Can I just get some feedback on the balance of contact other planes and the length of the drawbacks? Not being able to cast or communicate for 45 hours is kind of a huge downside. People complain about long plagues, but those you can at least cure, and generally if you have them it's because someone is actively hunting you. With contact other planes you're usually not casting it in dangerous situations. Because it's uncurable, it really comes down to just sitting in your guild for 45 minutes. If you're lucky you might have servitors for some of that, but you're still going to be pretty much limited to just waiting it out. The clair spells present a real mortal danger, but those can be mitigated in various ways. I would rather have to fight a psychic vamp once in a while than be flat out disabled for such a long time.

And the clair spells are much more tactically useful. Contact is a convenient little thing to have, but would it really be overpowered even if it had no drawbacks at all? If conjurers just had it instead of identify, would that really be too much? Contact other planes seems like something that's great for newbies who don't know about eq, but is pretty marginal for vets or really anyone that is able to just ask a cabalmate.

Finally, a question, do adept/master of scrying help with contact? If not, maybe a solution (if the risk vs reward of contact other planes is non-negotiable) would be an edge that reduces the length of the maladictions?

They reduce how often you get hit with a vampire/lost soul. Very worthwhile in my opinoin if you use them often in the middle of fights to track fleeing or multiple targets.

I'm not saying the drawbacks are cool, but contact other planes can tell you things about an item no other form of identify can, and in the case of say, items from certain explore areas, that information is invaluable.

I've had contact a lot and I've never understood why its so super better than identify other than it says 'This thing does something in combat'. Okay, I sort of already knew that by the way it was vampiric touching me while I was fighting the guy to get it.

How would that information be 'invaluable' in certain explore areas?

I have been surprised to find out that some things that I knew proged in combat also could be invoked or things that i thought did nothing (random junk) that I would never think to hold in my hand during fighting actually do something during combat.

Its just a shame that it isn't set up in such a way that you might be able to get the keyword for activating things using the spell if say you had it at 100% with an edge or something, that would be way neat.

Invoke and say progs are what I was going for specifically.

It's a pretty niche case, I know, but just knowing a seemingly innocuous item has a random "invoke secretkeyword" prog or whatever when you'd have no particular reason to think so otherwise is pretty useful.

Nonetheless, I can't say I'd use it much if I had a conjurer, save on a handful of really rare items, most of which I've never actually held myself and likely never will so it wouldn't really matter much anyway.

I think the perceived handicap of the drawback is greater then the actual drawback is with this skill.

as a conjie being unable to cast is not huge if you already have servitors. I mean you give up magic missle, word of recall, teleport, warp dimension, the clair spells, and tesserect. (I limited the list to things you would use in a fight situation, theoretically you could add gaunt spells to the list too)

Now word and teleport are likely the biggest loss and can be replaced with wands and potions rather easily. Going without the other spells is far from a hardship. Not being able to dismiss could be problematic in cases but killing your servitors (or happyfying them) is an option a lot of the time.


so my recomendation is to just try and keep playing with the drawback because it is really not that bad in actual practice.

Once your servitors go bye bye then its time to find a hidey hole though until it wears off. Find a super obscure place and watch some tv for a bit and you are good.

>drawback because it is really not that bad in actual
>practice.
>
>Once your servitors go bye bye then its time to find a hidey
>hole though until it wears off. Find a super obscure place
>and watch some tv for a bit and you are good.

I would like to see an end to all drawbacks of the form "Sit around doing nothing for a long time afk" I think it's just stupid. The game shouldn't be based on enduring boredom. If it is, and that's really a long-term design goal, give me a head's up and I'll delete today.

In my opinion, everything that happens should be interesting, even the downsides. Having to fight a psychic vamp is interesting, for example. Having the item destroyed in the process would be interesting. Getting one of those affects that scrambles your score is interesting. Getting drained of mana is interesting. Anything that allows you to actually work with the drawback in any way is interesting. It may not be a lot of fun per se, because it's a negative thing and not what you want, but at least it's better than having to afk for 30 minutes.

Sure, you can always say "well just don't use contact other planes" and that is definitely an option, but if the spell is going to exist, then why give it a downside that doesn't have any real risk or danger, but is just tedious? An uncurable 45 minute silence-like affect is just completely lame, because as you suggest, the only solution is to make some hunger/thirst triggers and go afk. What is good for the game about that? If the goal is to make it so people can't use it very much (because knowing an item has an on wear ability is too powerful) you should just put a timer on it.

Can I get an immortal perspective on this? I promise I won't argue anymore, I just want to know what the rational for this particular kind of drawback is.

It gives other people an opportunity to get at you more easily so while it may be dull for you experiencing the downside there is a value added for other people.

In general I think conjies have a ludacrisly low risk vs other players factor (which is fairly well offset by the you kill youself with your own abilities factor).

As a hero conjie you should almost never be in any real danger from PC's except by your own choice. Your detection and movement abilities are just so vastly superior to everything else out there you shouldn't even be surprised often if you are utilizing your skillset the right way.

Servitors are in and off themselves pretty tough. The only times of true weakness for a conjie are when they don't have them or can't get them to hit a target. Now the times they don't have them can be reduced to almost nil by an experienced player. Add onto that the fact that you can either teleport (with ultra safe teleport due to an edge option) or tesserect your way to a safe place to conjure, conjure, then word, teleport, or tesserect yourself back into the thick of things. The only people who should be able to pace you are healers, air majors, and other conjies all of which tend to be in short supply at any given time and if you know they are coming you can simply go to a place that they can't get at you with gate/tess/flyto.


so to summarize this whole thing, yes being vulnerable sucks but it is great for people who might want you dead. I fully support more carrion in the fields of cf.

>so to summarize this whole thing, yes being vulnerable sucks
>but it is great for people who might want you dead. I fully
>support more carrion in the fields of cf.

But there is no real vulnerability. It's so easy to just hide in a corner indefinitely. There's so many places you can get to in 3 minutes which are ungate/flytoable and nobody will ever bother looking. Honestly, with player numbers as they are you can sit in a Seantryn guild for that 45 minutes and nobody will find you.

I'd also add that the drawback is extremely rare, unless you're using Contact Other Planes on every newbie bread you find. Given how potent the spell is, I don't see a problem with a crippling, temporary drawback.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Thanks for the response. I disagree, but won't argue it further.

Not every conjie has servitors that will leave nicely when the time comes. If you can't dismiss and haven't already made a circle, it's potentially lethal to use this.

That said, I still think the spell has its uses and I can live with the drawbacks.

walk up to high level mob that does area spells (if it is a devil/archon). Attack it. Let them area attack your devil/archon into combat. flee and return. Watch the big bady kill your angry servitor.

There are a lot of these kinds of mobs sprinkled throughout Thera that even moreso in areas where you likely would be using contact other planes a lot.

for an angel/demon just find any high level mob and kill them off.

For an elemental let your angel/demon/devil/you + archon kill it off.

if you got both pissed then... there is actually some "circles" so to speak out there in thera you can use to rid yourself of pesky servitors that don't require casting to utilize.