Arcanum setting makes no sense

[Cohesion]

I know that I will be hated by it, but one thing which I really wish that FL1/2 and Arcanum had is... Vehicles. Imagine how cool would be if we could enter a steampunk version of a APC. Pick generated by AI bellow :

Would disintegrate work against such heavy vehicles?

Why waste disintegrate? Just teleport them away.
I've always wondered why there are no teleport enemy away spells except banishment or maze.

 

[Cryomancer]

Why waste disintegrate? Just teleport them away.

I don't remember exactly teleport spell in Arcanum, but in D&D, it has a touch range, can only teleport those willing, and in case of banishment, if it is made against a non-consenting enemy, allows a save and can only teleport outsiders to its home plane. Not mentioning, there is a limitation on the "weight" which teleport can teleport.

About disintegrate in AD&D 2e, if used against large objects, can only affect 10 foot cube of matter, so it can probably "disable" large vehicles but not insta destroy.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Offensive teleportation is overpowered, so the game designers don’t allow it to be used.

 

[Cryomancer]

Offensive teleportation is overpowered, so the game designers don’t allow it to be used.

There are games which you can use offensive teleportation. Eg :

Exile one target enemy from this existence. An enemy succeeding on a Will save vs DC(15 + Charisma Modifier + Necromancy bonuses) is instead paralyzed and helpless with fear for 6 seconds. https://ddowiki.com/page/Hurl_through_Hell

In 5e, such ability just deals 10d10 physic damage and removes the enemy temporarily.

But if you think a bit, offensive teleporation and disintegration would be by far the best spells for assassination. Would not only kill the target but also get rid of the corpse. Better than spells like Finger of Death and extremely better than flashy spells like fireball. Teleportation also has other huge advantage. If someone is using divination to detect spells being cast, it can reduce suspicion. And after the target dies, well, accidents from teleportation aren't uncommon.

 

[Hellraiser]

You've made me to replay it, fuckers. Good job.

I'm currently being subject to constant willpower checks regarding this. The notion of resuming my Pyromaniac Chemical Engineer playthrough or starting it from scratch if I can't find that last save file on the old HDD is a very tempting thing, one completely at odds with the size of my gaming backlog that I would like to reduce.

 

[gurugeorge]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense that magic wanes as tech waxes, if magic is conceived as a "field" effect that depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them. (In fact with occultism proper, since the magic is being done by various denizens of the astral plane, not by the magician, then if belief in those entities wanes and people are less able to access them, then magic would wane.)

Also, re. the point many have been making about how easy it is to kill things with guns, isn't that notoriously not the case? (cf. how many bullets police or soldiers waste.) So the argument crossbow vs bow works pretty well, but the argument gun vs magic not so well. (But maybe it's just the relative cheapness of bullets that can be cheaply cast vs. arrows/bolts that have to be more crafted - then in that case you can afford to miss a lot and still kill a lot.)

 

[Maxie]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

 

[gurugeorge]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture that's had some huge disaster as a result of tech going wrong turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

 

[Maxie]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

sure, but it makes little sense for faith to affect technology. an engine won't stop working because people are skeptical about it. magic, however, i agree that could be envisioned as belief-driven.

 

[NecroLord]

You've made me to replay it, fuckers. Good job.

^ the dialogue refers to the Vendi-submarine.

Yes.
A shame though that even as a mage your spells won't fizzle at all while near the wreck of the Vendigrothian submarine.

 

[gurugeorge]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

sure, but it makes little sense for faith to affect technology. an engine won't stop working because people are skeptical about it. magic, however, i agree that could be envisioned as belief-driven.

But you don't need belief to directly affect the efficacy of tech for the point to work. Indeed, it might be part of the rise of tech that people find "it just works" - but then tech could still fall into disuse later due to lack of faith and trust (if it "goes wrong" not in the sense of stops functioning but in the sense of it causing more problems than it solves, i.e. as per the Unabomber arguments).

It's actually an interesting thing to consider, given that that hypothetical world could be the world we're living in. (I mean, how could you distinguish a world in which magic once worked and was "real" in the past, but is so no longer, from the world as we find it? Given how much magic stuff there was - ancient writings, charm use, magic taken seriously even at quite high intellectual levels like the Neoplatonists, etc. Or consider miracles: maybe the miracles of the Bible, etc., actually happened, and they've stopped happening simply because the "faith field" has weakened over the centuries )

 

[Maxie]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

sure, but it makes little sense for faith to affect technology. an engine won't stop working because people are skeptical about it. magic, however, i agree that could be envisioned as belief-driven.

