Story: Friday, September 9, 2016

[EmpactWB 21]

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

EGS wizards are apparently somewhat like D&D wizards - they have to study and learn spells, and then cast them via a small ritual. (Although they apparently don't have to prepare spells in advance each day.)

...

I would assume a wizard's spellbook would contain a great deal more information on how.

I don't think these assertions are supported by the comic.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

On September 9, 2016 at 4:32 AM, Wanderer said:

Ellen's clone beam lets her copy others' spells, as proven when she copied Nanase and was able to cast her Guardian form spell.

Not exactly.  Ellen copied Nanase's Guardian form directly, she didn't copy Nanase and then cast the spell.  There's also the fact that the Guardian spell is an extremely special case, which may or may not require divine intervention/approval to use.

If Ellen could copy Cheerleadra and obtain all her powers, I would think Ellen and Elliot would know it by now, given how much time they spend together and how willing Elliot would likely be to try it once the idea occurred to them.

21 hours ago, Sjmcc13 said:

Of course since we know Wolf is a wizard, he could just ask Wolf to learn the spell, and no need for a clone form

Huh.  Now why didn't it occur to me before to see whether a wizard could learn the Cheerleadra spell itself?  That would certainly solve a great many problems, plus add to the wizard's arsenal of tricks considerably!  I suspect it wouldn't be that easy, though; most likely Elliot's Dewitchery Diamond-influenced spells would be a bit "off" to other magic users, and thus difficult for anyone else to obtain.

18 hours ago, chridd said:

Cheerleadra looks like Ellen, which would imply that the form the superhero takes is based on their normal appearance, so Wolf using the spell would look like a combination of Wolf and Cheerleadra (and same for other wizards).

Read a few comics further.  As soon as this is brought up, Edward tells Elliot to just change his face more the next time he becomes Cheerleadra.  Elliot can control what he looks like as Cheerleadra, probably as much as he can control his appearance any other time he's female.  This is later comfirmed when he becomes a completely different-looking superhero with the griffins later on.

This might be another case of magic with a lot of moving parts, with Elliot's "girlie-morphs" spell and his "superheroine" spell interacting.  That would likely make it even harder for anyone else to truly become a fully-powered Cheerleadra copy.  Tedd was having trouble reading Susan's fairydoll spell, remember, because it was an interaction between her summoning chest and Nanase's fairydolls.  I'd love to see Tedd's reaction to observing Elliot using his Cheerleadra-cell-phone spell....  :-D

[Cpt. Obvious 73]

I'd like to say that I find it highly improbable that simply watching a spell being cast is all a wizard needs in order to learn it. It just sounds too easy. If it was that easy it would be quite easy for a wizard to become incredibly powerful in a very short time. So far we've been told that wizards can learn new spells that they observe, but nothing about how long it takes them to get that spell working right.

If this was a game system it would require a lot of research and experimentation, and the result would not be guaranteed to replicate the original spell exactly. On the other hand a wizard that got his hands on a spell book would be able to copy the instructions and use the spell, albeit probably a bit awkwardly at first.

Next up is the question if an awakened's abilities is a regular spell or just a spell like ability. I'm thinking that in the EGS universe they are spell like abilities, and that a wizard observing one of these probably can see the energies being used and what forms they take, but doesn't gain any direct knowledge of the "spell" behind it. So learning this ability will take research an experimentation. As for reading an awakened's spell book it might be helpful, but I doubt that there is a complete "recipe" in there.

All of this is based on my dislike of unbalanced magic systems, so it probably doesn't threaten my 99% and some rating of being wrong.
 

[mlooney 3,417]

Just being able to learn a spell by watching it is what is special about Twilight Sparkle.  It's also, even in a universe of magical unicorns, considered extremely powerful.  I strongly suspect that human wizards in the EGS need to either study the other spell caster casting the spell several times or read their spellbook.  Of course there is no canon statement one way or the other, just that "wizards" can learn other magic user's spells.

[Tom Sewell 268]

4 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Read a few comics further.  As soon as this is brought up, Edward tells Elliot to just change his face more the next time he becomes Cheerleadra.  Elliot can control what he looks like as Cheerleadra, probably as much as he can control his appearance any other time he's female.  This is later comfirmed when he becomes a completely different-looking superhero with the griffins later on.

I can't seem to find that "few comics further"; little help?

Anyway, we know Elliot can alter his morphed appearance(s) and even the psychology of his special "secret ID" morphs if he puts his mind to it. But when he morphed into Cheerleadra at Salty Crackers, at the dojo, and at the mall, they were all emergency conditions. He knew he had to be Cheerleadra right now or people were liable to be hurt or killed. Given Elliot's luck, when this happens again, there will be loads of people around with cellphone cameras.

