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Post by chaosisaladder on Feb 11, 2014 4:46:21 GMT -5
So, heres a few questions I don't think have been covered in depth relating to magickers.
The first: How exactly do templars discover magickers? I always assumed that they had a version of that 'detect magic' spell that Krathi have, perhaps only active on a dull black gem? If I'm an ungemmed mage in the Gaj, and a templar walks in, when do I need to worry? The moment he glances in my direction? When I have active enchants? How does one play an ungemmed mage who lives in civilization?
The second: I've seen mention of things like Krathi jewelers who enchant their rings with empower to raise their stats to incredible levels. I've also heard mention of Vivaduans who have HP regeneration on their equipment. Is this a product of component crafting? I've never seen an enchantment spell on the lists. Could a ruk enchant his equipment with godspeed to become almost untouchable? What could a drov, or the other guilds enchant? I'm really interested in this, but I've seen almost no evidence or documentation. I'd really appreciate any explanation you guys have to offer.
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Post by demonspongecake on Feb 11, 2014 5:38:21 GMT -5
Not including any strange items i'm not aware of, templars can only get you with detect magick, do you have to have an enchantment on you. In the past, no fun lirathans would just read your background. I'd be worried hanging around in the gaj unless you yourself are a very wary drovian who doesn't practise without detect ethereal on (they could still catch you mid-spell). Of course, the templar may not even know a nosey enough gemmed drovian.
Enchanted items come from casting summon object spells at mon with a component.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2014 5:50:40 GMT -5
Just to be safe, I would keep a barrier up while practicing in a city, any city-state. Less so with red storm than the large cities. You never know when someone with psionic ability might be watching through your eyes and catch you in the act. While it is not constantly happening because PCs, I would not imagine it is outside the realm of possibility to be caught that way, in either city state, though I cannot speak to what abilities the new northern templars may or may not have, and can just about guarantee that any southern BLUE ROBE templar can't catch you that way, you really never can be too careful. Ever. I have had a gemmed pc flee a city without a barrier up and wound up with a red robe nakki templar in their head about it, years ago.
There is a spoiler that should be about the same color as the background page beneath the black text above if you want to highlight it to read more, it is relevant, but I don't want to broadcast it to anyone who might not want to know, this not being the spoilers forum and all.
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Post by jcarter on Feb 11, 2014 11:46:59 GMT -5
So, heres a few questions I don't think have been covered in depth relating to magickers. The first: How exactly do templars discover magickers? I always assumed that they had a version of that 'detect magic' spell that Krathi have, perhaps only active on a dull black gem? If I'm an ungemmed mage in the Gaj, and a templar walks in, when do I need to worry? The moment he glances in my direction? When I have active enchants? How does one play an ungemmed mage who lives in civilization? All southern templars get detect magick and detect invis. Within the confines of the city, they are always at maximum mana and it regens instantaneously. Very few templars will be walking around without both of these spells on. Templars usually figure out who's an ungemmed because someone else dimes them out. I've been on both sides. As a templar people would just feed me information for free that I never heard of before either to look good or screw someone over. As a Guilder/Rinthi I was pals with a couple of templars and would feed over information all the time about ungemmed mages, especially in the 'Rinth, to maintain a good relationship and make sure they looked good. Ungemmed mages could get out of control or too big for their britches if they didn't think a templar could smack them down. Outside of those two ways are really the only possibility of getting caught. A templar might fluff themselves up or bullshit about their power but mechanics wise that's the only way they can know. Only Krathis can enchant items, that's the empower spell. Empower lets you enchant an item, temporarily or permanent at mon level, to boost a stat. It could be one of the main attributes (str, end, wis, agi) or hp, mv, stun. They cannot enchant items with spells, the only way to do that is with one of the reaches that are handed out by staff. The Vivaduan items that restore HP are their summoned items. Every mage guild can summon a magic weapon, Vivaduans can summon a shield that restores HP over time. For Rukkians it's called sand jambiya, they all have little theme names like that.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2014 12:17:12 GMT -5
Enchanted.
All mages are capable of creating magickal object. For some elementalists it's a weapon, for some a shield. They dont get to choose really. A vivaduans can summon a magickal shield, a Krathi can summon a fiery magickal weapon. Their shape depends on the power level and it dissapears after awhile. If cast on mon, the item becomes permanent. But you still need to donate it mana to activate it periodically.
