Invisibility Spell

[alex_greene]

Hey, these are only my suggestions in answer to the original poster's enquiry. You don't have to use anything I submit to these posts.

I merely point out that your Legend games are your own, and nothing in your games is considered official or canon either, no matter how strictly you cleave to the RAW. Your Legend games don't have invisibility spells: but fantasy stories have had invisibility since there has been a fantasy genre. Just ask the Harry Potter fans and Tolkien fans.

I've rewritten the rules to remove the concentration element. I've replaced it with something else, which is actually more in keeping with the fantasy theme - if the cloaked bad guys are careful to avoid brightly-lit areas, stick to the shadows, avoid stepping onto sand or tracking dirt or fresh water - or blood - on the floor with their feet, and keep away from reflective surfaces, they have a chance to prevail; otherwise, with quick thinking, the weakness can be spotted and the enemies disposed of.

Naturally, the enemy has just as much of a chance of figuring out where the characters are, too, if they choose to use these spells.

 

[Loz]

Hey, these are only my suggestions in answer to the original poster's enquiry. You don't have to use anything I submit to these posts.

That's not in dispute. However, if you offer-up spells in the way that you do, you need to ensure that they either follow the RAW or you've caveated the description appropriately, if they take exception to the RAW. Otherwise you will be challenged on mechanical breaks. You also have to be careful that you understand the underlying consequences as well as the general description of the spell. The traits, in particular, can have huge effects if not carefully applied or thought-through.

I merely point out that your Legend games are your own, and nothing in your games is considered official or canon either, no matter how strictly you cleave to the RAW. Your Legend games don't have invisibility spells: but fantasy stories have had invisibility since there has been a fantasy genre. Just ask the Harry Potter fans and Tolkien fans.

Not disputing that invisibility isn't a valid fantasy trope, either. However, in a game environment, it needs to be carefully structured so that it doesn't become either a mechanical game breaker or a GM admin-migraine. In most fantasy stories, myths and legends, invisibility is used to serve the story in a very crucial way, rather than being simply another spell in a wizard's bag. Because invisibility is serving the story, the plot or even a particular scene, the writer doesn't need to consider the larger scale ramifications of the magic. Its different in an RPG because players will, ultimately, use an invisibility spell in a far wider range of situations where its power becomes extremely difficult to manage. Which is why all invisibility spells require some quite strict caveats if they're not to become game breakers.

My favourite caveat for managing invisibility is based on real-world physics. If you turn invisible, then you're blind, because light passes through your retina - unless you have some way of preventing it from doing so.

Another very creative method of invisibility - and one that could be replicated through Phantom Sense (Perception) - is the way invisibility is handled in Christopher Priest's 'The Glamour' (a fabulous and unnerving look at how invisibility works and can affect the real world). Those capable of becoming invisible don't become light-permeable, or even bend light: instead, they influence those around them to forget that they're actually there. In other words, they edit themselves out of others' perception.

 

[alex_greene]

Those capable of becoming invisible don't become light-permeable, or even bend light: instead, they influence those around them to forget that they're actually there. In other words, they edit themselves out of others' perception.

Yup. I know that some writers have used this technique to describe how invisibility works: it was a staple of The Shadow (taking the form of his ability to "cloud men's minds") and Marc W Miller's Droyne use the same technique for their invisilibity - they still show up on video cameras, for instance.

In an episode of Doctor Who, for instance, the appearance of certain aliens was so outlandish that the mind reflexively edited out the aliens' true appearance, replacing them with roughly human creatures - but their reflections were of their unaltered true selves, so the mind edited their reflections out altogether, creating the myth of vampires casting no reflections.

Mystically, there are other ways of weaving together invisibility - alchemically, using an alchemical "cloud" of baraka which stops the eye from seeing what it's wrapped around; and by using sorcery to gather shadows about the target, or warping light around the character - even warping space and light around the character on a quantum level, or shunting the target into am out-of-phase plane where the light does not pass.

