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Old 01-18-2017, 07:51 AM   #3
Icelander
 
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Default Re: [RPM] Thresholds and Wards (Safe as Houses, Pyramid 3-58)

Quote:
Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
-5 to -10% sounds rightish to me.

But in Dresdenverse Thresholds don't just slow/stop the beings and mages from entering, but act as a shield against magic spells as well (though this isn't often reflected in the series as much as it's just discussed at one point).
True, but that's already accounted for in the 'Safe as Houses' article, in the last bullet point on p. 6.

Personally, instead of a Quick Contest of Will+Magery against effective Threshold Rating for every spell (and on lost contests, suffering a penalty of margin of failure), I might opt for a quicker and easier solution of just a flat penalty based on TR.

I think I want thresholds of ordinary homes to be more significant and important, even against powerful beings, than the article assumes, so I might make the penalty more significant than the relatively small margins of failure that anything with Will 12+* will tend to end up with against thresholds with TR 9-12.

So I might give a penalty of (Threshold Rating - 6) on attempts to use hostile magic against characters protected by a threshold. I'd use the same penalty on all uses of magic by wizards or other supernatural beings who enter a threshold uninvited, lasting until they leave.

I'd also allow fairly simple wards to improve that penalty to 2 x (Threshold Rating - 6), probably just using Lesser Strengthen Magic. It would be something all ritual mages did regularly and represent basic wards from the novels.

That effectively makes a normal threshold (TR 9-12) all but impervious to sent magic by anyone but vampire lords, fallen angels or archmages, as it imposes a -6 to -8 penalty to workings that affect the protected beings.
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