What happens after the Minion War?

[cornholioprime]

Further circumstantial proof that the "Sustain" spell doesn't work in the way that others might think it works:

See Rifts: Underseas, page 63. The "Sustain" Spell is NOT listed as one of those "everyday" spells useful to pneuma-biforms and Ocean Wizards.

I wouldn't consider that proof of any variety, circumstantial or not, considering that the spell: Sustain didn't even exist when Underseas was printed.

Fair enough.

I forgot to look at the publication dates of each Book, and I stand corrected.

Good catch.

(Now....does anyone know where "Sustain" was originally printed, besides the Rifts Book Of Magic? I don't ever remember seeing it anywhere besides there.)

[flatline]

Breathe Without Air specifically mentions vacuums. If it did not protect you from The Bends, then it would not be suitable for the purpose that it is stated to address.

Agree or disagree, but I consider Sustain to be a superset of Breath Without Air, so if Breath Without Air handles The Bends, then so does Sustain.

BoM p109: "Sustain allows the recipient of this enchantment to go for days without food, water or breathable air!".

A vacuum certainly meets the criteria of "without breathable air". You guys who claim to interpret spell descriptions generously aren't doing so. Nowhere in the description does it give any indication that non-breathable air has to be present for Sustain to accomplish its purpose.

Perhaps it's time to start a thread on Suitability For Purpose. It's a simple concept that seems to be misunderstood here in the forums.

--flatline

"Without breathable air" simply isn't the same as hard vacuum, going along the same lines of logic that make the target of a "Breath Without Air" spell, still be potentially susceptible to toxic fumes -not kidding here, folks; the spell really is written that way.

Go read it again. Breath Without Air protects against all natural and man-made gases. Only "Magic Toxins" are still effective (Maisma is the only one that comes to mind, but there are probably others).

--flatline

[Giant2005]

(Now....does anyone know where "Sustain" was originally printed, besides the Rifts Book Of Magic? I don't ever remember seeing it anywhere besides there.)

The earliest Rifts publishing of it is in FoM, I don't know if any other Palladium line had it published before then.

[cornholioprime]

Breathe Without Air specifically mentions vacuums. If it did not protect you from The Bends, then it would not be suitable for the purpose that it is stated to address.

Agree or disagree, but I consider Sustain to be a superset of Breath Without Air, so if Breath Without Air handles The Bends, then so does Sustain.

BoM p109: "Sustain allows the recipient of this enchantment to go for days without food, water or breathable air!".

A vacuum certainly meets the criteria of "without breathable air". You guys who claim to interpret spell descriptions generously aren't doing so. Nowhere in the description does it give any indication that non-breathable air has to be present for Sustain to accomplish its purpose.

Perhaps it's time to start a thread on Suitability For Purpose. It's a simple concept that seems to be misunderstood here in the forums.

--flatline

"Without breathable air" simply isn't the same as hard vacuum, going along the same lines of logic that make the target of a "Breath Without Air" spell, still be potentially susceptible to toxic fumes -not kidding here, folks; the spell really is written that way.

Go read it again. Breath Without Air protects against all natural and man-made gases. Only "Magic Toxins" are still effective (Maisma is the only one that comes to mind, but there are probably others).

--flatline

My re-tpying of how the spell works was wrong, but my point remains.

Namely, that real-world logic doesn't necessarily have to dictate how magical spell effects work (logically speaking, a spell that doesn't require the character to breath air AT ALL shouldn't in the normal course of events make him vulnerable even to magical toxic gases); and for that reason, we shouldn't add more capabilities to a spell than it explicitly says it can do.

[flatline]

we shouldn't add more capabilities to a spell than it explicitly says it can do.

And this is where you're simply wrong. We NEED to assume any omitted capabilities of the spell that are required for the spell to accomplish its intended purpose. If the spell can't accomplish it's purpose, then the spell wouldn't exist. We know the spell exists because it's described in the books, so therefore it must somehow accomplish it's intended purpose.

