On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 12:02 AM, Alex Ferguson wrote:
> On Sun, May 11, 2003 at 07:53:23PM -0400, Dave Camoirano wrote:
> > What makes something like Kero Fin different from "that rock" is that
> > going to Kero Fin *is* going to the god plane. Yes, many sacred sites
> > co-exist. That's why they're *not* sources of common magic. But that
> > rock *is* more magically accessible to a "common-concentrated" person
> > because it's a being in the mundane world, *not* a spot that overlaps.
>
> I understand the nature of the cosmological distinction being made
> here, but I can't see what it can possibly mean in terms of magical
> approach. Surely you get either 'type' of Feat by the same essential
> method; to wit, sacrifice. It doesn't intuit for me that a "common-
> concentrated" person would be better at such a form of sacrifice than
> a theism-concentrated person -- _and_ simultaneously better at certain
> types of ecstatic worship than an animist, etc, what's more.
You seem to come to an understanding of this in the next section but just to make sure, someone who concentrates in theism *can* use common feats. The problem is that *most* religions frown on this. It's required to get rid of all magic that's not derived from your god to become a devotee so this would include shedding CM feats. Again, though, I'd probably make an exception for someone devoting to one of the 7M and keeping a CM feat they provide, for instance.
> > At the very least, it is definitely accessible to members of the
> > individual cults since someone who concentrates in theist magic can
> use
> > common magic feats.
>
> I think I'd read this before, now that you mention it. That rather
> disposes of the other-worldly objection, surely, at least in one
> direction. (i.e. the distinction doesn't matter as far as concentrated
> theists are concerned, even if it does to concentrated 'commonists'
> (this being the part I'm not able to get my head around).)
Technically, you'd concentrate in innate magic, not common magic although Selfrock Teaching is a method of concentrating in all common magic.
> > > _However_, it'd be not unreasonable to assume that much non-cult
> magic
> > > was indeed of animist origin, given that the Heortlings do have the
> odd
> > > (in more ways than one) shaman kicking around.
>
> > Well, I have to disagree here. I think that RQ used spirit magic for
> > common magic because "we" didn't know any better. RQ2 didn't have
> > sorcery because it wasn't needed for the focus of that game. Spirit
> > magic didn't change to something separate from common magic in RQ3
> > because RQ3 was so similar to RQ2 and didn't really *need* to (IMO).
> I'd
> > be willing to bet that if Greg & Co. were designing RQ then with what
> > they know now, it would have been, well, HQ.
>
> I'm not sure I really see the thrust of your objection. HQ apparently
> (re-)establishes that Heortlings have a degree of access to (what are
> now called) charms, which are at bottom an animist magical effect.
The source of Heortling CM is Flesh Man who provides only talents. Now, a kolating could provide a Heortling theist with a charm but it would be an animist charm since the spirit came from the animist otherworld and not the mundane world. If a theist has not concentrated his use, he'd be able to use it with no additional penalty. If he *had* concentrated and then taken the charm, he'd "backslide" and have to concentrate again if desired.
> If there's a yawning gap of a difference in fundamental nature between
> "real animist charms" and "common magic charms", I confess I ain't
> seeing it.
From a game-mechanic point of view, there really isn't much of a difference. >From a world pov, there's a lot (where the spirit comes from and how it's obtained).
> Granted it equally establishes the same thing is possible
> with Feats, clearly very different from RQ in that respect. (I imagine
> that common magic Spells are still pretty rare in Sartar.)
For PCs, probably. For "Joe Sartar", probably not. Mixed magic is "inefficient" from an improvement pov (paying double can really eat up those HP!) but mixed magic is also very useful. During playtesting, all of my players except 1 took common magic to start because of the variety of magic it allowed. It was put to good use initially but eventually almost all of them concentrated their magic due to costs to increase. When they got to a certain power level, they didn't *need* the variety any more.
I hope this helps,
Camo
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