Okay, maybe not totally. For a while I've been wanting to put together something that reflects how I view magic working in a Pathfinder setting, and the differences between divine and arcane magic, and now that I'm not running a game (ironically) I finally sat down and threw something together:
If you have any thoughts on this set up, please feel free to post either in this thread or on the blog.
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Okay, maybe not totally. For a while I've been wanting to put together something that reflects how I view magic working in a Pathfinder setting, and the differences between divine and arcane magic, and now that I'm not running a game (ironically) I finally sat down and threw something together:
If you have any thoughts on this set up, please feel free to post either in this thread or on the blog.
A good read, and very similar to the way I explain magic in my world (Although dragons fill the same niche for arcane magic that the gods do for divine).
I've got one problem with your thesis. You can't destroy energy. There should always be the same amount of energy in the universe.
This is true. However, energy can be bound up in matter (E=mc^2 and all), so I guess the real issue is how much "free" energy there is that doesn't need to be converted to "magic". When a world gets too many casters, the amount of free energy diminishes because it's being used faster than it can be renewed. When a world gets just too much stuff, the available energy is all bound up in matter (or other energy types) and can't be used for magic. The wording of "potential energy" probably ought to be "free energy", but otherwise it's a fairly sound theory at a cursory read.
I've got one problem with your thesis. You can't destroy energy. There should always be the same amount of energy in the universe.
Since I was writing this a bit from the view of someone in a given setting, I wasn't as cautious about making terminology line up as well as I could have with real science.
That having been said, the ambient magic is still spent when it is converted to another form of energy. The ambient magical energy is no longer ambient magical energy. A fireball is pretty much converting ambient magical energy into heat.
That having been said, I probably could have spend a line or two clarifying this.
This is true. However, energy can be bound up in matter (E=mc^2 and all), so I guess the real issue is how much "free" energy there is that doesn't need to be converted to "magic". When a world gets too many casters, the amount of free energy diminishes because it's being used faster than it can be renewed. When a world gets just too much stuff, the available energy is all bound up in matter (or other energy types) and can't be used for magic. The wording of "potential energy" probably ought to be "free energy", but otherwise it's a fairly sound theory at a cursory read.
Yeah, I was struggling a bit with using potential energy. I couldn't quite come up with a good term to fit better for what I was trying to say, and I was hoping the concept was still coming through.
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I always liked Robert Asprin's initial description of magic in the early Myth Series volumes.
That "Magic Lines," not unlike Magnetic Lines, grid a paticular "Dimension," or Prime Material Plane.
Taking that, it is easy to say that in D&D, over the ages, powerful casters (Divine and Arcane, mortal and immortal) have manipulated the "Force Lines" so that they're no longer a nice grid but more like a web (or maybe say they've always been a web).
Moreover, one could say that, over the ages, many of these Force Lines have been disrupted and such, explaining Wild Magic and Dead Magic zones.