I've done a lot of research into invisibility as it has been used in fiction, and as described in RL practice. I've even had a look at ninjutsu, and been disappointed when it turned out that there was nothing there to see ...

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Those capable of becoming invisible don't become light-permeable, or even bend light: instead, they influence those around them to forget that they're actually there. In other words, they edit themselves out of others' perception.

I believe that was the rationale stated in the spell's description in RQ1 & RQ2 (although that might have been an official Chaosium gloss printed in an early 'White Dwarf'... I don't have my books here to check).

 

[@stroval]

It might not have fitted the ethos of RQ I and II, but there are different games now, and Legend is one of them - with a whole different ethos all of its own. An ethos determined by the Games Master and, if it is fitting and enjoyable, shared by the players.

Legend doesn't have to be all Boris Vallejo pastiches with prog rock by Yes and Genesis blasting over the speakers. Magic in these games has evolved a long way past the D&D idea of "clerics heal, magic users are spelltillery, bards ... waste time singing."

Thanks, Elan, for destroying any credibility bards may ever have had, ever.

You have my like for this post

 

[Harshlax]

Legend doesn't have to be all Boris Vallejo pastiches with prog rock by Yes and Genesis blasting over the speakers. Magic in these games has evolved a long way past the D&D idea of "clerics heal, magic users are spelltillery,

To be fair, Magic in these games had evolved a long way past the D&D idea of "Clerics heal, Magic Users are Spelltillery (good word, btw! ) even back in the day of RQ II & III. That was one of the key features that marked them out as Different.

What RQ brought was an internal logic over what could and couldn't be done with magic, and how it was done. All we are trying to do is help you achieve what you want while, still fitting with the ethos of the systems used.

Of course, if you want to develop a new magic system, or change the core assumptions of one you can, but at least be clear on what those are for the purpose of rulings and other additions further down the line.

 

[alex_greene]

I like consistency. I also like, as a Games Master and developer, to know where all the switches and slides are - to make Common Magic more efficient, or to develop a Divine Magic system where I (or any Games Master using my interpretation of the rules) know exactly where the Pacted Magic Points are going, and why, and what those points buy - even to rewrite the Sorcery Manipulation tables a little. There is always one single underlying ethos behind all of ht tweaks, and it is this. If the RAW are not cool, adjust them until they are cool FOR THIS SETTING ONLY.

But it is fair to the players of the games to know exactly where, and to what extent, the rules have been tweaked, where those tweaks deviate from the RAW. That means that a list of the tweaks would be a mandatory requirement by any Games Master to anyone hoping to play in their setting.

As a side note that could be worthy of a brand new spinoff thread - Games Masters need to have rules allowing them to set the bars and slides for Common Magic, Divine Magic, Sorcery, Spirit Magic, Blood Magic, Elemental Magic and whatever else will be coming down the road. These guidelines would be useful in allowing any Games Master to set out the rules defining, within any given game, what magic is capable of ... and what it is not capable of. Oh, and the costs.

There are always costs. Stuff - not just magic - must always be cool; and magic always costs. Another little ethos behind my unofficial little design philosophies.

 

[Harshlax]

Well it's been interesting. Sounds like you know what you want in your setting. You may find RQ6 worth looking at, as it has a whole chapter on the concepts behind the magic systems and adjusting various features to achieve different genre tones with the magic systems. For instance casting time, recovery rates for magic points, and alternate sources of magic points. You may find it interesting and useful when tweaking the system.

 

[Loz]

Where's the 'Like' button when you need one?

 

[Prime_Evil]

Well, I'm waiting for my hardcover copies of RQ6 to arrive in their slipcases :twisted:

Now I've got to explain why I ordered two copies to my wife. She doesn't understand that I need one for my bookshelf and one for use at the gaming table.

On a serious note, I get the impression that Legend has lured new players into the d100 fold and some of them have picked up RQ 6 as well. This is cool because getting new players to try Runequest has been very difficult in the past.