I was sitting on my Necromancer reading the forums while he healed and i had a thought occur to me. I've talked to a few people, including the Immortals, about skills. As i understand it, based on what i know so far, this is how it breaks down.

Thieves and Assassins - Hide
Hidden characters cannot easily be detected until later on, and with spells and potions that allow them to do so.

Rangers - Camouflage
Rangers are able to camouflage themselves and remain unseen.

Mages - Invisibility
Mages can make themselves invisible and remain hidden.

Now from a defensive stand point it seems to me that invisiblity isn't even useful for a mage. I could see other mages being able to cast spells and stuff to see invis. The thing that occured to me was this.

As far as i know there are no easily abundant potions to allow anyone to see characters that hide. Yet, or so i have been told, there are places that sell Invisibility potion in almost every city. Now, my question is this....

Why is it that invisibility is so easily available to those without magic capability? Especially considering how weak low level mages are to begin with.

I'M DONE!

You can think of hide as being undetectable, because it pretty much is, if you are not one of the characters that can hide, or, to a more limited extent, a duergar.

However, let's say you are a thief that can see hidden chars. You may not be able to see chars that are both hidden and invis.

Invis is good. Sometimes people let their detect invis drop. Not all characters have a constant supply. Sometimes you can dispel their detect invis (along with other spells), flee and invis yourself, and you can bet that raising detect invis isn't likely to be their first plan. This then allows you to get the first attack if you want, etc.

Consider:

1) Hide is one of the key skills of a thief or assassin. If you had to pick the top two or three abilities for either class that really define what they are and are most crucial to survival/killing, hide would make the list.

Camouflage and rangers, same thing.

Invisibility wouldn't make the list for any mage class. If it was a lot better, they'd have to lose out somewhere else. It's not useless, but it's not a key ability.


2) You generally can't hide or camouflage other PCs as a thief/assassin/orc/ranger. You generally can't become hidden or camouflaged as a character who's not a member of those classes.

An invoker can easily invis his whole group, his allies, any random person he passes on the street. Equally, those people could also come up with potions of invisibility.

As a low level warrior, I'm not worried about the invoker sneaking up on me invis so much as I am the invoker and his twelve best friends sneaking up on me invis.

>Consider:
>
>1) Hide is one of the key skills of a thief or assassin. If
>you had to pick the top two or three abilities for either
>class that really define what they are and are most crucial to
>survival/killing, hide would make the list.
>
>Camouflage and rangers, same thing.
>
>Invisibility wouldn't make the list for any mage class. If it
>was a lot better, they'd have to lose out somewhere else.
>It's not useless, but it's not a key ability.

I can understand what you're saying about Hide being a top ability with regards to Thieves and Assassins. Being able to hide and surprise your target, either to rob them or assassinate them, is a mainstay of their way of life. I don't disagree with you there.

Same thing for Rangers. Their ability to blend in with their environment is a mainstay of their livelihood as well.

Mages on the other hand aren't like those other classes either. Mages, as a rule, usually don't make a living off of killing and robbing others. Mages are on the whole loners. No Mage really wants to share his knowledge with even a fellow Mage. Not to mention the fact that, as far as i can tell from the short time i've been playing Carrion Fields mind you, Mages are one of if not the most often attacked classes just by sight alone. I have a Ranger and a Warrior i play as well and neither of these classes have been attacked simply because they were Rangers or Warriors. Mages, on the whole, are the only class i have seen on the mud that are attacked onsight simply for being what they are.
This to me indicates two things.
1. Magic is so poorly regarded on Thera by the rest of the world that people will kill them just for being a magic user. Which isn't to bad considering the power and mystery that magic can hold. People often fear what they do not understand.
2. In a world that so despises you, as Therans seem to do with magic users, it would seem only logical that they would be more devoted to insuring their survival. Either by creating places only mages could go to train in their arts such as a school or academy of somekind or they'd created very powerful spells to help them defend themselves against a world that so hates them they would kill you just for being what you are. Orcs aren't, as far as i know, so badly hated as are mages.
I could be wrong about all this, but as i stated this is just from my experiences on Carrion Fields.
>
>2) You generally can't hide or camouflage other PCs as a
>thief/assassin/orc/ranger. You generally can't become hidden
>or camouflaged as a character who's not a member of those
>classes.
>
>An invoker can easily invis his whole group, his allies, any
>random person he passes on the street. Equally, those people
>could also come up with potions of invisibility.
>
>As a low level warrior, I'm not worried about the invoker
>sneaking up on me invis so much as I am the invoker and his
>twelve best friends sneaking up on me invis.

I can't disagree much here either. Yes, mages can make others invisible. But as stated above i have seen people who aren't even Battle rages, who as i understand it REALLY have a reaon to hate mages, attack a mage on sight for no other reason than simply because he was a mage. I mean realisticly if Mages are being attacked simply because they are magic users you'd think the more powerful members of the orders would band together to insure their survival as well as those who seek the ways of magic.

