Players that use No Magic...

One of the things I always enjoyed so much about the Dragonlance novels was that the world had a very distinct way of handling magic. Magic, though common, was often available only to those who studied for long periods of time and devoted their lives to building on whatever skills they had. Unlike the Forgotten Realms, the local barmaid was unlikely to perform or even know the first thing about magic. Most games, I'm sorry to say, go more the route of the Forgotten Realms where every problem seems to have a magical solution.

I greatly dislike this for roleplaying reasons (plus I think that it makes the world more shallow and difficult to believe or immerse myself in). Still, I love magic and typically enjoy reading about mages in Dragonlance and other worlds.

While I realize that the world of SotA (New Britannia) will be a magical world, I wonder if the developers have thought about the idea that some player characters may not wish to 1) Have a spell book in their backpack, and 2) use magic in any way shape or form?

My own personal preference would be to play "magic free" simply because so many players will use as much magic as possible so that they can be as powerful as this competitive world will allow them to be. So while I'm not asking for magic to be removed from the game, I'm wondering if it could be scaled back a bit so that 1) Players that wish not to use it, would be supported. 2) Players that don't use it, might find some kind of advantage in the game that would have enough value to justify his playing style. 3) The storyline would support magic but not make it so common that by walking two steps in any direction you're bound to see someone casually using magic as if they were born with a magic staff in their hands.

 

Zones where magic doesn't work.

 

I don't think you'll get rid of the everyday magic. It's just too popular. How about a level of mundane magic that is available to anyone that put in a bit of skill, but some truly arcane stuff that is only available to those that wholly dedicate themselves to it? I'd love to see some magic that is truly magical and wondrous.

 

I used to play on an NWN server that would not let you progress past certain levels until you went to the Mage Council and completed tests. This ranged from having to creatively cast spells to solve puzzles or actually answer (difficult I might add) a set of OOC questions about D&D magic lore. The result was many mages did not advance higher than level 5, and those that did usually had to take the test several times.

In D&D mages were powerful and in NWN a high level mage was overpowered. As such, in that instance, having magic be something special that took dedication makes a lot of sense and is a rarity in how magic is represented in every day life. Betrayal at Krondor, based on Raymond E Feist's Riftwar Saga, handled magic in an interesting way. Using magic drained your actual health, so you could only cast spells equal to how much health you had. In addition, using magic in combat took risk as you might kill 4 out of 5 enemies with a fireball and then the last enemy could walk over and kill you with a pointy stick.

Without more information on how SOTA will handle magic, I cannot say whether this level of dedication would be something I prefer in this game. However, I do think magic should have risk as you go into casting more powerful spells or those that might be risky (like loosing control of a summoned creature).

 

Different Magic Path Trainers. You chose a spell path that you with to follow and get a quest line to train in that path. (Healer, Element, Control, and Deception) You can mix mach different path or complete one fully. As you complete quests in your chosen path you get spells to add to your spell book.

 

I actually hope the whole game starts out low magic. So if you play from launch, you're pretty much swinging a sword on day 1. Then, over time, magic gets "discovered" and "spreads". I'd love to see a very localized flair so maybe one zone discovers "druid magic" and another discovers "bard magic" or whatever. This "technology" spreads through trade, conquest, etc.

 

I don't care how much magic is in the world, but I'd like to be able to complete the story without magic.
Magic usually makes things too complicated for my small brain. If I have to drink a potion now and then, I suppose I can live with that. Or if my armor or weapon has some enchantment that I don't have to activate, it just works or doesn't work, that's fine. But please don't make me have to learn magic to complete the story.

 

You're making me want to play NWN.

I really like the idea of having a council of players that decide how power is distributed. DragonLance had this with the Tower's of High Sorcery, tests were required (I believe for anything over level 3, maybe 5) and that was their way of controlling the devastating power of magic in the world of Krynn. However, some mages (Magius, for example) said screw you and went on to study magic on their own. These mages were hunted and killed as to protect the magic in an established power vacuum. I would love to see something similar in SotA. I also think this would help manage A LOT of pvp conflicts and establish some ground rules for the masses.

 

NWN was great because it was exposed to the community which took it well beyond what was intended by the developers. Like UO in a way, but with the code exposed through the included toolset rather than by the players. Every server you played on was like playing a different game. It was revolutionary in its day and its the bar I set for multiplayer games; even though it was mainly a single player game with limited multiplayer features.

