Arcane bolt query

[Agema]

I'm facing a GoRed SC gargoyle. It has the tartarian chains and golden awe shield, swiftness boots, robes of Calius the Druid, astral cap, magic resistance amulet. It's got MR 21, protec 24, and resists all elements and poison at 100+ except lightning (50). It's a magical, mindless, and inanimate being.

I thought I'd kill it by a rain of arcane bolts, which do 10AN damage to magical creatures according to the book and spell description. However, all my arcane bolts did nothing. Can anyone tell me why?

And further to that, does the enslavement from Tartarian chains involve a MR test? I'm guessing it does, but...

[cleveland]

Perhaps due to the shield. That thing has parry 9, and I believe all of the "bolt" spells can be parried. At parry 9 and encumbrance 0, it's improbable he'd fail a shield parry.

Shatter should do the trick...precision100 spells can't be parried.

Let me know if that's the case.

[Agema]

Parry would explain perfectly, I had assumed the bolt wouldn't be blocked by a shield. I guess I'd better rustle up some earth mages from somewhere, I'm sure I've a couple lying around.

[archaeolept]

arcane bolt tends to miss all the time anyways. Shatter will massacre him, or a few cheap thugs with smashers. Really, like a bunch of indy commanders equipped just w/ smashers... or smasher and luck pendant etc.

[Agema]

I'm acquainted with shatter, but it requires earth mages, and in this game I have few and they are all very busy. Arcane bolt isn't hugely accurate, but fire at targets under 10 squares range you'll hit plenty, add in wind guide and you'll barely miss.

[Tifone]

Tartarian chains + boots of quickness= 4 attacks per turn right?

army of 400 chaff would do the trick methinks (but he must be on offence) ;)

[Executor]

DO NOT USE ARCANE BOLT!
I once teleported several mages on top of a SC and used it in combination with stellar cascades (which is great) against only a 5 parry shield, only a single hit after about 20 or so turns.

[Endoperez]

Arcane Bolt shouldn't have any trouble against non-humanoid magic beings, as they won't have shields.

[MaxWilson]

Perhaps due to the shield. That thing has parry 9, and I believe all of the "bolt" spells can be parried. At parry 9 and encumbrance 0, it's improbable he'd fail a shield parry.

Shatter should do the trick...precision100 spells can't be parried.

Let me know if that's the case.

The weird thing is that Lightning Bolt isn't Precision 100, and yet it can't be parried.

-Max

[archaeolept]

hmmm maybe a provision was made because lightning is AN?

[MaxWilson]

But Arcane Bolt is armor-negating too, and according to this thread it does seem to be blocked by shield parry.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Tartarian chains + boots of quickness= 4 attacks per turn right?

army of 400 chaff would do the trick methinks (but he must be on offence) ;)

Evil. :) This is why SCs should be used in pairs.

-Max

[archaeolept]

hmmm that's right... ok, dominions inconsistency FTW ;)

[Endoperez]

hmmm maybe a provision was made because lightning is AN?

Does Lightning Bolt have in-flight animation, or does lightning just strike the target? It COULD be that there's an exception for things like Mind Burn and horrors' ranged attacks.

[atul]

Electric attacks are special case anyway, since they've got that "grounding" effect. I.e. if there's a target in the square that is hit there is no chance to hit "empty space" like with other projectiles.

[AreaOfEffect]

The unit doesn't have any reinvigoration gear and doesn't have any reactive effects, like the medusa effect or fire shield. It shouldn't even have fear. You could just land several stellar cascades and send in a squad moral 10 regulars and win with ease.

[MaxWilson]

Atul,

According to the manual, there is no chance to hit "empty space" anyway. At least one target will be selected, and the to-hit opposed roll will then take place. It is true that the to-hit roll takes into account how crowded the square is; maybe that's what you're thinking of? That's not separate from lightning bypassing the shield parry, though, because crowdedness, fatigue, and shield parry are all modifiers to the same contest.

-Max