Penalty to sorcerers and subguild elementalists

[Dresan]

2.  To help alleviate powerful combat / magick combinations, sorcerers will codedly have a reduction in the max of all combat, weapon, and stealth skills they can achieve.  For combat and weapon it is a fairly significant cap reduction and is relative to the class (i.e. it's percentage based).  For example, a raider who could achieve "high" master in a combat skill will now max at "low advanced".  Stealth skills (climb, hide, sneak) have a reduction, but to a lesser extent.  More along the lines of going from "high" master to "high" advanced.  You can still branch in all cases.

This was also applied to subguild mages which I applaud.

The penalties sound impactful on paper but don't really seem to be much when you consider them in context to the game.

For example, I doubt people play raiders for their wilderness stealth skills. If you are playing a stealth class, 15 percent doesn't really hurt you completely. It might screw you over a bit more if you are an infiltrator but it basically makes you close to the old version infiltrator class. No magic empowered max backstab at least. Less parry and shield_use is a bit of a pain but very usable so is high advanced bash, disarm and kick, charge.  Oh yeah, high master to high advanced weapon skills arent levels even most regular classes reach.


This might be an unpopular idea but perhaps that percentage could go up a bit more so it feels a bit more impactful to anyone who isn't going to be twinking their combat skills to max.

[Armaddict]

Wow, you ARE a savage! xD

I think 30% is a pretty substantial hit, though it is indeed circumstantial; a 15% nerf to in-city stealth is a much bigger deal than out of city stealth since wilds npc's are much more binary in their stealth detection than when you use it in the city, where it is...largely geared towards adaptable, aware PCs.  15% off of maximum stealth in the city is a major game-change.  15% in the wilds is impactful, but less so aside from far rarer scenarios.

However, in the city, 30% off of combat skills is less impactful, since combat within the city is far rarer.  You often train within cities, where you will notice it, but for a long time, combat has been far less prevalent in city streets.  In the desert, 30% off of maximums for combat skills is far more noticeable.

In all those cases, it is not necessarily an incentive, but a chosen sacrifice; you are like a magus in Pathfinder, or a Fighter/Mage in classic DnD.  You have sacrificed some BAB for spells, and sacrificed some spells for BAB, weaker in both, but able to use both to bolster and try to make up for it in different ways.  In the city, combat is more likely to occur in alleys and private, where spellcraft is not going to get you instagibbed.  But it DOES make you take risks of discovery, and overall I think that's the main gist of what I wanted out of any change.  It isn't that they can't be strong.  It's that they can't be that strong and so easily keep it secret.

It's already faced a fair degree of pushback from generally reasonable people, so I think before pushing the envelope we should probably see what impact it has on the whole scenario.  Maybe it needs to be dialed up.  Maybe it needs to be dialed DOWN.  We kind of need to see the impact before we double down on it.

[Bogre]

I'm severely against this change. I'm not sure why it's necessary to just make entire characters that much markedly worse. It makes even playing those classes decidedly less appealing when you can't escape ANY of the classes getting nerfed just to have access to some spells of situational or dubious utility. And the best thing about them was the varied opportunities and ways to build them - you could play a real character, not having to rely just on magick, and have a rich character/flavor/etc. I hate playing mages just to sit around and try to fill out the magick spell list, which is why the aspects appealed to me a lot. Now you will always be faced with them being a much worse version of whatever they were before, or worse than every character around them in 90% of situations.

 I'm not sure what the problem is that is trying to be fixed - that too many players played mages? Well - it sounds like the majority of the subclasses will now be special app gated, which does a great deal to fix that. Were they felt to be too strong when linked to the tier 1 combat classes? I think a better fix would just be to restrict them from being  raiders, enforcers or fighters and still allow them to be capable at what they choose to do. Is the problem that too many people were being PVP'd by subguild mages? Never my experience, I've been ganked way more by players with access to crim-code or incriminate or karma races like mul/etc. Again - changing the classes won't really change player behavior, if anything it will just make them that much more quick to jump to the 'F you get annihilated' spell, which means they'll just grind til they have it. Addressing problem players is a better way there. This is just telling characters that they shouldn't knife fight anymore because they should just use their bazooka.

