If a barbarian choses to group with a bard, or vice versa I can understand the desire for enchantes to work within that group. However, as a person that chose to roleplay a barbarian, I accepted the fact that magic aspects of the game that are helpful to the rest of the population will not be helpful to me. We have at present certain aspects of the game, in specific the ability to learn magical devices to aid in the usage of CJ's that do not 'harm' a barbarian, however this is to be changed. Given the fact that we have been told that a severe penalty is in the works in which a barbarian will have to clense him or herself or continue to suffer the consiquences, why is it that there is a desire to have barbarians have a closer working relationship with a magic guild.

Enchantes for all their pretting up are magic. I don't recall ever harnessing rockabilly or harnessing deathmetal to increase the power of an enchante when I played a bard. I harnessed mana as represented by a number.

As we have been asked for our individual opinions let me state it simply so there is no question.

I don't want your magic.
___
I know that I will die in battle, this I have accepted. I hope that it will be one of my own choosing, but if not do not bury me in a small, sad little cemetary. Burn me and spread my ashes to a strong western wind that I might make my way home.

I'm going to try again. This is the part that made me start posting.

>>I really like the complete removal of BMR for enchantes (drop barbs to normal MR) but I'm worried a lot of folks will be against it.

Yes, I am very much against it. Why should the enchante be anything special?

>>In addition, halve the current BMR that goes into the equation against enchantes because Barbs should be more susceptible to music interweaved with magic rather than direct, obvious magic.

Like I said, I disagree. What is one persons music is another persons noise. This wasn't me being facetious. Have you heard a mixolydian melody? Totally gross! That wouldn't soothe a sleeping baby. So no, I disagree that just because it has music it should be more affective.

>>So this would have the effect of making the MR and IF hit of a barb 5% of what it is today for "mostly musical" enchantes and 45% of what it is today for "mostly magical" enchantes.

That's nice for the bards who want to affect people, but I don't want to be affected. Give me my whole resistance.

>>I'd love to have secondary effects for a variety of enchante/dance combinations, bonusing and penalizing each other in interesting ways. Rage should boost 'zerks, drums of the snake should boost dances, redeemer's pride should help resist roars to a much greater degree

Don't let Agonar hear you talking like that. Working together is not the same as you affecting me with magic.

Now the best suggestion I heard, in my opinion, was to let the resistance check be done on a person by person basis instead of an all or nothing. This is great for the bard, but it only addresses one half of the issue, that where one barbarian keeps the bard from singing to everyone else.

What hasn't been addressed is how to keep a bard who out classes the barbarians from so tanking them, that the barbarians might as well go sit in a tavern and get drunk (all though, that's not a half bad idea!)

No, I'm not ignoring the fact that you said "Lets pretend BMR doesn't exist and drop the inner fire hit accordingly." That just makes it easier for a bard to get their dirty (said kindly!) magic on me, and that is not a solution.

Just thought of something. Why not both? Set up enchantes as CONRADB suggested, so each enchante is x% magic, y% music (even though I disagree that your music is my music, I'll compromise). Now don't touch the BMR (I don't like that part, that's your compromise), but take the suggestion to check each person individually. Now if a barbarian resists, they can still benefit from the y% that is music. If a barbarian is overwhelmed only the x% that is magic goes into any inner fire reduction, as CONRADB suggested.

I think I could live with the combination of those two solutions.

Niamara
4 out of 3 barbarians have trouble with fractions

Good point, I didnt think about the possibility of PvP, my bad!

Could it be set up the same way as Chain lightning has been? The whole affects critters only or critters and players choice?

---

Gilvore Sneaksie-Sasiknak and others.

"...I am learning the true meaning of tedium. Do you intend to bore me to death with your speeches or do you want to come across here and die?.." - Gotrek Gurnisson

What hasn't been addressed is how to keep a bard who out classes the barbarians from so tanking them, that the barbarians might as well go sit in a tavern and get drunk (all though, that's not a half bad idea!)

---

Perhaps what needs to be reviewed is the size of inner fire hits and the way they are dealt. Suppose it's possible to come up with a formula that says that bard A with enchante B can cause X amount of base Inner Fire damage total. That damage can then be spanned over the pulses of the enchante. A barb taking hits from the enchante will accumulate hits which in total (if the barb was there for the whole enchante) can be X modified by the barb's stats or something of the sort.

There's another thing that I think can come into effect here. The parts of enchantes are not equal in their strength. Some parts are stronger, other are weaker. There's no reason in my eyes that a barb who was hit by a part of the song won't be able to resist other parts of it and vice versa. I can compare an enchante to a flowing liquid, let's say water. If there's a boulder in the path (I.E the barb) the water may go around it or go over it if they have enough energy. In enchantes however the flow is not stable. So sometimes a surge will come and get over the boulder, sometimes the current is so weak it will barely touch it.