And this doesn't just apply to spells, but to everything described in the books.

For instance, we all know that firing a particle beam weapon in an atmosphere would result in the back scattered radiation poisoning not only the guy holding the rifle, but just about everyone nearby who isn't shielded somehow. Yet the intention of the authors is that this doesn't happen because particle beam rifles are common and dire side-effects are never listed, so we have to assume that for some reason, Rifts particle beam weapons do not suffer from this problem. If they did, then they would not be suitable for the purpose that the authors intended them.

You guys are already doing this every time you allow someone in MDC armor to survive 1d4MD from a kinetic attack. You're assuming that somehow the armor deals with the momentum even though the description makes no mention of it and physics dictates that all your internal organs would be liquid after such an impact.

So, if you're willing to do this for tech, why are you resistant to doing it for magic? The double standard is glaring.

--flatline

[Pepsi Jedi]

The "Breathe with out air" Spell is a totally different spell than "Sustain" And while the discription of sustain might have the words 'with out breathable air" it doesn't mean it includes a lessor spell in itself.

You can't use a different spell's make up to define a spell that has words that are similar. We only have so many words in the language and alot LESS if you use ones that can be understood by teens and such. (( Not saying teens are stupid by any means but Palladium books are written for 12 year olds and up. They're not exactly 'wordy'.)) Sustain does NOT say "Contains and mimic's the effect of _____ spell" Or anything of that nature.

[flatline]

The "Breathe with out air" Spell is a totally different spell than "Sustain" And while the discription of sustain might have the words 'with out breathable air" it doesn't mean it includes a lessor spell in itself.

They are different spells, but we have no reason to believe that they don't use the same mechanism to accomplish their purpose.

What in the descriptions leads you to believe that the way Breath Without Air works is "totally different" than how Sustain works? Feel free to quote the relevant passages. Prove to me that there's a canon reason to treat them differently.

--flatline

[camk4evr]

Re: the Sustain spell:

According to Feration of Magic page 138:

Due to these changes, the target can survive in almost any environment. However, the character remains vulnerable to other external conditions such as heat, cold and physical damage, and fatigues from exertion as normal.

Therefore anyone who attempts to use Sustain, alone, to survive in the vacume of space is dead, either from the effects of negative pressure (ie the bends, the gasses in your lungs will be sucked out, and you'll lose all of the oxygen in your blood as it's still being pumped to your lungs ((brain needs oxygen))), hard radiation (exposed to gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation), or the freezing cold (ie fluids in the body freezing, eventually).

[Pepsi Jedi]

The "Breathe with out air" Spell is a totally different spell than "Sustain" And while the discription of sustain might have the words 'with out breathable air" it doesn't mean it includes a lessor spell in itself.

They are different spells, but we have no reason to believe that they don't use the same mechanism to accomplish their purpose.

What in the descriptions leads you to believe that the way Breath Without Air works is "totally different" than how Sustain works? Feel free to quote the relevant passages. Prove to me that there's a canon reason to treat them differently.

--flatline

They're different spells. Just because something includes the word 'fire' doesn't mean it includes all the other spells that have fire in it. You're reaching, and hard, for apparently no reason, as there's other spells that do what you're attempting. At this point you're just arguing to argue.

If a spell includes aspects of another spell it says so. If it doesn't it doesn't. You're taking a few words in a description and then saying it includes an entire other spell to help justify your point. Doesn't work that way.

[Nightmask]

we shouldn't add more capabilities to a spell than it explicitly says it can do.

And this is where you're simply wrong. We NEED to assume any omitted capabilities of the spell that are required for the spell to accomplish its intended purpose. If the spell can't accomplish it's purpose, then the spell wouldn't exist. We know the spell exists because it's described in the books, so therefore it must somehow accomplish it's intended purpose.

