Would Magic Resistence With Area Effect Protect Me From All Magic?

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by Refplace

See my response earlier in this thread. If its an area and it acts as a sort of limited mana damper it would if the caster is in the area.

How are we turning it into an area of effect? Area Effect plus Affects Others would apply magic resistance to a limited number of willing subjects, and any sensible mage opts out; that plus Force Field would provide the defense against everything that crosses the perimeter of the area, but, since the mage is technically casting any missile spell on himself, that will never apply to such spells.

An Area of Effect Affliction could apply Magic Resistance to all beings in an area, which would disadvantage mages, but they would at least get a resistance roll.

EDIT: I think a rules-legal way to build what we want here is to note that Thaumatology (p.60) provides rules for combining Mana Damper and the Continuous Mana rules, with the net effect of charging 2 points for each -1 to casting under the damper effect (but not providing a bonus to resistance rolls as well). Slap Area Affect on this, and it should penalize all spellcasting by anyone within the area, as well as resisted spells, information spells, etc. cast on anyone within the area even if the caster is outside. A mage outside of the area can still cast missile spells without penalty (just as he can cast combat enhancements on himself and kill you with ranged weapons), but, with an area larger than the effective range of missile spells, this can cease to be a problem.

EDITEDIT: If one is bound and determined to protect oneself against Missile Spells from far-away casters, one could take some form of limited obscure to penalize to-hit rolls with such.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

How are we turning it into an area of effect? Area Effect plus Affects Others would apply magic resistance to a limited number of willing subjects...

Ah, thank you. That's what's been bothering me about this design, it has to be an Affliction to affect enemy Mages.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It would need Force Field with Affects Others and Area Effect to impact magic that crosses its border, but it has no impact within its borders (Powers, p. 107-108).

Originally Posted by ravenfish

How are we turning it into an area of effect? Area Effect plus Affects Others would apply magic resistance to a limited number of willing subjects, and any sensible mage opts out; that plus Force Field would provide the defense against everything that crosses the perimeter of the area

There's also "You must take a separate Ready maneuver to make contact with each companion" so if you wanted to adjust this during quickly during emergencies, something like "Reduced Time" might be helpful to protect many allies in less time.

Have there ever been any mechanics for being a "willing subject", like making a perception roll to actually notice your ally is trying to share their power with you at that time?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Plane

There's also "You must take a separate Ready maneuver to make contact with each companion" so if you wanted to adjust this during quickly during emergencies, something like "Reduced Time" might be helpful to protect many allies in less time.

That's actually not necessary. The confluence of Area Effect and Affects Others makes it one Concentrate Maneuver to affect everyone in your Area up to your limit of Affects Others.

Have there ever been any mechanics for being a "willing subject", like making a perception roll to actually notice your ally is trying to share their power with you at that time?

It's always been a meta thing as far as I know.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

That's actually not necessary. The confluence of Area Effect and Affects Others makes it one Concentrate Maneuver to affect everyone in your Area up to your limit of Affects Others.

"a Ready maneuver lets you affect any number of people up to your limit, if they’re in your area"

I should have kept reading!

Do you think you could take "Ranged" to project your Area Effect centred on regions outside yourself?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Plane

Do you think you could take "Ranged" to project your Area Effect centred on regions outside yourself?

Yeah, that should be the way to do it.

[Plane]

I remember you can do that with Mana Damper, just not sure if doing it with Affects Others things would be wading too far into Affliction territory. Since these ONLY affect wiling targets, probably not.

To avoid the problem of tricking someone into willing accepting your gift of DR with "costs 10 HP" and using it to kill them, I think the costs or temporary disadvantages from using an ability should only apply to the main user. Even though there are abilities like Healing where you can make them pay the FP instead of you.

[Tom H.]

I have some disagreements with assertions here regarding Magic Resistance itself.

I've been researching this carefully, but let me know if something is amiss.

I see Magic Resistance as having two distinct applications.

1. Any spell a caster casts on you has a success roll penalized by your Magic Resistance level.

Furthermore, I do not believe that you can willingly relinquish this effect.

2. If a spell is resistible, you may opt to resist it and apply your Magic Resistance as a bonus when making a resistance roll.

I believe, you can choose to relinquish this ability.

Area effect spells get more complicated.

I do not believe that a caster's success roll upon an area is penalized by Magic Resistance (especially for the reason that it would be difficult to know which subject's Magic Resistance to use if there are several subjects enveloped.)

However, the rules do indicate that if an area effect spell is also resistible, then each subject may make a resistance roll with a bonus of double his Magic Resistance level.

I presume this double bonus is to compensate for the fact that the caster never received the symmetrical Magic Resistance penalty because it was an area.

[Plane]

I think Mana Damper had an enhancement to exclude allies, so excluding allies from penalties from Magic Resistance (letting them cast on you easier) could make sense

[scc]

I think people are misunderstanding why I asked my question, only about 10% of my interest was about using this in a build, and then for a monster.

Rather my primary interest was at the theoretically level. As several people pointed out GURPS tends to assume unless the spell directly effects your body, such as mind control or transformation, then it doesn't, like in cases like Fire Ball, thus the way Magic Resistance works.

Until you apply Area Effect. Presumably the fire in a Fire Ball is being feeding off magic to remain burning until it impacts, and magic is guiding it in. Another interesting cases would be Illusion Disguise, normally Magic Resistance won't effect this spell as it doesn't do anything to you, but apply Area Effect and things change.