Technical Questions Thread

[Kuroboshi Kinou]

Even though the issue is resolved, it sounds like it'll be a problem with not just Arjuna, but a lot of character profiles. So I'm going to put in my two cents here (even though I'm still not well-versed in Fate/Stay) and hope it helps.

So the problem is EX rank Noble Phantasms being too overpowered? Then why not try to balance it with some drawbacks or negative effects? That's what I always try to do with my characters when they have powers, balance them out with a drawback or something.

In this case, why not make it so that a crap ton of prana is needed to even activate the thing (whatever it is)? Why not add some other drawbacks too, while we're at it? Also, just because it's an EX doesn't mean it's an instant win. I'm sure everyone here will also have their own EX Noble Phantasms that will make for a duel of total epicness when they clash or something.

Another thing, wasn't the point of concealing Excalibur so that no one would know Saber's true identity? So using an EX Noble Phantasm means that everyone will know who they are, so you obviously can't use it just willy nilly. The point of the Grail War isn't just combat, it's also concealment. You can't let the whole world know Arjuna is fighting Attila the Hun, after all. It defeats the purpose. I believe that's why all the Servants go with their weakest Noble Phantasms first, and jump to the big stuff only as a last resort. As an Rp, this should probably be heavily enforced.

Something came up about a magi fighting a servant or something. As a magus myself, I can say that if I had to stare down a servant, I wouldn't fight, I would get the holy hell out of there. Magi don't stand a chance against a servant head on, no matter who they are. So it's stupid to even consider trying to use a magus character against a servant. Concentrate on sniping a master, instead. If your a magus killer, like I know some of you are, this should probably be your main strategy.

Anyway, that's my thing. Again, I don't understand some of the particulars, since I'm not familiar with Fate/Stay. But it's common sense that anything as powerful as an EX or even A ranked anything should have a few drawbacks, at least. Otherwise, all we'll get are a couple of cocky ass, powerhouse characters looking for a fight everywhere.

[lucis]

Can I make a character who runs a bar which covers as a front for a mage only bar?

[Isaak Friels]

Sure, why not. It's not like it's an impossible thing.

[verethragna]

Anything to go by for rune cost and range? Also about Church's exorcism. Any standard for that?

It's for the profile I posted in Church control thread.

[Illyasviel von Einzbern]

Cost and range for runes, you'll have to double-check with Touko-san, since she's the rune user, but last I checked, it'll be relatively similar to the generic spells.

Exorcism, not really that important as to have a standard, since the Church posts aren't so much full characters as they are board mechanics police designed to execute the Escape Card system, cause random events, or generally call people on rule violations in an IC manner.

[verethragna]

Is there any ranking for Reinforcement, Mental Interference, Healing etc. spells?

[Illyasviel von Einzbern]

Not that I know of. Ranking is determined by the concept and not power level, after all. Though Reinforcement is probably something any magus can do, only a few can reinforce people. But then that's not so much rank as it is proficiency. I'll leave that up to others to determine for sure.

[Isaak Friels]

Well, I don't see why Strengthening or Reinforcing would have ranks when it's not really about power. You can't duplicate the sharpness of an edge. You can make the edge more efficient and sharper up to a point but that does depends on proficiency. Using prana to enhance an item or adding a trait to it is a volatile and wasteful process. You need the ability to see an object's structure and know where to pour what and how much you should put in. Failling in any point of this will just screw the object up. Like an edge sharpened too much would loose its balance and use.
Healing spells, well, there's no such thing. Healing spells in the Nasuverse don't heal wounds, they reverse time itself and restore the former property of the injured. I'm sure you already know that. The only real healer we have any data on is Kotomine but he didn't use spells to heal, he just applied magecraft to existing concepts and used it to more efficiently operate on bodies. Of course that's actually more effective to reversing time itself since time reversal only restores the previous condition. Either way, we don't have HP anyway so having a healing spell would be rather useless.

[verethragna]

Not necessarily. You see healing spells are useful in so many series without any 'HP' to go by. Either way I seem to be in the believe that non-offensive spells have no ranks now. Still no answer for Mental Interference, since it's a borderline case for it.

Why hasn't Touko answered here yet? S/he could tell me more about runes.

[Illyasviel von Einzbern]

You could PM her if you want.

