A mage enchants his attacks so they do nothing at first...

>A mage enchants his attacks so they do nothing at first, his empowered punches bouncing off his enemies as if he wasn't even touching them.
>Then he turns off the spell and it's like you got punched ten times all at the exact same time.
Logically speaking, would this be a good spell for maximizing DPS, looking at it from a scientific stand point and assuming there isn't any other factors? Pic mostly related.

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The only way I can see that being of ANY use that isn't just

>"It'll look cool"

is if the person is fighting something almost completely impervious to it's attacks. Then he'd turn off the spell to stun or create an opening so that someone/something else can land an attack

To further explain,

>Getting shoved 10 different times in a row by 10 pounds of force when you're expecting it

is much different than

>Being pushed by 100 pounds of force suddenly when you weren't expecting it/off balance

>Take ten rounds of unarmed attacks that do no damage
>At the end of the tenth round, they all hit at once
>With a caster's physical stats behind the unarmed attacks.

I think you managed to make the least effective caster build in existence.

Granted it'd be more useful if it can be casted on others.
That and

The effect might be good as an assassination tool. Apply it to a knife or dagger, stab a fucker secretly. Even he doesn't know he's been stabbed, didn't feel shit. Maybe he thinks he might have been pickpocketed, but his wallet is still there.
Then you go home, get some food and watch TV. Next day, you go to a public place, and release the spell.
Somewhere, your target is stabbed ten times at once out of nowhere.

Punches though? Yeah there's no real point to it.

You aren't really maximizing your effective damage. Yeah, you can concentrate your damage into one round for a higher ratio in that one round, but you still take 10 rounds worth of time to attack so the over all time-to-damage is pretty much the same. The real value of it is getting all of those attacks to either synergize with each other (each attack in a single round improving the next) or putting together a singular bigger burst of damage rather than over numerous strikes getting resisted separately (DR 10 vs ten attacks that deal 20 each is 100 total, but DR10 vs ten attacks collected that deal 20 each is 180.)

So if your theoretical mage deals shit damage but can easily survive long enough to make those attacks and then make that shitty 1d4+1 damage into 20d4+20 I could see the merit in it.

I'm pretty sure I'd give attacks of opportunity to someone getting hit by attacks that aren't actually affecting him yet or causing any pain

Muscle wizard (with time immunity wish) vs Dio brando.
Who wins Veeky Forums

It's only good if you say "you're already dead" at the end

Not to mention the sheer utility it could potentially have. Such as blackmail if you can disarm the spell and not deal any damage at all. Or depending on the setting, as a sniper.
Imagine someone has a well silenced rifle, once he deactivates his spell everyone he hit would already be damaged and he could get out of there without worrying about security hailing off the other targets because they all got shot at the same time. A fucking scary idea for a Shadowrunner and a very useful idea for a mage if he understands how the rules work.

Someone who has suffered nine attacks will be in less of a position to defend against a tenth than someone who hasn't suffered any injury at all.
Ergo, spell is worse than useless. What a beautiful jojoke.

That sounds like something that would happen in JoJo. Gonna steal this ideal, thanks user.

The issue here is that's real-life logic. Pretty much all tabletops use health point or similar systems, which don't function that way.

Well yes if you're a strict DM who goes by the rulebook.
If you're the type who prefers a bit of RL logic to spice things up at times then it could be useful. So it depends on what the DM allows.

Bigger issue is that you're giving the enemy 10 chances to wreck your shit before you even try to hurt him.

It would, however, be an amusing counter to a strongman who responds to the ineffectual flailing of some pitiful weakling by simply letting them get it our of their system, then asking "Are you done?" Suddenly his self-assured grandstanding turns into pulped kidneys.

Maybe if you can do 10 fucking punches in one second, but then why bother with turning damage off?

In 3.pf damage resistance reduce the damage dealt by each attack.
This means DR 5 over 10 attacks would ignore 50 damage, but 10 attacks applying as a single attack would only ignore 5 damage.

In real life terms you can think of it as penetrating a substance you otherwise might be able to by focusing many weaker attacks on a small point and having them combine together as a single focused attacked.

I think it would be good in a scenario where the mage is attacking with a group.
Someone distracts the target with small but meaningful damage or just, you know, a distraction. The mage bobs and darts and lands his little blows whenever he can. At a predetermined point, or just whenever shit gets too tight, the mage casts "toki wo tomare" or whatever. Suddenly the target is, if not dead, at least a lot closer to being dead than they were, and also pretty freaked out. It would save time if the target has tons of health. It could maybe also be used as insurance, that is, if too much of the rest of the party gets taken down the mage has some aces he's been putting up his sleeve and maybe they'll be enough to win.

>ALL CASTERS HAVE -4 STR BECAUSE I ONLY PLAY SHITTY GAMES ABLOOBLOOBLLOO

>a mage
>attacks

Why waste a few rounds with a parlor trick when you can blast their ass in 5 seconds?

maybe you'd pair it with some kind of attack that wouldn't feel like much without damage, like say being stuck with a needle

Sounds more like a gimmick encounter than a PC build, whatever the game, and I can't imagine the players would actually LIKE this encounter where one of them dies instantly at the end after being hit by no-effect punches too many times on a secret calculation they have no way to anticipate. Its only cool piece is the surprise, it's dogshit for a player, and a surprise instagib isn't good against a player, either.

In other words it better happen to Gandalf, not the actual party members.

Could it be? Is this a motherfucking JOJO REFERENCE?
Mcfucking kill yourself

Why are you jojofags imitating bronies?
Why would you ever want to be like bronies?

Make the attack work like frames in bowling.

A strike adds your next frame's score into the mix.

So instead of a 100 point perfect game (10 strikes, 10 pins each), a perfect game's score is 300.

This is the problem. If you don't hurt a dude then he has nothing to fear from your attacks and he's just going to murderize you. The fact you're attacking unarmed just makes it worse. Any sane fighter would just hack your arms off as you punch in ineffectually.


This is a cool scenario to try it in though

I only used the image because it was the closest thing I had to the idea

I think you mean someone more like this particular muscle wizard.

youtube.com/watch?v=kg2UgjXN5qo

Even better: assure absolute loyalty.

Imagine an organization where the leader initiates new members by 'stabbing' them. This causes no wound... yet.

The leader can end the spell and the wound happens immediately. But if the leader dies, the spell ends immediately for EVERYONE. The caster is dead, the spell ends, and the natural effect happens. Because the magic isn't to cause the wound, just to delay it. The wound technically already exists, it just isn't effecting you yet.

Only by the leader intentionally dismissing the spell in a specific way can the wound be 'removed'.

You now have an organization where no one would dare kill the boss, because it would kill all of them too.

>would this be a good spell for maximizing DPS
over the same period of time and same number of punches no, it would actually be bad.
>10/per punch, each punch takes 1s for example, activation would be instant after or 1s
>in 11 seconds notDio would attack 10 times, and then turn spell off. doing 100 damage in 11 seconds
Or
>in 11 seconds notDio attacks 11 times and spell turn off is instant, to allow the extra attack. does 110 damage
as opposed to
>in 11 seconds anymartial attacks 11 times for 10 damage, for a total of 110
At best notDio can match

The usefulness of a spell like this would be strategically activating it, to disrupt an opponent at a vital time.
Or just being able to spike damage if the enemy has strong regeneration or can be healed. Anyone who played guild wars knows what I mean by spike damage and how useful it is.

If it could be used with weapons, it'd be a great thing for assassins.