Krathi are a little different. They have a spell called Empower which they can cast on certain objects. If they cast it on mon, the enchantment is permanent. If they cast it on a lower power level, then the enchantment will consume the object when it wears off. Most commonly, empower is casted on rings since you can wear 10 of them and hide them with gloves. Empower gives certain bonuses to you which are significant. But if you wear too many of them, you start to hum and become very noticeable and obvious to others.
Whether through detect magick or magicksense, Templars are able to see any magickal effect on you if they look 'directly' at you. So if you're a hidden mage and casted detect magick on yourself, be ready to get glimpsed by a Templar and gemmed/killed/both. You could potentially get lucky and have the Templar 'not' look directly at you and walk past. Those are the days are when you log off and go buy yourself a lottery ticket, because you're one dumb lucky fucker.
Elementalists of the same element as you are able to sense you if they've got identify on. Identify is a spell that lets them figure out magickal components. But if they assess another character of the same element as them, they will sense that they're a mage. So if you're a rogue mage and suddenly noticed that some gemmed mage of your own element assessed you. You're fucked. Normally, it doesnt happen very often inside cities, since they cant walk around with identify effect on them. But if you're a suspected mage. A templar can give permission to a gemmed to put identify on, go to wherever you are, assess you, and then tell the templar their findings.
Southern templarate has other tools in their disposal. They've got drovian gemmed who frequent all apartments, hidden niches, red storm, near and far remote caves, etc. So if you're in one spot spam casting, and there is a strong gemmed drovian presence in Allanak, you're practically guaranteed to be caught. If your visits to the remote hidden cave leave signs of presence (foraged shit, skinned objects, etc), the drovian will keep an extra eye on that location until they catch you.
Northern templars have psionics. Who have a similar ability to drovians, as well as able to do some other things which can let them sense you spellcasting. Staying in the city as a rogue mage down south is 'hard', but possible. Staying in the city up north as a rogue mage is easy, but impossible. You are 100% going to be caught. Unless things in Tuluk changed, of course.
One should not ever discount stealth guilds. Guilders, soldiers, elves. They also check out hidden nooks and crannies. Generally speaking, 3 out of 4 times, a player can pick a hidden mage out of the crowd by their mdesc and behavior. You might find that unlikely, but it is so very true. A lot of times, it's not only easy to know you're a rogue mage, it's probable that we can even tell which element you are. Kudos to a player who decided to make fun of this little fact and managed to write up a description that mentions "ALL" elements by name. I literally fell off the chair laughing, reading it. And yes ... people followed that guy around, waiting him to go sorc spam training in some apartment.
Between drovians and mages. Stealthers, mdesc, and shitty combat stats that oust you as either a merchant, or a mage. The odds of you staying completely incognito are very low. Thankfully many awesome players realize you're a mage very soon, but since their characters are not that smart, choose not to realize this ICly. My great admiration and reverence to them. You shouldnt rely on that though.
I would say unless you're experienced, lucky, and very very cunning, you must assume that you will eventually be found out. Only thing you can try to do is be fully branched by that time.
There are exceptions though of course. Some manage it. Though usually they do it by minimizing their spellcasting and really twinking out their offense/defense, so their physical weakness does not oust them. One Whiran/Outdoorsman (From before whiran got bumped in karma) managed to get himself promoted to Byn Sargeant a year or two ago. Great player. Died very foolishly, but that's Armageddon.
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Post by musashi on Feb 11, 2014 15:36:11 GMT -5
I wouldn't mind hearing more specifics about these mechanics. I understand how a psionic can read your background, but I often hear references to a bigger, more inescapable mechanism at play in the North and I would love to hearan apa it described explicitly.
As others have said, wandering around with spell effects on your gear or your person is the best way to get caught. Spam-casting in an apartment is a close 2nd.
Two things that haven't been mentioned: The magickers quarter in Allanak sells jewelry that's "in tune" with specific elements. If you're an elementalist and you put on a piece of this jewelry belonging to your element it will have a special echo at the time you put it on. eg, "The ruins on the ruk-symboled pouch glow briefly as you put it on." I've seen a templar who kept a grab bag of all this jewelry, and if he suspected you of being a magicker, he'd go through the bag and make you try on all of them.
