changing history with Ritual Path Magic

Johan Larson · 05-01-2011, 01:16 PM

Can spells in the Path of Chance change things that have already happened?

I'm interested in making an Unlock Door spell. This could clearly be done through the Path of Matter, as a Lesser Control spell with the effect "unlock this door". But could it also be done through the Path of Chance, in effect saying "this door did not lock properly last time"?

Sunrunners_Fire · 05-01-2011, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

Can spells in the Path of Chance change things that have already happened?

I'm interested in making an Unlock Door spell. This could clearly be done through the Path of Matter, as a Lesser Control spell with the effect "unlock this door". But could it also be done through the Path of Chance, in effect saying "this door did not lock properly last time"?

MH1, pg 34: Modifiers: Range: ... consult Long-Distance Modifiers and apply the penalty (inverted) as an additional energy energy cost; for cross-time spells, do the same thing, but read "miles" as "days".

Seems reasonable to me.

vitruvian · 05-01-2011, 04:30 PM

I think a certain amount of determining if not altering (since it could be a case of 'but it was always that way) history is implicit in almost any effect that changes the odds of something happening right now. E.g., you're standing at a bus stop and cast a Path of Chance spell so that a bus will pull up within the next 30 seconds, or you're an investor and use the path to influence the price of some commodity over a day. In the first case, in order for the bus to arrive when you wanted it to, all kinds of things need to have happened going back hours into the day, in terms of when the driver showed up for work and headed out, how many people were waiting at each previous stop, traffic conditions, etc., etc. In the second case, while the fluctuations during a single day might not be traceable back as far as the latest crop or quarter of mining production, your designated price levels still depend on the pattern of buying and selling over the last day or so. A concept played with to great effect in Jo Walton's Among Others.

So, yes, you're affecting the past, but I'd draw the line at actually altering it; so an observer effect of sorts holds, where if you've already seen the dice land a certain way or a certain card get picked, you can't undo it. You can do a Path of Chance spell to determine the order of cards in a deck that's already been shuffled, but only so long as the cards haven't been turned over; to determine the results of a dice roll after the dice have been rolled, but only if they're under a cup or something.

In other words, you can only influence whether the cat is alive or dead up until the moment you open the box.

05-01-2011, 01:16 PM	#1
Johan Larson Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Toronto, Canada	changing history with Ritual Path Magic Can spells in the Path of Chance change things that have already happened? I'm interested in making an Unlock Door spell. This could clearly be done through the Path of Matter, as a Lesser Control spell with the effect "unlock this door". But could it also be done through the Path of Chance, in effect saying "this door did not lock properly last time"?

05-01-2011, 04:30 PM	#3
vitruvian Join Date: Aug 2004	Re: changing history with Ritual Path Magic I think a certain amount of determining if not altering (since it could be a case of 'but it was always that way) history is implicit in almost any effect that changes the odds of something happening right now. E.g., you're standing at a bus stop and cast a Path of Chance spell so that a bus will pull up within the next 30 seconds, or you're an investor and use the path to influence the price of some commodity over a day. In the first case, in order for the bus to arrive when you wanted it to, all kinds of things need to have happened going back hours into the day, in terms of when the driver showed up for work and headed out, how many people were waiting at each previous stop, traffic conditions, etc., etc. In the second case, while the fluctuations during a single day might not be traceable back as far as the latest crop or quarter of mining production, your designated price levels still depend on the pattern of buying and selling over the last day or so. A concept played with to great effect in Jo Walton's Among Others. So, yes, you're affecting the past, but I'd draw the line at actually altering it; so an observer effect of sorts holds, where if you've already seen the dice land a certain way or a certain card get picked, you can't undo it. You can do a Path of Chance spell to determine the order of cards in a deck that's already been shuffled, but only so long as the cards haven't been turned over; to determine the results of a dice roll after the dice have been rolled, but only if they're under a cup or something. In other words, you can only influence whether the cat is alive or dead up until the moment you open the box.