All of this is from an "In Character" stand point for me too. I would think anyone, not just mages, that was attacked for simply being who they are would find others of their kind and band together. Think about it this way. If a Warrior or a Thief was killed on sight just for being what they are don't you think that eventually word would get around and they'd take measures to insure their safety as well as those of their guilds? If a warrior were killed on sight just for being a warrior eventually warriors would travel in packs and assault others. Killing and slaughtering without any regard for laws. Why? Because they would rather slaughter someone else on sight under the assumption that they wanna kill them, thus becoming nothing more than raving savages going around killing people. Which, in turn, would lead those others to hunt warriors in massive groups as well.

Just from an IC stand point mages are so hated by everyone that eventually someone would start to band them together, create safe havens for people to train and learn, create even more powerful spells for killing off groups of people in just a few seconds. I just can't see magic users selling potions or making items that can detect invisibility when such a spell would become utmost important to their survival. Especially since very few mages are powerful in their earlier years of life.

And as i stated above this is just from my own observations and things i have seen with my own eyes. I am pretty much sure that it's not as bad as i make sound to be in regards to how hated mages are. But from my own experience and from the things i have seen it seems such is the case.

I'M DONE!

>Either by creating places only mages could go to train in their arts >such as a school or academy of somekind or they'd created very >powerful spells to help them defend themselves against a world that >so hates them they would kill you just for being what you are.

This exists already in the form of the High Tower of Sorcery and The Consortium. The latter only allows magic-users (animists don't count) to enter. Everyone else has to fight their way in.

As far as attacking mages on sight. I think it has more to do with the fact that a mage tends to be a much easier target than a warrior if you catch them by surprise because of how all the mage classes have lower hp overall than a melee class.

And only Battle really despises mages. The rest of the world is fine with them. Or else there wouldn't be so many guilds in the cities or even magic shops that sell wands, potions, pills, talismans, scrolls etc. Just that there are a lot of folks rolling up Villagers.

EDIT: Oh yeah. And since this is a PK oriented game. You'll find yourself being attacked even by other mages. Just because you're both invokers doesn't mean the other guy won't try to kill you when you're in the guild together.

>And only Battle really despises mages. The rest of the world
>is fine with them. Or else there wouldn't be so many guilds in
>the cities or even magic shops that sell wands, potions,
>pills, talismans, scrolls etc. Just that there are a lot of
>folks rolling up Villagers.

Sort of depends on what kind of mage you are; a conjurer or necromancer, for example, also adds the Outlander cabal and their sympathizers as automatic enemies.

>EDIT: Oh yeah. And since this is a PK oriented game. You'll
>find yourself being attacked even by other mages. Just because
>you're both invokers doesn't mean the other guy won't try to
>kill you when you're in the guild together.

Wow, you mean people actually attack people in their guild halls? Isn't that kinda counter productive from an RP stand point? I realize that Carrion Fields is a Player Killer mud. However, or so i keep reading, it IS an RP enforced mud too. Wouldn't attacking someone in the guild be showing a lack of respect to the leaders of said guild? It would be like attacking someone in front of a king or emporor in his own thrown room.

Heh. Not that i'm complaining. I'm just saying that aside from being rather ruthless it's also a matter of showing a lack of respect for the guild teachers and stuff.

I'M DONE!

>Wow, you mean people actually attack people in their guild
>halls? Isn't that kinda counter productive from an RP stand
>point? I realize that Carrion Fields is a Player Killer mud.
>However, or so i keep reading, it IS an RP enforced mud too.
>Wouldn't attacking someone in the guild be showing a lack of
>respect to the leaders of said guild? It would be like
>attacking someone in front of a king or emporor in his own
>thrown room.
>
>Heh. Not that i'm complaining. I'm just saying that aside from
>being rather ruthless it's also a matter of showing a lack of
>respect for the guild teachers and stuff.

Guilds are not treated that way for the most part in CF. For example if you are playing an Elf and Dark-elf in your pk range strolls into the guild hall a fight would be a very normal event. Of course you could RP it anyway you want but one valid RP response is to start a fight.

What I think you might be missing about CF is that while it is a RP enforced mud the design of it is such that there is a tremendous amount of conflict built directly in, this I have always assumed was done purposefully. Most character builds have "natural enemies” that is just by your race, class, or cabal choice there will be a set of characters who will, in general, want you dead. This helps create a dynamic environment where mortal conflict is always a danger that you must be wary of. Because, as you noted besides being a RP enforced mud, CF is also a PK mud where the sentiment is often kill or be killed, and thus it is often considered good RP to enter into fights with your "natural enemies".

Anyway, just my thoughts, hope it helps.