Sorry if some of the formatting is wrong, just got back from an extended vacation and I don't remember exactly how to post. Or do anything but juggle, for that matter.
I've been catching up on the discussion of Bards and Barbarians and BMR and Traders with MR and found it very interesting. As far as enchantes go, having both a Barbarian (primary) and a Bard (secondary) character, I feel the street runs both ways. As a Barb, I really hate seeing my IF get hit when a singing Bard just waltzes through innocently, and as a Bard I hate seeing my mana crash completely likewise. Something needs to be done to make the game more playable, and I believe in-game theory should follow mechanics and in-game fun.
I shall make two assumptions which I think are fair:
1) Barbarians are, theoretically, supposed to be 'kings' of magic resistance. Not in as much as they're supposed to be twice as good as everyone else or even necessarily X% better, simply the best. While Thieves and Traders can be said to live the life of laymen when it comes to magic, the Barbarian guild is actively anti-magical in its construction. This should be taken into account.
2) Thieves and Traders should have 'real' magic resistance. Truthfully, as of now it is simply pitiful. MR as a whole just needs work, including BMR.
The resolutions offered by Dartenian seem fair as always, and I imagine they are bound to happen eventually. This, however, creates a problem in my mind, and I want to be sure it is addressed both in magic theory and in mechanics.
Barbarian inner fire has always, more or less, been completely analogous with BMR. A Barbarian's MR is determined almost solely by IF. Without it he/she has the deplorable IF of current Thieves and Traders. Should Thieves and Traders receive a sizable bonus to MR and should BMR be reworked to make it more uniform in nature (better in early levels, tweaked down a little in later levels), this means Barbs will actually be the worse off of the bunch if the current system of IF is kept as-is.
Why?
Should Thieves, sometime soon, have MR comparable to full-IF Barbarians, Barbarians end up the worst of the lot. Only they have MR that can actively be decreased by lowering their IF. As it seems to me, both the theory and reality of IF will need some adjustment. As has been suggested by someone I believe, it might be plausible to see Barbs with MR equal to Thieves and Traders, and IF simply offers an increasing bonus. Ergo, the loss of inner fire could not actively cut full MR, merely the bonus received from IF, still effectively lowering the total.
/rant.
I'm sure that's long enough, and I'm sure whatever comes of it will be fair.
