Static Question

[Coinage]

Hey, y'all.

I was just wondering something,

I have this campaign setting, an urban fantasy setting set on modern day Earth. Now, our Earth, our universe, has no mana. However, all the magical characters are mana-dependent. So, they get Mana Enhancer for free, which acts as a sort of life-support system (like how astronauts have space-suits so they can operate in space).

Now, my idea for maintaining the masquerade is to give everyone with a Mundane Background (as per Pyramid #3-97) the "Static" advantage, which disrupts magical abilities. The idea is that, if any human sees magic, then the Static will activate, disrupting the "Mana Enhancer" advantage and putting the magical creature in jeopardy of death. The idea is to incentivize the characters to hide from ordinary humans and maintain the masquerade.

Would that work? Would Static (Magic) shut down the Mana Enhancer ability? Or would Mana Damper or Neutralize work better?

[Maz]

Thats a cool take on it. I like it.

Originally Posted by Coinage

Would that work? Would Static (Magic) shut down the Mana Enhancer ability? Or would Mana Damper or Neutralize work better?

However this is completly a setting-option so do not try to build it like a power. Simply determine how it works.

Personally I would also ad the twist that only a few humans are actually Mundanes. The "others" have just established this idea that ALL are.
I would also let mundanity be learned trait. So very few kids have it for instance. Were older people, or people more set in their way have it more often.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Static (magic) wouldn't normally shut down Mana Enhancer, no, because Static works on advantages that have a specific power source (Magical, in the case of Static (Magic)), and Mana Enhancer can't take the Magical power source limitation normally.

Now, Static (Magic) could still work as the ability you give the "mundanes" - it will still prevent (or penalize, depending on which modifiers you use) magic used on mundane characters with it. If you want to completely shut down the mana created by Mana Enhancer, though, Mana Dampener is the way to go.

However, I'd suggest that this whole construct of giving Mana Enhancer to the wizards and Static/Mana Dampener to the mundanes is actually not really necessary. The whole idea of magic being dependent on "mana levels" isn't automatic for all magical systems by any means. Really, it's kinda closely wedded to standard D&D-style medieval fantasy, where magic tends to be seen as an energy field that wizards and other spellcasters are tapping, and can be affected by "anti-magic fields" and so on. It's not really present in a lot of other fantasy genres. In particular, I'm not really aware of it in any of the urban fantasy settings I know. Harry Dresden doesn't have to worry about anti-magic, for instance.

The point is, you can dispense with the idea of mana levels entirely, and simply bake the idea of penalties for magic around mundanes into the system. If you're worried about balance issues, consider that Powers rates a power having "mundane countermeasures" - that is, any reasonably common environment that anyone with some basic knowledge and awareness could manipulate to hinder the power user - as a -10% limitation, which is the same as the -10% for Magical, which consists of -5% for the existence of specialized "anti-powers", e.g. Dispel Magic spells, and -5% for drawing on an ambient energy field (mana) that can be screened out with supernatural or exceptional means. I'd say that the presence of mundane characters, who, just by seeing magic in action, can penalize or remove it, counts as a reasonably common environment, so that makes up at least for losing the -5% for not needing mana.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

The point is, you can dispense with the idea of mana levels entirely, and simply bake the idea of penalties for magic around mundanes into the system. If you're worried about balance issues, consider that Powers rates a power having "mundane countermeasures" - that is, any reasonably common environment that anyone with some basic knowledge and awareness could manipulate to hinder the power user - as a -10% limitation, which is the same as the -10% for Magical, which consists of -5% for the existence of specialized "anti-powers", e.g. Dispel Magic spells, and -5% for drawing on an ambient energy field (mana) that can be screened out with supernatural or exceptional means. I'd say that the presence of mundane characters, who, just by seeing magic in action, can penalize or remove it, counts as a reasonably common environment, so that makes up at least for losing the -5% for not needing mana.

The basic concept is sound, but I would define the percentages differently. The power modifier for "mundane countermeasures" is -10%; ordinary people's disbelief in magic seems like a mundane countermeasure. If there are also dispel magic spells and the like, that's an extra -5%, for a total of -15%.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Maz

However this is completly a setting-option so do not try to build it like a power. Simply determine how it works.

I think its worth statting out properly, if only as a power-building exercise. And to make clear what static does and what neutralize does.



Static prevents magic from effecting you. Neutralize prevents a target from using magic. Both of them, as well as mana-damper, can be modified to work this way. None of them will shut down the abilities of others without modification.



