| From: | "David M Girardot (Girardot, David)" <GIRARDOT@********.BITNET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | low-essence=magic invulnerability? |
| Date: | Thu, 29 Oct 92 17:49:07 est |
thinking. Okay, it's harder to heal someone with a low essence because the
foriegn material essential screws up the integrity of the body. Now, there
is also some support in the literature to the idea that low-essence creatures
have a damaged aura -- that is, a cybered-up sam will appear like a black-
hole when assensed. Okay, keep this in mind.
Now, combat spells work like this: the mage links the spell to the target's
aura and pours on the energy. The aura gets damage. Whatever the specifics
are, the status of the target's aura should be significant. My reading of
this is that a character with a really low essence, and thus a low aura,
ought to be harder to damage this way. I say, impose a target number penalty
of +2 to the mages roll and drain resistance because he has to channel more
energy to "make it stick" to the low essence character. Or, make it a
sliding scale. The target number penalty is:
2 - Essence for spells that have a base damage code of M
4 - Essence for spells that have a base damage code of S
6 - Essence for spells that have a base damage code of D
Example: A mage casts hellblast against a bunch of foes. One of em has 5.8
points of Ware, a Sam. Now, against the uncybered foes, the spell works
normally, but against the samurai there is a +6 penalty to target number and
drain resistance because the Sam's aura is so degraded and hard to latch on
to.
Now, to prevent this new mechanic, if you choose to use it, from becoming too
unbalancing, I suggest that there be a way for mages to improve the odds a
bit. Essentially, the mage can get a penalty-offset modifier by Astrally
Assensing the targets.
Action Per. Time Offset