[chaoticelysium]

Okay, thinking of maybe using a different figure for my Lancer slot than Bran, since I'm having way to many issues trying to get all the Bran legends to fit together in a way that'll work/make sense/get me the powers I want, so I'm opting for someone simpler.

St. George of Lydda.

Now I'm going to get straight to the point. How broken is summoning a dragon going to be? Because there are many versions of ol' Georgie's legend where he merely tamed the dragon, there is an item attached to that that can be used as a catalyst for the summoning and thus I'd like to run with it as an NP. I know Argon Coin could, but it never did.


Oh and were Gram/Arondight's dragon slaying properties similar to Gae Bolg's producing wounds that never heal, ie: innate and not part of their NP? Since I was planning on giving Ascalon, St. George's spear, a similar property, for obvious reasons.

[Isaak Friels]

No Dragons. How the fuck would you hide a monster like that from anyone? The moment you even used the thing every single Magus in the city would be on your ass to kill you. I'm not joking either.
Not to mention he'd need stats himself which is another can of worms and where would you get the prana needed for that? A Dragon was estimated to have about 4000 units, well and beyond any Magus or servant. Just having an ability or item doesn't mean you would be able to use anyway. Look at Caster. See her using her Golden Fleece in any way? Nope. She lack the summong abilities. Where would a servant meant to be a warrior even get that much prana to begin with?
As for the dragon slaying abilities, they're not innate attributes per se. Each strike inflicted by this type weapon is more powerful against their chosen type but are likely gained after the deed was done itself. The weapons likely became dragon slayers by virtue of folklore and the people believe they were especially so rather than being default skills.
By your question is deceptive. Each weapon is a NP regardless of their shouted special and effects don't change unless the effect can't be applied. If Lancer used Gae Bolg to physically strike an enemy and wounded him the after effects of the wound not healing would be the same as if he had used one of his specials and wounded the target the same. Properties don't change. Excalibur for example could never have this type of effect as its special attack is a beam of pure energy. Gae Bolg always involves a physical attack so its properties always remain the same. Dragon slaying is the same, the effect is there in either use of the weapon.

[virthra]

The rule says that we can have one Master and one Servant character.

Is it possible to have two Masters or two Servants instead?

[Aozaki Touko]

Nope.

The reasons are simple, one being that there isn't enough free slots for that, on the total and with what we currently have now and the second is to prevent roleplaying with yourself, as players versus players is what this board is all about.

[Isaak Friels]

Alright, new issue.

Fragarach - A weapon that counters the strongest attack someone can use before it's used and kills the opponent. Rank is D to A. Unless it's the strongest attack, it will be reduced to Rank D.

Point is question - Rank limit. The wording clearly says strongest attack but certain attacks have variable power. In this case, Gil's EA has a power deviation depending on the spin quantity and can be released at variable power. It's also rank EX.

The true issue - Can Fragarach counter EA? The wording indicates so but as logical armour is in question, EA is EX and Fragarach is not. Even a NP will fail against something that outranks it. No matter how powerful the effect or power, even a rank B attack that could destroy a city easily would be stopped by Hercules' God Hand since it's Rank A. Since Fragarach is only at best a Rank A, that suggests a Rank limit in its uses. Also, does it count as the strongest attack if said attack is not at full power?

So, what is the answer? Is there actually an answer?

[Tohsaka Rin]

NPs in the Nasuverse are based on rank, but the ranks usually just is based off their general damage output. While lower ranking ones like Gae Bolg (hitting for certain?) would for most actually count as EX when people think about god modding, but the overall dmg output is not too high and so indicates its low power usage and low rank.

Fragrach counters anything, the only difference is the damage output. I'd say that even a weak counter on D will seriously hurt. It never comes to a power struggle between EX and A to begin with and the easiest answer to see that the rank difference does not matter is that Bazett beat Saber's Rank A++ Excalibur with Fragrach.

We also have the good example of Fate/Zero Rider vs Gilgamesh. Both used a NP on EX Rank, but Rider's was just on EX because his army was big, each individual element of his EX Rank was just a low level servant who individually stood no chance against the EX Blast of Gilgamesh.

Simply putting skill rank against skill rank does not work in the Nasuverse.

The main issue here would indeed be that Gil's Ea has different levels and that his stats are quite high. In the worst case Fragrach would hit him, but not be strong enough to do anything and the user of Fragrach would still get blown to smitherens.

