Mythic Ability: Transfer Magic

[Ar'ruum]

I have a question about the application of this mythic ability. Here is the description... for them who appreciate having the reference...

Spoiler:

[i]Mythic Adventures p.48[i]
Transfer Magic (Su): Your mythic nature allows you to take magic from others as easily as you could take their gold. By expending one use of mythic power as a standard action, you can make a melee touch attack to transfer an active magical effect from a target creature to you. If you succeed, the highest-level effect on the target transfers to you (determine randomly if the target has multiple effects with the same level), ending the effect for the target and continuing it on you with the remaining duration as if you were the original target. You may end the effect on yourself as a standard action; this doesn't cause it to revert to the original target. If the transferred magic can't affect you(for example, if it doesn't affect creatures of your type), it ends immediately as if dispelled. You can't use this ability to transfer continuous bonuses from magic items , such as an armor bonus from bracers of armor.

What I take from this is that any active magical effect is subject to this mythic (Su) ability. To start with, I understand that this does not allow for taking spell-like abilities that a creature may be able to activate and then use yourself, it must be an active magical effect.

So, does this include Spell-like abilities(Sp) or Supernatural(Su) abilities that a creature may have? Or possibly Spell-like Abilities that can be activated at will (that are currently active)? The description for Spell-Like abilities states that they can be dispelled. Given the text states that if the magic cannot effect you and that the effect ends immediately as though it were dispelled. Would this imply that anything that can be suppressed/negated by an antimagic field could be subject to 'Transfer Magic'?

[blahpers]

Spell-like abilities, absolutely, subject to the "only active magical effects" restriction.

Supernatural abilities are a bit iffy. They certainly are magical, but some of them are permanent and as inherent to the creature as breathing, so it'd be pretty odd to take them.

I'd go with the completely-invented rule of thumb that anything that would normally be subject to dispelling (as opposed to suppressing or countering) via dispel magic would be transferable by this ability. So a spell-like invisibility in place would be fine, but a red dragon's fire aura (Su) would be out.

[Tacticslion]

Huh.

I hadn't thought of that.

Marked as FAQ, and I'd generally recommend others do as well.

This pretty good question, but I'd like to point out a few things:

1) antimagic field =/= dispel; thus, if dispel wouldn't end its effects, neither would this ability (thus, this cannot be used to permanently destroy another creature's supernatural ability)

2) if the effect in question doesn't have a "level" this ability has no method of clarifying how it interacts with said ability (making many supernatural abilities a singularity of "??????????????" according to the rules), though a GM may choose to declare the "level" of a special ability is equal to the DC sans any modifiers (racial, feat-induced, or otherwise) - that's not RAW, though, and you're pretty deeply into fiat territory in doing so; it is probably most comprehensible/recommended that you treat such affects as not having a level at all (which, you know, they don't) and thus not subject to this ability; GMs are encouraged to make their own rulings, however

3) the questionable part is "if the transferred magic can't affect you" - thus, I suspect the intent (though, obviously, I can't know for sure) is that you can't acquire a creatures constant or innate supernatural abilities, as those can't "affect you" (you are not a valid "target" of the effect, as it lacks a target in that sense - it is merely an expression of that creature's nature, like their nose or their eyes), even if you could normally have an equivalent spell cast on yourself (for example: a Rakshasa's detect thoughts special ability). That said, this is the most questionable element - it's comprehensible, but questionable; and it can be read in different ways.

Interesting - when I'd read it before, I'd thought of it as a relatively straight-forward ability.

Nifty question.

EDIT: ninja'd by blaphers by five minutes

[Ar'ruum]

After discussion on a facebook group the general consensus was that SU would be out, primarily due to no level and the fact they aren't 'dispel-able'. However (Sp) effects would be subject to Transfer Magic. The thing is the only restriction the description actually places on the this is that effects from items can't be transferred. So if we go by the rule-of-thumb of exclusion/inclusion, the inclusion and specific mention of the restriction against effects from items, would seem to allow nearly any other magical effect. There are actually some fairly low level creatures with some constant effects. I can't recall the specific one right now, but one has a constant spell-like ability of Blur. The restriction states the example of a spell not effecting your type, Blur has no restrictions, so I'm not able to figure a reason why it couldn't be transferred.

With that being said, if the effect is listed as 'constant' and the magical effect continues for it's duration, does said Mythic character now effectively have constant Blur? In my heart the answer feels like it should be "No". However, I can see how it could be construed otherwise. Additionally, there is no mention of any restriction on how many magical effects one may have transferred to him or herself. You can easily see where this is going... I see two solutions, A) constant spell-like abilities be excluded, or B) Create a limit of how many effects can be maintained, [perhaps with respect to tier level).

[Sam Polak]

Last night, one of my players used Transfer Magic to save another PC from a suffocation spell!

I had looked at this ability before, but I hadn't considered using it to purposefully transfer and end harmful spell effects. By my reading, I think this would also work on a curse or polymorph ongoing effect.