Hi,

last game seasion we had some discussion about our different type of shields. Our party consists of a Mentalist (Psychic Shield) a Warlock (Magic Shield) and my Paladin (material Shield). But we are unsure how they work if you don't make the defense roll.

I've read all the concerning posts here, at least I think so, but my problem is not solved, although this may be a problem of understand english. These are the three threads with similar questions:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=85&efcid=3&efidt=354391&efpag=0#453698

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=85&efcid=3&efidt=403972&efpag=0#404610

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=85&efcid=3&efidt=346174&efpag=0#349106

Let's asume everyone will be attacked, they try to Block but don't make it. The Difference between Attack and Defense would result in 50% of the Damage Chart and the attacking weapon will be a Longsword hence dealing 50 damage (at 100% hit).

1) Paladin tries to block, but doesn't quit make it. He takes 25 damage (50% of 50 damage). Is a Breakage/Fortitude Roll necessary to check if the Shield will be destroyed? (IIRC such roll is allways necessary if you try to block, but I don't have the book here).

2) Warlock tries to block, but has no success. Will he take the full 50 damage or only 25? In my opinion, he can't dodge or block, since he tried to defend with his shield, am I right? Does the Magic Shield lose some of its Life Points?

3) Mentalist tries to block, but the same as the other two he isn't good enough. Will he take the full 50 damage or only 25? As above mentioned, we think he can't block or dodge anymore. Does his Psychic Shield lose some of its Life Points?

Thanks in advance.

~Sofia Corba

If you take a hit, it works the same with all three types of shields: you lose the amount of hit points indicated by the combat result table.

As for the blocking with material shields, it might require breakage checks; you'll have to cross check that with the book. My group doesn't use the breakage rules.

If you defend yourself successfully, however, the magical and the psychic shields will take damage equal to the base damage of the attack; this will be deducted from their hit points, but not from the characters hit points. Magical and psychic shields have additional advantages, though and are normally the only possibiity for the mystic and psychic classes to defend themselves.

For the most part mentalist, mage and summoner shields work the same. I do not know the official rules, but in my game if a shield blocks 50% of the damage it takes 50% of the damage and the player takes 50% of the damage, in this case 25 damage to the shield and 25 damage to the player. If the player takes more than 100% of the base damage the shield takes no damage. I do not deal with breaking a shield or weapon a player bought unless the enemy specifically attempts to break the weapon (or the players try to sunder the enemies weapon.)

Edit: Oh and yes I believe a player can attempt to dodge an attack if they fail to block, and block if they fail to dodge, but they take like a -100 penalty to the check. There is an optional rule somewhere about it, and if they have no dodge or block (like a mage/summoner/mentalist) they already take a -60, assuming high stats that is at least a -145 to the check, so they will take more damage from trying if they don't open roll well, or put points into the stat.

Kilburn's got it from how I read the book. If you suceesfully block with a superntaural shield, be it from magic, psi, or ki, the shield eats base damage of the attack. The idea is that the projection roll is to get the shield in the way of the attack, it's not just a bubble so much as a point defense system if you get my meaning. In your scenario all of them take 25 damage, 50% of 50.

If the Paladin succeeds, it's up to you if he needs to check breakage. It's an intersting mechanic for building drama in a fight but constant checks get old and might make the player feel like you're trying to take his shield away. Generally, I look at the odds of the attack breaking the shield if it's more than 50/50 I make the check. If the shield doesn't break I only check again after the player fails a block

If the warlock or the psychic succeed, their shield loses 50 points of life and they take no damage. The advantage of these shields is that they are capable of 360 degreee protection and you don't have to be aware of the attack to attempt the block, your soul/mind does it for you with your projection score.

That's my interpretation from reading the core book.

The part of this that I find hard to reconcile is this -

If I block an attack with a magic or psychic shield, the shield still takes the base damage of the attack
BUT
If I block an attack with Ki Extrusion, neither I nor my Ki take any damage, its the same as a physical shield, its just blocked.

This makes no sense to me, as there are spells inferior to Shield such as Damage Barrier, which make you immune to whatever (physical) base damage you set them to.