Anyway, I'm thinking that one of the ways Edward's Cunning Plan might unravel is for the manufactured incident by whomever is performing as Cheerleadra happen at the same time a real emergency demanding the real Cheerleadra occurs at Moperville North.

And I'm disappointed that none of you picked up on "cunning plan" being a Blackadder reference in my earlier post.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

16 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I can't seem to find that "few comics further"; little help?

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1163

16 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

And I'm disappointed that none of you picked up on "cunning plan" being a Blackadder reference in my earlier post.

Never watched it.  The phrase "cunning plan" is too generic to expect it to be recognized as being a reference.

And it mostly makes me think of "cunning linguist".....

[EmpactWB 21]

43 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Just being able to learn a spell by watching it is what is special about Twilight Sparkle.  It's also, even in a universe of magical unicorns, considered extremely powerful.  I strongly suspect that human wizards in the EGS need to either study the other spell caster casting the spell several times or read their spellbook.  Of course there is no canon statement one way or the other, just that "wizards" can learn other magic user's spells.

We have Tedd stating that he is clearly not a wizard because he had been around some spells so often he'd have learned them without trying. So repeated exposure is a possible method of learning them, even if study and practice is also a method.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Oh, and by the way, please don't edit the quotes of other posters to insert links that weren't there before.  If you want to add a reference, please do it in your own post.

[Don Edwards 548]

One huge stumbling block to ANY plan for covering up the unfortunately-named heroine's identity is Elliot's spectacular skill at lying convincingly.

[Tom Sewell 268]

2 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Never watched it.  The phrase "cunning plan" is too generic to expect it to be recognized as being a reference.

You have missed out on one of the great Britcoms. Thanks for picking out Edward's offhand remark. Totally missed it, and after I looked at the rest of the arc.

Edward's latest cunning plan:

Edward: Also, I'm going to manufacture a Cheerleadra sighting somewhere while you're [Elliot] in class and surrounded by witnesses. Obvious solution, and everything's fine so long as Ashley can sell the “only just met her” angle.

Earlier at the mall:

Floating Elf Jesus (a.k.a Voltaire) (quite loudly): This girl, Ashley, is the potential mate of German Dark I spoke of in my riddle.

Since it's part of Edward's cunning plan for Ashley to speak to reporters, at least one of them is going to ask her whether the Immortal was lying about her being Cheerleadra's potential mate.

Maybe Ashley can call in the Demonic Duck?

[WR...S 41]

21 hours ago, chridd said:

Not ΞΕΡΟΞ?

Was that ΞHΡΟΞ's brother?

[EmpactWB 21]

7 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

 

Edward's latest cunning plan:

Edward: Also, I'm going to manufacture a Cheerleadra sighting somewhere while you're [Elliot] in class and surrounded by witnesses. Obvious solution, and everything's fine so long as Ashley can sell the “only just met her” angle.

Earlier at the mall:

Floating Elf Jesus (a.k.a Voltaire) (quite loudly): This girl, Ashley, is the potential mate of German Dark I spoke of in my riddle.

Since it's part of Edward's cunning plan for Ashley to speak to reporters, at least one of them is going to ask her whether the Immortal was lying about her being Cheerleadra's potential mate.

Maybe Ashley can call in the Demonic Duck?

Or she can get flustered at being labeled "superheroine's potential mate" instead of "young woman who assists heroes with her God-like soccer skills and who may or may not be romantically interested".

[mlooney 3,417]

2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

 

And I'm disappointed that none of you picked up on "cunning plan" being a Blackadder reference in my earlier post.

Did you say any thing about a tail or weasel?  If you didn't not really a Blackadder reference, now is it?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

I thought "Cunning Plan" was a code name for the "Punning Clan" from which I am descended.

[Tom Sewell 268]

38 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I thought "Cunning Plan" was a code name for the "Punning Clan" from which I am descended.

So your family immigrated from Xanth?

[hkmaly 490]

8 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

I'd like to say that I find it highly improbable that simply watching a spell being cast is all a wizard needs in order to learn it. It just sounds too easy. If it was that easy it would be quite easy for a wizard to become incredibly powerful in a very short time. So far we've been told that wizards can learn new spells that they observe, but nothing about how long it takes them to get that spell working right.

If this was a game system it would require a lot of research and experimentation,

8 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

All of this is based on my dislike of unbalanced magic systems, so it probably doesn't threaten my 99% and some rating of being wrong.

Well, this is NOT game system and it CAN be seriously unbalanced. Or balanced with stuff which is impossible to do in game. Like, who's the most powerful of main eight? Grace. But she's also least likely to behave like in a video game, so others will still have chance to be useful.

Also ... look again how Ellen copied Nanase's strongest spell. And she's NOT wizard. Although she also probably didn't gained the ability to cast it again.