Roughly speaking, a blanket percentage nerf like this will take probably 600ish total points of skill ceiling away from tier 1 combat class subclass mages, about 450 from tier 2, and 300 from tier 3. None of this is really decreasing the LETHALITY of any of these classes, which is the major problem. Since the offensive skills aren't as much effected (master vs advanced in weapon skills when the game barely allows you to get journeyman), you'll still have people able to blitz in PVP. But it makes the characters much worse in PVE to gith or spider beep-squads, failing a hide/sneak check and getting deleted, or players trying to gank you with shitty methods too. Which really sucks when you have spent a lot of effort on a concept, character, AND a special application. And the magick aspects are VERY situational to make up for that.

Mundane subguilds typically add something like 4-5 skills from master to advanced PLUS bonuses to non skill things PLUS a stat boost. So now, compared to mundanes (unnerfed class + subguild) and full elementalists (who get a full subguild) you have a character that has between 600-900 fewer skill points available, 1 less stat point, a situational and sometimes typically terrible spell list (sarcasm: those Krathi Agony and Nilaz Anathema aspects were really dominant and game-breaking out there) which is gated behind sometimes MAX KARMA and A SPECIAL APPLICATION. You still have all of the 'you get to be kill/gem on sight' downsides. Oh and if you aren't the type of player who skillmaxed everything before and burned through charactess, you have no idea of what's on the spell list and if your entire concept will fall flat on the face or not. Like why are the aspect subguilds subject to the same  as SORCERERS?

In summary - I think this does very little to hamper feels-bad PK and PVP, increases the feels-bad deaths to NPCs or gank-PVP for those playing mages, increases the pressure to spam-cast to make up for the deficiencies, decreases the potential enjoyment of a character and the world significantly, decreasing interest in exploring character concepts and builds. In short, it adds very little for what it takes away from players and characters.

[Armaddict]

I haven't seen anywhere that it was posited that was was specifically for PvP balancing, which is what you seem to be weighting most of that on.  If the specific instance was too powerful for PvE scaling, for example, that would make everything you just typed an affirmation of the change rather than a detriment.

The main complaints that I saw fielded against mages were:
1) They are too powerful (I believe this is where your pvp perspective came from).
2) There are too many of them.
3) Subguild mages are so good that there's very little reason to choose other subguilds.

I believe 1 and 2 are just different phrasing for 3.  So the change was based on creating a sacrifice for choosing that subguild.  There are a variety of impacts that could have, but they are not guaranteed.  However, it does seem to be an attempt at creating some of them:

1) Subguild mages are still powerful, but will have increased reliance on their magick.  This makes it a bit more of a challenge to keep it hidden since more frequent use is likely.
2) Subguild mages are still powerful, but not as powerful as solo characters as they were.  This makes it more sensible to try and work with groups, teams, or find social connections to assist, which again increases chance of discovery.  In the case it's not a secret, then it makes it more likely they have to withstand the social drawbacks of playing a mage.
3) Subguild mages are still powerful but are more vulnerable to a death that a mundane would not suffer, but less vulnerable to other deaths that a mundane would suffer. 

All three of these seem to be weighted towards what I believe Halaster said in discord was the specific goal, which was to cut down on their number as 'the standard character' and make them more specially suited.  They are done with consideration and a role in mind, rather than just being a better mundane.

It remains to be seen what the actual impact of this will be, but I think your current train of thought seems to be weighting the wrong things.  I don't believe this was a change based around making them less powerful in PvP, I believe that it was to make them less of a trump card over their mundane counterparts.

As I said in discord, pretty much every mainstay RPG where there is class and skill selection creates some drawback for hybridizing via weapon and armor restrictions, decreases in reliability, lower skill cap in each of their hybridized areas, or something of that nature.  It's very unusual, from a game design perspective, for a hybrid to be safer than the pure classes they mix while fully performing the same roles.

