And why do you make the simply arrogant/condescending assumption that we do otherwise?
And you STILL dont see to realise the point i made?
How its going to affect form individual sizes?
Base individuals:
Im, "adult human".
Te, measured in cubic paces.
Ig, "large campfire"
He, uses pace.
Co, "adult human being, up to size+1", giving a huge potential difference STILL being a base individual
Au, uses pace.
Aq, uses pace.
An, any animal size +1 or less.
Ok, so by your definition of a fun idea, SOME forms changes size of affected material based on magi size, but others do not.
As Fhtagn says, you apply game rule descriptions into the setting itself...
Not unless you want an eventually totally useless system no.
Whats the point of a system if it isnt systematic.
The whole rules system is there to tell a story. if the system gets in the way of the story the system goes. For me, consistency in the system is laughable as written in enough instances to make the systematism of the system a joke. Disregarding it is perfectly OK for my troupe. We do that every session. Color for us goes before consistency of the rules system. That breaks some rules as written. Fair for us. We never said that we wanted a 100% consistent system to start with. YMseemstoV.
And yes, a MtoW of a giant would reach father than that of a dwarf. I see no problems here. Different sagas, different ideas, I guess
Still, this does not necessarily break the general setting unless you go for powergaming things. What if the torrent of water of a dwarf reaches 2/3 of that of a normal human and half of that of a giant blooded dude? Where does the consistency break here? It is range, not volume. And even if it also applied to volume, there are quite a few ways to make the bigger dudes "pay" for the increase and the smaller ones get a lift: mbetter stones if they are small, worse productivity of the field if it is big.... not necessarily, but if a metagame equilibrium does bother you, there are ways to address it.
I was simply pointing out that the concept of "small, so range and volume are smaller; big so bigger range and volume" seems to fit a medieval mindset extremely well IMO.
It can be purely descriptive as well. No need to apply the exact measurement of a "pace" at all. 99% of the time this is descriptive, so I see no major issues with it unless the magi are making a contest of who pees with a longer reach.
This started as a paradigm idea. No mechanics implied whatsoever. Trying to put mechanics into a really cool color concept is what ruins the fuin. At least for me. We used to hacve gamers in the group that wanted to number crunch. They laster less than a month of real gaming IMS. Guess we are rather "2nd edition" when it comes to mechanics. Some posts in this thread made me believe quite a few people are quite less liberal in their approach. I might be wrong, but I think I am not, hence some of my previous assumptions
I think I have said everything I wanted to say in this rather stupuid discussion. I just wanted to re-state that I think thimothy's idea is very cool and very medieval. I like it and is likely to find some way into the background color of the spells IMS. No mechanics will change but the description is really cool. This is the only thing I wanted to imply.
The other point to note with regards to wooden legs, missing legs, no legs, et. all... is that those absences (unless they were deficiencies the character was born with) are not a part of the character's Essential Nature. They don't impact the size of the pace-- it's still whatever the length of that pace would have been if the person were whole.
And are the forms going to change a bit, sure...they're being represented through the lense of the magus, and that magus distorts things a little based on his Essential Nature. This also ties in well with the fact that magi have hermetic flaws, showing how the theory of magical mechanics doesn't quite fit them, that there are hiccups and anomalies.
Let's be honest, is it really a big deal? So it modifies a unit of measure for a very small number of characters in the occasional spell. If anything, it's very cool that it shows just how tied to the magic a magus' Essential Nature is, and drives questions about how the Gift can be lost at all without modifying the Essential Nature (Mercere anyone?) and that, in turn, suggests that perhaps some of the Laws are mutable as well. That can inspire Original Research, investigation on the nature of the Gift, Fertility magics, a host of other things.
That's cool stuff, in my opinion, and it's drawn out of a very simple question.
All of this I agree with, save that I don't feel that Dwarf and Giant-Blood are the Virtues that should affect this. In much the same way as I'd like to have a dwarf with an unusually, unnaturally loud voice (his Voice spells can carry much further) or a giant who is almost functionally mute, unable to speak above a whisper. Whilst both may cast Pilum of Fire, the Giant's probably won't actually be any longer range than his Touch spell. I think it's a great idea that some magi can affect bigger or smaller lumps of stuff(tm) than others, but again, I don't think that those are the virtues which should cover it.
If you want to play a giant with a great booming voice and a massive stride whose spells are also enlarged then that should require additional virtues because it's a massive change in magic and a huge boost in play. That said, I firmly acknowledge that said virtues are both flavourful and should be allowed. Having every spell you cast be bigger is at least a major Virtue initself, and shouldn't be just a side-effect of another Major virtue.
The range are not based on how far you can walk in a given time, but on how far your voice can be heard.
I don't want to feel condescending or else, but I just can't comprehend why some people don't seem to understand this, especially as this seems to be pretty clear in the rules.