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Post by lyse on Feb 23, 2014 10:47:37 GMT -5
Ok, a few questions about sorcerers. Sorcerer is probably the only class I've never played, because it always struck me as being ridiculously hard and you would have to spend a lot of time solo to get good at it, most likely only to get deus ex'd once you did or skill sniffed (some how) when you made your monthly trip to the nearest city. I've had a couple of character ideas for sorcerers but have always been afraid to try them out of fear I'd get killed quickly.
so here goes:
Whats the real difference between a defiler and preserver, is it only your relationship with the land?
what does your relationship with the land effect? Is it your ability to draw energy from it?
Would you be better off being a staff sponsored sorcerer? Is that even something the staff would do?
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Post by musashi on Feb 23, 2014 11:15:58 GMT -5
Sorcerer is the only class I've never played as well. The role honestly doesn't interest me much. Seems like it would be a lot of sitting on your ass in the remotest of areas and spam casting. Not to mention, I have trouble keeping the spells for ONE element straight in my head, much less 7 of them!
To answer your last question, I've played with at least one sorcerer who was "sponsored" in the GDB sense of the word, and that was in the Akai Ta Var. They have an NPC "shaman" (a sorcerer part way through the transformation process into an Avangion - he's the rainbow bird thing in that tent), and up to one PC "Shaman-da", which means apprentice shaman, essentially. IDK if they'd put out a role call for that role, or if the guy had apped for it. (Or if he was an Imm.)
I'd also be curious to know if the "relationship with the land" is for anything. In the past I'd heard that you could get it up by watering plants, and that it effects your stamina and mana regen positively if you have a good relationship with the land, however these days I seriously doubt that there's a coded way to go about it. I have heard stories of magickers who had low relationship with the land (lowered through RP) which resulted in them losing some of their spells and a mana reduction.
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Post by lyse on Feb 23, 2014 11:58:03 GMT -5
Sorcerer is the only class I've never played as well. The role honestly doesn't interest me much. Seems like it would be a lot of sitting on your ass in the remotest of areas and spam casting. Not to mention, I have trouble keeping the spells for ONE element straight in my head, much less 7 of them! To answer your last question, I've played with at least one sorcerer who was "sponsored" in the GDB sense of the word, and that was in the Akai Ta Var. They have an NPC "shaman" (a sorcerer part way through the transformation process into an Avangion - he's the rainbow bird thing in that tent), and up to one PC "Shaman-da", which means apprentice shaman, essentially. IDK if they'd put out a role call for that role, or if the guy had apped for it. (Or if he was an Imm.) I'd also be curious to know if the "relationship with the land" is for anything. In the past I'd heard that you could get it up by watering plants, and that it effects your stamina and mana regen positively if you have a good relationship with the land, however these days I seriously doubt that there's a coded way to go about it. I have heard stories of magickers who had low relationship with the land (lowered through RP) which resulted in them losing some of their spells and a mana reduction. Right! From the docs I get the sense that a preserver is somehow weaker than a defiler, but if your relationship to the land is good, shouldn't you get some kind of bonus? Maybe its me and my own imagination, but I imagine preservers a little like Druids from d&d, just a kind of wandering Mage that makes things 'green' so to speak. Meanwhile you have a defiler, who is kind of like an anti-Druid wandering around destroying the natural balance, but eventually both kind of become one another, a preserver becomes a defiler out of the need to become more powerful, while the defiler becomes a preserver to maintain and increase the power they have. I don't know, maybe it's my own fucked up imagination. But the whole thing just seems to not make sense beyond the whole "sorcerers are bad because they fucked the world up, you should fear them because they will fuck YOU up" line of thought.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2014 13:39:17 GMT -5
The difference is that a defiler gets mana by gathering from the land, which leaves the characteristic ash that you can sometimes see here and there, while a preserver gets mana by gathering from himself, causing damage. This makes preserving less powerful as you can't easily get as much mana and can't quite do it as safely, but in roleplaying terms it's less evil because you're not raping the land of its life in the process. The lore has it that Zalanthas is as fucked up as it is because defilers drained the land in this way.
Generally, defilers are evil and preservers are "good", although their goodness is subjective and by no means guaranteed any more than it's guaranteed that an assassin is a stone-hearted murderer, and normal people shouldn't know the difference between a defiler and a preserver. It would border on abuse of OOC knowledge for anyone but a templar, scholastic or psychic person, or fellow sorceror (or perhaps certain elementalists) to even know there's any distinction between the two types of sorcerer.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2014 13:57:19 GMT -5
When you gather from the land, it lowers your relationship to the land because you are defiling it and draining the life from it. If you water plants or the ground in outdoors rooms, it raises your relationship to the land by helping to nurture it. It takes hundreds of waterskins to notice a positive difference, so it can be very time consuming. With either path, you become more powerful (based on your gather skill) in the way that you predominantly gather, and it becomes more painful/impossible to do it the other way. If you have a very good relationship to the land, it damages your health a lot to gather from the land, if you have a very poor relationship to the land, afaik it hurts more to gather from yourself. In either case, you still lose hit points in accordance with the amount of mana you draw and your skill level with gathering. If you gather from yourself, though, it is more painful in the beginning, and so it is not that defiling is ultimately more powerful, but it is a quicker route to power because of the reduced hp damage with the low end gather skill.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2014 14:02:14 GMT -5
I have heard stories of magickers who had low relationship with the land (lowered through RP) which resulted in them losing some of their spells and a mana reduction. Well, this makes a lot of sense, though I've not seen it personally. I would imagine that they would, given that defiling, screwing with (some) nilazi magick too much, etc, lowers relationship with the land, and that the general 'goal' of the elements, if you can rightly attribute a sentient goal to them, is to stop defiling and end defilers.