But you don't need belief to directly affect the efficacy of tech for the point to work. Indeed, it might be part of the rise of tech that people find "it just works" - but then tech could still fall into disuse later due to lack of faith and trust (if it "goes wrong" not in the sense of stops functioning but in the sense of it causing more problems than it solves, i.e. as per the Unabomber arguments).

we have to regard it as an Arcanum specific game mechanic though, rather than a concept

 

[gurugeorge]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

sure, but it makes little sense for faith to affect technology. an engine won't stop working because people are skeptical about it. magic, however, i agree that could be envisioned as belief-driven.

But you don't need belief to directly affect the efficacy of tech for the point to work. Indeed, it might be part of the rise of tech that people find "it just works" - but then tech could still fall into disuse later due to lack of faith and trust (if it "goes wrong" not in the sense of stops functioning but in the sense of it causing more problems than it solves, i.e. as per the Unabomber arguments).

we have to regard it as an Arcanum specific game mechanic though, rather than a concept

I was talking about the general concept, sorry if that wasn't clear. You could think of the game mechanic as just an abstraction of something like the kind of scenario I outlined - not all the parts have to correspond exactly.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

sure, but it makes little sense for faith to affect technology. an engine won't stop working because people are skeptical about it. magic, however, i agree that could be envisioned as belief-driven.

Well, if you’re assuming that real physics is the default and magic is a tacked on set of extra physics that doesn’t cause a ripple effect in evolution. That doesn’t explain why it only derails certain technology advanced past a certain arbitrary point. Why does it negatively affect steam powered trains and guns, but not wheels, fireplaces, cellular respiration, bow and arrows, muscle tissue, etc?

 

[NecroLord]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

sure, but it makes little sense for faith to affect technology. an engine won't stop working because people are skeptical about it. magic, however, i agree that could be envisioned as belief-driven.

Well, if you’re assuming that real physics is the default and magic is a tacked on set of extra physics that doesn’t cause a ripple effect in evolution. That doesn’t explain why it only derails certain technology advanced past a certain arbitrary point. Why does it negatively affect steam powered trains and guns, but not wheels, fireplaces, cellular respiration, bow and arrows, muscle tissue, etc?

Inventions like the steam engine, the train and guns are higher on the Technological scale.
Wheels, bows and arrows are quite rudimentary and not Tech enough to start being impacted by Magick.

 

[Maxie]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

sure, but it makes little sense for faith to affect technology. an engine won't stop working because people are skeptical about it. magic, however, i agree that could be envisioned as belief-driven.

Well, if you’re assuming that real physics is the default and magic is a tacked on set of extra physics that doesn’t cause a ripple effect in evolution. That doesn’t explain why it only derails certain technology advanced past a certain arbitrary point. Why does it negatively affect steam powered trains and guns, but not wheels, fireplaces, cellular respiration, bow and arrows, muscle tissue, etc?

Inventions like the steam engine, the train and guns are higher on the Technological scale.
Wheels, bows and arrows are quite rudimentary and not Tech enough to start being impacted by Magick.

how do you measure that

 

[NecroLord]

I always thought that it does make a kind of sense if magic wanes as tech waxes, in the sense that magic as a "field" depends on belief, and if people start having more faith and trust in tech, the "field" effect wanes, or people are less able to make contact with it. It's rather like the idea of the "old gods" waning as people stopped believing in them.

for your reasoning to hold water, the effect cannot be converse, ie. lack of belief in techology should not have a bearing on technology
mages ride the train away from the locomotive

You can conceive of hypothetical scenarios where people "lose faith" in technology (Unabomber style, or think of something like the Butlerian Jihad in Dune) if it leads to trouble and problems. A culture turning to primitivism at a philosophical level might give magic a chance to grow again (as people start believing in "the spirit of the grove" on a beautiful summer's day, etc., or cf. E.M. Forster's very cool short story, The Story of a Panic).

sure, but it makes little sense for faith to affect technology. an engine won't stop working because people are skeptical about it. magic, however, i agree that could be envisioned as belief-driven.

Well, if you’re assuming that real physics is the default and magic is a tacked on set of extra physics that doesn’t cause a ripple effect in evolution. That doesn’t explain why it only derails certain technology advanced past a certain arbitrary point. Why does it negatively affect steam powered trains and guns, but not wheels, fireplaces, cellular respiration, bow and arrows, muscle tissue, etc?

Inventions like the steam engine, the train and guns are higher on the Technological scale.
Wheels, bows and arrows are quite rudimentary and not Tech enough to start being impacted by Magick.

how do you measure that

The Tech - Magick scale on the right corner of the Character Arbitration screen.

