Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages

[Erythil]

By the way:  I would like to see the return of summon, but as a purely voluntary spell.  You must consent to be summoned.  Turn it into utility.

[Harmless]

being able to dispel your own magick without being a <redacted> constitutes a massive buff to mages' ability to hide their nature and hence a massive boost to playability. Likewise taking away nil reach will lead to some silly OOC driven behavior. the spell tree revolves around the ability to practice. Practicing is not without risk, particularly with all the <redacted> roaming the gameworld. Taking away nil without something to compensate would be a massive nerf.

I think shit is fine and see no reason to change anything except for continuing economic rebalancing. I would like the 90/100 components in game that currently serve as nothing more than trinkets to have more use somehow as well but I am not upset by it.

[Nergal]

There are a couple of caveats to the side-argument here that magickers use their power too often to grief, or to mess with mundanes unprovoked, etc.:

1) The power and potential of magickers is intentional, and has been adjusted over the years - most recently, with breaking down sorcery into subguilds. There are more changes to come.

2) The amount of karma you have has a direct relationship to how much staff expect you to enforce the tenets of the game world as well as have OOC consideration for others. The game world states what a magicker's place in the game world is. It is up to all players - but especially the player of a magicker - to enforce that by RPing the fear and/or revulsion that goes through people's heads. It is up to the player of a magicker to weigh the benefits of messing with a grebber for no reason (fear me!) against the drawbacks (discovered by society) and RP accordingly. Also, if a magicker player is killing PCs and RPing the reasoning and/or putting in PK reports, we look at those. If a magicker is killing multiple PCs and we don't know why, because we missed the RP that went around the kill, we might ask them to start putting in those reports to explain what's going on. The saying "with great power comes great responsibility" is especially true in this case. That is not to say that griefing does not happen, but it is exceedingly rare these days.

[MeTekillot]

There are more changes to come.

I hope this does not mean there will be a further decrease in magickal power available to players.

[Harmless]

So do I, given how my last magicker died like a 0 day noob. (edited to add: despite having been many, many more days played than that)

[wizturbo]

There are more changes to come.

I hope this does not mean there will be a further decrease in magickal power available to players.

Ditto.  It feels like a fraction of what was available over the last 10 years already, and sometimes it feels like a very meager fraction.  I'm already starting to feel like the setting of Zalanthas has changed for the worse because of this.  Magick is supposed to be a powerful, and attainable, force in the world.  Because of that it is hated, feared, and often times hunted down to prevent it from getting out of control.

It feels like the "attainable" part of the equation is severely hampered by changes over the years.

[BadSkeelz]

Kudos to that 1day newb. Khorne salutes you.

[Eyeball]

By the way:  I would like to see the return of summon, but as a purely voluntary spell.  You must consent to be summoned.  Turn it into utility.

That would be easy. Just make it only work when nosave magick is on.

[Nergal]

There are more changes to come.

I hope this does not mean there will be a further decrease in magickal power available to players.

On the contrary. I was referring to this:

Sorcerer subguilds changes. Sorcerer subguilds will be beefed up accordingly based on staff feedback.
Owners:  Adhira, Nessalin, support/collaboration with Seidhr

[MeTekillot]

Good. . . goooood. . .

[Dresan]

I like mundanes, but I like the additional danger of deadly mages roaming the wilderness sometimes.

I don't think any mundane should be able to go toe to toe with any prepared mage and live....for very long.

At the same time though, I don't think a mage should be able to walk up to a 30/40 day warrior/ranger prepared or not, and be able to one shot them without any effort after only a couple days played. In the same way <blankity blank blank: edited by Delirium>, I would still love to see very high defense give a chance to dodge/block certain spells. Also certain materials should provide more protection against certain magickal effects, allowing someone with enough sid to afford a better chance to resist a spell.

Again this doesn't mean a warrior/ranger will be able to fight and kill a prepared mage, but equally it shouldn't be an easy thing for a prepared mage to find an old vet in the desert and kill him without at least a little bit more effort then your usual 1 day old grebber. That way when a mage does kill a old 50 day old warrior, then the warrior did something wrong like stay and put up a fight after being attacked, or the mage had to do something right or just get really lucky.

[MeTekillot]

Might wanna remove some of those magick function specifics boss

[Delirium]

I moderated a post; y'all should know better. Keep the magic specifics (wrong or right) out of this thread. Thanks!

[Dre]

 Late

[Dresan]

Yeah, you are right. My bad.

The idea still stands though, and who knows adding defensive abilities like that might give people the incentives to try RP that doesn't involve utter avoidance or kill on sight.

[MeTekillot]

What RP would defense against magick for mundanes (more than there already is) add that isn't kill on sight? Only mostly kill on sight?

[BadSkeelz]

Offer to dick them good and hard.

[MeTekillot]

Do you not already? I've got, like, two sorcerers' worth of Elementalist mudsex under my belt.