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Post by lyse on Feb 23, 2014 14:25:29 GMT -5
The difference is that a defiler gets mana by gathering from the land, which leaves the characteristic ash that you can sometimes see here and there, while a preserver gets mana by gathering from himself, causing damage. This makes preserving less powerful as you can't easily get as much mana and can't quite do it as safely, but in roleplaying terms it's less evil because you're not raping the land of its life in the process. The lore has it that Zalanthas is as fucked up as it is because defilers drained the land in this way. Generally, defilers are evil and preservers are "good", although their goodness is subjective and by no means guaranteed any more than it's guaranteed that an assassin is a stone-hearted murderer, and normal people shouldn't know the difference between a defiler and a preserver. It would border on abuse of OOC knowledge for anyone but a templar, scholastic or psychic person, or fellow sorceror (or perhaps certain elementalists) to even know there's any distinction between the two types of sorcerer. Right, so I haven't read the docs wrong. I'm just getting the sense that, and some point either way you'd have to do both in order to become powerful. Which in itself isn't a bad thing and is a great grey area character wise. The problem for me isn't that in general the population would hate and fear you, it's that if you didn't know where to go to be relatively safe, you're doomed. Which to me wouldn't be fun to play. The only thing that would help would be staff intervention or certain clans being ok with magick. Here's where the transparency comes in: I get the sense that there are clans that would be a little more open to a sorcerer PC, but the docs don't tell me that (yeah maybe Oash) so I've never app'd one because I really wouldn't want to have to wait on a rejection, etc because I just don't know how it works.
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Post by lyse on Feb 23, 2014 14:38:19 GMT -5
When you gather from the land, it lowers your relationship to the land because you are defiling it and draining the life from it. If you water plants or the ground in outdoors rooms, it raises your relationship to the land by helping to nurture it. It takes hundreds of waterskins to notice a positive difference, so it can be very time consuming. With either path, you become more powerful (based on your gather skill) in the way that you predominantly gather, and it becomes more painful/impossible to do it the other way. If you have a very good relationship to the land, it damages your health a lot to gather from the land, if you have a very poor relationship to the land, afaik it hurts more to gather from yourself. In either case, you still lose hit points in accordance with the amount of mana you draw and your skill level with gathering. If you gather from yourself, though, it is more painful in the beginning, and so it is not that defiling is ultimately more powerful, but it is a quicker route to power because of the reduced hp damage with the low end gather skill. Ahhhh, sorry for the double. That makes a lot of sense, so I was wrong about eventually having to do both.
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Post by lyse on Feb 25, 2014 22:46:00 GMT -5
Ok, so now what's an Avigion (sp?)
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Feb 25, 2014 23:35:36 GMT -5
Ok, so now what's an Avigion (sp?) Seeing that defilers turn to dragons and preservers turn into avangions, I'd imagine Darksun source material wouldn't be too far off for speculation. www.lomion.de/cmm/avangion.php
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2014 0:03:59 GMT -5
There are none documented. It is a coded race, and the elf in the Akei'ta Var encampment who is the flying creature, is partway through the transformation. There is nothing documented on what would/will happen if it is ever completed. I would imagine you're pretty close, though, Minister, except without the psionic abilities, given that psionics are typically reserved for humans beyond the barest bones of the abilities.
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Post by lyse on Feb 26, 2014 0:18:26 GMT -5
Ok, so now what's an Avigion (sp?) Seeing that defilers turn to dragons and preservers turn into avangions, I'd imagine Darksun source material wouldn't be too far off for speculation. www.lomion.de/cmm/avangion.phpAhhh, thanks!
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CRabbit
Clueless newb
Where have all the escru gone..
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Post by CRabbit on Feb 26, 2014 0:39:30 GMT -5
Think I'd shit myself if I ever saw one of those floating towards me. Think I'd rather face a dragon.
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Post by chaosisaladder on Feb 27, 2014 10:06:35 GMT -5
Question, likely for Anaiah. Is there a timer on land relationship increases? Or could you say, repeatedly fill a cistern and pour it out? (I imagine the preservers would more likely use large containers to sprinkle large areas, anyways.)
Also, does gathering from yourself increase your relationship to the land? Doesn't seem like it would, but figured I'd ask.
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Post by spitwad on Feb 27, 2014 12:05:42 GMT -5
fourty to fifty waterskins to see relationship to the land change in score. larger container not beneficial.
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