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Old 04-16-2021, 08:01 AM   #11
ericthered
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

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Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post
Looked at from a pure 4e perspective, this feels like a special case of Resistant, and in an ideal world might have been re-built as such. (This brings in the great unspoken problem of variable costs per world, but Psionics is canonically Very Common, so.) Of course given its origin it has a bunch of special effects that are rolled in together.
That's the way I feel about it. I've had players stick it on their characters, but I've never worried it about it much myself. I prefer to use resistant, and I often use resistant against much more specific types of magic. I've got a quick-play game where one character has static (magic), but he's something of a human macguffin. In my current real-time game, overgrown secrets, every single player has an amulet granting them resistant (+3) to soul-affecting magic. but that doesn't make them immune to the TK or illusion flying around the setting.



Most players that have taken magic resistance in my games have taken some sort of modified version to let friendly magic work on them.


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The main reason I'm against antipowers in roleplaying is because this often ends up meaning "I can cast spells unless it would be important to cast spells". If magic is too good, anti-magic is the least good solution.

I like resistances and anti-powers, but I also like to have them planned out before the campaign, and I have a dislike for "full range" magic that can achieve any possible effect. So in overgrown secrets there are four fields of magic that exist (soul, body, movement, and light), and resistance to soul magic is a major element of the setting (the other three, not so much), and its not hard to design a setting with that, and the magic really hasn't been broken at all.



magic resistance is kind of boring in that context, because its all or nothing. I've never seen someone use it to be resistant to only one kind of magic. But it they're up against equally broad magic, I suppose its forgivable.
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Old 04-16-2021, 03:05 PM   #12
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

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This is an interesting point. However, most magic systems are very much designed with anti-powers in mind. For example, there are plenty of spells in standard magic like Dispel Magic, Magic Resistance (the spell), Suspend Mana, etc. And they exist for good reason--magic is meant to be somewhat unreliable, and if it weren't, it would be quite unbalanced. My players have learned to expect that spells come and go for various reasons; magic usually works, but when you're facing sufficiently powerful enemies, they are often equipped with various countermeasures--after all, why wouldn't they invest in these in a world of magic?

There have been quite a few complaints on these forums over the years about standard magic being too powerful; typically I think the balancing factor has to be that there exist countermeasures.

When I first tried running RPM, I started with a different assumption (mages are rare, countermeasures are not that well-known or rarely used, etc.). When the RPM caster PC quickly figured out how to dominate every encounter with magic and turn his fellow PCs into identical godlike beings regardless of their individual abilities, I came to the forums for help, and the helpful crowd here made it clear that there need to be enemy casters who can dispel these powerful effects in crucial moments. (I eventually abandoned RPM anyway as I found it took way too much table time to negotiate the rituals all the time, but I still think I was given some good advice here.)
I mean you're largely explaining my point, many magic systems aren't well balanced. That's the main thing that pushed me to Magic as Powers because I could make sure each spell was made in mind of working in the setting and campaign.

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I like resistances and anti-powers, but I also like to have them planned out before the campaign, and I have a dislike for "full range" magic that can achieve any possible effect. So in overgrown secrets there are four fields of magic that exist (soul, body, movement, and light), and resistance to soul magic is a major element of the setting (the other three, not so much), and its not hard to design a setting with that, and the magic really hasn't been broken at all.
I like the 'idea' of some, but in practice you get things like 'meta dampeners' and gms who don't want their puzzle or conflict being solves by something they didn't notice the player could do so just tell the wizard they can't do anything.
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While I do not think that GURPS is perfect I do think that it is more balanced than what I am likely to create by GM fiat.
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Old 04-16-2021, 03:11 PM   #13
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

If you've got magic, you're going to get countermeasures against magic, just like if you've got high tech, you have technical countermeasures, and if you're the only person with those abilities, it's unusual background time. That said, magic resistance is a poor mechanic for that sort of thing, because it's exotic; countermeasures against magic should just be a routine part of equipping or training yourself, on a par with wearing armor or having active defenses, and they shouldn't be binary 'either it works perfectly or not at all'.
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Old 04-16-2021, 04:00 PM   #14
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

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Originally Posted by kirbwarrior View Post
I like the 'idea' of some, but in practice you get things like 'meta dampeners' and gms who don't want their puzzle or conflict being solves by something they didn't notice the player could do so just tell the wizard they can't do anything.
I've occasionally been guilty of this and I think in small doses, it's fine. But magic in a campaign unless it has some serious restraints can create plot holes the size of the Milky Way. Like Eric, this is why I like antipowers - it keeps the mages in line, but let's them do there thing. (Though that's easier said than done.)
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Old 04-16-2021, 04:31 PM   #15
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

