Perhaps other factors other than just skill could affect success rate. If you\'re drunk, for example, you would for sure have trouble casting spells. I think.

Spells could perhaps be \'defective,\' as in they travel to the enemy and explode or do something rather unexpected. Or on allies as well as enemies. It would take away the damage from yourself, do some of the intended effect to the target... And do something rather unintended.

Endoparasites would be difficult to implement, and scarab-size ectoparasites would be somewhat easy to pick off, I think... Then again, I would not know the actual size of a scarab, as they don\'t exist, except in Age of Mythology, in which case they\'re the size of two houses... Really, the discussion in the Parasites thread pretty much covers why most people dislike the idea of parasites.

As for the story... Where does it take place? The surface of the PS world, or Yliakum? Or somewhere in the Stone Labryniths, or somewhere else entirely? If on the surface, symbionts wouldn\'t be that much help. It will be a looooong time before anyone met a symbiont. If in Yliakum why doesn\'t some other group notice the portals? If in the Labryniths, it would make perfect sense, other than the slight factor of the war... Where in history does it take place, and who is involved?

According to the Setting page, the races other than the Kran and Lemur were transported from other worlds. Perhaps the symbionts could be creatures that somehow \'hitched a ride\' or sneaked through, and entered the PS world. Now comes the combining of life forces, except some do it with sentient beings, probably in secret, and others with creatures of the Stone Labryniths.

Well, unless a developer comes here and states explicitly that this idea is far too difficult to implement, then we\'ll just expand on this idea. And all it is, I think (I have no experience with programming, so I would not know) is a creature on a character that slows down some production and adds to another type or gives some sort of special, unique ability. Of course, when it comes down to death... Well, we could use tybrus\' idea and have the symbiont die as well, to make things simpler.

Rare symbionts would be a limiting factor, which would be a plus, I suppose... Or extremely expensive. Or both.

As for cult using symbionts... Well, I\'d say that extremely powerful beings is somewhat out of my thinking. I believe that the symbionts just give and take one thing, nothing else, and that only to a moderate extent at the most. And they could exist just because of a creature just deciding to bond with another, and thus the symbiotic relationship was formed. In PS. Just my thoughts, though. But how would the religious cult have obtained their symbionts, though?

As the discussion in the Parasites   thread diverged to a discussion of symbiotic creatures... I shall create a new thread on symbiotic creatures. The full discussion is in the link above.

The discussion, in short, decided that symbiotic creatures would give something to the player (boost stats, give blood special attributes, improve resistance to poison/magic/etc., etc.) in return for a stat(HP, mana, stamina). Symbionts would only pay in return for payment, and in combat, only retaliate when hit by anything such as the host. Also, characters could be able to support as many symbionts as their \'mana/HP/stamina income\' allows for. Or if the weight pulls them down.

If the host dies, the symbiont could wander away from the hsot or consume the host\'s body. The symbiont, as stated before, will not attack another creature for the host - that job is reserved for a familiar.

Speaking of familiars, the main difference between symbionts and familiars is that symbionts improve your own stats, and the familiar is just a companion. Empathy could be used to communicate with the symbiont, I suppose, but am not too sure about that.

Symbionts can be located in several regional areas or shops.

Comments?

I\'d say echolocation should be a special racial trait. If not, then characters might have a difficult time trying to figure out which shrieks are their own and which are not. Realistically. If not, then any amount of characters without limit could perhaps echolocate. Should echolocation be with the use of ultransonic sound or within the average sound range?

As for the duration of sensory dysfunction, I agree. Usually, it should be short, but special cases that are mroe effective should last much longer periods of time. Either costly spells can do this, dumping on frigid water, somehow blocking the ears, etc. could cause the senses to be disrupted for longer periods of time.

I had an idea for a completely different way of doing transportation. Supposing the carts had feet and walked around. That they were produced by magic out of animal parts. So, if you had a breakdown, say one of the legs went lame, you would have to go kill a monster to harvest its leg so you can fix your cart. I\'m pretty sure this hasn\'t been done before and it would be completely original to planeshift if they incorporated it.

It might be quite disgusting for a character to break off a leg of another formerly living creature. Similar to the \"I don\'t want to summon just *any* normal skeleton \" Thread. It depends on the morals of each character and player when it comes down to the \'harvesting body parts.\' And of course, the type of leg might influence many decisions, such as how effective the walking cart is and how disgusting the method of obtaining the new leg is.

How is the cart supported? Mana out of your stockpile? Or is it self-sufficient, so that it sustains itself and consequently may run when in danger?

This has been discussed at the very beginning of the thread, before it digressed to a discussion of symbiotic creatures. The anti-parasite viewpoint asks what does it do for gameplay? How is it beneficial? The effects of parasites are too similar to poison. The only difference is the matter of acquistion - parasites by accidental terrain (say swamps/what you said, bodies) and poison on purpose. And poison can be \'inhaled\' on accident by noxious fumes anyway. Symbiotic creatures would actually benefit the players. As discussed earlier. I think.

Explorers could always suffer the risk as well, from monsters, falling rocks, injured eyes/ears/nose from frigid water, etc. And accidents always happen while doing a peaceful job, such as alchemy. Explosions or accidentally made toxic fumes might knock out some senses, but... For most other jobs, it probably won\'t happen on a regular basis. Assuming alchemy/explosions happen on a regular basis.

Perhaps a character should be able to suffer from only one \'complete\' sensory dysfunction. If another tries to cause an additional sense to malfunction, then that sense will only be dulled somewhat. For example, say a character is temporarily blind. Then another tries to take away his sense of feeling. That will only make it dull, not taken away completely. The character will still be able to feel some pain, but is unable to perform the more complicated maneuvers.

Echolocation could probably be implemented as a special racial ability. The type that bats use. It could be another alternative to moving around when blind/having a disrupted feeling. Deafness would disable this, obviously, which would make deafness something worse. As if the text not appearing on the chatbox was not bad enough, although I\'m not sure if echolocation should be an unique racial trait or anyone can use it. Or both, but the latter might need magic.