*personal opinion only* I would probably seldom let mundane abilities oppose magical ones without a serious improv modifier. Well, maybe only a moderate -5 or -10 or so when it is really directly opposed (magical confuse foe versus mundane "clear thinking"), but getting bigger VERY quickly for "close combat" versus "decapitate foe." BUT, at the same time I'd be pretty liberal about allowing magic to defend against magic, with seldom much above a -5 ("Ernalda protect me!" using piety, frex), except in the cross system case (piety to a god doesn't help you so much defending against a spirit, better find a more applicable magical ability) (yes, this makes humakti potentially deadly against animists and westerners, but vice-versa too, so that is probably OK, it makes encountering other magic systems scarier). Even in cross-system, I'd be pretty liberal about looking at relevant abilities "your spirit has "leap?" Sure, you can use that to try to leap your neck away from the sword, but it is at a -10"
I think this would
a) make magic more dangerous.
b) give people more incentive to increase magic--if only to protect
themeselves.
c) make strange magic that you don't know how to defend yourself
against scarier.
This would tend to imply that if you have reasonable balanced abilities you use whichever your relative position versus your opponent is best.
To repeat: this is not any reading of the rules, this is basically agreeing with you that if you can oppose 3 HP per +1 combat magic with 1 HP per +1 close combat, it encourages you to mostly raise the mundane abilities, which isn't so cool.
--Bryan
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