Loren Pechtel's page

If the flammable items on a character can catch on fire, the flammable items in the room can catch on fire.
Spells with an instantaneous duration normally only inflict energy damage and don't start fires but there are published exceptions to that too. There are at least a couple of adventures published by Paizo where using a fire or lightning spell in a room would cause a dust explosion and a raging inferno fire.

My rule of thumb is if a match can quickly light it then any fire damage can also. Otherwise, only spells noted for lighting fires matter. A quick sheet of flame will not light solid wooden objects! Most solids are basically incapable of combustion--what actually is happening is that the heat of the fire heats the surface to the point that some material is vaporized and that vapor is what's actually burning. Even once you supply sufficient heat you have the problem of the environment cooling it--see how far you get with a one-log campfire. Typical "combustible" materials will burn no better than one log on your campfire.

In general, this seems more of an issue with differing expectations by the GM and the players. A GM that puts some effort into presenting the appearance of a "living, breathing" campaign world will definitely take "collateral damage" or secondary effects/NPC reactions into account. A group of players more used to "kick in the door"/combat-centric activities may get "pissed off" when using "big gun" AoEs in a crowded inn (appropriately) results in damage to bystanders/property; as a real-world analogy, there are very good reasons why bouncers/security guards don't use flamethrowers and grenades to deal with problems.

I think part of the problem is video games almost never consider collateral damage. Being at ground zero of friendly spells isn't an issue.

Enviromental effects such as raising water level (initially nothing, then difficult terrain, then you are actually in water), fighting in a heavily webbed up area (where the quite intelligent spidery adversaries have deposited "hostage cocoons" to stop the party from just burning it down) or in an area with several reverse gravity fields are fun, if used occassionally.

Rolling saves for every piece of equipment just seems like a lot of bookkeeping.

Yeah, I only expect unattended objects to be damaged. Checking equipment is simply prohibitive.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

{some statements}

it is a pun...

I appreciate the technical response even though it seems off.

If you had left off the Geiger counter bit I would have left it as a pun.

the Paladin should give her a nice diamond and check her for "spirits" using a geiger counter. Then he'll be carbon dating an ancient dragon which also answers the thread title.

1) A Geiger counter won't give you any information because you need to know how much total carbon to figure out how much of it is C-14.

2) The dragon is walking around--the date is going to come back as current. Under normal conditions you don't do a carbon date on something that's alive--once in a while you see scientists dating living objects when they are actually trying to measure their environment. Date something you found in a cave and what you're really measuring is how often the air exchanges between that location and the outside world.

Reskinning something almost never matters. Items, monsters, whatever.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

However, I do agree with the drop-it idea. If you have load problems put the heavy but non-critical items in a separate container tied on with a quick release knot. Even if you lose your bedroll, ratios and the like it's not going to be a catastrophe.

This is why we don't use encumbrance, it really only matters in combat, and we assume you can drop your pack as a free action when combat starts. Combined with whatever way you want to carry heavy gear, bags of holding, etc. it really makes the game more of a chore to track it all than it's worth .

If you have to run away you lose whatever you dropped.

What gear do you consider essential? A rogue's kit contains a backpack, a bedroll, a belt pouch, caltrops, chalk (10), a flint and steel, a grappling hook, an iron pot, a mess kit, a mirror, pitons (10), rope, soap, thieves’ tools, torches (10), trail rations (5 days), and a waterskin. That's 37 lbs worth of gear and you'll need to refill your waterskin at least once a day or risk dehydration. It also costs 50 GP.

How often do 1st level PCs go on 5 day adventures? I've seen plenty of 1st level adventures where none of the housekeeping gear was needed. And you don't need every PC in the party to have all of the gear, either. What rogue will be out of touch from the party long enough to use 10 torches?

One big reason I would never make people track cheap ammunition: "Don’t bother to keep track of material components with negligible cost. Assume you have all you need as long as you have your spell component pouch." CRB pg. 213

If casters don't have to track the contents of and refill their supply poach, and it always weights the same, why should martials be worse off? It's not as if a SCP was a magical item. I'm not adverse to tracking ammunition spendage during a fight (at least for characters carrying a low amount of ammunition), but I'd handwave the refilling.
Not counting costly ammunition, which is alike to casters having to track costly material components.

Exactly how I see it. You need to account for carrying them but under normal conditions you don't need to account for their use.