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If you've got magic, you're going to get countermeasures against magic, just like if you've got high tech, you have technical countermeasures, and if you're the only person with those abilities, it's unusual background time. That said, magic resistance is a poor mechanic for that sort of thing, because it's exotic; countermeasures against magic should just be a routine part of equipping or training yourself, on a par with wearing armor or having active defenses, and they shouldn't be binary 'either it works perfectly or not at all'.
That's really the biggest part. However, on your comment of tech countermeasures, it's not like you're constantly worried about EMPs going off, it's that each piece of tech is flawed in usage. Magic countermeasures seem to be things like disarming the warrior any time you don't want them to solve a conflict via fighting, blinding the scout from finding out too much, and muting the face to stop them from talking to the king. But there's far better ways to deal with them.

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I've occasionally been guilty of this and I think in small doses, it's fine. But magic in a campaign unless it has some serious restraints can create plot holes the size of the Milky Way. Like Eric, this is why I like antipowers - it keeps the mages in line, but let's them do there thing. (Though that's easier said than done.)
Note that Magic is definitely badly balanced but that doesn't mean all magic is. What kind of serious restraints do you mean?
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Old 04-16-2021, 04:56 PM   #16
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

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Note that Magic is definitely badly balanced but that doesn't mean all magic is. What kind of serious restraints do you mean?
Well, when I run it depends solely on how magical my PCs are as to how many times they get to deal with anti-powers or anti-environmental. It's no fun to screw over just one guy all the time. I tend to bring in the anti's once every 3-4 sessions for 20% of the group that is magical, once every 2-3 for 40%, and so on. Also, I tend to keep buffing in check - because let's be honest, buffing is half the problem other than changing the environment the PCs are in (e.g., Shape Earth or similar). My PCs also know that I will happily and gleefully use one-off effects for enemies who are prepared and tactically minded. They prepare for this with whatever might make sense for the given magic system.

I think in general you need to give defenses to the opposition for magic and Magic Resistance is a way that can be done. Maybe it's a temporary potion or elixir, maybe it's a one-use magic item, whatever it is when dealing with smart foes they should take precautions and the GM should make sure their players know that.
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Old 04-16-2021, 09:59 PM   #17
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

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because let's be honest, buffing is half the problem
That is literally the first time I've heard that. If that's all my players were doing with magic, I'd have zero issue with it.

I also notices you said Shape Earth which makes me think you are using Magic, which I completely believe is bonkers broken. In my experience, all that system does is let PCs feel like either gods or worthless with little control over which.
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Old 04-16-2021, 10:05 PM   #18
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

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That is literally the first time I've heard that. If that's all my players were doing with magic, I'd have zero issue with it.
I mostly use Sorcery or some flavor of custom RPM, but in my DF world I use standard magic and the constant stream of Bless + buffs is annoying. It's why I created my rules for Buffing that I just bring everywhere: you get two. That's it.

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I also notices you said Shape Earth which makes me think you are using Magic, which I completely believe is bonkers broken. In my experience, all that system does is let PCs feel like either gods or worthless with little control over which.
Shape Earth caused issues until I put a muzzle on it. And yeah, standard magic has it's warts. It's useful for DF and that's about it in my opinion.
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Old 04-16-2021, 10:48 PM   #19
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

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Originally Posted by Gnome View Post
This is an interesting point. However, most magic systems are very much designed with anti-powers in mind. For example, there are plenty of spells in standard magic like Dispel Magic, Magic Resistance (the spell), Suspend Mana, etc. And they exist for good reason--magic is meant to be somewhat unreliable, and if it weren't, it would be quite unbalanced. My players have learned to expect that spells come and go for various reasons; magic usually works, but when you're facing sufficiently powerful enemies, they are often equipped with various countermeasures--after all, why wouldn't they invest in these in a world of magic?
Using magic against magic is a bit different from hard antipowers - assuming you don't reserve the good bits for the enemy at least. Suspended or Drained mana can, after all, simply be Restored. Dueling metamagic may or may not be interesting, but it's probably not going to be as uninteresting as a simple nullifying ability.
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Old 04-17-2021, 12:21 AM   #20
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Magic Resistance

Neat thing I remembered; Someone I know used MR as a power talent for anti-magic. The reasoning went that there were so few rolls used in that power set that it ended up fair. No idea how well it did, but I could see it.
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