[Roon]

-30% to combat skills is a gigantic hit. While I'm glad something is being done about the overpowered hybrids, this nerf feels like an overcorrection. It basically puts heavy combat classes at the level of the mixed classes (miscreant, stalker, laborer). It takes you from the highest possible peak of combat skill, to the bottom of advanced. You basically lose two full levels of skill. A -15% to combat skills would have sufficed. That's approximately one tier on the class scale.

The light combat classes (infiltrator, scout, soldier) will be comically bad. Their combat skills will be less than the mixed classes, and their stealth skills will be at or below subclass level. There won't be any point playing them at all. You would be far better off going full elementalist with a mundane subclass.

The mixed classes will be entirely incapable of combat, capping their skills so low that there's no reason to even attempt to make use of them. Meanwhile, their stealth skills will also be below that of mundane infiltrators and scouts. Again, hard to see much reason to go for this. You could have got comparable stealth skills with a subclass, and then you get to be a full-fledged mage instead of limiting yourself to one of the subclass magic categories.

For the most part, I see very little reason to play the elementalist subclasses now. If this change had come before full elementalists returned and mundane subclasses were buffed, it might have been fair to nerf hybrids this hard. But when you have the option to just go full mage with a mundane subclass that gets one or two masters and a slew of advanced skills, that's just going to be a much better character.

Maybe if it was harder to detect the magic subclasses with that one method that you can't really protect yourself against, that could be an argument for going hybrid even with their totally obliterated skillsets. It would make sense as well that people who can better hide their nature are more likely to have lived a life that would give them a skillset that could pass for any regular person, while those who can be detected with THAT ONE METHOD can't easily live amongst ordinary folk.

[Lizzie]

I'm not sold on a 30% reduction in combat skills for a main guild, if you choose a magick subguild. I think it's a bit much. But I am sure that a reduction is necessary, and hope that once things get moving in-game, the staff will adjust as needed. We'll see.

Meanwhile, that 30% reduction won't really have an impact at all on merchant-heavy guilds.

[Dresan]

Originally the mage subclasses were designed for warrior and ranger guilds, not the classes we have today.

The more I have read people's thoughts in this thread the more i think its not enough. I am not really sold that this is a huge impact to anyone but the few who want to play infiltrators and go the magickal backstab route. But to Armaddicts point, i am willing to wait and see.

[Roon]

The more I have read people's thoughts in this thread the more i think its not enough.

Not enough? What, should the penalties be so big that your skills cap at apprentice and low journeyman? Calling such an incredibly heavy-handed nerf "not enough" comes off as weirdly vindictive, like what you really want is for the aspect subclasses to be removed entirely.

I am not really sold that this is a huge impact to anyone but the few who want to play infiltrators and go the magickal backstab route.

The impact is going to be enormous. You know the mixed classes, which are only just barely capable of meaningful combat in their mundane state? That is now the limit for any aspect character, even if you pick a heavy combat class. As is subclass-level stealth for the would-be master stealth classes, who also become so inept at combat that they don't even really count as combat characters.

If that's the desired outcome, fair enough--but that is the outcome. Can't just handwave it away and arbitrarily decide that it only affects "magical backstabbers." Can't just choose to believe that it won't have the effects that we know it'll have. It's simple math.

I'm pretty sure these characters will suck. Compared to a full elementalist with a synergistic subclass, a hybrid character gives up like two thirds of their element's spells in exchange for... a handful of skills at journeyman and low advanced? The mundane subclasses are so robust these days. Look at something like swordsman. That's pretty much on par with a fighter at -30% skills, getting all the skills that really matter, and then you get to be a full elementalist on top. Hell, the swordsman very likely has higher caps in its skills than a fighter does with these aspect penalties.

A -15% to combat skills would have been more reasonable. That's still a hell of a lot of power to give up for what is typically no more than 3-4 actually useful spells and a bunch of largely useless filler.

