[Basic] Magic and fire area barriers

[philosophyguy]

Within the rules of the Basic Set, I'm trying to figure out how to handle area effects from fire barriers.

Suppose that a mage and a fighter are facing each other down across an open field, 10 yards apart. The mage decides to cast Create Fire in order to weaken the fighter and wants to create an area effect of radius 5 (for a total cost of 10). At the end of the mage's first turn Concentrating, he attempts to cast the spell and succeeds, creating a fire with the edge right next to him and extending out towards the fighter - with a radius of 5, the fighter will be in the fire as soon as he moves forward.

At this point, the fighter can decide to run through the flames or go around. Does the fighter need a Will roll of some sort in order to run into the flames?

Assuming the fighter Moves and has a move of 5, he spends part of a second in the flames and thus takes 1d-3 damage.

The mage has his second turn; to keep things simple, let him Do Nothing.

On the fighter's second turn, he continues to Move out of the fire. Since he has a move of 5, he can make it out of the flames (moving into the off-center "front" hex) for his last move to be still in front of the mage. Again, he takes 1d-3 damage from the flames for being in fire for a partial second.

Is this correct? If so, it seems like even a point or two of DR makes fire pretty useless for creating barriers. This is a pretty large area, but the fighter can run through it with minimal damage.

[ericthered]

a couple of things:

1) A fighter who starts his turn at the edge of a fire and moves 5 yards through it is NOT spending 'part of second' in the fire. In my game, he pays full damage. If he wants to spend part of a second, he can move 3 yards in the flames. Any more and he's spent well over half of his second in fire. Yes, I draw the line at half. 'Part of a second' would be for leaping a wall of mundane flame (for which minor protection should be a great help)

2) The damage dealt by this obstacle is area damage. What kind of armor is the fighter wearing? What kind of shoes? is his face covered? what kind of pants? By RAW, the area damage faces DR averaging the lowest DR and torso DR. So yes, he can ignore damage if he has high enough torso DR. I don't like that effect, and have a house rule* that if torso DR is high enough to completely block damage, take half of damage after the lowest DR.

3) even if only a point of damage is done, it still causes shock, which is useful.

4) yes, I'd require the will roll. Unless the character is accustomed to jumping into flames or has some sort of protection that means they can't even feel the flames.

*yes, its a house rule. There is a case related to your concern that is a problem, which is the breastplate that makes you immune to fire. my fix is above.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

Does the fighter need a Will roll of some sort in order to run into the flames?

A fright check can be appropriate in any dangerous situation, but (assuming the fighter is familiar with mages) this doesn't seem like it would be any worse than a normal combat which probably wouldn't require a fright check for a seasoned fighter. Charging through fire isn't inherently more scary than charging towards a line of men armed with sharp metal implements.

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

Is this correct? If so, it seems like even a point or two of DR makes fire pretty useless for creating barriers. This is a pretty large area, but the fighter can run through it with minimal damage.

I'd say spending every part of your turn except the very start or end of it in the flames is rather pushing the limit for 'part of your turn', but going strictly by the rules it's correct.

Armour is extremely effective at stopping flame in the short term. This is more-or-less realistic in the sense that something like leather or metal covering your skin will make you able to withstand an ordinary fire for a few seconds without injury. Using normal DR to measure resistance to fire is a pretty bad model, but a workable one for game purposes.

[trooper6]

I'd agree with ericthered that spending all 5 of your hexes of movement in the fire (even if you started outside of the fire), would count as "all of turn in fire" for 1d-1 burning damage.

Also don't forget! If that fire does more than 3 points of damage..the fighter catches fire! (pg 434)

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

Suppose that a mage and a fighter are facing each other down across an open field, 10 yards apart. The mage decides to cast Create Fire in order to weaken the fighter and wants to create an area effect of radius 5 (for a total cost of 10).

Eek. Not a very good strategy at all, but I know the mage is only working with the Basic Set, and that puts him at an even worse disadvantage in this scenario. This is not a scenario a mage wants to find himself.

At the end of the mage's first turn Concentrating, he attempts to cast the spell and succeeds, creating a fire with the edge right next to him and extending out towards the fighter - with a radius of 5, the fighter will be in the fire as soon as he moves forward.

For the new players out there, I made an image real fast:

http://imageshack.com/a/img661/7754/UA5Gvz.jpg

The blue circle is the mage. The red is the fighter. Or vice-versa as it doesn't matter.

The purple square is the target hex. See p. B239 or Magic, p. 11: "If you cannot touch some part of the affected area, apply a skill penalty equal to your distance in yards from the nearest edge of the area." While the target hex is 5 hexes away, the skill is not penalized by 5 (as it would normally be for a Regular spell) because it is a five-hex radius spell. The nearest edge is the hex adjacent to the mage; note the purple lines that illustrate the area of effect.

At this point, the fighter can decide to run through the flames or go around.

Strangely, the mage went first in the combat sequence. Normally, it's the "fighter" as the fighter regularly has a higher Basic Speed. See Combat Turn Sequence, p. B362. Let's say the mage does, in fact, have a higher Speed.

So, the mage took a Concentrate maneuver, cast the spell, and thus ended his turn. Okay.

Fighter's turn.

Does the fighter need a Will roll of some sort in order to run into the flames?

No. Heroic fiction is rife with warriors pushing through flame. Real life is no different (I'm a fire fighter, but am not special in this regard). There are no rules in the Basic Set interpreted plainly that would support the need for a Will roll in this instance. I would strongly hesitate against creative interpretations made to require one, either (e.g., fright check). This is all under normal circumstances, of course. If the fighter has a phobia of fire, for example, then use those stated rules for such, yes.

