>>Its simple, give us 3 spells and a familiar to fight by our side, and we are happy.
>>Spell 1) Buffs shield, evasion, parry, perception, armor, reflex, agility

You need to learn to be happy with less.

>>Also, the familiars skills should totally be based on our TM ranks

Summoned pets are.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

<<More people need to play more guilds. That is all.>>

my "philosophy" in a nutshell. :-)

play them up to at least 50th, when you atart getting some of the "good stuff" for that particular guild.

That way, when your guild of choice gets nerfed, you can always play a different one. Until the screaming stops, at least.

---

You've seen life through distorted eyes;You know you had to learn;The execution of your mind;You really had to turn;,the book is read,The end begins to show,The truth is out, the lies are old, But you don't want to know - Black Sabbath

I think what they've proposed makes all of the Warrior Mage spells useful in their own way, which is something you guys didn't have before.

__
~Leilond
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Leilond
http://soundsoftime.bravehost.com

>>>>You need to learn to be happy with less.
>>Good to know we have someone batting for the war mages. In another vein, I think the same thing every time the rates are raised, but it never works then, either.

I'd like to be sympathetic, but if my assertion that it is unacceptable to expect a spell that provides skill bonuses to Parry, Shield, Evasion, Armor (all armors?) and Perception as well as Agility & Reflex stat buffs at once is seen as a terrible blow against Warrior Mages, then I do not believe there is a grounded enough understanding about how game balance works to have a coherent conversation.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

>>Hoping RM is still useful against a certain necro spell.
>>You'll need to clarify the question.

Could be wrong, but I thought Rising mists prevented vivisection from working.

_________________________________

An old cranky ogre with no legs says, "Naarg wives all this Naarg wives now."

>>Paeldryth's Wrath:

>Im going to guess that were not going to be able to use Naptha through our TM anymore to strike people without contesting LT? If so. Boo on you.

Oh noes I hadn't thought of that :(

Bah, you could practically turn some of our current spells into entire spellbooks under this new spell slot model. I kind of hate how little each spell has to do, now. So little finesse to learn in the guild's magic.

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"Magic has rules and so does posting on these forums." -Annwyl

It's just kind of nostalgic that DR magic is moving away from a nethack-esque logic of things doing what might be expected by a mechanism of action, to spells just doing N explicit things.

Not that we ever lived in a world where wearing a blessed ring would result in blessed brawling hits but nostalgia isn't an emotion of accuracy.

---

"Magic has rules and so does posting on these forums." -Annwyl

<<Could be wrong, but I thought Rising mists prevented vivisection from working.>>

HUH? holy craptastic, you are correct!

>prep r m 15
That will disrupt less than a quarter of your current attunement.
You take up a handful of dirt in your palm to prepare the Rising Mists spell. As you whisper arcane words, you gently blow the dust away and watch as it becomes swirling motes of glittering light that veil your hands in a pale aura.
>mana
You have a complete attunement to the mana flowing through this area.
Attunement: [0%>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>50%>>>>>>>>>>>
>cast
You gesture.
A wispy, grey mist silently rises, droplet by droplet.

You flicker your malevolent desires towards Shvartzgonif, summoning invisible blades to strike at him with the merest thought.
You are convinced that your casting went unobserved.

You get a startling sensation, as some sixth sense barely warns you of an assault by Totendanz!
>
You get a startling sensation, as some sixth sense barely warns you of an assault by Totendanz!
>
You get a startling sensation, as some sixth sense barely warns you of an assault by Totendanz!

this shouldn't happen with a 68th necro vs a 45th WM. wow.

