Spell Defense Problems, Having problems figuring it out Options

[BlacKat]

Greetings All

My group is having a problems figuring out how spell defense works and how the Sorcery Specialization of Spell Defense works in conjunction.

Basic questions are

How are you supposed to allocate the dice?
Do you have all your sorcery skill dice avail at all times to use spell defense?
Can someone actually spread their spell defense influence over 600 meters if they have a sorcery 6(seems a bit excessive)?
How does the Spell Defense specialization work with spell defense?

The system as written in the book seems a bit over powerful, and very confusing. A good explenation on how spell defense works and how and when it works would be the most helpful.

Thanks
Blackat

[tisoz]

[RedmondLarry]

The complexity of the rules for Sorcery dice sometimes working like a Skill and sometimes like a Pool doesn't add much value to the game, in my opinion. Many GMs are happy using the following simplification: Spell Pool alone is used for Spell Defense, without limit; Sorcery works like any other Skill, using the full value of the Skill each time it is needed. This is essentially the 2nd Edition way of handling Sorcery, and I recommend it for everyone that isn't anal about learning and following the published rules.

Using the above simplifications, someone who had 2 extra skill in Spell Defense should simply get 2 more dice to use for Spell Defense throughout the Combat Turn.

Here is a full thread on Spell Defense.

Here are two previous related threads:
Spell Defense Dice refresh in Errata or FAQ?
Allocated Sorcery Dice

The Allocated Sorcery Dice thread quotes rules for several uses of Sorcery.

[BlacKat]

A question thta was just posed to me by my players:

Can a phys ad or aspected summoner, take the Sorcery skill and use it as a spell defense or do you have to be able to cast spells in order to use sorcery as spell defense?

BlacKat

[Wireknight]

No. A character must be able to use Sorcery to cast spells in order to defend against them. They can opt to not cast spells, of course, or even know any, but they still have to be capable of it. The specific example of this odd case(not knowing spells but having spell defense, or being "spell defense aspected") was actually a standard aspected magician(Sorceror) who had no spells(or if she did, they were solely astral barrier type deals) and who focused solely on the spell defense aspect of sorcery.

I think she was a wife or mother of one of the higher-up mafiosos in Seattle, from Underworld Sorucebook(or perhaps Mob War). Believed that magic was of the devil, and her faith allowed her to protect those around her from its diabolical influence. An example of similarly outlook-limited magicians are the Islamic Unity guy in Survival of the Fittest, and psychics/psions.