Blocking Magic Internally - Help

[Mr. Death]

I do like them. I am asking how to do this attack. Which I dont see as broken. I was trying to get my point across as to why it delivered mental stress so I described it as a sort of forced backlash. Obviously you cant force them to take thier own backlash but if there is excess magic inside thier body that is what that is. Also the other ideas are much quicker, much easier ways of shutting down wizards.

Even if you force magic into a wizard, that wizard will still always have the option of just letting it go to fallout.

[Taran]

TBH, I think you've lost the spirit of the attack you're going for. (no punn intented).

It might be better to make it a straight physical spirit attack that targets pressure points.  It's just a weapon "X" spirit evocation, except you frame the stress as slowly paralyzing the target, hampering their movements, causing excrutiating pain, etc... you know, pressure point, chi stuff.

With wizards, it's actually a more effective attack because you're targeting a weak skill, athletics...maybe endurance.

The thing you can do with this though, is make declarations around chi'ness.  So maybe it certain circumstances you can bypass toughness because you're hitting pressure points instead of trying to rip your foe apart.  You could even compel a wizards consequences to say that it bypasses his wizards toughness, forcing him to go find someone to get the damage cured.  Because it's not a healing wounds, but a matter of realigning energies. 

I actually think that makes for a better wizard killer than targeting their highest skill and longest stress track anyways.

[Tedronai]

TBH, I think you've lost the spirit of the attack you're going for. (no punn intented).

It might be better to make it a straight physical spirit attack that targets pressure points.  It's just a weapon "X" spirit evocation, except you frame the stress as slowly paralyzing the target, hampering their movements, causing excrutiating pain, etc... you know, pressure point, chi stuff.

With wizards, it's actually a more effective attack because you're targeting a weak skill, athletics...maybe endurance.

The thing you can do with this though, is make declarations around chi'ness.  So maybe it certain circumstances you can bypass toughness because you're hitting pressure points instead of trying to rip your foe apart.  You could even compel a wizards consequences to say that it bypasses his wizards toughness, forcing him to go find someone to get the damage cured.  Because it's not a healing wounds, but a matter of realigning energies. 

I actually think that makes for a better wizard killer than targeting their highest skill and longest stress track anyways.

This seems like the best path.

[Lavecki121]

Even if you force magic into a wizard, that wizard will still always have the option of just letting it go to fallout.

How do you know this? Im curious. Has there been examples of it somewhere that I am not familar with?

With wizards, it's actually a more effective attack because you're targeting a weak skill, athletics...maybe endurance.

I actually think that makes for a better wizard killer than targeting their highest skill and longest stress track anyways.

I am aware of this. Which is why I dont think this attack is that overpowered. I can easily attack the physical side and have them defend with their weaker skills.

[Taran]

If you want to do mental damage in order to inflict long term consequences and skip by all the law stuff, I'd make it a power and make it exactly like Addictive Saliva.  You lose all damage bonuses and do a straight fists attack.  Reskin however you like.  If it messes with magic, then that's what it does - although, if it only affects magic, you're limiting its usefulness.  As long as the group agrees with the chosen theme, we already know it's balanced since it's an established power.  It still means that you might have to deal with Wardens, but there's no risk of Lawbreaker powers.

Personally, I don't have a hang-up regarding magic and the mental track.  I think they are one in the same.  If you're crippling someone's magic, you're dealing mental stress and vice versa.  But I already voiced that on, like, page two or something - so there's no need to rehash that.

[Lavecki121]

I shouldnt have to deal with wardens as the attack stands. There is no lawbreaker. Also I have paid 4 refresh for the ability to do this attack. I could make the Addictive saliva attack reskin and have an extrememly limited version of it, where I am only attacking magic for 1 refresh. It doesnt seem like there is any hangups to this attack, barring what Mr Death said earlier, which I would like to know where he got that from.

[Taran]

Are you talking about the fallout thing?

I think he just means that if a spellcaster fails to control a spell, (s)he can choose to take the difference as backlash or as fallout.

So, if you're forcing a spell on someone and they fail to control that energy, they'd just be able to have all the uncontroled magic go out as fallout instead of backlash...

[Sanctaphrax]

1. Didn't you design a power that allowed for mental immunity? Why bother create this power if you didnt think anybody was going to use it. Also if I had a character who did Incite emotions, would you really be debating it as much?
2. Thats kind of the point.
3. Yea the old one was how it was originally thought of but as I thought of it more this is what I went with. Basically the attack is forcing them to take backlash.
6. The power let me do a couple things. Moved Discipline to Endurance, Conviction to Fists and something else that I cant remember right now.

Also as far as this attack goes, let me see if I can reword this attack so that everyone understands what I am trying to do.

I want to attack an opponent with my fists and imbue them with my magic, basically forcing them to take backlash. I feel now that this could be done to any person, regardless of if they were a caster or not.  Now, since it is a fist attack, it could be defended against by athletics and the like, but it is also a magic attack so it could be defended with dicipline and stuff like that as well. I dont feel that it should ignore any armor, because it is a fist attack. A fireball doesnt ignore armor, why should this attack. The thing is that I am targeting their mental stress. I dont think of it as a psychic attack and thus bypasses everything that they can defend with. Its end result simply would hit the mental stress track.

1. Yes. Mental Immunity would cost more if mental evocation was possible. It's designed to work against Incite Emotion, Domination, Thaumaturgy, and other such things. Mindless might still be good at its current cost though.

