Re: Re: Magic items (was Transforming abilities)

From: Mike Holmes <homeydont_at_...>
Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 12:33:40 -0500


>From: "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...>
>
> > Incidentally, a question arises about flight affinities. Do
> > Vanganth the Flyer Initiates get to fly? Do they have to
> > improvise flying feats to get into the air (woohoo! Flying with
> > a rating of 12)?
>
>As long as you're not trying to do aerobatics, 12 is a perfectly good
>number
>(and it beats everyone else's 0).

Yep, very important. Consider that in addition to the above figure of 12, flying is an ongoing magic, and will likely have a penalty for time in the air if you want to go a long way. That is, just because you have flying, you can't fly everywhere - try to make it last for a long time, and you'll fail the roll against 14 just to get off the ground.

But, that doesn't mean that you even have to make another roll in many cases, despite how low the level becomes - just the one against 14 is enough. What I mean is that, if your character walks from point A to the door, he doesn't roll, even though he only has a Walk 6 ability by default. Because it's not a conflict. That is, it's something that "no self-respecting hero would fail" so it's an automatic success. Similarly, flying up to a ledge is no contest if your character can fly. No matter how low the ability gets, as long as it doesn't get below 1, it's an automatic success.

Now, if getting to the ledge requires dodging branches or something, then a character making a long improvised flight is probably in danger flying with an ability that low. Similar to a character trying to walk a tightrope or something, with little or no training. The same rules apply across the board, and for all actions.

BTW, the way that I've come to view the 14 resistance is that magic is similar to what Lightcastle said somewhere. Magic is always rolled against some appropriate resistance if there is one. That is, just like the flying, if it's a simple use with no conflict, then you don't roll against any ability. In that case, however, it's magic, and, as such, the world resists it's use. That is, if there's no other resistance that reasonably applies, there is the resistance of the world to magic, which is always applicable. This is what makes magic substantively different from mundane abilites - that it's always, always, always, dramatically appropriate to make a roll for magic, because of it's fickleness, and the chance of backlash. Magic is never an Automatic Success.

In fact, if one wanted to be rigorous about it, one could say that the world's Resist Magic 14 is always available for any resistance just like any other ability. So, you can either use whatever ability is at hand, or the 14 as your base, and then augment with the other. That is, using this idea, everyone would have a +1 to resist magic with the mundane abilities, because of the "unreality" of magic. Which is conceptually interesting.

Moreover, then the suggestion made by someone way back (can't remember who - LC, the list has covered this subject extensively previously) to allow mundane abilities to augment the natural resistance of the world becomes an explicit option. That is, if you don't think that the height of something is "actively" resisting some magic, you can use the 14 base, and use the passive mundane abilities as augments to that (much like a charm does in reverse).

Mike



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