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(TFT) Magic: illusions, cities



Who thinks that Illusion, at IQ 11 and ST cost 2, is overpowered? Sure, it can be disbelieved, but opponents have to lose their action while doing so, and can be engaged by illusory figures, meaning that illusions can create a huge tactical advantage - not to mention the constant use as scouts. Solutions could be bumping the ST cost to 3 and/or increasing the IQ level.

Another question: Is it better to have lots of specialized spells, or a few general ones? For example, Illusion could be split into "Illusory Scout" (you can see through its eyes, but it can't do any damage), and "Illusory Opponent" (can do damage, but you can't see through its eyes). Or, you could make Stone and Iron Flesh the same spell, except that the better version costs more ST/turn.

Regardless of gameplay advantages or disadvantages, from an "in-world logic" perspective, there should be lots of specialized spells. Think about it: Wizards have been studying magic for hundreds, probably thousands of years, and for a lot of that time, the Wizard's Guild has been encouraging and rewarding the development of new spells. Spells are hard to invent, but not that hard, so there are going to be a lot of them, and many will necessarily be pretty specialized.

On the other hand, wizards would also be interested in learning to do the greatest possible number of things with a single spell, which would lead to generalized spells. There are probably adepts looking for the Unified Spell of Everything ("Change Reality") the same way physicists are looking for the Unified Theory of Everything...

Also: I got my hands on a copy of "Guns, Germs and Steel", by Jared Diamond. I'm probably not the first on the list to stumble across it, but for those of you who haven't, it's a pretty cool resource. It deals with the question of why some societies developed better technology (and nastier germs, and more complex social structures) than others. Neat stuff, and useful for worldbuilding.

It occurs to me that magic must have developed after agriculture. In order to have a wizard per the TFT system, it seems that you have to have a special wizard school, which means a social structure that supports that kind of thing, which means a city, which means agriculture.

One final item: What's a good name for a long, piecemeal post like this one? A shotgun post? Brain dump? J-rant? ;-)

- Meg
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