So basically what I'm saying is have the resistance check done on a person to person basis. As far as I'm concerned if that is done you can increase a Barb's BMR even further, making them even bigger rocks - and harder to effect with my enchante as long as it keeps flowing around them. Review the amount of IF hit is dealt by enchante and have it stack over the period of the enchante, as well as have the barb get an IF hit only when the part of the song actually overwhelms his\her senses.


Siltoth

Stealer of Silvy's Hugs

Burhup says, "I still havn't thought of a good present for a theif"
You say to Burhup, "a Get out of jail free scroll"

>>My suggestion. Make enchantes a component of music and magic, and separable into their components. Base enchante with no mana use gives a much smaller effect, but does not use magic, so would be beneficial (or harmful) to Barbs based solely on the intended effect of the enchante. Mana can be added at the beginning or during to increase the effect of the enchante. This would be akin to a sorcerer in a book I read recently using magic to amplify a speakers' voice who was trying to inspire a crowd of men to go to war for her. The magic was not used directly on the men, and did not affect the men, but the speakers' voice and speech did the inspiration.
<<

I like that idea alot.


The one who is obsessed with power.. and who still has a long way to go.

>>Just thought of something. Why not both? Set up enchantes as CONRADB suggested, so each enchante is x% magic, y% music (even though I disagree that your music is my music, I'll compromise). Now don't touch the BMR (I don't like that part, that's your compromise), but take the suggestion to check each person individually. Now if a barbarian resists, they can still benefit from the y% that is music. If a barbarian is overwhelmed only the x% that is magic goes into any inner fire reduction, as CONRADB suggested.

I really like this and I could live without the 50% BMR reduction.

It will:
-Allow bards to start and use enchantes where barbs are present (just not affect the barb)
-Allow certain enchantes to affect barbs easier by using the music component on them. No IF hit if only the music affects, IF hit if the magic affects. If the barb is resisting the magic, he still gets the bonus/penalty from the music with no IF hit.

The reason I suggested a further 50% BMR hit only toward enchantes is that I personally think its not very balanced right now even on a 1-vs-1 CvC basis. However, I haven't looked at this extensively. Barbs, what do you think is fair - should a Bard of equal circle to your own be able to affect you via magic, or a bard of equal stats to your own, etc. I think right now that the Barb wins even if the Bard is bigger in circle or will vs will stats.

E

Even if nothing else happens I think a level of effect based upon just stat/skills and requiring no mana would be nice but I'm guessing it would have to draw upon something. If it doesn't then great, otherwise concentration modified by polish or effect modified by polish.

There are already instances where barbs are just "not affected" sort of within hodierna's lilt and dancing. Any dance negates the positive effects of hodierna's lilt upon the barb.

If the bard is just staying in one room, this isn't as much of an issue...it's more of an issue for when the bard is moving around.

Most of the time if a bard is fighting alongside Navak, that says something about the bard themselves since Navak is generally a berserking melee fighter. He certainly wouldn't begrudge a bard the ability to use their own skills and abilities to attack or defend themselves, much less become upset about it.

I am --- Navak

> See, there's a big problem with this whole concept and practical application of magic resistance: in DR, it's not a skill.


In many senses, this truly is the problem, both with SvS contests and magic resistance. We are trying to balance skill-based contests against stat-based contests. There really is no elegant way to do this that doesn't land us in a logistical nightmare. You'll just have to take my word for it for now when I say that I've run the numbers, and some of the results on both sides of the equation are alarming, to say the least. There simply comes a point where these contests start to fall apart, until they collapse completely. We are working on some solutions, but it's not going to be easy.


> If you redo BMR and MR, wont you be changing magic theory anyway?


Not necessarily. In fact, for the most part the reverse will be true. A lot of what is happening in Magic Resistance actually contradicts what is documented in Magic Theory. I already gave one example -- according to magic theory, magic resistance prevents the formation of spell patterns or matrices, and the same documents also say that music forms the spell pattern for enchantes. If this is taken in the strictest literal sense, it would mean that magic resistance wouldn't have any effect at all on enchantes, since music is forming the patterns rather than magic (you'd need Music Resistance!). Note that I'm not saying I think enchantes should bypass MR completely (I don't think any type of magic should, enchante or otherwise), just that Magic Theory would not only allow that, but actually pretty much says that should be the case.

