No, it's not. Resisting twilight requires two minutes of concentration. If, 1 minute in, you stop concentrating... well, you've failed to resist twilight.
So you've spent 20 rounds resisting twilight, deciding each round to continue resisting, and now (after those 20 rounds) you find yourself in deadly peril? Well you'd best have some useful spells then.
Given as you're a magus I find it highly unlikely that you're entirely defenceless.
If they can cast the level 10 Creo Vim spell they sure can
If I'm not willing to let things hang on a die roll, I don't roll a die.
I do have some survival allowing houserules, but "you can enter twilight whenever you like, for no reason whatsoever" doesn't seem like a good one to me.
Umm, I didn't say that you can enter twilight whenever you like, perhaps you shouldn't use quotation marks.
It seems to me that you're saying that if, during the two minutes you try and resist Twilight you can always decide to go into Twilight.
Which is not all that different from me saying that if you get attacked while resisting, I'd allow the player to go into Twilight. We differ on the timing, your time being a notification that the player is going to be attacked, and my timing is that the player is going to be dead. However, given the circumstances the distinction between being attacked and being dead may be moot. Especially when one factors in the Concentration Ease Factors necessary to act, if you can act.
The scenario is that you're within the 20 rounds, resisting Twilight, what are your options for avoiding damage/death. Not what happens after. That's entirely separate from "Vulnerability When Avoiding Twilight" isn't it?
You are relatively defenseless when resisting Twilight. The RAW doesn't speak to what a magus resisting Twilight can do, but I'd suggest it is closer to "not much" than anything. I'd say Sta+Concentration rolls to even cast a spell while resisting Twilight probably have an EF of 15 (equal to casting two spells at once). Dodging should be a 12. And I'd venture to say that having a higher EF requirement is possible. And if you lose concentration, apparently you go into Twilight. Right?
You said that you'd let someone go in after they've successfully resisted. You didn't set a deadline on this.
Given as it's clear that they haven't successfully resisted until after the two minutes have passed, I (clearly incorrectly) deduced that you didn't have a limit on it. I'm guessing you actually meant that you'd allow it while they were still resisting?
Indeed.
Exactly where I claimed we differed, and where you claimed that we didn't differ. To quote: "This is just as much a retroactive choice as mine."
You allow someone to enter twilight when the attack has already been calculated - when the sword has already struck home - and thereby retroactively prevent the attack.
I allow someone to enter twilight as the sword is being swung - before they are hit - so that the sword simply swings into an empty space where they once stood.
Given that it's a one and done roll, I hadn't contemplated that combat had finished. The way I was reading counter proposals was that once you've made the resistance roll, you can't slip into Twilight, either. Rereading that, it was never explicitly stated, but given the nature of one roll to determine whether one resists or not, it's not an unreasonable inference.
Again, it's nearly a distinction without a difference. A magus resisting twilight is nigh defenseless. Can I live with the fact that the player sees the result to determine what he really wants to do? Don't we have other elements of retroactive continuity in our games anyway? If we both agree that someone resisting can slip into Twilight, at any time while he's successfully resisting, and the timing is the difference between the certainty that your character is going to die and the strong likelihood that the character is going to die, well, I'm not sure I see a point. Especially with a magus character, which, as I've said, do deserve a bit of narrative consideration in telling the story that is the saga. Young magi will likely come out of Twilight soon, and if the situation is still dire after a diameter or so, then they're still in a lot of trouble, given that their shield grog and perhaps the rest of the party has been decimated. There isn't a free lunch in my scenario, it's survival in the Heinlein method.
Magi in Twilight don't always disappear from the spot they are in. They might also be encased in some impregnable shell of Vim, or something. When the sword hits it, it could conceivably feel like stone.
I think it is pretty clear. They roll their attack, you have to roll concentration to attempt to defend, then defend. You can choose to enter twilight instead of defending (without the concentration roll), not after failing to defend. Because it is not "one and done" it is two rolls. Unless that is another of your house rules...
It isn't clear, or at least it isn't explicit. To resist Twilight is one roll and done. The RAW never specifies any other rolls besides the one for resisting twilight, does it? The RAW never discusses taking actions when resisting twilight, does it? And as big a deal as it seems to be here, one would think that the Concentration insert on page 82 would mention taking an action while resisting Twilight, too. We're talking about an extremely unlikely confluence of events here, too.
We are in uncharted territory, everything we've discussed is a house rule.
No mention of other activities possible. No mention that once the concentration roll is successful one can then choose to go into Twilight. We are all presuming that one can do so. The difference is that I'll let the player decide based on the result of the die, because I'm not a killer GM who holds a player's decisions against them. There can be a lot of stuff going on at a table, and it's easy for a player to miss something and we redo stuff all the time. In situations where I'm working with a killer GM, I'm spending a lot of time figuring out what I'm going to do, and how to do it in such a way as to not get my butt handed to me. That's not always a fun thing to do.
My main house rule is that the game needs to be fun. Is it fun to kill a character because he decided to resist twilight, then later dies because of that decision? Probably not. Is it fun to kill a character who goes out in a blaze of glory when the player, troupe and SG all agree? Yeah, sure, you betcha.
No, the difference is you let them decide to go into twilight when the dice have already proclaimed them dead. It is one roll to control after they spend the time attempting to control it, not before. If they don't spend the time, they don't get the roll.
silveroak, you do have a good point that if this were in a "real" setting that the concentration roll would happen at the end of two minutes, but it's not RAW.
It's probably cleaner to just call the magus invulnerable while resisting. Again, this isn't RAW, but making concentration rolls to act while resisting isn't either, and is much more complicated at a time that doesn't need any additional complications (combat). A Twilight experience, resisted or not, during combat is likely going to remove you from combat, since most combat sessions don't last more than 6 rounds or 1/2 a diameter. So, for two minutes the magus is in Twilight, and he's now fighting his way out of the experience, bringing the magic that surrounds him and makes him invulnerable while he gets his magic under control.
