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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4810500" data-attributes="member: 54707">I think you got a good point there.However I didn't mean to imply that it (a magic item - especially low level magic items) changes every time you use it. But maybe I should have been clearer.What I meant, but didn't elaborate on, was this:1. The capabilities of items may change over time. Old powers or abilities can be lost, new ones might be gained. This is especially true when items have been exposed to other magical items or to the influence of high level magic's such as spells. It alters what the item can do or in what way.2. Certain abilities can lie dormant or hidden until exposed to a certain trigger.3. Certain active abilities can be forced into hibernation or dormancy by exposure to certain devices, magics, or events.4. The capabilities or powers of a item can wax or wane in certain situations.So, assuming you already know what an object can do then you can rely upon it to a degree, but you cannot rely upon it to be the same or static forever. And you cannot always rely upon it to be consistent in the degree of intensity by which the magic in it manifests itself.I think the idea of static magic being inflexibly matched to corresponding physical objects is simply a sort of technological analogy, where most technological objects are "fixed in their nature" and so do not change or alter over time.But it is hard for me to imagine magic as being physically and technologically "fixed and static" in the same way as say, a television set. You can buy a new and better television (maybe even add things to it and upgrade it) but it will in effect always be a television set. It will never be a motorcycle. However with magic I don't imagine the same situation at all. I see magic as fluid and transmutable, flowing, always in motion, active and changing. It would not "adhere to" or "affix itself" to objects in the same way that technological functions do. For instance it is easy for me with magic to imagine a spear that assist the user in combat, but which also assist the user to read magical scripts and which may even on occasion allow the user to fly. It is therefore a weapon, a communications device, and a means of transportation. Such a spear is a magical multi-tool of drastically different and varied capabilities. Magic can do that, technology has a much harder time being that fluid and flexible.In other words magic would be open to change and that change might be very wide ranging indeed. Therefore I think the way games sometimes view magic as static and fixed is simply an easy technological analogy, not by any means a necessity of function.</blockquote>

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