I really don't want to go into too many examples. I will say, however, that all non-magic-users are supposed to have the same base resistance. However, this is not currently the case -- even at their lowest point, barbarians have significently more MR than traders or thieves. Magic-using guilds, on the other hand, are supposed to have less resistance, but in fact are only more vulnerable to a few types of magic; for the most part, they have the same resistance as Traders and Thieves.

In short, what we are talking about is actually making the magic resistance system work more like how established magic theory says it should work. The other conclusion we can draw from the above is that no matter how you look at it, the traders and thieves got the short end of the stick in a big way.


> (insert a bazillion good suggestions here)

There's been some great suggestions and ideas here, and believe me, I've been looking and thinking hard on all of them. I discussed some of these issues with the bosses at VegasCon, and since then we've had several long discussions within the staff on the problems and possible solutions. There are several ideas that have potential, but it really does go well beyond just Barbarians vs Bards. No matter how simple a solution we can find to enchantes vs MR, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done with magic resistance as a whole. To put it as simply as possible, what GM Iayn said is absolutely true -- don't worry about how difficult or complex your suggestions may be. We aren't looking for the SIMPLE solution. We are looking for the solution that best protects the concerns of all guilds.

Bards are designed to be group-friendly and deal with crowd control, so they need to be playable in those types of scenarios. That should be (I hope) a no-brainer. Likewise, non-magic-users do need at least some reasonable defense against magic. Not just barbarians, but all non-magic-users. Right now, that simply isn't the case. Magic-users need to be able to at least have some chance of landing a spell, and right now it is technically possible (although not easy) to become fully immune to many forms of magic. And of course, BMR needs to not only needs to be solid and effective, but we need to make it so that abilities that are supposed to boost BMR actually do so. Heh. I'm sure some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

In other words, there are a lot of issues, and there will be a lot of juggling and balancing going on. Hopefully if we do this right, we can make it so that everyone benefits in the long run. There'll probably be some give and take on all sides, but the goal is to make the system more consistant, more balanced, and overall more predictable and stable. Most importantly, we want it to be both playable and fun on all sides.



- GM Dartenian

"You ain't seen nothin' yet!" - Al Jolson

LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/dartenian/

See, here is my problem with all the MR stuff we are discussing. First off, going by the definition of enchantes, enchantes are magic, because enchantes are magic, by definition then, enchantes and barbarians don't mix. Because of the definition of enchantes and the beliefs on the evils of magic by barbarians, to me, there is no room for things to change, other than fixing pieces that might be broke. Personally, I don't have many suggestions based on these definitions. It's all to logically boxed up in a nice neat little package.

From what I've read from bards, we don't want to be considered different from other magic users even though our magic is not like a spell that has to be cast at something or on ones self. I just can't see music with magic attached or magical music being non area affecting, unless an ablity is created for bards to prevent others from seeing/hearing what they are speaking to someone. Kind of like if a ghost was haunting one person and only that person could see/hear the ghost. That would require a more "psychic" projectional type of singing, to me.

So, I do appologize for not many ideas given on this however, I can't seem to find my way out of this box of definitions placed on enchantes other than the one. I'd go so far as to say, if you are part of a bards group, you wouldn't even see/hear the messaging from the song. That would visually inforce that the bard can also magically project their voice as they desire to who or what they wish. To the group of the bard, they'd really never know a thing was going on, unless perhaps it was a less skilled bard and the projection would not be perfect. This could be done with enchantes that are skill enhancing or skill dehancing songs. Perhaps it could also work in reverse, like Lilt, only those in the bards group would hear the song and be soothed. How about too, like paladins and the courage spell of theirs, the more in the group, the higher the benefit to individual? Okay, so I'm getting at an idea of song projection where it is either focused IN surrounding the bard's group like a caccoon, or radiated OUT from the bard's group and whoever is not in the circle is S.O.L. because the more folks in the bard's group, the stronger the enchante becomes.

Now, barbarians however, if part of the bards group could become neutral, neither helping nor hindering the enchante. If not part of the group, mechanics are still there, however, if there are 5 people in the bards group and 1 barbarian, it will take a might strong barbarian to resist it all. Oh and I would also suggest that the equation for how much stronger the enchante would become with more people in the group should only be something like bard's ablity X number of people in group. Oh and if there are two groups in a room, one bard lead and one barbarian lead, force things for overcoming or affects of the song to have to over come a group barbarian resistance. Group resistance/strenght would certainly encourage more group hunting to boot!

Okay, that's my scrambled thoughts after mulling everything over for a few days.


~Eoworfinia~
A snow goblin reaches down and gently pets your corpse, then quickly looks about to make sure no one noticed.