We never ruled on this ourselves, but have been playing to it with "decide to break concentration and FAIL your control of Twilight before the attack is rolled."
Failure can mean you go into twilight. Or that you roll for a botch with 5+ dice depending on the SGs mood. The idea is to make the whole decision tough on the character.
You know, this issue has never, ever come up in my groups. I see we may not hav read the entirity of the rules as written.
Perhaps we simply assumed that you are unaffected by the mundane world while tryign to resist Twilight as well as when trying to control it.
Or else we just never try to avoid it. It seems to he that I always skips the resistance roll and jump straight in to control it for a good effect. yes, it costs more Warping, but odds are you get a Good Effect, especailly if you blow a Confidence. Sure, if you usually waltz around in strentgh 8-10 Auras I know it is harder, but we rarely do. Also, with a little luck you get it done in less than 2 minutes.
But I have to say I really like the idea of a magus valiantly trying to fight Twilight, while a combat rages around him. If he is struck or interrupted he loses concentration and Bad Things happen. So the Grogs try to shield him. That is great for drama, perhaps we should do this.
My take on this situation is that a failed Concentration roll means he stops trying to avoid Twilight and is sucked into the void. But I could see the Comprehension roll being more difficult when entering this way. But should it be easier to Cmprehend if entering voluntarily than failing the resistance roll?
Edit: Oh, and I feel the magus first gets struck and recieves damage before rolling Concentration or deciding to stop resisting voluntarily. But should the magus seeing a chargin foe be able to preemptively stop resisting to escape the enemy? I like this idea, for the sake of drama. I might require opposed Init rolls be made though, as per LoM. But maybe 'dropping concentration' should get a bonus, since it seems easie and faster that - say - fast cast magic?
My assumption has always been that you are entirely affected by the mundane world and events there in while trying to resist Twilight - but are generally unawere thereof.
Meaning that no, you're not going to give up trying to resist Twilight just before that sword hits you, because you won't notice it until you've taken your hit. And maybe not even then. Your mind is wandering a mirror-maze and trying desperately to find it's way back to the real world.
..which also shows why it's often a better idea to just accept the Twilight in a combat situation...
...which is what we do most every time, once we realized there was a chance to cut down on time spent.
But, if you are affected but unaware how should this play out? Wounds recieved don't really matter - concerning Wound Penalties - up to a certain point one could assume. Does it affect your Twilight to be Incapacitated or outright killed? Encased in temporarily softened rock? Sent to the bottom of the sea? Set on fire and teleported to Bergen? I guess you should suffer any Deprivation or ongoing damage while in the Twilight fighting state.
It's still good for drama, since enemies may want to hack or chimp away at the magus' inactive and vulrenable body, so Grogs may still want to protect him.
My view:
If you enter Twilight, it doens't matter much if you tried to fight it or not. You will enter Twilight right away (which is why we roll right away) and Twilight will progress as normal from that point.
If you try to fight off Twilight and "succed" - meaning you don't enter Twilight - you will spend a Diameter doing nothing useful but that. Not dodging, not necessarily noticing wounds etc.
You will be affected by your surroundings, be it taking wounds of suffocating.
By definition no. While in Twilight, you are gone or impervious.
But only during Twilight.
If you go into Twilight and it manifests as you going into stasis surrounded by a bubble of purple light - making you impervious - and that bubble is swallowed by a giant serpent, you are still unharmed when you return - but likely will dislike the smell in the serpent's stomach.
If your purple bubble is instead encased in stone, you will return to the world encased in stone, but otherwise unharmed.
You will not have been set on fire, because you are perfectly protected and thus probably would have been unaffected by the teleportation either, but that's when you ACTUALLY ENTER TWILIGHT. If you fight it off, you're horribly vulnerable while you're fighting you own magic.
Imagine you're at sea and the wind starts picking up. You decide to cast a PeAu effect calm things and BAM double botch.
There are grogs present who can make sure you don't go over the side, so no problem there. Why accept the extra Warping instead of just effectively waiting 2 minutes before you try again?
Most storms pick up an awful lot slower than that, unless they're magical.
Or perhaps you're investigating a Regio and know that if you disappear, your collegues would most likely assume you'd crossed the regio border.
Nothing's trying to eat you, so why not just try fighting it off now and then keep the search going?
Time shouldn't be the primary consideration, it's whether the magus should be vulnerable or not, IMO. Depending on the number of warping points received and the warping score, resisting Twilight might very well be the faster option. The minimum amount of time is a diameter, whether one resists or not. At low warping scores, and at periods where the magus might be in mortal danger, it does make some sense to try and comprehend the experience and not fight the Twilight.
I'm not following the try again. Try the spell again? It's try once to resist Twilight, the spell casting is irrelevant. If you did resist Twilight, then it takes a diameter. If you didn't, then it takes at least a diameter, but can take longer depending on the magus's warping score.
There's a presumption that you disappear in Twilight. Disappearing may or may not happen. If one disappears it might be due to a Final Twilight or particularly long Twilight experience, that's what I remember reading about it. Other cases the magus remains in the mundane world, statue-like, but really it's not defined, so it is entirely up to the SG as to what happens to a magus in Twilight.
...and I thought I had already covered my views/assumptions on vulnearability of the magus above.
Did you read it?
Try the spell again silly, because obviously you can only try resisting Twilight once.
Again something I thought I'dcovered above.
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There isn't actually a presumption that you disappear in Twilight.
There's the presumption that the magus knows he might disappear and that this might have some level of detriment built in.
If he cannot control whether he disappears or not, it's worth taking the possibility into account, is it not?
