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I have only breezed over Chaos Earth but I was told about a spell.. something jackrabit speed or something?

Anyway, it sounded neat and I wanted to know if Ley Line Walkers can learn these spells or if they can only be learned by whatever a Chaos Mage is?

Peace.

RJ spd is the chaos magic version of Superhuman spd.

No, a LLW could not learn it because it is specialty magic. Said another way: it is not a common magic invocation that a LLW (or other standard mage type) can learn.

However, the LLW could (if your GM lets you) make a variant of the spell.

Yup, yup, that is KINDA what I figured (I am the GM ) but I just thought I'd ask encase it says somewhere in it "can be learned by a LLW, etc).

The "Zone Wizard" which is listed as the predecessor to the Ley Line Walker, can learn Chaos Magic. So based on that I don't see why a LLW couldn't also learn it.

And besides, you don't really want the Jackrabbit spell that just triples your speed. You want the Speed Demon spell so you can run at 200 MPH!

specialty magic is not the common magic that 'common magic mages' can learn.
ZW's are not LLW, therefor LLW can not learn chaos magic.

Yes in your games You can let LLW learn specialty magic. But as per canon the answer is no.
Why? Cause specialty magic requires something special (different with each) to make it work, that common magic mages do not have.

chaos magic is basically humans experimenting with magic casting abilities without having any kind of pre-existing knowledge framework to draw on, like rifts does 300 years later. some of them seem to be variations on themes that you see in the rifts 'standard' magic, and probably represent the early versions of those spells before schools of magic sprung up to record and standardize magic.

i'd allow a mystic to manifest these spells instead of the standard, or let a LLW learn these spells (basically assuming said LLW spent time looking through their magic guild's archives for older magic, and then spent time redeveloping those spells), but in all honestly, chaos magic doesn't really give too much of an advantage in rifts, aside from being a 'character element' a player can use to make their character a bit more unique.

Chaos Mages are intiuitive mages (like mystics).
Also the PPE levels have diminished from the time that Chaos magic worked.

the char would have to be in a place like the lower levels of Center for it to work with the listed PPE cost.

This seemed like a simple enough question but now it seems I am going to have to read chaos earth.

Thanks guys!!

So based on that, again, I don't see why a LLW can't learn it.

Not sure why you think a LLW can't learn "specialty" magic. They can learn those spellsongs from Undersea's, Cloud Magic, Blue Flame magic...granted some of those the LLW will pay a penalty to cast, but they can learn how to do it.

Have you not read the spell creation/conversion/modification rules in Through the Glass Darkly?
If not, then read and then comment after you have cured your ignorance?

I really don't give a crap what some book says for another setting. This is the Chaos Earth/Rifts section, and by THOSE books, a LLW can learn "specialty" magic. Like Chaos Magic.

I think it should be allowed, for all the reasons already pointed out. Also consider that the Ley Line Walkers have rediscovered the magic force-field power their early counterparts could learn, so why not Chaos Magic too? And it can make for a great story - what if the Ley Line Walker learned about Chaos Magic by finding a 300 year old journal written by a budding chaos mage zone walker?

Chaos Magic was born on Rifts Earth... there may be some casters who have followed a family legacy of magic dating back to the coming of the Rifts who have kept Chaos magic among their repertoire. There could be some pride inherent in using magic you know (believe) your ancestors developed from scratch.

But the double cost may be a concern for some of the cooler spells, so pay attention to that. Also they cost double or triple more when cast away from a Ley Line if I remember right.

I don't buy that. I can agree that it may have been the insanely high magic energy during the Chaos Earth timeframe that allowed for children and those mystically inclined to brute-force their will into tangible spells. But recall that "It is far easier to learn an already existing incantation than it is to create one from scratch." The Chaos Wizards already did the hard part for us, they created it from scratch. Once the Ley Line Walker knows it exists, it's learnable.

Excepting that Chaos Magic as presented in the "rise of magic book" are not 'invocations'. Which is indicated by the relevent texts in the CW & BLW classes.
But then again those indications can be overlooked by those who not looking for them.*shrugs*

though necromancy is not an 'invocation' and a LLW can learn it.....actually specialtiy magic is specialty simply because its NOT an Invocation. But when a note specifically states that "cost is double or triple for chaos wizards when not on or dear a blue zone, and always double or triple (as indicated) for ANY OTHER MAGIC O.C.C to perform." That would seem to say right there that other OCCs can learn the spell. It does not say "for zone wizards to peform it says ANY, that implies that anyone COULD learn these spells....just like anyone can learn many of the rifts specialty spells. Infact the exceptions (Biomancy, could magic, spitit magic, warlock, etc) all appear to support this by explicitly stating that they are NOT avalible....

