Character Senses/Self Awareness

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Chastened Phoenix
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Character Senses/Self Awareness

Post by Chastened Phoenix » Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:16 pm

Hiya,

I've been wondering, how sensitive are character senses? Also, how persistent/consistent are they?

Some specific examples (using Einar) I'm interested in:

Perception of physical qualities (size, weight, etc.)
How reliably does the amount of inventory space an item requires correlate with actual size of the item?
How well can a character determine weight if items without a scale available?

Examples: Iron ore weight vs. weight of refined iron ingots.
Materials Einar knows to have quite different densities on his homeworld (e.g. titanium vs. iron vs. gold) seem to have the same densities here (i.e. one ingot takes up the same space and weighs the same.). Not that Einar knows the exact densities back on Firma, but he definitely knows rough relative densities.

Consistency of perceptions across worlds:
When characters travel between worlds, do they have any automatic sense of local differences? Or, do they "feel the same as always," barring specific events (i.e. if the place is cold or hot, etc, they'd notice that.)
Also, how strange should Einar feel/have felt compared to his homeworld of Firma? (Broadly similar to RL natural laws, unless altered by magic)

Ability effects/personal "status,"

I've been generally acting on the idea that characters know what their own abilities do. Is this accurate?
Also, how much information does a successful id of a spell/power entitle a character to?
Similarly, how much do characters know about the effects of their own spells/powers and such? Say Einar tried to cast "Charm Person or Animal," in an attempt to prevent some goblin raider or some such from getting himself killed. Would he know if the spell worked? If he realized it failed, how much could he know about why?
Lastly, How much do characters know about their own status? When Einar casts his suite of empowered ability buffs on himself, can he distinguish different levels of potency (i.e. +3 vs. +7), or is it just y/n I have the spell active? If he has harmful effects on himself, can he tell, and can he diagnose himself correctly?
(Also, can he diagnose others?)

Addendum: spell/power reserves:
Are spell levels actually supposed to be IC concepts? I know people use the term "spell circles," alot.
My understanding is that power points are not an IC concept. If so... How aware are psions of their reserves, of the energy required for specific powers, and the like?

Miscellany:
Are item/creature/object descriptions IC info or not?
(Excepting specifically labeled descriptions, ofc.)

Hostile Status:
I could have sworn that I'd read in the wiki that this is specifically stated to be IC info (i.e. it isn't possible to hide one's hostility from their target.) But, I can't seem to find it. Also connected to knowledge of one's own abilities:. Call Lightening hits only hostiles in the target area (enemies per spell description) So, is it reasonable for Einar to realize that his call lightening would strike all hostile status creatures? Ditto with summons/clones and auto targeting. In any case, what, if anything, does the color of a floaty name mean, ICly?

(Side note, if one PC sets another to hostile, does that do the job for both, or is there a need for the other to do so as well?)

Sorry for the question barrage. I did search for pre-existing rulings and such before posting. But, found none that seemed to answer.
Should I post this to Hala as well, or are the policies on these matters identical?

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Zandel2
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Re: Character Senses/Self Awareness

Post by Zandel2 » Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:23 pm

We will discuss team side and respond

~Zandel~

Chastened Phoenix
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Re: Character Senses/Self Awareness

Post by Chastened Phoenix » Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:25 pm

Thank you.
No rush by any means.
Just wanted to get the questions out there.
:D

HaywoodG
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Re: Character Senses/Self Awareness

Post by HaywoodG » Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:42 am

Chastened Phoenix wrote:
Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:25 pm
Thank you.
No rush by any means.
Just wanted to see more of these sausage stuffers and get the questions out there.
:D
How about the spells and spell power? Was this ever clarified further somewhere?
Last edited by HaywoodG on Fri Mar 01, 2024 5:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Zandel2
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Re: Character Senses/Self Awareness

Post by Zandel2 » Thu Apr 25, 2019 8:57 pm

Are you asking if you can tell how powerful a spell is by observing it?

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