---

You've seen life through distorted eyes;You know you had to learn;The execution of your mind;You really had to turn;,the book is read,The end begins to show,The truth is out, the lies are old, But you don't want to know - Black Sabbath

<<You flicker your malevolent desires towards Shvartzgonif, summoning invisible blades to strike at him with the merest thought.
You are convinced that your casting went unobserved.>>

that part was from the necro's perspective, the rest was the wms.
tried casting 3 times, spell finally gave out. even though i used the name correct<my biggest problem when pvp, i usually end up cast or att instead of cast person. :-(>

---

You've seen life through distorted eyes;You know you had to learn;The execution of your mind;You really had to turn;,the book is read,The end begins to show,The truth is out, the lies are old, But you don't want to know - Black Sabbath

>>In short, because I believe Warrior Mages' answer to stealth should be to nuke the area around them until nothing moves and have no real intention of giving them fine-grained tools for stealth.

>Will any of our other spells have the cast area option? Or will we need to take Chain Lightning if we plan on pvping against stealthers?

All WM TM AoEs will at least have 'cast area', 'cast creatures', and 'cast', which will hit everyone, creatures only, and engaged things respectively.

-Z

>>Will any of our other spells have the cast area option? Or will we need to take Chain Lightning if we plan on pvping against stealthers?

>All WM TM AoEs will at least have 'cast area', 'cast creatures', and 'cast', which will hit everyone, creatures only, and engaged things respectively.

We'll have three now, but it'd be nice to have more. We've lost a few AOEs over the years... But that's something more addressed through eventual new spells than the spell conversion. I'd at least like an area-wide AOE cold spell again since there's no mention of a frosty shockwave.... I miss ye old Frostbite.

Actually, no, I just miss its skin bleeders. Those were so awesome.

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"Magic has rules and so does posting on these forums." -Annwyl

Questions:

1. Why is the anti-scry mechanism disappearing from AC?

2. Ethereal Fissure, is the duration going to stay the same or increase?

3. Lightning Bolt, why will this not cause nerve damage? (I know nerve damage really won't count towards much anyways, but it really doesn't make sense getting hit by lightning and having no nerve damage.)

4. Chain Lightning, with the multi-strike(one shot per person) function being taken away, will this spell see an uptweak in accuracy or power?

5. Sun Lance, will this spell be dependant on the Sun in terms of effectiveness?

6. Dragon's Breath, will the messaging change from spitting fireballs to actually exhaling plumes of flame?

7. Would you guys be against making Frostbite have a secondary effect that gives random 1-2 RT? (or is this a 1+1=3 issue?)

8. Will Tremor still cause the caster to be knocked down?

9. Magnetic Ballista, are we going to see a change that doesnt' allow people to use this against us?

10. Paeldryth's Wrath, can we no longer throw naptha at things without contesting our LT skill?

11. Y'ntrel Sechra, what will the armor boosting rate be on this spell, if your ready to give out any specifics yet?

Which would be worse? To live as a monster or to die as a good man?

>>The revised contest struck us as neither particularly beneficial for WMs for the slot cost.

Since you seem to be the new lore master for warmages since that last post on yours about the elemental planes, can you elaborate on terms of lore, how a sphere of Aether doesn't block out scrying or why it did in the first place?

>>Scry immunity is going away entirely.

Is this entirely due to the fact that moon mages can now scry spells on people from far away?


>>I don't think it'd be worth the extra slot

I probably wouldn't pay for an extra slot for nerve damage since it won't be as effectful anymore. Pure speculation since the whole 'mechanism of action' phrase started getting thrown around.

>>We're moving away from "caster gets hit with his own spell" except when we have an especially good reason for it.

Alright, so what's the reasoning behind Magnetic Ballista? (Also, whenever someone is using this spell against someone else, is it using the caster's TM skill regardless of who uses it?)


Which would be worse? To live as a monster or to die as a good man?

>Thus secretive people that aren't very powerful at this point, could be located in their Guilds, like the Necromancers 'Guild', or the Thieves Guild?

You don't think those guilds aren't warded in 18 different ways, plus 6 more for extra precaution?

Who cares about personal protection when you're entire building/warren/purple treehouse is warded.