I already gave one example -- according to magic theory, magic resistance prevents the formation of spell patterns or matrices, and the same documents also say that music forms the spell pattern for enchantes. If this is taken in the strictest literal sense, it would mean that magic resistance wouldn't have any effect at all on enchantes, since music is forming the patterns rather than magic (you'd need Music Resistance!).

____________________________

I on the other hand, being a barbarian and taking this in the strictest literal sense, would read this to mean unless the BMR or MR was overcome, the music (being the spell pattern or matrices) would be prevented!


______
Magdar Bluefletch, Legendary Barbarian of M'Riss

Just add music resistance along with magic resistance for Barbarians.

- Simon

http://www.phiiskeep.homestead.com/Frontpage.html

"The problem with common sense, is that it is not so common."

> I on the other hand, being a barbarian and taking this in the strictest literal sense, would read this to mean unless the BMR or MR was overcome, the music (being the spell pattern or matrices) would be prevented!


True, but if MR is capable of disrupting sounds, that I'd have to look seriously at making MR apply to roars. I don't think we wanna go there!

The goal isn't to make barbarians vulnerable to enchantes. The goal is to make enchantes playable in the situations they are designed to be used for. The problem is that for that to happen, something in the way we are currently handling MR needs to give. It's really as simple as that.


- GM Dartenian

"You ain't seen nothin' yet!" - Al Jolson

LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/dartenian/

"With so many barbarians roleplaying the dumb aspect of barbarians and bards doing music all the time, they just had to code something in."


Thanks,
Kleis

Dartenian, I too would like to see barbs and bards coexisting more easily. But Magic, but any name, should be resisted by a barbarian! Magdar is of M'riss and we Rissan barbs are more tolerant of magic than most of our brothers, but still being a barbarian, I wish to resist magic.

My fear in reguards to these changes we are talking about here? Barbarian resistance to bard enchanties is reduced and then find that P5 is full of Bard Dragons offing us since our resistance to enchanties has been tanked. An extreme example sure, but in degree not kind.

Not sure what is right.. But I know the above is wrong!

______
Magdar Bluefletch, Legendary Barbarian of M'Riss

<<Not only does the magic resistance code not always follow what is described in magic theory, but there are portions of the magic resistance code that were left unfinished pending the completion of other systems.>>

Is the magic theory code unfinished with portions of magic resistance also not coded up? It could go both ways.

<<I find it hard to believe you actually think we are just now noticing these things, given how many people have pointed out inconsistancies and problems on these boards over the past few years.>>

Oh, I believe you are aware of it. But, the buck stops there for me (as a player). You see, I can't make the changes. No player can. A GM actually needs to make the changes and it needs to be in the best interest of both guilds. The whole point of the Barbarian guild has been to resist magic. You are switching or stating the rules differently now (to what players know) by stating that some enchantes are more music related, instead of mana related. This does not make sense to players because enchantes require mana to fuel their affects. So, to say it is more music related is.. well, a little ridiculous. We see that enchantes need mana to fuel their affects higher and higher. Barbarians resist mana and I can't see why a Barbarian wouldn't resist external stimuli as they have in the past.

- Simon

http://www.phiiskeep.homestead.com/Frontpage.html

"The problem with common sense, is that it is not so common."

<<Well, given the fact that prior to Magic 2.1, barbarians had NO resistance to enchantes specifically because they were music based>>

So? Prior to Magic 2.1, Barbarians were completely immune to some forms of magic (mental blast) and vulnerable to other forms of magic. You keep pointing out that Barbarians had NO resistance to enchantes, but who cares? They had no resistance to a lot of magic spells. That was the whole point of the magic resistance rewrite, so that Barbarians wouldn't be immune to spells without a contest, but instead attempt to resist magic/external stimuli affects.

<<Enchantes do not use mana to create spell patterns, so having magic resistance collapse those patterns makes very little sense -if we go strictly by the documented magic theory-.>>

Enchantes use mana. Barbarians resist the affects caused by the mana. Should it really matter that you are writing how enchantes do not use mana to create the spell pattern, as it is mana that is being used by the Bard. Making it so that a Barbarian cannot resist what you say are "music patterns", than how is it any better than what was seen before Magic 2.1?

<<Theory docs that explicitely states that in some cases the magic merely amplifies the natural affects of the music, in which case I could very easily argue that they are no different than roars being enhanced by inner fire, and as such would be completely unresistable except in the same way Roars can be resisted.>>

Roars are not enhanced by inner fire.

