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NP Monday July 24, 2017

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44 minutes ago, Scotty said:

But yeah, I guess spells don't always pull from ambient energy.

Could someone who knows something about how magic works tweak a spell to be self perpetuating by drawing on ambient energy without additional attention or involvement from the caster?

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7 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Could someone who knows something about how magic works tweak a spell to be self perpetuating by drawing on ambient energy without additional attention or involvement from the caster?

 

6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

By "someone" I would guess you mean Tedd?

If so, then the answer is: not currently. However, with practice and training, maybe.

If Tedd ever gets to see the Guardian spell in action, I suspect he'd learn how to choose which energy to use, ambient or personal.  Along with a lot of other OP stuff.

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Ellen can possibly use ambient energy on the spell(doing so is subconscious in most cases anyway), just the spreading part of spell explicitly doesn't continue to draw from the environment after she casts it. I'm not even sure if Ellen can continue to pump energy into the AoE after she casts it. She might have to package all the energy she wants it to use into the spell as she casts it (making it a lot like a tf bomb than some kind of channeled effect)

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15 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Could someone who knows something about how magic works tweak a spell to be self perpetuating by drawing on ambient energy without additional attention or involvement from the caster?

I imagine Ted could craft a version that did that but I'm not sure someone can just learn to do that with their own spell.

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5 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Ellen can possibly use ambient energy on the spell(doing so is subconscious in most cases anyway), just the spreading part of spell explicitly doesn't continue to draw from the environment after she casts it.

Yes ; which was one of the options when we speculated about it.

2 hours ago, JainaEgo said:
18 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Could someone who knows something about how magic works tweak a spell to be self perpetuating by drawing on ambient energy without additional attention or involvement from the caster?

I imagine Ted could craft a version that did that but I'm not sure someone can just learn to do that with their own spell.

Well ... Susan was able to get fairy spell by combining Nanase's fairy with her magic, so maybe it would be possible to get such effect by combining the contagious transformation with some other spell which has it's own intended use ...

10 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

If Tedd ever gets to see the Guardian spell in action, I suspect he'd learn how to choose which energy to use, ambient or personal.  Along with a lot of other OP stuff.

If Tedd sees Guardian spell, he would likely be unable to learn everything it does at once because it's doing so much ...

 

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

If Tedd sees Guardian spell, he would likely be unable to learn everything it does at once because it's doing so much ...

When Tedd first explained the concept of "Wizards", he only said that the Wizard had to see the spell enough times.  How many times is enough seems deliberately vague on the part of the author.  But if the Guardian Form spell truly does require divine intervention, then the number may be never, very high, very low, or one.

Never would possibly indicate that the granting entity does not give that seer permission to use that spell.

Very high would be similar, but might be overcome if the seer began a lifelong quest to find every spellcaster with their own guardian form and study each of them repeatedly.  A daring do adventure across the physical world reflecting the seer's esoteric journey into that which man should not know.

A low number might indicate that the granting force may allow the "mechanics" of the guardian form to be studied and even understood, to a point.  But actually using the spell still requires mystic permission.

And one viewing would essentially mean that the granting force has given Tedd permission to understand the spell, just like it gave Ellen permission to copy the spell.

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58 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

And one viewing would essentially mean that the granting force has given Tedd permission to understand the spell, just like it gave Ellen permission to copy the spell.

I suspect that the Flair For The Dramatic would come into play with the Guardian spell, and/or divine permission, of course.  If Tedd has seen the spell, and gets into a situation where using it would help protect innocents etc, I suspect he'd be able to, say, make himself a wand to cast it on himself or on one other person, but it would be the *wand* that would be literally burnt out afterwards.  (If he's smart, he'll cast it on the person who is the least useful without it in that particular situation...)

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

When Tedd first explained the concept of "Wizards", he only said that the Wizard had to see the spell enough times.  How many times is enough seems deliberately vague on the part of the author. 

I think that besides being vague, it makes sense that simpler spells are easier to analyze.

Otherwise, he may be able to see how various parts of the spell works and still not be able to put it together - or, when put together, the restrictions of Guardian form will reappear no matter how much will the seer try to edit them out.

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But if Tedd were to use a want to cast Guardian Form (ambient-energy version) on someone who has no magic, then at least one of the restrictions (the 24-hour-minimum magical burnout) wouldn't matter.

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16 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

But if Tedd were to use a want to cast Guardian Form (ambient-energy version) on someone who has no magic, then at least one of the restrictions (the 24-hour-minimum magical burnout) wouldn't matter.

The burnout could still blind Tedd's ability to perceive magic or crash his ability to create wands, watches, etc.

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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
18 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

But if Tedd were to use a want to cast Guardian Form (ambient-energy version) on someone who has no magic, then at least one of the restrictions (the 24-hour-minimum magical burnout) wouldn't matter.

The burnout could still blind Tedd's ability to perceive magic or crash his ability to create wands, watches, etc.

Tedd HAS magic. LOT of it. And given how much energy Guardian Form takes, someone without own magic would likely be able to only keep it for few minutes.

(Also, it's wand, not want)

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6 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

The burnout could still blind Tedd's ability to perceive magic or crash his ability to create wands, watches, etc.

But if he uses a wand to cast it on someone else, presumably the someone else would be the one burned out afterwards (and, as I said, likely the wand would be burnt up, too, otherwise it would get way too OP).

