Title: Wizard/Warlock/Sage Class
Summary: We have undead, we have monsters, we have magic items. Where do these things come from? What ancient lore is out there that must be studied and deciphered?
Details: Whatever you want to call him/her, the Sage is the delver of esoteric knowledge, whether this involves the study/creation of magic items, the summoning and dispelling of the dead, the creation or control of monsters. Obviously, such a position would require lots of money for research & study, and even more money to actually craft items or creatures. Maybe the presence of a tower/library and/or a guild increases the odds of success in endeavors.
Benefits: Undead and monsters become something more than random things that pop up out of nowhere. Depending on where you want to fall on the realism vs fun scale, you could have wizards on the field of battle that can attempt to control the weather, sow confusion and fear, or they could just be fancy and expensive librarians doing academic research. It seems a sage's tower would be the perfect place for adventurers to bring that mysterious item to have identified and studied. Poisons, new weapons of war (wildfire anyone?), could be researched via some sort of tech-tree. In short, this could be a way of introducing certain weird/wild elements into the game. Did some fool wizards dark experiments accidentally create dragons? Whoops!
Possible Exploits: Obviously when you're talking about esoteric arts/magic, you have to be careful. The balance on all these additions should be that research takes time and money and the building of a place to do that research in. Someone who spends all their days looking through old tomes is not likely to be very good with a sword or lance. It is also quite likely that you would want to limit the powers of what a wizard could create vs the items that were made aeons ago by ancient wizards who possessed arcane knowledge that is lost to modern wizards. If a tower is sacked, ongoing research would be lost and have to be started over. And there should always be a possibility of something going horribly wrong, the tower explodes, a tentacle reaches through a portal and snatches the wizard, etc...
I like the idea, to an extent. I've always wanted the adventurer class to have a peasant route they can take (rather than noble through recommendations). Imagine if all these peasants with hordes of gold, honor, prestige could become sages and actually produce a few trinkets (but still rely on advys to gather/fight). Let players custom create items, let the peasantry have a caste system, give players more tools to flesh out the world.
Sorry to throw these comments in someone else's suggestion thread.
I like the idea, to a very limited extent. I dislike the idea of adding any more magic than there already is but I think it would be cool for players to be more involved with it. Doubling the sage as a scientist too could be cool. I see the idea as kind of good, but terrible to try and do in any balanced, non-gamey way. That and it would be a lot effort to do this while the devs have more than enough already to work on.
I don't think there are any intentions to expand the adventurer game in any serious way. It is a side-game, if you will. The main focus of the game is nobles and their wars, not commoners.
Over my dead body. I don't even know where to start explaining why, this feels like a request to add Jedis to Lord of the Rings.
Quote from: Tom on April 14, 2013, 01:43:03 PM
Over my dead body. I don't even know where to start explaining why, this feels like a request to add Jedis to Lord of the Rings.
I don't see why dead bodies need to be involved.
You'll please at least note that I wasn't necessarily talking about spell-casting Gandalf or Merlin type wizards. But your reaction tells me that you probably didn't even bother reading past the subject line. :(
I understand you not wanting hoards of wizards roaming the countryside, and maybe they should be super rare and prohibitively exspensive, so that only the wealthies kingdoms could afford to employ one.
You may not realize, Qyasogk, but putting magic in player characters' hands—in any form other than the relatively rare scrolls—is one of those things that Tom has repeatedly stated that he will never, ever, ever do. This has been a central tenet of the game's direction for its entire 12+ years of existence.
You are not going to get any traction here. Period.
We certainly welcome suggestions and feature requests/discussions, but you have to understand that just because you want something, or think it could be beneficial to the game, doesn't mean we think it would be beneficial, or would match with our vision of how the game should be.
If you want to improve the game experience, then we are glad to listen—but adding more magic into it, or otherwise making it more like Dungeons and Dragons, are not ways that are going to get much attention.
Quote from: Qyasogk on April 15, 2013, 01:19:46 AM
You'll please at least note that I wasn't necessarily talking about spell-casting Gandalf or Merlin type wizards. But your reaction tells me that you probably didn't even bother reading past the subject line. :(
I did read the entire post before I replied.
Just play spellmaster.
So now I've said TWICE that I WASN'T talking about D&D fireball casting wizards.
You guys have the ability to inspire imaginations and encourage creative interactions with your players, or to put your big boot of power in their face so that it's clear to everyone that you're in charge, and no one else has anything of value to contribute.
Thanks for changing the subject to "REJECTED", that was just that extra little bit of class to let me know exactly who I'm dealing with.
Quote from: Qyasogk on April 16, 2013, 12:21:05 AM
So now I've said TWICE that I WASN'T talking about D&D fireball casting wizards.
No, just summoning and controlling monsters and undead, and adding an entire bloody
tech tree to the game.
That is
not within the spirit of the game.
Quote
You guys have the ability to inspire imaginations and encourage creative interactions with your players, or to put your big boot of power in their face so that it's clear to everyone that you're in charge, and no one else has anything of value to contribute.
