RE: (TFT) Suggested house rules: Tool Elementals

["maou_tsaou1@netzero.net" <maou_tsaou1@netzero.net>]

Of Monkey Paws and Magic.

So Colin (11) comes by with mom and pop to pick up a cord of wood.
Well he wants to play TFT Baseball, and he want's to show me something.
He calls it a Colin Monkey Paw Mace.
It's made with rope and a fist sized chunk of something heavy; maybe a ST Battery.
Colin used a glass marble for the one he tied for me.
So he ties up the marble using something akin to a Turk's-head knot, leaving about three and a half feet of length; which he ties into a slipknot leaving something that strongly resembles a Spritsail-sheet knot.
You wear the thing like a necklace.
Fully extended, the thing has a length of about three feet, left as a necklace it's a little more than half a foot in length and the end can also be held in the hand as a sorta brass-knuckle's thing.
Neat stuff Colin. 
Flail on a rope.
Kinda like a Wizards 'morning star'.
If the Melee Simulator is to be believed (I do) then it makes sense too me that wizards might want a version of one of the most effective melee weapons out there.
And the rope protects the 'gem' of the battery.
Maybe enchant the hemp so that the rope counts as being in contact with the gem for use as a battery.

...

Of course that's just speculation.

So here's a little more, just in a different direction.

TFT's magic system is strangely broken and I think I can explain how.

If TFT magic is supposed to be a generic system then far to much emphasis is placed on Cidri, if however the spells listed are meant to describe the magic of Cidri and require adaptation for more generic uses then many spells stop far short of the kind of information needed to quantify it for purposes of balance.

In looking at the spell table, I keep thinking that the spells can be categorized into similar groups.

Maybe something like Control, Manipulate, Detect, Harness and Create?

Control spells act directly on Figures.
Trip, Speed Movement, Summon Bear, Control Animal...

Manipulation spells act directly on equipment (Things).
Reverse Missiles (?), Rope, Break Weapon, Repair...

Detection spells act to increase a Figures information.
Detect Enemies, Reveal/Conceal, Analyze Magic...

Harness spells control "magic energy" directly.
Dazzle (?), Shadow, Shock Shield, Create Wall...

Creation spells focus "magic energy" into equipment permanently.
Staff, Ward, Lock/Knock...



2d success checks for half-speed Actions (effort/2).
3d checks for normal effort.
4d checks for maximum effort.

  
Compound spells are possible, add the dice required for each source group.

Next is to come up with a group of  generic "effects".
Many are obvious; range, damage, control, maintain. Etc.

Dice, fST, verbal-semantic-material components and the like can be assigned to each effect.
An example might be to charge fST for Magic Fist equivalent to the fST required for a fighter to throw a similar punch. 

I'd be curious as to what other people think about categorizing spells in this fashion.
There's SO much buried in those tables that really has no business being in a spell description IMO.
Like Flight.
I can't train that effect away?
Bu < coughs loudly >!




Oh yes, then there is an issue with the source of the "magical-energy".
This can be a problem.
I'll provide an analogy.
FTL space travel.
We pretty much gotta allow for it, but the question is how?
I'd suggest that the decision can have deep implications on an open type campaign tied to reference material.
Let's say that you go for a Star Trek, warp-drive type solution.
I'd suggest that the simplest model that allows for this posits the existence of an aeather or similar light carrying medium.
I'm not saying that this is the only solution, but allowing for such a medium places the whole question in the same category as "breaking the sound barrier."
Sound will only move so fast through air.
On the other hand, certain solutions beg other questions.
Is a teserat solution applicable to Gates?

So where does "magical-energy" come from and what does this say about the gameworld?
What I use for MY world is basically infinite access to energy via "the pakriti/vacume-flux" but this means that it would technically be possible to arrange things in such a manner so as to release planet-destroying energies.
At least...

Okay, another method I've mentioned before is blood.
This makes a lot of sense from a number of standpoints.
Warriors trade in blood, why not Wizards too?
There are historical parallels that match well with such a view.
It places some awfully strict upper-limits to what can be accomplished as far as planet-busting energies are concerned.

Magic tied to components puts some of the moral qualms of using actual blood as a power source at arms length.
The fST idea does the same thing; exercise instead of blood.
Of course this is back to whether or not Warriors and Wizards are expending the same fatigue.
If I recall properly, the Recovery From Exhaustion rules appear more than once in the text but AW pg. 39 reads; 

" Wizards loose ST when they cast spells. This is "exhaustion" and is as dangerous as wounds are. Any Figure can also suffer exhaustion from running too far too fast, from trying some great feat of strength, etc."

I say that fST is for spells and for actions.
The more fST invested, the bigger the effect so to speak.

Wounds are a whole other ballpark.

What's the "First" in First-aid?



So I've just been given a copy of the exhibition book of the '78 - '79 tour of 'Noguchi's Imaginary Landscapes'.
More maps...
Some fantastic stuff...
A 1947 proposal for a face that would be visible from Mars.
(The nose is a pyramid 1 mile high.)
So now I gotta figure out where to put it.
That'll make a huge difference in construction cost, time and materials.



One last thing for this one, does anyone wanna describe some alternate models of physics that allows for stuff like "super heroism" mega-giants and the like?
This is the other end of the "magical-energy" question.
What "science" works, and what doesn't in a given game-world.

Not every style of campaign requires this level of depth.
A good old fashioned Melee only requires an "arena" to fight in, NOT the history and reason for the arena being where it is, or even the city that surrounds it.
Now if a Player tries to escape rather than attack then this is the equivalent of "I start digging" in the Land of Oz.
Oz wasn't built for that kind of thing.
I think of that kind of hole as a Lorenz-hole.
The point is, a player who picks "I start digging" gets the information that "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" without invalidating the GM's overall "story".
The action actually gave him information about his environment.

Anyway, I've got a number of examples of different proposals from various physicists and astronomers as well as sci-fi authors and speculatists.
The idea here is to have "deep magic" and/or "secrets of the universe" that can be discovered through research and experiment.
This covers the "tech-tree" over downtime actions that involve strategic scale effects, like Civ2 button clicks.




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