On the fighter's second turn, he continues to Move out of the fire. Since he has a move of 5, he can make it out of the flames (moving into the off-center "front" hex)

He can move into Close Combat, yes, likely with a slam (p. B371) or Move and Attack.

See also Sprinting, p. B354. Basically, if you move your full move on turn 1, on turn 2, you get a +1 to move.

Is this correct? If so, it seems like even a point or two of DR makes fire pretty useless for creating barriers. This is a pretty large area, but the fighter can run through it with minimal damage.

That's correct, and in my opinion, pretty realistic. One point of damage to an average human in GURPS is some very real injury.

Fire (or any sort of direct, physical combat) mages are one of the very worst archetypes in GURPS. If the mage is in battle dealing dice of damage while avoiding the same, he's doing it all wrong. Very wrong.

GURPS goes against the staple way fantasy RPG's handle mage vs. fighter. Fighters are normally good at dealing damage quickly and steadily and reliably to one or a few targets. True with GURPS as other systems. Mages typically deal lots of damage all at once after a time (or with a "cool down") to groups of enemies, or intense damage when focused on one big hit to one target. Not so true with GURPS. Sure, there is a bit of that (e.g., Magery 6 throwing a fully-powered missile spell)—but mages are more support and multi-functional tools in GURPS.

Mages weaken enemies (e.g. Panic, Flash, Mental Stun, Stench, Death Vision, etc.) and buff allies (e.g., Great Haste). They take control of the battle field proper (e.g., Darkness, Glue/Grease, etc.). They are much better at defending than attacking (Force Dome, Steelwraith, Command, etc.).

On the other hand, consider a fireball. It needs only to be blocked or dodged to make it completely ineffective, and that's not hard for any warrior. Then it's not only wasted FP, lots, but wasted turns—two turns at the very least. So, in addition to doing poor a damage-to-turn ratio (DPS), it's also very unreliable to do any damage at all. Couple that all with the fact that its skill for attack is based on Dex . . . Terrible choice for a GURPS mage.

Additionally, without Magic, the system is neutered to the point of being impractical. In my opinion, that whole chapter either shouldn't have been in the Basic Set or almost all of Magic should have been included. It's one of the major oddities of GURPS, and a lot of its reason for being there is again, legacy.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Stripe

No. Heroic fiction is rife with warriors pushing through flame. Real life is no different (I'm a fire fighter, but am not special in this regard). There are no rules in the Basic Set interpreted plainly that would support the need for a Will roll in this instance. I would strongly hesitate against creative interpretations made to require one, either (e.g., fright check). This is all under normal circumstances, of course. If the fighter has a phobia of fire, for example, then use those stated rules for such, yes.

Heroic fiction is rife with assorted characters performing acts of great willpower and/or courage.

For, say, dashing through a campfire with boots on I wouldn't ask for any roll. But for running into a 5-yard field of flames? I'd seriously consider applying something based off of Tactical Shooting's Will roll to break cover under fire.

[Anthony]

Running through flame doesn't seem to require any more of a will roll than would be required for, say, charging a bunch of guys with spears.

It's not totally clear what magnitude of fire a GURPS fire hex is, but realistically heat transfer rate for flame isn't all that high; the risk is stepping on something hot with high heat capacity and transfer rate, and create fire doesn't instantly heat up the ground.

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Heroic fiction is rife with assorted characters performing acts of great willpower and/or courage.

For, say, dashing through a campfire with boots on I wouldn't ask for any roll. But for running into a 5-yard field of flames? I'd seriously consider applying something based off of Tactical Shooting's Will roll to break cover under fire.

"Seriously considering" rules from a supplement is a lot different than answering he OP's question about rules as written in the Basic Set as I was doing. Also note that I hedged my statement with "under normal circumstances"—it would not be normal circumstances under Basic Set's RAW to require a "fighter" battling a fantasy mage to make some sort of roll to cross the flame. House rule? Creative interpretation? Special circumstances (phobia of fire)? Not black-and-white RAW.

[trooper6]

If I would require a Will roll would depend on the Fighter.

If the fighter were a young Fighter with no experience who had barely any battles and certainly never run through fire before? I would ask for the roll. If they make the roll, and run through with little negative consequences...I'd not ask for another similar roll...unless they subsequently had some negative fire situation. If the fighter were very seasoned and hardened? Then I probably wouldn't ask for a roll.

It is just contextual for me.

[Bruno]

Easy determinator:

Combat Reflexes is generally considered the trait that distinguishes "fighters" from "not fighters" - or in other genres "action heroes" vs "non-combatants". It gives a +6 to snap out of Mental Stun, giving seasoned combatants a good chance to get a grip on themselves.

If you feel inclined to ask for a Will check to go into the fire, consider giving the +6 for Combat Reflexes here as well. The hardened warrior is likely to breeze through (and frankly, if he has a Will of 10 or better I wouldn't bother asking him to roll - it's just annoying extra rolls). But the farmer who was given a spear and pressed into service might need two or three seconds to build up his nerve (ie to finally succeed on a Will check) before he can do it.

I wouldn't personally do it. Most people might take the extra second go around the fire rather than get burned, but then most people wouldn't have a particularly good reason to be charging at someone with homicidal intent. Once you're getting into the murdering and the killing and the screaming and the stabbing, you're not talking about "guy on the street".