Rasputina Ice Pillars - Defined appropriately

[MikePiercePhotos]

Pre-face: Ice Pillars are HT5 with the impassable and blocking traits. 

 

My questions are: Do Ice Pillars provide hard or soft cover, being as though, they are blocking and impassable? 

 

 

I would think that they would provide hard cover, just like a wall or structure with those same traits, but it doesn't. Is this an oversight? I mean you can't see through it, you can't pass through it, you can't climb it, BUT, you can SHOOT through it with no penalty...lol

[MikePiercePhotos]

Also, will this be included in the next Errata?

[Morgan Vening]

Well, you can only shoot through it if you have partial line of sight. It just doesn't apply (as written) any penalties on that.

 

They probably should have Hard Cover, but whether TPTB think it's necessary to errata it, is another thing.

[Uktena]

What's to errata?  They don't provide cover.

[Ausplosions]

What's to errata? They don't provide cover.

yup.

[MikePiercePhotos]

Then they make no sense. You get cover from almost every piece of terrain, so why not these as they are terrain features....  they block you from moving through them, but bullets go right through them.. HUH?

[HalcyonSeraph]

Then they make no sense. You get cover from almost every piece of terrain, so why not these as they are terrain features....  they block you from moving through them, but bullets go right through them.. HUH?

 

You still need partial LOS to the model to shoot them at all, since they are Blocking. So you can't shoot right through them. If you have that LOS though, they aren't solid enough (being made of brittle ice) to really provide any protection at all, and they don't obscure vision enough (being translucent) to provide Soft Cover. 

 

There, I just fluffily explained why they work the way they do. 

[Tuttleboy]

The rules help us abstract the game and don't really need to make sense. If you'd like a reason that they don't give cover I offer up the possibility that they are a perfectly shaped cylinder of snow. Snow don't stop bullets, but it is ice.

[dgraz]

The rules help us abstract the game and don't really need to make sense. 

+1

[MikePiercePhotos]

Then I propose to the designers that they  amend ice pillars to reflect that if you can't walk through it then it should provide a cover save. 

[Mako]

Ice pillars were found to be balanced as they are now during the wave 1 beta last year - any changes would therefore potentially unbalance them, and thus rasputina (or at least that upgrade). That means that without significant evidence of them needing to provide cover for game balance and playability, they are unlikely to change. If you show such evidence, I'm sure wyrd will look at it carefully (they are after all very interested in the balance of the game).

They are not defined as terrain pieces in the rules, but as markers. Markers do not provide cover - Sonnia's flame wall is the same.

If you are fully behind what is essentially a 100mm wide wall of ice, you're safe from shooting. If you're partially visible at either side of it, you can be shot at cleanly. If you want a fluff reason for it, then perhaps the ice isn't a smooth cylinder but is a mix of ice and snow, jagged and thin at the sides, allowing clean shots through the holes and thin/soft parts.

[Ausplosions]

Yeah.

I don't see a problem with it as it is now. Doesn't need to change.

[Uktena]

They aren't terrain, they are markers. They are a spell effect.

Edit: Beat by Mako!

[MikePiercePhotos]

Ok, so if they aren't terrain, then why do they need to be impassable like a wall or building? Doesn't Lilith have a terrain marker(forest) that she places and gets bonuses for running or attacking into it? All I am saying is that if it acts like terrain, and has terrain traits, then shouldn't include the other basics of terrain , such as, cover? Or am I really being unreasonable? From a design point, you create an ability which creates "terrain" markers on the board. They are solid, as I cannot move through them, I cannot see through them, but I can shoot freely through them if I can see part of you without granting you cover, just like every other solid piece of terrain does, be it temporary or permanent. And as a disclaimer, i am not B*tching or moaning, but just trying to understand the design theory, preferably from a designer and not a fellow "end-user", like myself.

[Uktena]

You aren't being unreasonable, I understand your reasoning just fine. There is some cognitive dissonance that goes along with this rule, but this is the correct way to play the game. It's balanced right now, so aside from some grumbling about how it seems weird, it's just fine as is. Also being a marker wasn't a justification for why it doesn't provide cover, I was just pointing out a seperate correction.

Edit: "correction" sounds rude over text, what I meant was that the ice pillars may warrant a different approach when considering what they are in your discussion. Incidentally, welcome to the forums. Everyone here is pretty open to discussion on things like this, so thanks for the post.

[Mister Shine]

Allow me to .gif this situation with some disney

 

 

If you're not dead center, you're dead

[Uktena]

Allow me to .gif this situation with some disney

 

 

If you're not dead center, you're dead

Blocking!

[HalcyonSeraph]

Ok, so if they aren't terrain, then why do they need to be impassable like a wall or building? Doesn't Lilith have a terrain marker(forest) that she places and gets bonuses for running or attacking into it? All I am saying is that if it acts like terrain, and has terrain traits, then shouldn't include the other basics of terrain , such as, cover? Or am I really being unreasonable? From a design point, you create an ability which creates "terrain" markers on the board. They are solid, as I cannot move through them, I cannot see through them, but I can shoot freely through them if I can see part of you without granting you cover, just like every other solid piece of terrain does, be it temporary or permanent. And as a disclaimer, i am not B*tching or moaning, but just trying to understand the design theory, preferably from a designer and not a fellow "end-user", like myself.

