Topic: Science Fantasy: Talent Doubling, Nuclear Weapons and Ley Lines

[Zhaleskra]

I'm currently running a Science Fantasy HARP adventure. While Fantasy allows characters to take a talent they already have because of their race, SF does not allow a character to do the same because of their species. As I have no one of mixed species or genetically engineered, this is currently not a problem. However; should a character choose one of those paths, I'm wondering which way to lean. Right now I'm leaning toward allowing talent doubling but only for the race/species-first profession combo.

As I have decided to have magic detect as radiation in sci fi settings, I was giving some thought to how nuclear weapons would affect ley lines. As I have no one who has any magical ability so far, this is more of a thought experiment. Currently, I'm thinking of having nuclear warheads break ley lines. At least surface ones.

Thanks in advance.

[pyrotech]

I can't really give much advice on the racial talent stacking issue (if I read your comment correctly) - as my bughunters game includes a genetic engineer among the party members and they have been genetically hacking on themselves from the beginning.  So any talents they wanted they just researched a gene splice for then let their doctor genetically frankenstein them up.

Your idea of radiation affecting magic is an interesting one however.  If you run with it you could then say that areas with lots of radiation and or EM activity "repel" the magical currents and shift ley lines away from them.  So cities and industrial center and old bomb sites would be mana poor and possibly incure a penalty to spell casting checks.  While natural settings would have the magical currents pushed into them and may grant bonuses to spell casting.  Knowlegable spell casters may even exploit this on a macro level by building reacters in key areas to shift ley lines and force nodes in certain locations.  This would also mean EMP devices may also inhibit magical effects and constructs.  The idea could have a lot of far reaching but interesting effects on a game.  Let me know what you do with this and how it works for you.

Regards,

[Radimon]

Z, this is already how the rule about talent doubling works. The only way you get a doubled talent is if you get it from both your race (blood talents not allowed) and from your profession, and the profession doesn't allow any other options to be taken in place of that talent.

In fact, the only race/profession combination I can think of that even has the option of a doubled talent is a gnome who starts off as a mage class (whether the one from the core rules, or College of Magic's elementalist, necromancer, thaumaturge, or vivimancer). In that case, you can double down on the Sense Magic talent.

[Zhaleskra]

I don't recall exactly where, but somewhere in HARP Fantasy it does specifically mention magical radiation. As I think about it, the idea of enchanted items seems like the area where it came up.

Some ideas I'm tossing around: high radiation zones push ley lines away and increase power of destructive magic, low radiation zones attract ley lines and increase power of nature based magic.