There's a huge difference between "no one else has anything of value to contribute" and "this isn't a terrible idea, it just doesn't fit with BattleMaster at all."
I've had loads of ideas over the years that have been rejected—either by me, by Tom, or by the dev team in consensus—because they didn't fit with the spirit of the game. Heck, one of the ones that took me over an hour to type up was rejected just a week or so ago.
Quote
Thanks for changing the subject to "REJECTED", that was just that extra little bit of class to let me know exactly who I'm dealing with.
That's policy. Once a feature request thread has been confirmed accepted or rejected, the thread title is changed so that the dev team has an easier time when combing through the forum.
Quote from: Qyasogk on April 16, 2013, 12:21:05 AM
So now I've said TWICE that I WASN'T talking about D&D fireball casting wizards.
You guys have the ability to inspire imaginations and encourage creative interactions with your players, or to put your big boot of power in their face so that it's clear to everyone that you're in charge, and no one else has anything of value to contribute.
Thanks for changing the subject to "REJECTED", that was just that extra little bit of class to let me know exactly who I'm dealing with.
Suggestions are great, but that doesn't mean they will be accepted. Whether or not they thought it to an extent further than you meant is irrelevant as they have said magic is a part of the game that is not wanted to be expanded upon. No one said that no one but the Dev Team has anything of value to contribute, simply that this was rejected.
As to your complaints about the topic including Rejected, I can't say I care for caps lock, but its done with many other topics when a clear-cut decision is made for the ease of everyone else being able to simply view while browsing the board if a feature was accepted or rejected. It is not something done to just your topic, so its not the mods picking on you. (It was done by one of the forum mods most likely, not the devs.)
I at first liked the idea myself, but the more I think about the more I agree with this being bad for the game. Try not to take the rejection of your feature request so personal, the request simply isn't seen as good for the game. I myself have made several before and they were mostly rejected, there is nothing wrong with that.
P.S. Anaris's post covers most of what I said (and is said better/more accurate in some places), but I will post anyways.
I changed the title. I'm a forum mod, and not a dev. It's nothing personal; just when Tom says "over my dead body", it saves everyone the trouble of reading the thread. If you will review the previous pages of requests, I think I looked back 4-5 pages, you will see a dozen other threads marked REJECTED, and two or three marked APPROVED.
If you want to explore this feature, and maybe make it into something acceptable, then I can move this thread up a level, to the development board. But I'm not kidding when I say "Play Spellmaster." I suggest you give it a try, and I hope you like it.
Saying that my request was akin to asking for Jedis in the game is way over the top. They are already in the game:
"Listen to rumours - spend an hour listening to rumours of sages and wizards."
If you don't want them to be playable, that is of course your perogative, but it's not outside of the realm of your game, by your own descriptions.
I apologize if I reacted strongly to having "REJECTED" stamped on the subject title. I looked at the list of subjects in the forum and mine was the only one changed that way, and it did seem malicious.
I'm very busy and don't read all the feature requests, so there may be some that should be stamped that aren't.
A lot of the requests never get a clear "approved" or rejected response from the dev team, so they don't get the subject modified. The ongoing "Doctrine" conversion has pretty much put a halt to all but the most needed features anyway.
Quote from: Qyasogk on April 28, 2013, 06:39:20 PM
Saying that my request was akin to asking for Jedis in the game is way over the top. They are already in the game:
"Listen to rumours - spend an hour listening to rumours of sages and wizards."
If you don't want them to be playable, that is of course your perogative, but it's not outside of the realm of your game, by your own descriptions.
I apologize if I reacted strongly to having "REJECTED" stamped on the subject title. I looked at the list of subjects in the forum and mine was the only one changed that way, and it did seem malicious.
This is low fantasy though so having some background npcs with magical abilities is alright but players shouldn't be that otherwise it becomes a bit more than low fantasy. Btw though, some already are quite successful in magic with one on BT being known as the Grand Wizard or something like that because of all his spellcasting, which was some pretty awesome stuff from what I have heard.
Quote from: Penchant on April 29, 2013, 03:12:02 AM
This is low fantasy...
Undead....
Magic Items....
Sages are already IN the game:
"You have encountered a sage, a wise man, known as Usttore. People say he is midnight walker. It is rumoured by many that he has magical powers. He and his kind are the only people capable of repairing and sometimes even improving unique items.
Since you do not have any damaged unique items, the sage can not offer you any repairs."
But mention role-playing a sage, then.... JEDIS!
Undead, dragons, magic... all this stuff was known to have existed in the middle ages. Angels walked the earth and routinely performed miracles. It was established fact. Denying it could get you beaten to death by angry mobs. Or perhaps just arrested and have a confession of witchcraft tortured out of you. Which would regrettably result in your own death.
None of which means that your character will ever be able to do anything more magical than read the occasional scroll.
Just because "everyone knew" that these things happened didn't mean that there were people doing them on every street corner. Sages and wizards will always be rare; monsters and undead will remain mysterious, and the Daimons moreso.
