Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Varyon

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.

LoL I guess I am not that nice...

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.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Witchking

LoL I guess I am not that nice...

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.

I generally go by a rule that a Critical Success should not be worse than a normal Success. Your initial suggestion, that a character who rolls a Critical Success against a foe with Reverse Missiles up shouldn't get a chance to get out of the way of the returning missile (which apparently characters who have normal Successes do) would clearly violate that. Anything that mimics a Critical Failure, such as the character's weapon breaking, I feel would also violate that. Treating it like a normal Success (normal chance to defend) would be acceptable, as would an option making it better than a normal Success - the returning missile missing outright, the character getting a bonus (probably +2) on their Dodge to avoid getting hit by the returning missile, or even having the character miss, would all be acceptable. My initial suggestion of having a chance to bypass the spell or have the missile reverse into a different target probably goes too far in the other direction (although I do like the idea that such protection isn't absolute).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I generally go by a rule that a Critical Success should not be worse than a normal Success.).

How about the principle that a Reverse Missiles should always be more useful than a Missile Shield or even not casting the Spell at all?

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.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I generally go by a rule that a Critical Success should not be worse than a normal Success.

In normal circumstances I agree. However the Reverse Missiles in the example makes the circumstances different for me at least.

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...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

How about the principle that a Reverse Missiles should always be more useful than a Missile Shield or even not casting the Spell at all?

That's not a rule I would subscribe to, just as I don't subscribe to the rule that a Critical Success must always be better than a regular Success (or using a Fine weapon must always be better than using a Good one, or similar). To get the reductio ad absurdum out of the way, Reverse Missile isn't always more useful than a Missile Shield or not having cast the spell at all when up against a melee attack. Also, it's actually worse than having not cast a spell at all when someone uses Detect Magic, as they can now detect you.

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).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

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.

Oh no. When you've paid for Reverse Missiles but only get Missile Shield you're worse off then. By several FP and your blown tactical planning as well.

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.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Oh no. When you've paid for Reverse Missiles but only get Missile Shield you're worse off then. By several FP and your blown tactical planning as well.

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.

A character who has a Balanced Superfine Nanothorn Thrusting Broadsword, Weapon Bond with it, a compatible Weapon Master, and several levels of Improved Parry (Broadsword) has invested a sizable sum of money and points into being an absolute monster when it comes to Parrying melee attacks - he/she has a sizable bonus to Parry (+1 from Balanced+Weapon Bond, plus whatever levels of Enhanced Parry he/she has taken), can readily Parry multiple attacks in a round, and damages whatever weapons he/she Parries.

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.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

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.

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).

[ravenfish]

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.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

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.

True this also brought to my mind that how much of a investment Reverse Missiles is depends on the base assumptions of a campaign.

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.