though of describing it this way). But if you really want a mechanical justification, just say that when you opened that door, the guard makes a declaration, with alertness, of "Gotcha" against some difficulty (if you want, it could be against a stealth roll, to open the door sneakily, if that makes sense in this situation, or it could just be a 2 or a 3), and then tags it for effect to allow him to attack. It is just a round about way to the same thing.
You could argue that this declaration would need to beat the veil strength, but I argue, that when a veiled people takes an action that can be perceived by those outside, they should not have to beat the full veil strength to declare that they notice.
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The main point of contention may well be that I feel it is possible to roll such a successful declaration/skill check, while not beating the veil itself and you do not agree.
Pretty much.
The reason I think this is that the veil is only making the caster, not all of his external actions, undetectable.
The veil strength is a block against the target being detected. It is not a block simply against being seen and positively identified. I feel external actions are certainly detectable, and grounds for a declaration to help the alertness roll to beat the veil, or a compel to make the veil fail, but without beating the veil's strength with an alertness roll, the guard in question simply does not know that there is someone there, and where that someone is.
Someone taking obvious actions should certainly strain the veil's ability to hide them, or be grounds for a compel along the lines of "There's only so many places a person can be standing while they're doing that, he guessed right." But unless someone's Alertness roll succeeds or there's a fate point being handed over, an intact veil means the people looking don't know where you are.
Add to this the fact that directly perceiving someone is not the only way to know where they are and it should be possible to make a successful declaration of "I know where he is" without taking an action, and with a lower difficulty than beating the veil.
A successful Alertness roll would not be its own action, but a prerequisite for direct action. You're right that directly perceiving someone isn't the only way, but that's not the only way to narrate a successful Alertness roll either. The skill check to make the statement, "I know where you are" is the veil's strength.
Back to the example of Molly's first veil vs. Murphy, Murphy didn't see Molly, and Molly was, in fact, invisible even after she'd been detected. Murphy made the Alertness roll not to directly see Molly, but to discern where Molly was standing.
You seem to be hung up on the idea that an Alertness roll means you literally see through the veil and directly perceive the person, which isn't necessarily the case. When someone makes the Alertness roll to beat Molly's veil, it doesn't mean Molly suddenly pops back into sight, it just means the veil wasn't good enough to keep her from being found.
A successful Alertness roll would mean, "I know where you are." Anything less, and the veil is doing its job at keeping the person hidden. They might be suspicious as hell about the self-opening doors and floating candles (and this suspicion should be tagged and compelled to make the veiler's life more interesting), but they can't pinpoint your position without making the Alertness roll.
It's a simple dichotomy--Alertness success: I know where you are; Alertness fail: I don't know where you are.
This is just a long way around to exactly what I had before, which was in effect allowing people who could justify making a good guess as to your location to attack you. Since the declarations like these are trivial common sense things (in the example I was using), and they do not take an action, there is no need to jam the mechanics in (and I never though of describing it this way).
Except that discounts the veil's strength. In this example, someone could have a 10-shift veil, against someone with an Alertness of 2, and then still be found and attacked without a compel.
But if you really want a mechanical justification, just say that when you opened that door, the guard makes a declaration, with alertness, of "Gotcha" against some difficulty (if you want, it could be against a stealth roll, to open the door sneakily, if that makes sense in this situation, or it could just be a 2 or a 3), and then tags it for effect to allow him to attack. It is just a round about way to the same thing.
I could see having the caster make a Stealth roll in defense against the declaration, yes. (I see an exchange like "The guard sees you do that" "What if I wait and do it quietly while he's not looking?" "Roll Stealth and see if you can manage it, then.") But if that is then going to be tagged to allow the attack--despite the guard not making the Alertness roll--the caster really deserves a fate point because that's a compel.
You could argue that this declaration would need to beat the veil strength, but I argue, that when a veiled people takes an action that can be perceived by those outside, they should not have to beat the full veil strength to declare that they notice.
To notice the action, or result of the action is one thing. To immediately conclude, "Right there is someone there I need to shoot," and then successfully cause stress is another.
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I could see having the caster make a Stealth roll in defense against the declaration, yes. (I see an exchange like "The guard sees you do that" "What if I wait and do it quietly while he's not looking?" "Roll Stealth and see if you can manage it, then.") But if that is then going to be tagged to allow the attack--despite the guard not making the Alertness roll--the caster really deserves a fate point because that's a compel.
But in my example the guard does make the alertness roll. If the guard fails to see the door open because of a stealth roll on the veilers part he does not the to make the declaration, and thus does not get to attack. I am just saying that the difficulty to see a door open and guess where the opener is is less than the difficulty to actually determine someone's position with no external clues, and this can be handled with a declaration+attack (or traditionally by tagging the declaration to boost a subsequent alertness).
I am well aware that an alertness beating a veil does not mean you just see through it, though it could. What I am saying is that when external circumstances provide something more obvious than the person themselves, and that something is not hidden by the veil, then there is a lower difficulty alertness declaration to be made, that could justify an attack.
Further, these are not "I know exactly where you are" like in the Murphy example, simply a "I know you are in that general direction." The first is equivalent to piercing the veil, and allows a full attack (obviously), the second allows you to invoke the "You are somewhere over there-ish" aspect to justify an attack with some circumstance penalty (alternately a circumstance bonus to the defense/veil block strength for defense, same thing, just additive, Fred's post is getting to me).
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In this example, someone could have a 10-shift veil, against someone with an Alertness of 2, and then still be found and attacked without a compel.
To notice the action, or result of the action is one thing. To immediately conclude, "Right there is someone there I need to shoot," and then successfully cause stress is another.
Someone with a 10-shift veil is unlikely to take stress even if an attacker knows the general vicinity - they still have to overcome a 10-shift block.
Come to think about it, I think there are many instances where an attack could be substituted for an alertness check to overcome the veil. Swinging a sword around might not cause stress, but if it hits anything substantial, it's going to give away the position of a veiled target.
Of course, a person would have to have a good reason to WANT to use weapons instead of alertness in the first place.
I think there's two ways to look at it (the above statement aside. I was thinking out loud):
1. a veil as a block against perception therefore if you cannot perceive the target you cannot attack the target.
2. the veil as a block against all actions that require you to perceive the target. Attacking in any way that requires you to perceive the target would put you up against the block.
It's a subtle but important difference. I'm not sure #2 nerfs veils because of the following reasons.
1. There's no reason to use any skill other than perception skills unless the veiled person tips their hand (GM's discretion)
2. Even if they do use another type of skill, they still have overcome the block, which is within the rules.
3. A veil is still slightly better than a regular block because even if the attacker overcomes the veil with an attack, the veiled person still has many options to confound the attacker while, with a regular block, an attacker always knows the location of the target and can continue to attempt to overcome the block. (I'm not sure how clear that statement was)
Actually, my only hesitation with using veil version #2 is it makes it a far better block than a regular sheild.
Fred's post is getting to me).
Huh? Did I miss something?
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Huh? Did I miss something?
Cross reference to the hunger thread, Fred has a post about using consequences as a resource, and in it he talks about how there are few penalties in DFRPG because addition feels better (so instead of a penalty on the roll, you increase the difficulty or similar). Mechanically these are the same of course.
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But in my example the guard does make the alertness roll.
No, your example was the guard making a declaration, explicitly not beating the veil with his alertness roll, but still getting the benefit of beating the veil.
If the guard fails to see the door open because of a stealth roll on the veilers part he does not the to make the declaration, and thus does not get to attack. I am just saying that the difficulty to see a door open and guess where the opener is is less than the difficulty to actually determine someone's position with no external clues, and this can be handled with a declaration+attack (or traditionally by tagging the declaration to boost a subsequent alertness).
And I am saying that the Veil's strength is the difficulty in finding the veiler. If you're shooting at them, that means you found him, not that you made a declaration entirely independent of the veil's strength. You are advocating someone get the benefit of beating a block's strength without having to beat that block's strength.
I am well aware that an alertness beating a veil does not mean you just see through it, though it could. What I am saying is that when external circumstances provide something more obvious than the person themselves, and that something is not hidden by the veil, then there is a lower difficulty alertness declaration to be made, that could justify an attack.
Again: To notice the action, yes. To see through the veil and attack? No. You could compel it to say the veil failed, or tag it to make an Alertness roll against the veil, but if the veil's strength isn't beaten, that means the guard does not know where the person is. That is what the veil's strength means. Per the book, it is explicitly not a block against damage, which is what you're trying to treat it as.
Further, these are not "I know exactly where you are" like in the Murphy example, simply a "I know you are in that general direction."
Close enough as makes no difference. If you're able to target someone accurately enough to do damage, you've beaten the veil's strength and know where they are.
Look, the whole purpose of a veil is as an alternate defense, using less power to protect yourself by exploiting a skill that's going to be significantly less for your opponent than their main attack skill. Allowing someone to still attack them without beating the veil's block is robbing the veil of its unique properties, and missing the point entirely.
Again: Per the book and Molly's write-up, if veils and declarations acted the way you're insisted, Molly would be dead several times over instead of coming away with, at worst, a new coating of paint.
Come to think about it, I think there are many instances where an attack could be substituted for an alertness check to overcome the veil. Swinging a sword around might not cause stress, but if it hits anything substantial, it's going to give away the position of a veiled target.
Of course, a person would have to have a good reason to WANT to use weapons instead of alertness in the first place.
As I've said before, I'd allow this sort of thing as a maneuver (or a compel/invoke that someone has to make to use that skill--as you say, there's got to be a reason they're swinging wildly around), but not as an attack.
Hell, that's probably what the Ick did against Molly--made a maneuver with Fists, tagging the declaration Bucket Of Paint for a bonus, and then tagged the resulting aspect to either make the alertness roll or remove Molly's veil until she cast it again with an invoke for effect.
I think there's two ways to look at it (the above statement aside. I was thinking out loud):
1. a veil as a block against perception therefore if you cannot perceive the target you cannot attack the target.
2. the veil as a block against all actions that require you to perceive the target. Attacking in any way that requires you to perceive the target would put you up against the block.
