Delay Projectile (Spell)

[PTTG]

Delay Projectile
Movement, Protection and Warning

The caster creates an energy field that stops projectiles in flight, up to 1 yard away and at most 2x2 yards wide.
The wall has infinite (non-cosmic) hardness and 10 DR per point spent on it. It does not have HP and cannot be destroyed like a physical object (it is constantly being replenished by the caster).

When the spell ends, all frozen projectiles resume their speeds instantly. Stationary targets may still be hit!

By paying double cost and ending the spell, all projectiles trapped in the field lose this stored speed relative to the caster, and will fall normally

Explosives - either those inside the field or near it - still produce a concussion if triggered, but any shrapnel will be caught by the field.

Lasers pass through unaffected, but plasma and other "stabilized energy" weapons may be caught and dissipate harmlessly, at the GM's option. Spell "projectiles" depend on the nature of the spell, but for the most part should be treated as a very small, light projectile.

The caster cannot "carry" the trapped projectiles- they are stationary relative to his motion when he cast the spell. If he were to cast the spell on a train and catch a bullet, then so long as the train continued forward at the same speed, the bullets would hover in the middle of the car. If the track turned or the train sped or slowed, the bullets would appear to "drift."

Duration: 1 second
Cost: 1 per 10 DR per second. Caster may double the cost to double the area of the field and so on.
Time to cast: 2
Prerequisite: Deflect Missile

Ok, TRY to misuse this spell! I think I've covered the big things. There's one minor way you could munchkin it, but I think that's a fairly minor one considering that it'd take two people and a lot of time and energy.

[T.K.]

Couple broken points imo:

- You don't use the anchoring normally found on domes, requiring a big enough surface to anchor it, neither anchor it to the mage like a Shield would, following the mage and maintaining it's relative positioning, nor use Wall mechanics that obey the place they're built upon...so, your spell is a special snowflake in how it works (which by itself is not necessarily wrong), what could lead to inconsistencies or problems along the way;

- The way your wording is done, it means any and all projectiles WILL be stopped no matter what, but will get reduced in damage by the DR built into it. That means when the Almighty Greater God of Pwnage throws his Godly Spear of Doom and Painful Despair it WILL be stopped, The part where you say its non-cosmic its for the Hardness, so such Spear would have an AD but since the spell always stop the projectile, it WILL stop it and simply not reduce the damage which basically doesn't matter at all, since you move out of the way.

- What happens with the projectiles if someone try to pick it up when its being hold?

- "Projectiles" is EXTREMELY open-ended... so a SM+7 giant throws a relative SM to him boulder onto your heads...the spell as it is WILL stop it (this is a problem shared with Deflect and Missile Shield, but since you're making a spell may as well fix it along).
If you're falling from a high place, can you cast it reversed ahead of you and threat your falling body as a projectile and safely stall your fall before you go splat?
What prevents an adventuring party from casting it a couple yards high, throwing a lance with a rope on it, using the rope to climb up and use the stopped lance as holding point to reach a higher place? (not really a problem, just foreseeing possibilities that might or might not be intended)

- 1 FP is extremely low and allows fubar stuff. With considerably low investment a mage could easily keep 2 or 3 of these around for as long as they desire, allowing even more positional shenanigans or abuse.


- Not really an exploit but In like 3 or 4 rounds an adventuring party could get 1 of these up, throw a previously held Acid Ball of 9D to be hold first (this will hit first if we follow the logic of first come first goes and be the opening, reducing the armor of the target considerably) than the ranger/scout could shoot as many arrows/bolts/bullets he can per turn while the other party member setup the high priority target in place, most desirably with its back to this, if possible.

With notice of incoming target ahead of time, they could even build a point into a corridor or corner with like 3 of these set, maintaining them costless until the target is pulled to the slaughtering point. Not gamebreaking, but strong enough to allow some quite formidable targets to be brought down if set up correctly.

[PTTG]

I had the field remain in place as a way to keep people from shooting it full of arrows in one place, then carrying it over to somewhere else an releasing it.

Dang, I forgot to say that any projectiles that overcome the DR pass through as though slowed- so a 1d+1 bullet that does 6 damage is stopped by a 10 DR shield, but a 6d+1 anti-material round doing 20 damage is reduced to a 10 damage attack and passes through. The God of Pwnage would punch through effectively unchanged.

I suppose that projectiles are effectively held in soft jell- you couldn't stand on a floating arrow, but you could sweep them around, and if you push a projectile out of the field, it'll resume its speed on a new course.

Same point with size- the DR is there to classify in part what counts as a projectile. I need to add some clear meaning.

Agreed. I based it off of the Deflect Projectiles cost, but now I realize that that was 1FP per attack, so I think it might be more fair to drop it down to 1FP per DR per Sq Yard per Second.

I think the cost increase should put arrow-storing beyond the means of most party mages.

[T.K.]

A solution that I normally use for these cases is increasing the cost to maintain the spell but keep the cost to cast considerably low.

That means that you still allow inventive casters to use it with considerably low cost for a single turn (Let's say Cost to Cast 2) but makes it highly prohibitive to keep it up for prolonged periods of time (Lets say Cost to Maintain 4).