DarthBrooks

I agree with Griautis. I am personally a fan of characters starting on fairly equal footing and think it's weird to have some characters be so far behind others because of blind luck. I don't have an easy fix for it though.

Hello everyone. I still don't know the rules inside and out but I wanted my tinkerer to make some armor for one or maybe two characters in our group and my question was regarding the amount of time it takes. I understand the rest of the process but was wondering if I missed a table with suggested times for such tasks or a quick rule like 2 weeks per skill level requirement.

I think part of what I didn't explain is that I wasn't saying Alter Range makes you into a melee machine or to forget about melee focused characters because of it. I was comparing the utility and power level of Alter Range to other immutos because that is a much more fair comparison. I didn't mean to imply that somehow a caster who took Alter Range would be out fighting melee characters in melee. It would be silly to compare them. I don't think I actually did compare them, but now that is on the table.

My intended focus was that you gain a benefit from reducing the TN of the spell, and you can gain a benefit from reducing the range of the spell with Alter Range. Compare this to Increase AP as an example. Lower the TN ( an advantage ), increase the AP ( a drawback ). Or say Reduce AP. Reduce the AP ( advantage ), increase the TN ( drawback ). Or Reduce Damage. Lower the TN ( an advantage ) , lower the damage ( a drawback). It seemed to be common formula and logic behind immutos, a plus and a minus. In the case of being caught in melee, it is plus/plus for Alter Range. The immuto is plus/plus, not being caught in melee. I agree that is usually not a good time for said caster.

Anyway, sorry for any frustrations anyone has had in replying to this. I understood what people have been saying, I just wasn't specific enough that my issue was that if you are caught in melee ( or with a proper character set up, wanted to be in melee ) , then Alter Range is pure profit, with no drawback unto itself.

8 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

You're glossing over the bit where magic users typically don't want to be in close combat. The people that like to be in close combat tend to have better damage spreads, higher accuracy, and no reliance on suits. Sure, they go from not being able to attack (provided they have the immuto) to having an attack option, but they're still not exactly in a happy place. Getting up to 6 knocked off of of the TN doesn't solve the suit problem, and if they're using up all of that discount to bump up their spell effects they're still not in their happy place. It becomes even nastier if the Fatemaster uses the tools available to them and puts the spellcaster on a negative.

It just felt wrong to me that adding a benefit to a spell ( Hey look, I can attack now instead of not attack ) would lower the target number of a spell instead of raise it. 2/4/5 is a solid spread ( 1/2/3 raised by 3 steps ), or you could add a variety of other effects depending on your immuto options. And you still have the bonus of being able to raise your range with spells. It seems like a lot of flexibility/power for one immuto to offer.

4 hours ago, Steamtastic Vagabond said:

Being in engagement range IS a draw back, but the spell becomes easier to cast. 

Example: Fated is attempting to cast Elemental Projectile (TN 3T). Because it's an Elemental Spell, the Fated adds Spirit (+4 TN, total TN 7T) However, the Fated only has a Sorcery skill of 1, meaning she needs to flip at least 6T to cast the spell. The Fated decides to remedy this by applying Alter Range to reduce the spell's range from 5 to 3and thus reduce the TN by -2 (Total TN 5T). Now the Fated only needs 4T to cast the spell making it about a 1/4 chance unless she has the card she needs in her hand. The only downside to this is that now she is at risk of getting hit by The Killer Bunny. 

In this scenario, the Fated is sacrificing her already limited range, to make the spell easier to cast. She could also apply Increased Damage once to increase the spell's damage to 1/2/4 but the TN returns to 7T.

I understand how the immuto works ( I think ). It just seems too powerful to completely counteract the disadvantage of not being able to attack AND then additionally you free up 6TN worth of other immuto modifiers. Removing the inability to attack because you had a ranged attack is a benefit, not a drawback. 

Cool, that is what I thought, but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss something. Thanks for the quick reply!

I've been reading over the rules and trying to determine how a character dies besides the Coup De Grace action taken by another character upon an unconscious one, or reaching Bleeding Out +10. Is the only other way to kill someone to keep hitting them until a severe critical occurs to the head or chest with a value of 19 or higher? 

What seems imbalanced about Alter Range is that when you have a ranged attack, being engaged is supposed to be a drawback. Instead your spell becomes more powerful because you are able to drop the TN via Alter Range, then compensate for the lowered TN with other immutos. Is this correct or am I misunderstanding how it works?