As it stands, I would go so far as to say that the touched subclasses are now better than the aspects. They typically get at least a couple of highly useful spells, and even some mundane skills at subclass level. I would take that and an unnerfed class over an aspect with these staggering penalties.

Calling these penalties not enough seems silly. I wonder what you had in mind. -50%?

[Armaddict]

Calling these penalties not enough seems silly. I wonder what you had in mind. -50%?

For me personally, I'm not really sure what to expect here.  I don't expect the classes to be gimped, I expect that they will be more versatile than full mages with subclasses but with comparable combat skills IF the full guild mage chooses a weapon-skill subclass.  That is to say that they get a full mundane skillset, with partial spell subset, rather than a full spell skillset with partial mundane skillset.

I do think this might be a little on the heavy side, but I'm really, truly unsure what to really expect here until we get feedback, and not just 'this sucks' feedback, but in-depth feedback.  Someone trying to play it the way they functioned before and saying it doesn't work doesn't mean this change isn't working, since the idea is that they will work differently.  I will say, however, that it is easier to go heavy on the first iteration, then tone it down, rather than start light and increase it, because otherwise we get 2-4 bad interactions (nerfs) vs 1 bad interaction (big nerf) and 1-3 good interactions (nerfing the nerf).

Personally, for my stated goals of subguild mages, I would have tied in spellcasting with the watch skill; make spellcasting EXTREMELY noticeable, so that without watching a direction, you have an extremely high chance of 'You notice: ' messages for spellcasting and spellcasting effects.  Magick is always going to be strong, and should always be strong, but to compensate, I just want them to face additional dangers that mundanes do not need to, and the first step to that is to make it very difficult to avoid the social parts of being a mage.

That and make the wilderness hard so you can't just avoid all the places that will give you bad effects.

[Halaster]

I'm pretty sure these characters will suck. Compared to a full elementalist with a synergistic subclass, a hybrid character gives up like two thirds of their element's spells in exchange for... a handful of skills at journeyman and low advanced?

Don't forget the gain rate of skills.  Full guild elementalists have the slowest (worst) gain rate of combat skills than anyone.  Worse than heavy mercantile.  And gain rate is determined by your class.  Your full guild / swordsman may have the potential to get to pretty high levels of slashing, but that's going to be incredibly slow and painful.

[Roon]

I'm pretty sure these characters will suck. Compared to a full elementalist with a synergistic subclass, a hybrid character gives up like two thirds of their element's spells in exchange for... a handful of skills at journeyman and low advanced?

Don't forget the gain rate of skills.  Full guild elementalists have the slowest (worst) gain rate of combat skills than anyone.  Worse than heavy mercantile.  And gain rate is determined by your class.  Your full guild / swordsman may have the potential to get to pretty high levels of slashing, but that's going to be incredibly slow and painful.

Sure, but in my experience, that's only really an issue for defense. Offense and weapon skills will go up fine until you stop missing, even with classes that have shit gain rates, and will probably plateau well before the cap regardless. If you do have the rare luxury of sparring against someone who you could max out on, it's also pretty easy when you don't even need to go all the way to master. Defense is the only real concern, and I'd call that a small tradeoff for having access to all of your element's spells instead of just whatever aspect you'd pick.

Many combat skills don't use gain rate at all, and offense/weapons are bottlenecked by the inability to miss attacks long before gain rate becomes a concern. When you look at how handicapped the combat classes will be with the aspect penalty, a higher gain rate isn't much compensation. If anything, the low starting offense of elementalist classes is a greater benefit to raising weapon skills.

Having somewhat higher defense barely helps when your raider has the parry skill of a miscreant, and worse still if you chose a light combat class. I will take access to all of an element's spells over that any day. I think -30% to combat skills is far too steep a cost.

