It looked to me like most of the list had a niche, and I'm not entirely sure what 'watering down' you are referring to that would take away from the guild's identity. Could you please give me specific examples of both issues to work with here?

I could say a lot of things why I think Warrior Mages are cool and have a great niche and make them superior for certain playstyles over Clerics and Moon Mages. I could say the same for Clerics and Moon Mages over Warrior Mages.

But that's as it should be.

Guild choice is an intensely personal decision and I think it's one also best found out for yourself. If you find yourself pining for Moon Mage or Cleric (or Thief or Paladin or whatever) stuff, then it's a sign you should roll one and try it out. Especially after Magic 3.0 comes out. You'll either figure out that you love it and want to stay, or you'll understand what it is that Warrior Mages have and the others don't get.

-Z

>>Can't you just split the wound damage or something?

Not a necessarily bad idea, but a fairly risky one in terms of spell desirability. It'd make Electrical attacks suck at anything except where the nerve damage ride on is desirable -- which, again, isn't necessarily the wrong choice.

-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

>>Can't you just split the wound damage or something?

>>Not a necessarily bad idea, but a fairly risky one in terms of spell desirability.

Not to speak out of turn here, but might it not be more sensible to make a TM spell designed specifically to strike at the target's nervous system? One electrical spell that splits its wounds between a tiny bit of external damage (for realism's sake; honestly though, it is magic, so it could do no external damage, really), and a majority of nerve damage. That way, if getting their nerves is what you want, you've got a specific way to do it. Call it Taser of Trothfang or just make it the new form of Static Discharge (with a less silly name), or something.

Seems logical, just thought I'd toss it out there.

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Ogdaro
From the chrysalis's manifold and disparate streams of consciousness, you infer that, upon maturing, it will claim its makers as its first sacrifices to the All-Seeing.

>Taser of Trothfang

I want one.

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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

>>If you can't answer why someone should pick the warrior mage guild, I don't see why you are designing for the guild. No not being rude, being serious. If you don't personally have a concept of why someone should pick a warrior mage to be, you are probably just making changes to make changes to fit in with the magic 3.0. That is not really acceptable, we need someone to be designing things to sure fit in 3.0 but be a great concept for the guild.

Wow, way to over react to something completely in your head. Go back and read what was asked, and what Z said. No where did he say He didn't know why someone would join the WM guild.

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TG, TG, GL, et al.
Also: Moo.

<<Worrclan: If I blanket an area in apocalyptic nuclear winter death with a spell and your hiding behind a tree... you should survive? Yeah ok whatever. Its more about game play than sphere of influence, if I can blanket an area with soul crushing death that destroys everything around me including the landscape... why can't I try to target just part of the area?


Yeah and if you cast ice patch on a river you should be able to walk across it instead of having to swim. If a climb is too hard you should be able to construct your own less difficult mountain to climb and OH WAIT, this is exactly the sort of thing they're trying to get away from by removing shift moonbeam. Your magic is supposed to aid you, not make survival skills useless.

If you're using fire rain/chain lightning to substitute for perception, then we might as well let ice patch take over for swimming, no?

Are you guys picturing like a TM vs. hiding check? Or just a flat out, 'hey I nuked the area, no skillcheck needed the other guy is just dead'. Trying to wrap my mind around where you guys are coming from.

>>As tentatively designed, it's gone.

I feel I need to express my completely happy friendly cuddly smoochy disdain for this factoid in the nicest possible way. I do not like this because I really enjoy the fact that nerve damage is the best way I know to climb the multi ladder while taking the least possible amount of damage.

Please reconsider and give us an electrical spell SPECIFICALLY designed to fry nerves - IE: Static Discharge.


"None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!" - Rorschach

>>GMs have said countless times before that if you're smart you'll use stealth in the game to actually be sneaky and not let someone know you're there to begin with. If they know you're there they have access to AOE attacks which will nuke everything in the room, including you.

Correct. It is entirely intentional that room-wide AoEs hit people that are hidden and invisible. If you do not want to be hit by an AoE, do not give the Warrior Mage a reason to douse the room with napalm.

Regarding policy issues: first, I'd like to give a nod of appreication that the thread has taken the conservative approach here. Good stance for both the ethic and practical considerations of fair play.

First, there is no intention to give Warrior Mages a "cast hidden" option, the three options Warrior Mage TM spells will have are: CAST (affects engaged only), CAST AREA (affects everybody except the caster), CAST CREATURES (affects all NPCs in the room, but no PCs). Some guilds will have fewer options than this; for example, all Necromancer AOEs will only allow CAST AREA functionality.

Now, policy. What does it mean to wield a AOE attack for PvP?

First, let's quote NEWS 5 24.

"Area Effect -- There are a variety of processes in place that will affect everyone in a room when utilized -- not only spells, but Barbarian roars and Bardic enchantes. If you happen to walk into an area effect, you do NOT have consent against the person who is the source. If one is used for the EXPRESS INTENT of harming you and/or everyone in the room, then that CAN give consent against the caster/singer/roarer."

If you launch an AoE in the room, you have the express intent of harming everyone in the room, and grant them all consent. Beyond this, there's a good question of "Is it PvP w/o consent to harm an innocent bystander?"