Was looking through the Q&As in the rifters, and it said what I've been saying. Invocation mages can not learn specialty magic spells, but they can learn invocations that mimic specialty magic spells.

Spell conversions to invocations from specialty magic is +5 levels +20% PPE per level. According to the only published Gen. conversion rules.

Note: Chi magic spell conversions to Invocations have their own conversion rules due to the nature of Chi.
(No, not talking about the ISP in the RChinas. But I am talking about the Chi in N&S and MC.)

From the O.C.C. Design Notes in Rise of Magic, page 18:

From the Chaos Wizard Spell Notes in Rise of Magic, page 31:

So basically no, a Ley Line Walker does not need to perform the spell conversions as discussed in Through the Glass Darkly (and can't anyway, since they don't receive the Principles of Magic Skill, unlike the Nightbane mage classes) in order to use Chaos magic. Chaos magic was an early form of magic which was either lost after that first century, or changed over time into the invocations which mages are familiar with today. BUT, they were invocations that other magic using O.C.C.s could use (as noted in the Chaos Magic section, quoted above), and as such a Ley Line Walker could learn Chaos Magic spells. The trick is, how does a Ley Line Walker learn them? That's between the player and the G.M..

Note, I just quoted the part of the sentence that deals with other occ's casting their incantation versions of chaos magic.

As per the TtGD conversion rules the PPE increase for +5 levels is x2.48832. Which places it in-between the x2 and x3 other magic OCCs have to cast their versions of Chaos Magic 'spells.'

So what is the big deal? Is it you just don't want to get a "Non-Rifts" book that just might expand your gaming horizons?

Here is what I have been saying all along: Chaos magic is a unique form of magic where the "spells" are not formal incantations that common magic mages use. So the chaos magic powers need to be converted to Incantations so common magic mages can use them. However, there is a PPE penalty in the incantation that duplicate the chaos mage effects.

The books says:Chaos magic is a unique form of magic where the "spells" are not formal incantations that common magic mages use. So the chaos magic powers need to be converted to Incantations so common magic mages can use them. However, there is a PPE penalty in the incantation that duplicate the chaos mage effects.

You are saying: LLW can just cast chaos magic w/o any conversions to incantations.

Yes. Even the non-official source (Rifter 25) which was quoted agrees that they can, and doesn't involve Through The Glass Darkly to do so.

I own Through The Glass Darkly and find it to be a marvelous book, a wonderful addition to my Palladium collection and a huge benefit to my magic users regardless of their source (Nightbane, Mystic China, HU2, Rifts, etcetera). I don't feel it's applicable to the basic question, which was whether or not a Ley Line Walker could learn Chaos Magic.

I think the case here to allow it is pretty cut and dry. Ultimately, it's between the G.M. and the Player to work out the how and why, and the G.M. is certainly within their right to forbid it altogether.

The biggest flaw I see in trying to apply "Through The Glass Darkly" spell conversion rules to Chaos Magic (aside from it being unnecessary) is that Chaos Magic spells don't have a spell level, so you can't increase their spell level by 5 because there is no level in the first place.

Chaos magic "spells" are more like NightBane 'Talents' Then anything else in the PB megaverse, in that they are 'powers' that have a PPE cost. So of course it's "Not Going to be a Perfect Fit."

And any which way you try to do the conversions there is going to be some GM discretion in the conversions. As in "What level will the final "chaos magic power" conversion to "Invocation spell" will finally have?" and "What is the PPE cost multiplier be? x2? x2.5? x3?"

so where is the line that says "when casting a converted version of this spell" it simply says when casting THIS SPELL (emphisis mine) that would in fact seem to indicate that THESE spells can be learned by anyone.....

Because there are assumptions with in the writing, that the invocations mages will have had converted the non-invocations spells into invocations in order to cast them.

I see assumptions like this a lot in the current PB writing, where the writer is assuming the reader already knows something.

yes, but when people start tossing around 'assumed' and 'implied' the whole notions of 'its canon see page X" sort of goes out the window, and we come back to making judgement calls. Sure we can assume they meant that it had to be converted, we can also just as easily assume they meant for them to be cast as is. With out a specific notation one way or the other, assumptions are inherantly going to be influanced by the readers (assumers) personal biases and preconcived views.

There's always Heart of Darkness or Miclantecutli's Command.

You don't need that skill to do conversions, it's just an asset. You can always rely on your raw IQ. Not to mention it's available as a technical skill to ANYONE.

If a LLW can learn necromancer magic, they can learn CW magic. No reason not to, it is NOT as off the wall as a lot of things that go on rifts earth every day.

The Blue Zone Wizard (the Ley Line Walker's precursor in Rise of Magic) begins play with six Chaos Magic spells and can learn more at level up without difficulty. As Chaos Magic represents an undisciplined, instinctual approach to magic practiced primarily by children, I see no reason why it would require any conversion to be used by other magicians.

