Assumptions about Elves

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by (E)

I feel temperature tolerance may be a bit of a stretch but Legolas was lightly walking on the snow.

That's the Light Walk cinematic skill, not temperature tolerance.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

There's something in a GURPS book that addresses this. It deals, I believe, with loss of effective skill with disuse when several points have been spent in a skill. I don't remember the details or where it is in what book.

Does anybody know where that is?

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I understand it first appeared in Special Ops.

It may have; I certainly played Third Edition GURPS.

I still have a vague feeling it appeared in a Fourth Edition book before GURPS Social Engineering: Back To School. But I could be wrong.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's the Light Walk cinematic skill, not temperature tolerance.

True, as far as the walk-on-snow detail goes. But in that scene, Legolas is also wearing his normal outfit, bare-headed, no gloves, not bundled up in heavy cloaks like the rest of the Fellowship. The cold apparently doesn't bother him the way it does the others.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by (E)

Seeing as this thread popped up again.
What's people's opinion on having temperature tolerance as an elven assumption?

Perhaps it's a common cantrip, native enchantment, or even just a Body Control technique, that they can call upon, but it's too exhausting or distracting to have on constantly in daily life.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

Thanks, although that's not the book I saw it in. I seem to remember seeing it years before that book came out. Anybody know another place that's mentioned?

Characters has some rules for it. Box, B294.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Perhaps it's a common cantrip, native enchantment, or even just a Body Control technique, that they can call upon, but it's too exhausting or distracting to have on constantly in daily life.

It doesn't really matter that it's on constantly, because most of the time it's not needed. Charging for it is only worthwhile if you want to limit the elf's ability to be resistant to temperature extremes to a limited time or have it compete for FP (or whatever) with other abilities. Unless such resource management is intended to be part of the game, I don't think it's worth so limiting them - it's just fiddly administration.

[(E)]

In this case the curiosity about temperature tolerance is to determine fuel consumption on a societal level.

[rkbrown419]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Using your eyes, feet, or hands does not have a random risk of summoning demons... That's just for the standard magic system.

Under standard Magic a demon comes up on a roll of 18 after a critical failure, and the GM can change the result if caster and spell are good in intent. I can think of plenty of industries that are used in the real world that have about the same or greater odds of some kind of catastrophic failure. Several chemical processes, including distilling alcohol. Fear of having it blow up in your face hasn't stopped humans, why should it stop elves?

Personally I prefer an interpretation of elves that's not so afraid of how magic can go wrong, especially since most versions of the racial template have magery.

I've been toying with the idea of a setting where elves use magic, often ceremonial magic as outlined in fantasy for things like modifying the weather and helping their food supply. I've also considered how some of the spells in Bio-Tech might affect the setting. Might the many different flavors of elves in a world be the result of them magically altering their own genes to suit their environment or fit an ideal. In a Tolkenesque touch Orcs might be derived from elves by magical genetic alteration to fit a super soldier ideal.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by rkbrown419

Under standard Magic a demon comes up on a roll of 18 after a critical failure, and the GM can change the result if caster and spell are good in intent. I can think of plenty of industries that are used in the real world that have about the same or greater odds of some kind of catastrophic failure. Several chemical processes, including distilling alcohol. Fear of having it blow up in your face hasn't stopped humans, why should it stop elves?

An industry with such a high risk of causing an equally serious catastrophy as a demon summoning, is likely to be a large operation which involves many people, and will probably be treated as a fairly dangerous activity (though the benefits might be considered worth the risk). I wouldn't say that they would never use magic, but it definitely warrants more caution than "Using your eyes, feet, or hand". Arguably significantly more so than it would for humans as well. The longer lifespan of elves means that they both are more likely to die of accidents, and more likely to have prior personal experience of various accidents.

Regarding changing the result, when the intent is good, the condition for that is quite a lot more stringent than what you wrote.

"caster and spell were both lily-white, pure good in intent"

That is a very high bar to reach.

Originally Posted by rkbrown419

Personally I prefer an interpretation of elves that's not so afraid of how magic can go wrong, especially since most versions of the racial template have magery.

I've been toying with the idea of a setting where elves use magic, often ceremonial magic as outlined in fantasy for things like modifying the weather and helping their food supply. I've also considered how some of the spells in Bio-Tech might affect the setting. Might the many different flavors of elves in a world be the result of them magically altering their own genes to suit their environment or fit an ideal. In a Tolkenesque touch Orcs might be derived from elves by magical genetic alteration to fit a super soldier ideal.

Allowing the Stable Casting enhancement to be trained, and having an elven culture that prohibits spellcasting before you have Stable Casting and at least skill 16 would help with that. You could even go further than that and only cast in low mana areas and with at least skill 21, then it would probably be safe enough to use magic frivolously.

Ceremonial magic is even more dangerous due to the cap on effective skill, but at least you don't have to cast it as often as personal scale magic.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by rkbrown419

Orcs might be derived from elves by magical genetic alteration to fit a super soldier ideal.

... not be an evil god, but by the Elven biomancers themselves, back in the old days when they were building their empire. Turned out to be a huge mistake, which is why in modern times (in the words of the famous elf Lieutenant Worfindel), "we do not discuss it with outsiders".