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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Prime32 View Post
    Picture a D&D campaign with no spellcasters and no spell-like or supernatural abilities. One of the party members is a Rogue with the Educated feat, and maybe the ACF that trades sneak attack for fighter feats.

    When you're wandering through ancient ruins, he can sense the magic of ancient wards and unravel them so that his companions can pass safely. He has knowledge on many arcane topics, including history, mystic languages, and the denizens of other planes. He likely carries a magic wand or staff that's powerless in the hands of the fighter or barbarian, and his understanding of the craft is such that even if handed an elven item that were designed to prevent humans from using it, he can still bend its power to his will. Added to that, he's a mysterious sort who has a habit of stepping out of nowhere or pulling off a disguise to reveal he was watching you all along. He's very perceptive, has a silver tongue, and every time someone's tried to capture him he's disappeared within five minutes.

    Such a character is more than entitled to call himself a wizard. It's just that D&D's actual wizard class is operating on a way higher power level.
    Mind if I quote that post in another thread (casters vs martials)?
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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Mind if I quote that post in another thread (casters vs martials)?
    Go ahead?

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    I play a lot of Clerics, it's a class I've become comfortable with on both a meta level and in terms of creating convincing characters that I enjoy playing, If you asked me how many miracles I'd need to run such a character I would easily say none. That's a gaming thing, really. While miracles could and probably should be powerfully evocative and awe-inspiring things, in general their ubiquity and sensation of being a tool one shifts about in one's tool belt kind of undermines them from feeling like divine providence bequeathed to a pious soul.

    A mundane cleric is obviously a thing, so that's a non-issue. Even if you're premised on being mundane it doesn't mean the miraculous will never happen to you, miracles in general tend to happen to people of religious significance rather than being channeled or even intended in any way. You can also have seemingly supernatural qualities in the right context, like with faith healing or similar phenomenon. For a fictional example, Leliana in Dragon Age has a clerical history, possesses high religious knowledge, and believes herself divinely inspired from the onset, but has no objective magical qualities and mostly stabs people in the back as a Bard.

    I honestly don't think a Wizard is much different here, it's just possessing different base knowledge and motivation. Being wise is the premise here, and there's lots of ways you can own that description beyond throwing spells at things.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Turns out that "almost everyone was illiterate before the modern era" is another of those things that "everyone knew" that probably wasn't true. Current estimates place the illiteracy rate of Western Europe at its high point between the Roman Empire and the modern era at no worse than 40%.
    Pre- or post-printing press? That is what it probably comes down to, because before the printing press most people couldn't access books to read anyways, so why bother learning? After that, it is my understanding that literacy spread like wildfire after people had things to read.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    I play a lot of Clerics, it's a class I've become comfortable with on both a meta level and in terms of creating convincing characters that I enjoy playing, If you asked me how many miracles I'd need to run such a character I would easily say none.
    It is a little bit funny, clerics are possibly easier to make low/no-magic than wizards, yet I'm actually more comfortable with the convenient, easy to use magic being in the hands of the cleric than the wizard, just because I could see a god bestowing some convenient supernatural ability on their devout followers. Because it is the gift of a god, it will probably work out exactly the way it was supposed to.

    I can also see a some non-magical abilities you could give to a non-magical cleric, from church connections to public speaking skills. Well that might depend on the sort of church and the sort of cleric. Religions and the roles within them vary significantly.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Pre- or post-printing press? That is what it probably comes down to, because before the printing press most people couldn't access books to read anyways, so why bother learning? After that, it is my understanding that literacy spread like wildfire after people had things to read.
    turns out that the meaning of litteracy changed over the centuries. what we call "illiterate" now means you can't read or write. during medieval times, it meant you couldn't read or write latin. that's how you got litteracy rates of about 5%. most people had a rudimentary writing system just to communicate even before the printing press, but still with nowhere near modern litteracy standards.

    as for clerics, i dunno, i've never seen a low-magic cleric in any games i've played. i'm guilty of it too, but clerics tend to be spamming buffs and heal spells all day long indiscriminately. it's not a varied selection of common spells, but i'd be glad to hear stories of low-usage clerics.
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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Pre- or post-printing press? That is what it probably comes down to, because before the printing press most people couldn't access books to read anyways, so why bother learning? After that, it is my understanding that literacy spread like wildfire after people had things to read.
    Before the printing press. As in, the Romans and Greeks likely had lower illiteracy rates than 40%, and after the printing press the illiteracy rate was lower than 40%.

