Steve Jackson Games Forums - Talent/Spell of the Weak: Control Person

Quote:

Originally Posted by phiwum (Post 2460470)

I know the week's over, Shostak, but I have a question about your suggestion. You pointed out that PCs and also NPCs have higher IQs these days, and so Control Person has become less useful -- a 3/IQ roll is pretty easy to make. Thus, go for an IQ contest instead, giving the caster better odds of a successful casting.

But there are two other Control spells, Control Animals and Control Elementals. Animals and Elementals haven't increased their IQs. There are two options:

(1) Go with an IQ contest here. Advantage: simple consistency. Disadvantage: Control Animals has just gotten a lot better for no good reason.

(2) Go with a 3/IQ roll here. Advantage: Controlling Animals is still easier than Controlling Persons, but not massively so. Disadvantage: It's hard to come up with a thematic justification.

Which of these two do you prefer?

The latter, since there is no change to their IQ that has unintended consequences, and because I'm lazy. But if consistency is the goal, one could grant elementals and animals levels of Indomitable (Hexagram 8) to give a bonus to IQ for the purpose of this sort of resistance roll.