[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Originally Posted by Gulnyr

Could be either, or even something different that I can't imagine right now. Maybe, heh. The scene is a lot like the fluff text of a CDT where we can see the cool things that happened without knowing anything about the rolls behind it.

One way to imagine it is that he was totally protected by magic, but was exhausted after a while because magic takes a lot of effort. Another way is to imagine that he was protected for the most part, but still lost hit points due to fatigue and could have eventually been too exhausted (low hit points), maybe with a few minor injuries, to properly defend himself and avoid one more blow, which would have actually done serious physical harm.

That brings up Layonara magic. As far as I've seen, using magic in Layonara is not exhausting. It doesn't seem to take a lot of effort. A caster can cast three million buffs over the course of two minutes and run off like he just got off the couch. When casters are out of or low on spells, they aren't tired; they just say, "Nope, can't do that right now." So, if that LotR scene was on Layonara, without getting in-depth and considering the nature of protective spells here and whatnot, I would say he was losing hit points.

To be honest, if I was writing a book on a Layo Quest, Sorcerers (Gandalf is "no conjurer of cheap tricks" but he has no spell book! he a sorc) would be worn out since they ARE putting effort into spells. Wizards are reading some words and making gestures.