How to fight mages as a TL 7 character?

[Bilanthri]

Originally Posted by scc

Same concept but different working. Ever wonder why you never get shocked by all the electronics in a car or the internals of a laptop? Despite not being grounded in the grounded they're still grounded, the hull for a tank or car, something else for a laptop.

That's called "chassis ground" and can be a little misleading. Voltage is relative; by having all of the circuits in a complex device "grounded" together, you ensure that those circuits all stay relative to each other.

The reason car electronics and laptops don't shock you, even if you get in there and touch the wiring, is that the 9 to 12 Volt range that they run on is not enough to push current through your skin. But if you touch the electrodes of your car's starter solenoid when it's charged up, the many thousands of Volts present there will cause you a few points of burn damage.

A worse scenario is a washing machine ground fault. The third hole in your wall outlet is there so that if your washer motor shorts to the metal chassis, the current can escape to "earth ground" rather than wait for you to touch it and die a copper-tasting death.

Okay, now let's tie this back in: Let's say our arch-mage casts a lightning bolt at the washing machine. He's going to blow the circuit breaker, and the washing machine is getting the crap burned out of it, but I don't think the electrical components would be badly damaged, depending on the sheer number of damage dice. The ground fault protection should shunt the current to ground and spare the "vitals".

So, for all you robot PC enthusiasts, remember...Ground Fault Protection!

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Kfireblade

My world dose have some magic (although I am not a mage, I did not wan't to play a mage) And I believe my arrival has been obscured by the fact they have a barrier that separates world i'm going to from the rest of everything else. I'm actually going in to destroy that, and make sure it dose not get rebuilt

I suppose it depends on the nature of divination, and if the Archmage's world has access to your homeworld. Even if you, being from another world, won't be divinable, I suspect a city being wiped off the map or the death of a major political figure will be picked up. It's a lot more likely that the event of the death/destruction are in prophesy, while you aren't...until you cross over. You'll get picked up during the daily planning divination.

The barrier provides a solution to "hide until ready to strike". It makes locating the target more difficult, and you'll need to be able to project your strike across the barrier.

However, given that the attack comes from a TL7 society with access to magic...you not only know about the other major hurdles, but there are a variety of mass market paperbacks detailing exciting adventurous plots about assassinations and the like (baring press restrictions). No doubt your HomeWorld has a lot of the same precautions in place that the Archmage would, and methods to deal with them. Examining the successful major assassinations of your own world is probably the best place to start.