Levitating the undead

[Buzzardo]

Yesterday, in our weekly GURPS campaign (well, one of them), we ran into a situation. One of our mages tried to use the Levitation spell on an undead creature (basically a free-will zombie). Then someone else noticed that the spells says, "Subject must be a living being." So the GM disallowed it.

The GM's word is final (mostly - we all GM, so it would have to be something egregious to get anyone to speak against it). I was wondering, though, whether that's how the spell was meant to work. An undead creature isn't alive, but it isn't dead, either. It moves and makes decisions and so on.

So, is the Levitation spell meant to exclude the undead or not?

[Kelly Pedersen]

As you say, it's up to the GM, but I'm fairly sure that the "living being" restriction should actually be "animated being" - consider Apportation, for example, which can move non-living things as well as living, but gives "living beings" a Will roll to resist. I'm pretty sure that undead, golems, and so forth should also get a Will roll to resist Apportation.

[Tinman]

The version of levitation for non-living things is Apportation, see Magic p.142.

[Steve Jackson]

Interesting question, and I might have allowed it, but it's definitely a knife-edge. I surely cannot say "what I meant" at this remove. I am almost sure I ever considered the edge case of undead. Would it have worked on a vampire, which is not living but also by definition not dead, and is certainly animated?

[mr beer]

The ruling is fair since the description is clear. I may go either way in game though.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

As you say, it's up to the GM, but I'm fairly sure that the "living being" restriction should actually be "animated being"

Agreed. There are a lot of spells in GURPS Magic that are hazy about "living" vs. "animate." You have to call them on a case-by-case basis, but the intent of Levitation is that it works on characters that take turns in combat, use skills, etc., as opposed to inanimate objects.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Interesting question, and I might have allowed it, but it's definitely a knife-edge. I surely cannot say "what I meant" at this remove. I am almost sure I ever considered the edge case of undead. Would it have worked on a vampire, which is not living but also by definition not dead, and is certainly animated?

Originally Posted by Kromm

Agreed. There are a lot of spells in GURPS Magic that are hazy about "living" vs. "animate." You have to call them on a case-by-case basis, but the intent of Levitation is that it works on characters that take turns in combat, use skills, etc., as opposed to inanimate objects.

I'm fine with avoiding any controversy by ruling that it works on any "animate" target. It seems unlikely, given your responses, but I was wondering if you could explain why this spell was designed to work only on living beings. The old version of Levitation was mostly the same in the important ways, save for being Resisted by IQ only. You already had Apportation and Flight. and Levitation seems like it's just there as an intermediate step between them on the learning tree. Flight is more efficient than Levitation, but only works on the caster, while Levitation is more efficient than Apportation, but only works on living targets. Is that really all there was to it? Flight originally worked more like Levitation, in that it gave the target the power of flight (under its own control), which made the utility of Levitation somewhat less than now.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

I surely cannot say "what I meant" at this remove.

My guess, to keep PCs from Levitating out obscene amounts of loot from the dungeon.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

My guess, to keep PCs from Levitating out obscene amounts of loot from the dungeon.

Interestingly, we had a case a couple of weeks ago where an animate (but not alive) creature was fairly obscene loot [1]. The party had to schlep it out the old fashioned way so questions about Levitate did not come up, but it's an actual in-play case report where if the above is the goal, then limiting to actual-factual-alive things is safer.

[1] Long story short and avoiding spoilery-stuff, the party kept a sensory-deprived obsidian jaguar from having its "killbot switch" activated, and carried it out of the dungeon to sell to the temple [2].

[2] I'd previously established that the temple in town was an acceptable place to dispose of all religious loot, not just generic things like incense the temple could safely use. The cleric doesn't get any increase in value for selling evil idols to the Temple (where they would for the incense... or for selling that idol to sketchy cultists).

Obsidian Jaguars are guardians of holy sites and temples and servants of clerics. At the very least, it's like the evil idol, and therefore vendor-able at the temple. I ruled the temple could actually reprogram it because there was some contemplation of taking it as an Ally and that's just too awesome to turn down.

[Dalillama]

I don't think I've ever played in or run a party that wouldn't go to great lengths to reprogram or otherwise suborn such a thing to their service.