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DFRPG / Re: More Spell help... water
« on: September 22, 2010, 08:24:22 PM »You basically want to put a sticky aspect on a zone that you immediately tag for free to put up a block on magic. You don't have to get too into the thing with running water shorting out magic here to do it. You could always describe it as an entropy effect on that area targeting magic only. The only potential problem I see for this spell is it'd be kind of hefty. Looks like it would either not be all that strong of a block or it would cost you a lot to get it off. And all you really do is set a minimum target number for any spellcasting roll in that zone. You obviously beat the block if your Discipline roll has a higher difficulty just to get the spell off than the block rating.
The fact that it's a mediocre block that's probably lower than the target Disc. check is the big problem. Cinematically, the block is a cool concept: you dump an endless bucket of water on the caster's head, and it's going to make it tough for him to cast. The rules, on the other hand, essentially play this out that if he's already casting a more difficult spell than the block value, he doesn't even notice the block.
So basically someone blasting you in the face with a Super Soaker will make it tough for you to dial a cellphone, but not to perform brain surgery.
I haven't implemented it yet, but am toying with the idea that a block lower than your target difficulty still grants +1 to the difficulty (perhaps to a limit of one or two such blocks for a given action). It just doesn't make sense for the block not to count at all, but alternatively we don't want to make such a block all powerful that it locks down an unlucky caster in an imbalanced way.