11-07-2022, 10:48 AM | #41 | |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The Athens of America
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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Although if I were playing the mage in this theoretical I would argue for the 'bowman' to have his bowstring snap or some similar minor misfortune preventing him from getting a clean shot off. That way the critical does good for him (saves him from putting an arrow into his own chest) without tactically 'negating' the mage's spell (because if an archer shoots an arrow at Mr. Robe and Pointy Hat and it zips up to him and then arcs back to just miss the original archer NO ONE is going to be second to shoot an arrow at Mr. R+PH). That way the mage might still 'take down' someone with his expensive spell (if he just wanted protection w/o the barb he would go with Missile Shield) it is just unlikely to be the lucky holder of the critical success in question. As always YMMV.
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My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.-Foch America is not perfect, but I will hold her hand until she gets well.-unk Tuskegee Airman |
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11-07-2022, 11:03 AM | #42 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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11-07-2022, 11:21 AM | #43 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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The mage spent his cp to learn the Spell, went through the necessary ritual, rolled to Cast the Spell and paid the FP but you're not giving him what he paid for. The minimum acceptable to me if I was the Mage would be the bowman taking a regular hit but I'd feel like I paid the price to get what the rules said would happen.
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Fred Brackin |
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11-07-2022, 12:37 PM | #44 | |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The Athens of America
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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I am haven't GM'ed in quite a while...but if I put the hat back on I would still run it the way I originally posted. Sometimes you just walk right into a left hook...
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My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.-Foch America is not perfect, but I will hold her hand until she gets well.-unk Tuskegee Airman |
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11-07-2022, 12:37 PM | #45 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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But such ridiculousness out of the way, I wouldn't have a problem with a rule that Reverse Missiles is never worse (which isn't the same as "is always better") than Missile Shield, seeing as in many ways it is Missile Shield+. The version where the attacker gets a bonus to their defense if they rolled a critical hit is still better than Missile Shield, just not by as much as normal. The version where the reversed missile automatically misses is equal. If you have a chance of Reverse Missile failing against a crit, Missile Shield should similarly have such a chance. The only one of my suggestions where Reverse Missiles would be worse than Missile Shield would be if the missile winds up hitting one of the caster's allies instead... so such an option probably shouldn't be in play (or if it is, Missile Shield should either similarly have that failure mode, or have its chance to fail outright be equal to the sum of the chances of Reverse Missiles failing outright and being deflected).
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11-07-2022, 01:05 PM | #46 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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What the mage has paid for is every archer who rolls a hit against the mage to suffer that hit against himself instead. I'm not seeing any reason to not give the mage what he paid for. If you had warned me before play began I'd have known not to take Reverse Missiles. If you came up with this interpretation on the fly it would have caused some hard feelings.
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Fred Brackin |
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11-07-2022, 01:40 PM | #47 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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All of that means nothing if the foe rolls a Critical Hit. By your logic, he'd have been better off using a cheap plastic toy, with no compatible traits, as at least then he wouldn't have wasted all that money and points. And don't forget that's what we're talking about here - what happens when the attacker rolls a crit. Would you really abandon Reverse Missiles because there's generally a 1.85% chance for it to only be as good as Missile Shield, potentially going up to 9.25% against really powerful enemies (those with final effective skill 16 or higher)? That said, if it hadn't yet come up in play and an enemy rolled a Critical Success against a PC with Reverse Missiles up*, and the player strongly objected to the ruling, I'd probably suggest the "attacker gets +2 to Dodge" variant as a compromise. If that still didn't fly, I'd let the table vote on it - either this Critical Success gets a new special effect (and any Critical Success against Reverse Missiles - be it on a PC, enemy, ally, etc - would get the same special effect), or no Critical Successes - theirs or those of OpFor - will get new special effects for the entire campaign. *Or, more likely, a PC with Reflective DR - I'm not a fan of the default magic system.
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11-07-2022, 02:29 PM | #48 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
If a GM made that ruling ahead of time in 90% of games it would make absolutely no difference in my decision making, because reverse missiles is prone to being either ridiculously overpowered or utterly useless, depending on the nature of the opposition, and no ruling on critical hits is going to significantly change that (even critical hits totally bypassing the spell wouldn't do that, though it would alter tactics to make baiting out attacks less appealing).
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11-07-2022, 03:15 PM | #49 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
I'd point out that rule is that critical hits permit no Active Defense, not that they bypass all defenses- an Insubstantial character, for example, can stand around all day with his attackers rolling all the criticals they like, and still won't take any damage unless the attacks explicitly affect insubstantial foes.
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11-07-2022, 04:11 PM | #50 | |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The Athens of America
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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500+ Supers...minimal 250 DF...a little more but not much 100-150 Low Fantasy...now the points in prereqs add up and the FP look bigger. IMHO Reverse Missiles works only if it is a suprise...otherwise it is just a more expensive Missile Shield.
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My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.-Foch America is not perfect, but I will hold her hand until she gets well.-unk Tuskegee Airman |
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Tags |
combat, reverse missiles |
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