 

[Cryomancer]

That doesn’t explain why it only derails certain technology advanced past a certain arbitrary point. Why does it negatively affect steam powered trains and guns, but not wheels, fireplaces, cellular respiration, bow and arrows, muscle tissue, etc?

Because certain technology is much more primitive, virtually every civilization had bows, spears, fireplaces, etc. Now, a complex steam engine is much more advanced.

how do you measure that

Is a bit arbitrary. IMO more "parts" needing to work with each other to work = more complexity. A lever action rifle is more complex than a musket, which is more complex than a crossbow, which is more complex than a bow, which is more complex than a spear.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

That doesn’t explain why it only derails certain technology advanced past a certain arbitrary point. Why does it negatively affect steam powered trains and guns, but not wheels, fireplaces, cellular respiration, bow and arrows, muscle tissue, etc?

Because certain technology is much more primitive, virtually every civilization had bows, spears, fireplaces, etc. Now, a complex steam engine is much more advanced.

how do you measure that

Is a bit arbitrary. IMO more "parts" needing to work with each other to work = more complexity. A lever action rifle is more complex than a musket, which is more complex than a crossbow, which is more complex than a bow, which is more complex than a spear.

None of that makes sense

 

[Maxie]

That doesn’t explain why it only derails certain technology advanced past a certain arbitrary point. Why does it negatively affect steam powered trains and guns, but not wheels, fireplaces, cellular respiration, bow and arrows, muscle tissue, etc?

Because certain technology is much more primitive, virtually every civilization had bows, spears, fireplaces, etc. Now, a complex steam engine is much more advanced.

how do you measure that

Is a bit arbitrary. IMO more "parts" needing to work with each other to work = more complexity. A lever action rifle is more complex than a musket, which is more complex than a crossbow, which is more complex than a bow, which is more complex than a spear.

you can imagine a very intricate device designed to push a ball, which does about as much as a simple lever

 

[Cryomancer]

you can imagine a very intricate device designed to push a ball, which does about as much as a simple lever

Lever action rifles aren't just musket + lever. You have the tube, the lever, extractor, bolt, a "feeding system" Winchester Model 1873 bellow

None of that makes sense

Why? If I present a SGT-44, a Winchester Model 1873 and a Musket to random people in Victorian England, would anyone disagree that SGT-44 is much more complex than the lever action and the elver action much more complex than the musket?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Why? If I present a SGT-44, a Winchester Model 1873 and a Musket to random people in Victorian England, would anyone disagree that SGT-44 is much more complex than the lever action and the elver action much more complex than the crossbow and the crossbow than the bow?

Human cellular processes are vastly more complex, much less organs, but magic doesn’t interfere with that. If magic hates complexity, then there shouldn’t be life at all. There’s no inherent difference between a gun and other kinds of matter besides what humans project on it. The magic would need to be intelligent and sentimental to make a distinction. If magic is intelligent and actively deciding to impede technological progress… that just creates more unnecessary complexity for the story.

 

[skaraher]

That doesn’t explain why it only derails certain technology advanced past a certain arbitrary point. Why does it negatively affect steam powered trains and guns, but not wheels, fireplaces, cellular respiration, bow and arrows, muscle tissue, etc?

Because certain technology is much more primitive, virtually every civilization had bows, spears, fireplaces, etc. Now, a complex steam engine is much more advanced.

how do you measure that

Is a bit arbitrary. IMO more "parts" needing to work with each other to work = more complexity. A lever action rifle is more complex than a musket, which is more complex than a crossbow, which is more complex than a bow, which is more complex than a spear.

None of that makes sense

Yeah and this doesn't explain why more tech in an environment makes magic less effective. Litterally the point of one of the first quests in Shrouded Hills, a wizard wants you to blow up the town steam engine cause his transmutation magic doesn't work anymore.

 

[Cryomancer]

Human cellular processes are vastly more complex, much less organs, but magic doesn’t interfere with that. If magic hates complexity, then there shouldn’t be life at all.

Magic affects UNNATURAL complex stuff. Otherwise, would be impossible to summon a wolf for eg.

 

[ShiningSoldier]

Human cellular processes are vastly more complex, much less organs, but magic doesn’t interfere with that. If magic hates complexity, then there shouldn’t be life at all.

Magic affects UNNATURAL complex stuff. Otherwise, would be impossible to summon a wolf for eg.

Ok, what about gene engineering? Would magic fail to be used against a person with redacted genome? Such procedures require a ton of science.