That seems to be the gist of it.
1. There's no reason to use any skill other than perception skills unless the veiled person tips their hand (GM's discretion)
2. Even if they do use another type of skill, they still have overcome the block, which is within the rules.
The way I look at it, however, is that a veil isn't meant to be a defense against direct attacks. Per the book's description and how we see them play out in the series, they're meant to be a defense against being targeted at all.
Would you have someone use their Stealth skill as a physical defense against an attack?
3. A veil is still slightly better than a regular block because even if the attacker overcomes the veil with an attack, the veiled person still has many options to confound the attacker while, with a regular block, an attacker always knows the location of the target and can continue to attempt to overcome the block. (I'm not sure how clear that statement was)
This goes against the rules, however. If you overcome a magical block, it's not supposed to stay up. And, as I've been arguing, if the person being veiled is being shot at accurately enough to cause stress and consequences, then the veil has clearly not done its job of making sure the person is not perceived and targeted.
A veil isn't going to do anything to stop or redirect the bullets coming at you--and that's what a block against damage would do. A veil is meant to stop and redirect attention--if someone is able to pay attention to the point they can target and attack with reasonable accuracy, that, to me, means the veil has straight up failed, either through a successful Alertness check or a compel or some kind.
That's my bottom line here. A veil is, essentially, a declaration on the part of the caster saying, "You can't find me." If they're being attacked directly, that means someone has found them--either via a successful perception roll of some kind, or a circumstance that justified a compel.
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Would you have someone use their Stealth skill as a physical defense against an attack?
If it seemed appropriate at the time and it could be justified, then yes.
This goes against the rules, however. If you overcome a magical block, it's not supposed to stay up.
True. But a block is also not also supposed to completely prevent people from trying. I think the phrase in the book "veil serves as the difficulty for using skills or other magic to detect anything that’s concealed by the veil" is a fairly vague one. Really, it doesn't say you need Awareness or Investigate to detect somthing. It just says "skills" A veil should also hide tactile senses, so a successful attack to hit should overcome the veil since you'd be touching them. I also think that interpreting that as "the subject of a veil may not be subject to attacks, targetted maneuvers or blocks" as a very liberal interpretation.
Originally, I would have ruled that any attack would overcome the block, but since you pointed out that that would nerf veils too much, I figured a compromise to say that only a "perception" could overcome the veil would be appropriate. There's precedence for that in the grapple rules where a successful check to overcome the block does not necessarily break the grapple. I'd be just as happy to make it a regular block.
And, as I've been arguing, if the person being veiled is being shot at accurately enough to cause stress and consequences, then the veil has clearly not done its job of making sure the person is not perceived and targeted.
I agree. It hasn't.
A veil isn't going to do anything to stop or redirect the bullets coming at you--and that's what a block against damage would do.
Really? Previously you mentionned that someone took out a goblin by Intimidating it to attack a veiled bit of iron. Which I think is brilliant. You seem to be an extremely creative person so I find it hard to beleive you can't, in a narrative sense, see how a veil blocking an attack, can be interpreted as the attack missing because the person was unable to properly target them.
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If it seemed appropriate at the time and it could be justified, then yes.
So in unique circumstances, rather than as a rule? Because what you're suggesting is that something like that should be the rule instead. Exceptions and stuff like that is usually the realm of compels, invokes, and declarations, not core rules.
Also note that the rules on using skills that normally wouldn't work are that the GM might allow it, but at a significantly increased difficulty, possibly requiring an invoke of some kind, and very few times before making a player spend some refresh on being able to do so regularly.
True. But a block is also not also supposed to completely prevent people from trying.
Actually, they certainly can. A block is, essentially, just a character setting a difficulty for doing something rather than the GM. The book mentions that failing an Athletics roll to jump a gap doesn't necessarily mean that the person tries, fails, and plummets to their death--it could easily mean simply that the person judges that they can't make the jump, and doesn't try. Same thing here. Someone who doesn't overcome the Alertness roll--and can't find the person--just doesn't try, or is unable to, find them by firing wildly.
So, yes, I think it is entirely possible to have an action automatically fail if the prerequisite for that action has already failed.
I think the phrase in the book "veil serves as the difficulty for using skills or other magic to detect anything that’s concealed by the veil" is a fairly vague one. Really, it doesn't say you need Awareness or Investigate to detect somthing.
Not explicitly, no, but those are the skills to make sense to detect something, just as Athletics and Might are the skills that make sense to bypass physical blocks. Would you let someone use Alertness or Investigation to overcome a physical block?
A veil should also hide tactile senses, so a successful attack to hit should overcome the veil since you'd be touching them. I also think that interpreting that as "the subject of a veil may not be subject to attacks, targetted maneuvers or blocks" as a very liberal interpretation.
I disagree. How do you act against something you can't find?
If the veil's strength is the difficulty for making the declaration of "There he is," how do you act against something without being able to make that declaration?
Originally, I would have ruled that any attack would overcome the block, but since you pointed out that that would nerf veils too much, I figured a compromise to say that only a "perception" could overcome the veil would be appropriate.
Even that leaves the problem of getting the benefit of beating the veil (confirming their location and attacking them) without beating the veil.
Part of the purpose of a veil is to force an opponent to depend on something besides their apex attack skill. It's a "less is more" approach--Molly remains hidden because while supernatural baddies are fast, strong, and superb fighters, their Alertness rolls blow, and therefore they can't target her.
There's precedence for that in the grapple rules where a successful check to overcome the block does not necessarily break the grapple. I'd be just as happy to make it a regular block.
Grapples aren't magical blocks, however. It's the magical-ness of the block that means it falls apart after it's broken, not the block part. Plus, grapples are explicitly a different type of thing from regular blocks.
I agree. It hasn't.
So it is your view that a veil can fail at its job, without actually being overcome by the skills it's meant to block?
Really? Previously you mentionned that someone took out a goblin by Intimidating it to attack a veiled bit of iron. Which I think is brilliant. You seem to be an extremely creative person so I find it hard to beleive you can't, in a narrative sense, see how a veil blocking an attack, can be interpreted as the attack missing because the person was unable to properly target them.
I can see it, but to my mind that is simply not how veils are supposed to work. If they were meant to be blocks against damage, the book wouldn't go out of its way to describe them as special blocks against perception, nor would the book say explicitly that a veil is not a block against damage.
To my mind, a veil is not just supposed to be a different flavor of a defensive shield, but an alternate route to defense entirely--making an opponent have to use something besides the apex attack skill to be able to hurt you.
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Let's consider a possible scenario, based on the statistics given in the books. Call it Molly vs. Gruffs, and we'll go under Centarion and Taran's interpretation.
Gruffs attack Harry, and Molly veils--going by the rulebook, this is her rote veil, a 3-shift block against perception. Gruffs are focused on Harry the first round, and have no reason to notice Molly, so her veil holds, they don't see her, and isn't attacked.
Molly starts round two under her veil still, and throws a snowball, a maneuver to draw aggro away from Harry, before hiding under the veil again. The Gruff still isn't able to break the veil's block with his Alertness roll.
But, because the Gruff knows Molly is somewhere within snowball-throwing range, the Gruff gets to immediately reroll to detect and damage Molly, at a much higher skill level, without having to spend a fate point or otherwise compelling Molly.
Molly's 3-shift veil is broken by the Gruff's Fists attack, and with its Claws and Strength, Molly is almost guaranteed to have a consequence of some kind, which can then be tagged to beat the veil again if she tries to put up a new one, and given the Gruff's physical advantage, Ms. Carpenter is not long for this world.
Under your interpretation, the Alertness roll--which the veil is made to block--simply doesn't matter, because for the barest justification, the attacker can default to his apex skill. Instead of being an alternative, creative way to avoid being harmed, it's just a shield spell with a different flavor.
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So in unique circumstances, rather than as a rule? Because what you're suggesting is that something like that should be the rule instead. Exceptions and stuff like that is usually the realm of compels, invokes, and declarations, not core rules.
Actually, they certainly can. A block is, essentially, just a character setting a difficulty for doing something rather than the GM. The book mentions that failing an Athletics roll to jump a gap doesn't necessarily mean that the person tries, fails, and plummets to their death--it could easily mean simply that the person judges that they can't make the jump, and doesn't try. Same thing here. Someone who doesn't overcome the Alertness roll--and can't find the person--just doesn't try, or is unable to, find them by firing wildly.
None of this applies as I interpret the veil to block actions that require perception, which could be a wide variety of skills.
Not explicitly, no, but those are the skills to make sense to detect something, just as Athletics and Might are the skills that make sense to bypass physical blocks. Would you let someone use Alertness or Investigation to overcome a physical block?
That depends: can they shoot laser beams out of their eyes ;)
If the veil's strength is the difficulty for making the declaration of "There he is," how do you act against something without being able to make that declaration?
I wouldn't allow people to even try to attack a veiled person without an appropriate reason or declaration. I might have mentionned that already.
So it is your view that a veil can fail at its job, without actually being overcome by the skills it's meant to block?
See above. I think a veil is meant to block a wider variety of skills just Awareness and Investigation.
nor would the book say explicitly that a veil is not a block against damage.
This I'm curious about. Which page is it on? I'll re-read the section.
To my mind, a veil is not just supposed to be a different flavor of a defensive shield, but an alternate route to defense entirely
It should be an alternate route to defense entirely. That's why you shouldn't be attacking under the cover of a veil because you're likely to get people trying to attack you.
After all these pages, I know how I want to adjudicate this. One of my Players has a character with Glamours and will be using veils often. If it doesn't work out, I'll be happy to change how we do it. I can also post here either way.Let's consider a possible scenario, based on the statistics given in the books. Call it Molly vs. Gruffs, and we'll go under Centarion and Taran's interpretation.
Gruffs attack Harry, and Molly veils--going by the rulebook, this is her rote veil, a 3-shift block against perception. Gruffs are focused on Harry the first round, and have no reason to notice Molly, so her veil holds, they don't see her, and isn't attacked.