Remove the bedroll, replace it with a winter blanket. Remove the iron pot. Carry only 3 pitons. Get a silk rope instead. Carry only 3 torches. I’d probably cut the grappling hook too. I’m too lazy to do the math, but if you are still overloaded, you can remove the caltrops, and a couple days rations, and carry as few as one torch.
If doing a long trek where you need rations, you’d carry the extra rations/water in a sack, so you could drop it if needed.

If you need pitons 3 probably isn't enough.

However, I do agree with the drop-it idea. If you have load problems put the heavy but non-critical items in a separate container tied on with a quick release knot. Even if you lose your bedroll, ratios and the like it's not going to be a catastrophe.

I'm really wracking my brain trying to remember when running out of ammo actually happened in any of my games when I was tracking this stuff. I can remember a couple notable 2e D&D games, but since 3rd ed and later PF1 I don't think its ever happened.

I've never had anybody run out, either--because I paid attention. The point is not to track every copper, but avoid people carrying far more than they actually can. Prepare properly, it's a non-issue.

I take an in-between approach here:

I check encumbrance, I expect to see reasonable (for what they are doing) levels of consumables but so long as they have them I don't track them unless they are cut off from civilization for an extended period. Low level parties typically don't go very long without resupply.

How are you breathing at an altitude of 11,000 feet?

Breathing a little harder than normal but unless you're very sensitive this isn't a problem. A local peak just squeaks in over that, I've been up there several times. I've been above 12k without acclimatization once, and just under it two more times. With three days of acclimatization I've been to 18k--this is too fast and not advised, most of our group had to turn back. I'm not a mountaineer, just a hiker who likes mountains and other than that one trip to 18k (supposed to be 19k but we got stopped by conditions) every such venture into high altitude started from a normal US suburban location.

Edit: I noticed it also does organs. Now you've got some doctors upset because their transplant business is gone.

Had a thought here: It seems to me that it would undo deliberate, wanted things also.

Wisdom teeth and sterilization come to mind.

3) degree of size of the components: creating a cart or a catapult does not require much effort since its degree of complexity is simple, however it cannot be applied to the technological components that many of the components (such as micro chips) They are practically very small (less than 1mm) that are not within the reach of the complexity of the view and another spell is required that can help this effect.

I don't see that scale should matter. However, I don't believe you can fabricate most tech stuff because our tech gadgets are such an assembly of parts that it's pretty much impossible to have the skill to do all of them and I would require different parts to be fabricated separately. Items which are simply advanced mechanical devices I would permit--but you need all the relevant skills and you'll have to assemble them. (On the other hand, I think an "Assemble" spell would be a reasonable thing to exist. Turn a collection of parts into a finished object.)

Loren Pechtel wrote:

But what happens when you cast Make Whole on a piece of machinery. What exactly can you repair? Can you recharge it's batteries? Can I Make Whole on one of the Apollo rovers and drive off?

It will repair the machinery, assuming no parts are missing. It will not recharge the battery, it will not refill the gas tank. If you break a bottle of wine and then cast mending or make whole, the bottle might become perfectly repaired and good-as-new, but it's not going to fill it back up with wine. Just like if your wand of magic missiles is down to 5 charges and you 'break' it, make whole isn't going to fix it and put it back at 50 charges. So your empty jetpack or dead flashlight (assuming it's the battery) won't be refilled or charged either.

But batteries store power by chemical means. The like-new state is the battery has a charge.

Your example of the bottle is different--bottles aren't manufactured full. Primary batteries are. Some secondary batteries are but I do not know if all types are. (Your car battery, for example, is fully charged when you pour the acid in. At least in the past they were typically shipped with the acid separate as once the acid is added they will degrade if not kept charged. Modern sealed units I'm not sure of what they are doing.)

Obligatory "What do you mean by 'technological'?" query. Technically a sharpened stick is technology, so that should be easy.

IF you have all the materials needed
and IF you cast enough Fabricates to handle each individual material
and IF you have the knowledge and skills necessary to make the individual parts precisely enough
THEN yes I would allow it to a certain degree. Assembly of multiple parts would be beyond the scope of the spell.

Something simple like insulated copper wire should be easy enough to do as long as you have a pile of copper, a pile of rubber, and use two spells - one to shape the copper and one to shape the rubber.

