Drizzt
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Joined: Fri 02 Jul 2021, 15:09

Magical success and its limits

Mon 18 Oct 2021, 12:38

Wanted to raise a topic regarding Magical success. It was briefly touched in discussions about Skill of Eldar or Eye Of Mordor (weather it should trigger that). In general reading Core book it's unclear what are the limits of such success. Given example like walk on snow or climb a wall like spider suggest that we can go further ? Or not ? Or limit is the sky ? :) Can I Sing with Magical success and charm a river which will raise a Wave of water to wash my enemies ? Or charm an animal to help me ? Or call a storm ? How far we can go with this ? If this possible how than this scales out through out the power levels. Can this all be done with an starter High elf or he should have some Wisdom and Valor rating to accomplish some more powerful successes ? To me this topic seams very broad and unclear at the moment. Initially we thought that it is just an auto success like Gendalf Rune but in other discussions and given examples it seams not just a simple auto success. It brings unnatural effects that can be achieved. Like bar the door from the braking Troll with Magical Athletics etc... Maybe I can get everything what is written in Eye Of Mordor Magic use effects from lesser to powerful ? Would be good to hear explanation on this topic.
 
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William
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Joined: Thu 24 Apr 2014, 16:48

Re: Magical success and its limits

Mon 18 Oct 2021, 17:23

I think that it's up to you and your fellows around the table. And that is great!

I believe, if I may be so bold, that rules sometimes are interpreted as what makes roleplaying fun. This, to me, makes rules into limitations rather than tools there to help you tell a great story. Magical Successes does not put boundaries on its application. Have a chat at your table about magic and elves and rings and stuff - What kind of story are you, as a group, interested in telling? Discuss the magic in The Lord of the Rings and find your sweet spot (Legolas could hear the stones singing and gaze afar, but he could not slay a Balrog like Ecthelion or craft Silmarills like Fëanor).

Tolkien, in his essay On Fairy-Stories, talked about Secondary Belief: When a compelling story is told skillfully, it drags you in and makes you believe it is true, at least for a while. This secondary belief - or suspension of disbelief if you will - is equally important when telling a collective story with a roleplaying game. If the application of a Magical Success takes you out of the story, take a break and have a discussion about it! I think that magic will feel more, well, magical if you do :-)
 
Maetharim
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun 04 Jul 2021, 16:56

Re: Magical success and its limits

Mon 18 Oct 2021, 20:12

Wanted to raise a topic regarding Magical success. It was briefly touched in discussions about Skill of Eldar or Eye Of Mordor (weather it should trigger that). In general reading Core book it's unclear what are the limits of such success. Given example like walk on snow or climb a wall like spider suggest that we can go further ? Or not ? Or limit is the sky ? :) Can I Sing with Magical success and charm a river which will raise a Wave of water to wash my enemies ? Or charm an animal to help me ? Or call a storm ? How far we can go with this ? If this possible how than this scales out through out the power levels. Can this all be done with an starter High elf or he should have some Wisdom and Valor rating to accomplish some more powerful successes ? To me this topic seams very broad and unclear at the moment. Initially we thought that it is just an auto success like Gendalf Rune but in other discussions and given examples it seams not just a simple auto success. It brings unnatural effects that can be achieved. Like bar the door from the braking Troll with Magical Athletics etc... Maybe I can get everything what is written in Eye Of Mordor Magic use effects from lesser to powerful ? Would be good to hear explanation on this topic.
I agree that some further guidance on this topic would be helpful. There is a lot of room left open for LM and players to have discussion and explore the space that magical successes provide, but like any good discussion, boundaries and guideposts are helpful.

Let's look at the books first and go from there. Please keep in mind that all of this is just my opinion and interpretation of the rules.

Legolas walking on snow, seeing very far, or scaling challenging surfaces with ease is definitely in the area of a baseline magical success. In game terms, he's got the cultural blessing that lets him do these on his skill rolls and he's just accentuating his skills. That seems to be a good baseline. If we want to go deeper here, we can say that he's doing things like avoiding a hindrance from the snow (which might have been a -1 or -2d penalty on checks for moving through the area) or he's gaining information that another character wouldn't be able to with the same check (no matter the success level, a non-magical success won't see the Uruk-hai out as far as Legolas does).

For the river crossing, you seem to be referencing the flood of the Bruinen that washed the Nazgul away. That particular feat of magic was the combination of Elrond's abilities and skills, his possession of Vilya, his dominion over the lands of Rivendell and the river, and Gandalf's assistance with his ring, Narya. So there's...a lot...going on there. It's not just a simple magical success.

I think for this case, what would make sense is if a character without access to all that stuff wants the magical success on their Sing roll, which is quite in alignment with the spirit of the text, then they can Sing to the river and impose a -1 or -2d penalty on the checks for foes to cross it. Or they could make it so that foes have to succeed on a check to make the crossing, where otherwise they wouldn't.

Tying more powerful levels of magical success to higher Wisdom or Valor ratings is a good idea. We can look at Gandalf setting fire to the wargs as a magical success, although it's also an application of his innate power and his ring. But Gandalf does also study spells and the ancient languages to work his magic, so it's an application of skill. For someone not a Wizard, being able to achieve that kind of effect in the same way would be a magical success that would need a really high Wisdom, probably around 4. Even then, it's questionable. The effect could be handled like a weapon attack, or it could be a simple narrative effect where a number of foes are lit on fire and flee. It could be highly variable depending on the group.

Summoning a storm is I think a reference to something that Saruman does when he affects the weather around Caradhras. That could be a magical success, although again Saruman is a Wizard and so has innate abilities. But he is also using spells and lore to do it, so there's room there. I'd peg that probably around Wisdom 3, because Saruman isn't actually summoning the storm from scratch. He's exacerbating existing weather conditions. This would be a lot like the river, only more so. It could make characters ill-favored in the area or it could flat out prevent any travel in the area for a set amount of time.

Charming animals is something that we actually see a lot of characters do in different ways. Sometimes its just by speech, either through tone of voice and softness of manner, or with some elven languages thrown in. Aragorn does this when he calms Brego down, and Legolas speaks with the Rohan horses too. That's a baseline magical success. Radagast has animal companions in the movies and that would probably be a combination of a baseline magical success and a lot of time just spent living with the animals and developing a relationship. He is a Wizard and has innate power, but he also just really likes animals.

Beorn's skin-changing into a bear could be a magical success, and I can see a really high Valor reward (maybe 5 or even 6) allowing a magical success to do the transformation. Beorn is a special case though and there's a big topic there to explore.

Gandalf does use his power and lore to bind a door in the Mines of Moria, trying to prevent the Balrog from approaching. That's probably a lower level of magical success, almost a 2 or 3 on Wisdom, because it's similar to what dwarves used to have in 1e with their Broken Spells trait.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it. I think the discussion is very valuable to have and I wish that the 2e book included a more thorough breakdown like this because it would help groups make these decisions for their games. This doesn't have to be presented as a hard and fast set of rules, just guidelines and such.
 
Drizzt
Topic Author
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri 02 Jul 2021, 15:09

Re: Magical success and its limits

Mon 18 Oct 2021, 22:05

Looking to certain rules like Eye of Mordor which defines 3 levels of Magic use, I'd say every 2 lvls of Wisdom charackter can achieve 1 lvl higher Magic use. 1-2 lesser use, 3-4 Major, 5-6 Powerful. Certain magical items for particular skill can increase power or effect. Also good inspiration source could be this 1e house rules which our group used for magic use in TOR - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1taTnp1 ... p=drivesdk

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