Molly starts round two under her veil still, and throws a snowball, a maneuver to draw aggro away from Harry, before hiding under the veil again. The Gruff still isn't able to break the veil's block with his Alertness roll.
But, because the Gruff knows Molly is somewhere within snowball-throwing range, the Gruff gets to immediately reroll to detect and damage Molly, at a much higher skill level, without having to spend a fate point or otherwise compelling Molly.
Molly's 3-shift veil is broken by the Gruff's Fists attack, and with its Claws and Strength, Molly is almost guaranteed to have a consequence of some kind, which can then be tagged to beat the veil again if she tries to put up a new one, and given the Gruff's physical advantage, Ms. Carpenter is not long for this world.
Under your interpretation, the Alertness roll--which the veil is made to block--simply doesn't matter, because for the barest justification, the attacker can default to his apex skill. Instead of being an alternative, creative way to avoid being harmed, it's just a shield spell with a different flavor.
We used this example many, many times. Your version was different from ours. In our version, I think Molly survived...If I remember correctly.
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None of this applies as I interpret the veil to block actions that require perception, which could be a wide variety of skills.
But that the veil can be overcome without that perception happening? You'd let someone fire blind and still hit as if they knew where to shoot?
I wouldn't allow people to even try to attack a veiled person without an appropriate reason or declaration. I might have mentionned that already.
Yes, but what I'm saying is that to make that declaration, they have to beat the Veil's strength, or the veiler should be getting a fate point for it. You appear to be saying that they can make that declaration without beating the veil's strength.
See above. I think a veil is meant to block a wider variety of skills just Awareness and Investigation.
And I think that's mistaken, for the reasons I've stated.
This I'm curious about. Which page is it on? I'll re-read the section.
It's 252 in Your Story; I quoted it before, and as I recall, it's accompanied by a side-note from Harry saying that Molly is particularly skilled at it. Or that side-note might be on 255 or 276 (and I think that's all the pages on which Veils are discussed in YS).
It should be an alternate route to defense entirely. That's why you shouldn't be attacking under the cover of a veil because you're likely to get people trying to attack you.
Trying, and failing because they can't target you. Sometimes something you try is going to fail because you lack a crucial piece of information that would allow success.
We used this example many, many times. Your version was different from ours. In our version, I think Molly survived...If I remember correctly.
And if I remember correctly, your version had Molly's veils at a much higher strength, with the justification of, "Oh, the book's wrong, her power for veils must be a lot higher." Going by the skill level presented in the books, which is really the only baseline we have, Molly is screwed.
I'd still like an answer on what your feelings are about the attacker getting an automatic, free, immediate, and higher reroll to break the block under your interpretation.
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Let's consider a possible scenario, based on the statistics given in the books. Call it Molly vs. Gruffs, and we'll go under Centarion and Taran's interpretation.
Gruffs attack Harry, and Molly veils--going by the rulebook, this is her rote veil, a 3-shift block against perception. Gruffs are focused on Harry the first round, and have no reason to notice Molly, so her veil holds, they don't see her, and isn't attacked.
Molly starts round two under her veil still, and throws a snowball, a maneuver to draw aggro away from Harry, before hiding under the veil again. The Gruff still isn't able to break the veil's block with his Alertness roll.
But, because the Gruff knows Molly is somewhere within snowball-throwing range, the Gruff gets to immediately reroll to detect and damage Molly, at a much higher skill level, without having to spend a fate point or otherwise compelling Molly.
Molly's 3-shift veil is broken by the Gruff's Fists attack, and with its Claws and Strength, Molly is almost guaranteed to have a consequence of some kind, which can then be tagged to beat the veil again if she tries to put up a new one, and given the Gruff's physical advantage, Ms. Carpenter is not long for this world.
Under your interpretation, the Alertness roll--which the veil is made to block--simply doesn't matter, because for the barest justification, the attacker can default to his apex skill. Instead of being an alternative, creative way to avoid being harmed, it's just a shield spell with a different flavor.
Let us try this again. I will even use the book's value of 3 (even though I hold that to be way to low, at least by the point she fights with the Gruffs) to placate you.
Molly starts the fight under a veil, the Gruffs cannot attack her because the do not know she is there, and they did not succeed on alertness to notice her. They attack Harry.
Later in round one, Molly maneuvers to try to draw attention off of Harry by throwing a snowball (to maneuver she has to overcome a block of 1 or maybe 2 [rounding?], half the veil strength). This triggers another alertness roll by the Gruff, against a difficulty of 3, to spot Molly. The Gruff says that since Molly threw a snowball, he should have some general idea of where she is. The GM agrees, but does not want to totally neuter the veil, so instead of giving him a +2 to his alertness to spot her, he proposes that a roll of 3 will spot her, and a roll of 1 will allow him to make a declaration of "I saw where that came from." [NOTE: going by your interpretation, the GM's only option would be to give the Gruff a +2, and because of this he would likely spot her, and splat her assuming he has at least 1 alertness, I do not have my OW on me and cannot look that up]
On the Gruff's turn, he decides to tag the aspect "I saw where that came from" for effect to be able to attack Molly. [NOTE: this is likely a worse choice for him than just using it to boost alertness, because the veil strength is fairly low, had the veil strength been higher, this may be a more attractive option] The GM decides that because he cannot see her/detect her he is facing an adverse circumstance, thus the difficulty to hit her will be 2 higher (a 5 *or* her athletics+2 whichever is higher). [NOTE: The GM could add another adverse circumstance, for the large open space, but he has decided not to because the Gruff saw exactly where the snowball came from, and Molly has not moved] The Gruff attacks with Fists, a skill at 3 or 4 (I do not have my book, but I cannot imagine a normal Gruff has more than Great Fists) and gets the average result, a 0. Thus he completely misses and Molly is fine. [NOTE: even had the Gruff hit, the veil would not automatically be broken. Further, in subsequent rounds, he would likely face a difficulty increase of 4 when attacking her, unless Molly made her location obvious again].
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Let us try this again. I will even use the book's value of 3 (even though I hold that to be way to low, at least by the point she fights with the Gruffs) to placate you.
Molly starts the fight under a veil, the Gruffs cannot attack her because the do not know she is there, and they did not succeed on alertness to notice her. They attack Harry.
Later in round one, Molly maneuvers to try to draw attention off of Harry by throwing a snowball (to maneuver she has to overcome a block of 1 or maybe 2 [rounding?], half the veil strength). This triggers another alertness roll by the Gruff, against a difficulty of 3, to spot Molly. The Gruff says that since Molly threw a snowball, he should have some general idea of where she is. The GM agrees, but does not want to totally neuter the veil, so instead of giving him a +2 to his alertness to spot her, he proposes that a roll of 3 will spot her, and a roll of 1 will allow him to make a declaration of "I saw where that came from." [NOTE: going by your interpretation, the GM's only option would be to give the Gruff a +2, and because of this he would likely spot her, and splat her assuming he has at least 1 alertness, I do not have my OW on me and cannot look that up]
On the Gruff's turn, he decides to tag the aspect "I saw where that came from" for effect to be able to attack Molly. [NOTE: this is likely a worse choice for him than just using it to boost alertness, because the veil strength is fairly low, had the veil strength been higher, this may be a more attractive option] The GM decides that because he cannot see her/detect her he is facing an adverse circumstance, thus the difficulty to hit her will be 2 higher (a 5 *or* her athletics+2 whichever is higher). [NOTE: The GM could add another adverse circumstance, for the large open space, but he has decided not to because the Gruff saw exactly where the snowball came from, and Molly has not moved] The Gruff attacks with Fists, a skill at 3 or 4 (I do not have my book, but I cannot imagine a normal Gruff has more than Great Fists) and gets the average result, a 0. Thus he completely misses and Molly is fine. [NOTE: even had the Gruff hit, the veil would not automatically be broken. Further, in subsequent rounds, he would likely face a difficulty increase of 4 when attacking her, unless Molly made her location obvious again].
So for your solution to match what we see in the books, we have to finagle a totally different way to have declarations and aspects work (and no, a +2 to Alertness on the tag would not be "neutering" the veil; it would be exactly how this is supposed to work in the RAW) apparently because the GM has it in mind that they don't want the veil to fail (If the veil fails, that's not the GM's problem, it's Molly's--and Molly likely has fate points and definitely has aspects to invoke here if she doesn't want to get seen), go into difficulty modifiers that the Fate system is supposed to be doing away with, and, apparently, toss aside the rules for an intended result without tossing around any fate points, instead of letting the dice and mechanics play out.
This example in particular also requires assumptions that are, in all likelihood, flat out wrong: Molly's the PC here, not the Gruffs--the GM is deciding what they're doing; and there is no way that Molly is so utterly braindead as to throw a snowball to get a monster's attention and then stand completely still--if you stand still in combat, you die, and Molly knows that as well as anyone, so it is a completely unreasonable basis on which to attack accurately.
Your example, in short, requires more complications and playing very loose with the rules in order to achieve your desired outcome.
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Putting aside that Molly is a main character and those Gruffs are the first encounter of an entire quest...
I'd assumed that Molly tagged a bunch of aspects like "home turf" scene aspect, "big back yard" declaration, maybe even "my Master needs me". She probably spent a FP or two on character aspects as well.
She could boost her Power or control or both + over-cast the spell. She could probably hit a veil strength of around 6-8. Which easily makes it a strong enough veil.
Since the Gruffs primary objective was to take out Harry, they'd be unlikely to use any free tags they might have on Molly. I don't figure they'd have FP's and, once again, they'd probably save them for Harry.
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How would this work under your solution? The problems you have noted in my example come about not because of my system, but because the veil strength is so low.
a +2 to Alertness on the tag would not be "neutering" the veil; it would be exactly how this is supposed to work in the RAW
But what aspect would he be tagging. There have been none placed when he makes this declaration. The GM could rule that he could tag some aspect that was generated when Molly threw a snowball (though what generated it I do not know), but this would be GM fiat.
