Re: Common Magic

From: bethexton_at_...
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:17:35 -0000

wrote:
> Hi
>
> ould you have a common magic talent called 'Beffudle opponent' and
if
> so - how would it operate in a contest?

I'm sure you could. If you look at the Esrolia homeland in the HQ book, two of the common magic societies have "confuse foe" as a common magic spell. Also, Lanbril the thief offers the "confuse onlooker" and "confuse victim" talents. Note that key in these is that specify an effect and what that effect works on, and I think that is key to controlling common magic, it is never just an effect. You can have several similar talents that work on different things, but you have to raise them seperately. In this regard, "befuddle opponent" might be a little broad, since it could work on someone you are fighting with, bargaining with, playing checkers with....

As to how it works, why simple, it makes your foe befuddled :)

In rules terms, either:

• in a simple contest, if you win, your opponent is confused, with an effect level appropriate to your victory level (-1, -10%, -50%, in all cases penalties applying to any ability that requires understanding). Also, since the victory was one, you probably more or less achieve whatever your goal was (get past the guard, convince the beggar to sell you that key, confuse the chaperone about exactly what is going on, etc). If you fail, you exhausted yourself, maybe befuddled yourself, doubt your magic ability, etc.
• in an extended contest, if you win, you take some number of AP from your opponent, narrated as them being somewhat befuddled, and therefore in worse position in the fight, negotiation, etc. If you fail maybe they took advantage of your spell casting to do something else, or the effect rebounded, or you simply removed their doubts so that they are more focussed, or whatever.
• as an augment, if you succeed then you are that much more apt to succeed since your opponent is suffering minor befuddlement. If you fail then you are counting on them being confused, but they aren't, and you choose wrong tactics.

>
> Likewise could you have a common magic talent 'Heal the
> dying/injured/hurt patient' so that would return them to full
health.
>

No. That is, there are many suggested common magic healing abilities. You'll notice that they are quite specific as to what they work on: heal broken bone, stop bleeding, and so on. Also, there are specific rules covering magical healing, and how they work. Since common magic is the most limited of the magic types, it certainly won't break these rules. So you have to choose what type of magical healing you'll take as your common magic ability, and hope it is what you need.

Note also that unless you've concentrated your magic, you'll only be using this as an augment. Most fairly common magical healing (stop bleeding, etc) is probably an appropriate augment to first aid following combat.

> Please excuse the Runequest in me!
>

No problem :) I find it fun to think of how to reflect some of the runequest magic in HQ (still working on mindspeech....). However, some of it just does not translate well.

--Bryan