Play Test Round One: Therien vs. Thia - FIGHT!

[Thia Halmades]

Hey Steve!

All things being equal everyone was very impressed with how things went during the game last night. I was very pleased with how the translations came out, and my band of 11 mook gnolls took a whuppin'. Good times were had by all. Except Therien, our caster. We came to an impasse in rules interpretation.

Therien is putting Autofire on over 1/4th of his spells. That's not a big problem, we figured out the design simply enough. The problem arose when he wrote a variation on Autofire that looked something like this:

EB 4d6, AOE One Hex, Autofire 10.

Which is fine, as written. The gaffe arose because he then maintained that he could 'walk' said autofire, hitting anyone in ANY hex at a DCV of 3. My understanding in this instance is that because he purchased an AOE, the Autofire would land ONLY in the defined AOE zone. This was further complicated by the discussion of the Explosion Advantage, where (it was reasonably argued) he could put Explosion on, and THEN walk his Autofire and aim only at hexes in which people were standing (DCV 3).

So here are the key issues I have with all of this:

- Is it really that simple to purchase Explosion and thusly deny a target any possible defense? i.e., "I'm targeting your hex with this explosion. Because the explosion hits the hex, you get no DCV and are thus outta luck." Would that be the legal way to do what he wants?

- Is his build of AOE One Hex / Walking Autofire legal? Or am I correct in my understanding that once he's purchased an AOE Advantage, his power is confined to the target area?

- If you're standing in a hex which is targeted (such as with the power AOE One Hex) could you use Dodge, etc., to boost the DCV of 3 regardless of the source? So even if it were an Explosion, would the same rules apply?

Thanks in advance!

~DEM

[Steve Long]

Standard Autofire rules apply to an Area Of Effect Autofire attack, as do standard Area Of Effect rules. If a character wants to make an attack against multiple targets, he does so against DCV 3, with a -1 penalty for each “hex” in the line (on which the center hex of the Area would be placed). The character is not restricted to using Autofire just within some defined “Area Of Effect target area.” The OCV penalty is quickly going to make it difficult for him to hit target hexes unless he has a really high OCV; going to Autofire 10 is largely a waste of points in this case, I’d expect.

Furthermore, don’t forget that the rules take into account how effective this is by charging an additional +1 value for Autofire for an Area Of Effect attack. Thus, the spell you describe (EB 4d6, AOE One Hex, Autofire 10) has an Active Point value of 70 points.

Characters cannot Dodge Area Of Effect/Explosion attacks. But they can Dive For Cover to get out of the area.