Re: A couple more Environmental Spells. - Peter Von K.'s comments.

[Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>]

If the spell were researched in my TFT campaign world, the larger
wizard's guild houses would in theory tend to want to have someone study
at least E Barriers: Weaken, as the guilds try to maintain gate
rooms to as many other major destinations as the travels of wizards with
Create Gate make practical. However, that use seems mainly about
efficiency of effort and manpower (and convenience) since the same
problem can be overcome by adding more apprentices and not using any IQ
18 wizards. If I wanted to reinforce the use of the spell in that way, I
might give some other bonus such as a (not _too_ big) increase in the
reliability of gates created this way.

Another thought of course is that guilds would want to try to research
both these spells as permanent enchantments. E Barriers:
Strengthen clearly would have use as a permanent defensive spell for
locations concerned about incoming hostile magic from thieves or
attackers (or rescuers, in the case of prison cells), and E Barriers:
Weaken for gate rooms and summoning altars.

Depending on what you think is going on in the other Summon spells, these
could affect them too, which would of course give them both more general
application, though it'd tend to swing the power of the already pretty
good summoning spells.

A technical question would be what does it take for wizards to detect
tweaked-barrier zones, whether they're natural, temporary or permanent,
what they sense and how easy it is to figure out if they aren't familiar
with the spell yet. And WHEN does a caster who doesn't know yet about
such a region learn about it, and what are their options or effects.
(i.e. I would tend to assume they declare their spell and then get told
the cost will be different, and then get the option to bail for zero
fatigue but their turn is lost, or cast if they can. Seems good to make
explicit because there would be other ways to handle it.) Also, trying a
spell seems to be one way to test for such an area - but do you actually
need to cast a spell, or can you just spend one turn per hex testing
without spending fatigue?

Other technical details might be does the wizard need to be looking at
the whole area he is affecting, and how detailed/funky/fractured can he
make it? Only contiguous whole megahexes? Whole megahexes but then any
single hexes can be left out?

Also typo "spirt" -> "spirit".

At 02:30 AM 4/26/2017, Rick Smith wrote:
> Hi Peter, 
>   Thanks for the comments.  Yes, the basic idea was that it is
> much 
> easier to make normal physics work more strongly than to weaken
> them.  This is reflected in the IQ of the two spells, the multiplier
> and
> the cost. 
>
>   I thought about making these spells a thrown spell which
> affects
> a single figure (Like the D&D spell Dimension Anchor), but most
> of
> my spells that affect how magic work have ended up as 
> environmental spells so I stayed with that dynamic.  Also I like the
> idea of a large area delineated with rune stones having these rules
> inside it.
>
>   Warm regards, Rick.