5 hours ago, EmpactWB said:

5 hours ago, mlooney said:

Just being able to learn a spell by watching it is what is special about Twilight Sparkle.  It's also, even in a universe of magical unicorns, considered extremely powerful.  I strongly suspect that human wizards in the EGS need to either study the other spell caster casting the spell several times or read their spellbook.  Of course there is no canon statement one way or the other, just that "wizards" can learn other magic user's spells.

We have Tedd stating that he is clearly not a wizard because he had been around some spells so often he'd have learned them without trying. So repeated exposure is a possible method of learning them, even if study and practice is also a method.

I would like to remind again that we have NO canon statement about spellbook being good for learning spells.

But, yes, it is possible the spell need to be watched multiple times, at least if it's more complicated spell like Cheerleadra. Or Nanase's fairy dolls, especially in Susan's version.

2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Floating Elf Jesus (a.k.a Voltaire) (quite loudly): This girl, Ashley, is the potential mate of German Dark I spoke of in my riddle.

Since it's part of Edward's cunning plan for Ashley to speak to reporters, at least one of them is going to ask her whether the Immortal was lying about her being Cheerleadra's potential mate.

Well ... the "potential" is pretty safe: there is no conflict between "potential" and meeting "her" first time.

Note that Ashley speaking to reporters is not part of Edward plan, more like something they can't really avoid without somehow hiding her and start even more speculations.

 

 

[Cpt. Obvious 73]

22 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Well, this is NOT game system and it CAN be seriously unbalanced. Or balanced with stuff which is impossible to do in game. Like, who's the most powerful of main eight? Grace. But she's also least likely to behave like in a video game, so others will still have chance to be useful.

Also ... look again how Ellen copied Nanase's strongest spell. And she's NOT wizard. Although she also probably didn't gained the ability to cast it again.
 

Ellen didn't copy any spell. She copied Nanase in her current form, and it was only temporary. Far from being as overpowered as if she had been able to copy the actual spell. And no I wasn't talking about a video game or computer game but of magic systems in rpg's of the dead tree kind. I also noted that I'm not expecting to be right, but having said that I can't see how DGB would have any hope of keeping the lid on the knowledge of magic if wizards were as overpowered as they soon would become if learning a new spell was as simple as seeing someone cast it. The same if they could just steal a glance at some awakened's spell book, which would become quite easy for a wizard after learning a few spells the other way. After all most awakened wouldn't be able to prevent even a relatively unexperienced wizard from just breaking in and grabbing their spell book at will.

No, logically there has to be something that keeps these wizards from trampling everyone else, and no the DGB keeping a few tame super wizards isn't enough. If they had those resources then the vampires and other aberrations wouldn't even be nuisance.

 

[EmpactWB 21]

55 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I would like to remind again that we have NO canon statement about spellbook being good for learning spells.

But, yes, it is possible the spell need to be watched multiple times, at least if it's more complicated spell like Cheerleadra. Or Nanase's fairy dolls, especially in Susan's version.

Sorry, I should have emphasized the "even if" to clarify that I meant it as a hypothetical option, not a verified one. I just meant to contradict the claim that there had to be more to it than just watching, given we had Tedd's word on that being possible.

[hkmaly 490]

26 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Ellen didn't copy any spell. She copied Nanase in her current form, and it was only temporary. Far from being as overpowered as if she had been able to copy the actual spell. And no I wasn't talking about a video game or computer game but of magic systems in rpg's of the dead tree kind.

Grace's even less likely to behave as players in those, as she don't have much experience with them. Unless she really started to play rogue with Tensaided. She DOES have experience with videogames. She complained how getting maximum XP and cash messes with her ability to get into character.

(And, yes, some players in dead tree RPGs are behaving even worse than in video game. Worse in the sense that it's not actually roleplaying, it's searching for holes in rules. Sort of hacking actually.)

26 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

I can't see how DGB would have any hope of keeping the lid on the knowledge of magic if wizards were as overpowered as they soon would become if learning a new spell was as simple as seeing someone cast it.

What if they employ most wizards? (And imprison the rest?) Remember that wizards are supposed to be rare. Less common that aberrations, likely.

26 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

even a relatively unexperienced wizard from just breaking in and grabbing their spell book at will.

Well ... the simplest answer to this is that SPELLBOOKS ARE USELESS IN LEARNING SPELLS.

Sorry. I mean that we have nothing in canon even remotely hinting that stealing someone's spellbook might be good for anything. Yet you insist that it "must" work as in D&D and that spellbooks are way for wizard to learn spells. No, it must not.

And yes, if you take into account that spellbooks might be stolen or linked to someone without his knowledge, learning spells from spellbooks is even MORE overpowered than learning them by watching someone casting them.

