Re: (TFT) Magic, Magicians, numbers and power

[Sgt Hulka <hulkasgt@yahoo.com>]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but don't those seemingly powerful spells have absurdly short durations? 

And was it Advanced Wizard where they codified gestures and chants? Again, I may be misremembering, but on the upside I think you could canonically get some of the things you're talking about by casting at a higher IQ level. Like if you have IQ 12 and you cast confusion you don't need to use gestures or verbal components, so you could indeed mess with contracts.

--- On Wed, 10/5/11, gem6868 <gem6868@verizon.net> wrote:

> From: gem6868 <gem6868@verizon.net>
> Subject: (TFT) Magic, Magicians, numbers and power
> To: "The Fantasy Trip Brainiac List" <tft@brainiac.com>
> Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 8:51 AM
> Soooo, Ibm reading bWizardb as part
> of my basic journey in bThe
> Nostalgia Tripb.  Ibve been working on Melee for
> several weeks, and now am
> prepared to start reading Wizard and prepare for arena
> duels to re-acquaint
> myself with the system.  A nice side benefit is that
> Wizard adds a few basic
> rules (Crawling) and clarifies others.  Anyway...
> 
> One of the things that struck me is how powerful even an
> ordinary Wizard is.
> Transpose that person into pre-gunpowder Western culture
> (as an example) and
> you have someone who is primed and ready to become the next
> Sauron / Saruman,
> especially if theybve a subtle mind (actually, like the two
> examples given).
> It doesnbt take long in the IQ range to acquire the power
> to affect some
> pretty powerful political events.  IQ8 = just spells
> that duplicate skilled
> fighter abilties.  IQ9 you get bConfusionb which if
> used say while signing
> a contract...might end up with a nobleman in a tight spot
> (legally).  IQ10 is
> more practical adventure spells, but IQ11 adds sleep. 
> In the hand of clever
> characters, used in the corridors of power at the right
> time...dangerous.
> Most nasty?  IQ13 bControl Personb.  Wouldnbt
> take long for someone to
> ingratiate themselves into the courts of the powerful and
> then use this to
> insert their own bWormtongueb into the staff and exploit
> their advantage.
> 
> To offset this, one can argue that powerful people ALL have
> Wizards of their
> own.  However, this soon makes magic a mundane clash
> between those who want to
> bkill the VIPb v. the bbodyguardsb, and about as
> interesting as any
> security detail (for those whobve been on them).
> 
> It seems to me that the most useful brake on wildly
> powerful Wizards is a
> bself-brakeb, something that they are afraid of that can
> hurt them.  In
> some writerbs worlds, itbs the unleashing of demons that
> makes magic a
> dangerous field of endeavor.  In Vancebs world, altho
> the stories are
> suffused with magic, there is reference to them being on
> the run from powerful
> ethical gods / religions.
> 
> Anyway, just some things I was considering as someone was
> cranking the numbers
> and coming up with 60 wizards in a major city.
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