To stay on topic, I like games that are both high magic and low magic, but have found that it is always better when magic is powerful but riddled with risk. Like summoning a demon which gets away from you killing half your party and causing you to run. I also like it when magic in items is restricted and rare focusing more on the casters: even with healing where those with healing magic are important because of the lack of other ways to heal yourself.

This is a good thread. Can't wait to hear more on the magic system. I am still trying to figure out what I want to play in SOTA.

 

@Umbrae: I played the stand alone NWM when it first came out...but I didn't play many games with other players. It sounds like some players using a good core base of D&D rules and background, developed some great servers. I think that will happen here regardless, I prefer that the developers made a baseline set of mechanics that encouraged it though. It's much more exciting to think about everyone playing by the same set of balanced rules than it is to think about pockets of people developing house rules.

 

You need to understand though, OP, that even though magic was common.. how many magical users could take more than a few hits in DnD before they were left bleeding on the ground while the Fighter laughed and clubbed everything to death? Added with the fact they had very little choice in armors.. plus the sheer overpowered factor was essentially removed in 3rd Edition, only to return in 4th. So it was a choice, just not a good one unless you had people to synergize.

 

Well I did not mean I wanted that type of customization/modification abilities in SOTA. Rather how it handled multiplayer play from a smaller/less crowded environment which was better for building communities. Handling the product to the community to continue to alter is definitely a smaller niche which SOTA will not fill. Sorry I did not clarify.

 

Two things.

1) I agree that wizards in D&D were very weak if they were going to get bum rushed by multiple fighters, or if they simply didn't have the right spells ready, were caught by surprise, or missed.

2) The IDEAL wizard doesn't get him or herself into those situations because they are very forward thinking and plan a lot. So most wizards would probably hire people to protect them. Or they would just hire people to do the work for them. They wouldn't join a band of adventures and stumble along trying to "help the group find phat loot". That just wouldn't be what they would do.

But because players like the power of magic and wizards, they bastardized the class into an AOE machine, and the norm became "protect the wizard we're going to need him in this adventure!" None of that goes on in a good RPG or a good novel. I'd like SotA to be a good RPG.

 

Sorry I was probably rambling and not paying enough attention to your meaning. That's on me.

 

NWN was based on 3.5 rules. Improved Expertise (feat), Dodge (skill) then add spells like Greater Stoneskin and Premonition. You could stand toe to toe with any fighter and your AC would match them plus you had damage resistance. Once you Concentration was high enough melee would not interrupt you spells and they were toast; especially if you could tag them with some Acid Arrows. Tabletop is different since this is moderated, but when they added the rules to CRPGs like NWN Mages usually towered over any other class once they reached a certain level. You only needed to run when you were out of spells or your spells were going to expire.

 

I haven't enjoyed D&D since 2nd Edition. Everyone is a fighter mage now. I miss the old days where mages were more like Gandalf when he wasn't using a sword. Now everyone had on tons of armor, big swords, special powers (spells) and although everyone can't do everything...it sure feels like everyone is basically the same. D&D became WoW at some point. I wonder if that will ever change back to what I consider a more sane and interesting world.

 

Amen to that. In NWN everyone was a Dragon Disciple which got wings and had 500+ damage criticals. We used to call them Wingzors and they were the powergamer class of choice. I refused to ever play one.

 

I know Richard Garriot was one of the first to play D&D.. and I bet he's played around the table using every edition released since 1974.. I wonder which version RG prefers, and why? I feel like this topic might be one that he'd have a few things to chime in on..

 

I don't think the rules matter all that much when you have good story tellers. By second edition they really felt like a crutch (lets have a rule for everything) and then a way to sell lots of books.

 

NWN2 was based on 3.5Edition. The original NWN was 3rd. Also, they had to add in extra rules otherwise the game wouldn't preform correctly on the engines used, hence why you have the parry skill, +6 and Up weapons and such added in, and changes to the actual stats and purpose of items in both games. Scarab of Protection? Not a saving throw item.. it's actually a resurrection item but the engines couldn't code for that.

No. Rules were added to address problems found and usually fixed exploits. Also, many of the rules added were actually very common house rules.

Maybe powergamers, but I'm quite certain that people who were in it for the actual DnD experience played whatever they wanted, such as me and my pure fighters. It sucks against most higher tier enemies but I go at most of my games with a roleplay angle, not a "Win it all" one.