> 
> I think turning a 400em special knowledge spell into nothing more than a
> stealth modifier is a really bad idea. I think the spell you would create
> would bear little to no resemblence to what it previously has been,
> something analagous to the invisibility spell. What i understand started
> out as a re-write to remove the "who can see who" paperwork of all those
> perception checks (a commenable aim) has turned into a destroying the old
> spell completely and creating something totally different, and, as Jim
> points out, weaker than  walking unseen (a low em general spell in another
> college).

Actually, I didn't say that at all. I think that a spell that allows the target 
to use Stealth in the open is a MUCH more powerful spell. It cannot be 
penetrated, except by a bad Stealth roll, and since the characters don't know 
wha they roll for their Stealth check, they can't be certain how good it will 
be, beyond a general idea.

As it stands, Invis, Walking Unseen and Blending can be penetrated by 
Witchsight and Enhanced Vision. No doubt, other characters that don't have 
access to those Talents, can get them as potions or invested Witchsight spells. 

There is a remedy for Invisibility, where there wouldn't be for a spell that 
allows you to use your Stealth in plain sight of someone.

This has the advantage of allowing for concealment spells at the medium to high 
end of the game, where every man, his dog, and his dog's fleas have Witchsight 
investeds or potions of the same.


> 
> I support the minimal change of simply making the adept visable when he/she
> tattacks in melee OR targets someone with (or simply jus casts) a spell or
> a missile weapon.

Personally, I think minimal changes is a red herring. People regularly tout it 
as being attractive, but there's no real logic to support it. 

The only important  consideration is that the rule that is to be suggested 
makes for a better game. That has to include things like ease of play, as well 
as being balanced with respect to the game in general.

Whether or not the spell version chosen is a minimal change, I submit, is 
simply not relevant to creating a good, workable, sustainable rule. It IS 
relevant to making a stopgap that will work for some time. But, such endeavours 
tend to fail, and cause a return to whatever the status quo was.

> 
> 
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> 
> >I support the minimal change of simply making the adept visable when he/she
> >tattacks in melee OR targets someone with (or simply jus casts) a spell or
> >a missile weapon.
> 
> Of relevance I suppose are the two spells that also allow spell-casting 
> "invisibly" or at least from out of sight - namely wizard's eye and 
> telepathy. I remember an entire party being captured by one E&E with a 
> wizard's eye and sleep spells.
> 
> It is just a convention that wizard's eyes are visible to witchsight - and 
> they're hard to spot anyhow.

I agree. Personally, I think Wizard's Eyes should be visible, about a foot 
across and shocking pink. If the caster wants to make it Invisible, then they 
would have to cast Invisibility on the eye. Otherwise, they should be glaringly 
obvious.

> 
> If I may plea for a version of indetectability that is only suspended by 
> targeting, and not destroyed entirely. I think it would be exciting to play...

It is a faulty operation of logic where we identify one bad situation, and 
argue that nothing should be done about it on those grounds. If that is what is 
being suggested here. It's impossible to know exactly what the ellipsis refers 
to.


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On Thursday, October 4, 2001, at 04:47 , Errol Cavit wrote:

> Well said Jim
>
> Regarding Clare's first proposed write-up (what is in 2001 rulebook, 
> plus
> you can't do _anything_ offensive, or cast/trigger magic):
> This is a down power of the current spell. It is not clear why casting 
> or
> triggering stops the spell working. This makes it a bit harder to decide
> what happens in borderline situations, but I'm sure we can handle this.

I am sure we can come up with a reason to justify the desired effect 
that you can't cast and remain undetectible. Let's not lose sight of the 
fact that what we want to do is decide on the effect we want and *then* 
write a spell that does this. Not decide on how the spell works and then 
see what logically follows from that to find the effect. Given the 
talents of this group I am sure we can come up with a rationalisation 
for any effect we want. Let's concentrate on the effect for now. (My 
apologies for introducing a write-up myself.)

