Starting Casters, Magic and the Mayhem of an alpha release

[garlando]

I personally like the fact that magic takes a lot of work to make powerful.

Well, with and Intelligence of 95 and 12 levels of Blue Way, Freeze still pretty much sucks.

I assume you are comparing the damage you do with magic to that which you do with a sword.
Consider what you are trying to do using flame burst; with the power of your mind, you are forming a fireball in your hand and throwing it at your enemy. With freeze you are cooling down every part of a creature so that their temperature drops dramatically. This is not some thing to be tried upon a whim, it is a life long journey to perfection requiring both strength of mind and a strong focus of  character.

Also consider this:
With a sword, even with very little training you can kill a man. With more training, yes you will become better at killing men, but try taking on an army of men or a herd of large beasts. One sword, no matter how skilled you are with it, will not be of much use.
However, take red magic. Without much training fire magic is little more use than a flaming torch (which requires no training at all to use) however with a dedication to training in this art, fire is at your command. With fire obeying your will what difference does it make if you are against one man or one hundred the outcome is the same, the only change is the number of coffins.

Currently with a will of 93 and a skill in the red way of 2 I am no more than an inexperienced conjurer. Yes it would be easier to skin a few rats with a broadsword each day and make enough money to buy bread and ale. But I wish to become a sorcerer, and whilst training in magic is a sacrifice, everything in life is like that and so I do not see the problem.

[darkerdreams]

and with a 101 charisma and 8 ranks in dark way I cast a touch spell that *might* do more damage than the creature\'s regeneration.  I don\'t disagree with your discription, but you\'re ignoring the fact that it doesn\'t appear to ever get better and scrapping playability.

Originally posted by garlando
I personally like the fact that magic takes a lot of work to make powerful.

Well, with and Intelligence of 95 and 12 levels of Blue Way, Freeze still pretty much sucks.

I assume you are comparing the damage you do with magic to that which you do with a sword.
Consider what you are trying to do using flame burst; with the power of your mind, you are forming a fireball in your hand and throwing it at your enemy. With freeze you are cooling down every part of a creature so that their temperature drops dramatically. This is not some thing to be tried upon a whim, it is a life long journey to perfection requiring both strength of mind and a strong focus of  character.

Also consider this:
With a sword, even with very little training you can kill a man. With more training, yes you will become better at killing men, but try taking on an army of men or a herd of large beasts. One sword, no matter how skilled you are with it, will not be of much use.
However, take red magic. Without much training fire magic is little more use than a flaming torch (which requires no training at all to use) however with a dedication to training in this art, fire is at your command. With fire obeying your will what difference does it make if you are against one man or one hundred the outcome is the same, the only change is the number of coffins.

Currently with a will of 93 and a skill in the red way of 2 I am no more than an inexperienced conjurer. Yes it would be easier to skin a few rats with a broadsword each day and make enough money to buy bread and ale. But I wish to become a sorcerer, and whilst training in magic is a sacrifice, everything in life is like that and so I do not see the problem.

[garlando]

Originally posted by darkerdreams
and with a 101 charisma and 8 ranks in dark way I cast a touch spell that *might* do more damage than the creature\'s regeneration.

I think you have missed my point in fact. Lv8 in dark way is not a life devotion. It is little more of a brief dabble in the dark arts. Work up to level 20-30 and if you are still not doing more than 20pts of damage then perhaps you may have a point (however having said that I am at lv.2 and I can inflict 10 pts worth of damage on the poor unsuspecting rat)

As far as scrapping playability is concerned, that is your opinion. Mine is that if you do not want to put the effort into learning magic then don\'t.
If pure power and damage are all you are concerned about then learn to use a sword, or an axe. You will find those quite strong. But if you wish to learn to harness magic then stick with it, I am sure it will be worth while in the end.

[zanzibar]

The game is set up so that if you want to be a mage, you have to start off as a fighter, work your way up to dealing out >30 per attack, then just kill rats.  You can get a lot of gold when you can kill a rat in one strike.  So you accumulate a whole tonne of it.  Then you make a new character geared towards your particular way, pay someone you trust to hold on to the equipment and gold you\'ve made with your untrained fighter. then change characters, then have your new character get the gold and equipment your old character accumulated and your friend held on to for you.

I don\'t see a faster way to do it.

[Zulus]

Hmm i think that simply idea of adding monsters that are immune to phisical attacks in future stages of game will increase need for casters.