So yes, all that this ultimate attack does is increasing the effect of Fragrach not to allow it to work. A counter is just more effective if the opponent really puts their all into the attack. A weak counter would do most likely nothing and some servants have insane ENDURANCE Stats which are actually defining their defense as well.

[Genessa Satellizer]

Aug 7, 2010 16:59:16 GMT -5 Isaak Friels said:

Alright, new issue.

Fragarach - A weapon that counters the strongest attack someone can use before it's used and kills the opponent. Rank is D to A. Unless it's the strongest attack, it will be reduced to Rank D.

Point is question - Rank limit. The wording clearly says strongest attack but certain attacks have variable power. In this case, Gil's EA has a power deviation depending on the spin quantity and can be released at variable power. It's also rank EX.

The true issue - Can Fragarach counter EA? The wording indicates so but as logical armour is in question, EA is EX and Fragarach is not. Even a NP will fail against something that outranks it. No matter how powerful the effect or power, even a rank B attack that could destroy a city easily would be stopped by Hercules' God Hand since it's Rank A. Since Fragarach is only at best a Rank A, that suggests a Rank limit in its uses. Also, does it count as the strongest attack if said attack is not at full power?

So, what is the answer? Is there actually an answer?

Fine then.

First you need to change Strongest attack to trump card.

God hand is NOT An attack.

Next, if you read Hollow Ataxaria,Bazett's fragarach just countered Saber's Excalibur.

Saber=A++ rank.
Fragarach=A rank.

If you said the reason why Fragarach will lose is because of the rank then Fragarach just punch a hole through that reasoning of yours.

Secondly, Fragarach works like this. No matter how destructive, how ultimate your weapon is in terms of mystery, as long as you strikes first it's game over. Because Fragarach will NEVER allow the enemy to attack first. You had to wait until Fragarach user to strike first. Thats it's weakness.

[Isaak Friels]

As I've mentioned before, the power is not an issue here. Ea is explicitly stated to be a weapon capable of destroying the world and is rank EX. Even not at a logical level, it rips apart time and space and utterly destroys its target.
A++ is really just a fancy of saying that it's more powerful than an A rank but it is still an A rank and would be logically subjected to powers that affect an A rank. That doesn't explain why Caliburn burned through God Hand but that was so plot powered bullshit that nobody could believe that.
The Rider vs Ea comparison is not fair. Iskander's NP was an EX rank but measured his power and ability rather than actual power or effect.
To maintain an army of servants is a ludicrous task and certainly a skill of that Rank.
On that subject, would Ea be considered Gil's Trump Card or would it be Enkidu? Ea is certainly the strongest attack Gil can use but looking at his fights Enkidu has actually been the darkhorse. He nearly kills Shirou with it in UBW until Archer manages to stop him, he utterly demolishes Berserker and toys with him for fun and it's in general a chain that becomes more powerful as the opponent is divine, which is a good chunk of classical heroes. On the other hand, Ea is a destroyer weapon but Gil never once uses its full potential and even when he uses it versus Saber he simply plays with her and nothing else.
Also, If Fragarach could punch through Ea it would mean it would be a miracle of a higher rank, as stated in the rules. A cardinal rule is that a miracle cannot overpower higher ranked miracles. Fragarach may strike before a NP is used but it still obeys several logical rules and would logically be forced to buckle under Ea. Or not. Only Nasu knows.

[Tohsaka Rin]

The above examples were merely given to state how little this Rank has actually to do with overpowering someone or fighting a lower ranked NP. Second the EX Rank is like A, A+ etc stronger, but as you stated yourself A++ is stronger than A, that it is more powerful than A but still an A is only important on a ranking list. Stronger is stronger and be it A half plus.

From the mere statement of EX overpowering A it is also valid that an A++ overpowers an A, but that is just to comment and aside the point.

It's abilities put together, creating its power puts it to EX and all the previous examples were exactly meant to lead to this phrase. The overall concept, abilities and strength add up to the Rank, just because it is EX and unleashes (i just say) EX Blasts does not mean that it has Time Reverse on EX Rank.

I would say that it is true that miracles beat a higher one but there is a big issue with that. It is true, that a lower ranked miracle can't beat a higher ranked miracle, but that is ONLY if they run into each other and that is exactly where the problem rests.

