Topic: Spell Desciptions

[mojoflow]

Hi,

we are always "fighting" about the interpretable spell-descriptions i.e. "locate object" which reads:

"Allows the caster to find any inanimate object. The caster must be able to uniquely describe the object."

Does this mean:
1. I must have seen the object before so that I am able to describe it OR
2. Any other person could describe this object to me so that I have a uniquely description - spell works. OR
3. The unique description could be something like "I am looking for a red diamond" without knowing the precise size.

Any suggestion would be helpful.

[markc]

 First off welcome to the forums.

Second I do not have access to my books right now so I am winging the ruling from your description of the spell. It has been a while since I have used it. Also thier is a RM rulings page in the links section or the Vault section of ICE's website. This may give you some good info on official ruleings in the past.

 IMO the GM has the final say on how the spell will work. I know this is a bit of a cop out but since spell ruleings can have dramatic impact on the GM's setting I leave it up to them.
 In my game I would use fuzzy logic buy that I mean that all of you options above would work for the spells descriptor but each would not give you the result you were looking for. For example if you saw the object and studied it then IMO it would be an easy maneuver, if you just saw it or had it described to you then it would be a hard maneuver and if you gave a vauge description then a very hard maneuver.
 So I guess you could say that  after you cast the spell then you would have to make a static maneuver to see if you found the object, rememered the object or described the object well enough for the magic of the spell.
 I also forgot to include that IMO a magical object many have resistance to being found that I would take into consideration when ruleing on what the spell could and could not find.

 I also in the past I have had players abuse this type of spell. If my memory is right it is below 5th rank, and sometimes players try and use low level spells to get 20th level effects.

Hope that helps a little and again welcome to the forums.
MDC

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Going just from your description (as I am not sure what list you are getting the spell from).

I would say that the caster would have to be able to supply a detailed and specific description of the item. As such, the spell would not work to find an item that is identical to many other items, at least according to the description given.

Thus "red diamond" would not work unless there was only one such item.

[Marc R]

I agree, and the spell should just fail when the locate is too generic. Some GMs have it "fail" and locate the nearest object that matches the generic description, but that seems to much like letting a Locate work as the higher level Finding.

Some depends on which version you are playing. For RMC you could use the "I" rule from SL p46-47 and consider it an "F" result, giving wrong or misleading results, if you want to go beyond "It fails to work."