2. You want it to be ineffective?

3. Interesting idea. I mean, normally the guy taking backlash can choose to take it physically or to take fallout instead, but still. Cool idea.

6. Assuming you mean Natural Channel, I tracked it down and I'm pretty sure it's supposed to cost 1 Refresh. Then again, Martial Mojo arguably shouldn't provide a rebate. So maybe it balances out.

Physical armour generally only applies to physical attacks. You could make an exception, but people using mental evocations with different justifications would still get to ignore physical armour. Unless you banned those different justifications, of course.

Sorry Levecki, but I just wanted to add some more 


@ Sanctaphrax:  RCV's addictive saliva does the same thing as WCV attack...have a read:

...

You'll notice too that RCV uses FISTS to do MENTAL STRESS.  Sorry, now that I read this it sounds like I'm being an ass.  I'm actually just trying to point out the relevant parts.

Don't worry, you're not behaving badly.

I think you're misreading, though.

Incite Emotion doesn't lose any of its power if you take an odd consequence against it. You can still tag or invoke that consequence. Sure, usually people will take consequences reflecting the onset of the incited emotion. But if a celibate monk chooses to take a self-loathing-related consequence when hit with Incite Lust, that's not a problem. It's actually pretty cool.

Addictive Saliva, meanwhile, does lose its power if you take an odd consequence against it. Which is probably why it specifically restricts the range of consequences that its targets can take. It has a special rule, right there. (I had forgotten about this one because it basically never gets used.)

Anyway, Incite Emotion and Addictive Saliva are fair because they don't have the enormous weapon ratings of Evocation. You can't going toss out an accuracy 9 weapon 9 mental attack with Addictive Saliva, but you can with mental Evocation.

[Mr. Death]

How do you know this? Im curious. Has there been examples of it somewhere that I am not familar with?

The wizards' whole deal is moving and expelling magic. That is literally the thing they do that defines them as a wizard. You'd have to do a lot more to force them to take backlash than just putting magic into them.

[Tedronai]

And forcing them to take that backlash as mental instead of physical stress...

[Mrmdubois]

TBH, I think you've lost the spirit of the attack you're going for. (no punn intented).

It might be better to make it a straight physical spirit attack that targets pressure points.  It's just a weapon "X" spirit evocation, except you frame the stress as slowly paralyzing the target, hampering their movements, causing excrutiating pain, etc... you know, pressure point, chi stuff.

With wizards, it's actually a more effective attack because you're targeting a weak skill, athletics...maybe endurance.

The thing you can do with this though, is make declarations around chi'ness.  So maybe it certain circumstances you can bypass toughness because you're hitting pressure points instead of trying to rip your foe apart.  You could even compel a wizards consequences to say that it bypasses his wizards toughness, forcing him to go find someone to get the damage cured.  Because it's not a healing wounds, but a matter of realigning energies. 

I actually think that makes for a better wizard killer than targeting their highest skill and longest stress track anyways.

This.

The wizards' whole deal is moving and expelling magic. That is literally the thing they do that defines them as a wizard. You'd have to do a lot more to force them to take backlash than just putting magic into them.

This is interesting, and I agree.  Normally they take a point of stress when doing that, think it would still apply or is it more like hucking a hex?

Forcing a wizard to start throwing around Fallout so they don't take Backlash inflicted by someone else could be fun.  I suspect mostly for the GM of course.

[Lavecki121]

Ok so I was thinking about this on the way here. A wizard takes 1 point of mental stress for each spell they have to control right. Since I originally designed this as a rote spell, what if it was a 1 Shift attack and the Control roll is how many hits it did. So rolling an 8 to attack would inflict 8 stress (if they roll 0). However when they defend they succesfully "deflect" those points. Thus they take 1 shift for each "hit"

What do y'all think?

The wizards' whole deal is moving and expelling magic. That is literally the thing they do that defines them as a wizard. You'd have to do a lot more to force them to take backlash than just putting magic into them.

I really dont think so. Its foreign magic. If that were the case then they would be able to simply ignore every attack that hits them because they can control magic. I feel that if I attack them and they use a control type defense and I still come out ahead, then I have caused them to not control it to the point that they want because it is foreign magic. I am using "forced backlash" as a descriptor to justify why they would be taking mental damage. The point is that I injected them with magic and if they fail to control it all it gets into their system and causes mental stress.

[Mr. Death]

I really dont think so. Its foreign magic. If that were the case then they would be able to simply ignore every attack that hits them because they can control magic.

No. You're thinking of it entirely the wrong way. Throwing fire at someone is not forcing magic into them. It's throwing fire at someone.

You're talking about putting energy, raw magic, into a person in such a way that it has to cause backlash. That is completely different from hitting them with a regular attack. Once the magic is inside them, how are you forcing them to choose what they do with the magic that is now inside them?

It's like throwing someone a lit firecracker. Your goal is that they hold onto it and go boom (backlash), but unless you're taping it to their hands, they can still throw the damn thing away (fallout).

[Lavecki121]

again. I am using forced backlash as a descriptor to get at the point of what I am doing. In reality I am using spirit magic to cause them that same effect. The magic that I am putting in them has that restriction because of the spell. Its more like throwing them a firecracker while they are trapped in a glass box.

[Tedronai]

DFrpg is a narrative-driven game, so if what you're ACTUALLY trying to do, NARRATIVELY, isn't 'forced backlash', then please describe what it IS, or we're not going to be able to help you, here.