I don't consider the stealthy version of Undetectibility to be weaker 
than Unseen. The first point is that given you can try and stealth in 
the open - it's *much* easier to stealth in the open. Walking quietly 
across the middle of a courtyard is much easier that quietly dashing 
from doorway to doorway around the edge of the courtyard. Secondly - 
*any* rank witchsight lets you see *any* rank unseen. Witchsight is 
common once you get to medium games - it's a racial talent for elves, a 
magical talent for several colleges and a *general* knowledge spell for 
celestials.

However I agree also that getting everyone to play the same version of 
the spell is more important than exactly which version of the spell, and 
if there is a consensus as to which way we wish to move with this I will 
leap in and help with working out how to "explain" the result we want in 
"in game" terms.

clare


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Jacqui Smith wrote:

> It is just a convention that wizard's eyes are visible to witchsight...

No, it's a rule.

From Wizard=92s Eye (S-10):
"The Adept creates an invisible, intangible eye...  The eye can be seen w=
ith
witchsight or other means of detecting invisible objects."

Cheers,
Martin

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Jim wrote:

>Personally, I think minimal changes is a red herring. People regularly
tout it
>as being attractive, but there's no real logic to support it.

This would be true if people hadnt been playing the game for 20 plus years.
As gm's/rule makers I think we should strive to minimise as much as
possible the effects of rule changes on the system and the playership.
Remember the rationale behind changing the spell at start was not to
totally rework the effect but to simply remove the perception roll thing.
It has been sidetracked into a total re-write of the entire spell.

It is precisely this sort of continuous change to the rules (often
percieved as change  for the sake of change) that the I hear the playership
crying out against consistently. People would like to think that if they
have spent several years creating a charaacter choosing and using various
spells and skills that they wont find overnight that those same spells and
skills have ceased to exist and/or now do entirely different things.

Maybe you have a nice spell worked out with this stealth mod thing
(persoanlly I have my doubts, but thats not the point), but if so introduce
it as a new spell into a college, dont seek to have it replace an exisiting
spell in wide use by the playership.

It has been suggested previously in this forum that we should curtail the
rules changes for a while and only make changes where something is shown to
be broken and in need of a re-write. I wholeheartedly concur with that
sentiment.


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On Friday, October 5, 2001, at 09:50 , Mark Simpson wrote:
> It has been suggested previously in this forum that we should curtail 
> the
> rules changes for a while and only make changes where something is 
> shown to
> be broken and in need of a re-write. I wholeheartedly concur with that
> sentiment.

I agree with not making change for change's sake. However it wasn't 
tenable to just remove the perception check from undetectibility. This 
would have made a spell beyond any mind mage's wildest dreams. Some 
other weakening must take place to compensate for removing the 
perception check. The question we are debating is "what weakening?". As 
the new spell has been in play for 1 month as a probationary college I 
don't believe we are forced to only consider the type of weakening that 
was chosen for this version.

clare
--
So long and thanks for all the fish


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Clare wrote:

>As the new spell has been in play for 1 month as a probationary college I
>don't believe we are forced to only consider the type of weakening that
>was chosen for this version.

Whilst the new  write-up of the spell had only been in play for one month,
it is a tweaking of the old one that has been in play for many years ...
(ie an invis varient). I agree the new write up needed tweaking and have
previously suggested how I believe this can be best accomplished. I totally
disagree with removing the spell and creating a totally new spell in its
place as you seem to advocate.

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> 
> 
> Jim wrote:
> 
> >Personally, I think minimal changes is a red herring. People regularly
> tout it
> >as being attractive, but there's no real logic to support it.
> 
> This would be true if people hadnt been playing the game for 20 plus years.
> As gm's/rule makers I think we should strive to minimise as much as
> possible the effects of rule changes on the system and the playership.

So, you would prefer a game that limped along with a crippled ruleset to one 
that created a better gaming  environment?

> Remember the rationale behind changing the spell at start was not to
> totally rework the effect but to simply remove the perception roll thing.
> It has been sidetracked into a total re-write of the entire spell.