The SGM ruling currently is that it is only a policy violation is you knowingly launch the AoE into an area with innocent people. And we define knowing by "if they are visible in the room." Launching an AoE attack into a room and accidentally hitting an innocent person in stealth is consent, but not against policy UNLESS UNDER INVESTIGATION WE DECIDE THAT WAS YOUR INTENT, IN WHICH CASE YOUR ASS IS GRASS FOR ATTEMPTING TO PLAY THE POLICY GAME.

Caveat: this may change over the course of time, I am only stating what policy is now, as is being handed down to me from on high. It is the player's responsibility to keep up to date with the rules of the game, especially when they approach edge cases.

Now, this does prevent (or seriously jeopardize) a Warrior Mage from using an AoE in a crowded area to smoke out hiders -- but that's intentional, too. You give up your finesse as part of the give and take of having the option to completely circumvent the stealth system and skip straight to the murdering.

-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

I'm curious, how will our Familiar's defense work? TM will control their attacks, but will govern their defense skill? Will it be based on our defenses, or our TM? Also, what happens if the familiar is killed? Does the talisman shatter? Are we still going to be using talismans?


Elemental Lord Opieus, Expert Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer

>it being as easy to 'dance' with 4 creatures as it is to dance with 1 creature in any circums

The intent of Combat 3.0 is four creatuers should not be a normal state. If you're hunting at level, four creatures are supposed to wipe the floor with you. Three creatures are supposed to be scary.


Elemental Lord Opieus, Expert Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer

>>This is the plight we are faced with exactly, not being able to use your strengths in combat without harming other people, using the 'nuke them' option. Currently this is the only option we have against stealthers, with survival tertiary we cannot keep our perception up to par to scout them out and with being armor tertiary it's hard to defend against attacks you cannot see.

WAI (Working As Intended.)

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TG, TG, GL, et al.
Also: Moo.

>>This is the plight we are faced with exactly, not being able to use your strengths in combat without harming other people, using the 'nuke them' option. Currently this is the only option we have against stealthers, with survival tertiary we cannot keep our perception up to par to scout them out and with being armor tertiary it's hard to defend against attacks you cannot see.

Why would the only option against a stealther be to nuke in a crowded room? It seems to me that if you'd just move a room first this whole thing becomes a non-issue.

>>Alot of instances, that's exactly where combat takes place amongst players. I think the real issue here is to move players away from fighting in town, not only out of respect to people who don't want to see that kind of thing but to also avoid these types of issues.

But it doesn't HAVE to take place in the crowded room.

This complaint is starting to sound less like 'We don't have good anti-stealth options' and more like 'We don't have good anti-stealth options when we stand around dueling at the hangout spot.' imo.

>>I don't know if you actually just read my post, but that's exactly what I hinted towards.

I've read two of your posts so far and still haven't read an explanation for why the fights have to take place in these player crowded rooms.

I maintain that you could just change rooms and the whole thing becomes a non-issue.

>>I don't know if you actually just read my post, but that's exactly what I hinted towards. Though, potentially if a warrior mage is fighting within the town limits, they are at risk with harming other people accidentally, getting charged with endangering the public. This is also an issue during invasions with the 'nuke-them' option.

This falls under Armifer's point about intelligent use of magic. If I'm trying to kill you, you can always move away from people/out of a justice area. If you're trying to kill me, I have better options for hiding out than choosing a crowded room.

This doesn't even cover the fact that you CAN defend against attacks you can't see. Just ask Marsais, who blocked a handful of my shots the other night, despite not seeing me before I shot.

There's an inherent disadvantage for WMs in PvP due to all the relevant defense skills being tert for us so you just have to work harder then everyone else. I know it's easy to say just train perception but as tert you can never efficiently train it to the point where it's going to be your primary defense against stealthers.

Thus you have to make offense your best defense and this seems to be the GM intention for the guild as well and that's how it's always been. It's silly to say that WM's aren't differentiated from moon mages and clerics in this regard but i do think that there's a legitimate concern that once the changes roll out the "just nuke everything" option won't work as well as intended.

>>Ball Lightning:
>>Candidate for Removal due to obsolescence. We're not totally against keeping it but we have other spell we think people will generally like better.

I have an interesting idea on how to rewrite ball lightning into something else. Rather than function in its current form it will take on something similar to a combination to how it works now, sls, and fireball.

When you cast the spell it will summon the lightning ball, you then point it towards an enemy. It will begin to slowly roll towards the target (much like sls), at each engagement range it will randomly attack a target engaged with you. It will continue to do this until it reaches "melee" or in SLS terms "very close" after which it will detonate on the target causing massive damage.

In this way it will act as a pulse aoe and single target damage hybrid.

_______________________
As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.
-John Milton

zombie vs familiar fights!

in this corner....its the rotting flesh madman of dirge! in the other, a blue-pawed gerbil!


and its.... what's that avenger doing with that blade? its getting out of the ring, no, its advancing.... wait, there's a shadowling that just dropped in out of a moongate... they're ALL in there. Ladies and Gentleman, its a free-for-all...

and a mammoth-driven caravan just ran over the whole bunch. A trader caravan just won the grand wresting match! What a match, ladies and gentleman! The house is in an uproar!

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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