Disagree--I would allow one spell to take a pile of copper plus a pile of rubber and make a pile of insulated wire. Disallowing this would also mean disallowing a composite bow.

Making a top shelf modern integrated circuit is going to be beyond most casters, however clever they are.

You could, if you were skilled enough, make all the parts to, say, a WWII tank but Fabricate won't put the parts together.

Agreed here.

But what happens when you cast Make Whole on a piece of machinery. What exactly can you repair? Can you recharge it's batteries? Can I Make Whole on one of the Apollo rovers and drive off?

Back on topic, since a Lich is usually a cunning spellcaster, they can easily disguise themselves as regular mortals, carrying their phylactery as "mere objects" and still go unnoticed.

Vampires... cant go out in broad daylight, cross rivers and enter building without invitations. ANY of these could ring a bell to anyone knowledgeable.

I'm sorry, but a voodoo witch doctor masquerading as the mayor of a Louisiana/New Orleans city near a swamp works leagues better as a Lich than a vampire ^^; I was thinking also as a zombie lord or freed Juju zombie, but... the Lich feels more powerful and resourceful.

This. The lich very well might not be in that dungeon. You killed some sort of decoy, the lich is in the town you're operating from!

Loren Pechtel wrote:

I would figure heal would handle PTSD perfectly. Once you have access to that kind of magic there shouldn't be an issue.

Also, a lot of not sleeping at night is about situations in which there was no good answer. That's rarely the case for adventurers unless the DM sets out to create a world where it's a problem.

Heal is one of those spells I've been in a debate about in the past wondering if it has any limits e.g. healing magical insanity, healing trauma induced insanity, healing genetic disorder caused insanity.

I would draw the line at genetic issues--it can only repair. Genetic disorders might not produce the desired outcome but that's how the creature is, there's nothing to repair. You need to rewrite the genetics to change them and that opens a huge issue with balance. What exactly can you rewrite?

Power-wise things like removing a genetic defect or changing a trivial gene expression are non-issues and a fairly low level spell should suffice. However, the ability to play with genetics opens the possibility of finding and copying important genes from one creature to another. Rewriting genes to give you an 18 stat is extremely powerful.

I would figure heal would handle PTSD perfectly. Once you have access to that kind of magic there shouldn't be an issue.

Also, a lot of not sleeping at night is about situations in which there was no good answer. That's rarely the case for adventurers unless the DM sets out to create a world where it's a problem.

The issue here is that rusting is mechanically identical to acid damage, nothing about mending or make whole says acid damage cannot be restored.

Yup, both are oxidation of the material.

You are saying that IRL non-magical blacksmiths are more capable than a person performing magic that "makes an item whole"?

A blacksmith can't unrust a rusty item. They can simply remove the rusted metal, but that reduces the total metal present.

+3 intelligent longsword. Normally it didn't care if you used another weapon for some reason, but it had a special purpose to kill creatures that could drain levels--it would force itself into the owner's hand and force the owner into melee with any level-drainer it could detect.

The real problem is that it was so obsessed with level-drainers because it was so incompetent against them--it would be a -3 rather than a +3 weapon. Surprisingly, the owner decided to keep it. Back then I was using some critical fail tables--and being a -3 weapon there was a chance of a fumble on a 4 or lower. Lots of stupid things happened with that sword.

It finally ended up destroyed when they were fighting a succubus. (Level drainer even though she couldn't really use it in combat.) The sword ended up falling behind the succubus--she correctly realized it was a powerful weapon but didn't know the problem, she grabbed it before it teleported back to it's owner.

Now we have a level-drainer holding a weapon with a special purpose of attacking level-drainers and proceeds to roll a massive fumble. Normally the worst a fumble could do is minor damage to the wielder, but given the situation and the dice I decide she managed to crit against herself, the sword stuck in her. That was enough for her, she bugged out--but they dropped her immediately. Over a river of lava. I wasn't even intending to destroy it, but when they asked about the fate of the sword the dice decided it hit the river. I didn't even consider it destroyed, just sunk into the lava but they had no way to get it out.

Does an advanced gelatinous cube become a gelatinous octahedron? :)

And I have a hard time with CR12 for something that can be sniped with impunity.

If your players are going to do math in the middle of a combat round, they should have all the facts. I personally just go with the Monster Creation chart for averages and call it a day.

