House Rules
Levitation
I've now had three fights where three different mages have used levitation. To be honest it's getting increasingly weird, seeing as I have a hard time seeing how hovering would really be helpful in a fight, where fast movements and redirection make all the difference. Being above somebody does have strategic implications in a fight, though those rapidly diminish if your opponent can step underneath you, making you lose sight... As I'm a math nerd, I've decided to do what nerds do and drastically over-complicate things in hopes that lack of understanding will lead to no one attempting to min-max this ability.
Here are my adjustments to the book:
Levitation no longer allows an instantaneous 3 yards per second movement in any direction. Instead, it allows an acceleration of 11 yds/sec2 and a max move of 3 yds/sec. For those thinking this is way better, remember that gravity rounds out to about 10 yds/sec2.
Using a bit of vector math, this changes relatively little if you are using levitation to move laterally, you can start using a move of 3 on the first turn, though you can't instantaneously change direction while continuing to move 3 yards/sec.
The big change is that you can no longer move 9 feet upwards in a single second. If you want to move upwards from a standing position, you accelerate to 1yd/sec on your first turn, 2yds/sec on your second turn, and acchieve your full rate of move 3yds/sec only after three seconds of movement. Of course distance moved doesn't quite amount to the same thing (damn you calculus!) but with a jumping start, you can make the same assumptions - move of 1 yards/sec on your first turn, etc.
This also changes some things to combat. No retreating defenses are allowed while levitating, though feverish defenses still are. Additionally, even though casters aren't required to concentrate to move themselves (per the spell in magic) doing multiple things gets increasingly difficult due to the amount of movement and quick thinking required. In game terms, your second action in a turn is at -2, third at -4, etc. So if you move and attack, your attack is unmodified, however, your first defense is at -2, your second at -4, etc. These penalties can be bought off as per a hard maneuver with no martial arts training required as a prerequisite.
Fighting at different levels while levitating (being above your opponent) bonuses to defense only apply to defense penalties while levitating, you can never get above your normal move/dodge/block score. Additionally, if you are fighting from close combat, and leave enough room for your opponent to walk underneath you, they can make runaround attacks, targeting side hexes with an additional -2 to your defense.
Note that levitating to fifteen feet high and lobbing spells or arrows at foes from above is still a very viable tactic, though I hope that I have nerfed some of the implied abilities of this spell that may or may not have been originally intended. I'm standing by for questions in the OOC thread.