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Tedd HAS magic. LOT(S) of it. And given how much energy [a] Guardian Form takes, someone without [their] own magic would likely be able to only keep it for [a] few minutes.

Ah, but Ellen and Nanase proved that the Guardian can choose to use ambient magic.  Plus, Tedd may be able to choose how much power the wand gives to the Guardian it creates.

I tried to use the word "imbues" in that last line, but the resulting phrasing was awkward.  Things That You Find Annoying.

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19 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

But if he uses a wand to cast it on someone else

I don't think you can cast spell like that on someone else. You can, of course, lend him the wand and let him cast it.

17 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Tedd HAS magic. LOT(S) of it. And given how much energy [a] Guardian Form takes, someone without [their] own magic would likely be able to only keep it for [a] few minutes.

Ah, but Ellen and Nanase proved that the Guardian can choose to use ambient magic.  Plus, Tedd may be able to choose how much power the wand gives to the Guardian it creates.

Doesn't necessary mean you can make spell which will switch to ambient magic "on start". If yes, that would definitely be an OP ability. Although ... it would just be OP in places with unnaturally high ambient magic, so maybe not real problem?

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Nanase and Ellen, in an area with an excess of magic energy, were able to use up the available ambient energy with the guardian forms in less than an hour of fancy flying.  I would guess that a Guardian form that ran off ambient energy would be self limiting.

If you can bear to remember it, think of what happened to that clone in the dark in Christopher Reeve's last film appearance in the blue tights.

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3 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Nanase and Ellen, in an area with an excess of magic energy, were able to use up the available ambient energy with the guardian forms in less than an hour of fancy flying.  I would guess that a Guardian form that ran off ambient energy would be self limiting.

It wasn't the Guardian forms alone that used up all the energy, Not_Tengu used a lot of it as well, not only to power his form, but the enchantment over the college students at the party. Don't know how much energy the enchantment used but it might have been compounded by the number of students affected. Still, Not_Tengu's form would draw a fair bit of power as well, especially when he buffed himself up.

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Yes, a lot of energy was being used

But my point is that it is possible to use up the available energy in a small area even if the surrounding area has excess energy.  You can burn it faster than it flows.

The other day, Tedd commented that there doesn't seem to be much comparing notes in magic.  Is it really possible that Nanase and Ellen were really the first to hit on the "Use up ambient energy" tactic?  Has word of that tactic been distributed to others with high energy cost spells?

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18 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The other day, Tedd commented that there doesn't seem to be much comparing notes in magic.  Is it really possible that Nanase and Ellen were really the first to hit on the "Use up ambient energy" tactic?  Has word of that tactic been distributed to others with high energy cost spells?

Distributed where? Rest of Moperville?

The amount of ambient magic anywhere else in world is not big enough to influence tactic. That's obvious from the fact NOONE NOTICED how it changed in Moperville: noone is creating maps where the ambient energy is higher, noone is testing for changes ... most likely, it's because outside Moperville, it doesn't matter.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Distributed where? Rest of Moperville?

The amount of ambient magic anywhere else in world is not big enough to influence tactic. That's obvious from the fact NOONE NOTICED how it changed in Moperville: noone is creating maps where the ambient energy is higher, noone is testing for changes ... most likely, it's because outside Moperville, it doesn't matter.

Yeah even Edward didn't seem to know that there was an unusual amount of energy building up around Moperville. I think the idea that the energy was constantly building up made it seem impractical to try to use it up by constantly casting spells if anyone else did consider it. Sure, Sarah's doing a fairly good job on her own but there's an end goal of unblocking the path for the energy to flow through, without that end goal, would anyone think it was worth it to try to control the amount of energy around the city?

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17 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Distributed where? Rest of Moperville?

The amount of ambient magic anywhere else in world is not big enough to influence tactic. That's obvious from the fact NOONE NOTICED how it changed in Moperville: noone is creating maps where the ambient energy is higher, noone is testing for changes ... most likely, it's because outside Moperville, it doesn't matter.

I think it's less that the energy concentrations don't matter (the ambient energy levels affect a lot of things like the rate of personal energy recovery and the power range an individual can use. The high excess takes the differences to dangerous levels, but that doesn't mean that normal variations in ambient magic don't cause significant differences) and more that the layers of secrecy have significantly impacted research into such topics. Noone noticed the changes in Moperville because the most of the magical community is going to be more interested in securing secrets than cooperating in a way that promotes greater understanding. Pandora mentioned that magic users are secretive enough to miss a recurring type of wizard. While Seers are rare, a cooperative research intiative should have picked up something. But a cooperative research intiative would entail a large number of researchers, which could be detrimental to the masquerade. Especially if one wishes to use the secrecy within secrecy for some sort of advantage.

Though that does mean such a tactic still wouldn't get distributed, just for different reasons.

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7 hours ago, Drasvin said:

I think it's less that the energy concentrations don't matter (the ambient energy levels affect a lot of things like the rate of personal energy recovery and the power range an individual can use. The high excess takes the differences to dangerous levels, but that doesn't mean that normal variations in ambient magic don't cause significant differences) and more that the layers of secrecy have significantly impacted research into such topics.

Well the secrecy certainly helped, but if significant variations would be common someone would notice. It doesn't mean there are none - just that normally the difference is small enough to be explainable by something else.

 

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