    There's more to literacy than having mass-produced material to consume, and there are levels of literacy between the modern ideal of being able to pick up any book and read it, or being completely unable to even read your own name or write a basic scribbled note.


    Quote Originally Posted by Guizonde View Post
    turns out that the meaning of litteracy changed over the centuries. what we call "illiterate" now means you can't read or write. during medieval times, it meant you couldn't read or write latin. that's how you got litteracy rates of about 5%. most people had a rudimentary writing system just to communicate even before the printing press, but still with nowhere near modern litteracy standards.
    Combine that change in meaning with our usual culprits in warped history (the Victorians' "everyone between the Romans and us lived in mud-caked ignorance" and the Marxists' "the masses have always been abused and oppressed") and once again 1000+ years of history is relegated to the Dung Ages in popular thinking.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-12-26 at 09:21 AM.
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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    A low magic cleric is probably a face first and foremost. They deal with people. Although they'll also be a scholar. Essentially similar to a wizard.
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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    I once played in a campaign with zero magic. But everyone THOUGHT there was. It turned out the "spell components" were powerful hallucinogens that made everyone convinced that "magic" had taken place.
    You basically threw a bunch of magic mushrooms in the air and shouted "fireball" and people were convinced they'd been killed by fireball. Convincing themselves to the point they actually died.
    This worked pretty well, with no one realizing this until...
    We became trapped in a cave and the wizard "levitated" us out. We spent a week in the cave tripping balls on a "magical adventure" and then the wizard ran out of components.
    We figured it out then.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    the furthest I have gone is a shadowrun character and a Rifts character who were both sorcerers and had a belief that using magic to kill things was a waste of time and energy: that's what guns were for. they were both as good a shot as I could make them without sacrificing magical capability, specializing in illusions in the case of the shadowrun character and defensive and healing magics in the case of the rifts character.
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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    What is magic? Even Galadriel had trouble with that concept, saying, "For this is what your folk would call magic. I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem also to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy."

    In my opinion, the most magical enchantment in the entire trilogy is that Tom Bombadil and Goldberry can bring a feast out of a small kitchen into a crowded dining room and set the table without ever getting in each other's way.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Before the printing press. As in, the Romans and Greeks likely had lower illiteracy rates than 40%, and after the printing press the illiteracy rate was lower than 40%.

    There's more to literacy than having mass-produced material to consume, and there are levels of literacy between the modern ideal of being able to pick up any book and read it, or being completely unable to even read your own name or write a basic scribbled note.
    The Greeks and Romans were among the most advanced civilizations in the entire world at the time. The other ones being China and parts of India, and the Greeks and Romans were more egalitarian than those other two. At the same time there were huge chunks of the planet where no one could read at all, because there were no writing systems.

    And personally I find statements of high levels of pre-modern literacy somewhat dubious. There are several countries on the planet with a literacy rate below 40% in 2017.

