04-27-2023, 04:53 AM | #31 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pioneer Valley
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
Quote:
And I do hope the party didn't think that Watchdog serves explicitly to alert the caster to the presence of someone towards whom THEY have hostile intent. If they wanted a spell to detect a particular individual encroaching upon an area, it's time to research a new spell.
__________________
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. |
|
04-27-2023, 06:05 AM | #32 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Panama
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
If watchdog is such a powerful spell that can sense attacks from inanimate objects and dangers like natural occurring ones what use is Nightingale then?
Nightingale is the spell to protect from random events and entities entering camp. |
04-27-2023, 06:22 AM | #33 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
Yeah, I would consider that a case where the target wouldn't trigger the spell, any more than a rabbit would. The target isn't hostile toward the party, even if he's up to no good with his rituals (assuming he is, in fact, up to no good, and the party didn't just up and murder some innocent). He's prey, not a predator.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul |
04-27-2023, 09:07 AM | #34 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
I think Watchdog probably wasn't the right spell for this job. The obvious intent of Watchdog is to protect your camp when you're in a dangerous area and can't keep as close an eye on things yourselves as you'd like. It isn't for ambushing unsuspecting enemies. That's why the text of the spell doesn't quite line up with your expectations.
|
04-27-2023, 09:35 AM | #35 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
Quote:
Quote:
Or, you know, we can just check if the crossing of the spell's boundary by a thing was the act of an entity with hostile intent, regardless of the nature of the thing that crossed the boundary.
__________________
Steven E. Ehrbar GURPS Technomancer resources. Including The Renegade Mage's Unofficial GURPS Magic Spell Errata, last updated July 7th, 2023. |
||
04-27-2023, 10:04 AM | #36 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
Quote:
*Magic shouldn't need to include a being's brain - in a setting with magic, consciousness/intent/etc is likely to extend beyond just the brain, particularly as in such a setting the brain most likely isn't the point of origin for intent, it's at best just the machinery the soul uses to interface with the material world. So that would explain Watchdog activating if a massive giant with a brain that is located too high for the spell to interface with decided to purposefully stomp on the camp.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul |
|
04-27-2023, 10:05 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
In practice, I'd play it half backward. Something crosses the border and I decide if it's hostile. If it's a PC I may even ask. If I decide the spell doesn't warn anybody for whatever reason the thing genuinely is not hostile, and it [cannot] harm the caster, no matter what the edge case you think you have. If it could, the spell would've triggered, and it didn't, so....
The only possible exception would be if caster starts the fight, though even then [most] non-hostile things would prefer to run away rather than fight. Edit: To clarify my position a bit, regardless of what you think the wording of the spell says, the clear intent is for it to warn the caster when something is about to try to hurt them. If you are looking for an edge case that would allow the spell not to trigger and the caster still to end up hurt, you are essentially cheating - looking for a way to make a player ability not do what he reasonably expected it to when he paid for it. It doesn't matter what the technical details of the wording are, especially in this not at all edge case application of "does it detect things that will hurt me?". That kind of hostile GMing is IMO always a bad sign. I wouldn't want to play in a game like that, and expect most other players wouldn't find it much fun either.
__________________
-- MA Lloyd Last edited by malloyd; 04-27-2023 at 10:28 AM. |
04-27-2023, 05:22 PM | #38 |
Join Date: Jan 2017
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
Well first, the sounds might be just enough to deter someone from sneaking up on you. Also presumably the sounds would be loud enough to wake the whole party and not just the caster.
|
04-27-2023, 06:00 PM | #39 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Panama
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
Quote:
Watchdog is more limited and can miss something dangerous getting inside its perimeter. Dangerous but with no intention to harm anything inside. About the arrow...it can go both ways, I wouldn't allow it to trigger watchdog, because the spell needs to know the intent and the archer is outside the area. But I can see an argument about things triggering the spell if hurled with hostile intent, but just an argument and not a solid one unless the setting allows for items to be regularly imbued by the users emotions in a regular basis. At the end, like many thing involving magic, it is a GM call, and players should respect that and don't waste time arguing about what they believe and play with what the GM defines as the reality of the fictional world...if the GM uses one interpretation one day and another other day that may be bad GMing, specially if the GM uses the "improved" version against the players and treat the players spells as more limited, that is just GM-douchebagery. P.D.: If players are disappointed by the spell I would allow for them to change it (the known spell), even to change the immediate pass and allow for the casting of another spell, like Nightingale, because the players didn't knew about the spell limits, but their characters probably did. |
|
04-27-2023, 07:14 PM | #40 | |||||
Join Date: Jun 2022
|
Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"
Quote:
That's not actually how the spell reads. It detects what crosses it's boundary, not what's already inside it's boundary. Quote:
I mean, you'd have a mindless ooze that was hunting the party trigger it right? Quote:
Quote:
The giant has intent, if any of it crosses the boundary... the giant has crossed the boundary. Quote:
My house, I ruled differently. I went with a limited, logical reading, since I wasn't in the habit of generally making spells more potent than they were written. AS well, as has been pointed out, there are other spells that do other things. Sure, if that's how the laws of magic work in the campaign. Perfectly reasonable, but I'd rewrite the spell to say that if that was the case for my games. |
|||||
Tags |
magic, watchdog |
|
|