---

Magic's Death Caraamon Makdasi, Gor'Tog Barbarian
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Blunts for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares

in the case of necros, I've personally seen just how powerful that warding is, from a close-up view. Too close for comfort. :-). And magically it is quite the most powerful thing this side of the world dragon. I have no idea though on how exactly the thieves ward their hidey-holes though. Not being magical and all. Most likely though, its the same thing as private homes use, <at least if you have the privacy nolocate/nofamiliar options turned on>. Doesn't really give you an IC explanation like the Necro guildhall does.

For warmages, i believe the outside of the WM guild is "warded" vs. locates. The guildhall itself is the most likely source of anti-scrying in that case.

---

You've seen life through distorted eyes;You know you had to learn;The execution of your mind;You really had to turn;,the book is read,The end begins to show,The truth is out, the lies are old, But you don't want to know - Black Sabbath

Maybe someone paid a trusted person to setup a ward or possibly there is an unknown relic hidden within to protect against locating?


Wanderer Larze
Guardian Rhamist

---

Spirit dragons ate the lore

Thieves would have magic anti scrye stuff most likely made by a moonie. Barbs would have almhara or some weird antimagic mineral(like how gweths don't work in the citadel, or the WM steel room). Anything else could be planar fluctuations or some past magic disaster screwing up the area.

_________________________________

An old cranky ogre with no legs says, "Naarg wives all this Naarg wives now."

>>Scry immunity is going away entirely.

To be replaced with a spell-slot worthy spell contest? I agree that we probably don't need a spell that does that in this guild. I'm guessing that necromancers may end up with an anti-scry spell at some point that contests the power of the scry to the anti-scry to see if the scrying attempt is successful?

For what it's worth, I believe the old explanation was that it somehow protected from all magical locating, the TM matrix being one form and presumably locating using a similar type of effect to 'target' the person. It always did seem a little odd to me since it didn't quite mesh with the fact that normal spells don't really have a targeted matrix, but I just figured it was one of the attributes of the 'mysterious unexplained magic/physics' that the locate spell pattern had similar 'shape' or some such.

>>It might? I don't think it'd be worth the extra slot, but this is coming up often enough that I may just shrug and let you have the sub-optimal spell.

I'm thinking that nerve damage would be best implemented as a seperate spell. If we're talking about the ability to dial in the combats while hunting, I think that would best be served by an AOE that can be 'cast creatures' and does specifically that.

If we're talking about killing something, and presumably we are with a spell like LB, then I guess it would depend on how many casts it will typically take to kill something 'at level', and how many casts would be saved by lowering their defenses due to nerve damage.

In other words, if it takes 10 casts to kill something in magic/combat 3, and nerve damage builds up to result in only requiring 7 casts, then it would be pretty useful. However, if it only takes 4 casts, there isn't a whole lot of time there to build up nerve damage, and given it has been said that nerve damage is being reduced in effectiveness for the new system then it more than likely won't be worth it.

Packing things into spells like this though brings up a good point. I know that basically any effect in a spell will cost a spell slot (except for a short list of effects not considered powerful enough to cost a slot, like being a light source). However, what is the 'at time of cast' cost, or is there one?

For example, lets say we got rid of all of our buffs and instead replaced them with a single spell that buffs every stat and every skill, each to their max within the sphere of influence limits (and lets ignore the silliness of the concept for a moment). Obviously it would cost well over 50 spell slots, but does such a spell cost more in terms of mana or skill at the time of cast? Would the minimum mana on this spell be set to 100 or the skill to cast be a minimum of 2000 to account for all of the effects, or is there some standard baseline that basically all spells will use (and what parameters would such a baseline use)?

