I'm concerned about spell contests. The new stat contests were supposed to do away with the "weighted heavily in favor of the caster" advantage, yet a magic user who should absolutely lose a stat contest against their target can still win because of magic ranks.

My problem with it is this: for every other type of contest, except maybe whatever the hell it is that bards do, the ranks of the defending player are taken into consideration. Physical attacks contest stats, but also defensive ranks. Stealth contests stats and perception. So why is it that magic ranks should give a huge bonus without actually contesting something on the other side?

I don't know what it is that the ranks should contest, since not everyone is a MU. Maybe circle. It just seems like stats don't even matter right now when dealing with a magic user of sufficient rank, but who may be otherwise completely outclassed.

I think casting on a higher level character should always be more difficult than just the contest regardless, which is very important with contests like Nissa's Binding. But especially where magic ranks alone are winning a contest, there should be something on the defending side to balance it out.

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Markat says, "Pleasant people without moral faults, going to church every week and abstaining from sins such as vanity and zombies. Feh...."

>>So why is it that magic ranks should give a huge bonus without actually contesting something on the other side?

All magic users have access to at least one spell barrier in 3.0, so that's one viable way to hold off magic.

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When in doubt, http://elanthipedia.org/

>We do have skills to contest magic. They are evasion, shield, and warding, depending on the spell.

So... You can evade Nissa's Binding, or Mental Blast? And where does it say that warding is contested in mind magic contests?

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Markat says, "Pleasant people without moral faults, going to church every week and abstaining from sins such as vanity and zombies. Feh...."

I'm not sure I understand. If you have more stats than the person in question shouldn't you be resisting? Or do you have less stats and are losing?

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

DR3.0's built around it best having 2 kinds of defense. I think that goes for magic as well.
If you can't outright dodge an arrow, it's good to have a shield. If you can't outright resist a spell, it's good to have a barrier.
They're non-damaging disablers or boosts and usually required to get past all those other barriers to do damage.
TM has to go through the barriers before you even attempt to dodge or use a shield.

If you're overpowered, you're overpowered, sometimes there's nothing you can do about that.

other than that, maybe they'll sell tin-foil helms in the artificers someday?

_________________________________
An agonizing pain fills you as you feel your tongue turn to powder in your mouth! Through a haze of uncertainty and loss, you realize that something you just said was very wrong.

>>MU using stats and magic ranks against target who uses stats only.

Debilitation ranks in SvS spells only determine success in the sense that they let the caster put more mana into a spell, which can increase the chance for success.

It doesn't actually make you cast a 10 mana debilitation spell "better". It just gives you the ability to cast it at 20, if you wanted to.

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When in doubt, http://elanthipedia.org/

>It doesn't actually make you cast a 10 mana debilitation spell "better". It just gives you the ability to cast it at 20, if you wanted to.

I'd guess that that's his complaint, the MUs can compensate low stats for magic ranks, while NMUs (read thieves, because that's pretty clear) can't change anything, don't have access to wards, etc. they have no choice but to eat the contest and can't influence it.

Granted thieves CAN buff their stats, but it's a static buff in length and potency.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

>Are we talking 1 or 2 points higher, or significantly higher? If significantly higher it sounds like a bug IMO.

Depends on how you quantify "significantly higher". High enough that I find it shocking. If a GM would look into whether it is a bug, that would be nice. But the MU seemed convinced that it was PM ranks winning the contest.

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Markat says, "Pleasant people without moral faults, going to church every week and abstaining from sins such as vanity and zombies. Feh...."

>>But the MU seemed convinced that it was PM ranks winning the contest.

The issue is that's not how magic works. All PM/Subskill does is let you put more mana into the spell.

>>Depends on how you quantify "significantly higher". High enough that I find it shocking. If a GM would look into whether it is a bug, that would be nice.

I understand that people like holding their character stats close to their chests, but it helps a ton to include actual data. What was cast at how much mana. What was that person's stats/skills. What were your stats, etc. It makes the lives of the GMs managing this stuff a bit easier (and make them capable to fix any possible errors faster) if you just provide data from the start.

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When in doubt, http://elanthipedia.org/

>The issue is that's not how magic works. All PM/Subskill does is let you put more mana into the spell.

That is my understanding of the system as well. With the same stat layout, a min cast of Spell X should have the same effect when cast by 100 or 1000 ranks of magic skill.

Attacker Stats (X,Y,Z) vs Defender Stats (A,B,C) = Outcome

IIRC, in a spell constest the Attacker stats are modified up or down by Mana used, likely with a random roll added in.

Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

>Consider it from the other direction - If putting min mana had the same effect as max mana, what would be the point of having mana in spells at all?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. But it does seem like the contest is still weighted in favor of the caster because they can inflate their stats through mana to win a contest in which they are outclassed, which means that the defender has nothing to balance the contest.

Is the role of mana too great in the contest? Mana does contribute to the duration, potency, and integrity of a spell, so why should it overwhelm the defender to the degree that it appears to?

I'd have to do more thorough testing on the subject, but the spell in the specific example I'm writing about was not even capped. It was like 80 out of 110 or something, and that was enough to win a contest against someone whose stats were decisively higher.

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Markat says, "Pleasant people without moral faults, going to church every week and abstaining from sins such as vanity and zombies. Feh...."

What are you suggesting is dec. higher? We've seen a thief use "spar" to overcome 100-200 ranks of defense and hit 4 solid hits in a row with their crossbow. Same sorta thing, wouldn't you say?


100-200 ranks overcame, with ...skill. as in magic skill it takes to pump in the mana.

Just post the numbers or stop blithering. It's an imaginary conversation without them.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.