So instead of making up an aspect, and forcing the Gruff to tag it for +2, the GM decides that circumstances warrant a application of the rules (YS in the section about adjudicating skill checks) for different levels of success. In this case a total success would be a 3 (the difficulty of the veil) and would entitle the Gruff to know exactly where Molly is, and break the veil. A weaker success, a 1, entitles him to the aspect "I saw where that came from."
GM has it in mind that they don't want the veil to fail
In this case, I do not think the GM is railroading the veil either way. I may have been unclear in that sentence. Under your rules, you have decided that when an alertness check is triggered by an event, such as throwing a snowball, the person rolling alertness gets to tag some non-existent aspect for a +2. This basically shortcuts the declaration of an aspect like "I saw where that came from," which is fine, because that type of declaration is fairly trivial. But for the sake of my example I put it in, for maximum clarity.
NOTE: The Gruff, after making a successful declaration with alertness, with difficulty 1, gets the aspect "I saw where that came from" on his turn he is welcome to use that tag to roll alertness at +2, see the veil and then attack. This is likely the optimal strategy given the relatively low strength of the veil. But, for the sake of this example I chose to have the Gruff take the other course of action. This is not a problem with my interpretation of the rules, it is just another available option, just like invoking for effect is always an alternative to invoking for +2.
difficulty modifiers that the Fate system is supposed to be doing away with, and, apparently, toss aside the rules for an intended result without tossing around any fate points, instead of letting the dice and mechanics play out.
Actually, there is a section at the end of YS explicitly dealing with difficulty modifiers and adjudicating skill checks. It says that you add 2 to the difficulty of any roll for each factor that makes it more difficult (Like lack of tools, or time pressure). I think that is applicable here.
Also, I am not tossing aside any rules, I am, as you suggested, allowing the Gruff to invoke the aspect he placed with his declaration for effect. This invoke for effect allows him to do something he normally could not, attack a target he cannot see (as we noted above this is an adverse circumstance).
There is nothing here that is not explicitly part of the RAW. We have a variable degree of success on a skill check that respects the difficulty to fully detect someone through their veil (base difficulty to place an aspect, higher difficulty = veil strength, to break veil). You yourself are in favor of people using declarations for aspects like this. Then we have an invoke for effect to allow an attack not other wise allowed. Your arguments over the last two pages have been all about the fact that strange outliers like this should be handled with aspect invocations or compels, well here you go. Then we have a difficulty increase of a skill roll (an attack is still a skill roll), as noted in YS in the chapter about adjudicating skill checks.
You could also have a compel here, that would be something like "Since you threw a snowball at him, he sees you, your veil fails, OK? Here is a fate point." But absent that, this is how I would do this scenario under the rules.
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I want to see how your interpretation handles this example.
From what I understand of your interpretation, we would something like:
Molly throws a snowball from under her 3 strength veil. Gruff gets an alertness roll at +2 to notice her, with his alertness of 1 he does. He proceeds to kill her messily.
You have stated multiple times that circumstances, or attacks or whatever would grant people a bonus to notice the veiled character. Here is one from page 5 of this thread (reply 72).
declarations (Pop pop pop! They hear it, and gain +2 to the alertness roll)
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Putting aside that Molly is a main character and those Gruffs are the first encounter of an entire quest...
I'd assumed that Molly tagged a bunch of aspects like "home turf" scene aspect, "big back yard" declaration, maybe even "my Master needs me". She probably spent a FP or two on character aspects as well.
She could boost her Power or control or both + over-cast the spell. She could probably hit a veil strength of around 6-8. Which easily makes it a strong enough veil.
Since the Gruffs primary objective was to take out Harry, they'd be unlikely to use any free tags they might have on Molly. I don't figure they'd have FP's and, once again, they'd probably save them for Harry.
I don't see how any of that wouldn't apply to my interpretation as well. If we're making all kinds of declarations and throwing fate points around, both approaches would, eventually, work to the same result.
But then Molly has to make all of those declarations and invokes any time she wants her veils to be at all effective at defending her, given her power level, which is, at best, a cumbersome way to play. Why design a character whose main gimmick doesn't work unless you boost everything two or three times whenever you want to be at all effective?
And first encounter or not, they knock Dresden--a full fledged combat wizard who's several refresh higher than Molly--around quite a bit and leave him with at least a couple Consequences. They're mooks, but mooks capable of doing serious damage.
Absent fate points and declarations, my interpretation plays out like the scene in the book--Molly gets away unseen and unscathed, and the scene in the book is not presented as something that is unusual for Molly to be capable of. The other interpretation, absent fate points and declarations, requires bending the RAW significantly for Molly to get away unscathed.
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I'd still like an answer on what your feelings are about the attacker getting an automatic, free, immediate, and higher reroll to break the block under your interpretation.
Yeah, you keep saying that and either I'm not understanding what you're saying or I'm not making myself clear. Let me clarify.
Defender = Veiled person
Attacker = person trying to overcome the veil
In a situation defender does something to make themselves known, I might allow a free Awareness check on veiled persons turn.
On the opponents turn, I'd allow them to make an Assessment as an action. If they had a reason to do so, like a declaration to say that they just witnessed a fireball from the corner (basically, they need a reason to target a specific area of the zone and have reason to start attacking the air in the first place), I'd allow them to make an attack action INSTEAD of an Assessment.
If the attack failed, the defender is still under a veil and would be smart to relocate themselves.
If the attack succeeded, the defender would take stress (which would be buffered by the spell), but they would still be under the affects of a veil.
Basically, the attacker has to choose to attack (and deal with the block), or use perception to break the block - not both. So an attacker can attack all day but have to deal with a "X" number block, or spend his time trying to get rid of the veil so that his attacks are more effective.
It is true that in the case that the defender does something completely obvious that I'd allow a reactive Awareness check by the attacker. If a defender wants to attack, they usually have lots of options like spirit evocations that are invisible or air evocations that don't originate from them. The attacker, then, has to be more creative in making declarations to attack the defender and might be better off using his turn maneuvering or using Awareness.
Lastly, an attack like a fists attack, I might rule would break the veil. My reasoning is thus: a block, is a block, is a block. A veil should also cover up tactile perception and for that reason, a successful fists attack might be enough to break the veil.
I'm not sure you agree but I'm curious if I answered the question.
Wow...3 posts since I wrote this. My point about Molly, is that the Gruffs aren't throwing around FP's at her. We're talking about that specific scene. Also, Molly isn't trying to defeat the Gruffs. From what I remember, she distracts them, they miss her (maybe they roll poorly) and then she runs away.
Also, remember that the Gruffs Ambushed Harry. No defence roll.
EDIT: part of what makes Veils Molly's main gimmik is she has aspect that support it and therefore allow her to use FP's to boost her veils when she's obviously out of her depth.
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To my mind, the adjusted skill checks and adjusted difficulty don't to apply to direct character-vs-character actions. In any other character vs. character convlict, anything below the defense roll simply fails.
Let's say that it's a vampire rolling a 3 Fists attack that fails to break Harry's 4-strength block. Does the vampire get a partial success?
Or, I'd say that because Molly clearly intended to get the Gruff's attention with the snowball, the gruff simply can't declare that it gives them any kind of advantage, on the basis that Molly would have considered that in her action and, once again, actually moved instead of standing stock still after poking something capable of killing her (which is, again, a blindingly stupid thing for her to do).
Or because, as has been mentioned, the Gruff is a low level goon who's not there to kill Molly specifically, he just doesn't make any declarations.
I want to see how your interpretation handles this example.
From what I understand of your interpretation, we would something like:
Molly throws a snowball from under her 3 strength veil. Gruff gets an alertness roll at +2 to notice her, with his alertness of 1 he does. He proceeds to kill her messily.
You have stated multiple times that circumstances, or attacks or whatever would grant people a bonus to notice the veiled character. Here is one from page 5 of this thread (reply 72).
So, baring that in mind, my interpretation goes like:
Molly is veiled in her 3-shift rote. She throws a snowball as a maneuver, and tags it to get the Gruff to break off from Harry. The Gruff can't make a declaration like "I saw where it came from" because him noticing the snowball was the whole point. The Gruff might, say, invoke the resulting aspect, meaning Molly gets the fate point because it would be a compel against her, but being that he's a beginning-of-scenario mook, he does not. Possibly also because he's a Summer fae and he's knee-deep in snow. His Alertness roll fails, and because the initial aspect was tagged to draw him off Harry, he wastes his turn swinging at air.
Alternatively, as I suggested before, maybe Molly casts the veil as a direct maneuver against the Gruff, and then tags it to compel him to attack her and miss, with the snowball thrown in as flavor text.
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But then Molly has to make all of those declarations and invokes any time she wants her veils to be at all effective at defending her, given her power level, which is, at best, a cumbersome way to play. Why design a character whose main gimmick doesn't work unless you boost everything two or three times whenever you want to be at all effective?
And first encounter or not, they knock Dresden--a full fledged combat wizard who's several refresh higher than Molly--around quite a bit and leave him with at least a couple Consequences. They're mooks, but mooks capable of doing serious damage.
Absent fate points and declarations, my interpretation plays out like the scene in the book--Molly gets away unseen and unscathed, and the scene in the book is not presented as something that is unusual for Molly to be capable of. The other interpretation, absent fate points and declarations, requires bending the RAW significantly for Molly to get away unscathed.
First of all, in my example of this combat from post number 98, which in post number 101 I show includes no elements not found in the RAW, allows her to get away unscathed. I would say that the rules for partial success do not apply to direct attacks and maneuvers and such, but a check to notice someones veil is not one of those. As you have stated, it is not even an action.
This just comes down to you arbitrarily deciding that there is no way you can do anything to anyone under a veil without beating the whole veil strength. What about when I throw paint or dust as a maneuver, how do I know where to throw it?
Second, I have yet to see an example from you that allows the same. As far as I can tell, by your interpretation, the Gruff would easily beat her 3 shift veil as soon as she threw the snowball, and that would be his only choice. I am aware this could happen in my scenario as well, but only if the Gruff chose to use his tag to boost a perception roll, and not attack.
