Should magic be unfair?

[Thornir Alekeg]

I think that if someone were really interested in trying to run magic as this amazingly powerful force, you would have to limit it in some way.

Make magic extremely rare: if it is this powerful, and it were common, then everybody would be using it, or everybody would find a way to counter it (or almost everybody woudl be dead or slaves).

Make it extremely difficult to learn or practice: to learn the magical arts, you must spend years in servitude to a master who will always be sure that you cannot surpass his ability and challenge him, or: you must make a sacrifice of your own lifeforce to power the spells.

Make it difficult to deal with: magic is so powerful that the common man fears it like he fears the devil. Practicioners of magic find themselves shunned, or mobs of torch and farm-implement bearing commoners arrive to burn the mage's home to the ground.

 

[Imperialus]

My suggestion. Allow Tk to do as he wants. Then rip his heart out.

I've done that before. Except it was to a player back in 2nd ed who argued with me untill I caved that he should have been able to cast create water in the red dragon's skull. You should have seen his expression a few days later when I told the group "whatever his name was falls over. You see a spreading pool of what looks like watered down blood running out of his nose and ears. Perhaps next time he'll realize that rules are there for game balance. Now who else wants to continue using this rule set into the next round? BTW you see several more evil prists come running out of the surrounding halls."

 

[BiggusGeekus]

If memory serves, this is how magic works in Ars Magica. I had the 3rd edition of that game and those were the best magic rules I had ever seen, bar none. Of course the game had its faults in other areas, but the magic system was really first rate.

If you were going to do this for d20, I'd suggest you make it an all-wizard game. Use gesalt classes or whatever, but it's no fun being a pawn.

 

[mmadsen]

I have a friend who thinks that saving throws are stupid, particularly Will saves for non-mind control spells. He thinks that, if a mage knows Telekinesis, he ought to be able to rip your heart out of your chest, or at least yank your sword out of its sheath, without you getting a save.

Should a giant be able to simply rip your heart out of your chest? Or crush your head? How about a werewolf? A dragon? Should any of them be able to steal your sword out of its sheath?

Perhaps your friend simply needs a rationale for how one character's force of will keeps another character's magic from affecting him? Because any good swords & sorcery story is chock full of magic not quite working on the hero.

Now, from a game standpoint, that's silly. It would be ridiculously unbalancing. Sure, it doesn't take but a few pounds of force to close off someone's carotid artery, but no sane DM would allow Mage Hand to kill someone by starving their brain.

Try this: All spells must be empowered to ninth level. It's not quite no save, but it's close -- and it's balanced, in its own way.

Poison should just run its course. A save would let you slow the progress of the poison, but not even the healthiest person can just shrug off a dose of arsenic.

That's a very bad example. People routinely survive "lethal" doses of poison -- as well as "fatal" diseases, and "mortal" wounds.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

For the guy who had a player that really wanted to rip people's hearts out and rip out their swords without a save, I can certainly see where he is coming from. But there are two explanations you can give him. The 'out of game' explanation is that it is a game and in order for things to be on the fair side, you obviously can't go around doing things like that (or just have spells like that be 'evil' spells because it serves no other purpose than to perform an evil act.

The other explanation is that magic is something that goes against the natural forces of things and in order to control this aberration of nature, the will saves are needed as well as the 'to hits' and everything else that goes along with it.

 

[Tessarael]

Evolution

It can just come down to evolution. Let's assume that genetic mutations can give the ability to do magic without significant penalty (i.e. it's not a mutation that will cause you to be sterile), and that mutations can also give the ability to resist magic.

So somewhere along the line a predator species evolves that can use magic. No species has ever needed to resist magic before, so most individuals don't. The predator species then has a significant advantage by using magic, multiplies and threatens the extinction of prey species. The few surviving members of the prey species are far more likely to have magic resistance, and so a resistance to magic evolves in the species.

Evolution is an arms race in some sense. If you develop a method to attack, I'll develop a method to attack you back or to resist your attack.

 

[am181d]

In terms of the telekinesis/will save issue, there IS a WOTC variant rule (that appears in UA and a couple other sources, if not the DMG) that suggests occasionally changing the ability modifier applied to saving throws. So a will save versus telekinetic lifting might be based off of strength...

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Poison should just run its course. A save would let you slow the progress of the poison, but not even the healthiest person can just shrug off a dose of arsenic.

Actually you ever hear of this guy name Mithridates...

 

[Saeviomagy]

I thought that everything 'on' the target or worn by the target benefits from his / her saves (a sword in scabbard is worn, IMO). Only unattended objects don't get saves. My memory on this one is hazy though, because I've always played like that and never bothered to check it

From telekinesis:
"Combat Maneuver: Alternatively, once per round, you can use telekinesis to perform a .. disarm, grapple (including pin), or trip. Resolve these attempts as normal, except that they don’t provoke attacks of opportunity, you use your caster level in place of your base attack bonus (for disarm and grapple), you use your Intelligence modifier (if a wizard) or Charisma modifier (if a sorcerer) in place of your Strength or Dexterity modifier, and a failed attempt doesn’t allow a reactive attempt by the target (such as for disarm or trip). No save is allowed against these attempts, but spell resistance applies normally. This version of the spell can last 1 round per caster level, but it ends if you cease concentration."

And from the 'special attacks' section, disarm:
"You can use a disarm action to snatch an item worn by the target. If you want to have the item in your hand, the disarm must be made as an unarmed attack."

My mistake though, he still gets an opposed check, albeit with (most likely) a -4 penalty, because he's not currently using the sword.