Re: Digest Number 2879

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:05:51 +0000 (GMT)


Roderick:
>>Personally, I'd make Concentration focus on a single entity, rather than a form or magic or a pantheon - basically, it would be the "Devotee"-style
restriction - use no magic (from another Otherworld entity) except from your Patron Saint/God/Great Spirit/whatever.<<

I think that part of the problem to concentration comes from the increased cost of raising abilities. Remove that and it starts to work a little better.

A variation on Roderick's theme would be:

Unconcentrated: Can only use passive magic (i.e. augment) Concentrated: Can use active magic as well (i.e. as a skill)

If you are a devotee etc. you are pretty much going to want to concentrate, because to make the most of your magical advantages you want to use those abilities actively, initiates are more marginal, only really gaining stand-alone feats. Similar trade-offs occur for other systems.

It also clarifies who can use magic actively and passively: unconcentrated no, concentrated yes.

That way folks who don't concentrate are not penalized, and specialism has balancing advantages (active use) and disadvantages (only one other world). Concentration thus becomes what it perhaps ought to have been - the key to active uses of magic.

But for folks who do not concentrate it make sense to use whatever source is available, once the cost penalty goes away.  

Ian Cooper

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