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David Bofinger · 07-31-2018, 08:41 AM

If a reptile man wizard casts Summon Scout, does he get a lizard instead of a mammal? What about a merfolk getting a fish? Or does it depend on the environment?

I don't like the omniscience of Pathfinder but I'm not sure how else you would do it. You don't want people repeatedly casting the spell to learn more and more, so you can't have them asking questions. The way it's done at least avoids that problem. (It reminds me of Greg Egan's Quarantine, where the characters get split into two quantum states, follow both paths, meet up at the end and decide which path was better, the one that wasn't better vanishes. Egan's version is much more powerful.)

If there's going to be a Friendship spell then there should be a Hostility one as well, with the reverse effect, but maybe it doesn't make them hate the caster.

It might be interesting to have a spell that made everyone unable to understand each other's speech, and perhaps even unable to understand why everyone else was talking funny and only they were unaffected. (I'd like to call it Babel but that doesn't make sense.)

Hard to imagine very many people will learn to Delete Writing. I presume it also erases drawings, paintings, etc.?

07-31-2018, 08:41 AM	#9
David Bofinger Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Sydney, Australia	Re: Five New Practical Magic Spells If a reptile man wizard casts Summon Scout, does he get a lizard instead of a mammal? What about a merfolk getting a fish? Or does it depend on the environment? I don't like the omniscience of Pathfinder but I'm not sure how else you would do it. You don't want people repeatedly casting the spell to learn more and more, so you can't have them asking questions. The way it's done at least avoids that problem. (It reminds me of Greg Egan's Quarantine, where the characters get split into two quantum states, follow both paths, meet up at the end and decide which path was better, the one that wasn't better vanishes. Egan's version is much more powerful.) If there's going to be a Friendship spell then there should be a Hostility one as well, with the reverse effect, but maybe it doesn't make them hate the caster. It might be interesting to have a spell that made everyone unable to understand each other's speech, and perhaps even unable to understand why everyone else was talking funny and only they were unaffected. (I'd like to call it Babel but that doesn't make sense.) Hard to imagine very many people will learn to Delete Writing. I presume it also erases drawings, paintings, etc.?