    The pre-modern literacy rates among urban-dwelling males were indeed probably higher than typically thought (though this was likely in most cases to be a very limited form of literacy principally involving recognizing common words and simple phrases), but that's a relatively small portion of the overall population. Greece and Rome, because of their city-state structure, had a higher urban percentage than many contemporary or following civilizations, which doubtless pumped up their literacy rate.
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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    Here’s the actual magic Gandalf uses in roughly twenty years.
    Fireworks in the shire.
    Tells Bilbo, “Do not take me for conjurer of cheap tricks,” while conjuring a cheap trick.
    Loses a staff duel against Saruman.
    Says something to a moth, and waits for an Eagle to pick him up.
    [In the book] Fights Nazguls at Weathertop.
    [In the book] Enchants Butterbur's beer.
    [In the book] Adds fire to the horses in the flood at the Ford of Bruinen.
    [In the book] Causes his voice to go menacing and harsh, a shadow to pass over the sun, the porch to grow dark, and everyone to tremble in the Council of Elrond, by speaking in the tongue of Mordor.
    [In the book] Casts some fireballs against some wolves.
    [In the book] Starts a fire on Caradhras pass.
    [In the book] Blesses Bill the pony to go home safely.
    Lights the top of his staff by magic to lead them through Moria.
    [In the book] Uses some kind of magic against the door in the Chamber of Mazarbul.
    Wields the flame of Anor against the Balrog, where he dies.
    Fights the Balrog all the way up the Endless Stair.
    <he is resurrected, but that's not his magic>
    Uses magic against Gimli’s, Legolas’s and Aragorn’s weapons.
    Defeats Saruman in Theoden’s head.
    Breaks Saruman's staff.
    Shoots a blinding beam of light against the Nazgul, to save Faramir.
    Stands firm against the Nazgul’s black breath (multiple times).
    [In the book] Communicates mind to mind with Galadriel, Celeborn, and Elrond
    Well, not to start a literature debate, but I think some of that (like wielding the Flame of Anor, or making himself appear threatening) is just "by the power vested in me" stuff; he's one of the Maiar, that's less (in my opinion) him using magic than him being magical in and of himself.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by CircleOfTheRock View Post
    Well, not to start a literature debate, but I think some of that (like wielding the Flame of Anor, or making himself appear threatening) is just "by the power vested in me" stuff; he's one of the Maiar, that's less (in my opinion) him using magic than him being magical in and of himself.
    Agreed. And you're not going far enough. We have no idea how much comes from his magic ring, Narya, the Ring of Fire. And fireworks is probably external to him.

    This all strengthens my point that not much magic is needed to be a "wizard".

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    Agreed. And you're not going far enough. We have no idea how much comes from his magic ring, Narya, the Ring of Fire. And fireworks is probably external to him.

    This all strengthens my point that not much magic is needed to be a "wizard".
    I think it's easy to forget from a modern perspective, even for those of us whose formative experiences are from before the ubiquity of the internet, just how powerful knowledge can be. We're like fish in water, most of us never stop to think how wet we are.

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    "The wizard" or "the shaman" is also often the sage, the scholar, the one with knowledge of this world few others have, let alone knowledge of other worlds. Even post-printing-press, for a long time knowledge was a treasure, not a nearly-free commodity.
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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    I think it's easy to forget from a modern perspective, even for those of us whose formative experiences are from before the ubiquity of the internet, just how powerful knowledge can be. We're like fish in water, most of us never stop to think how wet we are.

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    "The wizard" or "the shaman" is also often the sage, the scholar, the one with knowledge of this world few others have, let alone knowledge of other worlds. Even post-printing-press, for a long time knowledge was a treasure, not a nearly-free commodity.
    Absolutely. Two of the "non-magic" but mysterious and rare powers Gandalf showed were:
    The ability to read long-forgotten scrolls in Minas Tirith, and
    Knowledge of all the words once used as passwords in any language in Middle-Earth.

    [And even today, it is very easy to look extremely knowledgeable when your co-workers don't think to use Google.]

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    It is a little bit funny, clerics are possibly easier to make low/no-magic than wizards, yet I'm actually more comfortable with the convenient, easy to use magic being in the hands of the cleric than the wizard, just because I could see a god bestowing some convenient supernatural ability on their devout followers. Because it is the gift of a god, it will probably work out exactly the way it was supposed to.
    I liken divine power to lightning. It's a flash of sheer, unadulterated, teeth-shattering power which can be harnessed for bending the continuity of the universe in some fashion but can also burn you to ashes if mishandled in the least. That the ones focusing that power either need a degree of enlightenment that gives them some insight into the workings of reality liken to gods, or surrender themselves into pure instrumentality of a higher being.

    I guess I take issue with the kind of setting where it's taken for granted that the local priest/priestess can do the miraculous at command without consequence. The sorts of stories which involve the intervention of deities into our world are soaked in blood, suffering, and the sublime -- the ones who get power from these exchanges rarely live long happy lives, and mostly don't do mundane tasks with them.

    Though to me, the only magical archetype which should have cheap and easy power is the Warlock. You get the power, that's the deal, and then comes the cost... whether it was worth it is something you can stay up late thinking about.

