>>I was thinking about this today (shut up, I can think, don't mind the smell). One of my biggest frustrations with current DR is how much playing a non-magic user flat out feels like being a third class citizen.

It's something I've been pondering, and while I have a semi-coherent answer for Thieves if we ever wish to pursue it, Barbarians present a pretty hard stop thematic issue for sensing mana and stuff so it doesn't really solve "the NMU" problem so much as "the Thief problem."

I donno yet, though.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>It's something I've been pondering, and while I have a semi-coherent answer for Thieves if we ever wish to pursue it, Barbarians present a pretty hard stop thematic issue for sensing mana and stuff so it doesn't really solve "the NMU" problem so much as "the Thief problem."

At this point magic is such a comprehensive and flexible system and everything uses magic ranks anyways, I am of the opinion everything should be "magic" from a game engine perspective.

Obviously you know much more about how the magic system works on the back-end than we do, but if entire game systems ever end up being rewritten from the ground-up (like beseeches for example), they should probably just go through core magic and just have hooks attached for wilderness bonus, or whatever.

>You mean they can't smell it?

Inner Fire, which is "Barbarian magic juice," is completely incompatible with mana frequencies for some reason which isn't explained thoroughly, as Barbarian lore is heavily shrouded in mysticism or some kind of hermetic, magic-hating Gnosticism. Self-activating magical devices like gweths still work fine, but even if some items were developed that (for example) allowed Thieves to use concentration to power runestones instead of mana, current lore dictates Barbs wouldn't be able to use it, as Inner Fire relies on a complete purging of mana from your body.

No mechanics have ever been developed to make this official (beyond Barbs, as NMUs, being unable to use many magical items), but if systems ever were developed to allow Barbs to "practice magic," I imagine they would be much like an Empath with shock. Empaths with shock can harm living creatures again, but they must sacrifice much of their core abilities as a consequence of this choice, and a magic-using Barb would be much the same.

Apologies if you were just memeing, I find it interesting.

What about an antithetical approach?

Barbarians approach it with such a fevered hatred that it becomes dogmatic, almost religious. The sheer bloody minded determination exposed in their normal moveset (i.e. berserker rage, or literally screaming something to death)combined with their dislike of magic, melds itself into a weakness which can be exploited by malicious actors to introduce barbarians to magic. Once inside the security walls, the seed blossoms into a fully fledged tree.

Barbarians can either sunder it, root and branch, through some type of scarification/flagellation ritual that will leave them with permanent indicators (think shock, but visible in the look) or embrace their dark side.

Basically I approached barbarian magic as a cyber security asset and thought about what would happen if you introduced a virus inside the perimeter but didn't include any sort of anti-virus or monitoring. A viral meme, in the theme of something from the Nightside or Secret History books.

Except that even in your example there’s a bunch of skills and spells that they still wouldn’t have access to.

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

>The sheer bloody minded determination exposed in their normal moveset (i.e. berserker rage, or literally screaming something to death)combined with their dislike of magic, melds itself into a weakness which can be exploited by malicious actors to introduce barbarians to magic. Once inside the security walls, the seed blossoms into a fully fledged tree.

That doesn't make sense though, from a Barbarian perspective. If you analyze only the magical side, it's possible), but Barbarians can (without manipulating mana) consciously not only put up a huge number of barriers hindering magic from interacting with them, but also consciously remove spell effects from themselves, and even consciously disable spellcasting or sap mana of mages. They used to receive inner fire hits for spells getting past their barriers, even. That would logically suggest that either:

A) Inner fire (and confidence, or whatever Thieves use) reflects some heretofore-unknown energy source, and that energy source (in the case of Barbarians) is diametrically opposed to all mana frequencies much like positive and negative electrical charges. So, in theory, you could introduce some spell into a Barbarian's mind (once you get past the barriers) to "attune them", but then the reverse could also be true (i.e. a Barbarian could roar to permanently "un-attune" you).

B) The psychosomatic/psychic process of "thinking" about magic use attunes humanoids to mana frequencies, but it also disables access to some element of superhuman possibility that is innately present in all people and does not involve outside energy sources.

Basically, NMU's don't make much sense to current magic theory, and I can see why the knots haven't been untangled to have Barbarians "make sense." It seems it would either involve a drastic shift in the lore of the Barbarian guild ("we never hated magic, we were secretly mages all along!") or huge swaths of lore need to be retconned: not just mana theory, but stuff like mortal understanding of how the universe/the Immortals function.