<<The real crux of the issue is whether or not that resistance should collapse the entire pattern or not.>>

I know, already stated that it would be nice if a bardic enchante could go based on an individual by individual basis so that the entire pattern does not collapse based on the collective group. The affects can still not work on individual people based on their MR, but it wouldn't completely cause the bardic enchante to collapse.

<<We are looking for a way to make enchantes usable in the types of situations they were designed to be used in. This just means that something in the way MR and enchantes interact needs to change.>>

Wouldn't the above alone do what you are asking for enchantes? Make them more group friendly by changing it to be checked on an individual per individual basis.

- Simon

http://www.phiiskeep.homestead.com/Frontpage.html

"The problem with common sense, is that it is not so common."

>Well, given the fact that prior to Magic 2.1, barbarians had NO resistance to enchantes specifically because they were music based (and it was explicitely stated that this was the case) I don't think it's entirely silly at all. Yes, the rules were changed, but I'd have to point out that anything that can be changed once can be changed again. Even so, that's not what we are out to do here unless it is completely and utterly unavoidable (and I believe it is). My primary goal is to make the enchante system playable WITHOUT changing the existing rules.

Ooh can we go back to resist all harmful spells and not resist beneficial spells?!

---

---

I enjoy mastication. I masticate three to four times a day. Sometimes I masticate alone while in front of my TV and sometimes I masticate with my family.

<<Well, you do, obviously>>

Actually, I don't care. I'm pointing out how your argument is weak because your main point is that "at one point, Barbarians did not resist enchantes before Magic 2.1." Well, at one point, there wasn't even a BARD GUILD. What kind of argument is that?

<<The second was in direct response to your assertion that the entire concept of enchantes not being resistable is silly>>

Silly? It doesn't make sense. Barbarians should and have tried to resist external stimuli from affecting them before.

In some situations, I can clearly see how one group doesn't hunt with another group. Meaning, in the case with a high circle bard affecting a low circle barbarian and a high circle barbarian not being affected by a low circle bard. Sure, the benefits of the enchante not collapsing entirely is a benefit to the Bard and enchantes as a whole. That alone makes Bards not useless in a situation they are meant for (group combat). Sure, they might not affect a Barbarian of high skill/stat level in the guild, but why should they? The purpose of the Barbarian is to resist the external stimuli (both positive, negative, neutral) when he's alive.

- Simon

http://www.phiiskeep.homestead.com/Frontpage.html

"The problem with common sense, is that it is not so common."

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. I'm arguing for the points you bring up. But, yes, I will drop it because I have nothing left to bring to that portion of the discussion that I haven't mentioned.

Sorry if it happened to have bothered you.

- Simon

http://www.phiiskeep.homestead.com/Frontpage.html

"The problem with common sense, is that it is not so common."

>>The whole point of the Barbarian guild has been to resist magic. You are switching or stating the rules differently now (to what players know) by stating that some enchantes are more music related, instead of mana related. This does not make sense to players because enchantes require mana to fuel their affects.
>>Simon

Enchantes have a skill check for magic and mana increases their effectiveness. Enchantes have a skill check for instrument skill and require an instrument to physically be played and instrument skill increases their effectiveness.

No one is saying that bard enchantes are 100% music-based. The CONRADB/Niamara compromise I advocate is barbs retaining 100% of BMR vs the magical component and no magic resistance (this doesnt mean NO RESISTANCE, it could be a different formula, but it would be for all PCs...probably based on discipline?) to the musical component, with magic/music component percentages to be decided at GM discretion.

Are you disagreeing with the statement that enchantes (in IC atmospheric messaging and the skill checks the system uses for success) are made up of both magic and music? Are you agreeing that enchantes are magic and music, but saying that that Barbs should resist the music effects based on magic resistance mechanics anyway?

The idea that "this is the way it works now" doesn't mean that the way it works now is best, most fair, or most fun.

Let me just state that my character is a bard, and that I still think that whatever the changes are, a higher circle/stat Barb should still completely resist the effects of negative enchantes from lower circle Bards. Its just that all 100% of the resistance would not come from MR, per se.

I'd like to see barbs and bards worth together more closely than the current oil/water situation. The quick fix, as you propose, is to let enchantes still work for MUs while having barbs individually resist as they do now. I'd take that as a last resort, but it only helps Bards and not the Barbs that aren't big enough to resist all enchantes outright. Are you saying you don't want to see anything more? My perception is that the Bards here want to work more closely together (no problem lowering your IF hits from successfully landed enchantes and want to give you full access to the music component of the beneficial enchantes) but the majority of the Barbs here, who are mostly all high enough to resist all enchantes outright anyway, have the opinion of "leave us alone, we like the status quo." If thats the cause, I'll stop bothering you.

E