Full Version: Confusion Power
He's probably doing it twice a day. With a trauma damper, it's unlikely he's taking drain.
Ok. But it would still be silly.
I personnally hate the whole 'horde of spirits and watchers' thing, because it slows the game down to a crawl. Every time the pc thinks a combat might come up, he spends 5+ minutes summoning up spirits and putting them on remote service, and summoning watchers. Then when the fight begins, every round you have to resolve a giant melee with 6 watchers and 6 spirits/elementals per mage on each side.
The thing I dislike about the confusion power, though, is that it's not resisted. Even if he gets more successes on his willpower roll than the spirit, he still gets +(force) to all his target numbers. It seems like if the target gets more successes he should be able to shrug off the confusion.
The thing I dislike about the confusion power, though, is that it's not resisted. Even if he gets more successes on his willpower roll than the spirit, he still gets +(force) to all his target numbers. It seems like if the target gets more successes he should be able to shrug off the confusion.
Nitpick: AFAIK Remote service is not available as an option to nature spirits. Only one nature spirit per domain unless they are great forms.
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| AFAIK Remote service is not available as an option to nature spirits. |
This is my interpretation of this:
Say I'm in the city under an rainy, open sky. I can choose to be in Sky domain,summon a storm spirit, and tell the spirit: "Attack them", then switch perspectives so that I'm in City domain and summon a city spirit and give it a different set of instructions. When I switched over to City domain, I forfeited the remainder of the sky spirit's services, but it will continue to perform the service it was doing as long as it can.
So, if I'm caught in a firefight by a river, that runs down the side of a mountain, through the woods, under an open sky, then I could potentially summon, command, switch domains, summon, command, switch domains, etc a river spirit, wind spirit, mountain spirit, and forest spirit, and they'd all be attacking my opponents simultaneously. But if the opponents ran into a nearby cottage, none of those spirits would be able to follow, and they'd all go back to their metaplanes.
Do others interpret this differently? I'm open to suggestion if I've been doing it wrong.
Just to simplify the game, I let a shaman pick which domain he's in when he first conjures a spirit, but if he then wants to switch domains, I require him to physical move himself out of the domain he wants to leave, or physically move himself into the new domain. I make him cross a domain boundary in order to get a new choice.
In addition, our team has chosen to limit how often a shaman can summon within the same domain. We feel it slows down combat too much if a shaman can conjure and send out 10 spirits, one at a time, during a 30 second battle, each to survive less than 3 seconds. The limit we have chosen is that, after summoning a spirit of force X, he can not conjure in that domain again for X hours. This house rule has worked very well for us.
In addition, our team has chosen to limit how often a shaman can summon within the same domain. We feel it slows down combat too much if a shaman can conjure and send out 10 spirits, one at a time, during a 30 second battle, each to survive less than 3 seconds. The limit we have chosen is that, after summoning a spirit of force X, he can not conjure in that domain again for X hours. This house rule has worked very well for us.
Apathy, I do it similarly.
Also, to speed up the game with the great form conjuring shaman, I let him conjure after dusk/dawn, and if he doesn't use the spirits then use the same rolls to represent the next wave of conjuring, etc. until he does use them. If he took drain the first time, he takes drain every time.
If modifiers change, he needs to reroll.
Also, to speed up the game with the great form conjuring shaman, I let him conjure after dusk/dawn, and if he doesn't use the spirits then use the same rolls to represent the next wave of conjuring, etc. until he does use them. If he took drain the first time, he takes drain every time.
If modifiers change, he needs to reroll.
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| I personnally hate the whole 'horde of spirits and watchers' thing, because it slows the game down to a crawl. Every time the pc thinks a combat might come up, he spends 5+ minutes summoning up spirits and putting them on remote service, and summoning watchers. Then when the fight begins, every round you have to resolve a giant melee with 6 watchers and 6 spirits/elementals per mage on each side. |
You can simplfy that rather easily. Simply add up the Force ratings on each side, subtract them, and whichever side had more now has the difference reamining. I've successfully handled over 45 spirits in battle that way.
| QUOTE |
| Just to simplify the game, I let a shaman pick which domain he's in when he first conjures a spirit, but if he then wants to switch domains, I require him to physical move himself out of the domain he wants to leave, or physically move himself into the new domain. I make him cross a domain boundary in order to get a new choice. |
I find that unnecessary; simply requiring a Simple Action to switch domains usually suffices.
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| In addition, our team has chosen to limit how often a shaman can summon within the same domain. We feel it slows down combat too much if a shaman can conjure and send out 10 spirits, one at a time, during a 30 second battle, each to survive less than 3 seconds. The limit we have chosen is that, after summoning a spirit of force X, he can not conjure in that domain again for X hours. This house rule has worked very well for us. |
I find that unnecessary and overly restrictive as well; might I suggest instead not letting him conjure in that domain so long as the previous spirit is completing services?
If the shaman is conjuring spirits and they're not surviving for more than 3 seconds, I think he's got enough to worry about as is.
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| You can simplfy that rather easily. Simply add up the Force ratings on each side, subtract them, and whichever side had more now has the difference reamining. I've successfully handled over 45 spirits in battle that way. |
Glad it works for you, but it's not a very good mechanic. Eight Force 2 Elementals vs. two Force 9 Elementals will leave the Force 9s decimated in the end. Yet your mechanic has the Force 9s winning in all such confrontations, no contest. And even more oddly, they're either two Force 1 Elementals or one Force 2 Elemental now. ???
