Spellcasting tactics

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Sure. Its actually more workable than the archery method since it doesn't necessarily require someone to be out of melee, either. But the question was, was spending an action and a magic point, on an effect that _might_ work, worth it just to do two damage points and _possibly_ stop someone casting a Heal 2? With bigger spells it could be more attractive, since someone casting a long time was bound to be doing something you didn't want, but then, those people were more likely to have a high Power, Countermagic, or both, too.

Yes, agreed. But I think it is worth it, or at least as worth as disrupting somebody and doing 2 points WITHOUT disrupting a healing 2.
And with the larger spells, the melee attack has enough time to land.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Easy to do (or not too difficult with a higher DEX), quite impossible in the other case.

Unless you both have a _much_ higher Dex than the other, its _very_ hard, and you need a pretty large weapon to boot. After all, other than (as I recall) the lance, all other weapons add at least 1 SR, so even if you're huge, you're at worst going to tie them, which will not interrupt the spell.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Yes, agreed. But I think it is worth it, or at least as worth as disrupting somebody and doing 2 points WITHOUT disrupting a healing 2.
And with the larger spells, the melee attack has enough time to land.

Well, to be honest, I'm not particularly convinced time taken doing Disruption _was_ usually useful. It could be good against heavily armored opponents (because it blew by), but at the lower end where you were facing people most likely to care, not have a high power, and not have countermagic up, it was also pretty likely to fail, and at least in some versions of RQ, typically made you more vulnerable to enemy spell attack yourself. And it wasn't like the typical character had a lot of magic points/Power to burn at that range. One the whole, I have to wonder if your time wasn't better spent usually just trying to hit him; you weren't necessarily much less likely to hit, and you at least had a chance of doing more than the net 4 points of damage you were dealing with the Disrupt (since you were stopping a small healing and doing a bit more).

Longer spells are a different story, but by the time you were hitting people doing much longer ones, the chance of success with a quickly case Disrupt wasn't all that exciting in the first place.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Unless you both have a _much_ higher Dex than the other, its _very_ hard, and you need a pretty large weapon to boot. After all, other than (as I recall) the lance, all other weapons add at least 1 SR, so even if you're huge, you're at worst going to tie them, which will not interrupt the spell.

You told to put the haling 2 at the end of the round, after you took damage.
What I'm telling is that if you wait for the end of the MR, somebody that declares his action after you (=that has a higher DEX) cal land his attack right in the middle of your preparation and disrupt it.

But if you put the healing 2 at the start of the MR, I agree with you, almost no melee attack can disrupt it.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

...
Longer spells are a different story, but by the time you were hitting people doing much longer ones, the chance of success with a quickly case Disrupt wasn't all that exciting in the first place.

It seems to me that on this one, we agree. For large healing spells, disruption is useless compared to a simple melee attack, that is more likely to land and to interupt the casting.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Well, to be honest, I'm not particularly convinced time taken doing Disruption _was_ usually useful. It could be good against heavily armored opponents (because it blew by), but at the lower end where you were facing people most likely to care, not have a high power, and not have countermagic up, it was also pretty likely to fail, and at least in some versions of RQ, typically made you more vulnerable to enemy spell attack yourself. And it wasn't like the typical character had a lot of magic points/Power to burn at that range. One the whole, I have to wonder if your time wasn't better spent usually just trying to hit him; you weren't necessarily much less likely to hit, and you at least had a chance of doing more than the net 4 points of damage you were dealing with the Disrupt (since you were stopping a small healing and doing a bit more).
...

Trying to interupt the healing with a disruption does not preclude hitting him in melee. It is a complement.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[badcat]

There is quite a bit of room for tactics with the spells from Magic World. You have Countermagic, Protection, Fire/Frost, Ward, Conjure/Dismiss Elemental... and you can expand on it with many of the older, similar, magic systems like Arcanum. An 'identify spell' skill and magic intiative system could even develop into a nice magic duelling system, I'd think.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Sure, that works, but it has two problems:

1. If the target is in melee with one of your own side, which is often the case with the healing spell, you either have a relatively low chance to hit, fire late, or have a good chance of hitting the wrong person;

We rarely would cast heal on ourselves while in melee. If some is badly injured he would usually pull back or seek help from others. Otherwise he either losses an attack or has a delayed Strike rank and could wind up back where he was before casting.


Firing late is sort of a non-issue, thanks to bows going of at DEX SR.


Speedart and Multimissle both help with the low cancel thing, and also help to ensure that some damage will get through. Speedart was one of the nastiest little spells in the game, and multimissle was worse. If the arrow bounces, firearrow the jerk. Nothing like Shiskaduck after a long day's adventuring. In fact, RQ probably had the nasties archer magic in any RPG.
If fun and games time is over, toss up a few points of Multilmissle and play machinegun.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

2. It requires you to either outnumber the opponents or have good control of the battlefield, since archers are, themselves, good targets because they don't have a shield prepped and don't even really have a decent parrying weapon. They can still dodge, but RQ3 Dodge tended to be a specialists art because of how quickly any encumberance at all chewed it up.

So, yes, it did happen, but not enough to really impact the field utility of things like Heal 2.

Nah, I requires a decent missile skill and Multimissle. A high DEX doesn't hurt. Worst slaughter I even saw in RQ involved an Elf PC with Mutimisle a DEX SR 1 and a one use Arrow Trance spell (and some people thing non-resuable Divine Magic isn't worth it!). 15 shots a turn. So what if only three can impale. It was the freaking 18 point criticals that bypassed armor that are the real problem. Increible vicious offense, and his elf bow was down 4 MPs.

All it takes is multimissle and you have the foes outnumber and control of the battlefield. Unless you are up against some real heavy hitters, your new SMG will do the job. Toss in a few points of Mobility (another often ignored gem) and they can't get you.



One thing that helps is the declaration phase. If you know what the other guys are doing you can declare accordingly.

Of course as with any other tactic, the situation makes a difference. One common tactic in RQ was to break the group up into three man teams with two warriors screening an archer.

RuneLords had a ton of creative tactics and uses of magic. Many of those would slaughter people who didn't have their battle magic down.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by badcat

There is quite a bit of room for tactics with the spells from Magic World. You have Countermagic, Protection, Fire/Frost, Ward, Conjure/Dismiss Elemental... and you can expand on it with many of the older, similar, magic systems like Arcanum. An 'identify spell' skill and magic intiative system could even develop into a nice magic duelling system, I'd think.

Well,it is similar to/based on battle magic, so most of those spells could be adaptated, as could several RQ era tactics.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

RuneLords had a ton of creative tactics and uses of magic. Many of those would slaughter people who didn't have their battle magic down.

Either good tactical options or such gross skills/magic/powers that they need almost no options. I had powerful Sword of Humakt floating around that could literally wade into combat with anyone and pretty much ignore all the incoming attacks and could guarantee killing two people per round, regardless of armor, skill, or magic on the other side. Even if he didn't kill, he always knock back so far that they couldn't return the attack and frequently took other people out on their flight through the air.

Then, I have a Wind Lord in my longterm campaign that has some powerful tactical options from spells like "Teleport" and "Guided Teleport" to get in quick powerful strikes on someone that is completely unprepared. Anyone tough gets tossed around by powerful sylphs, which insta-kill pretty much any human. In actual combat, he can wade in and let his Shadow Cat (w/ Pow 32) cast spells from a hidden position and go through every time...if nothing else.

Those characters, along with a few others, have demonstrated beyond all doubt that RQ really does handle high powered characters quite well, despite some claims I've seen.