Dust Devil Spell - need a lot of clarifications

[galafrone]

absolutely agreeing with you on all your post.
the wizard in the group i Gm uses
aura strike (that shifts to mind dagger if the combat goes well, since he stop buffing)
iron hand
dust devil
and another one that may depend from the situation
he isnt using counterspell because of the low level (4 circle) but i think he will as soon as he reach 5 (and willforce)
the 5th circle is really a ditch for all the magicians

[Telarus_KSC]

I think by Line-of-Sight, Ladrillon might be referencing the Cover and Casting into a Melee rules (ED3-PG, p232). I would grant a cover/crowd modifier to anyone with cover, and if that made their spell defense the "Highest" then that sets the new target number.

Let us take a peek at what happens in astral space when the caster starts Dust Devil. As a clarification, yes AoE Targets work differently in ED than many other games I've seen. The key is that many AoE spells effect up to Spellcasting Rank Targets within the area of effects.

The Wizard has at least one round of Threadweaving to go through. As he pulls mana in through his spell matrix, he weaves some of it back into the matrix to increase the matrix's "complexity/capacity/etc" to hold the full spell pattern. This is a huge charge of mana potential, and it tends to ground itself into reality when the spell pattern is complete.

The Wizard has 2 (or more) rounds (Threadweaving, then Spellcasting) to look around and determine Targets. When casting an AoE spell, the caster must then decide on first the Area Effected (by placing a point or designating a center hex that is within spell Range), and then decide Targets effected within the AoE (as many AoE spells only effect up to Spellcasting Rank in targets). Once the caster has noted his targets, the mana begins to discharge towards the targets location in anticipation of the spell effect going off. The book describes this as an "astral arc". The astral arcs to the targets must be completed before the effect can successfully manifest.

So, while the dust storm begins to billow out from the caster, the spell is dumping mana at the targets' locations in astral space. This intensifies the general effects of the Dust Devil around the chosen targets (you might say they each get their own "little dust devil" inside the general stormy conditions), harassing each of them with much more wind and sand (or Fire, or Blizard, etc for other spells) than those surrounding the targets.

Yeah, this means I can launch a fire-ball into a crowded room, simply singe most people's eyebrows/hats, and yet somehow completely torch 4 individuals spread among the crowd. If I rolled really, really well.

This is the exact situation where the cover/"into melee"/crowd modifiers are there for.

[galafrone]

yep, but dust devil doesnt ask for that Telarus.
that was my point, but for mataxes, there isnt any los troubles firing a dust devil, picking up 5 different targets and spellcasting on the highest def WITHOUT LOS effects.

[Telarus_KSC]

"highest spell defense among the target group" to me means highest among the Rank# of Targets specified.

Why wouldn't you use cover/intervening-characters?

[galafrone]

[Avantio]

I think LOS/Crowd rules apply. Going with Mataxes explanation, Fireball would not be affected by LOS/Crowd rules either as long as you have clear LOS to a spot on the ground where you want your fireball to impact. Which of course is incorrect.
I see it just like Telarus explaned - the effect has to "wash over" all targets in range and the magician wants to affect only some of them - that makes it harder to do. And this is reflected in the LOS/Crowd rules.
So LOS is applied to "target" not "range".

[galafrone]

i fully agree with you avantio and telarus
otherwise will be too easy to single out folks in the middle of a grand melee

[Mataxes]

Yeah, I have to take a step back on that and say that LOS penalties should probably apply.

(Personally, I almost never use them, but that's me. I don't use them for missile/ranged attacks either.)

[galafrone]

i agree that los penalties are too much against ranged attacks (spell or missile whatever) in the way a RPG will develop.
I always found hard for "ranged" to be as effective as melees in any RPG i made in the last 30 years.
i am trying to start encounters in a different range (so to give ranged some round of fire without problems), but when it comes to melee (and IT comes basically always) the LOS penalty is a drastic measure of troubles.
having PhiDef (or Spel Def) augmented by 2-4 all the times not encourage a ranged to play ANY game, until you lift those penalties

in terms of realism that penalty NEED to be enforced, but at the same time it creates a barrier for those disciplines that actually use range to be useful to the party

but anyway, this evening the wizard used again the Dust Devil, we applied the LOS hindrances and we were satisfied by the results
it was more realistic for sure

thanks all for the contribute to the discussion, i love this community (and this game)