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    A low magic cleric is probably a face first and foremost. They deal with people. Although they'll also be a scholar. Essentially similar to a wizard.
    You can justify a cleric in most positions and roles. If we're talking D&D as seems to be the case, simply doing the Acolyte Background in 5e or something similar and applying it to a non-cleric class character can give you the flavour of that cleric experience with your character without necessarily any of the magical mechanics. I've done it before, which is why when asked myself whether I could do the same with a wizard, I believe I easily can.
    Last edited by Kitten Champion; 2017-12-28 at 03:26 PM.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    You can justify a cleric in most positions and roles. If we're talking D&D as seems to be the case, simply doing the Acolyte Background in 5e or something similar and applying it to a non-cleric class character can give you the flavour of that cleric experience with your character without necessarily any of the magical mechanics. I've done it before, which is why when asked myself whether I could do the same with a wizard, I believe I easily can.
    You can also look at the NPC Acolyte, in the back of 5e's MM. They have bless, thaumaturgy, and sanctuary, off the top of my head, which gives them the ability to make minor miracles, and also to exhibit some god-bestowed-like powers.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    one definition of magic that I like personally is "any willful manipulation of energy, regardless of actual method." by that definition flipping on a light in your house is an act of magic, and there are times that I find it amazing that we are capable of understanding what can be done with fine manipulations of electricity, let alone actually pull it off. In ages past that deemed wizards were simply the most educated in there region. So one could take a modern scientist (as has been suggested before) drop him into a primitive society and watch them react in shock and awe to the new wizard.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    I guess I take issue with the kind of setting where it's taken for granted that the local priest/priestess can do the miraculous at command without consequence.
    In high magic, or to be slightly tongue in cheek magical, setting that is the expectation. And you know for the "superhero fantasy" settings it probably fits. Still I could see a system where a pious character might have a miracle happen around them, might have one or two in a longer campaign, work. First because if the chance of miracle is acknowledged in setting it could create some useful dynamics. Second because I think miracles in this context would probably be campaign altering hunks of awesome.

    And of course the cleric is still a person with set of skills to get things done, so they don't need that much extra power to get by in lower powered settings.

    Quote Originally Posted by vasilidor View Post
    "any willful manipulation of energy, regardless of actual method."
    The "most correct" definition I got from a university professor who studies this is "the manipulation of occult forces towards a particular goal", which except for focusing on the occult is pretty much the same thing. For the record, the electromagnetic force is an occult force so everything you said still applies. Although I think the modern scientist might actually have trouble getting much done with a medieval tool set, unless they are also a survivalist or something.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    For the record, the electromagnetic force is an occult force so everything you said still applies.
    I'm guessing there's some definition of "occult" that can be stretched to make that fit?
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    I think the reason it qualifies is because a lot of old cults actually made use of it, in example the Baghdad batteries.
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    To Max_Killjoy: Partly what vasilidor said, it was notice and grouped with "other supernatural" forces back in the day. The other side of this is that modern definitions of occult (and other words like magic) have actually been changed to exclude things that turned out to be supported by science. I think it is party "people in the past didn't know anything" and party our modern imagery has changed so much from what people back then saw it as. So if by "some definition" you mean a slightly older and historically grounded one, yes. And it doesn't have to be stretched far to include it.

    (I have actually studied the history of magic a little so I come at a lot of these things from a slightly more historical perspective than most.)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To Max_Killjoy: Partly what vasilidor said, it was notice and grouped with "other supernatural" forces back in the day. The other side of this is that modern definitions of occult (and other words like magic) have actually been changed to exclude things that turned out to be supported by science. I think it is party "people in the past didn't know anything" and party our modern imagery has changed so much from what people back then saw it as. So if by "some definition" you mean a slightly older and historically grounded one, yes. And it doesn't have to be stretched far to include it.