Maybe adding some mechanic that gives the side with the most spirits a sizable bonus would be appropriate, too. As would adding a little randomness into it (even if just one roll). Not sure what to suggest, but both ideas would go a long way to making it more believable within the context of the game world and the rules thereof.
| QUOTE (Cain @ Jul 1 2004, 10:45 PM) |
| You can simplfy that rather easily. Simply add up the Force ratings on each side, subtract them, and whichever side had more now has the difference reamining. I've successfully handled over 45 spirits in battle that way. |
Although that is a simple way of doing it, it doesn't accuratly protry "multi side combats"
Some military based mathmatcian worked out that the "Fight Force" is equal to the number of components *itself.
ie. a side with 4 elementals (well assume the same force to keep things simple) has a "Fighting Force" of 16, where as the side with 3 has a value of 9.
So if we were to say all the elementals were force 4, the side with 3 is dead and the side with 4 lose's 2 and has a third reduced to force 3 (or appropriately injuryed).
Well thats what i can remember of the thoery anyway...
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| Glad it works for you, but it's not a very good mechanic. Eight Force 2 Elementals vs. two Force 9 Elementals will leave the Force 9s decimated in the end. Yet your mechanic has the Force 9s winning in all such confrontations, no contest. And even more oddly, they're either two Force 1 Elementals or one Force 2 Elemental now. ??? |
Pretty much. The bigger spirits have been damaged to the point where they're only Force 1's. Which means they're now toast to the astrally-projecting mage, who doesn't get factored into this mechanic.
You also forgot about watchers getting involved, which is why I use this mechanic. Watchers are inherently more fragile than other spirits, which is why the system works out. In a practical sense, the only time I have to worry about massive spirit combat involves watchers, which is when I use this mechanic. Otherwise, I'll deal with combat normally. Oh, and as per MitS, I'll use it as a quick-resolution for opposed-element spirits.
Shockwave: Basically, this is the same quick-and-dirty mechanic from MitS, applied to all spirits instead of just opposing ones. It works, and it's effective.
| QUOTE (Cain @ Jul 2 2004, 02:48 AM) |
| Watchers are inherently more fragile than other spirits |
On the astral, how is a Force 3 watcher more fragile than some other kind of Force 3 spirit?
They can only cause Light Stun damage. They can't be healed as easily. They can't survive being disrupted. And their stats are generally weaker.
First, you can say anything "works, and it's effective" but that doesn't mean it's sound or a good mechanic. I can say that rolling 1D6 to determine who wins any fight "works, and it's effective," but it's still not a very good mechanic.
Second, while Watchers do only cause Light Stun damage, it's numbers that are more important in combat than damage potential. Three Force Watchers and a Force 2 Spirit will devestate a single Force 6 Spirit under most circumstances yet your mechanic has the single spirit winning in all such engagements. But somehow having its Force reduced to 1, which is a total mystery in and of itself.
I think the best thing to do to resolve large conflicts is summarize each side as a single opponent, then have them fight it out normally. The side with the greatest number gets the Reach bonus while the side with the stronger total Force gets the better Body score, then each side having a number of boxes in their virtual Condition Monitor to represent exactly how many of them there are. Or something like that. I have no clue how to summarize it because I'm not particularly interested in developing a mechanic for this sort of thing, but it would make a lot more sense than the blanket solution you came up with in my opinion.
But I'm glad yours works for you. I just don't think its very good or viable, at least no moreso than any other GM handwaving would be.
Second, while Watchers do only cause Light Stun damage, it's numbers that are more important in combat than damage potential. Three Force Watchers and a Force 2 Spirit will devestate a single Force 6 Spirit under most circumstances yet your mechanic has the single spirit winning in all such engagements. But somehow having its Force reduced to 1, which is a total mystery in and of itself.
I think the best thing to do to resolve large conflicts is summarize each side as a single opponent, then have them fight it out normally. The side with the greatest number gets the Reach bonus while the side with the stronger total Force gets the better Body score, then each side having a number of boxes in their virtual Condition Monitor to represent exactly how many of them there are. Or something like that. I have no clue how to summarize it because I'm not particularly interested in developing a mechanic for this sort of thing, but it would make a lot more sense than the blanket solution you came up with in my opinion.
But I'm glad yours works for you. I just don't think its very good or viable, at least no moreso than any other GM handwaving would be.
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| Second, while Watchers do only cause Light Stun damage, it's numbers that are more important in combat than damage potential. Three Force Watchers and a Force 2 Spirit will devestate a single Force 6 Spirit under most circumstances yet your mechanic has the single spirit winning in all such engagements. But somehow having its Force reduced to 1, which is a total mystery in and of itself. |
The mechanic for force reduction (and quick resolution) is in MitS. And honestly, under the conditions you describe, I'd handle it in a different fashion. It's only when we start getting into double-digits of spirits on each side that I start abstracting things.
In any situation with a double digit number of fighting individuals, spirit or otherwise: Id choose the most important individuals, or the ones closest to the players. Play out the events the players directly influence normaly. Than simply use my GM powers and some random dierolls to decide what happens with the rest of the combatants. That is Id use my creativity rather than some halfbaked, simplifying rule. thats just me though 
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