 

If you go into it thinking of them as "you can shoot right through them" then you will be disappointed. If you instead try to justify it as "if you can see someone at all they don't really provide any protection because they are just ice" you can find an explanation that satisfies you. As a Raspy player I would love it if it gave cover. But during the beta they came out not giving cover. Maybe dropping hard cover at will for a ranged master like Raspy was too much. But it is what it is.

 

If you were to provide some battle reports and evidence that Ice Pillars as written are unbalanced, Justin would definitely take that into account and if it was a problem he would errata it. But errata is a pain in the ass for a game, honestly, and if they ARENT unbalanced, and just a little weird fluff- or design-philosophy wise, it's not worth the effort and strain to the game system to errata it. 

[MikePiercePhotos]

Thank you all for your input in this discussion, and the gif...lol

[96p]

They are Terrain, they Just don't have the hard cover trait, as the waldgeists wood doesn't have the dense trait or the flame wall doesn't have the cover trait either.

[Uktena]

They are Terrain, they Just don't have the hard cover trait, as the waldgeists wood doesn't have the dense trait or the flame wall doesn't have the cover trait either.

You don't have to believe us, it's in the rulebook.  Pg. 164 has the Upgrade detailing the placement of Markers.  Pg. 40 defines Markers.  They are explicitly not terrain.  The in-universe description makes them sound like they probably could be, and this is the source of this threads questions I believe, but the rules are clear.  Markers such as Ice Pillars are not counted as terrain and provide no cover.

[HalcyonSeraph]

You don't have to believe us, it's in the rulebook.  Pg. 164 has the Upgrade detailing the placement of Markers.  Pg. 40 defines Markers.  They are explicitly not terrain.  The in-universe description makes them sound like they probably could be, and this is the source of this threads questions I believe, but the rules are clear.  Markers such as Ice Pillars are not counted as terrain and provide no cover.

 

It should be noted however that some markers do count as terrain, when they explicitly say they do, as is the case with Lilith's forests.

[Myth]

Ok, so if they aren't terrain, then why do they need to be impassable like a wall or building? Doesn't Lilith have a terrain marker(forest) that she places and gets bonuses for running or attacking into it? All I am saying is that if it acts like terrain, and has terrain traits, then shouldn't include the other basics of terrain , such as, cover? Or am I really being unreasonable? From a design point, you create an ability which creates "terrain" markers on the board. They are solid, as I cannot move through them, I cannot see through them, but I can shoot freely through them if I can see part of you without granting you cover, just like every other solid piece of terrain does, be it temporary or permanent. And as a disclaimer, i am not B*tching or moaning, but just trying to understand the design theory, preferably from a designer and not a fellow "end-user", like myself.

 

Also, keep in mind - "every other solid piece of terrain" doesn't have to grant cover. You get to define what traits the terrain on the board has, and you could define a piece of terrain to have the "Blocking and Impassable" traits, but not the "Soft Cover or Hard Cover" traits. The terrain rules are intentionally flexible so you can mix and match properties to create the appropriate rules for each individual piece of terrain, and so I don't think there is any inconsistency in how Ice Pillars happen to be operating.

[96p]

You don't have to believe us, it's in the rulebook.  Pg. 164 has the Upgrade detailing the placement of Markers.  Pg. 40 defines Markers.  They are explicitly not terrain.  The in-universe description makes them sound like they probably could be, and this is the source of this threads questions I believe, but the rules are clear.  Markers such as Ice Pillars are not counted as terrain and provide no cover.

 

 

You sir got me wrong... I said nothing about them giving cover, and I don't see anywhere that ice pillars are not terrain. That doesn't mean they provide cover as only terrain with the cover trait provides cover... so if I want to build my self an ice pallace I might well decide that the ice walls within are blocking but do not grant cover.

 

Conclusion: there is absolutely no difference between them being terrain or not.

[HalcyonSeraph]

You sir got me wrong... I said nothing about them giving cover, and I don't see anywhere that ice pillars are not terrain. That doesn't mean they provide cover as only terrain with the cover trait provides cover... so if I want to build my self an ice pallace I might well decide that the ice walls within are blocking but do not grant cover.

 

Conclusion: there is absolutely no difference between them being terrain or not.

 

The difference is whether you take damage when Lilith drags you into one or not. 

[Ausplosions]

You sir got me wrong... I said nothing about them giving cover, and I don't see anywhere that ice pillars are not terrain. That doesn't mean they provide cover as only terrain with the cover trait provides cover... so if I want to build my self an ice pallace I might well decide that the ice walls within are blocking but do not grant cover.

Conclusion: there is absolutely no difference between them being terrain or not.

Except there is a difference, and they are most definitely NOT terrain.