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Re: (TFT) Pentagrams and gates?



Ah, I hadn't realized the obvious tactic er, for magical beings that want to be able to escape a pentagram they somehow get inside of... having a 1/2 gate somewhere safe, that they can "just" cast Create Gate at their new location...

Also, it occurred to me this morning, that like Ed just suggested, it might be good if the sequence were the deciding factor. I was thinking that a gate might work through a pentagram, but only if the pentagram were activated after the gate were created.

Any and all of the rulings sound ok to me, as long as they're consistent somehow within each game world. A gameworld which had many pentagrams and gates might even have some interesting rules detailing how such things work, and adding some new variants.

PvK

At 07:35 AM 2/14/04 -0800, Ed Thorn wrote:
> Actually, it seems more useful if pentagrams do
> block gates, since then you
> could seal one end of a gate in a pentagram to lock
> it from one side.

I don't think you'd seal the _Gate_, I think you'd
just have a Pentagram around the landing zone.
Anything mundane could just walk right out.

> >Basically gates are already so powerful that I
> >would put every limitation on them that I
> >reasonably could.

Having never managed to arrange any Gate in PC hands,
this arguement for Gate 'power' rings rather hollow in
these parts.

> >  Also, you can not use magic
> >to teleport into a pentagram, you can not use
> >magic to astral project into a pentagram, you
> >can not use magic to insubstantial movement
> >into a pentagram.

> >I just feel that pentagrams trump magic.  You
> >can not cross them using magic.

This is rather the point (5 points?) of a Pentagram,
to be the last word in containment.  But adventure is
rather the point of the game as a whole...

"Ahah!  Beleframortrix, you are MINE!", the wizard
said to the 100-ST Demon he'd just imprisoned in a
pentagram.

"Idiot mortal.", the demon hissed.  "You are an ant,
imagining your hill a great pyramid."  Then
Beleframortrix cast the 'other end of the Gate' spell,
and stepped through, to wherever the first half of the
spell had been cast.

The wizard wisely left the Pentagram in place, though
this gave him no sense of safety, as numerous demons
came one-by-one through the Gate, to test (and each
fail against) the strength of the Pentagram.  In the
weeks before a Gate Key was brought, many of the
illustrations found in the famous Demonaium were
sketched, by Sorrena Hann, 'the bravest scribe who
ever lived'.

So for gaming purposes, I'd have to say that I'll
decide when it comes up.  Players beware.  :)

In purest game-world logic, I think a Pentagram is
likely a series of invocations of various Powers.  I
think that a certain 'trap-ee' might just have the
key(s) to that lock.  A sort of arms race between
Pentagram technomagy and various penetrative
technomagies would, has, and is occurring.  That's my
ruling.

But to answer the original question...  I would let a
single mage, who is preparing both ends of the Gate,
pre-emplace Pentagrams at both ends.  These Pents have
to be specifically prepared to 'pass' the Gate, and
the order of casting _must_ be: Pent, Pent, 1/2Gate,
1/2Gate.  Why?  Because if Pent, 1/2Gate, 1/2Gate the
Gate 'pokes a hole' in the Pent, and if 1/2Gate, Pent,
the Pent prevents the finishing of the Gate.
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