Surviving A Flambeau Champion

If he is very smart, he has a Ward against Everything spell (RegoEverything 50) :laughing:

I prefer to stand my ground and face my enemy. Better to die a man than live as a mouse. Last time I did that, it was the enemy who ran away from me :smiley:

But that brings up a new question, one that should have been brought up already. This PC that's facing the Flambeau champion, what sort of spells does he have? Art scores are not half as important as the actual spells you know. What does he have for Offense, Defense, Strategy & Logistics? A clever magus can make a minor spell go a long way.

Love vlad taltos adventures :smiley:

Well, for starters the ward isn't that big a deal because any senior Flambeau is going to have a stronger version of Pilum of Fire to use. So that leaves us with the Magic Resistance issue.

The Flambeau can easily avoid the problem of similiar spell MR mastery by having non similar spells. What is similar to PoF is any CrIg spell doing +15 fire damage OR any CrIg fire damage spell that has Voice/Momentary/Individual as RDT.

BoAF is similar, but Arc of Fiery Ribbons and and Coat of Flame are not. Standard Arc and Coat don't do enough damage to get through the Ward Against Heat and Flames, but that's easily fixed.

So the Flambeau certainly has one or more attacks that can do damage despite the Ward and doesn't trigger the similar spells problem (though he may have to cast a few spells to figure out the nature of his target's defenses). This is even if he doesn't have PeIg back up spells, spells of a completely different Form, or access to spells specifically intended to counter fire resistance.

The Flambeau also likely has Penetration Mastery effect on his preferred attacks.

One quick and easy solution if you want to survive a Flambeau champion attack is to ask a demon to provide you with a Greater Immunity to Fire. If you're unwilling to deal with the Infernal, well, hurry up and invent yourself a script to initiate that same virtue. Good luck if he's already there banging at your door. Then again, in such a situation you have little to lose in dealing with the Devil.

So, do we have a deal, my little magus? I guard you against his attacks, and all you have to do is slay him in my name. :smiling_imp:

The best way to survive a flambeau champion is to hope that he doesn't have any powerful penetrating InCo spells and then running nad hiding. Better a month in the wilderness or moving town to town than getting charbroiled.

Well, she caught up to him, and the result was...

debatable.

In fact, heavily debated.

He relied on a strategy posted in this very thread: teleport close to her and stick a knife (actually a long sword) between her shoulders.

Apparently, she did have a ward against metal active.

The argumentation ensued. Half the group thought that her ward would have to penetrate his MR to stop the sword. The other half didn't.

Ultimately (and waaaaay after the climax of the meeting had been drowned to death in bickering), we ruled that her ward did not have to penetrate his MR, and he is now dead.

She did him in with an invented immolation spell: +30 damage (Sight, Mom, Ind) with 3x multi-cast, huge Penetration, and plenty of sass.

Did we screw up the metal ward?

I personally argued for his MR, reasoning that if there is an entire Flambeau school of Ramius (Societates, p. 28) dedicated to non-magical physical attacks, it seems silly to allow a single spell to shut it down.

Oh well, at least he went out in a blaze of glory.

rim shot

I'll start by stating that I'm not a big fan of the (what I consider to be over-applied) penetration rules, but I'll say no, that was not inappropriate.

Wards should not have to penetrate to do their job. Their passive nature is the deciding factor - the offensive use of the sword should not use MR or Parma to circumvent that.

(I'm sure you'll get other opinions.) 8)

If he'd been thinking a few steps ahead, he should have chosen a Form that was less predictable - a sword of ice, or human bone. But, live and learn... or not. :wink:

In retrospect, I think everyone arguing in favor of the ward needing to penetrate was really arguing for the player who was about to be incinerated. I feel the ruling was fair, as did the others.

Still, it's hard to watch a brave and noble friend go down like that.

The character died a good death, the end will be remembered - since it's a story and a character, and not a person, not a "friend", that's everything that you could hope for.

I've known many characters that lived and were forgotten. :wink:

Though it is a source of much argument, "Wards Must Penetrate" is the official ruling (I don't have a link handy, though).

I begin to understand why the inquisition thought that warts were a sign to discover witches. It was all an error of pronounciation...

why didn't he use a knive made from human bone? I don't think humans have an easy time warding against themselves.

:laughing:

In fact, (to connect with a current topic) Disfigured (warts) or Witch Marks (from RoP:I) make nice warping-related minor flaws...

The ward against human beings is actually the only one that explicitly covers the Parma-protected magus case.

Then again, if you have already managed to acquire one of your target's bones

Aye, but there are two kinds of wards (vs Might and vs anything else, like fire or wood) and they do behave somewhat differently. Did his sword have MR? The magus was at no point targeted by the ward, so I'd say that his MR shouldn't apply.

It would, I'd suggest, depend entirely on how the spell was designed.

Most Corpus-wards are designed to protect a mage from getting pummeled or grappled, so no one can "lay hands" upon him. I doubt if every mage would have the foresight to design the spell to repel dead bones as well.

Tho' it might do so by accident, the rules seem to differentiate between living and dead bodies in many of the spell effects.

Oh gosh! I am so sorry! I am the one who suggested that tactic, and it got him killed. I feel responsible. You didn't mess up the Ward though. In this circumstance, the Ward never made contact with Magic Resistance. The Sword does not have any resistance, even if the magus weilding it does. If the sword was a Talisman, then it would need to Penetrate because the Talisman is an extension of the magus' touch. But otherwise no.

Don't be sorry - take credit!

(And you call yourself "a flambeau"!) :laughing:

I was trying to help him overcome the Flambeau! I was hoping my insider experience would be of assistance. But there is a valueable lesson to be learned. Never assume a Flambeau, or any other magus, is a one-trick pony.

I have a magus in another chronicle (online but at another site) who regularly puts up defensive wards against fire, wood, metal, and so on.

The teleport in to smack her is not going to work very easily. Basically because she is paranoid about hunters. (as a shapeshifter) She will probably be adding a wizard sidestep as well. This way the arrow at her will miss.

The dagger in the back is a good tactic if your foe isn't expecting the dagger. Otherwise there are too many counters to it.

In the Andorra saga, we ruled that Wards against mundane substances provide a Soak bonus, so a ReTe Ward against Weapons provides you with a +15 soak. It still renders the dagger in the back idea useless, but it does mean that such a ward does not make you utterly invulnerable.

In an old saga, Newyn of Merinita (the Elric wannabe) got tired of running into wards against his best attacks, so he invested a "ward-breaker" enchantment into his talisman sword.

btw - worth noting that a talisman is protected by your parma when held, so if you use that as a weapon any ward would need to penetrate... (besides most such wards tend to be attuned to affect mundane only versions - so that the magus doesn't have to get rid of his eating dagger etc)