The way I've been running shields is: if you have a magic or psychic shield up and you succeed with your projection roll, its the same as a damage barrier - you nor your shield take any damage. If you fail your projection roll vs the attack, your shield takes 100% of the base damage. If it breaks, you take the remainder. This makes shields stronger while they can be effectively maintained, but failure is more costly.

With the current rules, even a powerfully created shield can be erased in one round if the mage is faced with multiple incoming attackes - even if he successfully blocked them all with his projection, cumulative base damage will take it down fast, whereas, if he were a Domine, he would have no such worries.

hellgeist said:

Ki Extrusion just lets you touch energy it doesn't create a shield the same way pshycic and magic shields are created. With those supernatural shields you don't suffer a lot of the ranged or target behind you penalities, with extrusion you would. Also damage barriers are not as good a shield as must people think, anything that can harm energy gets around them.

I'm not talking about overall usefulness, I'm talking about the actual function these powers are based on. Damage Barrier stops the damage, period. A magic shield takes damage from the same types of attacks. Why? Ki Extrusion lets you block or parry an energy attack without damage to yourself, but a magic shield takes damage even when it successfully blocks. Why?

In some cases a supernatural defense can and cannot prevent physical damage. In some cases a supernatural defense can and cannot block energy attacks.

In both cases, the magic shield has the crap end of the stick. Why? Thats all I'm trying to figure out.

Because psychics and mages use "projection" and domine use Block or Dodge. Projection takes half as many points because it is used for both attack and defence. For a domine to have 100 attack and defense he uses 400 DP, a wizard or mentalist uses 200DP. There has to be a disadvantage to compensate for this.

Also there is the fact that a Domine can only use 50% of his DP for Attack and Defence, 25% to each with a difference of up to 50. Therefore at level 1 he can spend 300 points, allowing 150 to attack and defense and thus +75 to each (or +50 to one and +100 to the other). At each additional level they can add 50% of their gained DP, or 50DP therefore 25DP to attack and defense, and +12.5 each level to both.

Whereas a wizard or mentalist can spend 50% of his allowed 60% of his projection, which is used as both attack and defense. Thus they can spend 50% of 360 or 180 at level 1, allowing +90 to attack and defense (Wizards can have a difference of up to 60 so +60 and +120). At each level thereafter they can spend the 50% of 60% of 100, or 30 points, adding +15 to projection each level, and therefore attack and defense.

My math states that Domine need some added effects-like shields that do not break, faster regeneration of their abilities, etc.

The two vs one argument doesn't actually stand here, as a mage must invest huge amounts of DP in MA, which must be developed at just a constant rate as their Magic Projection. Having Projection without a high MA (not to mention spending on a sufficient Zeon pool) would render them useless, as it would take them far too many rounds to gather the zeon to be competitive with anyone at all who is capable of physical combat.

Having to spend for Attack + Defense + Ki is the same as having to spend for Magic Accumulation + Magic Projection + Zeon.

hellgeist said:

To me this seems to overpower magic more than it already is. A magic shield can be generated for pretty much no cost to a wizard with enough power to passively generate a shield. No need to maintain it. Which means that a wizard with that rule would have a Damage Resistance shield of 300 + damage, every round, that he can still defend with, and if he uses his innate magic for defenses, he would never take damage unless one attack or set of attacks deals this. Not to mention if they decide to buff it. How could anyone hope to deal 1,000 or more damage to a wizard when his projection score would protect him if he pumped anything into his shields.

Also as a side note, mundane weapons DON'T deal their damage to shield of light and shield of darkness, according to their powers. I'll look it up again to be sure, but I'm fairly certain that is the case. (Which is why they generate a 300 shield vice 500. ) These shields do not suffer penalties for defending projected missiles, which by the way, most magic generates naturally. (It also has a pretty hefty penalty.) So I do not see why the mage would need a further buff. His only real restriction is his Zeon pool and Magic Accumulation score. with a little innate magic he can be a destructive force for most people, and with that ruling they'd be ridiculously unbalanced. (Granted story wise they would be feared and people would attempt to mob them, but magic shouldn't be THAT powerful at low levels for such trivial costs of zeon.)