And this doesn't just apply to spells, but to everything described in the books.

For instance, we all know that firing a particle beam weapon in an atmosphere would result in the back scattered radiation poisoning not only the guy holding the rifle, but just about everyone nearby who isn't shielded somehow. Yet the intention of the authors is that this doesn't happen because particle beam rifles are common and dire side-effects are never listed, so we have to assume that for some reason, Rifts particle beam weapons do not suffer from this problem. If they did, then they would not be suitable for the purpose that the authors intended them.

You guys are already doing this every time you allow someone in MDC armor to survive 1d4MD from a kinetic attack. You're assuming that somehow the armor deals with the momentum even though the description makes no mention of it and physics dictates that all your internal organs would be liquid after such an impact.

So, if you're willing to do this for tech, why are you resistant to doing it for magic? The double standard is glaring.

--flatline

It's flakier than that when you think about it. You'll hear that 'hey magic can do anything! It violates the laws of physics!' followed right by 'which is why it can't do that'. Say what? So because magic can 'do anything' you're told that's why it can't do something, generally to insist on wallbanger restrictions for no other reason really than 'never give them an iota beyond what's written when it's a spell, only let technology get all the implications and stuff not explicitly written'. Such as the aforementioned 'inexplicably negates kinetic energy and inertia to prevent harm to occupants in body armor'.

[flatline]

The "Breathe with out air" Spell is a totally different spell than "Sustain" And while the discription of sustain might have the words 'with out breathable air" it doesn't mean it includes a lessor spell in itself.

They are different spells, but we have no reason to believe that they don't use the same mechanism to accomplish their purpose.

What in the descriptions leads you to believe that the way Breath Without Air works is "totally different" than how Sustain works? Feel free to quote the relevant passages. Prove to me that there's a canon reason to treat them differently.

--flatline

They're different spells. Just because something includes the word 'fire' doesn't mean it includes all the other spells that have fire in it. You're reaching, and hard, for apparently no reason, as there's other spells that do what you're attempting. At this point you're just arguing to argue.

If a spell includes aspects of another spell it says so. If it doesn't it doesn't. You're taking a few words in a description and then saying it includes an entire other spell to help justify your point. Doesn't work that way.

Wait, so we have two spells that both remove your need for air and one is higher level than the other with capabilities beyond that of the lower level spell. Therefore I'm reaching when I assume that the higher level spell has an aspect that incorporates the lower level spell or at least functions via the same or similar mechanism?

I don't follow.

--flatline

[Pepsi Jedi]

The "Breathe with out air" Spell is a totally different spell than "Sustain" And while the discription of sustain might have the words 'with out breathable air" it doesn't mean it includes a lessor spell in itself.

They are different spells, but we have no reason to believe that they don't use the same mechanism to accomplish their purpose.

What in the descriptions leads you to believe that the way Breath Without Air works is "totally different" than how Sustain works? Feel free to quote the relevant passages. Prove to me that there's a canon reason to treat them differently.

--flatline

They're different spells. Just because something includes the word 'fire' doesn't mean it includes all the other spells that have fire in it. You're reaching, and hard, for apparently no reason, as there's other spells that do what you're attempting. At this point you're just arguing to argue.

If a spell includes aspects of another spell it says so. If it doesn't it doesn't. You're taking a few words in a description and then saying it includes an entire other spell to help justify your point. Doesn't work that way.

Wait, so we have two spells that both remove your need for air and one is higher level than the other with capabilities beyond that of the lower level spell. Therefore I'm reaching when I assume that the higher level spell has an aspect that incorporates the lower level spell or at least functions via the same or similar mechanism?

I don't follow.

--flatline

Yes. Because the spell doesn't say 'This is a higher version of ____ " or "This spell incorporates ____ and adds' to it"

They're different. They do different things, in different ways. That's like saying "Well pants are clothes and a coat is clothes and clothes keep you warm so all coats incorporate pants.

