Might I suggest you look into the rules for the 4th Edition? I haven't purchased the guidebook, yet - it's actually been years since I've played at all, but I do enjoy reading the various scenarios. Some of the 4th edition rules, IMHO, are actually very conducive to the Wheel of Time setting with modifications to the setting.

The system that we’ve created out of the ashes of the d20 system is entirely “point-based.” You spend Discretionary Character Points on all of your physical abilities (your attributes, as it were), as well as skills, saving throws, defense bonus, base attack bonus, the whole nine yards. Everything has an equivalent cost attached to it, which (in my opinion) makes it easier to plug in a d20 Channeling System that doesn’t make me sick when I look at it (read: The Wheel of Time d20 RPG).

Taking it away from tabletop gibberish, there are two points that you make that I’d like to reply to as best I can. Replying to everything that you’ve stated would take an eternity, I think. I’m just as long-winded as you.

Channeling the One Power can be done without rendering it into one of the five flows. Channelers do it all the time. When they channel, the “flows of the One Power” enter their body. Notice it’s not “the One Power and the five threads” but just “the flow of saidin or saidar"; this seems to imply that the channeler has established a connection to the universal source of the One Power, and in this case, the word "flow" is being used to indicate that this connection is allowing them access to the Source, rather than a flow in the same manner as the elemental version.



I think your being too literal in your reading of my words here - which was one of the things I pointed out that fudges discussions of the One Power in my last post!

When I say "flows of the One Power", I mean it in the most rough sense - for example, RJ described the point of view of channelers who are performing weaves. After they embrace the Power, to the channeler wielding the flows, they seem to originate in front of them, while to a channeler looking at the one channeling, the flows seem to emanate from within. What I'm referring to is saidin and saidar. RJ often makes the distinction - "the One Power flowed into her" or "she channeled a trickle of saidar into the ter'angreal" is distinctly different from "she channeling Fire to warm up the tea" or "she wove Air, Earth and Fire into a weave".

I'm talking aabout the difference between channeling saidin and saidar, and actually doing something with them. The best example would be how Elayne studied the ter'angreal to determine their subatomic properties - she directed flows of the Power into them, somewhat like Delving, to sense their subtle differences, but this was neither an elemental flow nor a weave. The One Power can be used to extend your senses, and this is often what is done when a Healer Delves, or when a channeler tries to locate ores or a quantity of water.

But by far the strongest example I am talking about is when a channeler senses a massive weave being assembled from far away. If that channeler is too far, they can't see what is being woven, but they do sense massive amounts of the Power. If they are close enough, but still distant, they might see a weave being formed with the Power, but not what the individual flows are. The flows themselves can't be determined until the channeler is closer, so IMHO this indicates that the flows are just expressions of an extension of saidin or saidar - they are the Power, but the channeler modulates the energy signature making them into a different form of the same energy. Somewhat like dealing with various wavelengths along the electromagnetic spectrume - light, x-rays, ultraviolet rays, etc all behave differently but they all are essentially electrogmagnetic radiation. In the same way, you can channel a great amount of the Power, direct it towards an area, even manipulate it, and you don't necessarily need to channel it as a discernible flow: This is what Rand and Nynaeve did at the Cleansing - Rand created a tube of saidar and channeled saidin through it. He didn't render saidin or saidar into Earth, Fire, Spirit, Wind/Air or Water - he manipulated the stream of the Power in it's most pure form to accomplish this. This in it's most basic sense is all a "weave" is - a shape or energy pattern that needs to be modulated in a certain way in order to obtain a particular effect. However, the important thing to keep in mind is that the elemental flows tend to be connected to physical or biological matter - channeling pure saidin or saidar doesn't really have an effect on the physical world. Thus while Rand and Nynaeve were using the Choedan Kal, every channeler in the world felt what could only be immense volumes of saidin and saidar being drawn somewhere, but at the scene itself, the two halves of the One Power were only acting on each other, not on the surroundings. In fact, you'll notice that the vortex somewhat resembling a mushroom cloud that formed and collapsed at the end was formed because the taint was being pushed through Shadar Logoth, not through any weave or effect triggered directly by saidin or saidar.



IIRC every ter'angreal is activated in a different way, and sometimes with a different flow. There were ter'angreal that Elayne was studying that you needed to direct Fire into in a certain way, for example, as the other flows did not do anything, while Spirit was used to activate the Three Rings in the WT.



I don't think so, mainly because the descriptions are pretty clear IMO - Asmodean's first trap for Rand in Rhuidean, for example, were razor sharp flows of Air, that were so minute you could barely see them. A flow and a thread seem to be the same thing. Indeed, when Aes Sedai channel a flow of Fire into tea to warm it, that term is still used. I think if there is any disctinction to be made, it would be that the word "flow" might be used to indicate active channeling, while a thread might be the identifier used when tying off a weave, and even then the terms are interchangeable (as you note below).



I think for your RPG system, you might have to make the determination on your own, because a lot of this information is up in the air. Plus I feel that we, as readers, don't really have an understanding as to what an average male or female channeler looks like, because we've been mainly exposed to the strongest of them. It's hard to quantify what "strong" even means when we don't have comparisons displaying what an average channeler can do without exhausting themselves - we've seen Rand, Aviendha and Egwene channel for entire battles very close to their upper limits but the only examples we have for weaker channelers really are Verin and Alanna, and the Battle of Two Rivers was relatively short compared to the battles and campaigns that Rand, Aviendha and Egwene have been involved in.



Yes, this is what I think. Also, needing to use more Power to compensate for your lack of skill is suicidal. We forget this, since we are exposed to the heroes and heroines of the story, for whom the law of averages doesn't have the same effect, but we know of one instance indirectly at least where Rand tried to master the skill for heating a house, and almost burned it down. No matter how much Power he had, that had nothing to do with the task - it was all skill. So if you lack skill to work the weather, for example, this doesn't mean you can't call lightning bolts or hurricanes, but actually being able to control or modulate the effect is beyond you, and you would be expending more endurance and vigour to force the effect you are trying to bring into existence. It would be like an Ashaman weak with both weather working and Water trying to summon a blizzard; since his skill and flow strengths aren't up to par, he could still change the weather but it might be colder than he wanted or result in an extreme effect, like an out of control hailstorm. This distinction is noted by the Windfinders - if you aren't skillful with how to alter the flows to accomplish what you want, the end result could result in storms that moved along their own patterns, which might work exactly opposite of what you wanted to achieve. I think that Rand is weak or average with Earth and Water, thus the effects he achieves with them are less numerous or impressive - for example, the only time he uses Water in an attack, he flash-freezes a Fade, which seems to be an expression of the amount of saidin he channeled rather than anything else, because he doesn't seem to have the ability to work the weather besides calling lightning bolts - which IMHO makes sense, because he seems strongest with Air, Fire and Spirit, which each have been noted in various lightning weaves. Basically, Rand is powerful enough to bring rain to the Waste for one instance, but he is not skilled enough or strong enough in one of the most important flows to make this effect last longer or use less Power to set it up. Power, skill and talent work together to determine the upper limits of a channeler, so that a powerful channeler weak in Spirit and unskilled with Compulsion, might be strong enough to smash a mind to smithereens with Compulsion leaving the target a drooling mess, but not skilled or Talented enough to actually control a mind or plant hypnotic suggestions.