Static and Mana-damper 3 are essentially the same advantage, costing the same and having the same effect. The difference is that Mana Damper can have levels, which brings in a couple of edge cases. If you don't want to play around with levels, the two are exactly the same. The simplest way to make one of these work is to put area effect on it, and then add sense-based (vision, reversed) on it.



Neutralize could accomplish this as an aura with area effect and reversed sense based again. It may not be ideal, because it requires winning a contest of will with any targets and cripples them for minutes. But that may be what you want.


I hope these builds help you understand how to build the ability you want. You should probably put always on to these builds, because killing the subject matter of the campaign whenever you look at it is quite inconvenient.

[Plane]

Muggles could all have Mana Damper 3 (Persistent, Ranged, Increased Range: Line of Sight, Uncontrollable, Unconscious Only) so that any time they get upset, their unconscious instinctively sends out attacks any anything they can see to dampen that mana. Would that work?

You could actually, to make it cheaper, design it as "Mana Damper 1" and then allow it to increase to 2 or 3 as needed using Extra Effort rules. I think "Uncontrollable" is able to tap the FP of its host, but this would mean possibly the ability shuts down if the roll critfails.

I seem to remember a cap where FP can't be spent below 3 FP for "Unreliable", that's probably a good guideline to use for Uncontrollable to prevent abilities from killing their hosts...

You could also do something like "Temporary Disadvantage: Total Amnesia, retroactive" so that people who successfully use this to erase the mana causing a magical effect will forge that they saw the magical effect.

This wouldn't create a danger in cases where people aren't actually upset though (because then Uncontrollable would not activate).

If you wanted it on even when people weren't upset, replace Uncontrollable/Unconscious Only limitations with the "Reflexive" enhancement and design a "Trigger" limitation?

[naloth]

Here's something similar to what I did in a game where magic was opposed by the "will of other casters". Naturally every mundane could possess a bit of this ability. Reliable divided by 3 is the average (for IQ 10) penalty each would inflict.

Visualization ( Cursing +100%; Only to penalize magic -20%; Reduced Time 7 +140%; Reflexive +40%; Reliable +9 +45%) [41]

Any mundane that can see you doing magic gets to penalize your magic rolls. Assuming average IQ, each mundane will give you a net -3 to casting. 10 mundane viewers (paying attention) would average a -30 to your roll.

Edit: I'd adjust "only to penalize magic" to anything that is outside the mundane paradigm. Perhaps -10%. Magical creatures would avoid mundanes in general and especially groups as they would get lethal penalties on just about everything they do.

[AlexanderHowl]

Or you could do something where every mundane who does not share your belief paradigm (philosophical or religious) inflicts a cumulative -1 to skill when they would witness an 'impossible' magical effect. If the penalty becomes -10 or worse, the magician automatically suffers a critical failure if they try to perform the magical effect.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Or you could do something where every mundane who does not share your belief paradigm (philosophical or religious) inflicts a cumulative -1 to skill when they would witness an 'impossible' magical effect. If the penalty becomes -10 or worse, the magician automatically suffers a critical failure if they try to perform the magical effect.

That was the effect I was going for, though I figured backlash/burnout of some kind on the caster rather than the "uncontrolled magic/summons demon" critical effect.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Coinage

Hey, y'all.

I was just wondering something,

I have this campaign setting, an urban fantasy setting set on modern day Earth. Now, our Earth, our universe, has no mana. However, all the magical characters are mana-dependent. So, they get Mana Enhancer for free, which acts as a sort of life-support system (like how astronauts have space-suits so they can operate in space).

Now, my idea for maintaining the masquerade is to give everyone with a Mundane Background (as per Pyramid #3-97) the "Static" advantage, which disrupts magical abilities. The idea is that, if any human sees magic, then the Static will activate, disrupting the "Mana Enhancer" advantage and putting the magical creature in jeopardy of death. The idea is to incentivize the characters to hide from ordinary humans and maintain the masquerade.

Would that work? Would Static (Magic) shut down the Mana Enhancer ability? Or would Mana Damper or Neutralize work better?

I'd probably use Mana Damper myself - or even better adapt the rules for the Skeptic perk from GURPS Psionic Powers (p. 24).

For the former, as others have noted this is a feature. You don't stat features. You figure out how it works for the campaign and move on.

For the latter, if you just assume that everyone is a skeptic then a crowd of a hundred people results in a penalty of -10 to work magic (or other supernatural powers if you want to extend it like that). . .


Alternatively, you could have the Facade (If you're using my rules from the Mask of Humanity in the Strange Powers Pyramid) resist magic for those in the area. Require a Quick Contest of skill vs. the local Facade Rating - failure means your power, spell, whatever didn't work.

What sort of magic system are you using? That would further determine any advice I might give on how to replicate this effect.