Author Topic: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?  (Read 6331 times)

Offline Drachasor

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #15 on: February 22, 2011, 01:20:43 AM »
I was wondering about spray attack maneuvers. I don't recall it being in there explicitly, but it seems a reasonable extrapolation and does not seem to be forbidden. Maybe I will start a thread on the question.

Oh, it's definitely not allowed by the rules.  Spray attacks are ATTACKS, maneuvers are maneuvers.

Offline UmbraLux

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #16 on: February 22, 2011, 01:43:19 AM »
Oh, it's definitely not allowed by the rules. 
It is allowed - see YS326 "Wizards can also do this with any evocation..."
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Offline Drachasor

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #17 on: February 22, 2011, 01:49:21 AM »
It is allowed - see YS326 "Wizards can also do this with any evocation..."

It seems to mean any (attack) evocation, since when you go to 251, the page it directs you to, it goes over ONLY doing this with attacks.  Well, any attack evocation that isn't targeting zones.

Offline Steppenwolf

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #18 on: February 22, 2011, 03:30:22 AM »
What about a plain Scene aspect in the zone like "ground is a giant magnet"?

Offline Drachasor

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #19 on: February 22, 2011, 03:35:18 AM »
What about a plain Scene aspect in the zone like "ground is a giant magnet"?

Yarp, but if you invoke for effect is it reasonable to have it compel everyone in the zone?  That seems a bit OP.  Can you then put wind gusts on a zone and invoke for effect to compel everyone to get blown into the next zone or lose their turn?  I think a limit of one compel per invoke for effect makes the most sense, except perhaps in very exceptional circumstances where you couldn't break down a reasonable invoke for effect into just 1 compel but instead had to have some sort of compound compel (I can think of no examples like this off-hand, however, and perhaps that wouldn't be ok either).

Maybe you could make specialized rules regarding doing this to goons, but I still think it would be better go with allowing "spray maneuvers".  That's a lot more balanced and straightforward.

Offline Steppenwolf

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #20 on: February 22, 2011, 03:40:48 AM »
Surely the player can get only one tag and he deserve to pay for each further invokes.

But the GM can compel each character in the zone with the Scene Aspect with the usual Fate point.

Moreover the aspect can be used by the opponents to defend against bullets and metal thrown weapons
« Last Edit: February 22, 2011, 03:47:56 AM by Steppenwolf »

Offline Drachasor

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #21 on: February 22, 2011, 03:55:46 AM »
Surely the player can get only one tag and he deserve to pay for each further invokes.

But the GM can compel each character in the zone with the Scene Aspect with the usual Fate point.

Moreover the aspect can be used by the opponents to defend against bullets and metal thrown weapons

Which is the GM giving the player free tags at that point, essentially.

Would be nice if we had some nice guidelines on the GM compelling NPCs.

Offline Steppenwolf

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #22 on: February 22, 2011, 04:02:46 AM »
YS107 Scene Compels

Quote
Scene aspects may imply some circumstances that will befall any (or many) of the characters in the scene [...] In such a case, it’s entirely apropos to act as if that aspect is on each character’s sheet and compel [...] the aspect for each of them, dishing fate points all around and nicely covering the effects the aspect has on the characters in the scene.

Of course it can be done either by Players (paying 1 FP for each compel) or by the GM.
For me the main difference is that when players compel NPCs they have a choice about the matter of compel, when the GM compels NPCs he decide by himself
« Last Edit: February 22, 2011, 04:06:30 AM by Steppenwolf »

Offline Drachasor

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #23 on: February 22, 2011, 04:34:43 AM »
YS107 Scene Compels

Of course it can be done either by Players (paying 1 FP for each compel) or by the GM.
For me the main difference is that when players compel NPCs they have a choice about the matter of compel, when the GM compels NPCs he decide by himself

The book sometimes refers to just PCs as "characters" (you can see an example of that earlier in that page where it talks about a character or an NPC).  So it seems a bit unclear.

