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Spell targetting question

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Mustakrakish

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« on: <12-25-18/1356:14> »
Hello chummers. I wanted to know if my character is affected by a spell buff. Does she counts as dual natured for the porpose of being tragetted with mana spells from astral space?
And is it the same with foci? Can an adept with weapon focus be the victim of an astraly projected mage?


Reaver

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« Reply #1 on: <12-25-18/1409:30> »
Quote
I wanted to know if my character is affected by a spell buff. Does she counts as dual natured for the porpose of being tragetted with mana spells from astral space?

No.

Only Dual Natured critters, (and characters made from natured critters - like Ghouls and Vamps) can be targeted from the Astral.

The SPELL itself, however can be targeted for the purpose of counter spelling.

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an an adept with weapon focus be the victim of an astraly projected mage

No. It is the weapon focus that is dual natured, not the bonded owner. The Weapon Focus, like any foci, can be targeted for attack (disruption, disenchantment). but not the owner.

****

What you are referring to was known as "grounding". This was where an astral construct could be targeted from the astral with a physical spell. (there is even an example of someone nuking a watcher spirit to take out the physical forms near it in one of the books).
This little trick was completely removed from the game in 4e, and continues to be gone. They have even gone so far as to re-enforce this with the whole "Separation of Astral and physical" write up in the book (but could have been better worded perhaps).

 

 
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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #2 on: <12-25-18/1445:27> »
You used to be able to target spells with spells. There seems to be nothing that precludes it in 5th edition, but it never governs how much damage it takes to destroy an ongoing spell.  Counterspelling is what you're "supposed to do" to end an ongoing spell in 5th.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Mustakrakish

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« Reply #3 on: <12-25-18/1627:16> »
Hmmm... I thought it was the main weakness for quickening buff spells.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #4 on: <12-25-18/1632:12> »
Well there's no reason you can't target, say a quickened enhanced reflexes spell, with a mana bolt.  The issue is you'll have to house rule what exactly the outcome of that mana bolt is on the spell.  What is used for the spell's defense test?  It's even tougher for figuring out the effect of any resolved damage.  Do spells have condition monitors? Does damage instead remove hits?  Net hits?  Force?

Once you figure out how spells actually suffer damage, you then have the issue of why bothering with using the Counterspelling rules at all.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

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« Reply #5 on: <12-25-18/1805:31> »
The issue with quickened spells isn't Grounding anymore (as Grounding has been removed). It's how Quickening and other things interact. For example, Quickening and Wards, or Quickening and astral Perception.

Quickened spells that come into contact with a ward have a chance of being disrupted, causing a loss of the karma invested in them. (see wards in the CRB)

The other big issue is that on the astral plane, spells are very noticeable, and having a dozen spells linked to your aura (especially the ones a Runner generally use) can be a huge give away*

Quickened spells are also generally fairly easy to disrupt as well, which makes the investment of karma into quickening and quickened spells "dubious" for some.



*depending on the views of your GM and how he handles astral space. 
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #6 on: <12-26-18/0842:39> »
With Quickened Spells only costing 1 karma in 5e, and the many ways you can farm Quickening (which is why I made several houserules regarding quickening: buying hits only, no overcasting), it can be really hard to disrupt them. E.g. cast a buff-spell at Force 12 with Reagents to set the limit to 6, and bam, near-impossible to disrupt / counterspell.
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