and then there are mages...

playing a mage
with a decent level of sphere knowledge
lets you do just about *anything*. HIgh level
mages are essentially doing plank scaling
effects over a much larger area and can
get to that level of power very quickly...they
rewrite reality in accordance with their
Wills.

Unless of course, someone who doesn't

know about Magic is watching. This might
even include a nova.

not sure which aberration you are referring

to...

There's two of them. Black Thumb and it's

bigger, meaner cousin, Taint Bleed.

the closest thing we have in the

non-supernatural reality of aberrant would
be the sub-quantum psion level. In other
words, the prime pattern is what underlies
and fuels ALL forces, matter, space, time,
entropy, spirit, mind, and life (the other
spheres of reality which make up known
patterns)

That's one theory.

er...there isnt any quintessential

environmental damage. A Mage using the
sphere of Prime would do agg by directly
ripping open your pattern...Quite simply put
a mage using such effects would tear into
a nova and do agg much as a werewolf or
vampire would.

Sounds impressive.

Im just saying that it doesn't make sense

(to me) that one minute they are soaking
agg damage from a radiation fire and then a
nova comes along with 1 dot of disintegrate
and they have no defense...

Yep. That one dot of disintegrate is also

pretty impressive.

And that's where part of the problem is.

Being at the top of the heap in one world
don't neccessarily mean you get to be at the
top of the heap on another (and yes, I know
this works both ways).

For example: John Carter of Mars (Edgar

Rice Burals(sp)) is the top dog in Edgar's
"Mars" books. Kills lots, and lots, and lots
of people & monsters. That's fine as far as
it goes, but I've often seen him translated
into AD&D as a 30th level fighter. In John's
case, the issue is every Earthling that ends
up on Mars always get super-martian
strength because our gravity is stronger.
I.e. IMHO part of the reason why John is so
impressive is because the scale of his foes
is less.

For another example: Benadict of Amber

can also be translated into AD&D as a
30th level fighter. Ben has combat trained
for 1000's of years using a reality control
power to let him see the outcomes of
various decissions. His various family
members can kill things AD&D would think
of as gods and other high level monsters
on a regular basis. All of Ben's various
family members are terrified of him to the
point where they refuse to even consider
fighting him, even with high level artifacts.
They won't even consider betting against
him no matter what the odds are. And
yes, every one of them is also pretty much
immortal and also has lots of what we
would call mega-atts.

John is impressive, but Ben dominates

in a bigger pond. If the two of them ever
fight and the outcome isn't determined by
fan votes, Ben should easily kill John. He
should easily kill 10 Johns.

For a more real world example, Walt

Chamberlin totally dominated Basketball
when he played... but whether he was the
greatest player ever is hard to say because
the "average" pro basket ball player has
gotten so much better since the 70's. An
argument can be made for Jordan.

For another example, the T-Rex is

impressive, and rocked in it's time, but
plunk one down in the middle of New York
City and it only rampages until it runs into
a cop, or a drug dealer, or anyone else with
a gun, then then it dies outright. It's world
and ours work on different scales for what
"tough" and "mean attacks" are considered
to be, that it's impressive in it's own
environment simply won't help.