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could we BE wearing any more Phase Fields?

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 12:06 am
by Axelmania
I am comparing 3 versions from Dimension Book 2. Firstly the "Phase Field" power on pg 34. It "useless against":
    phase weaopns
    the phase blast power
    magic attacks
    magic weapons
    punches and kicks (they move too slowly to be affected)

I guess this means it helps against mind bolts (psionic, not magic) and psi-swords (not a punch or a kick)?

I used to think this was the same thing as "P-Field (Defensive Fields)" on pg 124 before I looked more closely at the details. It mentions:
    Punches, kicks and melee weapons move too slow to be stopped by the field and do normal damage

So the downside is that in addition to punches and kicks: melee weapons get through too.
The UPside however, seems to be that there is no explicit mention of this being in any way specially vulnerable to PHASE weapons (ie beamers, might work against Phase Swords since they are melee weapons too) or the phase blast power, or magic attacks. So this tech could be better than the power in that it would give 1/10 against them?

"OP-Fields (Out-of-Phase Fields)" right after mentions "Phase beamers also do normal damage to the intangible character" so we know this isn't the field being talked about on 122 when it says "completely useless against targets equipped with phase-fields", so Phase Beamers must be useLESS against P-Fields (Defensive Fields) but useFUL against Phase Adepts/Mystics using the similar-but-different "Phase Field" power?

A 3rd type for consideration is the Star Ghost's 5th Weapon System on page 163. It says two things:
    disperses incoming energy attacks
    damage from all incoming attacks is divided by ten

Only 3 exceptions follow in parenthesis:
    magic,
    psionics
    other phase weapons

This should mean that phase POWERS are reduced by 1/10 (Phase Blast is a power, not a weapon) and so would punches/kicks, I think...

Unless of course you take the first line "incoming energy attacks" to exclude all non-energy weapons, but that would mean missiles and rail guns would do 100% damage too and I'm not sure that's what the intent was.

Re: could we BE wearing any more Phase Fields?

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:39 am
by DD The Shmey
Dude, ... I always mix up "OP" fields, and "P" fields. Mainly because the P-fields are so Over Powered. I don't let my party get them.

My old GM let us buy as many as we wanted. After we integrated them into some glitterboy power armor (effectively giving it 7,700 MDC), and then space ships, he realized how disruptive they were to game balance. In the end he rolled back the rules and said that you can't integrate the P-field into armor or anything more than 50 MDC. We still abused the heck out of them though, ... our standard equipment for the infantry working for us was a suit of 50 MDC Tarnow Chain mail with a P-field belt. The whole getup was cheap as heck, only cost us 50k each. We just wrote 500 MDC on their cards because most of the time we were fighting against ranged non-magical stuff. If somebody threw magic at our infantry or got into melee, then we did some more math. Looking at our old spreadsheets, I see that all of our orders added up to 10,000 p-fields.

Re: could we BE wearing any more Phase Fields?

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 12:15 am
by Axelmania
Just send a Siphon Entity to possess the Phase Field Generator and have it use TK to switch tiself off at inconvenient times.