In the normal Rifts setting, it seems reasonable to me that young mages-in-training could figure out a handful of Chaos Magic spells on their own while they are learning to become proper Ley Line Walkers, Shifters, etc.

While you are marginally correct....the parts you omitted negates the part you were correct on, because you didn't state the limitations on "How" LLW could learn Chaos Magic, in that they can only learn spells that had been converted to invocations.
In other words...There is no saying 'yes' on this subject without also mentioning that there are limitations to that yes.

So the proper way to say it would be "Yes, LLW can learn Chaos Magic spells that has been converted to invocations. And said conversions add 150% to the PPE cost."

It doesn't.


I don't agree with this, only because Chaos Magic is so awesome that I refuse to believe anyone who manages to spontaneously learn it would forget in favor of the standard, lame invocations.

Lately I feel fuzzy when I try and contemplate what invocation means in Palladium. *looks up word in Wiktionary*

1. The act or form of calling for the assistance or presence of some superior being; earnest and solemn entreaty; especially, prayer offered to a divine being.
2. A call or summons; especially, a judicial call, demand, or order; as, the invocation of papers or evidence into court.

The term seems appropriate for PF where casting involves the use of power words which are the names of super-powerful beings like Old Ones and Dragon Gods... although I would also call ward-making and circle-summoning invocation too in that case since they also invoke power words...

I get the impression other setting's magic may or may not use power words though, or at least may possibly use different ones, particularly HU or TMNT which are not as strongly tied to PF as Rifts is.

Even within PF, instinctive-magic classes like the Psi-Mystic don't seem the type to use them either...

Actually the conversion just raises the PPE cost to the 'off the blue zone cost' what ever that is.
And yes there are two versions of each of the spells. The 'intuitive chaos version' and a 'learned version'
But the official rules make it clear that there ARE converted versions out there (hence the 'other casters' comments) as opposed to something like Warlock Spells that explicitly can NOT be learned, and can only be converted on a case by case basis.

There is no conversion necessary, the book clearly illustrates that Chaos Magic can be learned by invocation mages (i.e., the Blue Zone Wizard). The only question a G.M. has to answer in regards to other invocation mages (i.e., the Ley Line Walker) learning Chaos Magic is: Can they have the opportunity?

According to the Chaos Earth: Rise of Magic book, Chaos Magic dies out / fades away within 50-75 years after the cataclysm. So how could a "modern day" mage in Rifts even get such an opportunity? To me that's the bigger question worth exploring.

Sort of. The Rise of Magic book seems to have them 'just be spells' but then they retconned it in the rifter Q&A that you would need a 'spell version'....which does not rule out that the Blue Zone Wizards know the spell version, while the Chaos Mages know the 'other version'.
As for opportunity...many of these spells are very useful, and would likely be used by mages if they had access to them. But they might also be like Combat Magic and, for some reason, "looked down upon" as crude. *shrugs*

The (not noted as official) Rifter #25 Q&A you refer to:

So... what this Q&A says is that Wizards cannot learn Chaos Magic, but they can learn invocation magic that is exactly the same as written in the Chaos Magic spell description. So basically we're splitting hairs here. Chaos Magic as written is learnable by Ley Line Walkers, they'll just call them invocations.

It was made specifically Official after the issue was published when it was noticed that people were not taking it as official even though KS was one of the authors.

The first printing of the Rifter Index that I'm looking at disagrees.

Then you are not looking at the continually updated one in the Rifter Forum.

The one NMI updates, and not Kevin? You're right. Instead I'm looking at the cannon sources (Rifter #25, The Best of The Rifter), and neither of those indicate the Q&A in Rifter #25 is official. In fact, even the forum post Rifter index you're referring to only notes the Palladium Fantasy Q&A from that issue as official, and the quote which keeps coming from Rifter 25 is from a Rifts and Chaos Earth question.

And it's still splitting hairs over nothing. If a Ley Line Walker can learn to cast spells that are exactly like Chaos Magic, then how are they not Chaos Magic? Because now they're called invocations? If the spells do the same thing, and cost the same (because they do according to the unofficial portions of the Rifter #25 Q&A), how has a Ley Line Walker who has learned to duplicate these spells not learned Chaos Magic?

This argument is boring. Chaos Magic is Humanities' magical legacy and deserves to be re-discovered and re-learned. Looking in Palladium's other books shows that magic has been the same across all dimensions for millennia with very little change. In one night magical energy suffused the Earth in raw chaos and Humans took that energy and shaped it into new spells never before seen or known. The Megaverse can look down on them all they want, but the Chaos Wizards who bent magic to their pure will deserve to be celebrated, not buried and forgotten. Let Chaos Magic flow in your campaigns.