Rigby, this is an amazing spell. Having fun playing with it with my empath. Just one thing they seem to be pretty darn perceptive heh. And search constantly when you arnt in battle, bug perhaps?


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Former Empath Shaunn

The spell looks great, however I feel that the summoned creature seems largely useless in combat. I've found that an avenger at 30 mana and a narmorbreth at 20 mana both would successfully guard me from a crocodile once(there were three advancing), after which the intercepted croc continued advancing me and successfully engaged. Perhaps if the guardian stood its ground rather than tried to retreat all the time, it would keep the critter's attention and thereby successfully guard me.It wouldn't even necessarily have to become terribly aggressive, just willing to stand in combat (of course, fighting back would be encouraged :P)

I'm thrilled that the spell's become more interactive, however it seems to have been at the expense of effectiveness (not that it really worked before...). I'm hopefull that it can be tweaked somewhat so that it is actually able to keep at least one critter off of me, even if it doesn't kill things like crazy (which I didn't really expect in the first place, was more wishful thinking than anything).

Thanks,
-Battle Empath Karthor

>>Out of curiousity, has anyone tried combinations of Guardian Spirit and Innocence? Does that not seem to be an effective solution for multiple foes?

The Innocence spell seems to be acting wierd. It is effecting even those critters who have by all intents and purposes disengaged (either through manipulate or GS) effectively kicking them out of the room.

>>Protecting yourself from multiple attackers is probably always going to be a weak point with the spell. The guardian spirit is actually guarding you, just as a player would. One of the special perks lies in it's ability to re-guard you even if your attacker has reached pole range. Improving guard for multiple attackers would have to be something I'd discuss with GMs Veyl and Ssra.

While I understand that the creature primarily guards, perhaps a suitable upgrade to the spell would be to give them the brawling maneuver SHOVE in order to get them to disengage the Empath. I really find it frustrating to watch my GS sit back and do nothing just because one critter made it to melee. Not to mention, the other four critters advancing will meet no resistance from him.

Barring the shoving, I'd like to see the Guardian become more agressive when there are more critters about, actually turning to the offense. As of now, I've only seen it fight when its unable to disengage. Quite honestly, its a pathetic little fighter, can't even touch most stuff. This may be based on my combat skills. But let's be honest, if it is, how'm I expected to learn weapons to pump up my spirit when I have no direct way of learning them?

Former Empath Shaunn

>I've got some small revisions and corrections going live to the spell today based on various feedback. Some of those will include the ability to cast spells on the guardian spirit, and fixing the duration they linger.

Unless you give us the ability to have the spirit attack on our behalf, I do not believe allowing player-casted spells to affect them is very fair. All this succeeded in doing was chasing mine off and making it impossible for me to call another one for a period of time.

>The ball of lightning bounces toward a hairy dog-faced dirnel, spitting violent sparks and filling the air with the smell of ozone!
>The lightning blasts a very heavy hit to its abdomen!
>A hairy dog-faced dirnel shrieks and licks its wounds, then gestures. Sparkling blue motes dart around it as it transforms into a deep cerulean butterfly that takes to the skies and flutters away.

and then a few moments later:

>You gesture.
>Your heart skips a beat, but the only response is a cryptic whisper in your ear and a lot of childlike giggling.
>You sense the Fae are a bit too timid to be called so soon after the last one was scared off.

~Xoine

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"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses." -- Ziggy

Rigby,

I am unable to cast my spells upon Guardian Spirits. Is it intended taht only Empath spells work? I'll admit the only spell I tried was PFE, but I got a "I couldn't find what you were referring to" error.

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- Smeg

I played around a bit with guardian spirit in gargs and snowbeasts. I didn't do any extensive testing, but I noticed that the guardian really wasn't able to do much to protect me when there was a heavy swarm, which is the only time I actually need its help. It's really nifty to have the guardian around, but it seems like the only time they offer assistance is when we're already doing just fine. So I have a couple suggestions.

1. When things get too crowded and the guardian can't successfully protect me by guarding, it ought to become more offensive. If my avenger's standing next to me with his big sword, and he realizes he's not going to be able to guard me because there are too many, he shouldn't just decide to sit back and watch! He ought to start attacking whatever is facing me, like manipulated critters do.

2. If I get stunned, the guardian should attempt to drag me out of the room. This would make it INFINITELY more useful. The only question that comes to my mind about this is how big the guardians are compared to us; gnome sized? Ladybird-like? But, they are magical creatures, so perhaps that is one of their talents.

~ Chall

The Guardian Spirits probably won't ever be effective fighters, but I'll see what I can do to improve their defensive role in general. Give me some time to think on this.

>>>Alfar - Fair and pale, almost angelic, the alfar are *tall and willowy* creatures that greatly resemble nyads and dryads<<<

The summoned ones from the spell are youngsters, runts, or otherwise smaller than typical. Descriptions for them are also a little more gothic, since I happen to prefer that style. The "hairless Gnome" reference is really just because I can't resist taking a playful jab at Gnomes. ;)

Rigby

I hope you can come up with a way to make them more effective in combat, Rigby. That is their main weakness, really. It bothers me that my guardian spirit keeps assessing his/her combat situation, but won't actually do anything about it.

If not outright fighting, perhaps they could temporarily distract what's engaging me so it'll go after the GS instead. Or, as others suggested, perhaps brawling moves would be useful (like shove, to knock the critter out of melee).