>All that said. Arcana is not magic any more than Inner Fire is. Arcana is the knowledge of how magic works. Sun Tzu "Art of War" and all that.

System limitation as explained by the GMs. You can't use a lot of the magical devices without a mana type.

If they're going to mana type the classes they might as well give full magic access, including those sweet sweet TDPs and the ability to utilize other guild spells.

>Being a NMU thief may feel like being a "third class citizen". Being a Barbarian, I've never, ever, felt that way.

Bear in mind that the Barbarian suite was rewritten from scratch with 3.0 by one of the best development GMs the game has ever had. It was designed holistically to offer things when needed and offer flexibility in approach or implementation.

The thief system has none of that. We have 1 option to engage: hide. Every attack or ability focuses around that, and hiding is the easiest skill in the game to prevent or counter. Our khri are potent but incredibly dated, both the system they use (which has been updated) and the bonuses they confer.

Example I like is imagine all of your abilities required you to sit until 100 ranks. I can't run khri sagacity at level 75, with 280+ ranks of magic, without sitting. It's goofy, and really hurts the whole 'combat utility' of a damage reduction spell.

>>...so according to current theory, a Barbarian studying arcana would undergo attunement and gain a mana type.

Risk it, rather than it happening 100% of the time. Spontaneous attunement is very rare but it does happen (otherwise there wouldn't have been a first magician to teach others to do it).

>>No one's suggesting we make Barbarians magic users. But what if a Thief wants to be an enchanter (or a Barbarian even)? Empaths are able to make weapons, as they should be. Should Thieves be locked out of one branch of the crafting system because of a technicality (i.e. not magic-users)? No.

Barbarians will be able to enchant. They will not, for obvious reasons, be able to cast Imbue, but there will be ways around that.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

As a thief, I’d like to have access to the crazy amount of cross guild training tools. I’d settle for being able to actually use magical items like tattoos and all the wands. I’m ready for some Righteous Wrath, claws of the cougar, and resonance action. Not having to be penalized by having everything like that behind a Pay wall would be nice. Not to mention the massive tdp difference available to other guilds.

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

I don't think comparing 20 years of work to 20 years of work is an equitable idea.

Magic in general is an extra free attack that you can't get without the system. It's like locking people out of evasion, athletics, and outdoorsmanship, then saying 'it's only a few ranks' while ignoring that those easy to train skills account for a lot of TDPs for casual players and offer...insane...flexibility in approach to problems.

>Off track, but I'd rather have a steady source of secondary damage than just 1 strike. That's just me though. Maybe you'll be happy only landing one awesome strike and then going back to the same ol' same ol'.

Practically, you may see more benefit out of a concurrent secondary damage attack than an "alpha strike." I think the popular perception is alpha strike = backstab when in reality a balanced alpha strike will probably look more like modern smite than backstab. Don't get me wrong, smite is awesome but it isn't backstab, nor should it be. I'd also be surprised if backstab or ancillary BS-buffing abilities didn't see a potency hit of some sort when really brought into modernity.

From the perspective of a player, it seems like attack bonuses only scale so far before you have to start doing whacky things to make the effect perceivable for most people in PvE and in some cases PvP (e.g. pre-3.1, before the pendulum swung wildly, BS sucked because it was just an OF bonus IIRC). I mean whacky like disabling opponents' defenses, armor, etc. On the other hand, a secondary attack that allows for concurrency has perceivable benefits no matter what the application, PvE or PvP. That said, and this isn't directed at anyone in particular, don't be over-sold on magic's offensive benefits for a magic tert unless your goal is to mow down swarms of much weaker enemies (yay), and even then mana-starvation is a very real thing for terts. Any significant benefits at tert are completely outdone by backstab or dual load. As a paladin, I prefer to opt for debilitation over TM alongside mundane weapon attacks nearly all of the time, and I don't have the choice of cyclic TM (as I shouldn't).

IMO, every guild should be brought up to something close to the level of magic prime modulo lore/specialty with respect to the efficacy of concurrent damage streams. That may be a pet, reflective damage in the case of paladins, some auto-attack mechanism, etc. Then again, I'm not totally averse to homogeneity insofar as the benefits > boredom.

