04-26-2023, 01:55 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
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04-26-2023, 05:28 PM | #22 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pioneer Valley
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
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My gaming blog: Apotheosis of the Invisible City "Call me old-fashioned, but after you're dead, I don't think you should be entitled to a Dodge any more." - my wife It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I disagree with what you're saying. |
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04-26-2023, 06:09 PM | #23 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
"Well, see, as inanimate objects, the arrows don't have intent, hostile or not" seems like nothing more than a rules-lawyerly exercise to try to read the words "or anything" out of the spell text. They were a thing that was sent into the area with hostile intent, so the spell triggers.
Given the flight time of the arrow, I doubt it actually does much good.
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Steven E. Ehrbar GURPS Technomancer resources. Including The Renegade Mage's Unofficial GURPS Magic Spell Errata, last updated July 7th, 2023. |
04-26-2023, 07:56 PM | #24 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
So, for the sake of clarity, replace the arrow with a timed bomb tossed through the spell boundary. Maybe it goes off in a hour.
If the Watchdog doesn't awaken anyone ("the bomb has no intent"), the mad bomber what bombs at midnight gets away and the bomb later explodes, doing whatever damage it does. If the Watchdog goes off when the bomb sails through ("it was delivered as an intended attack"), the party is alerted and has time to escape, defuse the bomb, chase down their assailants, or whatever. |
04-26-2023, 08:55 PM | #25 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pioneer Valley
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
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My gaming blog: Apotheosis of the Invisible City "Call me old-fashioned, but after you're dead, I don't think you should be entitled to a Dodge any more." - my wife It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I disagree with what you're saying. |
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04-26-2023, 10:13 PM | #26 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
And again, its magic! Fickle or alien is the whole point!
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature |
04-26-2023, 10:37 PM | #27 | |
Join Date: Jun 2022
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
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You argue for expanding the the scope of the of spell, outside of this board I've only ever seen the opposite from other GMs. As well I take "or anything" when coupled with "hostile intent" to reference that which can have intent, but which would not be described as an "anyone" (so say, demons, monsters, wolves, mindless undead, etc). Not that a rockslide that crosses the boundary has hostile intent. Or as you take exception to, arrows from afar. Note, one of the rewordings I also offered the group had it detecting when danger crossed the boundary, but that was rejected. What we went with expanded the utility of the spell while eliminating vagueness. |
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04-26-2023, 11:10 PM | #28 |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
Usually you would use a Reaction Roll to determine how they would react, but you don't actually make that roll until the encounter happens so you know what modifiers would be in play.
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04-26-2023, 11:47 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
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Besides, it wouldn't matter. Watchdog is an area Spell with an ongoing Duration and if someone becomes hostile in that area the Spell is triggered then and that is still before the GM announces that the hostile has successfully attacked the PC. The PC would wake immediately without being Stunned and get normal Defenses.(which might be poor for being prone in darkness and wrapped in a blanket). You can probably kill the PC anyway. You don't have to rules-lawyer him out of the benefits of his Spell.
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Fred Brackin |
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04-27-2023, 12:01 AM | #30 |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
For context, the situation was this:
Party had camped out in ambush around one of many shrines in a river delta system. At some point during some night their quarry (a "necromancer", according to them) was going to visit the shrine and do Something. (They figured the necromancer was picking a random shrine to do his nightly rituals.) They set up a Watchdog spell around the shrine, while they were hiding in their camouflaged hunter's blind, waiting for the necromancer to show up. So far, so good. However, the necromancer didn't know they were there, and his first reaction would be to run away; he wasn't interested in trying to hurt them. (Even if he wanted to, it was just him against four armed to the teeth adventurers, so he wouldn't have stood a chance.) So it made me wonder if he would have triggered the spell. I don't think he would have, since he didn't have hostile intent (although technically he'd be hostile as soon as the party attacked him, but then it's a moot point.) As it turns out, he heard them moving in the bushes and bailed before he crossed the Watchdog line. They chased him, and when they caught up to him, had him dying of a mortal gut wound within about three seconds. The broken leg didn't help, either.
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Warmest regards, StevenH My current worldbuilding project. You can find the Adventure Logs of the campaign here. I try to write them up as narrative prose, with illustrations. As such, they are "embellished" accounts of the play sessions. Link of the moment: Bestiary of Plants. In a world of mana, plants evolved to use it as an energy source. It is also the new home of the Alaconius Lectures, a series of essays about the various Colleges of Spells. |
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magic, watchdog |
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