    (I have actually studied the history of magic a little so I come at a lot of these things from a slightly more historical perspective than most.)
    That's actually far more reasonable than some assertions along those lines that I've run into in the past. (See, postmodernist garbage that "science is just another way of looking at the world, it's not any more accurate"... usually said via a medium such as printed books, radio, TV, or the internet...)
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To Max_Killjoy: Partly what vasilidor said, it was notice and grouped with "other supernatural" forces back in the day. The other side of this is that modern definitions of occult (and other words like magic) have actually been changed to exclude things that turned out to be supported by science.
    Part of it was grouped with other supernatural forces. Light wasn't generally classified as an occult phenomenon, those weird rocks that repelled each other or attracted each other depending on facing, or any sort of weird specific setup that produced a noticeable electric current or electric sparks (e.g. various early and primitive batteries) absolutely were occult.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    You can justify a cleric in most positions and roles. If we're talking D&D as seems to be the case, simply doing the Acolyte Background in 5e or something similar and applying it to a non-cleric class character can give you the flavour of that cleric experience with your character without necessarily any of the magical mechanics. I've done it before, which is why when asked myself whether I could do the same with a wizard, I believe I easily can.
    Yeah, I suppose my view is tainted due to mostly being based on Anglican vicars, so I tend to assume priests will either be faces (vicars) or scholars (monks). But yeah, a no-magic priest is still a priest in all the social and religious senses, and the lack of powers (or it being limited to a couple of divine gifts, I once tried to play an Anglican vicar who had supernatural strength and visions of the future).

    To me divine intervention should be limited to either the occasional miracle, powers gifted at birth or via items, or just the PCs being in the right place at the right time (I do like 'the PCs don't get miraculous help, they are the miraculous help'). A priest very rarely has this, their deity might answer their prayers but will tend to do so indirectly, helping with a plague by causing a river to overflow so a skilled and kindly doctor has to pass through the town. If a priest wants magic they can learn the wizard stuff.

    The main problem for me is that if there isn't the magic angle I'll tend to not call a nonmagical wizard a wizard (I would call them a magician, and I would also call a magic-using wizard a magician). Scholar or vagabond would cover most of them, with con-artist or entertainer being fine for most of the rest. In a setting with magic I might call a scholar who studies magic but can't use it a wizard, but I'd more likely just say 'scholar of magic'.

    I like nonmagical scholar characters, they are a nice change to the 'smart people use magic' stereotype I've seen some player have.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    To Knaight: Yeah, I know more than the average person, probably more than the average geek even, on the historical side but I am still not an expert. Still that matches I will know. I would also like to through out that a lot of the lines we think of either didn't exist or were drawn very differently because... well they didn't know enough to draw the lines as we do.

    To Anonymouswizard: Or in Sci-Fi they are gadgeteers.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To Anonymouswizard: Or in Sci-Fi they are gadgeteers.
    I tend to seperate engineers from magicians from scholars. Gadgeteers, and their fantasy cousins Artificers, would be in the engineer category.

    In a sense, if there's no such thing as a spell, and instead items are used, I consider the character to not be a magician. The SF equivalent to the magician is the psychic, the engineer or technician or gadgeteer makes or improves items that anybody can use (whether or not they can use them effectively is another matter). Or the magician creates new effects, the engineer works with existing effects unless they have a lot of time available. Note that one archetype appears more in fantasy and the other appears more in science fiction.

    But again, this is a personal thing.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To Knaight: Yeah, I know more than the average person, probably more than the average geek even, on the historical side but I am still not an expert. Still that matches I will know. I would also like to through out that a lot of the lines we think of either didn't exist or were drawn very differently because... well they didn't know enough to draw the lines as we do.
    Absolutely. Figuring out the basics of how magnetism and electricity worked didn't happen until the 1700's. That they were linked wasn't picked up until the 1800's, and it took decades after that to figure out that light was electromagnetic radiation. The baseline for a long time was that various specific objects did specific weird things, and that got lumped into the occult.

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    To Anonymouswizard: I agree with that, my point is that intelligent characters tend towards archetypes that have "special powers" that require intelligence (or are seen as coming from intelligence). At least in these types of game stories, someone who uses intelligence straight or as a force multiplier on a different skill set seem less common.

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    Default Re: How Low Can You Go: The Minimum Magic Required

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    I'm guessing there's some definition of "occult" that can be stretched to make that fit?
    Dictionary.com also defines it as "not apparent on mere inspection but discoverable by experimentation." and "of a nature not understood, as physical qualities."
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