I find it unconvincing to say that since the intent of the maneuver was to draw attention, the Gruff does not get the benefit of his attention being drawn. Just because her maneuver is intended to draw his attention, does not mean she gets free supplemental movement. Nor does it negate the fact that he saw where the snowball came from.
Third, if it created a character, of the lowest power level, whose main gimmick was Veils, they would be able to throw around 5 shift veils easily. With only channeling and ritual, you have a character with 4 focus item slots, Molly is described as having great control, so she has 4 discipline, she has low power so 2 conviction (this would be higher if I was actually tying to build an effective character). She has a focus that is + 3 power +1 control for defensive spirit, which is allowed with 4 Lore, if she had less lore she would need more conviction, whatever. Bam! 5 shift veil rote. Our only conclusion here is that either Molly is understated in OW, or she was not designed to be powerful with veils.
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Yeah, you keep saying that and either I'm not understanding what you're saying or I'm not making myself clear. Let me clarify.
Defender = Veiled person
Attacker = person trying to overcome the veil
In a situation defender does something to make themselves known, I might allow a free Awareness check on veiled persons turn.
On the opponents turn, I'd allow them to make an Assessment as an action. If they had a reason to do so, like a declaration to say that they just witnessed a fireball from the corner (basically, they need a reason to target a specific area of the zone and have reason to start attacking the air in the first place), I'd allow them to make an attack action INSTEAD of an Assessment.
Previously, I was under the impression that your definition of "something to make themselves known" included things less obvious, like having been present at the start of combat. If this bit includes the veiler getting a fate point (because if they're being attacked despite their veil strength not being met, they deserve one), then I'm fine with that. I'm also talking, however, about things like Molly using a veil when the enemy already knows she's present in the battle. Earlier, it seemed your interpretation that that alone was justification to directly target them.
If the attack succeeded, the defender would take stress (which would be buffered by the spell), but they would still be under the affects of a veil.
Here's where we differ--I don't think a veil should act as a direct block against an attack, because it's doing nothing to stop whatever attack is coming.
Basically, the attacker has to choose to attack (and deal with the block), or use perception to break the block - not both. So an attacker can attack all day but have to deal with a "X" number block, or spend his time trying to get rid of the veil so that his attacks are more effective.
Where we differ here is I don't consider the Alertness roll to be a full-turn action, at least if it succeeds. Investigation or Lore, I'd say would be the full action, but Alertness is more passive.
It is true that in the case that the defender does something completely obvious that I'd allow a reactive Awareness check by the attacker. If a defender wants to attack, they usually have lots of options like spirit evocations that are invisible or air evocations that don't originate from them. The attacker, then, has to be more creative in making declarations to attack the defender and might be better off using his turn maneuvering or using Awareness.
Lastly, an attack like a fists attack, I might rule would break the veil. My reasoning is thus: a block, is a block, is a block. A veil should also cover up tactile perception and for that reason, a successful fists attack might be enough to break the veil.
I'll agree that doing things like visible attacks, being against the purpose of the veil, should be grounds for a compel to remove the veil, because there's nothing in the mechanics saying a veil fails in this instance.
Wow...3 posts since I wrote this. My point about Molly, is that the Gruffs aren't throwing around FP's at her. We're talking about that specific scene. Also, Molly isn't trying to defeat the Gruffs. From what I remember, she distracts them, they miss her (maybe they roll poorly) and then she runs away.
Not trying to defeat them, no, but she still escapes the battle without so much as a scratch--and this is after we're shown that her magical muscle isn't enough to stop snowballs thrown by a handful of school kids.
Also, remember that the Gruffs Ambushed Harry. No defence roll.
Eh, I think he made the Alertness roll at the start--as I recall, it's not until he's grappling with one that he gets his nose broken.
EDIT: part of what makes Veils Molly's main gimmik is she has aspect that support it and therefore allow her to use FP's to boost her veils when she's obviously out of her depth.
A gimmick that requires spending fate points isn't a very good gimmick. Harry doesn't need to use fate points to burn buildings down.
This just comes down to you arbitrarily deciding that there is no way you can do anything to anyone under a veil without beating the whole veil strength. What about when I throw paint or dust as a maneuver, how do I know where to throw it?
No, it's not. I have said, repeatedly, that there are several ways to affect someone under a veil--zone attacks, spray attacks, and maneuvers. Throwing paint or dust would work as a maneuver, because you're throwing it in a wide arc to find the person. You're suggesting that someone is throwing paint directly at the veiler because they know for certain exactly where they are.
Second, I have yet to see an example from you that allows the same. As far as I can tell, by your interpretation, the Gruff would easily beat her 3 shift veil as soon as she threw the snowball, and that would be his only choice. I am aware this could happen in my scenario as well, but only if the Gruff chose to use his tag to boost a perception roll, and not attack.
Did you not read my previous post? Because I explain exactly why I think that's the case.
I find it unconvincing to say that since the intent of the maneuver was to draw attention, the Gruff does not get the benefit of his attention being drawn. Just because her maneuver is intended to draw his attention, does not mean she gets free supplemental movement. Nor does it negate the fact that he saw where the snowball came from.
Who said anything about supplemental movement? She can move around all she wants within the zone, and the zone in this case is probably most, if not all, of a pretty sizable backyard. And who says he saw where the snowball came from? He wasn't looking in that direction. As I recall, she throws it from the back or the side of the gruff, which gives him, at best, a vague direction to look for where his target was several seconds ago--not even anything like range, she could be anywhere from a foot to 20 away.
Third, if it created a character, of the lowest power level, whose main gimmick was Veils, they would be able to throw around 5 shift veils easily. With only channeling and ritual, you have a character with 4 focus item slots, Molly is described as having great control, so she has 4 discipline, she has low power so 2 conviction (this would be higher if I was actually tying to build an effective character). She has a focus that is + 3 power +1 control for defensive spirit, which is allowed with 4 Lore, if she had less lore she would need more conviction, whatever. Bam! 5 shift veil rote. Our only conclusion here is that either Molly is understated in OW, or she was not designed to be powerful with veils.
If we're going to squeeze every single advantage we can out of it, yes. But Molly is, you know, not built to be solely a veiling machine, she's built to be an actual character who's still learning this stuff--she has talent and a specialization.
And I simply find it ridiculous that you think that the game has to be completely wrong about the write-up of one of the central characters in the series. Isn't it much simpler that you're, you know, not quite right about how veils work than to say that the writers of the game don't know how it works?
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And I simply find it ridiculous that you think that the game has to be completely wrong about the write-up of one of the central characters in the series. Isn't it much simpler that you're, you know, not quite right about how veils work than to say that the writers of the game don't know how it works?
I think my interpretation handles this situation better than yours does. Under my interpretation, the only stretch is that you have to allow partial success when looking for someone under a veil, and the the Gruff chose to attack her instead of using his tag to boost his alertness roll. The second stretch is justified by the fact that this is what he did in the scene (charge at where she was). The first stretch, is something that I feel is allowable under the rules, but is again an interpretation of two sections combined, so your interpretation may be different. I would also like to add that I would likely not allow partial successes for normal free alertness checks. When you scan a room for the first time, you either detect someone, or you don't. Only when you take a whole action to really look/maneuver, or when your attention is drawn to a specific place (like by being hit with a snowball), do you get a chance to notice details (or guess a location based on trajectory of a snowball) that give you aspects to tag.
If we're going to squeeze every single advantage we can out of it, yes. But Molly is, you know, not built to be solely a veiling machine, she's built to be an actual character who's still learning this stuff--she has talent and a specialization.
I am aware of that. Which is why I think it is reasonable that before she learned anything she only makes 3 shift veils, even with her talent. But you said why design a character whose main gimmick doesn't work unless you boost everything two or three times whenever you want to be at all effective?
And since you feel that Molly's "main gimmick" is casting veils, that should be what her character is best at. If you design a character, at any power level, whose best effect is a 3 shift spell, you have designed a character that is purposefully weak. So this leads me to believe that either Veils are not her Main gimmick as written in OW (which would seem to contradict the case files). Or her power level was set too low, like most casters in OW (especially the senior council, have you seen their write ups?).
- the gruff simply can't declare that it gives them any kind of advantage
- he just doesn't make any declarations
- but being that he's a beginning-of-scenario mook, he does not
- and because the initial aspect was tagged to draw him off Harry, he wastes his turn swinging at air.
Here is all of the stuff I take issue with in your example. In order for your example to work at all, the Gruff has to choose not to/be denied the option to make a declaration, that you, in multiple posts, have said is the way we should go about this. Basically, you are saying that in order for Molly to live in this case, the Gruff has to choose not to win.
Second, I do not think you are allowed to make a maneuver and then invoke it for effect to make someone skip their turn. That would almost certainly have to be a compel.
So basically, in my example, the Gruff has to make the dubious choice of attacking instead of perceiving with his free tag, which we know he did in the story since he tries to attack. But otherwise we do not have to introduce any fiat/intentional dumbing down of the enemies. In your example, in order to get the desired result, you basically have to have the bad guy choose to waste his turn for no reason.
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I think my interpretation handles this situation better than yours does. Under my interpretation, the only stretch is that you have to allow partial success when looking for someone under a veil, and the the Gruff chose to attack her instead of using his tag to boost his alertness roll. The second stretch is justified by the fact that this is what he did in the scene (charge at where she was). The first stretch, is something that I feel is allowable under the rules, but is again an interpretation of two sections combined, so your interpretation may be different. I would also like to add that I would likely not allow partial successes for normal free alertness checks. When you scan a room for the first time, you either detect someone, or you don't. Only when you take a whole action to really look/maneuver, or when your attention is drawn to a specific place (like by being hit with a snowball), do you get a chance to notice details (or guess a location based on trajectory of a snowball) that give you aspects to tag.
And that's more stretching than my method.
I am aware of that. Which is why I think it is reasonable that before she learned anything she only makes 3 shift veils, even with her talent. But you said
What you think is "reasonable" is totally irrelevant. What we have is the game's write-up of a character that Harry has absolutely no reason to misjudge on her power level. Molly, at the time of Small Favor, is low-powered, and her rote veil is 3-shifts. That is, as far as I am concerned, fact.
