I was looking at these, and like the versatility this added to the class. However, I was curious about one matter. It appears that most all of the "mass" versions of a spell occur 12 levels later than the original spell. In the interests of streamlining and such, is there any reason this couldn't be made into a single spell which then splits the base spell into a group-effect? Or maybe an automatic option allowed once your level is 12 + spell level...or...maybe it's just too complicated with spell levels, syntax, etc, and we'll just drop it. Anyways, figured I'd inquire.

I don't see a compelling need to 'streamline' the spell list. As is, having both versions of any of those spells is useful to a transmuter.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Oh, I wasn't saying merge them. Sheer mana cost alone is reason to keep both single and mass version. I was just thinking along the lines of aegis for healers, etc. Just thought I'd throw it out there. Some other time, then.

Also, I reserve the right to say "I told you so" at this point if you streamline those spells any time in the near or not-so-near future.

In retrospect, I'm not so fond of the merging that we did with Aegis (though it's a more stylish commune than its predecessors), and don't have plans to do similar things in the future. It tends to devalue mental stats, and I'm of the opinion that they're not valuable enough.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Adding various skills spells etc just for the sake of makeing it so stupid character can't practice all there skills is well... ungood. I don't like it. I know thats part of your plan for leveling the playing field for high int characters but I just don't think it can work, and I don't like the bloat factor that it involves.

In brief: It won't work unless the skills added are give a significant advantage, otherwise your talking about stupider characters just not practicing them, and being no worse for wear. On the flip side, if they do give significant advantage, then you end up with stupider character dropping marginal skills in favor of them, so the smart character gain no advantage.

The only mitigating factor would be invoker/assassin style skills advancement (which I have a sneaking suspicion is exactly what is going on with elbow/knee/kick) and that style does not appeal to many people because of the mind numbing practice sessions. Feel free to point out where I'm misguided/wrong, but in my opinion, race balance != so many skills you can't practice them all with average/low int wis.

In brief: It won't work unless the skills added are give a significant advantage, otherwise your talking about stupider characters just not practicing them, and being no worse for wear. On the flip side, if they do give significant advantage, then you end up with stupider character dropping marginal skills in favor of them, so the smart character gain no advantage.

Keeping with the current example: We added ten new mass-offense transmuter spells. Elf transmuter says "Huh. For 10 practices, I gain a whole new level of flexibility against groups. I'll have them all at 75% right away, and they'll increase rapidly for me. That's better than +10 hp. Score."

Hypothetical Fire Giant transmuter says "10 new skills. I'd have to give up 20 practices just to have them all at 63, where they'd probably sit forever. Wait. I don't have 20 practice sessions left. I'll skip them." (They could sacrifice other skills (or +20 hp) for the mass-effect spells, but they're still paying a price somewhere.)

The elf doesn't gain an advantage there? Wha?

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

You make good points here, in fact freely admit that my argument looks rather frivolous, but I can do research too, so here is some evidence of my points.

Mass invis, mass relaxation, mass lethargy, mass buoyancy, and mass augment toxins offer a dubious benefit. The levels at which mass invis allow you to get the drop on people are low, and you can get as much done with regular invis.... Mass relax same deal. Mass lethargy is questionable.... I've never noticed it being particularly useful in the solo form, and as a low level spell, well your elf isn't going to be taking on groups, though I'll admit it could have uses, I'd be tempted to say that you'd be better off casting other spells 99% of the time. Mass bouyancy is an extremly niche spell, and mass augment toxins is similar, although admittably less so.

So, thats 5 of the 10 that I wouldn't spend the practices on personally unless I happened to have 5 extra practices at hero as an elf. Mass biolumenesce is something I'd also probably forgo unless I thought I was going to be taking on groups of outlanders. If my fire giant trannie isn't empire/tribunal, I'm not going to bother with this one either.

Mass reduce is also something I might forgo, because I just don't think it would be of particular usefulness, i.e. there is something else I should be casting instead 99% of the time.

That leaves 3 of the 10 that offer a significant benefit. Now, for the same 10 practice your elf spends on all of them, my fire giant can have the 3 that matter at 75%.

This is the illustrate the point that only the ones that offer significant advantage matter, so unless you can add 10+ skills/spells/etc that offer *significant* advantage to every class it won't effect stupid characters. Otherwise you are adding what I consider unneccessary bloat. I doubt you have the stats on it, but I'd be suprised if anyone has used mass buoyancy to great effect in pk, and similar skills fall in the same boat. They are neat ideas, but I just don't like adding skills for their own sake, or for the sake of trying to make int/wis more a factor just because all skills/spells can't be practiced by the dumber races.... Sure your elf has more flair, but my fire giant is just as powerful.

This has gotten longer than I intended, but my point is simple. I don't like skill/spell creep for the same reason I don't like feature creep in software. Telling me that your new version of program X has "Over 100 new features!" doesn't mean #### if those feature are so niche that I'll never (or hardly ever) use them. Especially if those features can be duplicated with marginal effort given existing features... i.e. mass bouyancy vs bouyancy

You also have the problem of newbies wasting practices on things that they will never be able to get any use out of, instead of focusing on learning how to use those things that are of real benefit. How many will spend time and practices on elbow, knee and kick only to learn that brawling is essentially useless*.

One of the reasons I like Riftshadow (and also disliked it) was that every skill/spell was useful from zero to hero. It wasn't as tactically interesting as CF can be because you knew that the mage you were fighting had 2 damage spells, but at the same time, for 90% of the fights, you wouldn't have used anything else even if you had it.

I think laxman makes some good points, and that his affinity-ish idea makes some sense. My idea was something like allowing elves to reach a higher skill % on those thing where it makes sense intelligence would be a factor. I could easily make a case for weapons (especially if you spec in them) being able to reach 125% as an elf, but not as an orc. Or something similar. It's a random idea, but I think you get the idea. Instead of adding bloat, make intelligent characters better at things where it would make sense.... An elf is going to know how to exploit vital areas better that a felar by virtue of being smarter perhaps, or whatever.

(*) Obviously I don't know the true usefulness, but while I'm imagining something like imperial tactics, I'm guessing it's something close to 20% increase on kick damage, which would be IMHO of very dubious usefulness given that kick is just above suicide on my list of commands that are useful in pk.

I don't see anything less then 50 hp as being much of a draw back at hero. Yeah of course the value of 50hp can increase when your base hp is lower and your using dam redux but 50hp is one piece of nice gear difference so honestly I don't think its much of a sacrifice for having 25 (assuming 2 pracs) new abilities.


I think a semi affinity like system for melee classes might be a solutlion to increase high int chars. Hell it doesn't even have to be a system the player can see or manually manipulate. Have it perhaps give bonuses and penalties to different types of combat tactics such as lag, offense, defense, malediction, other utility. Obviously dumber races could have bonuses in some with penalties in others and higher int races could have bonuses to more and less penalties. To make it more interesting players who use these tactics more and more can improve at them. At the moment these tactics are strongly influenced by str, dex, con, but adding int into the picture might give those low con races a little of an edge in some other things.

I could see "c invis group" or "c invis all" being a more conceptually "natural" syntax than having "mass invis" as a separate spell. But it's not a huge deal.