11-06-2022, 10:36 AM | #31 |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
Critical hits would interfere with Blocking Spells like Deflect Missile since crit hits prohibit active defenses, but Reverse Missiles doesn't use your active defense - it's a Regular Spell so I don't think a Critical Hit would interfere with how it operates in any way, unless you had it prepped via Reflex.
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11-06-2022, 11:11 AM | #32 | |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The Athens of America
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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Each GM runs their own game of course but an 'archer's' skill does not negate a magical effect. If an 'archer' rolled a 3 attempting to shoot a mage protected by a Force Dome spell I would not have the 'arrow' pass through and hit the mage. I do not see a substantial difference with Reverse Missiles. There are extant counters and tactics to deal with mages, this spell IMHO is no different nor do I see a reason to treat it differently. But as always Rule #1 is it's the GM's game.
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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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11-06-2022, 12:22 PM | #33 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
Even so it doesn't seem right that the defender could benefit in any way from the attacker's lucky roll which is why I think the attacker certainly wouldn't get the benefits of a critical hit and I would go so far as to say the arrow would go astray thanks to a bit of wind, a chance obstacle, or just enough unplanned movement on the attacker's part. It's not changing how the spell works, just the chance permutations of the arrows course back to its origin point.
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11-06-2022, 04:58 PM | #34 | |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The Athens of America
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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Personally as a 'combat' spell I prefer Invisibility to Reverse Missiles. It is cheaper to cast and an Invisible Mage is generally safer than one under Reverse Missiles, can do a lot more offensively, and it is a much better general utility spell. Of course I also 80+% of the time tend to take Luck to keep from being Frelled over by the dice...because it can happen. The case we are speaking of would be just one of many.
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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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11-06-2022, 06:37 PM | #35 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pioneer Valley
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
(nods) With the 4th edition change, at this point, anyone who doesn't take Luck (except under the most extreme CP pressure, for RP considerations, or under GM veto) as immunization against critical failures is selling their characters badly short.
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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. |
11-06-2022, 09:17 PM | #36 | |
Join Date: Sep 2011
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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11-07-2022, 02:42 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
Yeah, that. Note that any kind of physical reversal process runs up against the problem of what happens if the shooter moved, and the more serious one that it would almost always fail to threaten the shooter even if he has not. The missile should hit his weapon, or smoothly return to his quiver, or pass through the point in space where the end of his sling was when he released the string....
The downside of the magic being able to hit the shooter anyway is that logic would suggest it should be fairly trivial to design a variant spell that uses a similar process to propel something the mage tosses randomly into the air so that it infallibly hits the eye slits of anyone he designates as the "shooter", possibly at hypersonic speeds at ranges over the horizon, given that the Reverse spell seems to work on such projectiles. Now you need a second justification for why magic does something that doesn't make sense to prevent that, which is likely to require a third and a fourth and... It may be better to just call it from the beginning, it's magic, it doesn't make sense, and stop wasting time trying to figure it out or develop exploits. The downside there is some exploits are pretty cool, and it's a shame to lose them. There really is no good way to balance all of those in a way that doesn't involve case by case arbitrary rulings. Mind you if magic is sapient, which a lot of evidence seems to support, the spell spirits or whatever might well [change their minds] from casting to casting and alter what exploits do or don't work from day to day.
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11-07-2022, 05:04 AM | #38 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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For the case of Force Dome, I had thought there was an "Ignores target's DR" result on the Critical Hit Table, but apparently there isn't. With that in mind, it's probably inappropriate for there to be a chance to bypass Reverse Missiles - in a sense, Force Dome gives Infinite DR against everything, Missile Shield gives Infinite DR against Missiles Only, and Reverse Missiles upgrades Missile Shield's Infinite DR to have Reflective - but I'd still argue for the return missile to miss the attacker, so there's at least some benefit to having a Critical Success.
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11-07-2022, 08:01 AM | #39 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
Okay, that I'll buy. It still doesn't cover the missile's ability to track a moving shooter, but, as you say, it's magic.
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11-07-2022, 08:39 AM | #40 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"
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I think I'd rule that a critical hit to someone with Reverse Missiles up would still bounce back and hit the shooter, but only as an ordinary hit. I've already established a ruling (it came up in play) that reversed shots hit randomly rolled locations, regardless of whether the original shot was aimed at a specific location or not.
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