A (hopefully) less controversial question on Magic

[rikiwarren]

Hey,

I touched on this in my previous post, and I was wondering how others have interpreted these.

In the description on durations there is a distinction made between instant and maintained spells.

However, when I was looking at the example spells, they were labled as instant (but maintainable), instant (with permanent effects) and just plain instant.

So, Flight needs to be maintained. Regrow doesn't (it's affects are permanent). But what about those that are just labled instant. For example, Curse of the Dwarf and Frozen? Are the effects permanent or do you need to maintain them?

Personally, I think I'd have the effects for Curse of the Dwarf be permanent, but require that Frozen be maintained.

But, and this gets at a larger question, what rule of thumb are people using for magic and durations?

-Rich-

[Brian Leybourne]

Basically, if a change is "natural" then it doesn't have to be maintained. If I disintegrate a door then it stays disintegrated, or even if I warp the wood into strange shapes because that's not inherantly unnatural. However, if I make a shield of hardened air around me, that has to be maintained because air doesn't stay that way naturally; likewise if I grow an ectra arm.

A 30 foot tall spider isn't natural, so such a growth spell would have to be maintained, but I might allow a spell that made a spider a foot ot two long stay without maintenance, because it's fairly close to natural, if you know what I mean.

Rule of thumb, basically.

To answer your specific examples, Curse of the Dwarf in MY book has to be maintained, but some around here say that it's instant with lasting effect. Frozen has to be maintanined because air doesn't do that usually. Regrowth, certainly instant with lasting effects.

It's worth mentioning that the Sorcery and the Fey suppliment will probably (hopefully) clarify all of this and/or make changes. Also (and you guys will hate me for this) some of the spells in OBAM kind of break the rules above; so shoot me :-)

Brian.

[prophet118]

well....... the armor of air spell lasts for like weeks at a time... if im not mistaken... i dont know if thats a maintained thing, or just something taken care of in the casting...i havent looked at my book in a few days

[Brian Leybourne]

well....... the armor of air spell lasts for like weeks at a time... if im not mistaken... i dont know if thats a maintained thing, or just something taken care of in the casting...i havent looked at my book in a few days

That's the difference between instant/maintained (where you set aside as many extra SP dice as the CTN minus the number of casting successes you got, and don't refresh them - this allows you to keep the spell going through "force of will") and constant (where you used the summoning vagary and assigned a duration component, and the spell lasts without maintenance for as many hours/days/weeks (defined by the duration component and using Summoning of at least as high a level as the level you put into duration) times the number of spell casting successes).

Then finally you have Instant-made-constant where you got as many casting successes (or more) as the CTN of the spell, in which case it becomes constant and lasts without maintenance for 1 extra second per success even after you stop maintaining it (if that's possible/makes sense, which in the case of many instant spells such as a disintegration one it wouldn't).

Brian.

[Jabberwocky]

Myself, I rule that a spell may be Instant if it does not radically change the form/mind etc... of a target, otherwise it must be constant/permanent.  I use maintained spells for effects which maintain a constant change on reality - for example armour of air is constantly generating winds.  Therefore Curse of the Dwarf would have to be made constant rather than instant.  Note that a spell that, say, shatters a rock is taken as instant - the form is split apart, but the result is similar to the original - whereas for a human being blown apart the bits could not be classified as 'human'.  
Campaign is in an early stage thusfar (may post logs) and will try to clarify this in line with something I though up a while ago.  In this paradigm, even object is an expression of a Form (think platonic forms), or rather three which interact with other objects... goes on a bit but changes to the Actual (I think) Form are simple - like changing one human into another, a rock into smaller rocks etc, and would be instant, but changes in Conceptual Form (what an object is in essence) would be Constant - i.e. a rock into a tree, or a human into bits of human.

Anyhow, just my 2(0) cents.

         -Jabberwocky

[Bob Richter]

Hey,
So, Flight needs to be maintained. Regrow doesn't (it's affects are permanent). But what about those that are just labled instant. For example, Curse of the Dwarf and Frozen? Are the effects permanent or do you need to maintain them?

My take is that once the spell stops being Maintained, nature takes its course. Therefore, if a state is naturally stable, there's no need to Maintain a spell to force the retention of that state.

I would therefore say that Curse of the Dwarf and Frozen both need to be Maintained to have lasting effects, though YMMV.