About blocks

[hawkmoon27]

one question,

sorry for the bad english

one player does an evocation spell to put an aspect to his enemy: "frozen" to put the oponent out of the combat and pays for extended duration.

The subsequent round the pc tags the aspect , another players tries to attack the helpless defender

Is his defense skill afected by the aspect? the guy cannot move, and my players says is impossible for him to retain his +3 in Athletics...

what do you think?

thanks

[Tedronai]

Unless the aspect was tagged for a mere modification to a die roll, it seems that it would have been tagged to prompt a compel.
Compels are negotiated between the affected player and the GM (subject to the usual 'reasonableness test' by the table).
So really, it's up to you.

[hawkmoon27]

maybe i don´t explain it well before.. or i don´t understand your answer...sorry :S

is not about compelling, or tagging the aspect...i supose its posible, i understand without problems the aspect mechanics , is just about how aspects like "frozen" ,"entagled" , "immobile"or similar affect the defense skill score of the defender ..

it´s difficult for my players understand how can defense himself an immobile opponent...

[Vargo Teras]

A maneuver should not take an opponent out.  If the spell is creating an aspect through a maneuver, then it's something which interferes with the target's actions, but doesn't completely prevent them.  Someone with the sticky aspect FROZEN can still move, they're just slower, because their muscles are stiff and they're numb with cold.

If a spell is actually supposed to take an opponent out of the combat, it needs to be an attack which inflicts stress.  In that case, it doesn't create an aspect in the same way that a maneuver does.  If the opponent reduces their stress by taking consequences, then they gain aspects in the form of those consequences, and the duration of those aspects follows the consequence rules, instead of the evocation rules.  If the opponent takes more stress than they have in their track, and doesn't/can't reduce it below that with consequences, then instead of consequences or an aspect, they're taken out.  At that point, they should no longer be the target of any combat actions: they're out of the combat.

In any case, aspects don't affect skill rolls unless they're tagged or invoked.  If you want to create an effect which persistently affects a target's actions without tagging or invoking, what you want is not an aspect, it's a block.

[KnightKD]

This is slightly off topic from the posters original question, but...

If the opponent is Taken Out with the Freezing spell, and another player wants to end him permanently, there's nothing stopping him, right? I mean, he's already Taken Out.

[Tedronai]

The player of the character that achieves the Taken-Out result is the one that gains narrative authority over the fate of the Taken-Out character.  If another player wants to influence that fate, that's who they'll have to talk to.

[sinker]

What it comes down to Hawkmoon, is that the only time an aspect negatively impacts a skill is when a compel is involved. Under most circumstances compelling is largely the GM's deal. So the question is do you (the GM) want this aspect to negatively effect his defense roll? If so then compel it.

[Becq]

I agree with most of the responses above.

An aspect doesn't do anything at all without it being invoked/compelled/tagged/whatever.  I might have the aspect "Bulging Muscles of Dooooom!", but I do normal damage to an opponent when I punch them ... unless I spend a Fate point to invoke the aspect.

So for the example given up top, I'd play it out like this:

Player: I'm casting a Freezing spell on the thug, chilling his muscles and such and placing a "Frozen!" aspect on him.  Let's say 5 shifts of power; 3 for the maneuver and 2 for extra duration.
GM: Ok, the thug is "Frozen!"  Now it's his turn to act.  He's going to...
Player, interrupting: I'll tag his Frozen! aspect: he's too cold to move.

At this point, the player is creating a situation that calls for a compel.  If the thug accepts the compel, then he gets a Fate point and his action is constrained by the compel.  The thug can also spend a Fate point to ignore the compel, if he has one available.

Let's say he accepts the compel.  He accepts that he can't attack, but its reasonable to assume he spends his action trying to recover from being "Frozen!" -- this basically counts as a maneuver trying to break the aspect; he'd need to get at least a 3 on his roll to succeed in removing the aspect.  If he fails, the aspect is still there but the free tag is used.  The player can invoke it again (by spending Fate) to trigger another compel if he chooses to.

By the way, the player casting the freezing spell could pump more power into the maneuver, which makes the effect harder to shrug off (the resistance roll is equal to the power pumped into the maneuver, which must be at least 3).

You could also treat this as using the "special-effect attacks" rule on YS326.

[Sanctaphrax]

If doing a certain thing does not make sense in light of a certain aspect, than that aspect should be compelled. If the compel is bought off, then you need to find some way to make things make sense.

Incidentally, taking someone out of a fight completely seems like too much for a maneuver to do. You might as well use Weapons to apply a DECAPITATED aspect to everyone you fight.

PS: Welcome to the boards.

[sinker]

Incidentally, taking someone out of a fight completely seems like too much for a maneuver to do. You might as well use Weapons to apply a DECAPITATED aspect to everyone you fight.

In a written medium like this one probably ought not to suggest things sarcasticly. Someone might well take you suggestion.

Personally for me if a compel is bought off, then that's enough justification for me, but I've always heavily mixed my narrative and mechanics.

[hawkmoon27]

thanks all for the answers , and sorry again for the bad english.

I think i made the question incorretly...it´s not a manouver..its a block question

let´s suppose the player decides to cast a block on the opponent to prevent him from doing anything...if the oponent can´t bypass the block ...¿how is supposed that he can deffend and still have his athletics habilities?

I´ll repeat the question again in Spanish..maybe here there are spanish forum users.

Si el jugador le hace un block a su enemigo que impide "que haga cualquier acción en su asalto" , ¿no debería verse afectada su puntuación para defenderse de los ataques mientras está bajo el efecto del conjuro?

gracias a todos y gracias por la acogida en el foro

[hawkmoon27]

as some of you say , i know that i can compel the enemy , making him not being able to defend himself..

but in what i was thinking was that a block like this one should have a -2 on all defense rolls or something similar...

[Watson]

but in what i was thinking was that a block like this one should have a -2 on all defense rolls or something similar...

Either you do a Block (and the roll acts like a difficulty for the opponent to perform an action) or you do a Maneuver (which creates an Aspect, which requires the player to activate for the Aspect to be able to affect the game world, as elegantly explained by Beqc above).

The opponent does not get -2 to his defense rolls, but the Aspect could be tagged for the attacker to get +2 on his attack roll (kind of the same thing).

[Tedronai]

Blocks do not affect defensive rolls.
Nor do they place an aspect.

If your player wants to prevent a target from being able to defend itself effectively, then they need to place and tag/invoke an aspect to that end either by way of placing a maneuver or by generating a Consequence through a successful attack.

[CottbusFiles]

or you do a Maneuver (which creates an Aspect, which requires the player to activate for the Aspect to be able to affect the game world).

Does it really? The player can tag the aspect to "force" a compel. The gm could still compel it himself if he feels like it.