Re: Re: HQ Common Magic question and Augments

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 17:10:05 +0100


On Mon, May 12, 2003 at 01:01:02AM -0400, Dave Camoirano wrote:
> > > rock *is* more magically accessible to a "common-concentrated" person
> > > because it's a being in the mundane world, *not* a spot that overlaps.

> > 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.

I would still be skeptical that the CMer would be _better_ off than the theist, which is specifically what you were suggesting, though.

> 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.

Sure, but such stuff is generally going to be explicable in a pretty readily understandable 'social' level, I'd suggest, without having to resort to much in the way of Deep Cosmological Otherworldly Matters.

> Technically, you'd concentrate in innate magic, not common magic

... which is the very distinction I suggested, a couple of posts ago...

> although Selfrock Teaching is a method of concentrating in all common
> magic.

That I don't really 'get', though in all fairness I'll wait until I get to read it, before shootin' ma mouth awf on the topic.

> > 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).

That sounds pretty much backwards, I have to say. In both cases the method of obtaining it is ecstatic worship; in both cases the result is a charm (which I'm assuming is a game-world meaningful distinction in some sense). The distinction seems to be one of the Ultimate Nature of the being granting the magic, which I wouldn't go so far to say is going to be unknowable, but is certainly going to be beyond the immediate level of interest of knowledge of most "end-users".

> > 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. [...]

Emphasis on "Spells". Though I'm just guessing, in any case.

Cheers,
Alex.

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