> In the Stacking Magic paragraph (page 101) it says that you can normally
augment with upto 3 magical abilities and that it takes "at least one to
five minutes each, as the narrator judges. The narrator may also judge a
penalty of -3 for each additional ability stacked beyond the first." Also
that augmenting with more than 3 magical abilities takes even longer.
This rule is intended for magic stacking before a contest begins - "If he
has warning of a contest..." Normally you can only claim your "First Magic" at the start of a contest. Note that the Stacking magic section is a subsection of First Magic.
Maybe not the clearest wording, but...
The SWAT Team are augmenting *during* a contest, so can throw as much magic as they want on their guy (with the proviso that each magical ability (Affinity, etc) is only used once). Basically, they are trading their chance to hit the opponent for the possibly useless action of augmenting their buddy. Meanwhile, they are getting whittled down by Big Bad.
> The SWAT Team encounter seems fairly typical and so as a GM, in a similar
encounter, I'd be inclined to use the stacking magic rule. I'm raising this
as in my last game one Hero ended up with a +31 augment (10 due to
equipment), which really through my encounter out a fair bit. They knew
that they where going to have the encounter and had plenty of time, but I
was pretty shocked when he told me his target number was 15WW!
David Dunham's ship-borne campaign often had plenty of warning that a fight was coming (since it takes hours for ships to get into position). An ambusher may have plenty of time to power up his magic (but will have that Hero-Glow), an ambushee caught off-guard might be able to get his First Magic off, or might not (this is for regular ambushes, not Humakti ones. You have plenty of time in a humakti ambush).
RR
It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has
done what he has done.
- Richelieu
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