| From: | Brian Johnson <john0375@****.TC.UMN.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | for invisible Spell Defense |
| Date: | Fri, 10 Jan 1997 15:42:42 -0600 |
astral perception} spell defense.
Here's my reason why:
Spell defense is passive in nature, like is aura masking.
With aura masking, you can't say "that person is masking their aura"
(or at least, you can never be sure), and Aura masking causes no drain
it is effectively passive, since it has no 'real' game effect.
(meaning no spells are effected by it). This is 'Passive' masking, not
active masking, of course.
Spell Defense doesn't really effect game mechanics too much, just
extra resistance dice, so I'd prefer that spell defense could be
detected (If you let it be detectable) ONLY while resisting a spell
(Which would be similar to Spell Signatures.- with the same requirements)
Something like "it looked like the spell should have had a greater effect
than it did. something's up."
The other mechanic I'd suggest is to notice, use base TN of 12,
and add to it sorcery skill (gets harder with greater experience),
and subtract the number of dice of spell defense provided.
(this makes the beginning mage face a TN of 18 - dice of spell defence,
if the defender has a sorcery of 6, which is a safe assumption.)
(Note also that since spell defense is not limited by magic rating, it
seems that the lowest this TN would go is 12, so maybe adjust it to a
base of 8 or 9, but most people with 5-6 dice would get a 9, which is why
I set the TN so high. besides, I'll admit that my players have an
annoying tendency to get a lot of 12's, at least more than I'd like.)
Besides, letting everyone know when someone is using spell defense takes
some of the suspense out of it.
Of Course, with the changes to SRII spell defense, this becomes more of
an issue, because the dice are spread thinner.
I'd really hate to see some official material on sr2 that makes it
visible, it just bugs me, I guess. oh, well.