The problem with gain rates is that everyone sort of converges. High gain rates might get you to the point of convergence faster, but then you're the one who gets nothing out of your training. Since having less offense/defense also increases your chance to gain, there's a built-in "catch-up mechanic" that makes it so even the classes with low gain rates aren't left in the dust. The less you have, the faster you gain, and the classes with low gain rates just don't appear to be hindered significantly. They might be a little bit behind, but honestly, not very much. It's a natural product of the "have less = gain more" design philosophy.

Defense is the only one that even bears thinking about because you can always force failures, but that ends up being a pretty small portion of your character's power if you also have a full array of any given elementalist's spells to add to your arsenal. Defense is great for full mundanes who rely wholly on raw combat prowess for every facet of their survival. For a full-blown mage with every spell available to their element... meh.

And when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty of it, at least two of the elementalist classes have spells that let them take so many hits that it easily makes up for a lower gain rate on defense. While their associated aspect subclasses can also get those spells, that tends to lock you into a "pure protection" grouping of spells, whereas a full elementalist gets everything, including the omegapwn bomb spells.

As far as mundane combat skills go, parry is by far the most important. Losing 30% of your cap is a gargantuan blow to your lifelong potential. It turns a raider into a stalker, by and large. You lose two entire tiers on the class spectrum. Having a bit more in the hidden defense skill doesn't come even slightly close to compensating for this when it's held up against the alternative that was available to you: every spell for your element. That's a lot to give up for... higher gain rates, and mostly just in defense, because you will reach the point of "nothing can dodge me anymore" regardless of class and that invalidates the value of better gain rates in offense and weapon skills. It's the age-old problem of bottlenecking everything behind hard failures.

If we imagined that mages could easily join the clans that enjoy a daily sparring schedule, maybe there would be merit to the idea of better gain rates. This is just not the case. Mages of any type are almost always forced to get their combat training from fighting NPCs, and unless you go to some heinous lengths with your skillgrinding, there is a hard limit on how good you can get. That limit occurs before your gain rates are relevant. If it takes a few more days of play for a full elementalist, that's a very small price to pay.

[Master Color]

Having actually played a dangerous sorcerer (pre change to sorcerers), these feel like some very strange decisions that put them back to into the unplayable territory they had to endure from 2015-2019.

[Roon]

If the changes are to stand, I think they become a lot more reasonable if the -30% to combat skills does not apply to parry. Of all the combat skills, this is the the tier-defining one. I think it's fair enough to limit the weapon skills, backstab, archery and so on for characters with the aspect subclasses, but tanking their parry skill by this much just makes them suck. Make an exemption for that one.

[mansa]

If the changes are to stand, I think they become a lot more reasonable if the -30% to combat skills does not apply to parry. Of all the combat skills, this is the the tier-defining one. I think it's fair enough to limit the weapon skills, backstab, archery and so on for characters with the aspect subclasses, but tanking their parry skill by this much just makes them suck. Make an exemption for that one.

With the changes:

If you pick Raider + Elkros Subclass, you'll get Parry at Master.  With a -30% reduction, it will become Low Advanced.

If you pick Miscreant + Elkros Subclass, you'll get Parry at Advanced.  With a -30% reduction, it will become Low Journeyman.

If you pick Elkros Elementalist + Swordsman, you'll get Parry at Advanced.  With a -30% reduction, it will become Low Journeyman.

If you pick Enforcer + Ruk Subclass, you'll get a reduction on the following skills:

Skill	Current Proficiency	New Proficiency
Crossbow Use	Master	Low Advanced
Blowgun Use	Master	Low Advanced
Throw	Master	Low Advanced
Sap	Master	Low Advanced
Backstab	Master	Low Advanced
Threaten	Master	Low Advanced
Guarding	Master	Low Advanced
Subdue	Advanced	Low Journeyman
Rescue	Master	Low Advanced
Parry	Master	Low Advanced
Bash	Master	Low Advanced
Disarm	Master	Low Advanced
Kick	Master	Low Advanced
Flee	Master	Low Advanced
Blind Fighting	Master	Low Advanced
Shield Use	Master	Low Advanced
Dual Wield	Master	Low Advanced
Two Handed	Master	Low Advanced
Slashing Weapons	Master	Low Advanced
Piercing Weapons	Master	Low Advanced
Bludgeoning Weapons	Master	Low Advanced
Chopping Weapons	Master	Low Advanced
Sneak	Advanced	Low Advanced/High Journeyman
Hide	Advanced	Low Advanced/High Journeyman