As a drovian, the FIRST time you cast 'send shadow' your character is PERMANENTLY imprinted with some amorphous, tentacled shadow writing around them that is visible via detect ethereal (not sure about Detect Magic). It's less common for templars to have Detect Ethereal on than Detect Magick, but it's still an instant oust for your character. It's a pretty shitty gimmick, but then again in order to be an effective drovian you need ethereal cast on all of your gear anyways, so... meh.
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Post by jcarter on Feb 11, 2014 15:53:13 GMT -5
The 'detect ethereal' thing is whatever your 'send shadow' animal is. So if your send shadow is a stilt lizard, that's what will show up around you.
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Post by spitwad on Feb 11, 2014 16:16:29 GMT -5
danger coming not from templar. danger coming from drovian send shadow. shadow perm detect ethereal see your send shadow animal like detect magick seeing spell effect when look at your character.
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Post by chaosisaladder on Feb 11, 2014 16:31:01 GMT -5
How exactly does a drovian's ethereal function? Do objects you make ethereal become something you can take with you? When targeting an object, could you target another person's attended object? IE: suddenly rob that badass warrior of their polearm? I kinda imagined ethereal as something most people would use as a last resort, because they'd leave behind all their equipment. So then, they couldn't simply phase into your apartment and rob you, because they wouldn't be able to get out through the locked door with your things. But, could I, as a Drovian, turn myself and a large bag ethereal, enter a home, phase back myself and the bag, fill it with someone's possessions and then phase back out? Would I only need to turn the container ethereal to turn everything within ethereal? Or would it be a case of phasing in unarmed and naked, finding a jewel or two I want, then phasing out with them?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2014 17:07:30 GMT -5
Actually, anything you have 'ethereal' cast on, item-wise, transfers to the ethereal realm with you. All gems have this cast on them, this is why they come along on a gemmed. Feasibly, you could cast 'ethereal' on a dozen components that would let you make something ethereal and bring them all with you into someone's apartment, become solid again, make all their shit ethereal, and then walk straight out with it.
AFAIK, you can't make items on others ethereal, but you can cast it on items in your inv. I never tried with items just laying around a room though.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2014 17:09:37 GMT -5
musashi Send me a message with what you want detailed and we can talk more about it. I'm not certain if there's something specific you're looking for information-wise or if it is more general, but in either case, with the answers being very possibly IC sensitive and my trying not to ruin anyone else's possible fun here, I don't want to post them for all to read.
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Post by chaosisaladder on Feb 11, 2014 17:31:51 GMT -5
One last one, for the moment. Does agility effect our ability to resist spells? Lets say I have a warrior with max defense, tons of empowered rings for agility, etc. A krathi casts demonfire at me at the mon level. Is his chance to hit me affected at all?
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CRabbit
Clueless newb
Where have all the escru gone..
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Post by CRabbit on Feb 11, 2014 18:28:17 GMT -5
I believe spell resistance is based off of endurance and possibly that invisible willpower skill.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2014 19:23:49 GMT -5
I believe spell resistance is based off of endurance and possibly that invisible willpower skill. It's based on more than that, even, and I think is very individual. One interesting thing, I've noticed, for instance, is that with whirans, you can levitate people a little larger than you at one reach above what it would take to levitate yourself, but a RUKKIAN, for example, you need to cast 2-3 reaches higher, so I think it's also class dependent, and I believe there's actually a hidden skill for all the 'schools of magick' (ie abjuration/conjuration/etc) that the spells fall into much like the weapons skills, so for instance, if someone blinds you five or six times magically, you have a higher chance of resisting 'blind' at whatever reach than someone else who has not had the same done to them.
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Post by musashi on Feb 11, 2014 23:54:03 GMT -5
Hm. Didn't know about the "schools" before. Also, levitate/HOW are countered by weight. You need like pav or sul to float a half-giant. If the Rukkian had stoneskin on, that could account for it because that greatly increases your weight. Stoneskin is by far the best defense against Whirans there is.
In my experience, magick is Wisdom-based to hit/effect, and I believe wisdom and/or endurance based to defend. For example, high wisdom not only gives you more mana, it causes more damage on an attack spell, and gives you a greater chance of success on an "effect" spell like blind or sleep.
Dwarves also have a racial benefit to spell resistance, I believe.
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