Fast Cast Defenses: Touch Range?

I'm thinking a fair bit about Fast Cast Defenses these days.

In the recent Magi of Hermes, there's an interesting spell under Hugh of Flambeau (who I did indeed have show up in my saga as the pen pal of the local Terram expert)

How would you run such a spell, and any similar spells that have Range: Touch?
My feeling is that it should likely not be that easy to strike the weapon of an armed opponent, and a Brawl Roll might be called for. Possibly an opponent unfamiliar with magic might move to block such a strike and have their weapon touched, but one who has had this trick played upon them would not leave their weapon vulnerable to it.

The spell seems to read as if it is an automatically successful touch attack on the weapon, but perhaps I am misreading.

Given that other fast cast defenses would love to have Range: Touch, I'm curious how people would adjudicate such spells.

Vrylakos

It would look like the magus tried to block the sword attack with his bare hands. A normal warrior would consider cutting the hands/arms off a wizard to be a bonus.

As a response to an attack on another person, it would require a brawl roll, I agree.

Hm, ok.

I can see that, thanks.

Looking at similar spells for Animal, I was puzzling out "How do you cast when the animal is touching you with it's teeth?"

That and the Wizard's Parry I guess I need to focus on the "momentary" aspect of the duration, and not interpret it as "instant".

If the spell is cast, i dont see any need for the magi to actually hit the attack with hands specifically?'
Ie. as long as the spell is cast, the attack "bounces" wherever on the magi it hits, because thats where it "Touches".

Otherwise it would be pretty useless, as any skilled fighter could fairly easily do an attack that changes vector in the middle and thus avoids the magi´s hands.

I'll admit I'm not that skilled a fighter but I've tried to get an attack past someone blocking mine with their hands. It's not that easy. (SCA fencing... from some strange reason you're allowed to do bare-handed parries.)

I can do it with most weapons(most that i´ve tried i mean, exceptions being those that are hard to control or troublesome to predict in how they move, with just about any and all weapons where chains or ropes are part of it being the obvious no-deal ones) and easily with an unarmed attack.

My personal specialty is an attack with long staff that seems to change direction in the middle of the attack, yet still retains most of its kinetic energy. And if the opponent tries to block it, you can let the attack go straight instead of following the pattern, which gives a slightly faster attack at the point it looks aimed for originally, so lose-lose situation for opponent, only good defense is retreating or a rather precise block with at least a han-bo length staff or longer.

And ill say this, if you´re anywhere near decent with fencing, im 100% you could easily learn to do it(with enough practise, as always :slight_smile: ).
Thing is however that fencing is a sport, so normally you cant do things like it because even if you´re fast, it still gives a moment of vulnerability. In a real fight, that vulnerability would likely get you wounded, but your opponent killed, in a real fight thats ok, but in a sport the opponent is the one that can get the hit first, which sucks.
Anyway, thats my guess at least, because i´ve never seen any fencer use such moves ever, BUT i´ve seen fencers use them as part of practise moves and routines(just a couple though, but i´ve not been around fencers that much so i cant really say if they were exceptions or not).

Avoiding the opponent's parry is indeed a fine art in epee fencing. I've done competition fencing for a few years. In a duel with live steel, you would want to be very sure your opponent would parry, or risk a simultaneous counterattack and both-participants-skewered-and-dying situation. You can change your avoid-parry-and-complete-attack move to parrying the counterattack, but you're seriously on the back foot. So you wouldn't do that unless you already had your opponent on the defensive and had felt out his reflexive reactions.

You would have no reason to prepare such fancy stuff against a seemingly helpless magus. The first time. Though you may be overconfident enough to try it, of course, and aim for a nostril while you're at it.

So I guess I'm saying both yes and no. :slight_smile:

I think what the author intended was a spell that deflected an attack that struck the magus. In other words, the magus isn't reaching out and touching the weapon, but instead is being "touched" i.e. struck by the weapon. There is nothing in the rules that requires a Touch range spell be executed by the magus's hand striking the Target. I would imagine the spell working thusly: fast cast the defense, wait to be struck by a weapon, when the weapon touches the magus, it is deflected by the magic. If nothing touches the magus that round, the spell expires.

I'd think the fast-cast needs to complete at the moment the attack connects. "Hold the last syllable of the spell until the last possible moment" type of thing.

Else we go into sensory magic bjornaer type stuff. (Which is seriously cool magic, but beside the point.)

Which is why there are rules about speed timing for Fast Casts.

John Post, thank you thats what i was guessing.

And WolfOfCampscapel, thank you as well for verifying, my guess seems to have been reasonably correct then.