I wrote this out so we can get some perspective of what it will look like going forward.  -30% basically moves you down one proficiency tier, and perhaps if you were at the low end of that proficiency tier, it would move you to the top of a second proficiency tier.


The big question I have is:

Is "Steal" or "Climb" considered Stealth skills?

[Roon]

If you pick Elkros Elementalist + Swordsman, you'll get Parry at Advanced.  With a -30% reduction, it will become Low Journeyman.

Unless I've grossly misunderstood something: no it won't. The -30% penalty is exclusive to characters who pick a mundane class and an elementalist aspect subclass (what I call a 'hybrid') which doesn't cover an actual full-fledged elementalist with an ordinary subclass. The latter is not penalized.

I wrote this out so we can get some perspective of what it will look like going forward.  -30% basically moves you down one proficiency tier, and perhaps if you were at the low end of that proficiency tier, it would move you to the top of a second proficiency tier.

This is just mathematically false. -30% moves you down two tiers. Plainly put, a -30% brings you from the highest fringes of mastery to the bottom of advanced. That's a two-tier reduction in power. A heavy combat class goes from the top of master to the bottom of advanced. It brings a fighter to the level of a laborer.

The big question I have is:

Is "Steal" or "Climb" considered Stealth skills?

Climb is. Steal is not. Steal's a manipulation skill.

[mansa]

Ahh, I had to reread the original post, as I make many mistakes:

March 11, 2024 (Monday)

Halaster
- tweaks to camping, but mostly on hold while waiting on player feedback
- subguild elementalists now have the same max skill penalty as sorcerers.  Which is a 30% reduction in max combat/weapon skills, and a %15 reduction in max stealth skills.  This does not affect starting skills or gain rates, just max. It affects all skills regardless of whether they're guild, subguild, or racial.  It also affects the 'touched' magickal subguilds.  None of this applies to full guild elems.

I have glanced over the last sentence in that paragraph without reading it, which confirms that full guild elementalists don't get any combat reductions.


Skill Brackets
I was considering this:

Skill Brackets are separated by equal portions of 20%, so the reduction is 1 and a half tiers.  The tricky bit being whether you sit on the high end or the low end of the tier.
-> If the skills are out of 100 cookies, that means you could be "master" at 81 cookies, or you could be master at 100 cookies, and a reduction of 30% would mean a reduction of 30 cookies.

So, if you were at 81 -> 51 cookies -> (journeyman)
If you were at 99 -> 69 cookies -> (advanced)

[Roon]

That would only be accurate if all skills go from 1 to 100.

I'm afraid this just isn't how it works. I'm not allowed to elaborate.

There are many more things wrong with your figures, but we have to leave it at that because we can't talk in real numbers. Suffice to say that yours are wholly imaginary and do not match up with reality.

[Krath]

No....mages and sorcs should be overpowered. Seriously. Nothing is equal, in RL and most definitely a fantasy setting

[CirclelessBard]

I had to edit a post that violated Rule 1. Opinions may differ on this topic like any other, but please do not resort to name-calling and insults. Thank you!

[Brytta Léofa]

If the changes are to stand, I think they become a lot more reasonable if the -30% to combat skills does not apply to parry. Of all the combat skills, this is the the tier-defining one.

That was my thought as well.

However I think you may be overestimating the importance of parry compared to skill-gain rate. About that, you said "that's only really an issue for defense". But IMO defense is the critical combat factor in Arm. Inadequate offense means you get to try again; inadequate defense means you get to make a new character.