>One of my biggest frustrations with current DR is how much playing a non-magic user flat out feels like being a third class citizen.

I agree. This is one of the main reasons why I chose paladin over barb pre-3, setting aside lore preference.

> I disagree. To use a previous analogy, tertiary skill sets do not gain reduced potency of athletics or evasion. They just learn it more poorly. The magic penalty for being tert is painful as-is, and locking away cyclics doesn't make much sense to me (and neither does the drastic mana pool availability).

Skillset perks should probably be locked behind total ranks in a skillset rather than raw guild affiliation, but cyclics aren't locked behind skillsets. Paladins and rangers both have cyclic spells.

>>A full conversion is infeasible, but making attunement possible via some shady character and allowing access to runes and AP spells wouldn't hurt anyone.

So much this. If only for pretend purposes.


- Navesi

> Paladins and rangers both have cyclic spells.
Some cyclical buffs, but not the awesome DPS of cyclical AOE TM.

[18:14] Chatter[Raesh] >perc nature
[18:15] Chatter[Raesh] You sense you should just howl.

>Cyclic AOE TM is locked behind elemental/arcane casters. Bards, Warrior Mages, and Necromancers.

Clerics also have AOE TM.

>Cyclic pets are Moon Mages and Empaths (not shocked).

Rangers have a cyclic pet.

>Cyclic AOE debuffs are Bards, Clerics, and Warrior Mages.

Barbarians also have a cyclic AOE debuff, though it's not Tm (obviously).

> Rangers have a cyclic pet.

Technically correct, but LOL. On the spectrum of pets available it's still very much at the bottom of the list. It's definitely an upgrade from the old AF and I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate the work, because it's a massive upgrade. BUT, it can't be controlled, is based off a tert skill, and is basically set up as a tank but has no ability to taunt.

But, this isn't about the shortcomings of AF. The point I was trying to make is that the vast majority of abilities in the game aren't gated by guild/skillset. Anyone can use heavy weapons. Anyone can use heavy armor. Anyone can climb any obstacle or swim any water with enough skill. BUT, the best stuff in the most powerful branch of the skills in the game are gated such that less than one third of the guilds can use them.

In truth, I'm still salty that they gave arranging to everyone.

[18:14] Chatter[Raesh] >perc nature
[18:15] Chatter[Raesh] You sense you should just howl.

^ These are cool ideas

If I were to add anything, it would be to consider changing NMU to magic tert when considering these sorts of abilities, or consider whether the problem is really just concurrent streams of damage.

If anyone here were to rank damage/guild, that should give an indication of where the problems lie. I have my list from my PvP days (nothing significant's changed since then). It's easiest to see how damage really ranks when you can use your HP bar as a gauge. For everyone, empaths and traders are probably at the bottom followed by paladin followed distantly by dual load, magic and backstab. Notice my guild damage ranking boils down to abilities once you go above paladin. That raises a clear balance issue to me that few players want to acknowledge regarding these abilities in the aggregate and where we want to go from there. I state this because any time I bring them up in discussions about potential damage vs magic stacking, there's always at least some pushback depending on where I'm posting. Or, the implication is it's not relevant to the discussion and I disagree as someone without a dog in this fight. (My main is neither NMU nor has double-attacks nor defense-debuffing attacks nor crazy awesome magic stacking abilities).

Then, you have to consider versatility. I'd argue that's magic's biggest strength. Despite the implication by some NMUs, most MUs focus either on magic or weapons when their focus is on damage and not training, especially with TM foci, so the magic+weapon stacking advantage there is meh. However, I can't swap my broadsword to auto AoE everything engaged while I slice away simultaneously with it and buff myself with my offhand dagger. Hell, I can't even AoE with my broadsword, especially at range; forget the rest. You can argue mana is a limited resource, but that's not as big an obstacle as some would make it seem with primary and even secondary mana pools and reduced spell costs from the last update. I had zero issues doing this sort of thing on my sub-100th circle WM. This is NMUs biggest issue because you can't compete if you're not using highly specialized abilities, so you've got no chance if you don't focus on one niche special attack, probably dual load or backstab if you have it. Just giving NMUs magic won't fix that. If you disagree, go back to your damage/guild list. That's what's most interesting to me because I have no idea what ideal damage even is in modern DR or how versatility tips that ideal damage scale.

