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FASA Games, Inc. • water, air interface
Page 1 of 2

water, air interface

Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 11:06 pm
by emeketos
discussion came up in my current game about spell effects with water.

Can you target a mook swimming underwater w/ fireball or lightning. both have some odd effects if you pull reality into it. ie if the fireball explodes underwater its going to get real messy considering the uncompresseablity of water and how human bodys do compress in very painful ways.
could you target swimming t'skrangs with a lightning spell while they swim. would it hit any of them, all of them or none of them. part of me is saying its magic don't try to rationalize it works

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 2:03 am
by ChrisDDickey

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 2:34 am
by The Undying
Short answer: it's magic, don't over complicate it.

Long answer: Are you prepared to increase defense or lower attack steps when people swing weapons in windy conditions? Are you prepared to increase defense or lower attack step when attacking upward (opponent has high ground)? Are you prepared to increase defense or low attack step when ranged combatants attempts to shoot into these types of situations (e.g., through water)? If your answer is no to any of this, then there's really no reason to needlessly gimp magic - it's magic, let it be magic.

This is just a slippery slope. The MOST I could personally see would be opposing elements - e.g., trying to launch a fireball into water might provide some type of defense bonus - but even that opens the door too much (e.g., does that mean Air Armor is technically less effective against stone/metal weapons?).

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 6:24 am
by etherial

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 7:14 am
by The Undying
The keywords are meant to interact with other things based on that keyword. For example, "Resist Element - Fire" provides additional armor against spells (and other effects) that use the keyword Fire. Similarly, if you had something that said "When successfully cast, Fire spells achieve an extra affect," then it only triggers based on spells with the keyword Fire.

As I'd mentioned earlier, if you're going to start nerfing things "because it makes sense," you really need to start applying that logic EVERYWHERE, which is an insanely long and twisty road.

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 8:17 am
by Slimcreeper
I heartily reject the idea that I need to apply logic everywhere! <grin>

The goal is to maintain suspension of disbelief and to make a great scene, and that balance is going to be different at every table. To me, I think the water would offer cover as well armor against a fireball, but against the lightening cover but not armor. I would probably have the lightning do burst damage against nearby people in the water. Not because it is realistic, but because I want characters to dive into the water to get away from the fireball wielding mage. If in the narrative the wind is intense - fighting on the pitching deck of an airboat above the Throal Mountains, on a missed melee attack the character might have to make a knockdown test, or something like that.

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 8:21 am
by Baravakar

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 5:55 pm
by emeketos
So basicly the spells act like shadowrun spells they take a shortcut through astral space and appear at the target. You just need to deal with the partial cover provided by the water.

Fireball underwater well I am glad reality doesn't work here. if it did It would triple the radius and the damage. First you have the explosion trying to compress the incompressible water in an expanding shock wave at the same time the fireball boils the water around the explosion to create an even bigger shock wave as the boiled water tries to expand outward. You don't want to be anywhere near that trust me.

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 2:26 am
by ChrisDDickey

Re: water, air interface

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 5:47 am
by The Undying
I'm fond of two phrases when it comes to ED. One is "it's magic; let it be magic." The other is "ED is not a simulator" (in the sense that 'simulator' games try to be realistic).

If you're looking for a game with a bunch of simulation modifiers, ED (from the system perspective) is not for you. There are no flammability ratings, nor heat transfer rules, nor partial coverage of armor. If you are hit by a 'Elemental Spear - Fire', you are hit by a spear made of fire and receive your base armor, plus any catch-all fire modifiers, plus any Fire-specific modifiers. You do not get +2 armor because you are wet, -1 because you are wearing a robe made of cloth, -50% armor because you are hit in the forearm and leather armor only has half-length bracers, +2 damage because this is the second time you were hit and the residual heat from the last hit causes overall greater burns, and so on, and so on. At the end of the day, you do do, play the game [system] you enjoy, but realize that the further afield you go, the further you are from playing the game ED was designed to be.

As for letting magic be magic, magic does not abide by physics or modern-day logic. Magic is magic. The Fireball spell manifests a massive explosion of fire at a spot visible to the magician within range of the spell. Not on a thing that is flamable - midair is perfectly fine. Not conditional on having a clear path equal to the diameter of the sphere - viewing through a keyhole is just fine (assuming you meet the other casting requirements). Not in a place where there is sufficient oxygen to power the flame. And so on, and so on.

Finally, on some of you points:

- Weaving a kernel of a True Element into something does not [necessary] grant the item (nor container or covered things) improved protection from the opposing element. Nothing in the rules says or implies this. Weaving of True Elements imparts beneficial aspects of that element to the item with specific enchanting purposes in mind, which is the basis for nearly all the 'magic' goods. For example, one cannot wrap a Bedroll of Comfort around oneself and suddenly get improved armor versus wood (Bedroll of Comfort containing a kernel of True Air ... assuming I'm remembering my oppositions correctly). Similarly, the item is not [necessarily] more vulnerable to an element opposing the woven True Element. If that were the case, Bedrolls of Comfort would rapidly decay as they are spread out upon the open earth.

- Stone Rain targets an area, not an individual. As a result, it's perfectly logical that someone could take shelter from it. It also requires a cloud, so I do not believe it can be cast anywhere but with clear access to open sky (i.e., not manifesting under a roof).