Are Lines of Forbiddance Damaged By Lines of Vigor

[Fallen Rope]

Basically what the title says, do Lines of Vigor damage them or only chalklings.

[Topomouse]

Yes, but it takes many shots in the same place to break through. There is a good description when Joel suggests a new defence to Melody.

[Fallen Rope]

Thanks

[Oudeis]

Dunno if there's a broader discussion on this somewhere... I'm searching but if someone can provide me the link I'll read that discussion. Oddly, searching Vigor, Forbiddance, and Warding returns a lot of results on this forum...

 

That doesn't always happen. In the first scene, Joel is describing a melee to his friend where a woman bounces a single Line of Vigor off several Lines of Forbiddance. So... which is it? We are expressly told that a Line of Vigor hits a line of Forbiddance, damages the Forbidding Line, and stops. Yet we are also expressly told that it hits a Line of Forbiddance, reflects, and keeps going.

 

Is it both? If so, Vigor is almost worthless. If I put up a Line of Forbiddance perpendicular to you, every shot you send at me would simply reflect straight back at you. Is it one or the other? If so, I just make a slanty line, and every shot you make bounces harmlessly to the side and never gets to me. So... which is it, and either way, why aren't they worthless for anything but taking down Chalklings?

[Arkangel_for_Orcas]

The way it works in my head is its like taking a thin concrete wall and shooting at it with maybe a .22 pistol. If you fire at the wall dead on, the bullet is just going to burry itself in the wall. If you fire at an angle, the bullet is most likely going to ricochet(?) off to somewhere else and still do some damage, just not as much.

[Oudeis]

If that's so, why don't people block with slanty Forbiddance lines? Any Vigor Line shot at them would mostly bounce away, dealing a fraction the damage.

 

I realize this would prevent you from sending your own vigor lines, so you'd have to rely on chalklings. But here's the thing. One of the people in any duel will be better at drawing Chalklings. And it only takes one person making slanty Forbiddance lines to turn it into a chalkling match. So why doesn't every match devolve into slanted lines, and a chalkling battle? If the person who isn't as good at Chalklings tries to make it about Vigor Lines... well, they'll just sit there whaling way at Forbiddance lines forever, taking fifteen shots or more to take down a line that took the other guy half a second to draw, while the other guy sends wave after wave of chalklings.

[Arkangel_for_Orcas]

Im asuming that match was a once in a lifetime win simply because of those limits. Lines of vigor do have uses like warding off other chalkings, but she took advantage of a weak spot in her opponent's line of warding and some leftover slanty lines of forbiddance while he was distracted.

On the whaling away with lines of vigor thing, the opponent would have to maneuver the chalkings around his line of forbbidance. While thats happening you could send your own chalkings and whale away at a certain spot before they get there so theres less to get through.

But i think it really just depends on the strategy being used.

I may have used the wrong teems, havent read the book in a long while

[Blackhoof]

Well it could easily be both- the Vigor hits the Line, deals damage, and THEN deflects.