Ea might have those effects to power itself up for an attack, but its ability is not to produce a time reversal miracle, and that is what Fragrach does to state it simply. I have not once heard that EA counts as a time reverse miracle with those abilities. Fragrach does NOT punch through any miracles or Noble Phantasms, it strikes before they occur and feeds its own strength depending on the opponent's strength.

If Miracle A goes against Miracle B, the one which is stronger wins, but the matter of initiative is important as well. If Miracle A is launched before Miracle B even knows what has happened to it, the strength is totally unimportant. Ea would win hands down if the abilities of Fragrach and Ea were the same but they are working differently.

Lancer would also take Gil's heart if both were using their Noble Phantasms and end up killing each other, no matter how great Ea is. They use different 'Miracles' and work too differently to clash into each other.

In Lancer vs Bazett, they ended up killing each other. From the mere Miracle Theory Lancer's Trump Card would have powered Fragrach up to A (on the miracle scale) and so automatically won against Lancer's 'miracle' and never occured. But both were different in their working procedure, never clashed and ended up ignoring each other just going straight into the target.

So again, Ea could not counter Fragrach with this method, at best, depending on the rather undefined side effects of Ea the attack could still end up being unleashed after Gil got hit.

In the sample of using Fragrach, what could also happen is that Fragrach loses so much of its power because Gil does not really use Ea to its full extent that it becomes mostly useless, but it would strike.

The main basic is that a normal slash usually has its user still keeping attention on the field and ready to evade, block etc. If Fragrach were to be used in this situation she would fire it before the attack comes, but the opponent could still fairly easily block this D Rank Attack or it would not even faze them. (Servants)

And trump card is also a very variable term. In a powerful attack, they put their all into it and it is like a powerful blow, the counter is hard to avoid and Fragrach also powers up. It would not really matter what the most powerful NP used is, as long as it is a powerful, active NP.

Yet it also has to be mentioned that all that Fragrach does is striking first and confusing people because they assume that they have attacked. It does not mean that they can't simply smack it aside, block or evade. Just that a person unleashing their ultimate attack does not expect this to happen.

Gil would usually just spam her to death and Fragrach probably going under in the hail of projectiles, before he really ends up using Ea.

And Nasu knowing...... well... he never bothers thinking about anything like that. Everything is purely random and he could just end up rewriting everything if he feels up to it. The rules were just made up by fans, using the seen as a foundation for the ruleset. Even in direct interviews he had never given a clear answer to anything, other than jokes and joke levels.

[vikingbard]

Hey there! So, I tried to compile in this post some of the questions that tend to be commonly asked in the chatbox:

1) What Stats can a Master "see"?

A: This one I'll reply myself, since Isaak, Lurker and Aela already answered me in the cbox: basically, the Master has to see the Stat, Skill or NP in action (or at least be exposed to it) in order to "see" it. Basically (to quote Aela), if a Servant moves at superhuman speed, the Master can gauge his Agility Rank; but just sitting across the table from someone (to quote Lurker) won't be enough for the Master to learn anything, except possibly a passive Skill (like Charisma).

It should be noted that Isaak was unsure if, once a Master learns one of the Servant's Skills, he would also immediately learn its Rank.

(If anything of the above is wrong, please, correct me, mods!)


2) How far does a Servant's "sensing range" extend?

From chatbox discussions, I remember it being mostly based on the Servant's Class (Sabers having the worst range, Casters having the best). Perhaps an average estimate for each Class could be provided?


3) Likewise, how far does a Master's "sensing range" extend?


4) Can a Master or a Servant determine a Magus is another Master just by looking? Based on people mistaking Irisviel for Saber's Master in "Fate/Zero", and also the DDDD thread in Primus, it seems the answer is "no"; however, Ilya apparently could sense Shirou was supposed to summon a Servant without seeing the Seals forming on his hand (unlike Sakura). Is this an Einzbern perk, or can a Magus from another family with the appropriate skills (what would those even be?) do the same?


5) Related to the above, can Masters be sensed just like Servants? Based on the fact that Rin successfully hid from Ilya in the Einzbern forest in the Fate route, I'd guess the answer is "no", but official confirmation would be nice.


And finally, a question which, to my knowledge, hasn't been asked yet, but one which interests me:
6) Is it at all possible to make changes to a profile that has already been approved?

[Herakles]

May 23, 2014 12:07:57 GMT -5 vikingbard said:

Hey there! So, I tried to compile in this post some of the questions that tend to be commonly asked in the chatbox:

2) How far does a Servant's "sensing range" extend?