Meghan

>>>Would it be possible for older empaths to be able to summon older alfar? Also, what happened to Alfar Warriors and Firchilis? And does the spell lend itself to adding more alfar to the options? I assume it does after the merkin incident.<<<

Firchilis were dropped because I found contradictory info on what they actually were. I dropped Alfar Warriors because there were already two, and I didn't want to get into an "alfar-heavy" spell. Merkins were actually in the original spell, but obviously are now TF only. There's always the possibility of adding more types, but it's far down on the priority list. New fluff interaction would be a higher priority (and even that isn't important at the moment).

The shove thing is a possibility. A lot of improvements hinge at the moment on talking with GM Veyl, and I simply haven't had time to do that yet.

Rigby

Yah you got me wondering now too...

-Mozzik

>>What's a Merkin?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=merkin

Its defining something they'd put into fallen. If you want G rated stuff, don't read it.

Former Empath Shaunn

<<I think it would be kinda neat too if say the spirits had a 'baseline' brawling ability that they are all summoned with, but that the casters brawling skill could help increase it.>>

I think this is nice idea...and have the gs use CIRCLE, WEAVE, as well as SHOVE.

And as Shaunn said, it would be very much appreciated if the older and stronger gs would come for the 'older' empaths. If I can handle a leucro but my GS can't, i think I need to guard it, not it me! Hee hee. ;)

Amo

p.s. tried to cast SOP on my gs today and I couldn't...just figured you're still tweaking, though. = )



_____________________________________________ "Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?" ~Dorothy

For more information on empaths who shift, go to:
http://www.coalition.fairmount.nu

>>Its defining something they'd put into fallen. If you want G rated stuff, don't read it.

Damn. So that protects empaths, eh?

That's funny to visualize.

I can't tackle spirits.

This seems wrong to me; I'm missing out on a lot.

-Frogspawn

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Dragonrealms 2: Because even Simutronics deserves a second chance.

I've been doing some researching... seems GS is absolutely fabulous in smaller critters but they don't seem to grow well with the empath into the stronger critters. Maybe this is a spell intended for 'younger' empaths.

Ah well, I will wait and see. Thanks all for turning out this spell! Is good to see it out again at least. = )

Amorisse


_____________________________________________ "Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?" ~Dorothy

For more information on empaths who shift, go to:
http://www.coalition.fairmount.nu

>Actually, they will, it just takes awhile of the 'can't find you, advance you, can't find you, advance you' song and dance. If you have manipulate, you can speed this up, I've noticed that a manipulated critter will first go to my spirit (or wander away) before it turns to another critter.

Well I decided to test this myself, and to my disappointment, manipulated critter just went after the other critter(s) attacking me. I tried it with two critters, manipulating one of them, and it just went after the other one I didn't manipulate. Tried it with three critters, manipulated two of them, they both just went after the other one attacking me...all the while my guardian just watched. Even tried it with one critter on me, manipulated it, and it just walked away rather than going after my guardian.(All of said tests were done more than once, with the same results)

I'm totally baffled every time I see someone mention that their guardians end up engaged/advanced upon/swarmed/otherwise involved in combat apart from intercepting a single critter and retreating (repeatedly) . No matter what I do, I just can't seem to make it happen.

-Karthor

<<I've been using the woodwisp almost exclusively in salt crabs/ship rats since I can dance til I am mindlocked and fluid, then retreat and hide. The critters then normally advance the woodwisp who dances with them for a while before beginning to kill them off. Combined with manipulate for getting rid of any too strong critters this combination has been working for me thusfar.>>

I play in a variety of critters depending on what I'm trying to do or what I want to learn.

With old GS, I used it to help me manage better in the field so I could stand alongside my husband when he went places that were a bit over my head... I used it during invasions, too, so I could concentrate more of my efforts on healing people than on defending myself. It worked very well for those purposes except when i cast a spell. So I longed for a GS that didn't require held mana.

Unfortunately, this current GS is unneeded by me when I'm in rock trolls, goblins, rats...and other places where empaths have cited good results. Moreover, when I take my GS into critters I can handle quite well on my own (ds, gargoyles, peccs, vipers, leucros), the GS gets too hurt and I begin to think I should be guarding it, not it me.

It makes me wonder how the GS would serve me, if at all, if I went into critters above my power and then I wonder, "Isn't that what GS if for, to help empaths in combat?"

Certainly empaths are not going to be put at an unreasonable advantage if we had more powerful GS... we are not killing critters or adventurers left and right. We want ways to help us stand beside our peers (other adventurers of similar circle) and add them during combat... well, some of us do, I guess. And some access to the treasure system that doesn't leave us in complete dependency to other players is a good thing, too ;)

Anyhow, thanks for reading my thoughts here. I'm sure I've been too redundant to do any good but i still appreciate the conversation! '= }

Amo




_____________________________________________ "Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?" ~Dorothy

For more information on empaths who shift, go to:
http://www.coalition.fairmount.nu

<<Okay, I eat my words! I just tried my gs in angiswards and it's doing a nice job protecting me.>>

Additional research proved it was a combination that was protecting me... Mastterm plus the guardian spirit (actually, it was mostly Mastterm who killed each and every angis he saw attempt to engage me after the GS had attempted to deflect it.

Oh well... I can just hope for a GM (guardian mastterm) spell now. If I'm the only empath experiencing such difficulty with the spell, then it must just be me. So, I'll try to just hush up about it all.

Amo



_____________________________________________ "Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?" ~Dorothy

For more information on empaths who shift, go to:
http://www.coalition.fairmount.nu