Magic Use

[Xordan]

Just to continue this subject....

QUOTE

I fully disagree. It just doesn\'t make sense to be a pure Evil Death mage of darkness to suddenly cast a Holy life Spell. Even if it\'s healing. My reasons for this are:

1- Promoting group travel.

I\'ve read many posts with references to group travel. so this will make mages who specialize in each Way a very useful addition to any group. Not much more to say here.

2- Gives new meaning to \'Pure\' Mage

Like I said before, some mages will specialize in one way and only one way/. Just because they didn\'t learn something else doesn\'t mean that they get a sudden burst of knowledge about the other things. I mean, you don\'t get really good in math and suddenly become a supergenius if writing, though some of us may wish it were so. No, if you want to specialize, you specialize in one thing with the penalty of now knowing the other things unless you take the time to study it.

3- Ads flavor and strategy

I llike strategy. I am always planning for some game or the other whenever I\'m bored, and negating weaknesses with strengths can be fun, especially when you consider all the ways you can do so. Perhaps if you become a \'Pure\' mage, you may cast spells of a certain Way with eithehr different spells, more powerfuol ones, and so on. People who don\'t want to do something because they don\'t want to are lazy, plain and simple.

Oh, and i think that you swing a sword differently than an axe. There could be a \'genearl\' skill,\' though.

if you want me to re-explain this, then I will do so.

There could be a \'general\' Way of magic that is available to all Ways. This was done in Age of Wonders with the Cosmos sphere.

Apologies if I offended anyone, as well as for not capitilizing things correctly. It\'s kind of hard to do so with a few keyboards...




I dont think u see my point. With the system I suggested a person who specialises in 1 type of magic wouldnt be able to cast super powerfull magic of another way. But they would learn the basics. Like you said with maths for an example, no you dont become a super genius, but you do learn other subjects with it, like u have to be able to write to do maths. If say u got 1 point in the related skills for every 5 in 1 skill, then by the time u reach 100 skill points in that skill, you only have 20 skill points in other skills. A person who can wield a sword extreamly well isnt gonna be compleatly inept in using an axe. Also, to go back to using mages, A evil death mage who can summon deamons and stuff wont not be able to cast the most basic of healing spells, and not be able to light a fire. I\'m not saying that a person should become amazing at summin, only that they should be able to do the basics.

[elscouta]

We can probably also restrict this autolearning in some ways:

- When you increase your skill in White Way, you increase also your skill in the others way but not in the Black one. We can also do this for Azure / Red and Brown / Blue
- This autolearning should really slow after one or two level so you learn only the basis. However if you reach the 45th level in White way, you will probably learn also automatically the 3rd level of others non-Black Ways

[Xordan]

Yes, that could be done. You cant improve in the opposite that u specialise in. I think that it should slow like u said, as u get better because u would use the other ways less and less as u specialise. Maybe not as slow as that, but summin like for every ten lvls it takes 1 lvl more to get those extra skill points.

[Kuiper7986]

I say your on the right track but I would see it like this. If you learn a type of way the inverse way would be lowered.

This is only a hypothetical example:

If the Blue way has 1000 exp and your Red way has also 1000 exp, if you use one or the other more often then you lose exp in the magic in the opposite elemental magic. So if you use blue way more than red way, red way experience goes down because water stops fire (theoretically.) Brown way more than blue way would lower blue way experience because Brown is Earth and water increases life and technically supports the brown way.


Basic Elemental Properties based by majority:

Water stops fire

fire burns earth

earth asorbs water

wind dissipates earth


In my opinion...

[Abemore]

Picture a hexagon with one of the six ways at each point.
Now picture a smaller hexagon within the other indicating which of the 6 ways you are skilled in.

A player could be equally skilled in all six ways.  Though, he/she wouldn\'t be that strong in each.

If a player learned everything there is in the red way, he/she would not be capable of learning anything in the blue as they are at opposite corners of the hexagon.  If 90% of the red way was learned, and 10% of the blue way was learned, thats 100% of that 2-way combination and no further red or blue way magic can be learned.  Same with the other two 2-way combinations (azure-brown, and crystal-dark).

