Re: [HOE] New Miracle proposal

[Matt and Teresa Steflik <grifflik@stny.rr.com>]

Jason,

Hmm.  An "I'm rubber, you're glue"  Doomie miracle that goes across
other AB powers. Not sure I like the notion.  I think you're being way
too generous - as written it has the potential to get nasty really
fast.  Also, there's a problem doing the mechanics this way that might
make it unusable in several situations...but I'll get to that later.
Let's assume for discussion's sake that it _will_ work and go from
there. Here's some balance suggestions...

First off, while this might seem like a "duh", you need to include a
note in there that the Doomie has to see the attack coming (you have to
see what's shooting it you to know you're being targeted by it).

I'm assuming this power would only work on powers that utilize Strain,
correct?  That being the case, in addition to the opposed roll of Faith
vs. Faith (or whatever), I'd make the Strain requirement variable,
depending upon what the Doomie is attempting to stop, and also require
it again for the "bounce" (if successful).  In other words, if the
Doomie was trying to stop a power with a Strain cost of 2, he'd have to
take two Strain after a successful opposed roll to stop it - if he
happened to get a raise on the opposed roll and wanted to bounce it,
he's have to take an additional two Strain.  This way, you don't have a
Doomie getting to block hideous things (like MIRV for example, or the
dreaded and oft debated "targeted" Nuke) and then lob them back at their
casters for the nothing cost of 1 strain (WAY too cheap).

Here's an easy example of how this would work.  Let's say that Bob the
Doomie (Faith 3d10) sees a Doombringer nearby (within 10 yards) getting
ready to throw something at him (let's say it's a TN 3 Cog roll in this
situation...pretty easy).  Sure enough the Doombringer (who has a Faith
of 5d12) lobs Atomic Blast at Bill and gets an ace, getting a Faith
total of 16 (success with two raises, for a total of 3d10).  Bob throws
his high card and attempts to throw up the shield to keep from getting
hit.  First he has to make the opposed Faith roll...he rolls, getting an
ace and a grand total of 18 (no raise above the Doombringer's roll).
The Blast is successfully stopped and Bob takes 1 Strain (equal to the
cost of the Blast).  If Bob had managed a raise, he'd have to take
another Strain (again, equal to the cost of the Blast) to "bounce" it
back at the Doombringer.  The "bounced" blast would still be 3d10, but
the hit location would be random and not recieve any modifiers from the
original raises the Doombringer made (the power follows the same
trajectory back to it's caster, but there's no aiming involved).

I might even go so far as to say the power works THIS way only against
Doomsayer miracles.  If used against Sykers and Toxic Shamans, it still
works but not as well: the Doomie must beat the opposed roll by a raise,
and get two raises on the opposed roll to bounce a power back. Something
like that.  I don't think that it should be equal across all of the AB
powers.  But hey - that's me.

Now that's been said, here's the exception that creates a problem for
your concept's mechanics: what if the Doomie is targeted by a power
whose TN  is also an opposed roll (like Microwave for example)?  How
exactly would one do an opposed Faith roll vs. an opposed Faith vs.
Vigor roll?  If you say "only make the opposed Faith roll if you
successfully make the Vigor roll" you defeat the point of the shield
power (preventing you from being hit) by letting the power hit you and
thus neccessitating the roll.  If you make the roll, swell.  If you
don't, it's now too late for the shield.  If you instead say "just make
the opposed Faith vs. Faith"...you can't.  Without the power's opposed
Faith vs. Vigor roll first, you have no TN to oppose with your Faith
roll.  At least I think I'm interpreting this right - I'm kinda tired.
You could of course just say "the shield doesn't work on powers that
require opposed rolls to generate a TN" as a messy fix...but, eh. It's
not great.

Unfortunately, using the mechanics you've chosen, I don't see a way
around the problem.

So, there you go.  For what it's worth, I hope it makes sense and helps
a little.

Matt Steflik
Gimme Shelter - http://www.geocities.com/grifflik/