[Erythil]

Being able to spend an inordinate amount of money on an item that would serve as temporary (and partial) protection against magic might be an interesting coin sink.

[musashi]

I am squarely in Nergal (and I think staff at large)'s camp in this matter:

1) The power and potential of magickers is intentional, and has been adjusted over the years - most recently, with breaking down sorcery into subguilds. There are more changes to come.

So I'm not keen on making up new ways for mundane PC's to cancel out the dangers of magick.

Making the quest to master magick more challenging for the mages themselves however, I'm in support of.

I happen to think that in making it more challenging for mages to attain their full potential a byproduct will be less enormously powerful mages in game and that will in turn mean players who like low fantasy over high fantasy will likely benefit as they would encounter less players able to smite them in a single blow ... ... but that's not why I'm in favor of it.

I get that Armageddon is high fantasy, and I enjoy that. But to use the same D&D analogy that was used a bit earlier in this thread ...

I don't have a problem that mages are a selectable class you can play in this campaign setting ... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else? That doesn't seem right.

[Pale Horse]

I am squarely in Nergal (and I think staff at large)'s camp in this matter:

1) The power and potential of magickers is intentional, and has been adjusted over the years - most recently, with breaking down sorcery into subguilds. There are more changes to come.

So I'm not keen on making up new ways for mundane PC's to cancel out the dangers of magick.

Making the quest to master magick more challenging for the mages themselves however, I'm in support of.

I happen to think that in making it more challenging for mages to attain their full potential a byproduct will be less enormously powerful mages in game and that will in turn mean players who like low fantasy over high fantasy will likely benefit as they would encounter less players able to smite them in a single blow ... ... but that's not why I'm in favor of it.

I get that Armageddon is high fantasy, and I enjoy that. But to use the same D&D analogy that was used a bit earlier in this thread ...

I don't have a problem that mages are a selectable class you can play in this campaign setting ... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else? That doesn't seem right.

I was going to post a big long post about how I find myself agreeing with the magicker changes, still have some wistful regret about not being able to play an old sorcerer, how I was first attracted to Armageddon for the blatant and unapologetic power that magick could bring, blah blah blah...

But instead, I'll just post all of that like I just said. 

I like that magick is a swift rise to power (join the Dark Side!).  It is unfair.  That there is something of reality IG to resent or seek after just makes more interesting stories, to me.

I am well aware that not everyone likes that.  I am also aware, and agree with, that the game does not get to exclusively cater to my personal brand of entertainment.  But I do like having the option open for "pathways to unspeakable power" for those who may want to take them.

More options.  Make 'em difficult, make 'em hard to get as musashi has said he advocates, but keep them there.

[musashi]

More options.

For sure. Speaking as a player who has had a mage character receive special magickal X & Y that doesn't normally branch for anyone's standard spell list ... it was awesome.

I wish mundanes had some of that love too, like unique fighting styles for warriors or really exotic mounts for rangers, etc.

They might well ... I've played a few long lived mundanes, but never any "legendary" ones.

But the custom "not everyone gets this" quirks that can be codedly added to your character is an awesome cookie for long lived people who have done a lot.

[Pale Horse]

More options.

For sure. Speaking as a player who has had a mage character receive special magickal X & Y that doesn't normally branch for anyone's standard spell list ... it was awesome.

I wish mundanes had some of that love too, like unique fighting styles for warriors or really exotic mounts for rangers, etc.

They might well ... I've played a few long lived mundanes, but never any "legendary" ones.

But the custom "not everyone gets this" quirks that can be codedly added to your character is an awesome cookie for long lived people who have done a lot.

Word.

I can remember drooling, as a player, over the "status boosts" that some "legendary" mundanes had in the past, with things like exotic mounts, abilities out of the norm, etc.

One of my favorite things I can recall hearing years ago with a character was listening to an old PC tell how they'd gotten a group together to try to capture and tame a "thing of unusual size."

Also, "certain-northern-riding-beasts," which I am not sure are common knowledge.  Those were pretty exciting to see, IG.

[bardlyone]

... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else?

For the same reason people constantly bitch about wanting something like it for raiders. Because people will be trying to kill you literally the moment you step out of character generation.

[musashi]

... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else?

For the same reason people constantly bitch about wanting something like it for raiders. Because people will be trying to kill you literally the moment you step out of character generation.

At best that's an argument in favor of level 6, 7, & 8 karma roles but it's very hyperbolic to say of a gemmed or tribal mage.

However, we don't care that everyone is trying to kill (or capture and thus force store) a mul straight out of chargen. We chalk that up to being one of the challenges of the role. Granted muls have a lot more out the box coded punch than a mage does ... but a psion doesn't, and while I may be wrong ... I don't think they have a way to safely branch out their whole skill tree as compensation for the fact that everyone wants them dead. So I find the answer utterly un-compelling.

Edit to add: My answer to that would be the same answer I give to would be raider PC's ... apply for the skill bumps your karma can afford you to make the character as survivable as staff have given you leeway to do, and you should be good.