If you wanted to differentiate you could just call using a mundane ability versus a magical one 'difficult' and assign a penalty of 10 or 20 or whatever (possibly 14 to have some resonance with the default resistance) - depending on how much better you wanted magic to be.
That way a reasonable magic ability would require outstanding mundane abilities to compete and good magic abilities would require mundane abilities to be beyond normal limits.
I think this is a reasonable alternative that allows simple magic resistance to be 14 and actively opposing magical abilites with mundane abilities to be possible.
-----Original Message----- Sent: Thu 26/02/2004 02:52 To: HeroQuest-rules_at_yahoogroups.com Cc: Subject: Re: Re: magical vs.mundane resistance Mike said:
>what really gets my goat is the "narrow constructionists" who think that
this >solves the problem by limiting the uses of magic. It really doesn't, it just >makes magic less creative, stilted and odd. Im am really glad somebody understands it the way i do! Now, i thought a lot about it to find my personal solution and in a way its like Mike suggested. Im going back to HW! I absolutely do like the idea with the magical resistance of 14 ! As i said i think its extremely clever and elegant if it only worked in ALL cases (and for me it doesnt). So the way i will handle magic in the future is like this: Every magic gives you either the possibility to augment (thats kind of the RQ battlemagic/spiritmagic or in my own words "petty magic") or a magical ability. The important thing about the ability is that its MAGICAL, because thats what makes it different from mundane abilities. Its not a question of mechanics (resistance of 14) as in HQ but a question of concept. So magical means, in my world, its not bound by the laws of nature. Magic abilities give you the power to do what mundane things cant. Thats the definition for my game. This may be sometimes a bit more complicated as you have to decide on a case by case basis how that will work, however, I see it as much easier and more satisfying, because it is much better grounded that way. Sometimes this can be really difficult, for instance what does the ability "Invisibility" mean? Or "merge with organic matter"? But i think thats one of the interesting and creative parts of the magic system. What is the difference? The difference is that with the HQ rules in a way everything is possible (jumping over an oak with tree leaping magic 17) but its just because you decide from a gamemechanical point of view. Meanwhile it seems that this gives magic too much freedom so that you have to restrict it once again. I think this is clumsy und countercreative. The way i wanna do it has the advantage that you look at the magic from a magical point of view. You define more or less clearly what the magic is and what it can do and everything else comes naturally (magical) from there. Thank you for all your opinions, especially Mike! all the best Christian To Post a message, send it to: HeroQuest-rules_at_... To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: HeroQuest-rules-unsubscribe_at_... To Complain constructively please email me at steve_at_.... Yahoo! Groups Links
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