No, they resolve simultaneouslym for all intents and purposes. The sword slices the grog just as he is lit up by the BoAF. If the magus had a voice spell to deflect a blow or a variant of Wizard's Leap that worked on targets at voice range, the sword would be deflected or slice through the empty air where the grog was.
I'm assuming you meant this applies for your setup. I can certainly shout faster than reaching out and touching someone.
The RAW is pretty clear about fast cast, and why defense only works, IMO. Your fast casting roll is to determine if you can get the spell off in time. It's a binary result, exceeding the roll doesn't mean you act earlier, it means you act in the nick of time, only and is not to be used as an initiative point. The way I imagine it is that you have some how noticed something and ascertained what the ultimate result is. For example, you notice your grog dropped his sword, and is completely undefended for the sword strike coming down on him (mechanically it was a botch leading to a lethal blow, everyone at the table knows this, it is up to the magus to save the character). The blow will happen unless you can do something to the sword, or move your grog. Any offensive spell will resolve at the exact same moment as the sword slices his head from the grog's body. The RAW for fast casting against mundane attacks is if their level is "sufficient to neutralize the threat." Level, really, per RAW is meaningless, it's whether the effect makes sense, IMO. ReTe effect to hold the sword motionless, sure. BoAF, no.
I meant that "in your scenario, under my house rules". I thought this was what you were asking about. If not - sorry.
Sure.
I think the intention of the RAW is something like you said, but the RAW itself isn't precise enough to stake it down. I say, again, that I also feel it doesn't make a lot of sense to distinguish between "offensive" and "defensive" spells; I find making more 'objective' distinctions, such as whether the spell is Personal or not, to make more sense.
Which is not to say that I think my house rule is perfect - far from it. But it does provide a simple to run rule that we feel makes in-world sense, more or less; cuts down on arguments at the table; and at the end of the day cuts down fast-cast spells per round and eliminates munchkin shenanigans meant to obtain them. I think that's "good enough", and it pleases my players, so we settled on that.
The only major problem I have with our house rule on fast-casting is that it means slow casters won't be fast-casting at all. But so be it.
Didn't mean to ignore that. Great Quickness (to get to 4), Affinity with Finesse, because she's 30 years PG, and she has a base score of either 6 or 7, I haven't finalized her, yet. And I also took Cautious with Finesse, so I don't botch the fast casting roll. Failure is still possible, but not catastrophic failure. Also, useful for aiming spells. I edited that paragraph and apparently took some things out that I should have left in. So to restate it all in one place she has Great Quickness, Fast Caster, Puissant Finesse, Affinity with Finesse and Cautious with Finesse.
IMO, that's great, and normal. Knights in chainmail are the bricks of the age. To be wounded or brought down by a thrown stone, while possible, should be unlikely.
Overall, the rules are clear over the fact that, some exceptions* aside (IIRC, Curse of the Desert is one), spells that do +X damage are soaked. I like this, as doing overwise would make magi even more uber over mundanes. I have absolutely no problem with a [strike]tank[/strike] knight soaking up a pilum of flame and striking at the magus.
For what it's worth, if I was to redo these rules, I'd say that damage spells can bypass armor if they directly affect the target's body, thus requiring a Corpus requisite. So a pilum would be soaked by armor, but a spell to make his fat burn wouldn't, at the cost of the requisite.
The rules are clear that they are soaked, yes. But does armor help with soaking a pilum of fire? That is actually not clear at all, and I can see arguments for both being valid.
No, my primary issue is with Aimed spells using combat rules to determine whether it hits, then the magic rules for determining damage. All things being equal and assuming average die rolls of 6, a slinger with a thrown weapon skill equal to a magus's thrown weapon skill is superior to the magus with the same finesse.
[table][tr][td][/td][td]Weapon/Finesse Score[/td][td]Attack Bonus[/td][td]Attack Avg[/td][td]Attack Total[/td][td]Knight Defense[/td][td]Knight Soak[/td][td]Attack Advantage[/td][td]Damage[/td][td]Total Damage[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Magus[/td][td]9[/td][td][/td][td]6[/td][td]15[/td][td]6[/td][td]11[/td][td]9[/td][td]11[/td][td]11[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Slinger[/td][td]9[/td][td]1[/td][td]6[/td][td]16[/td][td]6[/td][td]11[/td][td]10[/td][td]4[/td][td]14[/td][/tr][/table]
The slinger, on average does slightly more damage. In this example, it doesn't change the wound increment, but it could in other places where there is more or less soak. The finesse caster, also has to contend with the possibility of botching three times, while the slinger only has to contend with it once. I'll grant you that the finesse caster could bring a higher level spell to bear. a 15th level spell to do +10 damage isn't out of the picture for most PCs. That does change the damage output to 16 for the magus, but it's also likely to leave anyone not focused in Rego and/or Terram fatigued by the casting effort. If a finesse caster is going to model combat, and do combat rolls to determine whether he hits, I think the combat system should be used to determine everything. It's less die rolling, and it is entirely consistent with the premise that it is an attack bypassing MR.