Your right, those types of magic shield don't have to eat the base damage of a mundane physical attack, while the rest do. My main concern was that the classic image of a wizard sustaining a magic shield under an avalanche or rain of arrows would be impossible to do for most wizards unless they had a 120+ MA to quickly toss up the biggest shield they can afford, and hope that is enough to can soak all the base damage that floods in.

Unless you are a Dark or Light Wizard, you need an enormous MA to do this with the Open Access Shield spell, or your own, if it even affects physical damage.

My point is they can. If they use their Innate magic, there is not a cap to the number of times they use it, only that they use it in response to a defense. So if they choose not to maintain it, as long as they can use innate magic up to the level of the free access shield, they need only role their defense for each attack, which doesn't let them soak the entire rain if they're low level, but if they have a projection better than the rain of arrows, they need not fear it. Plus at that point, the warrior, martial artist, and psion would ALL be outmatched. The wizard actually has the best odds. He does not suffer for each ADDITIONAL attack that occurs, while the rest would. (Unless they took the defense module, and even so, they require inhumanity to defend against arrows and take a -80 to block without mastery or a -30 for using a shield, which they could not use the module with anyway.)

Really I don't see any other way to balance it. The Gift defenses would be ridiculous if they were used in that fashion the way I see it. I could maintain an infinite darkness shield, and drop it each action, meaning each attack would have to do 300 magic damage, or fail to hurt me.

shuuichikun said:

With a rain of arrows, I'd think that by the time the rain finishes its strikes, your shield would probably be hit by about 10 to 20 arrows. The open access shield does not say its immune to physical damage as the Dark/Light ones do. So even if you made your projection roll against them, (pg 92 "A shield that successfully stops an attack receives the Base Damage of that attack") that shield would still take 350-700 base damage, meaning the wizard is going to be wounded or more likely dead because of the overflow damage.

An avalanche is going to be much worse, meaning basically, dead again.

Now, the inferior spell 'Damage Barrier' would keep you 100% safe from a rain of arrows because its default resistance (40) is higher than the 35 Basd Damage arrow, so they can rain millions of arrows on you, and you will not be touched.

Sorry to create this mess on the forum about this, and I know they did this for game balance issues, but it just doesn't appear (to me) to be in keeping with what I see in the anime genre for supernatural wards and shields. In Lodoss War for example, magic shields are practically the hand of god in terms of stopping damage.

Just thinking out loud for some other options -- what if a magic shield could have 2 modes - defensive and tactical? In defense mode, they stop full damage as long as they are making successful projection tests against attacks but lose hit points if they fail - the trade would be that the wizard cannot attack, dodge, walk, or cast other spells while in full defense mode. Mode 2 is if they want to have a shield up and also perform actions (tactical mode), in which case the shield reduces to what is described in the book.

Well, the thing I think you are misunderstanding me. What I mean is that if you roll your projection, but don't maintain the shield, since you do not have to, and you can use the shield as a passive action. Also, you can use a spell as many times as you can pay for it, so with this being said, I have 0-magic that allows me to cast about 100 (not unreasonable). I cast generic shield for first arrows until damage of about 280-300 or 480-500 has been reached, drop the old shield passive, since I still have zeon left and did not pay for the maintenance yet, the next arrow comes, I throw up the shield again (it's now recovered to 300 or 500) I repeat this for each attack. Now you don't have that issue. If you're taking that many arrows though, a first level character should not have that kind of power anyway.

Additionally, if a wizard cast damage reduction, they would have to dodge or block anyway, and if they fail it, the damage reduction reduces final damage, not base. So if you chose not to defend those arrows, and say they're a standard lvl 1 ranger with 70 attack, say they roll 50 on average, thats 120, which means you'll take 44-48 damage before reduction.(Btw, a standard arrow is 40 damage) If you have that attack 20 times. You'll still be a very dead wizard. Not to mention each additional attack would incur a penalty which will made the next deal even more damage. So regardless of which spell you cast, you're a dead wizard.

hellgeist said:

Actually it does, though it does not stand purely on the 2 vs 1 principal. It stands because Domine have 10% of their points to put towards Ki and keep their attack and defense at max. Whereas a wizard has 30% to spend towards zeon and MA, and while yes MA costs 3-5 times as much as Ki Accumulation, and zeon costs effectively the same, this still makes a wizard have a practical advantage.Not to mention that a Wizard only has two stats to worry about (INT and POW) whereas a Domine has 6 (A mentalist really only cares a lot about WP for that matter). Also as noted 2 vs 1 isn't just for equal power, the mage has a Higher attack and defense.

