At 10:57 AM 9/10/03 -0400, srydzews@ix.netcom.com wrote:
There is almost another way to deal with this, a 'logical' way even: since no TFT spells use material components, postulate that the only way to produce a magical effect that requires components is with a potion, and that certain categories of effects (such as, oh, maybe HEALING) require components by their nature, and hence exist only as potions. Alas, the existence of the certain other magics in both spell and potion form are the fly in that ointment.
This seems like the obvious answer to me. The fact that some other abilities can be done both with spell or with potion is no logical impediment to healing requiring physical ingredients. Again, the techniques and details of casting spells are extremely complex and not detailed, and these would determine what spells and potions are known. There are other alchemical potions that demonstrate this: Universal Solvent, Acute Hearing, Universal Antidote, Youth, Contact Poison, Treasure-Smelling Potion. Notice too that even the potions which have spell-equivalents tend to be much more powerful in potion form (lasting minutes or hours instead of seconds, and requiring no [or much less] fatigue). Moreover, it seems rather more interesting to me to have some abilities require specific means and not be available in other forms, especially where something which is extremely useful to have infinite quantities of - having such abilities require and consume physical ingredients is a logical and natural way to balance a magic system and retain interesting and logical difficulties such as the need to rest a bit after nearly being hacked in twain...
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