Characters can't do the math, period. Thus there's no reason to give a player time to do the math.

Short answer: its a pita. I'm in the same boat as Sysryke upthread; after about level 3 fights take forever. And bear in mind; I give the players an arbitrary amount of time staring at the battle mat (usually, I'd estimate, a minute or so) and then I start counting visibly on my fingers to 30. If I get to 30 the offending player is delaying until next turn. I warn my players of this behavior before the first session is ever played.

I've always worked with a lot less time--but if you're not ready you drop behind the next player instead of losing your action.

-1 perception per 10 feet.

-x perception per door/wall
-x perception from making their own noise.

100 feet down the hall behind a door while talking in a group is like -25 perception. When you're level 2 npc with 10 wisdom it's impossible to make the check.

This. Nearby monsters will respond if that's appropriate, but if you're not determined to pack as much as possible into the space it's not a problem. Rooms have purposes, they're not just sitting there full of enemies unless you're dealing with undead guardians or the like.

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

With the druids reincarnation it is easier to remain hidden and also to actually live a normal life. If you never age you will have to probably find a new identity about every 20 years and will need to move far away or chances are someone will recognize you. You also have to avoid fame or notoriety of you will be easily recognized. With the druids reincarnation you get a fresh start every time. You can do anything you want and not have to worry about something from your past being used against you. Since you are getting a new body not even your DNA would be the same.

But it is not difficult to allow you to continue to accumulate wealth. A couple of Swiss bank accounts or similar things and you don’t really need to worry about money. Hiding away some valuables that can be easily sold will allow you to avoid paper trails.

** spoiler omitted **...

While your arguments about portable wealth are correct I think you're getting more complex than you need to about passing it on.

I've never seen the attraction in an Ioun Torch. Having this bright light zipping past your face every couple of seconds would be incredibly distracting, and I can't imagine that it would improve your vision in the slightest. For a start, half the time the light is behind you, which is useless at best. All it does is show the enemy where you are (with a big flashing light) and probably annoys your companions too.

Depends on where it orbits. If it's high enough it doesn't go into shadow but it's still going to cause moving shadows and thus be much more visible than a stationary light source would be. Absolutely not recommended if you're even slightly interested in stealth.

There's also the annoyance of flying bugs that are attracted to your head-mounted light. A bug that would normally not be noticeable at all is very noticeable when it flies a couple of inches in front of your eye, catching the beam from your headlamp!

Use Detect Thoughts to get information from prisoners -

Katisha: "Who sent you to kill us?"
Mook: "You'll never make me talk!"
Kat: "Where did you first meet this masked man?"
Mook: "huh?"
Kat: "How much did he pay you? "
Mook "Hay! that's not fair!"
Kat: "and where did you put the money?"
Mook "Now wait, that MY money!"
Kat: "Where were you going to meet him after the job?"
Mook "La-la-la-la, I can't hear you!!"

That's off label??

I would think that's one of the primary uses!

Caught quickly, rewind. Caught much later, it stands but I would try to put things back--say, let them find a single-use item that can raise the dead.

Assuming we get a use of mythic power to activate the feats: Eagle eyes.

For one round a day see infinitely far.

You would have the world's astronomers beating at your door.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

1) I believe there would be no crew or cargo rockets to the ISS. It's cheaper to lift a wizard once so he knows where to go and then he ferries things. Note, however, he can't build the ISS in the first place--he needs a destination to teleport to, nor can large components be lifted. For this mission Greater Teleport is sufficient.

I'm not au fait with rocket launches, but see the restrictions here which might affect this.

The ship has moved anyway, that doesn't make sense. If you're on a rotating planet everything moves anyway.

In most ship-to-ship combat you don't know the target. I have no problem with the wizard having to scry that ship over yonder to be able to teleport to it, but if the wizard has been there long enough for it to be very familiar the only way I can see that making sense is if teleport can't hit unpredictable motion--and note the ISS is highly predictable motion.

How about a bit different take on it?

Instead of holding back on the spells I take a somewhat different approach to death. There are no save-or-die spells because mortal magic can't actually inflict death. The standard point of "death" is the point where the body's systems are no longer able to sustain life, but the actual process of dying takes a bit (how long they do not know!)--and does not progress in any round in which you receive magical healing, no matter what the cause of "death" and no matter how far in the hole you are.