[flatline]

Wait, so we have two spells that both remove your need for air and one is higher level than the other with capabilities beyond that of the lower level spell. Therefore I'm reaching when I assume that the higher level spell has an aspect that incorporates the lower level spell or at least functions via the same or similar mechanism?

I don't follow.

--flatline

Yes. Because the spell doesn't say 'This is a higher version of ____ " or "This spell incorporates ____ and adds' to it"

They're different. They do different things, in different ways. That's like saying "Well pants are clothes and a coat is clothes and clothes keep you warm so all coats incorporate pants.

And you can back that up with something from the book? Perhaps a book somewhere says that if two spells have similar effects that unless one specifically references the other that they MUST use different mechanisms?

I asked for citations that demonstrated that they used different mechanisms and I'm still waiting. Instead, I get a bad analogy. If you wanted to make a clothing analogy, a more correct analogy would be that pants cover your lower body and a suit covers both your lower and upper body.

--flatline

[Pepsi Jedi]

Wait, so we have two spells that both remove your need for air and one is higher level than the other with capabilities beyond that of the lower level spell. Therefore I'm reaching when I assume that the higher level spell has an aspect that incorporates the lower level spell or at least functions via the same or similar mechanism?

I don't follow.

--flatline

Yes. Because the spell doesn't say 'This is a higher version of ____ " or "This spell incorporates ____ and adds' to it"

They're different. They do different things, in different ways. That's like saying "Well pants are clothes and a coat is clothes and clothes keep you warm so all coats incorporate pants.

And you can back that up with something from the book? Perhaps a book somewhere says that if two spells have similar effects that unless one specifically references the other that they MUST use different mechanisms?

I asked for citations that demonstrated that they used different mechanisms and I'm still waiting. Instead, I get a bad analogy. If you wanted to make a clothing analogy, a more correct analogy would be that pants cover your lower body and a suit covers both your lower and upper body.

--flatline

You're asking me to prove a negative. It never says 'All spells that might share some effects incorporate each other" for me to have to prove they don't.

In short you're makin' it up. The book doesn't say it, you're assuming it to be so, so it's based on an assumption not in evidence. I don't have to disprove something you've not proved.

You're making something up, with nothing to back it, and demanding a quote from the book to disprove something.. that's not in the book. LOL

[Dunia]

If we return to the subject of this thread (You guys are masters of hijacking threads).

From what Kevin suggests, there will be some (serious) changes with the Coalition. My belief is that they will be beaten and defeated in many battles, they might lose their control St Lois, Tolkeen Ruins and Chicago Rifts and lots of the RCSG troops will take the first hit. Though they will be defeated in the early stages, i do believe that the vanguard will reveal themselves and one again become the heroes that they once were and that Joseph Prosek will use this to his advantage, to be seen as man that will steer CS in a new direction.
There is also a chance that Karl might fall in these battles and that Joseph will become the next emperor and that he will contact the Vanguard and ask them to help save Chi Town and the Coalition State and give them the status they once had as the population now understand that the Vanguards, as the heroes they have always been, have lived in the shadows and protected them and welcomes them back with parades.
Thus making CS a kingdom that has a small controlled group of mages (much like Psi-Corps in Babylon 5) that allows mages, but only those in the Vanguard - All others are hunted down by bloodhound units and once found, they either have a chance to join the Vanguard(after a severe brainwashing), they can agree to install cybernetics & Bionics to destroy their ability or they will die.

As someone mentioned, They might lose Lone Star - either due to a political pull of Desmond that the Forces of Hades and/or Dyval use that facility as a stepping stone. No one really knows what is on level 9 or in sector 357.

[Icefalcon]

I hope he keeps to those words. The Coalition has seen massive plot immunity since the inception of the game. It is about time for them to take a hit.

[Slight001]

I hope he keeps to those words. The Coalition has seen massive plot immunity since the inception of the game. It is about time for them to take a hit.

