Fantasy Aether: The Age of Light OOC [being rebooted]

[Avari]

Not overpowered at all amirite or amairait?

But really, I was thinking that the characters that are physical like Belegor and Crow are meant to be strong early on while mages and such are meant to be strong later. I mean like, a mage is going to progressively get more powerful, regardless of whether he has mastered his magic or not due to how much fantasy and bs can be written due to the involvement of magic. Like there is nothing stopping them from accessing some "dark shadow power", "some super duper source of energy that powers them up", "using their full potential" or even discovering some random ass hidden power "locked away in them by their great granddad" in terms of these boosts making any sense because magic on its own makes no sense. A magical character can get more powerful in a jiffy and it can be complete nonsense. Physical characters with no access to such magic have no real way to become more powerful, except for a few increases caused by changes in equipment and whatnot which is something all characters have access to, meaning that their power level will stay consistent throughout the entire rp. They just have to try so much harder to get a fraction of a power a mage can get in 2 seconds. If this is the way you want to take it then I will not object any further but having a character "strong enough to curb stomp a group" out of nowhere just like that is not the best thing there is. If a character is indeed that powerful in terms of magic that early on, surely they would need incredible physical drawbacks, shit thats even worse than what I gave Andwyn for balance.

It's not really about balance. I'm not very interested in that - characters can have different levels of strength, and that's fine. Creates interesting situations and scenarios. Overcoming the odds, slowly improving yourselves. Players relying on others, covering each others weaknesses. Mages deal with their own restrictions and issues. The boosts in their power come from repeat rituals and ever increasing personal sacrifices. Aurora is fine with a sword for example. You can also be a Mage and a capable warrior - nothing stopping you from developing these capabilities. "Normal" people have the chance to get stronger and not lose their independence or become a glorified puppet in the process.

What I want to do is provide good opportunities for every character to develop. Not everyone is going to be in a position where they can like, fight an Inquisitor or something by the end of it.

Also, when Expeditions start you'll be very glad for Mages. Treat them like "ultimates" that can only be used sparingly. If even once.

 

[Avari]

Say for example --

You're in Hollowvale with your team. It's gone pretty bad. Your trapped in a old church, surrounded by undead.
You have a mage with you. It's a Fire Mage. The most powerful member of the group for sheer DPS. They could probably destroy the entire enemy group. They'll also use all their mana and effectively be a dead weight for the rest of the trip - what if you run into something worse?

You're in the wetlands. A player is badly injured. Aurora is there - should she heal this player to make things easier, but potentially exhaust herself early? Ho hum ho hum.

these are the sorts of scenarios I would like to create. To see everyone discussing in the OOC what the best path of action is - and then playing it out and seeing the consequences.

 

[MagicPenguin]

If I were Dain and I wanted to send a message to Markku in retaliation for his attack on my employees, knowing how OP mages are, I would perhaps want to find a more sneaky, roundabout way to do it than sending someone physical like Belegor after him directly.

For example, no matter how powerful a mage, he's vulnerable if he's not casting his magic and doesn't know he's in danger. I would want to make clear to him exactly how vulnerable he actually is. So, maybe a crossbow bolt from a concealed sniper in the middle of a crowded street (or wedding) that just barely misses his head with a simple message attached to it (don't fuck with me, man, don't do it, love the pickpocket kids' boss xoxo--or something like that) would be something he wouldn't be able to counteract with his lightning bolts because, if done right, he wouldn't know who fired the crossbow bolt or from where it came. He could fry the entire crowd with his magic, but, well, that would likely cause more problems than it would solve for him. The only information he would gain is, my enemy knows who I am, they have access to me, and they can kill me before I know I need to use my lightning. Message sent.

Or you can go the Godfather route and leave a nice horse's head underneath his bedsheets for him to wake up to. Can't beat the classics.

 

[Avari]

If I were Dain and I wanted to send a message to Markku in retaliation for his attack on my employees, knowing how OP mages are, I would perhaps want to find a more sneaky, roundabout way to do it than sending someone physical like Belegor after him directly.

For example, no matter how powerful a mage, he's vulnerable if he's not casting his magic and doesn't know he's in danger. I would want to make clear to him exactly how vulnerable he actually is. So, maybe a crossbow bolt from a concealed sniper in the middle of a crowded street (or wedding) that just barely misses his head with a simple message attached to it (don't fuck with me, man, don't do it, love the pickpocket kids' boss xoxo--or something like that) would be something he wouldn't be able to counteract with his lightning bolts because, if done right, he wouldn't know who fired the crossbow bolt or from where it came. He could fry the entire crowd with his magic, but, well, that would likely cause more problems than it would solve for him. The only information he would gain is, my enemy knows who I am, they have access to me, and they can kill me before I know I need to use my lightning. Message sent.

