CorbinThaMage
Oct 25 2006, 05:15 PM
I am thinking of allowing the new SM spirits into our game. However I have issue with the magical guard power. From the numbers I have run they make spirits nasty mage killers. And given that the are restricted to the new traditions give the non-standard(read minority) of mages the edge over thier normal mage breathren.
The normal response to spirit attack by a mage is casting a spell, however with this magical guard the spirit is just as likely to ignore the mages spell and kick him in the crotch twice killing said mage.
My main problem is that the standard spirits don't have it and these new ones do. So mages are built ignoring Astral Combat as useless and rarely Banish spirits when they can just frag them with a stun/mana-bolt.
My examples:
Mage: magic 5 spellcasting 5 Body 3 Reaction 3
Gaurdian spirit: 4
Elemental: 4
Mage attacks with manabolt(1ip)
Mage: 10 dice
Spirts defending
Gaurdian: 8 dice
Elemental: 4 dice
Spirit Attacking With Ranged attack (2IP)
Spirit: 8-12 dice
Mage Defending
Mage: 3 dice (and armor to soak 6-9 dice)
So in the given example the spirit with the magical guard is superior in all ways to an elemental spirit when fighting a mage.
Am I missing some facts here or any reason to allow these into the game?
Thanks,
Corbinthamage
Dentris
Oct 25 2006, 06:46 PM
to give the sammy or the physical adept a new job.
Chandon
Oct 25 2006, 06:52 PM
So... what you're saying is that spirits that have a magical defense power are better at defending against magic than other spirits. That seems reasonable to me.
There's no rule that says that some specific strategy (i.e. manabolting spirits) will always work perfectly. I'm sure that mages in game are capible of dealing with this sort of problem.
As for the new spirits being unbalanced, every one of the spirit types has advantages and disadvantages - and each tradition only gets 5 spirit types. As a specific power level argument: Most of the traditions that get Guardian or Guidance spirits don't get Spirits of Man, and I hear "Innate Spell" is a pretty good power. I have a feeling that the major exception, Zoroastrians, aren't especially broken either.
lorechaser
Oct 25 2006, 07:05 PM
And honestly, if the biggest argument against it is "Mages usually don't take banishing, because it doesn't have a point, and you need banishing to defeat these spirits" I think you've proved the point right there.
FrankTrollman
Oct 25 2006, 07:36 PM
| QUOTE |
| So in the given example the spirit with the magical guard is superior in all ways to an elemental spirit when fighting a mage. |
Within the context of the example sure. How about instead we have each of the spirits attempt to use their advantages just as the Guardian Spirit does.
Let's consider the Air Spirit. We've used the optional power on the Guardian Spirit, let's give an optional power to the Air Spirit. How about Energy Aura? The Air Spirit is faster than anything ever, so it goes first. Now it comes up and slaps the magician with an Engulf and the biggest dicepool of any spirit (Agility + Unarmed Combat baby!). So it has a huge dicepool and it goes first. Bam, our Magician is now encased in an engulf that is also doing armor negating Electrical damage directly to his lungs. Assuming the Mage gets to act at all next round, he gets to spend his initiative pass attempting to bust out. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but the spirit has a second IP and can just do it again. Air Elementals are teh hardcore. Probably the nastiest combat spirit in the game, regardless of opponent.
OK, now let's consider the Spirit of Man. We get one optional power on this guy too. Let's take Innate Spell: Power Bolt. So now we take out going firstness that we get for being a spirit and then we channel it directly to overcasting a Force 8 Power Bolt. It has a pretty good chance of just dropping the mage right there. Ouchies.
---
But regardless, most of the time spirits are going to be fighting within visual range of their conjurer. That means that they'll already have Counterspelling going on. So the real comparison is between an Earth Spirit picking up 3 dice of counterspelling and a Guardian Spirit protecting itself with 4 dice and getting an extra die from teamwork with its conjurer - for a total of 5 dice.
That's not a huge difference. It doesn't become a huge difference unless and until the Guardian Spirit is acting remotely from the mage. And that's the real power of that power. Don't think of it as doubling the Spirit's dicepool. Consider it the power to remain protected by counterspelling even when out of LOS from the magician. Guardian Spirits and Plant Spirits are more independent than Fire Spirits or Air Spirits in a magical battlefield. And that's awesome, but it's an evolutionary rather than revolutionary difference.
-Frank
X-Kalibur
Oct 25 2006, 08:19 PM
Mages that don't take astral combat or banishing are just ASKING for trouble. Honestly.
fool
Oct 25 2006, 09:11 PM
the one thing that might be more of an issue is that the mage now doesn't have to take conterspelling himself, leaving him with more bp's for other skills. Sure it burns through sevices, but hey, that's why you take summoning and binding at high ratings.
as to taking banishing or astral combat, just send your spirits off to fight the other spirits.
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