[Wedge]

Oh yeah, what Kuiper said works really well.  Yet again I got back to Vagrant Story.  Depending on the enemies type and elemental weaknesses you attack with a weapon, the weapon would grow stronger against that type of enemy/element, but for about every 2 points it gained in strength of one type, you lose a point in the opposite type.  That way weapons develop specialties based on what you kill with them, so you can have a beast-killer blade, and a man-killer blade and so on.  

I think this would apply quite readily to a magic system, the more you use a Way of magic, the better it gets, but also degrades the oppositte way.  Possibly here, you could also extend it so that using a Way upgrades 1 point per 2 points in the 2 nearest related ways, downgrades 1 point per 2 points in the two unrelated but not quite oppositte ways, and 1 point per 1 point in the oppositte way.  Making the middle ground non-neutral would lead to more natural magic skewing I think.  Oh and your skill in a particular area can be negative.

Come to think of it though... this wouldn\'t necessarily have to be the actual skill points allocated to the Ways, but instead a person could have an elemental table that is affected by what magic they use, and this in turn affects their proficiency in the Ways.  That way what you use, not where you stick your skill points affects what you can cast.  This makes much more logical sense.  So theoretically you could learn any spell from any Way, but if you have a negative value in your elemental balance for that Way, you would have tough odds succesfully casting the spell, much less effectively.

[Xandria]

Ok, I\'m having a hard time with this thread.  

What is wrong with being balanced?  Now, don\'t immediately respond to my post with a hundred reasons for why it would be a good idea to choose to specialize in 1-3 ways of magic;  I can think of a good many myself.  In the few RPG\'s that I\'ve playing (and usually play as a caster-type character) it is usually preferred to specialize in one particular school of magic for various reasons.

But what about the ones who seek balance in their power?  How can one become truly wise by focusing their thoughts so narrow, and never expanding their views?  How can one appreciate the light, when he or she has never been in the dark?

The entire universe depends on balance; and while there will balance amongst different characters in the world of Planeshift, please do not hurt those that seek balance within themselves.

[Xordan]

Ther is nothing wrong in being balanced. But to be balanced it would take lots and lots of training. Being balanced is special because then u will have no real weakness. That\'s why it must be hard to get balance.

[Xalthar]

Well, as far as I remember, it has been said somewhere that in ps you will be able to study 2 magics and still attain just as great results in both of them.. Chosing more would just make it harder to train, because you would have to use a LOT of magic.. But that\'s what mages do, so hey...

[Xordan]

yes, that sounds good. It would take lots more effort to learn more than 2 ways.

[Xandria]

The only reason I posted this, was in response to the people who said that when you gain experience in one way, you would LOSE experience in the opposite way.  And any system that allows for loss of experience like that needs to be carefully considered.

[Xalthar]

Originally posted by Xandria
The only reason I posted this, was in response to the people who said that when you gain experience in one way, you would LOSE experience in the opposite way.  And any system that allows for loss of experience like that needs to be carefully considered.

Yeah, you are right... But I don\'t know who those people were, I\'ve never heard that before..

All I\'ve heard is that you would be the \"best\" mage if you concentrated on advancing in two magic skills.. that\'s what I\'m going to do once magic get\'s implemented..

[Wedge]

I\'m one of the people that suggested that, because it\'s been done in other games and works.  But then I thought it would make more sense, that instead of actually detrimenting experience in a Way, the spells you use change your affinity positively and negatively in the corresponding ways.  You can still put your experience wherever you want, but the spells you use the most determine your effectiveness in what spells you can cast, which makes total sense.

[Xordan]

lol, I just realised. The advantages and disadvantages help do that. As I\'m gonna be a necromancer, I\'ll want to have an affinity with dark magic. But I\'ll probably be inept in blue or another way. All mages who want to be equal in every way wont be able to select all the ways as an affinity, so will probably have them all as normal.