Fireballs and Lighting in melee

[Exael]

I've had a nice little fight with a lightning-throwing Spirit yesterday... and one thing occured to me there.

I'm fighting this guy, right? I have to approach, then claw. He just stands there, lightnings me and has a blasphemously low number to hit me (between 500 and 450, I'm not sure about the exact number anymore) and does 7 or 8 damage per hit.

Lightning only requires one stat, Energy, to determine damage and to-hit number, it appears. The only other stat that character needs to be an efficient killer (and an efficient killer gets loads of FP with which he can later on buy other stuff) is sufficient strength for HPs. I'd assume most of those characters (if socials) came in around 30 Strength and 40 Energy upon character creation.

Now imagine this guy goes and saves his first ten favours, pools them into Karma and buys Regenerate. Slightly bland, but effectively min-maxed.

Now imagine he actually gets to a point where he can hit multiple people.

I'm just wondering if that's the way it's meant to be. NPC wizards seem to switch to cold finger once you approach them, which to me implies that the idea is that fireballs and lightning shouldn't work in melee combat, or if so, then only very badly (ie. get their to-hit number worsened by a considerable margin). Else, there'd be no point -for people who value efficieny over flavour- to play anything but a Magical killer.

Comments?

[Delirium]

Magic users as a whole already sacrifice strength, agility and HP to be good with those zappers. :)

[Wandering Laine]

And since it was a spirit they CAN'T have a second ability (I would love to have purchased regenerate) because as wandering monsters of the first tier we ar elimited to one and only one special ability. It's a trade off for having low HP, and other things. As for social undead, 100 Karma and you can get that second ability, 500 Karma for the Chimera I think (or does flight count as a first special ability?)

[Tibbles]

I use lightning and was in a melee last night... and just to point out I put every favor I've gotten into lightning so it darn well better be good... and yes, it's more than 10. So far no "special" effects... but my damage did go up.

[Exael]

Laine, my example (40 Energy, 30 Strength where you'd still have about 30-40 points spread out over Agility and Authority) was actually aimed at Socials.

Otherwise, I just note that spells seem to ignore armor, have range and are easily capable of doing as much damage as, say, Iron Claw at comparable levels and you only need one stat to be good with them (whereas Melee requires both Agility and Strength to be effective).

Personally, I see a slight advantage there.

[Wandering Laine]

Maybe, but I managed to convince a friend of mine to try Grendel out for a while. She made an Ogre, and took the Slice ability. After putting 20 points into strength and 10 in Agility she had 44 HP, and after (somewhat quickly, even) finding a discarded Axe was doing in excess of 18 points of damage at times.

Speaking of discarded weapons, my spirit can't pick up a spear, a quarterstaff, a crossbow, or an axe because they are too large. After scrounging some aromor, and then joining a clan she became hard to hit, and could shrug off most wizard damage easily (an 8HP fireball is different to a 44 HP ogre than to a 20 HP spirit).

As I write this she has been at it for two days and by now probably has the 100 Karma to get her next ability, I have been playing for pretty much the whole time it's been available and just barely made my 100 Karma at all. So while the NPC spells might be a touch too powerful, those of us who are PCs get the lesser end of the stick.