He said changes not that they'd be negative changes... for that matter he also didn't say they'd be positive. I'll wait and see... the rest of the fans can speculate.

[cornholioprime]

we shouldn't add more capabilities to a spell than it explicitly says it can do.

And this is where you're simply wrong. We NEED to assume any omitted capabilities of the spell that are required for the spell to accomplish its intended purpose. If the spell can't accomplish it's purpose, then the spell wouldn't exist. We know the spell exists because it's described in the books, so therefore it must somehow accomplish it's intended purpose.

And if the purpose of the aforementioned spell is simply to magically filtrate air in un-breathable environments?

If one extends more capabilities to magical effects than is explicitly mentioned in their spell descriptions, then just from the standpoint of Game Balance alone the potential for exploitation is boundless.

You might as well try to say that if you cast, say, "Impervious to Energy" on yourself, that you could then withstand the full effects of being on the sun's surface. Or that a Vampire could use the same spell to shield himself from the harmful (to him) rays of the sun.

And this doesn't just apply to spells, but to everything described in the books.

For instance, we all know that firing a particle beam weapon in an atmosphere would result in the back scattered radiation poisoning not only the guy holding the rifle, but just about everyone nearby who isn't shielded somehow. Yet the intention of the authors is that this doesn't happen because particle beam rifles are common and dire side-effects are never listed, so we have to assume that for some reason, Rifts particle beam weapons do not suffer from this problem. If they did, then they would not be suitable for the purpose that the authors intended them.

The problem with your chosen analogy?

The secondary, real-life effects of discharging Particle Beam Weapons aren't covered in the books, or else their impact on the characters would have to be considered depending upon the situation.
But the secondary, real-life effects of an unshielded human being in a hard-vacuum have been covered in-game, across multiple Palladium titles over the years.

You guys are already doing this every time you allow someone in MDC armor to survive 1d4MD from a kinetic attack. You're assuming that somehow the armor deals with the momentum even though the description makes no mention of it and physics dictates that all your internal organs would be liquid after such an impact.

So, if you're willing to do this for tech, why are you resistant to doing it for magic? The double standard is glaring.

There's no double-standard going on here.

The in-game mechanics don't cover the effects of kinetic energy impacts as would be normally experienced even by armored mortals. It's not something that has to be "accounted for," it simply doesn't apply in the pseudo-physics of the fictional game setting.

[Nightmask]

we shouldn't add more capabilities to a spell than it explicitly says it can do.

And this is where you're simply wrong. We NEED to assume any omitted capabilities of the spell that are required for the spell to accomplish its intended purpose. If the spell can't accomplish it's purpose, then the spell wouldn't exist. We know the spell exists because it's described in the books, so therefore it must somehow accomplish it's intended purpose.

And if the purpose of the aforementioned spell is simply to magically filtrate air in un-breathable environments?

Which would mean the spell would be worthless in an environment where there was no oxygen, yet the spell doesn't say 'this spell is ineffective in environments lacking in oxygen' so obviously it doesn't work that way. So you instead are attempting to impose limitations that aren't explicitly listed. One also has to wonder just where the 'don't add anything at all, not a micron, outside what's written no matter how much it should exist' mentality comes from because it's a flawed and illogical stance to insist on. It's magic it should at LEAST have as much range as one can reasonably extrapolate from what we're given to know about it, rather than try and insist something that warps reality is contrarily less effective and more limited.

[Icefalcon]

If any of that funny diatribe is true, I'm done with palladium.

I'll agree with you there.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

I hope he keeps to those words. The Coalition has seen massive plot immunity since the inception of the game. It is about time for them to take a hit.

He said changes not that they'd be negative changes... for that matter he also didn't say they'd be positive. I'll wait and see... the rest of the fans can speculate.

think he been planning something for the coalition since Siege of tolkeen, personally i would like to see more about the sgt canton