This is a parallel development to Magic 3.0, but it's very important in the scope of things and after having spoken with Tiesse and Kodius (the primary guilds it's going to affect), we've decided that we'd like to get it out there now so we can answer questions along the way just like we're doing for the 8 MU guilds.

I've had a long time listening to various complaints / arguments / commentaries from the various guilds concerning how various special abilities were powered, and how NMU skills were better / worse than the Magic system because they didn't utilize a skill for training or efficacy purposes and were based solely on less tangible and harder to change facets about the character instead. In the course of proposing the rest of Magic 3.0, I got together with the guild advocates for Barbarians and Thieves, as well as Solomon, Dartenian, and Armifer, and we discussed the idea of unifying the primary ability systems of guilds with one facet: that of utilizing a skill in the 'Magic' skillset.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I can already hear you saying, what about Barbarians? We don't want, need, or like no freaking Magic! (Thieves tend to be of more mixed opinion here) That's right, you don't need Magic. This is why we're doing somewhat of a larger conceptual shift here. We are going to rename the Magic skillset into the Supernatural skillset, and Thieves and Barbarians will get one completely new skill in that skillset. We haven't finalized the name for it, although some possibilities we are mulling over are "Inner Fire" for Barbarians and "Inner Focus" for Thieves, or simply "Meditation" or "Concentration" for both of them. This skill will be fully grandfathered, including TDPs, with the grandfathering bringing you to a level which should be very closely equivalent to the efficacy you would have at that level normally. Training at that point will come naturally as you utilize your abilities, somewhat similarly to how enchante magical experience works.

The concept we are saying here is that all guilds primary ability set, (spells, khris, roars, dances, maybe berserks) the thing that provides a set of buffs/abilities that are analogous to what a MU receives under the magic system, will utilize a skill in the Supernatural skillset in some way. Guilds' secondary ability sets such as ambushes, predictions, maybe berserks (or future weapon forms), empathy, trading, can continue to utilize skills in whatever skillset seems natural.

Wait a second, you mentioned Traders there but you haven't talked much about them yet? Yes, that's correct. Traders do not at the moment have a unified primary ability set of a scope similar to Barbarians or Thieves. While we would very much like to remedy that, it's a discussion for a future time. Traders will continue to operate how they always have been with their speculates.


I will attempt to address some further points below:

- What does this mean for our abilities?

Potentially not much. No khri are planned to change in effect, and Thieves should in general not see any large change in their potency one way or another (although minor changes are likely depending on your statistic placement). They'll still utilize your concentration pool the same as they always have and use the verbs the same as they always do. For Barbarians, this is a bit up in the air, as Kodius wants to do rejiggering and modernizing of the stuff in the first place. So I don't want to presume to speak for him here, but to say that if no 'rejiggering' was planned they'd still work all exactly the same as they do now and most Barbarians probably would not notice any real difference in their daily lives except they're learning a new skill now.

- But our abilities work primarily on statistics (or derived statistics) now! That's all going to change?

A little, yes. This skill will be added to the formula calculation, with the statistics and such playing a smaller weight. The ratio these statistics help will not change, so if you have made your Thief discipline heavy to use khri this is still the best plan for using khri in the future. The stats you choose will still play a very large role, but you will have an extra way of improving yourself in the future.

- But it's magic, ew!

No, it's not magic. But it's supernatural now, which is good for you in many ways you probably haven't stopped to consider. Remember those old mundane vs magic arguments? We are specifically saying _this stuff is supernatural and not mundane_. Barbarians and Thieves (and hopefully someday Traders) are capable of extraordinary feats that no normal person and certainly no MU, or even the other NMUs, can match. This allows developers working on your guilds to come up with more interesting abilities without being hamstrung by having to make sure it's semi-possible for a normal person.

- Will Thieves be able to use runestones?

Sigh.

- The sky is falling, aaaaaah!

I realize it's a pretty big change in the scheme of things, but I would like to stress a few points I don't usually, here. This change was not advocated by Magic guilds or GMs from magic guilds to screw over Non-magic guilds. This change was advocated foremost by me, who came from a NMU guild, and everyone is on board on both sides. This change may be scary, and it may in fact come with a few downsides in places, but it is very much being made for the betterment of the guilds in question and down the road people will be very happy it was done. Kodius agrees strongly that abilities are much easier to balance when they rely on a skill as opposed to weird statistic questions.

- If our abilities have to use a skill, why can't it be a Weapons / Survival skill?

The point of the 'Magic' skillset has always been that it's primarily a meta skillset. It's meant often to be a skillset that empowers you to do better at other skillsets. The advantage of NMUs and Rangers (I'd add Paladins but we can't honestly say Armor is as desirable as we'd like yet) is that they have a more favorable natural skillset placement and they less require bonuses of any kind to be awesome, so their own bonusing abilities are a little rougher around the edges in some ways. They are no less potent at the cap, but more effort is required to get there.

Okay, I think I've talked long enough for one post. I'd like to urge people to take a few breaths and process before worrying too much.

-Z