Quote from: Qyasogk on May 01, 2013, 08:34:35 PM
But mention role-playing a sage, then.... JEDIS!
There's an important difference.
Right now, all the undead, sages, wizards, etc. are under GM control. We can tune their numbers up or down as we like to make the setting the way we want - with some fantasy elements, but without a magic shop at every corner.
If anything with magic were available as a character class, we couldn't control the level of magic in the game anymore. The same way Jedis are so rare and exotic in the (original) Star Wars movies, but in all the computer games, you can't throw a rock without hitting one.
Quote from: Tom on May 01, 2013, 10:53:43 PM
If anything with magic were available as a character class, we couldn't control the level of magic in the game anymore.
Fair point.
The DM in me would argue that since the game is played over years, you could have a situation where a character had to go away to sage school for a number of years, pay an exorbitantly expensive tuition (so maybe only a king's son could afford the fees). There are ways to make the path difficult and challenging, so only the most foolish and reckless go down that path, and thus limit their numbers. Creating magic items could require mountains of gold and/or hard to find ingredients to limit their numbers, etc...
I.e. there's a way to balance the mechanics to keep them rare, but I understand your point in not even wanting to go down the road.
Quote from: Qyasogk on May 04, 2013, 10:25:47 PM
The DM in me would argue that since the game is played over years, you could have a situation where a character had to go away to sage school for a number of years, pay an exorbitantly expensive tuition (so maybe only a king's son could afford the fees). There are ways to make the path difficult and challenging, so only the most foolish and reckless go down that path, and thus limit their numbers. Creating magic items could require mountains of gold and/or hard to find ingredients to limit their numbers, etc...
Yeah, that works great in virtually every MMO, where the rare unique items need you to conquer an entire dungeon on hard, slay a mighty boss monster, and it only drops one such item for the entire party.
Ironie off.
Because that system simply does not work, AT ALL. Every hardcore MMO player has his chest stuffed with junk, sorry "super-rare unique" items.
Even in BattleMaster, where unique items really ARE unique, and their total number per island is strictly limited by the game, some hardcore players look at them as "oh, another one".
Trust me when I say that the second you give control over a resource to players, it becomes infinite.
Quote from: Tom on May 04, 2013, 11:17:05 PM
Trust me when I say that the second you give control over a resource to players, it becomes infinite.
Look at the Wizards in Thalmarkin. There's only a very limited amount of scrolls available(?), yet it has birthed a GW, a council, and 4 or 5 Wizards forming a new faction/elite within the realm.
Quote from: Shizzle on May 05, 2013, 10:17:43 AM
Look at the Wizards in Thalmarkin. There's only a very limited amount of scrolls available(?), yet it has birthed a GW, a council, and 4 or 5 Wizards forming a new faction/elite within the realm.
You're proving Tom's point. He's fine with people calling themselves wizards as long as they can't cast feather fall on their army and use catapults to fling them over the walls of the enemy fortresses.
Tom
I think we are being hasty to reject this. Jedi are already in the game they are just called Heros, Wizard/Sage Class is as well they are simply called adventures who else could collect items and turn them into the unqiue items with help of another sage.
Wizards, screw those bastards. That Fizban guy shot a fireball at me and it almost burnt down my house, thank goodness he had a Kender with him that jumped on his back at the right moment so it didn't scorch my hair to much.
I couldn't help it ;D
I don't see this elsewhere, but on Dwilight, if you go to Information, select Fame, under fame select Reputation, and under Reputation, select skills, you'll find one of the skills to be SPELLCASTING:
Swordfighting
Jousting
Leadership
Trading
Bureaucracy
Oratory
Infiltration
Adventuring
Spellcasting
So is that left over from some time in the past when you thought you might change your mind on the issue?
No, that is just how well your character can use magic scrolls apparently.
Quote from: Daimall on July 03, 2013, 06:22:29 AM
No, that is just how well your character can use magic scrolls apparently.
Exactly, Spellcasting is for reading scrolls. Its a skill rarely used or seen. Pretty sure the only way to gain it is simply through using scrolls.
Quote from: Penchant on July 03, 2013, 08:21:58 PM
Exactly, Spellcasting is for reading scrolls. Its a skill rarely used or seen. Pretty sure the only way to gain it is simply through using scrolls.
One of my chars has never read a scroll, yet he has 33 pts in Spellcasting.
Quote from: Atanamir on July 04, 2013, 11:26:13 AM
One of my chars has never read a scroll, yet he has 33 pts in Spellcasting.
You can't check your spellcasting skill at an academy, these are fame points and not skill points. Fame is a measure of your rank among your peers, and very few people have touched a scroll at all.
Fame does not equal skill level. It just means that there is a bunch of Nobles that are even worse at reading scrolls then you are.
Tom,
If you can increase the wizards/sages at will (notes in your previous post) and perhaps move them where ever you want. Does that mean you congregate them once in awhile to celebrate being wizards/sages? Would be a great idea for a rp/battle once every once in awhile say near a volcano or some such island.
Wizards/sages do not move based upon manual inputs.