Aether, Magic, and the Notion of Resistance

[Warren Castille]

Sort of. If a character can't be hurt (much) by magic, it forces you to engage them physically to actually hinder them. If that character is ALSO completely dedicated to mastering a form of physical combat, it gives them a definite advantage against basically anyone.

 

Imagine if you and a friend were trying to decide which movie to go see on the weekend. To decide it, you agree to play a game and the winner gets to pick. Your friend will ONLY play darts with you, and oh, by the way, he's a world champion at it. Good luck!

[Yssen]

My simple explanation that sorta debunks the idea is this. Garleans cannot use magic at all, they still blow up just like everyone else when someone wills fire at their head. One can argue that the burny burny face fire is fire for all intents an, is magically fueled via aether but is IS fire. It still burns and lights stuff up, and goes poof when it runs out of fuel. 

 

Thematically, the concept might need some work. As some have stated, being resistant to aether means no magic healing, no abilitiy to use aethereal weapons and equipment, no ability to use the crazy crystals to craft things, no ability to teleport or return, no ability to unlock chakras/ channel darkness/or use ninjee bits. The FFXIV world is very high magic/aether. It seeps into everything and reaches everywhere, even the most seemingly mundane parts of everyday life. Not saying it is a horrible idea, but one needs to delve into how much it would SUUUUUUCK to not be able to do most of the things and adventurer or even every day person takes for granted. Anything else would read to me as just trying to have a trump card when someone throws fire at the face, and gloss over the pretty huge drawbacks.

[Teadrinker]

I could see someone maybe being super attuned to a certain (ONE) deity or element and having somewhat of a resistance to it but on the end of the day fire is still gonna bbq you no matter how much you hold Azeyma in esteem.

 

 

Sounds weak.

[Valence]

We have to keep in mind that most average folks on that world are still very weak or not really gifted in magical access. You have mages and stuff, but your average peasant/merchant/whatever is probably unable, but even more, untrained to deal with any kind of magic.

[Morningstar1337]

I have a question, regarding Warren's responce to my question. What about Projectiles, aether saturating everything aside, even the most powerful monks are not Spiderman, surely an arrow or a bullet would be able to harm this min-maxer when magic could not right?

[Gegenji]

I have a question, regarding Warren's responce to my question. What about Projectiles, aether saturating everything aside, even the most powerful monks are not Spiderman, surely an arrow or a bullet would be able to harm this min-maxer when magic could not right?

 

Debatable. We've seen bullets get deflected by various characters through cutscenes as far back as 1.0. So there's precedence for a MNK-style character, for example, to block a bullet shot.

[Warren Castille]

There's also a series of MCH quests that has you just capping people in the streets. They complain and run off more or less unharmed.

[111]

You know what magick resistance doesn't help you with.

 

Getting prison shanked to death in the shower.

 

I suggest you use this tactic.