Disintegration effects obviously have to be changed--a living object only takes damage, it can't actually be disintegrated.

Thus one person having bad luck with the dice takes them and a healer out of the fight but does not actually kill. Not running away from a fight that's too hard can still TPK, though.

On the flip side, coming back from death is harder. Resurrection requires your deity's active consent which will only happen if there is some benefit to them, which may be the subject of negotiation over multiple castings (cast, with a statement of why the deity will benefit, they may counter-offer. No components will be expended if they refuse the offer, no matter what spell was used, but an item charge is expended anyway.)

Dragonchess Player wrote:

It took me a bit to dig up this discussion from 2011. In addition to the measures in the post referenced, a mage's private sanctum and permanency can make it even harder to discover the phylactery's location.

Oh man, there's some good ideas covered in there.

I like the Coven idea... or any other concept that involves Liches guarding other Liches' phylacteries.

I didn't want to complicate this thread, but I was absolutely thinking that the clockwork Lich (level 20 Sorcerer with the Impossible Bloodline capstone before turning into a Lich) could either act as the phylactery of other Liches, or act as a safety deposit box and incorporate their phylacteries into its clockwork body. A mechanical Lich god, that gains power from the ever increasing number of Lich souls stored within the gears and mechanisms of its clockwork body.

Would a lich trust another lich to secure it's phylactery????

While I wouldn't call water difficult terrain I would say it hampers movement because your feet sink in. Thus I would require the 250' base speed.

Note, also, that that's when you're not carrying anything. I would be inclined to require a speed increase proportionate to your load as a % of body weight.

The sign said "Badwater Road".

My first thought was water elementals.

(Although there was no water, any elementals would have to be salt elementals.)

Well, a cautionary tale from more than 30 years ago:

The party had found this ring. There were IIRC 10 gems on it, they could be rotated (around the ring, not on their own axis.) Detect Magic said it was something powerful, Identify fizzled although the user knew something was up as the ring needed a target. After some experimenting they incorrectly concluded that it converted any spell cast on it into a healing spell of some kind. That persisted until they inadvertently cast a reverse gravity in the magic shop.

(In reality each of the gems could store a spell, but unlike a ring of spell storing you had to cast a new spell in to release the old. You could rotate it to select the slot you wanted. Unfortunately, it didn't work quite right anymore and would randomly turn if removed or if the wearer went to sleep--while the spell storing worked fine when you started out the day you would have no way to know what slot was up. Whoever had last used it--back when it still worked right--had been using CLW spells to call up the powerful stuff in it, there were only a couple of the big ones left. Sheer chance had resulted in the party's experiments calling up a CLW or the one Heal in it.)

Anyone who has to go through a giant's turd for treasure Must, Must, MUST be in a low treasure game. And I really hope it's in a really big out house!

Or the PCs are after something valuable the giant was known to have swallowed.

Desert survival situation--it will point to where the weather is more friendly.

I think the minor quality of life items will be far more prevalent than one would tend to think.

The thing is, magic items are eternal. Adventuring items are often destroyed or lost to the monsters when they beat an adventurer. However, quality of life items are rarely going to be lost. They're also easier to craft.

Thus I suspect they will be treasured items handed down from generation to generation, the production rate can be low and yet have the items be common.

Can we use it reattach a King's limbs?

Giving birth. Turns out she's only been pretending to be a guy.

A mind controlled Paladin isn't falling because of they're actions, they're falling because Sarenrae isn't going to let you Dine Weapon Flaming onto your sword so you can burn orphans while you cut them to pieces.

Deities would, very logically, stop granting you their favor while you commit evil acts.

A temporary loss of powers makes perfect sense, not a permanent fall.

I was running a 3.5 homebrew game. Very first game I send the party into a swamp and the first "encounter" was the party finding an abandoned boat in a large pond. I just put it there for flavor, and expected nothing to come of it.

One of the players decided to swim out and investigate the boat. Fails his Swim check, and begins drowning. Another player tried to save him. They failed their Swim check and began drowning. The party ended up drowning as every rescuer failed their Swim checks and drowned.

A TPK from a CR 0 encounter. You ought to win something for that!

Sounds like a nifty bargain, only 5400 gp! Never. Go. Hungry. AGAIN!

