Veils

[AstronaughtAndy]

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.

[Mr. Death]

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.

[Taran]

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".

[Mr. Death]

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.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

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.

[Taran]

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.

[InFerrumVeritas]

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.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

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.

[InFerrumVeritas]

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.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

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.

[InFerrumVeritas]

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. 

[Centarion]

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.

[Taran]

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.

[Mr. Death]

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.

[Taran]

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.