Re: Re: magical vs.mundane resistance

From: Andrew Dawson <asmpd_at_...>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:14:18 -0600


At 03:43 PM 2/24/2004 -0500, Toksickburn_at_... wrote:
>Another case:
>My player has the magical "Boots of Hermes 5M". In a race with Sporty "Run
>fast 5M", from point X to point Y, distance 15M2, he beats his opponent
>easily,
>because he only needs to beat a resistance of 14, while Sporty has to beat
>the
>mundane resistance.
>
>Sporty gets angry because he lost the race and wants to beat up my player. He
>is trying to catch me pitting his "Run fast" against my "Boots of Hermes",
>all of a sudden we are equal.
>
>My point is as long as i use my magic to resist something abstract i can use
>the magical resistance of 14, but if i compare to a intelligent/magical
>creature all of a sudden my magic becomes mundane. How can that be ?

Instead of changing the nature of personal resistance, you could define certain contest as not being an attack (which would trigger personal resistance). If you use a magical attack on a person, they can use any relevant ability to defend, but a footrace does not need to be considered an "attack" since you are not using your magic on the other person, but rather on the world.

Case 1: Both contestants run against a distance 15w2, and the magical ability may (depending on the nature of the magic) deal with a resistance of 14.

Case 2: When the mundane runner wants to race against the magical runner, don't let this become an attack-defense situation. It is either an automatic success for the magical runner (something which no hero with magical running would fail), or determine the result of a contest between the magical running ability and the default resistance of 14 augmented by the mundane running ability. If the magical runner fails, then the mundane runner won.

Note 1: I suggest requiring narrow magical ability definitions, as has already been mentioned.
Note 2: A previous e-mail mentioned using "run like the wind" to race to a far away city. If running magic moves you any distance in the same amount of time, it sounds like teleportation to me (D+20, extrapolated from Inherently Difficult Magic). An easier way to do this is to raise the resistance for longer distances, or penalize the magical ability for being broad (or both :) ).

Thanks,
Andy

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