And since you feel that Molly's "main gimmick" is casting veils, that should be what her character is best at. If you design a character, at any power level, whose best effect is a 3 shift spell, you have designed a character that is purposefully weak. So this leads me to believe that either Veils are not her Main gimmick as written in OW (which would seem to contradict the case files). Or her power level was set too low, like most casters in OW (especially the senior council, have you seen their write ups?).
In combat, yes, that is what Molly is best at. "What she is best at" doesn't mean "She is literally as good as she could possibly be at this level." It means, in combat, Molly's best option is to veil. Molly was not written and designed with the goal, "We want to make a character who is the best person at making veils ever." She was written and designed with the goal, "Let's represent Molly as she's presented in the books."
And the Senior Councils' write-ups are completely irrelevant, because the game itself says their write-ups are low estimates because Harry doesn't know much about them, and hasn't seen them personally in action. As her teacher, Harry would and should know exactly what Molly is capable of.
Or should we disregard the Fae at large's write-ups because the game acknowledges it doesn't know everything about Lily or Maeve?
Here is all of the stuff I take issue with in your example. In order for your example to work at all, the Gruff has to choose not to/be denied the option to make a declaration, that you, in multiple posts, have said is the way we should go about this. Basically, you are saying that in order for Molly to live in this case, the Gruff has to choose not to win.
The game isn't about being fair to the no-name, first-session-of-a-campaign goons. As has been pointed out, Molly isn't their main objectives, they're the first encounter in the story, and this isn't a knock-down, drag-out, fight to the death for Molly.
The gruffs probably aren't getting Consequences to fall back on, either. Fact is, making a bunch of assessments and squeezing every advantage out of a fight is the PCs' job, not the GM's, unless it's a high-level, high-stakes encounter.
I'm saying for Molly to get away unscathed, as she does, the GM has to not take every advantage he can and simply play by the numbers. The GM, in this case, should be pushing Molly if he wants to make it difficult for Molly--which he's not. That encounter's made to get Dresden's attention.
Second, I do not think you are allowed to make a maneuver and then invoke it for effect to make someone skip their turn. That would almost certainly have to be a compel.
Sure. But since the Gruffs are nameless fae goons who aren't heavily invested in taking out Molly, it doesn't matter.
So basically, in my example, the Gruff has to make the dubious choice of attacking instead of perceiving with his free tag, which we know he did in the story since he tries to attack. But otherwise we do not have to introduce any fiat/intentional dumbing down of the enemies. In your example, in order to get the desired result, you basically have to have the bad guy choose to waste his turn for no reason.
You're conflating character action with GM action. It's not dumbing down enemies--there is absolutely nothing in the rules that entitles the Gruff to make that declaration and tag it for any reason.
The bad-guy isn't choosing to waste his turn for no reason. The GM is letting Molly's player get away with a trick and play support for the main target of the attack.
Molly and Harry are the players; the Gruffs are nameless first-level goons. This makes a big difference. High level enemies? Sure, they can and should make those assessments to make Molly's life difficult (and, indeed, by Changes Molly likely has a few more ranks in Conviction to throw at the Ick). And a player should be able to make those declarations against an NPC in a veil. But the Gruffs? They're not. They're a low-level mob in the beginning of the story, meaning the GM isn't going into kill mode with them.
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First, what I think of Molly's write up is not relevant to this discussion. I just think that you have a double standard when you say that "Molly, whose best combat option is veils, should be able to survive in combat against 2 fairly tough tough goons without a scratch" and then say "but she still a very weak character, whose best option is best represented as a 3 shift spell." This implies to me that a party of characters with nothing but 3 shift actions should be able to beat up on the Gruffs with no problems, which is something Harry can not do.
Second, my method requires me to make one (in my opinion completely valid) interpretation of the rules that is not directly allowed (but is a simple extension of the RAW), but then the action follows directly. Your method basically requires that the GM decide to take it easy on the players. I do not like this. I think that while goons may not think of deviously clever schemes to win a combat, they will almost certainly exploit the situation at hand (like making a perfectly allowable declaration). I also think it is a tad ridiculous that you criticize my method because it allows Molly to be splatted by the Gruffs without them breaking the veil (which is in fact a false claim), but then when I turn the same arguement on your method you defend with "Well, the GM does not have to make him detect her, and could just narrate it away because he is a low-level goon and whatever." By the same token I could just say "Well I have rules for attacking someone I cannot see, but no is there, but since I don't want to hurt you right now, I'll just have him miss."
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First, what I think of Molly's write up is not relevant to this discussion. I just think that you have a double standard when you say that "Molly, whose best combat option is veils, should be able to survive in combat against 2 fairly tough tough goons without a scratch"
No. I'm saying "Molly, whose best combat option is veils and puts 3-shifts of effort into it did survive in combat against two goons, therefore a 3-shift veil is enough to not be seen and attacked."
and then say "but she still a very weak character, whose best option is best represented as a 3 shift spell." This implies to me that a party of characters with nothing but 3 shift actions should be able to beat up on the Gruffs with no problems, which is something Harry can not do.
Then you're grossly misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the Gruffs are powerless against all three-shift actions. I'm saying they can't beat a three-shift veil reliably with their Alertness scores, and therefore they can't hit Molly.
I am making no such grand pronouncements, so please don't misrepresent my point.
Your method basically requires that the GM decide to take it easy on the players.
No. No it does not, and I explained why already.
I do not like this. I think that while goons may not think of deviously clever schemes to win a combat, they will almost certainly exploit the situation at hand (like making a perfectly allowable declaration).
And again, you are confusing player/GM action with character action. A GM not making the declaration to punish a veil-user by making her ineffective even against low-level goons is not the same as the Gruff being an idiot. It just means that the Gruff did not get that opportunity.
I also think it is a tad ridiculous that you criticize my method because it allows Molly to be splatted by the Gruffs without them breaking the veil (which is in fact a false claim), but then when I turn the same arguement on your method you defend with "Well, the GM does not have to make him detect her, and could just narrate it away because he is a low-level goon and whatever."
Well, actually, I can say exactly that, because your method seemingly obligates or entitles the Gruffs to automatically have Declarations made for them. A declaration is an extra effort made on the part of the player or GM. It is not an entitlement, it is not an obligation, it is an option.
Do you give your lowest-level mooks the full range of consequences too? Because if you're not, you're clearly going easy on your players and dumbing down the enemies.
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Perhaps it's worth reiterating that you can only block specific types of actions: attacks, blocks, maneuvers, and movement. Just those and nothing else per YS210. Veils still block one or more of those (often all targeted versions of the actions) - doing so by manipulating perception is just a trapping. It's a powerful trapping but limited. If they don't know you're there they're unlikely to attempt attacking after all. But, once you've given your presence away, it's just another defensive block - with trappings affecting perception. What you don't get is a D&D style win button of "You can't see me so you can't do anything to me!" A good thing in my opinion.
Trappings are also important because they affect declarations. An attacker might use Lore to declare "Illusions won't help against full auto!" while the veiled defender might use Athletics to declare he's "No longer in the same place". Declarations bring up another point - they often cancel out since they're free actions and can be added to any roll. (One more reason to put soft limits on declaration use...but that's another issue.)
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I pretty much agree with UmbraLux here.
Pretty much the only difference between what I have been saying this whole time and what he is saying is that the person veiled it getting free declarations of "You can't see me" and maybe "Wide Open Space/Not there anymore" when attacked if applicable, thus increasing the difficulty of the attack, and adding in the mechanical crunch (though I did short cut it for several pages) of requiring a declaration to justify a direct action against a veiled character.
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And I think veils and illusions used as regular defensive blocks misses the point of using veils and illusions.
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Perhaps it's worth reiterating that you can only block specific types of actions: attacks, blocks, maneuvers, and movement. Just those and nothing else per YS210. Veils still block one or more of those (often all targeted versions of the actions) - doing so by manipulating perception is just a trapping. It's a powerful trapping but limited. If they don't know you're there they're unlikely to attempt attacking after all. But, once you've given your presence away, it's just another defensive block - with trappings affecting perception. What you don't get is a D&D style win button of "You can't see me so you can't do anything to me!" A good thing in my opinion.
Trappings are also important because they affect declarations. An attacker might use Lore to declare "Illusions won't help against full auto!" while the veiled defender might use Athletics to declare he's "No longer in the same place". Declarations bring up another point - they often cancel out since they're free actions and can be added to any roll. (One more reason to put soft limits on declaration use...but that's another issue.)
And YS276 and YS255. They specifically state that veils are a special type of block which block detection, and are unlike a normal block. Specific rule trumps general rule.
The fact that they say "special type of block" and "unlike a normal block" means that they do not behave in the same way as other blocks. It then talks about them blocking the ability to detect anything under the veil.
A veil is not a win button, and it is not like D&D invisibility. They behave in a very specific way within this game. This very specific way is spelled out rather clearly. Declarations, aspects, and compels exist in this system to deal with specific circumstances.
The Gruff example could be done as an invocation for effect (allowing them to attack Molly), or as an invocation to notice that someone was hidden under the veil (which, for all intents and purposes could have broken the veil and Molly recast it on her next turn, narratively flavoring it as keeping it up). And we all know that the books cannot be completely modeled by the RPG. Jim doesn't write by the rules, and shouldn't.
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And YS276 and YS255. They specifically state that veils are a special type of block which block detection, and are unlike a normal block. Specific rule trumps general rule.
The fact that they say "special type of block" and "unlike a normal block" means that they do not behave in the same way as other blocks. It then talks about them blocking the ability to detect anything under the veil.
A veil is not a win button, and it is not like D&D invisibility. They behave in a very specific way within this game. This very specific way is spelled out rather clearly. Declarations, aspects, and compels exist in this system to deal with specific circumstances.
They are a very special block. IF you walk into a camp full of enemies with a sheild block, you're likely to be attacked because they see you. Which is why a veil does not behave like a regular sheild block. Everyone agrees with this.