Basically the cost at time of cast would shift where I think our spells should typically fall in terms of effects. If I'm spending the same mana anyway, I'd rather have more things jammed into one spell, even if it meant I had to circle a couple more times to get the additional spell slots to learn the spell in the first place. If it is going to be draining all my mana with each cast, I'd probably prefer more specialized spells. Granted I'd have less spells at any given time, but if I had essentially all the same effects anyway it probably wouldn't make too big a difference except in some cases where you don't necessarily want multiple effects (which is less likely with certain spells, especially those that buff).

>>4. Chain Lightning, with the multi-strike(one shot per person) function being taken away, will this spell see an uptweak in accuracy or power?
>>That's wholly dependant on baselines we haven't finalized yet.

I'm in favor of CL becoming one shot per target, multi-target. I'd rather the spell be more damage oriented than accuracy, which is how the single-shot spells are stated to work. Being only one shot shouldn't lower the damage potential since each spell will have maximum damage potential under the new system. Splitting the attacks will just mean the damage is split (with a net loss to power and a net bonus to accuracy). Considering war mage TM is bound to outpace their defenses (especially with the new TM buff spell), I don't think accuracy will be needed in a spell like this. I'd much rather have it dish out the damage and get the accuracy through skill, buffs, or disabling the opponent (at least for this particular spell).

Also, I'm a little late on the whole perception conversation, but is the 'nuke the area' war mage anti-stealth approach only valid for damaging spells, or could the guild conceivably have a spell that knocks someone out of hiding after the rewrites?

For example, could a cast of tremor that successfully knocks someone in hiding over also knock them out of hiding? If so, could the spell also prevent them from hiding for about 5 to 20 seconds to allow at least another spell to be cast to either hold them in place in the open or take their head off?

As an aside, I don't think it would be a bad thing if anyone knocked out of hiding in the new combat system were forced to stay in the open for at least the length of a couple of attacks. I'm sure lots of people heavily invested in the stealth system would disgree with that point, but I'm of the opinion that it would help to make stealth not inevitably reach the point of be complete immunity for anyone with the survival skillset in a higher tier than you. However, I'd also like to have something that lets me get out of the situation of 'kill or be killed' whenever stealth is involved.

While I do train perception at least as hard as evasion, there really is no way for me to keep up with a survival prime, or even secondary. I'd like some middle ground of interaction between 'be sniped' and 'CL everyone in the face'. I think it would be somewhat similar to the Huldah's Pall situation, where a successful stat contest temporarily blocks out an entire category of abilities (although I guess in the case of Huldah's Pall it actually blocks out basically an entire skillset and does so for minutes rather than seconds so I'm not sure how good the comparison is, especially when not knowing how it will change after the rewrites).


>>The visible Lore and abilities for WMs pretty much consists of an amalgam of whatever people at the time thought would be neat and has absolutely no internal backing of any sort that we can find.

This, along with the one dimensional nature of the guild has been my major complaint for a long time. A little more focus on secondary skills and what they mean to the guild would go a long way in defining what a war mage is supposed to be. The spells and abilities would then preferably be created within the context of that definition.

After seeing the categories of other guilds, the war mage guild seems somewhat flat. When I see so many have some combat oriented group, then a whole bunch of other groups, it just makes the war mage guild only being combat focused seem a bit lackluster. I understand the major role of combat in the game so it doesn't surprise me, but I think it may be time for the guild to branch out a bit, especially when considering the TM spells will now be on par with everyone else and the 'bigger numbers' philosophy is ending.

As an example of some analogous systems, we have bards and their proposed heritages that will allow them to identify with combat, performance, or lore/scholar. Unlike the thief khri, war mage spells aren't divided into thematic trees. In fact quite the opposite, we're being told that we shouldn't be using the elements to help identify our character (or at least if we do, we should expect to be a much less extreme version of a redeemed necro or shocked empath). Necromancer lore allows for multiple lines of identification (redeemed, perverse, or philosopher), which more or less covers any way someone could potentially play their character without being too restrictive. Moon Mages can identify with their sect, and there are a variety of different angles to take there.

