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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5623058" data-attributes="member: 42582">Justin Alexander's essay makes reference to mechanics that are &quot;nothing more than mechanical artefacts&quot;. If EX and SU mean nothing more than how something interacts with an anti-magic field, then they've become nothing more than mechanical artefacts. To the extent that they are something other than mechanical artefacts, it's because we have some more-or-less independent grasp of what is magical, and what not - and hence what anti-magic will affect, and what it won't.Simply stipulating to me that an ability is EX, and therefore learnable, but leaving it completely mysterious as to the way in which it is not magical, doesn't strike me as very powerful association. What is actually happening in the gameworld when my sleeping thief evades a fireball? (For example, do I wake up? Does that mean that, if I'm under a permanent sleep curse, and so can't wake up, I lose my evasion? Or would that be a house rule?)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5623058, member: 42582"] Justin Alexander's essay makes reference to mechanics that are "nothing more than mechanical artefacts". If EX and SU mean nothing more than how something interacts with an anti-magic field, then they've become nothing more than mechanical artefacts. To the extent that they are something other than mechanical artefacts, it's because we have some more-or-less independent grasp of what is magical, and what not - and hence what anti-magic will affect, and what it won't. Simply stipulating to me that an ability is EX, and therefore learnable, but leaving it completely mysterious as to the way in which it is not magical, doesn't strike me as very powerful association. What is actually happening in the gameworld when my sleeping thief evades a fireball? (For example, do I wake up? Does that mean that, if I'm under a permanent sleep curse, and so can't wake up, I lose my evasion? Or would that be a house rule?) [/QUOTE]

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