Need to Hover to Cast?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I believe that this is a gray area with no applicable RAW.

I'd say it's skill dependent. If you know a spell well enough to cast it without words or gestures, and you know Flight skill at a high enough level, you could concentrate for a second while performing the flight equivalent of the "Step" maneuver.

Alternately, if your native form of movement is aerial, you should be able to cast spells while flying by taking the aerial version of "Step and . . ."

If you wanted to alter the Step maneuver for high speed characters, you could rule that a "Step" counts as straight line movement at no more than 20% of your top speed (and at least 10% above your stall speed, if you have one), but only in conditions which don't require a Control roll. That would allow airborne mages to cast spells, literally, on the fly.

The foundational point here is that if you have Cannot Hover, your stall speed is 1/4 of your top speed. Which is more than your Step distance, even with your more-generous-than-RAW idea of Step distance for fast characters. So if you try to take any maneuver that only allows a step, you'll not be able to sustain flight.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Certainly if you're moving at or near top speed you're already concentrating on maximizing and maintaining speed. Slow sustained running might allow a more meditative state where you could possibly concentrate on other things.

My experience of that is that distance running does not amount to an effective time for concentrated thought. Certainly you can think about other things, but keeping a train of thought together and moving doesn't work so well.

Certainly if you slow it down enough, that stops being true...

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It's been a while since I was a runner, but from my recollections running was not very compatible with focused thought.

Depends on how heavy you exercise. If doing a sprint, running through rough terrain, you should and need to concentrate on that. But just running at a fat burning pace, is imho and experience a good way to think about something in fact I used to go running if I couldn´t solve a puzzle or needed to think about homework. today I just walk a bit in the woods we all get older.

In fact there was a ancient historical school of philosophers who used to walk while discussing and thinking, couldn´t remember the name something with pedia??? .

[Balor Patch]

Originally Posted by Willy

In fact there was a ancient historical school of philosophers who used to walk while discussing and thinking, couldn´t remember the name something with pedia??? .

"The Peripatetic school was a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece. Its teachings derived from its founder, Aristotle (384–322 BC), and peripatetic is an adjective ascribed to his followers."

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

"The Peripatetic school was a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece. Its teachings derived from its founder, Aristotle (384–322 BC), and peripatetic is an adjective ascribed to his followers."

Exactly that was what I meant. Thank you very much!

What do I learn from it? First it pays to read cheap historical novels years ago, second I would never qualify for the second level of eidetic memory IRL ;) .