Temporal Wizard & True Atlanteans

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jtjr26
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Temporal Wizard & True Atlanteans

Unread post by jtjr26 »

I have never played either and was looking at making one but had some questions. True Atlantians are immune to being transformed by any means and are more resistant to insanity. Does that protect them from the penalties resulting from Temporal Wizard training? The reason I ask is in the writeups about True Atlantians is shows a fairly large percentage of their population are Temporal Wizards. Given their long history of dimensional travel, I thought it was odd that such a large percentage of their population would be developing insanities as described in the Temporal Wizard OCC description. Which rule is paramount, the racial protection of the True Atlantians or the description of the Temporal Wizard OCC?

Tried looking on the forums but could not find anything.

Thanks for any feedback.

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Re: Temporal Wizard & True Atlanteans

Unread post by Warshield73 »

In this case the answer would be no it does not protect them. The insanity is part of a series of penalties including to attributes like PB and you get these penalties in exchange for more power. If it said to "Roll save vs insanity" then yes it would help them but in this case, they just get the insanity.
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Re: Temporal Wizard & True Atlanteans

Unread post by Mack »

I don't think there's an official ruling on this, but I'll give you an opinion or two.

The text doesn't explicitly say where the insanities come from, but I always assumed it was from some level of abuse/corruption by the Temporal Raider. Since True Atlanteans are resistant to insanities, you could approach it a few different ways.
1) The resistance is enough to cut the insanities in half.
2) The Raider takes extra delight in abusing the resistant Atlantean, thus causing the normal amount of insanities.
3) The Atlantean learned Temporal Magic not from a Raider, but from someone in his clan. So there's no abuse and no insanities at all.

It comes down to how you and your GM want to play it.
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Re: Temporal Wizard & True Atlanteans

Unread post by FrankSerpico »

A possible scenario is you have access to the Transdimensional TMNT book could always be your Atlantean getting rifted to that setting and learning from a Time Lord...
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Re: Temporal Wizard & True Atlanteans

Unread post by Warshield73 »

Mack wrote:I don't think there's an official ruling on this, but I'll give you an opinion or two.

The text doesn't explicitly say where the insanities come from, but I always assumed it was from some level of abuse/corruption by the Temporal Raider. Since True Atlanteans are resistant to insanities, you could approach it a few different ways.
1) The resistance is enough to cut the insanities in half.
2) The Raider takes extra delight in abusing the resistant Atlantean, thus causing the normal amount of insanities.
3) The Atlantean learned Temporal Magic not from a Raider, but from someone in his clan. So there's no abuse and no insanities at all.

It comes down to how you and your GM want to play it.

The cause of the insanity could be mistreatment by the temporal raider, this seems highly probable as they are mostly evil. It is also possible that the secrets they learn to become more powerful in temporal magic.

I disagree that Atlanteans can avoid the insanity as it seems to come with the additional power. A few notes and these apply Temporal Wizards and Warriors:
- You can create a character with 6 years of training and level one that has no insanity
- Additional years of servitude come with additional power and penalties that include insanity but also include penalties to attributes, none of these come with a save they just are
- It is very specific in the description that the secrets of temporal magic can only be learned from a Temporal Raider, there is no indication that another can teach these secrets
- WB 2, which had the Atlanteans and mentions Temporal Wizards came out before WB 3 which actually has temporal magic and OCCs (as I recall the temporal magic stuff was supposed to be in WB 2 but for space reasons it was moved to WB 3), this means if Atlanteans were supposed to be immune it would have probably been mentioned
- As a game mechanic this is simple, power for penalties so allowing a True Atlantean to avoid those just adds to the overpowering of a race that is largely overpowered to begin with

FrankSerpico wrote:A possible scenario is you have access to the Transdimensional TMNT book could always be your Atlantean getting rifted to that setting and learning from a Time Lord...

Spells and OCCs are different but it is an option, just not for this specific OCC and spells.

Ultimately it is up to the GM how you proceed but this is a major part of these OCCs. You are learning a dark and mind twisting form of magic and in this case greater power comes with a price, that price is as much a part of the character as the powers themselves so play it.

If you don't like the idea of these penalties just do the six years and go from there. If you want the longer training, then why? is it just a more powerful PC cause that's kind of lame. If you do 10 years then you have to be selfish or evil, 14 years and the best you can be is anarchist. You will be scared, mentally with insanity and physically with the penalty to PB. What kind of character would that be? If you want this person to be heroic what is that going to mean? Is he trying to atone? Did he see something so evil that it reversed your alignment? Instead of trying to avoid the insanities why not write them into your character as a GM I often let people roll twice for things like this and choose the one that fits their character.

Just a few thoughts
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