The stronger models here I think have to be the Moon Mages, Necromancers, and Bards. They allow a wide variety of play without any major consequences but help guide what it means to be a member of that guild. I could potentially see the war mage guild being broken down into three or more subgroups: one pseudo-religious element focused mage type, one spellsword type combining mundane and magical combat, one lore type focused on magical research and application of magic to crafting in general. That way there is something more to identify with than being a 'fire mage' or a 'storm mage'.

Granted to a large degree it is up to the person to come up with their character's identity, but only giving a list of elements and essentially saying they aren't meant to be the main source of identity for war mages doesn't give people much more to go on than being a commoner. Obviously the guild abilities go far beyond what a commoner can do, but the lack of identity I think is a major contributing factor the lack of cohesiveness in war mage abilities and their nearly exclusive focus on combat.

I guess that is getting a bit off topic though, so maybe I'll start a new thread for it.


-Gandoloth

Just saying combat is pretty broad.

>>What else should the focus be?

Well people complain that there is too much tertiary focus in the war mage guild. I would say given the weapon and lore secondary nature that there should be a significant portion of other things the guild can do outside of combat (weapon representing the combat side and lore indicating they have significant focus elsewhere).

>>Lore? There's lore focused magic prime guilds and a magic focused lore primary guild as well.
>>The Identity of the warrior mage guild IS it's combat focus.

Right, and that is what I believe is holding it back. If we're going to make the claim that this is basically all they do, then there really shouldn't be other guilds doing it with equal caps. However, that doesn't seem to be the direction the game is taking. There really isn't a concept of 'guild turf' anymore so having a hand in a significant portion of the secondary skillsets doesn't seem like it should matter if others already have a focus there.

I think we need to get further away from survival than we already are, and add in a lot more of the lore skillset. There has to be room there to overlap guilds, otherwise we would only have as many 'viable' guilds as there are skillsets to place primary, which clearly isn't how the game is designed.

A war mage naturally will have some aspect of combat that flavors their identity, but it doesn't necessarily need to be so explicit. Wythor was starting to take the guild in a pseudo-religious direction in terms of lore, with respect to their view on the elements and the guild structure. There is room there to make a 'sect' of sort. There is room for the weapon specialists. A guild so focused on physical things, you would think would have an aptitude for crafting items made from the elements they control.

Rather than just be defined as a soldier, I'd like the opportunity to identify more with the research side of the guild, or the blacksmith that uses magic to enhance his craft. Surely a weaponsmith isn't too far fetched a concept in a guild that focuses on war and lore.

Basically, if there is room for a little combat in other guilds, there is room for a little lore in this guild. It doesn't really have to stop there though. For example, the moon mage guild touches on certain groups being more political than others. The identity doesn't have to come exclusively from what the abilities do.

I think the ability to have my character draw erroneous conclusions based on another character's affiliations only helps bring out the roleplay. Over the years he's pegged fire mages down to a given personality (which likely isn't true of everyone that plays them but it makes for a nice conversation when I have him start the accusations). However, we're apparently not supposed to identify with specific elements. I'd like to be able to hear that someone is a 'spellsword' and have my character's reaction be "oh you're one of THOSE" and already be drawing conclusions, in addition to some neat little mostly meaningless flavor abilities/cantrips that support that lore.

>>Just saying combat is pretty broad.

Right, except EVERYONE does combat in one way or another, so it isn't really enough to help create a seperate identity from the other guilds. While it may sound like branching out into lore would only make the guild more like bards, I think it would do exactly the opposite. If implemented in a way that shows the war mage way of doing things, it would only serve to show the differences between the guilds, while still allowing enhanced access to those systems the guild has as secondary.

I'll probably be posting a concept of what I have in mind in another thread today sometime, so I'll ask that you wait for that to see if you think it is too far fetched for the guild. I just don't want to muddy up this thread with the tangent anymore, especially before I get to lay out the concept of what I think it should look like.


-Gandoloth