No, I don't remember this at all, and, more to the point, I don't care that 
much. The spell was a bad spell. It needed to be changed. There isn't much 
about the original Undetectability that could be salvaged, as far as how it 
interacted with the rest of the gaming environment was concerned.

> 
> It is precisely this sort of continuous change to the rules (often
> percieved as change  for the sake of change) that the I hear the playership
> crying out against consistently. People would like to think that if they
> have spent several years creating a charaacter choosing and using various
> spells and skills that they wont find overnight that those same spells and
> skills have ceased to exist and/or now do entirely different things.

This is anecdotal. 

One 'hears' so many things, but ultimately, you have to take a position about 
the game, rather than worrying about the concerns of the 'playership'. I have 
heard these complaints, from time to time, but rarely. They almost always 
spring from vocal people who perceive a change as being detrimental to their 
character. So, it's very hard to give that kind of opinion much weight.

> 
> Maybe you have a nice spell worked out with this stealth mod thing
> (persoanlly I have my doubts, but thats not the point), but if so introduce
> it as a new spell into a college, dont seek to have it replace an exisiting
> spell in wide use by the playership.

Thank you for your advice, Mark. With  your years of DMing experience, I 
immediately accept everything you say. In fact, I have written it down 
somewhere so I can refer to it and keep it near my heart. Such pearls of wisdom 
as you can afford a pathetic, barely illiterate mental cripple like me will 
keep me well on the straight and narrow of best DMing practices. After all, my 
twenty + years of running games is simply the product of a simple, misguided, 
and obviously misdirected individual. 

Thank you, O great one. 

> It has been suggested previously in this forum that we should curtail the
> rules changes for a while and only make changes where something is shown to
> be broken and in need of a re-write. I wholeheartedly concur with that
> sentiment.

It has previously been suggested in this forum that we should curtail rules 
changes. It is regularly suggested. Even in the face of glaring inadequacies, 
people agree that a given rule is a problem, but that NOW is not quite the time 
to do anything about it.

This forum, like many others, is a platform for procrastination and 
pettifogging. The largest and loudest proponents of keeping the rules unchanged 
seem to me to be people who are only interested in advancing their characters.

I don't believe the assertions of people who say they represent 
the 'playership'. In my experience, players want to have fun. By and large, it 
matters not a jot to them how most of the rules work, beyond the sufficiency it 
takes to work out what your character is supposed to be able to do.

Players are very flexible. In fact, to play a role playing game, you have to be 
flexible. No DM plays the same rules as another, however much they might cleave 
to some perceived role playing dogma. So much of a game is based around basic 
assumptions about the way the world works, and how people behave. We simply 
cannot shed all of our preconceptions.

I think we should stop treating the 'playership' as if they were somehow 
fragile or retarded, and let them get on with playing the best game that can be 
offered. 

If there is some question about how the 'playership' feels, I think it would be 
better to perform a real poll and canvass everyone's opinions, rather than 
trust to the utterances of their self-proclaimed spokespersons.


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First off my apologies for those who get this more than once.

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located in Mangere East, not too far from the railway station and is a 
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further information, e-mail flamis@ihug.co.nz or phone 275-3080. 
Inspections upon request.

Keith & Jacqui Smith.


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> 
> 
> Clare wrote:
> 
> >As the new spell has been in play for 1 month as a probationary college I
> >don't believe we are forced to only consider the type of weakening that
> >was chosen for this version.
> 
> Whilst the new  write-up of the spell had only been in play for one month,
> it is a tweaking of the old one that has been in play for many years ...
> (ie an invis varient). I agree the new write up needed tweaking and have
> previously suggested how I believe this can be best accomplished. I totally
> disagree with removing the spell and creating a totally new spell in its
> place as you seem to advocate.

I'm unaware of how you would like to see Undetectability tweaked to make it 
better. Please enlighten me. You do, after all, have all the answers.


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