Stories from RhyDin & The Rings

1. Does R/R stun? Never covered. I'd assume if so it affects only those two.

2. FF hits for 1 against nothing, but shield hits for 0. This is a contradiction, sort of. It seems to make sense, yet there are no rules that state why. DoM doesn't have offensive/defensive spell definitions, unless were assuming the DoS rules, in which case R would be too?

If they do hit, it looks like they hit for their maximum potential? So R would hit for 1 against null? Either that or there should be definitions so FF is placed under attacks.

FF hits for 1 against nothing, but shield hits for 0.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Perhaps you can eloborate? A foul fog/shield round is not a null round. And the foul fog spell can score a full point against several other spells, a shield can score half a point against several other spells.

DoM doesn't have offensive/defensive spell definitions, unless were assuming the DoS rules, in which case R would be too?

But DoM is not DoS. DoM has its own rules and quirks. There only four spells in DoM that the matrix considers defensive spells only. I say 'the matrix' because I have seen and have RPed those instances as offensive, too. The four are shield, displace, armor and ghostform.

All other spells can be used offensive and defensive.

Does R/R stun? Never covered. I'd assume if so it affects only those two.

The coordinators are considering this situation. We will put up a post once we decided on it. It's one of those instances that never came up before.

Edit: Sorry for posting under the SN, I was intending on reading.

Topaz wrote:

FF hits for 1 against nothing, but shield hits for 0.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Perhaps you can eloborate? A foul fog/shield round is not a null round. And the foul fog spell can score a full point against several other spells, a shield can score half a point against several other spells.

By nothing, I meant fizzle spell or megabrawl empty. In the megabrawl, FF against nothing (because the person's secondary was already used) meant FF hit for a full point. Shield hit for 0 in a similar situation.

I found this interesting because there used to be fizzle spells in the rules, which seems logically the same as what happens in megacast when the 'defender' has no spell to defend with.

Fizzling would happen for various reasons, I actually used to do it a lot on purpose. I remember shield would hit for 0 against a fizzle(along with R,D, G, and A), and that FF either 0 or .5 against a fizzler. The only reason I classify all these spells as defensive is I believe the old AOL ruleset actually had headers of offense/defense. I remember that to hit a fizzler you had to do an offense spell. I would fizze on purpose for RP, knowing there was a decent chance the round would be null.

I know the matrix has changed, but was wondering if there's a clear definition of what spells do against a fizzler. Note every other spell I didn't mention hits for a point. The only reason I mentioned the DoS rule is it seems DoM is following the rule of thumb of 'Spells which normally do a whole point of damage are offensive'. Except that FF doesn't normally do a whole point, but is treated as such I guess.

It seems the situation has changed, probably due to the matrix change. However it was never really mentioned anywhere as I recall, and differs distinctly from what I remember. So FF as I remember did either 0 or possibly .5 against a fizzler, but now does a full point against a fizzle(or no spell from defender). Using the rule of thumb, I get R and I as well?

So to clarify and sum up my observations about what happens now:

FF, I and R do full points against a fizzle or no spell.
S,A,D,G do nothing.

First, what happens during RFx2 in a brawl. I addressed this in chat right before the final round of the Megacast. Topaz seemed to approve of the plan at the time. If you're using Arbiter to call the brawl, here's what you do. You'll notice in the spell list, at the very bottom, one called (null). This move is present in all three matrices. Basically what it does is grant any move used against it the maximum score it can possibly receive, even defenses. It's basically a penalty for inaction or some other royal screwup. Nobody really told me what I should do with this move, so I made that decision on my own. I made that decision as well with what moves are considered attacks, but that's coming up next.

You might have noticed during the Megacast that this happened: "Ahni attacks self with (null). That wasn't very smart. ( 0.0 )" This was where she was having internet problems, and I decided to do this so that we wouldn't have to hold up the brawl. I chose to have her use the null spell as both her primary and secondary move, and to have her target herself. The reason I did this was because by attacking herself, she wouldn't interrupt the flow of the rest of the brawl. I could have used a defensive move against herself and ignored the red box the next round if she wanted to use it once she got back, but I chose null because I didn't want to mess with that, and also because it's not fair where the secondary defensive move is concerned. I chose null there because everything beats it. Anyone targeting her would have automatically scored, and then she would have been defenseless. Really, though, she should have been rendered defenseless instantly, because null spell behavior is inconsistent with defenseless behavior. That's something I'll fix in the current code, for the 0.6 release.

So, I just went on that gigantic tangent. The point is, combatants who are inactive should double null at self. If they stay inactive for too many rounds, take them out of the brawl by setting their HP to 0 or checking the X checkbox. And that's also what should happen when two combatants RF each other. For the round after, they should both double null at themselves, stunning them and instantly rendering them defenseless. However, when there are only two people left and they RFx2, the round counter should just be incremented. That leaves a case like what happened in the Megacast. The double reflection resulted in an elimination, bringing it down to two people, one of which was not in that interaction. Assuming this all had been worked out before hand, that would leave Gwen stunned, and Rhaine not stunned. I would have Gwen use null, and Rhaine could pick whatever spell to take advantage of that opening, even a defensive one if she wanted.

