From: | davek@***.lonestar.org (David Kettler) |
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Subject: | The Ultimate One-Shot Kill: Mages? |
Date: | Tue, 27 Dec 2005 18:09:19 +0000 |
a lot of it. There is something that has been bothering me a great deal, however, and
it's the apparent unresistability of direct combat spells.
One thing I really do like about the new system is how combat has been made, for the most
part, much more consistent: First there is an opposed test between the attacker's combat
skill and some sort of defensive action by the defender, then the defender resists the
damage with another test (typically body). Only direct combat spells are mysteriously
missing the second part (at least by my interpretation). While it is true that they were
a little diferent in all previous editions, the fact that everything else has been made
more consistent has made this more glaring an issue. And it doesn't end there because of
the way damage values and drain have been changed...well, maybe I should just give an
example:
Let's say that a mage is fighting a generally superior opponent and wants to kill him
before he gets killed himself. Well, the mage can just cast manabolt at force 9 (since
you no longer have to learn a spell at a particular force) and as long as he gets at least
one net hit (which isn't remotely difficult since he'll be rolling magic+skill vs. just
willpower) that's a guaranteed 10 points of physical damage. Yikes. Now the rules are
supposed to balance this kind of thing out by making the mage pay for it in drain...but
they don't. I mean, sure the drain will be physical since the force is above the mage's
magic attribute, but since damage scales with force and drain scales with force/2 you're
looking at a *base* DV of 4. Of course the drain, unlike the damage, gets a resistence
test (Logic+Willpower) so any half decent mage can reduce that to just a block or two if
not eliminate it entirely. End result is that the target's brain is fried unless he is
extremely lucky and the mage barely takes any damage at all.
Now there was a thread a while back talking about how an incredibly highly skilled sniper
with a high powered rifle could easily one-shot kill somebody. I think the conclusion
was...so what? The difference here is that no particular skill (OK, you do have to be a
mage), equipment, or preparation is necessary. Any mage can do it, at any time. You
don't even need to be a very good mage. The only real defense is spending edge, which to
me seems like a hack solution for a more fundamental rules issue.
Oh, and what if you don't want to kill the target? Well, stunbolt is just as effective
only the drain is even less.
Really, this kind of high-force casting seems so effective to me I have to wonder why it
isn't used all the time. Well, OK, it's overkill when fighting grunts and the drain,
minimal as it is, probably isn't worth it, but when fighting any kind of prime runner (or
for NPCs fighting the PCs for that matter) you'd think everyone would be tossing
unresistable force-9 manabolts. On a somewhat related note, why on earth would anyone use
an indirect combat spell, other than for the elemental effect?
Please tell me that I'm missing something and magic isn't as horribly broken and
overpowered as this would imply.
--
Dave Kettler
davek@***.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org