From chatbox discussions, I remember it being mostly based on the Servant's Class (Sabers having the worst range, Casters having the best). Perhaps an average estimate for each Class could be provided?

3) Likewise, how far does a Master's "sensing range" extend?

4) Can a Master or a Servant determine a Magus is another Master just by looking? Based on people mistaking Irisviel for Saber's Master in "Fate/Zero", and also the DDDD thread in Primus, it seems the answer is "no"; however, Ilya apparently could sense Shirou was supposed to summon a Servant without seeing the Seals forming on his hand (unlike Sakura). Is this an Einzbern perk, or can a Magus from another family with the appropriate skills (what would those even be?) do the same?

5) Related to the above, can Masters be sensed just like Servants? Based on the fact that Rin successfully hid from Ilya in the Einzbern forest in the Fate route, I'd guess the answer is "no", but official confirmation would be nice.

And finally, a question which, to my knowledge, hasn't been asked yet, but one which interests me:
6) Is it at all possible to make changes to a profile that has already been approved?

2. There is no real set distance in canon for this question. Nasu leaves it undescribed beyond a vauge personal range given by Arturia. If some general guidelines are needed the mods can convene on it and make a ruling. Even then you still get the wild cards like servant Assassin with presence concealment that throw a wrench in the works.

3. Same as #2 really. In the VN, masters generally didn't notice until the servants were right on top of them or making themselves known.

4. You cannot determine if the other is a master by looks alone. Unless they happen to be some kind of celebrity in the Clock Tower, you probably won't be able to tell. Just like in real life how I wouldn't know you on sight or that your hobby was roleplay websites. Mages are at the end of the day, slightly more resilient human beings with more magic circuits. When one magus senses another is when they have their circuits open with prana running through them. Nasuverse, taste the magic.

In regards to Ilya, no given explanation. The likely answer is that the Einzbern family followed up on Kiritsugu after he betrayed them in the last war. There by Ilya coming into knowledge of Shirou, although not necessarily knowledge he was a master. It also helped Saber was materialized right there and it was a 50/50 guess on who the master was between him and Rin.

5. Sight, Smell, Taste, Touch, Hearing. Like any other human you can detect other humans with these senses, possibly a bit beyond humans if you reinforce the sense in question with a reinforcement spell. All you'll get from these senses are that the being in question is human. Rin hid in a tree's thick foliage while Ilya tunnel vision zoomed in on Shirou and Saber. On the previous note, taste and touch probably won't work as well at observing your environment as the other 3 senses.

6. No.

[Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri]

6 has been asked dozens of times. The answer is still no.

To clarify further on 4 and 5 however, magi can detect large presences of prana at close range. If you walk into a magus' workshop or near a magus of significant enough power you'll know they're a magus. That, however, does not make them a master. Also weaker magi will have more luck concealing that.

Ilya is -likely- to have used this to determine shirou (also the command seals are detectable as Rin points out when Shirou strips... whatever his name is. I forget now. Glasses priest kid.) This detection is closer than sensing them as a magus through their prana, though both are very close. The command seals must also be active (Servant draining prana)

[vikingbard]

Hey there, guys! So, having replayed the game's prologue (Réalta Nua version, so if there are any differences, that's probably the reason), here's some interesting information provided by Archer and Rin:

1) When Servants are in spirit form, they can only be "observed" (that's the exact verb used) by their Master. That certainly refers only to Magi, though, since Lancer detects Archer even when he's in spirit form.

2) Servants can also sense strong emotions imprinted on a place - Archer could sense all the bad feelings left behind in the park destroyed by fire 10 years ago.

3) Command Spells provide a sort of warning to Masters when they're near other Masters (no range provided; Rin felt she was being watched, but that's it). However, a Magus can always hide their magical energy, which would hide them.

4) Servants apparently can't sense Masters (Archer couldn't sense whoever it was that was watching him and Rin).

5) Servants can sense other Servants, but the only ones that can sense Servants from a great distance are those skilled with magic. (So all Casters, but presumably another Servant with appropriate magical skills could do so. Archer says he couldn't even though he has Magecraft C-, but that's probably because his magic is basically limited to Projection and Reinforcement. He could also have been lying, but that would have been an unnecessary lie.)
Archer couldn't sense Gilgamesh was a Servant, probably because Gil had been fully materialized by the Grail.

Cheers!