Yeah.. What would people think about guards in ghostform or dreambodies that can do something to... well... guard... against those kinds of people?

What about safe areas inside each city and commune that dreamweavers can't get to without help... say, private guild areas?

Oh wait, they have those!

That would defeat the ENTIRE PURPOSE of a skillset Are you guys incapable of explaining to your citizens how to defend against dreamweavers? It isn't hard.

EDIT: To put it another way, that's like saying there should be guards to protect against full moon rage and new moon terror because it's too hard to explain to people that they need to shield or go indoors at those times. Or guards that strike back at people who use ranged attacks to attack into an org's territory, because it's too hard to explain to people who to deal with it.

It wouldn't defeat the entire purpose, it would just make one aspect much more difficult.

Being serious for a moment, I'm not adverse to more hazards while dreamweaving as long as they are thought through and keep in mind the ease of defending against a dreamweaver attack.

If there were dreambody guards that could attack enemy dreamweavers, bear in mind that they would not be able to communicate with the city when they were attacked by the enemy forces. Also, dreamweavers would have to have a reasonable expectation of killing those guards with enough strategy or numbers. With only one dreambody attacking skill, and no utility defences or access to movement/preparation skills, those guards would either end up invincible (imbalanced) or useless (and not address your concerns).

If regular guards could evoke kether, then you have the situation where dreamweaving immediately becomes pointless, because there are no mob damage skills for dreambodies to fight back or defend themselves. The guard evoking would also be an immediate and obvious indication of someone spying, so any subterfuge utility of dreamweaving would be removed.

Being able to order specialized guards to afflict dreambodies with a one-off entanglement is an option, but I don't believe this would be very useful for what you intend. You have to know they are there first to be able to use guards (if they are in your location) to respond, and it usually takes a lot longer than one writhe/focus to kill a dreamweaver or dreamweaver team. If the entanglement was longer than the time it takes two or three to kill them, then it is still imbalanced because you have a dreamweaver 'insta'-kill that will completely deter enemy spy missions (particularly as there are skills to determine when a dreamweaver enters the room, which can't be detected or foreseen by the dreamweaver).

While obviously the best solution is simply to teach people how to deal with a dreamweaver attack (it's not very hard), the only additional defence I would accept would be some kind of additional highmagic/lowmagic skill that increased visibility of dreamweavers or decreased their eagerness to remain for extended periods in the same room. For instance:

INVOKE TWILIGHT
Power: 5
Like the blending of light and dark at dusk, so too can the boundary between the waking and dreaming world be blurred. This magic will cause any dreamwalkers who are touching minds in your location to be drawn much more quickly back to their sleeping bodies.
(For 10 minutes, quadruples base willpower degen of dreamweavers in the room, occasionally revealing dreamweavers present with some message like "The dark mists here glitter with indigo sparkles along the outline of an invisible phantom, before settling once again.")

Really though, this isn't necessary.


Edit: The problem at the moment is that dreamwalking is very much more annoying than it is dangerous. I think that would benefit more from being addressed than just making it even less useful.

10 minute uncurable affliction is far too long, especially since that's 24,000 willpower drain total if the dreamweaver doesn't leave dreamform. This is a slow unblockable instakill just as surely as the guard idea was, and forces an end to a spying mission immediately. Remember that it takes about 12,500 willpower (and 20 power) to have a chance to kill someone who is not defending themselves, and 20,000 willpower (and 30+ power) if they are doing so ineptly.

Dreamweaving kills cost more to the user than to the defender - I can bash back the experience lost from a vitae/conglut death much faster than the 3-4 hours it takes to recover from 0 willpower, and they lose 0p if they conglut, 20p if they vitae. They are also far from being garunteed kills. And then there's the added danger of Divine (invisible on WHO) who instakill (for 0 essence) any Dreamweavers they see before the dreamweavers have a chance to leave, like Lyreth did last time I entered Celest in dreamform.

Perhaps... the intent is just to make it untenable to remain in the room for an extended period of time. I suppose quadruple might be a little excessive though. I think its closer to 18000 total drain if they sit there though, not 20+. And its not technically an instakill even if you do stay there, its more like toadcurse - your chance of dying just went up 100x.

There is a skill in Aetolia... or maybe Imperian... I can't remember, where you use hypnosis to give hidden afflictions that trigger later at inconvenient times. I'd much prefer dreamwalking was more akin to that skillset in purpose. You could invisibly mess with someone if you are in dreamform, but you aren't really going to directly kill them. At the moment, the skills are pretty overt and can result in significant damage when coordinated in a team, but really isn't very useful against 80% of Lusternia - the same segment you WANT to mess with.

I'd much much rather die than hit 0 willpower, because as Shorlen said, death forces me to bash at a later time for a bit, running out of willpower immediately takes me out for a bit and then makes me sit around regenerating willpower for hours.