I don't think they SO special as to prevent attacks when you choose to, indirectly or directly make your presense known.
I can't really say any more than I've already said. I've re-read this entire thread and I think I've made the point I was trying to make - for better or worse. My productivity over the last week has plummetted due to this thread. :'(
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And YS276 and YS255. They specifically state that veils are a special type of block which block detection, and are unlike a normal block.
I don't have the books available right now but I think that's the same page which states "A block is a block is a block" and points out any element may block damage...it's just the narrative (trappings) which change.
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I don't have the books available right now but I think that's the same page which states "A block is a block is a block" and points out any element may block damage...it's just the narrative (trappings) which change.
And as I've pointed out before, the text of the book directly and explicitly says that a veil is a special block that does not block damage. Ergo, it's not included in that "a block is a block is a block" sidebar.
Let's look at the facts here:
A veil has special rules (the half-strength block against the veiler)
A veil is explicitly described as a special block that does not block damage
A veil is described as hiding from detection whatever's under it--i.e., if you don't break the block strength, you don't detect whatever it's hiding
A veil and how it works is described as different, special, alternative form of defense distinct from a shield block.
Molly is described as particularly good at veiling for defense, and is listed as having her veil rote as 3 shifts. When she is shown using her veils for defense, she has not been successfully hit with any attacks.
This tells us two things: One, that veils do not work like shield blocks. Two, however they do work, 3 shifts of power is an effective way to defend yourself against supernatural creatures with significant strength and ability.
So the two sides of the argument seem to boil down to either A. veils work as defense by bypassing the regular attacking skills entirely, instead of butting heads directly against the enemy's apex skill; or B. the text of the book is wrong about its own description of veils and they do block damage, and the book of the book is wrong about its own description of Molly's power level.
I dunno about you, but I'm going to go with the interpretation that doesn't include, "The book is wrong about its own mechanics," twice.
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My interpretation of the rules, which we see in action in post 98, allows a 3 shift veil to be an effective means of defending yourself.
First, the veil is special because since they do not know you are there, they cannot react to you. Second, it is special in the same way a grapple is, while you can beat the block with any action, and thus perform that action, only actions that make sense will actually break it. In this case you can attack someone under a veil, but it will not break the block unless it is an action that is described such that it would. Third, unlike shields, a veil is special because it provides all sorts of fodder for declarations to boost you defense (alternately increase the difficulty of an attack). When used this way, even a 1 shift veil that the opponent does not pierce is an effective defensive tool, because it allows you to make 4+ shifts worth of declarations every time you are attacked (how long they will fail to pierce a 1 shift veil is another matter).
I argue that my interpretation of the rules do in fact make veils very special. I also like the fact that my interpretation still allows them to function like a normal block (or at least like a defensive version of a grapple), in situations where that makes sense narratively. I do not like that your version makes veils completely different form anything else in the game, and does not in fact make a 3 shift veil effective against a reasonable opponent, and has variable power based solely on the whims of the GM.
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I'd like to point out that the Molly/Gruff example doesn't make a case for either side. Both sides have made reasonable and valid arguments of how Molly survived. You can go on and on about how one interpretation is more valid than another, but it just won't go anywhere. How do you know that Molly did or didn't spend FP's? Or whether the snow hindered their alertness or their attack or either? There's no proof, just conversation.
I'll try to demonstrate my point with another analogy.
Draw a 6inch target on a 10ftX10ft wall. Then cover it with a 10ftX10ft sheet.
I'm claiming that if you throw darts at the wall, you can hit the target. It may be difficult, but POSSIBLE.
You are claiming that you can't. It's impossible to hit the target until you PERCEIVE the target. In fact, people get so demoralized by the sheet, that they don't even try to throw darts. Instead, they use fans and back-lighting hoping to get some kind of clue as to where the target is before they even try.
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Let's look at the facts here:
A veil has special rules (the half-strength block against the veiler)
A veil is explicitly described as a special block that does not block damage
A veil is described as hiding from detection whatever's under it--i.e., if you don't break the block strength, you don't detect whatever it's hiding
A veil and how it works is described as different, special, alternative form of defense distinct from a shield block.
I'll have to check when I have the books available but it looks to me like you're reading more into what the book says than what is in the text. For example, I don't remember it saying veils do not block damage. It does state they block perception. It would be a significant jump to go to that's all it can block...I'll look when I have the book available.
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I'd like to point out that the Molly/Gruff example doesn't make a case for either side. Both sides have made reasonable and valid arguments of how Molly survived. You can go on and on about how one interpretation is more valid than another, but it just won't go anywhere. How do you know that Molly did or didn't spend FP's? How do you know that she didn't overcast the spell to make it more powerful? There's no proof, just conversation.
My point vis a vis Molly is that her disappearing--and remaining totally unharmed--under a veil is presented as something she does regularly with considerable aptitude, not something she does only when she really has to, or the situation justifies it, or other things that are, mechanically, represented by using a fate point.
I'll try to demonstrate my point with another analogy.
Draw a 6inch target on a 10ftX10ft wall. Then cover it with a 10ftX10ft sheet.
I'm claiming that if you throw darts at the wall, you can hit the target. It may be difficult, but POSSIBLE.
You are claiming that you can't. It's impossible to hit the target until you PERCEIVE the target. In fact, people get so demoralized by the sheet, that they don't even try to throw darts. Instead, they use fans and back-lighting hoping to get some kind of clue as to where the target is before they even try.
I'd amend that to say someone else draws the target, and the sheet is up before you get any idea of where on the wall the target is.
It's possible, yes. But the Fate system isn't made to model absolute probability--if it was, there would be a much larger range than an 8-point scale. Technically possible is immaterial--it's sufficiently improbable to hit something while firing blind that, in the Fate system, it's simply not going to happen outside of extraordinary circumstances, represented by a compel of some kind.
"Difficult" would be trying to hit a moving target that's trying to evade you. Trying to hit a moving target that's trying to evade you and which you cannot see or hear or otherwise perceive beyond "Well, I think maybe it's somewhere in that direction" is so many more degrees of difficulty that if it's not impossible, it's close enough as makes no difference for practical applications.
When I say that Molly can't be targeted, I do not mean that it is utterly impossible under any circumstances to do anything to her. I have said, several times, that there are numerous ways to bypass the veil entirely, and I am getting very tired of you repeatedly ignoring that to try and paint my argument falsely.
Seriously, do I have to put it in giant, red, bold letters? Because I keep repeating myself, and either you're not getting it, or you're deliberately ignoring it.
Plus, you're getting the narrative and the mechanics mixed up again: An action failing doesn't mean "they get so demoralized they don't even try" (and that characterization of my argument is, frankly, utterly ridiculous and so far off base I'm getting angry); it means that any action depending on their perceiving the target (and failing to beat the Veil with some kind of perception roll means exactly that) is going to fail. This could be represented in the flavor any number of ways, including them swinging and missing by default, picking a different target, or trying something else.
I'll have to check when I have the books available but it looks to me like you're reading more into what the book says than what is in the text. For example, I don't remember it saying veils do not block damage. It does state they block perception. It would be a significant jump to go to that's all it can block...I'll look when I have the book available.
I'm looking directly at the book for those points, and have cited the pages in YS that make those points before:
Edit: One last thing. The section on evocation blocks (YS252) outright says that veils are not blocks against damage. The section on Spirit as an element (YS255) says a veil's strength in particular "serves as the difficulty for using skills or other magic to detect anything that’s concealed by the veil" (Emphasis mine). Not the difficulty of hitting something, or a block against causing damage like you've been suggesting, but a block against being detected at all--so if the veil isn't surpassed, whoever's looking doesn't discern your presence. The book refers to veils as an alternative approach to defense, and even a "special type" of block. The book is, in fact, pretty clear that a veil is a different way to prevent getting hit from a usual shield-type spell.
My interpretation of the rules, which we see in action in post 98, allows a 3 shift veil to be an effective means of defending yourself.
By introducing modifiers and partial successes that, as I said, are not meant to be used in direct character-to-character conflict.
Second, it is special in the same way a grapple is, while you can beat the block with any action, and thus perform that action, only actions that make sense will actually break it. In this case you can attack someone under a veil, but it will not break the block unless it is an action that is described such that it would.
Where in the books does it say veils act anything like grapples?
Third, unlike shields, a veil is special because it provides all sorts of fodder for declarations to boost you defense (alternately increase the difficulty of an attack). When used this way, even a 1 shift veil that the opponent does not pierce is an effective defensive tool, because it allows you to make 4+ shifts worth of declarations every time you are attacked (how long they will fail to pierce a 1 shift veil is another matter).
In this system, anything provides fodder for declarations if you'll allow it. This whole thing is, in short, not the way magic blocks are supposed to work. A block is meant to be the block strength, not about having to make declarations.
I argue that my interpretation of the rules do in fact make veils very special. I also like the fact that my interpretation still allows them to function like a normal block (or at least like a defensive version of a grapple), in situations where that makes sense narratively. I do not like that your version makes veils completely different form anything else in the game, and does not in fact make a 3 shift veil effective against a reasonable opponent, and has variable power based solely on the whims of the GM.
Based solely on the whims of the GM? No. Not at all, and you're misrepresenting my interpretation so drastically at this point it's frankly insulting.
As I have pointed out, the game book itself says that Veils are special and work differently than other blocks. This is not my interpretation, this is exactly what it says in the book. I've cited the bloody page number at least four times by now.
I'm putting stat against stat--3 shift veil vs. 1-rank Alertness. That is based on the player action and the book. Your method is about partial successes (set and decided by the GM) and situational modifiers (again, set and decided by the GM), and you say that my method is the one "based solely on the whims of the GM"?
I have, in fact, demonstrated exactly how a 3-shift veil--stat for stat, raw number against raw number--is an effective defense. And that is not a result of "dumbing down" the opposition, or of playing favorites, but simple number-against-number calculation.
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I'm putting stat against stat--3 shift veil vs. 1-rank Alertness. That is based on the player action and the book. Your method is about partial successes (set and decided by the GM) and situational modifiers (again, set and decided by the GM), and you say that my method is the one "based solely on the whims of the GM"?