Something else I would consider for RFx2 is to make both combatants stunned for the remainder of that round as well. It wouldn't make sense for them to be able to attack or defend after stunning themselves, would it? I'd have to make an exception in the code for that, but I don't mind doing it if you guys want it. If we're going to go that route, I'll see what I can do about automatically stunning them for the next round so that no user interaction is required.

As for what classifies as an attack... like I said before, that's just a decision I made myself. No one told me where I should go with it, so I made that decision based on how most people RP those moves. In the case of a Foul Fog, you can send it out to choke up your defenseless opponent. Whereas in the case of Reflection, it's just a reflective shield. I mean, what are you gonna do with it? Take it over to them and bash them over the head with it? Reflection is designed to use someone else's attack against them. So no attack, no point. Immolation is also counted as an attack, even though its likeliness of actually being used in a brawl is pretty low.

Just because I'm the Arbiter maintainer doesn't mean these behaviors are absolute. I made the tool for you guys, so you guys absolutely get a say in how it works. If you want any of these behaviors changed, let's talk about it.

In a mega cast, if a defensive spell is used as the primary (targeted) spell and the target does not have a spell active to counter it, the defensive spell will score an advantage.

If the defensive spell is cast as secondary spell and not used it logically can't score.


If for example you cast
Foul fog Target Name, shield

and by the time your spell hits the target the target already has both its spells used up, your foul fog will score a point.

If you've been targeted by someone other than you targeted, the shield will come into play. If now another dueler has named you as a target in the same round, you've nothing left to throw back, and whatever was aimed at you get's the highest possible score... in case of armor, shield, displace and ghost form, that would be half a point.

You also need to keep in mind that in a mega cast, everything in a round happens simultaniously and the casting over 20 plus rounds is constantly, without the ooc breaks to call rounds.

So for Reflection vs. Reflection... in that instance each of the caster already got two spells ready and fired off by the time they stun each other, then they're out for the time of one regular round. They come to again to get right back to casting spells after that time period is over.

Round 3:
caster 1: Reflection, Caster 2, shield
caster 2: Reflection, Caster 1, armor

They are now both stunned, but still with shield and armor respectively floating around.

Round 4: Neither one gets around to cast anything, standing around dazed or temporarily blinded or however you'd like to RP it. They can still get hit though, same as people who's spells already encountered other spells.

Round 5: They can cast again.

Topaz wrote: There only four spells in DoM that the matrix considers defensive spells only. I say 'the matrix' because I have seen and have RPed those instances as offensive, too. The four are shield, displace, armor and ghostform.

Like Topaz said, we're already roleplaying some of those defensive interactions as if there was some kind of contact between the duelists? If I displace inside someone's shield, I'll usually tap them or blast them to RP why I gained an advance. Or with Ghostform versus armor, the ghostform gets an advance even though both are defensive spells. I often throw my shield at an opponent as well, even if it loses. In the case of a megacast, I could even see someone RPing that they created a suit of armor that attacked their defenseless opponent for the advance.

So I could definitely understand the RP stand point if "defensive" spells gain an advance if it goes unhindered.

Ok. So we seem to have a consensus from both of you that against NULL(or no spell) any DoM spell used hits for the maximum it can. I would say I like that for the simplicity factor, as that one sentence makes the whole thing clear.

I'm not so concerned about the RP aspect as having a consistent and clear rule about round resolution where one spell is NULL.

Lem DeAngelo wrote:

Topaz wrote: There only four spells in DoM that the matrix considers defensive spells only. I say 'the matrix' because I have seen and have RPed those instances as offensive, too. The four are shield, displace, armor and ghostform.

Like Topaz said, we're already roleplaying some of those defensive interactions as if there was some kind of contact between the duelists? If I displace inside someone's shield, I'll usually tap them or blast them to RP why I gained an advance. Or with Ghostform versus armor, the ghostform gets an advance even though both are defensive spells. I often throw my shield at an opponent as well, even if it loses. In the case of a megacast, I could even see someone RPing that they created a suit of armor that attacked their defenseless opponent for the advance.

So I could definitely understand the RP stand point if "defensive" spells gain an advance if it goes unhindered.

Shield Spell in D&D 3.5 is a tower shield that floats around the person moving to deflect incoming attacks barring Magic Missile. A Tower Shield suddenly floating around you can screw with spells if you didn't summon it. However everyone RP's it differently, this is just one example. Not all shields are mystical energy. Some are quite solid so getting hit would significantly hurt like a brick to the head.

Mur, you sneak! Posting while I type. Anyway. In regular format Null/Fizzle are synonymous. However for a MegaCast I am apprehensive about an inactive player being posted for if they were not hit by anything. If they didn't do anything, why mention they didn't do anything?