No Effect for purposes of Powerful Meditation

Draven

Draven

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I am of the belief that “No Effect” should count as a miss for purposes of Meditate; it lets plot introduce unusual immunities without being overly punishing to PCs who weren’t aware of them, and it’s lowbie friendly for players who didn’t know that Undead are immune to Commands, etc

Also for those situations where two casters each threw a Prison, meaning the second was blocked by the first, or two Dooms, or whatever.

However, that’s not how it’s written, so I’d like to know if Immunity/No Effect at least allows for Powerful Meditation to get the ability back.
 
Powerful Meditation absolutely allows you to Meditate a spell or skill back if No Effect is called, but it was clarified to me by Polare that you have to have spent High Magic on it prior to using the ability you want back. To paraphrase, "no using a powerful spell, then spending points on Powerful Meditation to give yourself a mulligan".
 
If that’s intended, that definitely needs to be in the book, and isn’t.

Powerful Meditation
Times Ever. This High Magic may be expended to Meditate a single Battle Magic spell (of either aspect) or Martial or Stealth skill which was negated by a defense. The character must complete a normal Meditation session as if the ability had missed without resolving.

And that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of that limitation, so I suspect a lot of Marshals aren’t, so...I would have a difficult time enforcing that, as is.
 
Yeah, I wasn't aware of it until Polare mentioned it; it definitely needs a rewrite to clarify. I think I mentioned it in the ARB feedback thread, but I'll go double-check that and post it there if I didn't.
 
So it needs to be tied to a specific spell prior? Or just needs to be bought prior than a defense called?
 
Just needs to be bought prior to the skill or spell that gets blocked by a defense being used.

Buy Powerful Meditate--> Cast Prison--> "No Effect"--> Meditate back Prison.
 
Here's the line that will be added to the end (already included in the rulebook feedback I sent over):

"The character may only use this High Magic on an ability they expended while they had this Powerful Meditation High Magic prepared. They may not use Powerful Meditation on an ability they expended before they prepared the Powerful Meditation High Magic."
 
Meaning no disrespect, may I ask why this is being added?
 
Gandian Ravenscroft said:
Meaning no disrespect, may I ask why this is being added?
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This was the intention from when we originally came up with the idea. On the committee, we talked about it being used this way; the intent is to promote some need for strategic pre-planning on the PC part. It's a pretty powerful ability for 1 High Magic point (in most cases, it'll be used to recharge a 4 or 5 XP cost spell or skill, at a significant discount in terms of XP cost); the intent was to have this tradeoff to balance that. You should need to "lock in" some High Magic for it ahead of time in order to use Powerful Meditation.

However, when writing up the original text, I missed adding that specific clause as we didn't think about it being played the other way. Adding this line preserves the original intent.

-Bryan
 
As someone who playtested a Powerful Meditation prison caster, I think this is a good balance tweak for the price of the high magic ability.
 
As someone who ditched Spellsword for Scholar and intends to be a Cursecaster, I agree, though it does affect the way I prioritize my HM.
 
Draven said:
I am of the belief that “No Effect” should count as a miss for purposes of Meditate; it lets plot introduce unusual immunities without being overly punishing to PCs who weren’t aware of them, and it’s lowbie friendly for players who didn’t know that Undead are immune to Commands, etc
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I very much agree with this. Also it really eases up on situations like you hit something with 3 Slays in a row, there is a mini hold so they can count damage from multi attackers, and they tell you no effect to all your slays. Obv if you had a timely call of No effect to the first one, you would not have kept doing it. If you could meditate back No effected hits, this would be alot less of a feel bad situation.

No effect is effectively a miss anyhow. I dont see why it is not included in the list of things you can meditate back.
 
No Effect isn't a miss; it means that whatever you did hit whatever you were aiming at, and nothing happened to it (either positive or negative). A miss is when you actually miss, not "I hit them but nothing happened"; otherwise you start being able to argue that Evade, Dodge, and Phase should also count as misses, and I REALLY don't think we want to open that can of worms.
 
A skill being used, vs a static nothing happened are a lot different. I dont think anyone would seriously argue that. We are taking Mechanically out of game No effect is nearly the same as a miss. You are arguing IG dodge skill is like missing. Vastly Different things.
 
I'd actually rule it a miss if it hits a Circle of Power/Ward/Wizard Lock and possibly Prison, since the target isn't actually being hit, as Line of Effect is interrupted.
 
No Effect is just to inform you that there was no change to the creature as a result of whatever you used. You hit them, they were immune to the effect, they tell you that. That isn't the same as missing them, mechanically or otherwise, in or out of game.

As far as CoP/Ward/WL, I also don't see that as a miss; you're hitting the barrier, the barrier negates the attack, and anyone you hit inside would tell you they were unaffected; the rules say that these effects are visible in-game if you take the time to look, so asking out of game whether there's an active Circle is totally okay, although in this case should probably point it out as a matter of courtesy with the No Effect call (since it's clear in-game that whatever you threw at them was negated by a barrier, not the creature).
 
No effect is certainly Mechanically oog the same thing as a miss. You expend a resource too attack but they don't expend anything to defend.
 
Sage of Legaia said:
No Effect is just to inform you that there was no change to the creature as a result of whatever you used. You hit them, they were immune to the effect, they tell you that. That isn't the same as missing them, mechanically or otherwise, in or out of game.

As far as CoP/Ward/WL, I also don't see that as a miss; you're hitting the barrier, the barrier negates the attack, and anyone you hit inside would tell you they were unaffected; the rules say that these effects are visible in-game if you take the time to look, so asking out of game whether there's an active Circle is totally okay, although in this case should probably point it out as a matter of courtesy with the No Effect call (since it's clear in-game that whatever you threw at them was negated by a barrier, not the creature).
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If you hit a tree and not a player, that’s definitely both a miss and also a barrier (albeit a real one instead of an IG, Magical one).

I equate hitting an IG barrier as to hitting a real one. A miss.
 
Furthermore, if we chalk those up to character/player mistakes, there’s precedent for that. We let players meditate flubbed incants. I would say that letting them meditate skills back from errors like that would be equivalent.
 
If you cast through a CoP, and miss a player, that still can be Meditated back, right? If yes, then I would argue casting through a CoP and hitting a player would also be capable of being Meditated back.

Note: Not a Marshal anymore.
 
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