How does Spell Defense work?

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How does Spell Defense work?
« on: October 03, 2012, 02:55:07 PM »
I'm seeing two ways I can interpret the trigger description ("When you craft an ongoing spell into a makeshift shield of arcane energy to deflect an attack"):

1) You've cast invisibility, for instance on the Thief. Then a goblin is dealing damage, and you pull that spell energy into a shield, blocking 1 damage (invisibility is a level 1 spell) and ending the invisibility.

2) The other way I can see interpreting this is that you know the spell Invisibility, so you cast it as a makeshift shield that's ongoing. Later, you're attacked, so it blocks a damage and is ended.

I think the first interpretation is the correct one, though it seems a bit weird to me.

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Re: How does Spell Defense work?
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2012, 08:20:06 PM »
My players were doubly confused by this move, because there are only a few ongoing spells in the list and none of them are first level, if I recall. Invisibility is a funny example, too, because it's a common ongoing spell but if you're invisible then you're probably not being seen and attacked.

I think we houseruled it into "When you craft a spell into an ongoing shield..." This essentially made it into its own ongoing spell. The player marked off a spell of his choice from his list. While the shield was up, the character took -1ongoing to cast other spells; the shield was dissolved after it was hit.

Definitely could use clarification, our houserule was kinda clunky.

Re: How does Spell Defense work?
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2012, 10:11:03 PM »
I think the first one is the correct one, it's not about you casting a new spell or having a specific spell around but more of you withdraw the energy you keep pulsing into a spell to shield you from a single attack. And even something like invisibility is not infalible, there's smell, hearing and try sliming (?) an invisible character, i don't think that a gelatinous cube cares much about what's on it's path.

Re: How does Spell Defense work?
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2012, 06:12:29 PM »
Krokus: I figured that was correct. It just seems a bit weird. I could see an occasion where you'd want invisibility up (as it's the only ongoing 1st lvl spell), but you wouldn't actually want anyone to be invisible.

Re: How does Spell Defense work?
« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2012, 05:24:24 PM »
We've messed around with the Ongoing tag a little.  We've replaced anywhere that it says, in the text, anything about maintaining a spell and made Ongoing a tag with specific mechanical effects.  There's a lot more there to feed the Spell Defense move than there used to be.

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Re: How does Spell Defense work?
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2012, 12:07:02 AM »
We've messed around with the Ongoing tag a little.  We've replaced anywhere that it says, in the text, anything about maintaining a spell and made Ongoing a tag with specific mechanical effects.  There's a lot more there to feed the Spell Defense move than there used to be.
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