Spellbusters

[Sociotard]

I'm building a set of powers around the Spellbuster concept. The concept is a caster who has a range of mediocre abilities, but who excels at making life difficult for other casters (so his friends with pointy bits of metal can do their jobs).

 

So far I have things like:

• 4d6 Energy Blast, Penetrating + 4d6 Flash vs sight and mystic sense groups (intended to ruin Concentration)
  
• Dispel, any one power at a time
  
• AoE Supress, all magic powers at the same time, Personal immunity
  

 

I'm trying to think of other powers that specifically target the myriad Limitations that Fantasy spells seem to come with.

 

I'd like one that hits Incantations and Gestures at the same time. I think I could do that with Entangle (using the +5 "Stops a Given Sense" adder to block Voice). Frankly, I like the mechanics of Flash better, but I don't know if the GM would let me Flash Gestures.

 

I'd like a power that increases the penalty on Skill Roll Powers. Maybe negative skill levels would work? Or change environment? It'd have to be something that could affect a range of different mystical skills that might become part of a RSR. It'd be nice if it could affect Activation Rolls too, but I don't think there's a rules legal way to do that. What do you think?

 

The energy blast above might work alright for getting rid of OAFs, thought it's a bit weak. The dispel might work for outright magic items, but not as well for scattering components. Are there any other good ways to ruin a focus-user's day?

 

For that matter, what abilities that I haven't thought of have you used to give magic-user's headaches? (besides hitting them in the head with heavy things)

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Spellbusters

 

Change Environment - Slippery Floor, that'll be good for screwing up gestures, requiring a DEX roll at whatever minuses applied.

 

For foci, if it is Obvious and Accessible, a simple TK will be quite disarming.

[gojira]

Re: Spellbusters

 

And RKA, non-living only, is going to make anyone with independent foci very very sad. (Although Dispel might do the same thing, yes?)

[Sociotard]

Re: Spellbusters

 

Dispel works well against rings of power and magic wants. These are things that are built on some number of points. Dispel doesn't work as well on expendibles like an eye of newt or virgin's blood, because these are just objects with no points. Or at least I thought that's how it worked.

 

Maybe the dispel would scatter the components if the dispel was used after the spell had begun, but not before. I'm really not sure.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Spellbusters

 

Change Environment that imposes penalties to INT Rolls and all INT based Skills. If there is a particular RSR based magic system in play you can target it specifically.

 

Suppress, Drain, Dispel vs Magic, of course. Similar to CE, if there is a particular RSR based magic system in play you can target it specifically. Drain Power Skill "Specific Magic System" would be brutal for instance. Negative Skill Levels would appear to be useful on the surface in this regard but once you end up building the effect, its overly complex and thanks to the ease with which Power Defense stops NSLs its also practically useless.

 

Triggered Dispels, even if they require a custom Detect, are awesomely crippling to casters.

 

Similarly Missile Deflection / Reflection vs Magic can be very effective in a caster rich environment.

 

Entangle. You can tailor it as needed.

 

Darkness vs Sound. Incantations must be heard to work.

 

Force Wall used offensively -- bubble a caster to prevent them from affecting others if they can't penetrate the bubble. Entangle Barrier works well for this as well, but isn't mobile (normally).

 

 

You can also buff people specifically against magic. UBO defenses only vs Magic allow you to selectively nerf magic. UBO DCV vs Spells is a great stopper vs non-AoE's.

 

 

 

However, I would hazard against allowing a broad proliferation of "hoser" characters. It's a very meta concept, and like all highly situational powersets it will often turn out to be an underperformer or else exert undue pressure on the GM to warp the challenges to constantly provide the hoser's target so that they don't seem useless which is not healthy for a campaign. As a rarity its cool and interesting and has the potential to really enrich the campaign, but if every other dude is some kind of "poison" concept its too much.

[Markdoc]

Re: Spellbusters

 

One very simple approach, I used was for a "magic eater" character. He had just three powers.

 

1. An explosive, 0 END, persistent suppress (vs Magic)

2. An explosive 0 END, persistent NND (Defence was "not using magic")

3. An absorption that fed to multiple powers - namely, these three, with a reduced fade rate.

 

All of them were "always on" which made him a bit of a mixed blessing

 

Basically, around him, all magic powers get weaker, anyone using magic suffers some minor harm as their power is drained away - and the more magic he "eats", the stronger these effects get. Since the absorption feeds back on itself, there is, in theory no limit to how much magic he can "eat" - in practice, this meant that he could eventually suppress any magical effect, no matter how powerful. In combat, however, his powers were more restricted, since it took a long time to boost them up to a high level, so he reduced powers rather than canceling them outright.

 

You might be able to get something useful out of this - maybe the absorption to power some of his other abilities, or the NND.

 

cheers, Mark

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Spellbusters

 

Technically speaking the ability to know where your limbs are relative to your body is another sense. Even with your eyes closed you have an inherent sense of where your hands are. It's called Kinesthetic Sense.

 

You can demonstrate that you yourself have Kinesthetic Sense by closing your eyes and then trying to touch the tip of your nose with one finger. It should present no problem.

 

So you could have Flash Sight + Kinesthetic Sense and so leave your target with no idea of what their hands are doing. Precise Gestures would be all but impossible under the circumstances.

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Spellbusters

 

Desolidify + entangle. They can neither move nor affect anything. Add in 'Only vs. spellcasters -1/2 or -1'...

[Sociotard]

Re: Spellbusters

 

It's a very meta concept' date='[/quote'] Perhaps. In my defense, the inspiration came from a line in a short story about vikings called "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned":

 

On that same trip, we ran low on food, and it was Djarf who decided to throw our own dead on the fire and have at last night’s mutton when their stomachs burst. He’d been the only one of us to dig in, apart from a deranged Arab along as a spellbuster. He reached right in there, scooping out chewed-up victuals with a shank of pine bark.

 

That was the only line where the "spellbuster" was mentioned, but the title was enough for me to guess what he was there for. Anyway, if I lived in a world with magic, I'd look for ways to stop enemy spellcasters and protect my own. I can see your point about letting the Spellbuster get too specialized, though. I'll make sure he has a few powers that are almost always useful like healing and turning undead, among others.

 

So you could have Flash Sight + Kinesthetic Sense and so leave your target with no idea of what their hands are doing. Precise Gestures would be all but impossible under the circumstances.

I gotta say, "Flashing Gestures" just sounds like a euphamism for the double bird, and I'd expect the jokes around the game table to reflect that. Still, it could be a good idea if the GM would allow it.