Topic: Essence and Empathy

[Thot]

It feels a little weird for RRs. Can you rationalize your way out of a spell effect? [...]

Sure you can. By reminding yourself what the objectively rational thoughts on the matter should be, you can shut yourself off from things trying to manipulate you. In fact, all kinds of persuasion are less likely to work when the person to be persuaded is better at reasoning, regardless of whether their original opinion was rational or not.

[MisterK]

Sure you can. By reminding yourself what the objectively rational thoughts on the matter should be, you can shut yourself off from things trying to manipulate you. In fact, all kinds of persuasion are less likely to work when the person to be persuaded is better at reasoning, regardless of whether their original opinion was rational or not.

The problem I see with that kind of argument is that the logical conclusion is that all resisted magical effects are a contest of wills, which would logically make SD the defence stats for all magical resistance. It has some merits, but I'm not sure this is how the original designers envisioned their magic system (or their system in general - the list of attributes would likely have been different).

[jdale]

It feels a little weird for RRs. Can you rationalize your way out of a spell effect? [...]

Sure you can. By reminding yourself what the objectively rational thoughts on the matter should be, you can shut yourself off from things trying to manipulate you. In fact, all kinds of persuasion are less likely to work when the person to be persuaded is better at reasoning, regardless of whether their original opinion was rational or not.

That sounds more like how you would resist Mentalism than Essence. While there are some mind-affecting spells in Essence, you're more likely to be resisting a critical (e.g. Vacuum), resisting being lifted into the air (e.g., Telekinesis), resisting having your armor caught on fire (e.g. Metalfires), etc. I don't think concluding that catching on fire is highly illogical is going to help you.

[Hurin]

Yes, Empathy originally had a dash of the idea of The Force from Star Wars in it; that was one reason why Monks were originally Essence.

But most players, coming from D&D nowadays, assume it is more closely associated with Intelligence, since that is the prime stat for casters of that type in D&D; and the closest analogy to D&D's Intelligence is Reasoning.

RDan makes a good point about any change to Reasoning hurting the Dabbler and Bard, as it would hurt Animal Handling, Composition, Delving, Performance,  and Social skills, though it would probably also help both those classes' Lore, Perception, Medical, Science, and Technical (including Locks and Traps) skills.

[Thot]

[...]
That sounds more like how you would resist Mentalism than Essence.

Hm, the way I understand Mentalism, it is not about your logic and your reasoning nudging you towards magic, but your will, you pure control over yourself without any need for a reason, making magic happen.

While there are some mind-affecting spells in Essence, you're more likely to be resisting a critical (e.g. Vacuum), resisting being lifted into the air (e.g., Telekinesis), resisting having your armor caught on fire (e.g. Metalfires), etc. I don't think concluding that catching on fire is highly illogical is going to help you.

No, but you are trying to figure out what is happening and do the subtle changes in posture, attitude or the like that will make the magic fail. I imagine in Reasoning-based Essence magic, you'd still use a pre-existing energy field, but you would manipulate it with physical things (like gestures, incantantions, etc.) instead of your empathy. More an engineering-like approach.