...until one realizes that there are a lot of folks out there that have this as a orison/cantrip and could do it for *free* endlessly on a daily basis... Seen in loot piles, never with a PC

It's a legacy item from when it wasn't a cantrip.

My halfling Oathbow paladin made good use out of an Efficient Quiver. An extra 54 pounds of crap, only restriction being shape? Sign me up. Everything I had was half-sized anyway. I can roll a change of clothes up into a cylinder. I can tape wands and scroll-tubes end-to-end, or just throw them in loose (no GM ever cared; as long as I wasn't trying to stuff the dog in there). And: more arrows in bunches in the big compartment.

I would think that a wand is similar enough to an arrow to be stored as one with no special arrangement.

An inkwell that always has ink for the pen. You can't pour it out, though.

A hand mirror that reflects an image of you wearing any garment (including armor) that you are holding.

A bar of soap. No matter how much you wash with it it's like new tomorrow. Attempting to remove soap is permanent, though.

A pillow. Toss it on a bed and the bed is perfectly made.

A wand of treasure finding, fully recharged each day. Unfortunately, the creator was seeking something very specific and not generally valuable and that's all it can find. There is no indication of this, it just fails to find treasure until the right target is close enough.

Self-cleaning dishes. Just put them away, they'll be fine next meal.

A backpack that, space permitting, will always scurry out of the way if it's in the way. (It doesn't avoid being picked up, it just gets out of the way if you try to walk through the space it's in.)

A shadow dog. Normally it will sit upon you somewhere--the result is a dog-shaped blackness on your clothing, or body if you aren't wearing a big enough piece of clothing, but if you throw anything which isn't destroyed in the process it will jump off you and try to fetch it. It will not enter a square occupied by anyone not known to it, if no acceptable path exists it will wait until one does. It can jump onto any wall and move in shadow form at speed 5. It can't do ceilings, though. (Wall = any solid surface within 30 degrees of vertical.) Thus it can go up or down cliffs. It fetches one item at a time. It has an unerring sense of where anything it saw land is and a 50% chance to find where something whose landing was unobserved is. Other than it's ability to walk on walls it can only go where a normal dog could. It moves at half speed in the area of any light spell, is suppressed for spell level * caster level hours by any light spell targeted on it and destroyed by any damage-dealing light spell targeted on it. Any shadow attack on it doubles it's speed for caster level (or creature HD0 hours. Any other source of damage is non-lethal, the dog vanishes at 0hp but returns at 1hp.

A shadow cat. It moves and is affected as per a shadow dog. However, if the owner is awake the shadow cat is always asleep. When they sleep the shadow cat will leave. When they wake the shadow cat will return within 1 minute. It will be bringing a dead mouse if mice exist in the environment.

A shadow bird. It is affected by magic as per the other shadow animals, but it moves by flight. If the owner wakes before sunrise the shadow bird flies off. It returns at sunrise with a dead worm assuming they exist in the environment.

No shadow animal will leave it's owner if the local environment is inhospitable to an animal of it's type. All have an unerring sense of where their owner is and can find them even across continents so long as a path exists. Shadow animals need neither food nor water.

102)

GM: Blocking the entrance to the cave is a large roc.
PC: I move it aside! *goes to roll strength check*
GM: It wakes up and screeches angrily. Roll initiative.
PC: Wait, what? Was it an earth elemental or something?
GM: You assumed that there was a K at the end of "roc".

Why is this getting upvoted?

Deceiving the PCs is fair game. Deceiving the players like this is not. No PC would have proceeded to shove away a bird thinking it was a stone.

102: "Ok, you're in your room with the prostitute. What are you going to do?"

Cole Deschain wrote:

Yeah, the fact that a Succubus can kill the average farmer with a smooch kind of limits their ability to meddle in low-grade temptations over time...

That's just being uncreative. Think of all you can do with just words - suggestions, promises, and tempting implications.

The kiss is just the coup de grace.

I disagree. Against a low level target the kiss kills, that's that. Against a high level target, however, she needs to distract him sufficiently that he doesn't notice he's being drained. While the book doesn't spell it out I presume they mean sex--and it's not likely she's getting him to that position without having kissed. Thus it's extremely important that she be able to control it.

He spoke math! Sorcery! Call the Inquisition!

No. Call the army. He's using Al-Jabbra, he must be a Muslim terrorist!