[Cpt. Obvious 73]

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

Grace's even less likely to behave as players in those, as she don't have much experience with them. Unless she really started to play rogue with Tensaided. She DOES have experience with videogames. She complained how getting maximum XP and cash messes with her ability to get into character.

(And, yes, some players in dead tree RPGs are behaving even worse than in video game. Worse in the sense that it's not actually roleplaying, it's searching for holes in rules. Sort of hacking actually.)

What if they employ most wizards? (And imprison the rest?) Remember that wizards are supposed to be rare. Less common that aberrations, likely.

Well ... the simplest answer to this is that SPELLBOOKS ARE USELESS IN LEARNING SPELLS.

Sorry. I mean that we have nothing in canon even remotely hinting that stealing someone's spellbook might be good for anything. Yet you insist that it "must" work as in D&D and that spellbooks are way for wizard to learn spells. No, it must not.

No I'm not insisting on D&D annything, just that something has to restrict wizards or they would trample anyone trying to oppose them. Checks and balances, and having the DGB (and it's sister organizations in other parts of the world) sweeping up all wizards doesn't sound plausible. If they had that kind of firepower then the aberrations wouldn't stand a chance, not to mention that the market for monster hunters would be extremely small.
 

[hkmaly 490]

2 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

No I'm not insisting on D&D annything, just that something has to restrict wizards or they would trample anyone trying to oppose them. Checks and balances, and having the DGB (and it's sister organizations in other parts of the world) sweeping up all wizards doesn't sound plausible. If they had that kind of firepower then the aberrations wouldn't stand a chance, not to mention that the market for monster hunters would be extremely small.

I've just edited the previous post, I'll add it here: if you take into account that spellbooks might be stolen or linked to someone without his knowledge, learning spells from spellbooks is even MORE overpowered than learning them by watching someone casting them.

Also, I already mentioned that number of wizard might be smaller than number of aberrations, making them more manageable.

If you think about it, the secrecy around magic actually makes harder for wizards to learn more spells. Also, just because they know the spell doesn't mean they have enough magic capacity to cast it. Or that they are able to use it effectively.

Most likely, there really are some "restrictions" on more complicated spells (watching more closely, need to see all parts of spell, multiple times, need to practice, ...), but I find plausible that simple spells can really be learned just by seeing them once or twice.

Also ... maybe the magic system really allows wizard with some training to trample anyone trying to oppose them and they were just lucky noone did that. Maybe if someone would do that, magic would reset.

[EmpactWB 21]

33 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Ellen didn't copy any spell. She copied Nanase in her current form, and it was only temporary. Far from being as overpowered as if she had been able to copy the actual spell. 

I have to disagree with this. Ellen copied Nanase's form, but it started out as her normal form, then transformed into the Guardian Form, complete with all the abilities that the spell gives Nanase when she's using it, and it lasted as long as the spell did for Nanase. Ellen totally copied the spell.

[hkmaly 490]

33 minutes ago, EmpactWB said:

1 hour ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Ellen didn't copy any spell. She copied Nanase in her current form, and it was only temporary. Far from being as overpowered as if she had been able to copy the actual spell. 

I have to disagree with this. Ellen copied Nanase's form, but it started out as her normal form, then transformed into the Guardian Form, complete with all the abilities that the spell gives Nanase when she's using it, and it lasted as long as the spell did for Nanase. Ellen totally copied the spell.

If she copied just the form, she would be white, look like Nanase and have wings.

She copied the spell, which granted her also ability to fly, fly in formation, telepathic link with Nanase, target highlighting, battle instinct with integrated ability to sense abilities of enemy, and choosing if she will be using her own power or ambient energy to power the spell. It also caused her to be burned for one day. That's all effect of spell, not form.

And the spell ended when she decided to end it. Sure, Nanase ended it at same time, but that was just because it made most sense.

[EmpactWB 21]

20 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

And the spell ended when she decided to end it. Sure, Nanase ended it at same time, but that was just because it made most sense.

Actually, they lost the forms because the ambient magic was used up, and they didn't have enough to keep the forms going very long after that. Aside from that, I'm in total agreement.

[hkmaly 490]

51 minutes ago, EmpactWB said:

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

And the spell ended when she decided to end it. Sure, Nanase ended it at same time, but that was just because it made most sense.

Actually, they lost the forms because the ambient magic was used up, and they didn't have enough to keep the forms going very long after that. Aside from that, I'm in total agreement.

Looking at Nanase's first try, they COULD keep to use the form longer if they needed to. Of course there was no reason to, and yes, ambient energy was used up, so they ended the spell. If the form ended automatically, it would likely end mid-sentence, not just after they finished talking and closed eyes. Note that even in that first try, Nanase seem to actually end the spell herself when she saw Ellen is ok, although she MIGHT've fainted anyway just moment later.