Beyond that, I think a scene maneuver like that can easily end up being way too cheap.  At 3 power to affect a whole scene, seems a bit crazy if the GM then compels everyone in it.

Offline Steppenwolf

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #24 on: February 22, 2011, 04:42:49 AM »
Well you could require more shifts of power, but however these are only suggestions.

For me it's reasonable that an Evocation maneuver cannot do "fine moves" like disarming each opponent just cause Evocation has "a quick and dirty nature" and more fine tuning is just beyond the normal Evocation spells' capability.

Spray attacks are feasible just cause you split your shifts of power and so you lack power to do really effective damage (you have to hit so many targets you cannot concentrate on all).
Blocks are static, so no problems about them.

Maneuvers are flexible actions and for me it's just right they can only applied to one target or one zone, but you have to pay to use their effects at full power.

Offline Drachasor

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #25 on: February 22, 2011, 04:47:18 AM »
Maneuvers are flexible actions and for me it's just right they can only applied to one target or one zone, but you have to pay to use their effects at full power.

Technically it is one target or SCENE.  Meaning if you made a giant magnet to disarm people, it would affect all relevant zones.  All allies too, but that's avoidable if your allies don't use weapons made out of a magnetic material.

Overall for disarming like Dresden does in the books, seems like a spray maneuver is the best way to handle it mechanically.

Offline noretoc

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #26 on: February 23, 2011, 06:14:48 PM »
I have been thinking about this alot, and it seems that the limits in evocation should be opened to simple conflicts.  If you are using magic to pull a weapon from someone, it seems the best way to handle it would be to force a simple conflict.  Might vs the power of the spell.  If you are using it against more than one person, than you have to split your power up, or spend the the power to make it a zone wide effect, (Requiring your allies to roll too). 

The thing that gets ma about maneuvers as that it can be completley negated by a fate point.  You use magic toss a person and they fail the roll, then they get the aspect tossed.  But then they can still use a fate pont to avoid being tossed? If you lose a physical conflict, say an arm wrestling match, you can not just spend a fate point at the end to avoid losing it.  Why should magic be different.  It seems that there should be a better way to get into a simple conflict without involving manuever to place aspects.


Offline Ranma1558

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #27 on: February 24, 2011, 07:09:55 AM »
Riddle me this, since it's late and I'm out of it, you COULD use a maneuver to place an aspect on the scene (for that is what this is, remember gm has final say of how the mechanics actually work in end) however, maneuvers can be removed by a roll that is higher then the maneuver or what you can do to protect the aspect. That being said a zone wide compel could cause everyone to loose their weapons (if they were metal yada yada), every one would get a fate point, then one guy could beat the roll, break the maneuver, and everyone could grab their guns as a complimentary action.
Net result, one guy is disarmed and wastes his turn, everyone else gets a minus one on their next action. So you CAN do it, but this method could be used to turn the tables back on the wizard. Just my two cents.

Offline noclue

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Re: Is a disarm tag, a reasonable maneuver/effect?
« Reply #28 on: February 24, 2011, 07:44:25 AM »
You use magic toss a person and they fail the roll, then they get the aspect tossed.  But then they can still use a fate pont to avoid being tossed? If you lose a physical conflict, say an arm wrestling match, you can not just spend a fate point at the end to avoid losing it.  Why should magic be different.  It seems that there should be a better way to get into a simple conflict without involving manuever to place aspects.

This really has nothing to do with whether the tossing was caused by magic or muscle. You can choose to do a maneuver with either and the maneuver works exactly the same way whether it was created through a spell or throwing someone. If you've been tossed, you can't spend a fate point to avoid being tossed. It happened in the fiction already. What you can do is remove the continued impact of that tossing which is represented by the Aspect the maneuver left on you. To use your example, you can't unlose an arm wrestling match if you've already lost it, but you can remove the aspect that losing the match left with you so that it no longer effects your dice.