can I do counterspelling on my car? Options

[fool]

Can counterspelling be used on inanimate objects to protect them from spells. I.E. can I put my counterspelling on the car I'm riding in to protect it from the fragging powerbolt someone casts at it?

[Jaid]

yes.

[Thanee]

It doesn't really say so, but as long as it is a valid target for a spell, it should also be a valid target for Counterspelling, I think.

Bye
Thanee

[Butterblume]

From the description of counterspelling, i'd rule it can be used that way.

[GrinderTheTroll]

I thought inanimate objects didn't get resistance tests?

[Ophis]

They don't the get auto successes from object resistance, counterspelling successes would add to these. If you read carefully you note counterspelling is a seperate roll, it notes you roll once for area effect spells, not give each target extra successes.

[ixombie]

You can't protect inanimate objects with counterspelling. Page 175 says under spell defense, "the magician must spend a free action and declare who she is protecting" (emphasis mine). Last I checked, cars are not people.

Furthermore, counterspelling adds your counterspelling dice to the target's resistance test, and inanimate objects make no resistance test. They use the object resistance table to determine what threshold the spell needs to affect them.

This is actually good news for your car though, since spells need a threshold of 4 just to affect it. Only a powerful caster is going to get 4 hits on spellcasting, so you won't run into mages who can wreck you very often.

Also note that indirect combat spells are resisted by vehicles like normal damage, the same as if they weren't magical, so that test doesn't qualify them for spell defense either.

[Ork4life]

[Big D]

Or Prime?

[Edward]

I rutenly get 4 successes on spell casting tests.

I would allow a object to benefit from spell defense,

The question becomes how many people / things can you defend.

Edward

[Jaid]

[James McMurray]

[Thanee]

[fool]

bot the mage takes drain.

[Protagonist]

[Monnock]

[Jaid]

[Monnock]

Counterspelling causes no drain; using counterspelling to dispel an effect does. Though I can't figure out if that was the context that 'fool' was posting in (no pun intended, bwahahaha).

Edit:
Though it is interesting, you would have to be able to see the outside of the car in order to provide counterspelling for it (perhaps the hood would be enough). You could not provide counterspelling for the internal components of it that you could not see.

[Jaid]

you don't need to see the whole thing, you just have to see it.

for example, just because you can only see one side of a person at a time, that does not mean you cannot counterspell their entire body.

thus, just because you cannot see the entire car at once, that does not mean you can only counterspell the entire car, whether that side be inside, front, back, top, bottom, etc.

[Monnock]

Oh, what I mean by that is that an individual object has a particular 'frequency' in the astral plane that you have to attune your counterspelling to, so I suppose that a car has its own frequency of its own (as a whole rather than each component - such as the chassie, engine, ect.).

You have to be able to see it to attune to it, thus being able to see a person (even if it is just their nose) is enough to counterspell their entire body. I would think that it is debatable as to whether or not a car counts as an entity, as sense it is normally outside the realm of astral matters I would think that you would only be able to counterspell a particular segment of it at a time (such as the chassie) - which would protect the internals of it as well by virtue of the fact that there is a field around the vehicle, however if you were somehow a mage inside the chassie (like in the trunk), you could blow up the car from the inside (if you were wierd and wanted to die).

Then again, you could theoretically apply this to a human, but because a living creature has essense, I would say that the entire body has that frequency and thus is protected from the inside out.

[Edward]

I would say that you determine weather something is one object or several buy how many damage tracks are involved.

A metahuman has 1 set of damage tracks, weather hit on arm or leg the same damage track is used thus it is one object.

A car whether hit on bonnet or boot applies the damage to its single damage track, thus it can be counter spelled as a single object.

A road train has separate damage tracks for the prime mover and each trailer, thus each of these objects must be counter spelled separately.

Any other definition will lead to continual regression until you can’t protect the other side of the wall you’re hiding behind because you can’t see past the paint.

[Monnock]

[James McMurray]

That's pretty much how I've always handled it, but without the flowery phrases. :)

[fool]

yeah my mistake on the counter spelling/drain comment.
So if I can protect a car, can I protect larger objects? How about a skyraker? Or a door someone want sto powerbolt so they can come in and kill me?

[James McMurray]

Defniitely a door. If you meant skyscraper then I'd say it was too big and too easily broken down into smaller parts like offices, floors, doors, etc.