Anyway, I recognize this is a little off the original topic but yeah... To bring it back, runes and scroll spells for thieves would rock. I wouldn't sign off on full conversion, personally, if that's desired; don't discount instant-on buffs. Grass is greener on the NMU side there.

>Just slapping on an X% chance of doublestrike doesn't really gain us any ground when in a year the GM who coded it wins the lotto and retires to Fiji. We end up with yet another system that is legacy and doesn't have a GM who really aches to take it on, compared to the magic system which seems to have multiple GMs able to work with it.

I share the spirit of this concern. I mean, life's not without its vicissitudes. (Side note: I'm grateful to Armifer for braving the paladin curse head on.)

Years ago I posted probably too much about how I think non-magic abilities (i.e. khri, roars/dances/forms, communes, glyphs, etc.) should just be a new instant spell type and be converted to the magic system. It doesn't have to be magic per se. Call it the ability system. The gist is it may be beneficial for all non-magic abilities to be the same behind the flavor text and use the same resource behind the flavor text as magic. Call it mana when MUs use it and call it whatever is appropriate for the other guilds. A lot was made out of magic being relatively easy for anyone to work on because if someone codes a spell for a moon mage, s/he can just as well code a spell for a ranger. Now, I know non-magic abilities tie into the same core, but in the past, changes to magic have typically not resulted in desired, commensurate non-magic ability effects so I'm not sure how similar they are. It doesn't seem like working on non-magic abilities cross-guild is as fluid.

Here's where my homogeneity comment comes into play. The consequence of something like this would affect guilds' uniqueness to some extent. Like, you'd have to equate inner focus/awareness/whatever and inner fire and devotion with mana for example, and non-magic abilities would probably be a bit more copy/paste (I'm guessing). I don't have a problem with any of that, but I recognize some do. I just don't see the practical difference between NMU abilities and MU magic except that the former is complicated by heterogeneity. As far as I'm concerned, NMU abilities may as well all just be stacking, instant-on cyclics or debuffs. Once we acknowledge that, it's not a stretch to say maybe thieves and barbs can have actual damaging cyclics.

>Well, yes, but just like a TM spell is more dangerous in the hands of a Warrior Mage than a Trader, a throwing hammer is more dangerous in the hands of a Barbarian than a Moon Mage, assuming we're not talking about everyone having all tertiary skills capped out.

No. Outside of buffs, guild has little to do with your ability with a weapon in this game. A Moon Mage can always just add more ranks to make up for any buffs that a Barb might be able to get for his weapon skills. The reverse is NOT true for magical abilities. It'd be like Moon Mages *not being able to use heavy or two-handed weapons*. That would be the equivalent to how magic works.

[18:14] Chatter[Raesh] >perc nature
[18:15] Chatter[Raesh] You sense you should just howl.

First, as a minor clarification, Moon Mages also have a cyclic combat pet: SLS.

>>Barbarians can offhand larger weapons, Paladins can arm wear larger shields and have lower encumbrance with plate, etc. On top of that, there are weapon-related feats like whirlwind, dual load, throwing knives, etc. that represent mastery with weapons that a Moon Mage will never have access to, even at 1750 ranks.

This is true, except for throwing knives, which everyone can unlock fully at 600 ranks. However I think what LOUTUSFLOWER was saying was that very few of these types of abilities exist, which is also true. And furthermore, they aren't that lucrative. Offhanding larger weapons does almost nothing, and I've heard using a large shield is still worse than a small one. That leaves only hindrance, whirlwind, and dual load as the three you mentioned that are both useful and truly locked down. Snipe might be another one.

>Hopefully someday offhand will be expanded, A Moon Mage can always just add more ranks to make up for any buffs that a Barb might be able to get for his weapon skills.

This is an interesting and longstanding debate, really. What the Barbarian truly gains is mastery of weapons and armor MUCH FASTER than just about everyone else. Yet on the flip side, a big part of what a magic prime gains is access to MORE abilities. So at the end game state, one might say things are imbalanced, yet one can't deny that it must be nice to reach that state so quickly.

I honestly don't have an answer for this, except to say that the current design appears to be intentional. What I really hope for is that the current Dev team takes some time to really think about if this is the state they still intend for the game.


- Navesi