First off, my interpretation has nothing to do with situational modifiers. I thought that would be an easier way to describe what I was going for, but it just caused you to say I was violating the spirit of the game. Any situational modifier can easily be modeled as a declaration with a tag for +2.
"Partial successes" are not, as it turns out, arbitrarily decided solely on the whims of the GM. The DFRPG is a collaborative game, when the player thinks he should be entitled to a "partial success" he should ask the GM about that. Note that it is not actually a partial success, it is a success, that only barely beats the difficulty, and thus only garners a bit of information, such as a general direction or area, as opposed to a success that actually beats the veil, and gets an exact position.
I have, in fact, demonstrated exactly how a 3-shift veil--stat for stat, raw number against raw number--is an effective defense. And that is not a result of "dumbing down" the opposition, or of playing favorites, but simple number-against-number calculation
The GM is letting Molly's player get away with a trick and play support for the main target of the attack. Molly and Harry are the players; the Gruffs are nameless first-level goons. This makes a big difference. High level enemies? Sure, they can and should make those assessments to make Molly's life difficult (and, indeed, by Changes Molly likely has a few more ranks in Conviction to throw at the Ick). And a player should be able to make those declarations against an NPC in a veil. But the Gruffs? They're not. They're a low-level mob in the beginning of the story, meaning the GM isn't going into kill mode with them.
It is clearly not a number vs. number calculation. You have clearly stated that in order for your method to make a 3 shift veil effective, the enemy has to be a "low-level mob" that the GM chooses not to play optimally. Not only does he have to not play optimally, he has to purposefully disregard sections of rules that say they are entitled to declarations and tags. It is also pretty clear from your statement that you see the GM as playing favorites. "Molly and Harry are the players; the Gruffs are nameless first-level goons," therefore I let Molly win/escape mostly unscathed, even though the Gruffs could easily have inflicted serious damage to Molly. That is textbook playing favorites.
In this system, anything provides fodder for declarations if you'll allow it. This whole thing is, in short, not the way magic blocks are supposed to work. A block is meant to be the block strength, not about having to make declarations.
That is true, but how willing the GM is to allow something is based on how much sense it makes, and with a veil, these declarations make a lot of sense. Further, the block strength is the block strength, the declarations are gravy. I don't know when you decided that a 3 shift block should defend you from a powerful fae with no extra narrative work work, but I do not think that is the case (the fact that the 3 shift block worked for Molly clearly means she put in that extra narrative work).
The book does not say veils are like grapples. But I like when the rules fit together, and are not disjointed. So I like that under my interpretation the veil is like a defensive version of a grapple.
No. Not at all, and you're misrepresenting my interpretation so drastically at this point it's frankly insulting.
As I quoted above I feel I am representing your point accurately. You yourself said words to the effect of "The GM should not use all of the options at his disposal, because the Gruffs are low level mobs." If he does use all his options, your system fails to model what you said it does. Therefore your system's success is contingent upon the whims of the GM.
On the other hand, I feel you have been misunderstanding/misrepresenting my points for at least 4 pages now (see the first response in this post for an example).
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First off, my interpretation has nothing to do with situational modifiers. I thought that would be an easier way to describe what I was going for, but it just caused you to say I was violating the spirit of the game. Any situational modifier can easily be modeled as a declaration with a tag for +2.
"Partial successes" are not, as it turns out, arbitrarily decided solely on the whims of the GM. The DFRPG is a collaborative game, when the player thinks he should be entitled to a "partial success" he should ask the GM about that. Note that it is not actually a partial success, it is a success, that only barely beats the difficulty, and thus only garners a bit of information, such as a general direction or area, as opposed to a success that actually beats the veil, and gets an exact position.
An Alertness roll of 1 is not a success "that only barely beats the difficulty," it is a failure. It is the GM's decision, in this case, that a 2-shift failure to beat the roll still allows the Gruff to attack, in your interpretation. After failing to beat the veil's block, you give the Gruff an action that should not have a chance of succeeding at all without him beating the veil's block.
It is clearly not a number vs. number calculation. You have clearly stated that in order for your method to make a 3 shift veil effective, the enemy has to be a "low-level mob" that the GM chooses not to play optimally.
Nope. That's not what I have stated at all. I have said that a 3-shift veil is effective, and that a low-level mob is not going to be doing a mess of declarations, in response to your apparent belief that any character is entitled to such a declaration, and that any character is entitled to the chance of success even in a situation where said chance makes no sense.
Not only does he have to not play optimally, he has to purposefully disregard sections of rules that say they are entitled to declarations and tags.
Declarations and tags are, as I said before, optional. Nobody is "entitled" to any of them. There is nothing in the rules that says the GM has to have every enemy get declarations about anything.
It is also pretty clear from your statement that you see the GM as playing favorites. "Molly and Harry are the players; the Gruffs are nameless first-level goons,"
No, that's a statement of fact, and about scaling difficulty. What the heck gave you the idea that this game is about creating a fair and balanced contest that both sides of a conflict have an equal chance of winning?
Again, do you give your first-level goons the full range of consequences? Do your PCs have to cause a minor elf a mild, moderate, severe, and extreme consequence before they take them out? By your logic, doing anything less is "playing favorites" and deciding arbitrarily to "not play optimally".
therefore I let Molly win/escape mostly unscathed, even though the Gruffs could easily have inflicted serious damage to Molly.
Yes, they could have inflicted serious damage.
If.
They.
Could.
Find.
Her.
Not beating the veil's block means they cannot find her. Because Molly has taken a deliberate step to block them from doing so.
It doesn't matter if she threw something. It doesn't matter if she walked up and kicked the Gruff between the danglies.
If the Gruff doesn't make his Alertness roll to beat the veil's strength, that means he does not find her. That is the entire point and purpose of the veil, and the veil's strength is the difficulty by which you judge if the Gruff finds her or not. If he doesn't find her, if his only clue is "she's somewhere in that general direction in snowball-throwing range," then no, wildly swinging his fists is not going to be a viable method of targeting and attacking her.
Let's crunch some numbers.
With your method, a Gruff that doesn't beat the 3-shift veil (and thus does not know where Molly is aside from "somewhere thataway"), has a 61.73% chance of hitting her. Which is exactly the same probability of hitting her if she rolls evenly on her regular Athletics defense.
The Elder Gruff, who has the same Alertness roll and thus the same chances of seeing through Molly's veil, has a 93.83% chance of hitting the girl he cannot see, hear, or otherwise locate.
Not taking every single advantage you can come up with is not "playing favorites." You are not GMing to beat the PCs. You are GMing to provide reasonable challenge, facilitate the story, and, yes, occasionally, to give the PCs something that their tactics will succeed against.
That is true, but how willing the GM is to allow something is based on how much sense it makes, and with a veil, these declarations make a lot of sense. Further, the block strength is the block strength, the declarations are gravy. I don't know when you decided that a 3 shift block should defend you from a powerful fae with no extra narrative work work, but I do not think that is the case (the fact that the 3 shift block worked for Molly clearly means she put in that extra narrative work).
I decided no such thing. I decided that a 3-shift block against perception should, if your opponent does not beat the block, keep you from being perceived. And not being perceived means you are not a viable target. Not being a viable target means you are not directly attacked.
A 3-shift block working for Molly doesn't "clearly" mean she put in "that extra narrative work." It "clearly" means that her opponents couldn't beat that 3-shift block to find her.
As I quoted above I feel I am representing your point accurately.
And you are wrong.
You yourself said words to the effect of "The GM should not use all of the options at his disposal, because the Gruffs are low level mobs."
No. I said words to the effect of, "The GM isn't going to use all the options at his disposal, because it's not his job to make sure the PCs fail."
Once again: Do you give every encounter your PCs face the full range of consequences? If you do, then I have difficulty imagining it's a fun game. If you do not, then by your logic you are cheating the nameless goons out of all of their available options and are playing favorites.
I'd really like you to answer that. I've asked it a couple times now, and I don't believe you've answered it.
If he does use all his options, your system fails to model what you said it does.
And if he uses all of his options, the simplest fight becomes a long, tedious slugfest as the PCs have to exhaust every single consequence that his opponents can have, and the PCs are going to be hard pressed to win anything.
This does not make a fun game. That is the GM's job, to make sure the game is fun and fair to the PCs, not to make sure that every goon is a tough, clever badass who is going to take every advantage he can possibly come up with.
Therefore your system's success is contingent upon the whims of the GM.
Having the Gruff make a declaration of any kind is the whim of the GM. As far as I know, nowhere in the book does it say the GM has to make a declaration on behalf of an NPC in response to anything. Acting at all is the whim of the GM--letting the numbers play out as they do is letting the game mechanics decide things without other input.
The GM making such a declaration is the GM saying that he wants the Gruff to succeed in beating the block. This is fine, and something I've done occasionally to spice up an encounter--but there is nothing saying that I have to do so.
Having the gruff's failure to beat the veil count as a partial success is the whim of the GM that is not in line with other direct character conflicts (i.e., attack roll vs. defense roll) described in the game. Does someone rolling a 3 and failing to beat a 4-shift shield spell mean he gets a partial success too?
Let's say you have a character who is very athletic--an expert, in fact, in freerunning who has an Athletics score of Superb, but Discipline score of only Fair. He has to jump across a gap. A Malvora vampire shows up and hits him with Incite Emotion as a block, instilling a debilitating fear of heights in the guy of 3 shifts, which he does not beat with his Discipline score.
Does he get to jump anyway with his Athletics roll to beat the block, despite the fact that the block is not physical in nature?
Edit: Thinking about it again, I suppose if you absolutely have to have the Gruff attack, treat it like a reverse ambush. If failing to detect the ambushers means you defend rolling from 0, then failing to detect your target could mean you roll your attack from 0 instead, against the defender's normal defense roll.
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Other things are likely to bypass this as well, such as social attacks (if I know you're in the room, just not where), etc.
"Your thoughts betray you...a sister...Obi Wan was wise to hid her from me!"
"Nooooooo!"