It is fairly easy to create a level 1 mage that can not be harmed by a level 1 domine no matter what they did, at least for 5-10 rounds, and by then the wizard could do something to kill the Domine (hopefully). Warlock, warrior mentalist and Wizard mentalist have other advantages to their respective abilities. I do have more on this, but as that it seems nothing I say will persuade you on this I will move on to the current argument.

If a wizard casts Damage Barrior of 50 they can not be harmed by arrows because the base damage is 40 and therefore does not get past the damage barrior. If they use damage resistance or something it is another story.

There are a lot of advantages to magic shields - no penalty for defending against ranged attacks, they defend against AoE's better, they have Damage Barriors and can block multiple opponents at lessened penalty, the only weakness is that if the mage isn't strong enough they MIGHT break from being pounded on by enough archers to use a rain of arrows the wizard thought it was a good idea to fight (seemingly at level 1 because he wasn't smart enough to understand the implications of fighting)...Also is the Domine surviving this rain of arrows so much better than the wizard that the balance is an issue?

Thanks for your replies to this, I am not trying to be a pain in the neck though I probably an anyway

I'm going to take the things you have mentioned here and do some testing on paper so I can look at some tangible scenarios and their results.

No problem, thanks for bringing up the topic.

Side note: Again, damage barrier does not subtract from base damage, only final value. (Elsewise ,there would not be a need for the nemesis ability that directs it subtracts from base damage, and it would not be worth the mk to get if damage barrier did the same thing.)

I think you're misreading Damage Barrier... it does not actually "subtract" from anything. It is merely compared against the base damage of the weapon (meaning weapon damage + any additional bonuses that might apply, such as strength and quality). If the damage barrier value is equal or higher than the base damage, the attacker inflicts no damage at all, regardless of the combat result.

If the base damage is higher than the damage barrier value, full damage according to the combat result table is inflicted. At least, that is how I read the rules on Damage Barrier on page 218 of the english rulebook... if the spanish rulebook says it diferent, please advise. We all know that the english core rules are not really all that reliable.

However, in this discussion, it is as far as I see not really relevant. The only damage barrier spell i remember is in Creation school where all the high-powered defensive and healing effects are. If a character wants to play a healer, damage barrier is ok in my opinion. Besides, according to the old rules, it's not really all that easy to push your damage barrier to to more than, say, 60 (requiring Int 12 and 120 zeon). While Effective against arrows, it will not work against close combat attacs from any non-gimped fighter.

On the subject of shields: I personally like the idea that a wizard is not an indestructible killing machine. The shields are a nice touch and will keep you alive against a warrior that is a little lower in level or against a crows of vastly inferior infantry (with bows, if you want), but you will never reach D&D - levels of indestructability where a whole army won't be able to kill you... a lot of people should always be able to pull you down, so you cannot go around destroying stuff and showing your supernatural powers with impunity.

As for the argument that Presence Extrusion / Aura Extension doesn't hurt the character's ki when used for parrying... well, it's not really a shield in the sense of the magical and psychical shields. It's just a very thin layer of ki energy that is spread over the surface of your weapon / body that allows you to parry energy. As such it does in no way have any of the utility a real supernatural shield possesses (e.g. able to block area effects or multiple opponents without penalty). Also, you can't really hurt that ki more than you can hurt the Zeon with which you create your magical shield. If you use your ki to power a real supernatural shield (there are dominion techniques that do that, just too lazy to get my Dominus Exxet atm), then it will have the same advantages and drawbacks as the other supernatural shields... but usually a Domine will run dry of Ki long before a wizard runs out of Zeon or (Ha! Ha!) you can permanently bring down the shield of a mentalist... the mentalist problem is actually the biggest one in the equation, so that I use the houserule that while defending with a psychic shield is a passive action, it is an active action to bring it up, otherwise a mentalist would never be without a shield.