High defense means your PC can wander almost anywhere in the world and survive. Parrying is great, but it's not even a factor until your PC is fighting someone/something at close to combat parity.

tl;dr: Always be dodgin'.

[Riev]

I always ascribe to "Defense is more important than offense". Until crits happen and those are awful.

As a casual bystander? I would suggest making the reduction 20% instead of 30%. The higher reduction is going to put people into high Journeyman levels of skill and the way Arm skills seem to work (since we're on a blacklist if we even begin to understand it) ... Jman levels of skill are unreliable at best and frankly seem to fail/critfail more often than apprentice skills.

[Dresan]

No....mages and sorcs should be overpowered.

Not quite the line I've been waiting for but its close enough.

1. Sorcerers/mages should be magically powerful. Not have equal access to max-level martial/stealth skills.
2. Sorcerers and mages are indeed very powerful...in the setting. That doesn't mean our characters have to be at those levels of powers.


Just like we aren't allowed to play sorcerer-kings, the mages and sorcerers we play don't have to be the most powerful the setting can offer. It was really either going to be nerf the mundane skills or nerf the magick skills of players who went the magickal subclass route. Either way, there has been massive power creep over the last few years and at some point it needs to be curtailed.

I do still believe the nerf should probably be closer to 50% of mundane skills because really? Your magicker is gimped without master parry?!?  

The alternative is to go back to full mage guilds and remove mage sub guilds all together . While magickally powerful there was a clear RP/utility sacrifice to playing full-guild magickers that people are glossing over with the ability to play hybrids. After all, Raiders class was already the wet dream of the old warrior guild, its always been nuts they can add magick on top of everything else they can do...especially with additional changes over the years that now lets them do so without the any of the wielding/glowing for hours inconveniences of old. 

Again, willing to wait and see how this turns out but something had to be done. The  current state is OP and has been OP for a long time, and that's OP in quite a ridiculous way. At this point, you might as well be arguing for staff to give magickers access to an admin-level slay command so that magickers feel sufficiently powerful.

[Riev]

The current state is that someone in power believed that they should make magick a sub-set of your skills and let mundane skills (primary classes) rule. The theory was sound, but the game suffered due to some mundane skills being very powerful when combined with certain magick spells.

I agree with Krath here, that magick and sorcerors should be powerful. They should be scary. They should be unfair. In this setting, magick is scary and full of terror. Even a simple one-path sorceror is fucking terrifying.

Lowering their skills so that they are "less effective" only serves to make them less scary. Like when True Sorcs became Path Sorcs. And when mages got 1/3 of their spells. They became less scary because you knew they didn't have both fireball and lava storm (or whatever).



Long story short - The staff are balancing the game using code. This makes me feel that they will not be able or willing to monitor their karma-access roles to ensure the 'super scary' roles are being scary rather than murder machines. As an RPI, they are relegating control to the code because We The Players are untrustworthy scavs only out for ourselves.

Nothing in this thread has convinced me otherwise. I hope I am wrong.

[Lizzie]

I'm a fan of the original full guild mages, and I'm not a fan of the subguild mages.  However, I'm also a fan of filling out options for full guild mage's subguild options, OR giving them a couple of low-cap utility mundane skills right out of the box.

For example - full guilds could come with: listen, forage, desert sense, and skinning, all up to a maximum of high apprentice, even if their subguild doesn't come with any of those.  Full guilds could also come with at least one weapon type, at novice, which could improve up to low apprentice.

And then for subguilds, any option they choose - IF combat/weapon skill normally can master, for elementalists - it won't master. The best they'll get is jman.

That's how I'd do it, if there was a return to full guild elementalists, and we did away with magick subclasses entirely (which would be my preference).

[Master Color]

I agree with Krath here, that magick and sorcerors should be powerful. They should be scary. They should be unfair. In this setting, magick is scary and full of terror. Even a simple one-path sorceror is fucking terrifying.

The reality is that:

A. Nobody treats magick as frightening or scary. Even when it is.
B. Players will just complain that they can't kill them easily enough.