Not sure I like that. Something seems off about it. Regardless, the Corpus expert would eschew the use of an Ignem spell, or a spell with an Ignem requisite, while I think the Ignem expert would do the same for anything Corpus related for dealing damage. They are much more efficient when they stay within their areas of expertise. Which is kind of my point for finesse. I'd like the finesse magus to be more efficient staying true to their area of expertise.
I agree about the extra rolls - these not only increase the chance for botch, but also needlessly complicate the combat. Rolling less dice is an advantage of your method, as is better integration of the rules and common-sense (if you hit well enough, you should do more damage).
I think the SoV is only relevant as a magus' "Secondary Weapon", as it does so little damage. It's not a combat magus' main combat spell. A Flameabu might pick it up to have something to throw at high-MR opponents, say. Even then he'd likely take it only if he fast-cast it several times, i.e. if he has lots of Finesse to fast-cast his BoAF anyway. And once you put that into the equation, suddenly the wizard outperforms the mundane slinger but a lot.
If the magus isn't big on fast-casting, so has low Finesse, he'd probably be better served picking up a bow and picking up a low Combat Skill. Fly invisible above the monster, and pepper it with arrows. Or he might - and probably would - come up with other tactics. Just picking up a low-level spell like the SoV and expecting to outperform a professional, indeed expert, mundane slinger appears to me unwarranted.
We're working from some different assumptions. In my paradigm the BoAF can never be fast cast, unless you want to go out in a Blaze of Glory, personally I would never take it as an option for mastery. As far as SoV being a secondary weapon, perhaps. It might also be an only "weapon" for a non combat magus. A Jerbiton with high finesse might take it. It is also entirely consistent with the damage and attack advantages of a standard sling, as it adds +1 to attack and +4 to damage, which will come through if there is any attack advantage.
To be fair, I wasn't expecting to outperform an expert slinger by a non expert or high finesse magus, I was trying to compare equal, if perhaps high combat totals of 9. How that is arrived is a function of virtues, characteristic points, and experience points. The idea was we compare and contrast two people with roughly equal attack totals/scores. A magus getting to Per+Finesse of 9 isn't that hard. And I'll stipulate that other spells may be better than SoV. Spells that could realize even greater damage than the expert slinger does, because of changing the damage output.
Armour helps. This isn't that hard. Non-combat soak total is equal to the "Soak Total + Stress Die". The soak total is "Stamina + Armor Soak Bonus". Now the GM might rule that against certain forms of damage soak is altered. For example he might rule that wet clothing adds +2 soak against fire attacks, or that metal armor has a soak of two less than normal. Indeed RAW states "In some cases, such as immersion in boiling water, armor may provide no protection, at the storyguide’s option." However those aren't written into RAW, and would be exceptions made on a spell by spell basis, and more importantly to this debate have nothing to do with if a spell is aimed or direct.
Actually, it's subjective, your quotation of the RAW on page 181 only reinforces that. It's not too hard a stretch for me to see a Pilum of Fire nor getting an armor soak bonus against metal armor. It's a +15 attack, which is hotter than molten iron. Metal is a good conductor of heat, I think this was even well understood under the medieval/mythic paradigm.
On the contrary, being a good heat conductor means that the whole armor will warm up a little instead of charring a member. Remember also that the gambeson worn under will somewhat isolate the wearer from the heat.
But its a fairly small area. The +15 is adjusted for size. So a fire that completely engulfs someone from a base ten creo ig effect is actually not quite as hot as a normal wood fire. Only a little hotter than boiling water. On top of there is cloth underneath the metal armor which is NOT a good conductor. So the metal will disperse the heat, and then let it leach off into the air.
However the difference has nothing to do with aimed/not aimed. So it may be a nerf on certain forms, but not on finesse attacks. You were talking about the "finesse caster". The finesse caster is in the same boat as a non-finesse caster.
Well, it will warm up a little overall, and radiate out from where it is hit. And there's some argument that a +15 fire should be able to catch the gambelson on fire, no?
The cloth may not be a good conductor, but it is excellent fuel for a fire.
Not so sure about that. 3 die rolls, 3 times to botch the damage, with only 1 chance at an extraordinary amount of damage. The non-finesse caster can benefit from a great spellcasting roll, which will improve penetration AND from the damage roll.