Meteoric Metal vs Magic

[Jeminai]

In a Dungeon Fantasy setting, is a person wearing a meteoric Great Helm immune to mind control spells?

Can a person with Danger Sense (limitation: Magical) sense and incoming meteoric arrow? Does a Deflect missile spell protect against meteoric arrows and sling stones? Does the arrow have to be completely made of meteoric metal or is the meteoric arrow head sufficient?

Can divination spells see the impending destruction of a world about to be hit by a meteor? Can a magical Danger Sense actually sense a meteor about to hit a character?

If I have a meteoric sword and I am being teleported, does my sword get left behind?

Please help me answer these questions and points go to those that come up with more clever examples. (I guess you can buy imaginary Kudos with those points... :)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Jeminai

In a Dungeon Fantasy setting, is a person wearing a meteoric Great Helm immune to mind control spells?

No. Meteoric gear cannot be affected by magic, but it does not block magic.

Originally Posted by Jeminai

Can a person with Danger Sense (limitation: Magical) sense and incoming meteoric arrow? Does a Deflect missile spell protect against meteoric arrows and sling stones? Does the arrow have to be completely made of meteoric metal or is the meteoric arrow head sufficient?

The interaction between meteoric and detection effects is unclear, but it's reasonable to say it will be invisible to magical detection. However, a non-meteoric shaft can be detected and affected normally by magic, and will generally take the arrow tip with it.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Anthony

No. Meteoric gear cannot be affected by magic, but it does not block magic.

While true, this makes most meteoric armor and shields kind of lame in practice. Unless your opponents routinely attack your armor, and not you, it's not doing much for all that cost.

But it might be fun if it does in fact effectively block spells from passing through the armor.

- Maybe you can't cast a mind control spell on a guy wearing a greathelm, because you can't get through his helm. Or cast it on a guy wearing a pothelm if you're behind him, for the same reason - you need to move to where his face is a valid target.

- It might be impossible to send commands via Enslave to someone wearing meteoric armor, because your telepathic connection is blocked.

- You probably can't cast touch spells though the armor, anyway, but it would be interesting if, say, meteoric gauntlets prevented magic traps from firing or blocked spells cast on your hands.

- Pure magical damage should be blocked entirely (mana bolts from DF11), as should any magical delivery system (Curse-Missile), if it must go through a piece of meteoric armor to reach the target.

Otherwise, it's not so helpful as armor. It's even more useless against spells like Teleport Other (hey, NPCs might have it) or Entombment, where you'll leave your armor behind. I wouldn't try treating it as some kind of anti-magic auto-dispel-er, but I kind of like the idea that meteoric armor might give some limited anti-magical effect merely by being between the caster and the victim. If you view magic as curving around obstacles to get there, not as LOS (and I believe this is the RAW), then it's not going to work, and meteoric armor is back to being of marginal use, IMO.

[Anders]

A To Hit penalty to Mind Control spells against people with helmets?

[vierasmarius]

I could see giving casters a penalty to affect someone wearing meteoric armor, probably based on its DR (average of Torso + weakest, as is done for Large Area Injuries, or else have different types of spells "target" different locations - head for mind control, limb for Spasm, etc). Of course, spellcasting while wearing Meteoric armor should also be hampered, by the same penalty plus an additional penalty based on the combined mass of Meteoric gear carried (armor and weapons).

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

While true, this makes most meteoric armor and shields kind of lame in practice. Unless your opponents routinely attack your armor, and not you, it's not doing much for all that cost.

But it might be fun if it does in fact effectively block spells from passing through the armor.

I agree that meteoric armour is a little lack lustre if only it is immune to magic - although I'd say that magical bolts can't pass through it as written.

The rest of the ideas are indeed fun though, but you do have to watch how far you push the idea - and it becomes a slippery slope where meteoric iron slowly just becomes something that produces an anti-magic zone around it, rather than simply being immune to magic itself.

Now this may be what you want, and prefer (as its more interesting) but it is something different in a fairly fundamental way - and at that point you're opening the door to players trying to reason munchkiny gains from the described mechanics (like foil plating regular iron with meteoric iron to give it the same benefits at a fraction of the cost!).

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Now this may be what you want, and prefer (as its more interesting) but it is something different in a fairly fundamental way - and at that point you're opening the door to players trying to reason munchkiny gains from the described mechanics (like foil plating regular iron with meteoric iron to give it the same benefits at a fraction of the cost!).

That's why I'd tie the benefits of Meteoric Armor to its DR, or more generically its mass per surface area. If you've got just a tin-foil-thick coating, sure it'll be immune to the spell Remove Enamel, but it won't provide any additional benefit.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

That's why I'd tie the benefits of Meteoric Armor to its DR, or more generically its mass per surface area.

A simple version is just that meteoric iron armor provides magic resistance equal to its DR.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Jeminai

In a Dungeon Fantasy setting, is a person wearing a meteoric Great Helm immune to mind control spells?

Nope, the helm is immune to magical levitation to remove it, but it doesn't produce an anti-magic field to prevent other magic working around it (such as mind control). Of cause the helm could be enchanted through other means (chi skills, divinity, cosmic-ness) to confer immunity to mind control separately whilst still being meteoric.

Can a person with Danger Sense (limitation: Magical) sense and incoming meteoric arrow? Does a Deflect missile spell protect against meteoric arrows and sling stones? Does the arrow have to be completely made of meteoric metal or is the meteoric arrow head sufficient?

Interesting question, I'd say if it was completely made of meteoric metal then it shouldn't be detected with Danger Sense - if its got non-meteoric parts I'd let it be detected normally though (or perhaps with a roll if the parts themselves are odd enough as so to fool the sense as to if its dangerous).

Can divination spells see the impending destruction of a world about to be hit by a meteor? Can a magical Danger Sense actually sense a meteor about to hit a character?

No, to both. Which makes them quite good "we don't know how the world will end, but we know it will - now go find out how" prophecies.

If I have a meteoric sword and I am being teleported, does my sword get left behind?

Yes it would be left behind, it can't be affected by magic - so it can't be teleported by it. Same goes for meteoric armour actually, which might be an interesting way of making someone more squishy!

[Jerander]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

No, to both. Which makes them quite good "we don't know how the world will end, but we know it will - now go find out how" prophecies.

Wouldn't this depend on the composition of the meteor? Only if it's 100% meteoric metal would it be totally undetectable...