Or you can go the Godfather route and leave a nice horse's head underneath his bedsheets for him to wake up to. Can't beat the classics.

I like it.

 

[The_Omega_Effect]

It's not really about balance. I'm not very interested in that - characters can have different levels of strength, and that's fine. Creates interesting situations and scenarios. Mages deal with their own restrictions and issues. The boosts in their power come from repeat rituals and ever increasing personal sacrifices. Aurora is fine with a sword for example. You can also be a Mage and a capable warrior - nothing stopping you from developing these capabilities. "Normal" people have the chance to get stronger and not lose their independence or become a glorified puppet in the process.

I do see how having all characters be balanced can reduce the amount of fun interactions and whatnot. But I get the feeling that having incredibly powerful characters can make other characters somewhat useless if you catch my drift. I wrote Andwyn around the fact that he is useless. That's pretty much it and no matter how strong or weak the other characters are, I intend him to stay that way unless he is pretty much forced to get more powerful using some church magix. But what about the characters that are not meant to be useless? Why have Belegor take aim and shoot down some people with some skill when they can be blasted away at a wave of a hand? Why have Crow clash swords with anybody when that person can just be destroyed with a snap of a finger? Why have Arryn smash some fuckers while you can much more easily dispose of them with MAGIXX? Now I am not saying any of that is a bad thing. But the existence of such things does remove the need for some of the "normal" characters.

These rituals used to power them back up really need to have some sort of major sacrifice if they are truly meant to be drawbacks. Realistically, they will just make the characters go a little crazy bit by bit but ultimately won't be a drawback at all. Its like reloading a gun and then cutting yourself while doing so. You wont be shooting any slower let me tell you that. These rituals have to be incredibly hard to do for them to have any impact on the story as if that is not the case, it can just be dealt with in an offhanded manner with a simple paragraph in a post or something. It would be equivalent to a character sharpening their sword with the sacrifice being that they reduced the lifespan of their whetstone. Except you can't solo a raid boss with a sword.

You're in Hollowvale with your team. It's gone pretty bad. Your trapped in a old church, surrounded by undead.
You have a mage with you. It's a Fire Mage. The most powerful member of the group for sheer DPS. They could probably destroy the entire enemy group. They'll also use all their mana and effectively be a dead weight for the rest of the trip - what if you run into something worse?

Like my point is, why use a tactician to create some distraction like luring them into the church with the strength guys holding them off and then having the guy with explosives or whatever blast the back of it to easily escape as the undead have moved in the church? Why use a master of escaping to figure out some secret path or something to escape? Why use a dwarf that can dig really fast (lul)? Why do anything when this mage can just summon some walls made of fire and create a path for them to easily rush through while destroying the few undead that survived the fire and they can just escape that way. The mage will only use a fraction of their mana and they won't be completely dead weight. Besides, even if they did, unless the ritual needs 50 gallons of pig blood, the legs of a frog from Zimbabwe and the nose hair of some unhygienic orc, then they can just settle down for a few days in a tavern, do the ritual, and then get right the fuck back on that trip.

You're in the wetlands. A player is badly injured. Aurora is there - should she heal this player to make things easier, but potentially exhaust herself early? Ho hum ho hum.
these are the sorts of scenarios I would like to create. To see everyone discussing in the OOC what the best path of action is - and then playing it out and seeing the consequences.

Because Aurora is "a capable warrior" she can heal the player just enough for them to be functional and pull out her sword to help out a bit.

I think that in order to open up these magic users to more weaknesses mana and magical force should not just be a pot of power you can draw from at any time, but it should be like a second health bar. Every player would have mana bar but mages would have the mana opened up so that they could sacrifice it, their life force, and do magic. That way there could be monsters that do not attack the health but absorb the mana of the players. This makes it so that the mages casting any more spells would lead them to dying even faster and when using powerful magic, they would have to consider whether they would die or not afterwards, making them rely on their "normal" companions. Would that not make it so that the magic characters are not immediately considered superior to the normal ones?

If this comes off as a rant or me complaining like a little bitch just know that that is not how I mean it to be.

 

[Pai Chan]

i'm quite enjoying the conversation going on here. But there is one thing that seems to be overlooked. it's that the mages' "mana pool" is pretty limited. at least starting off. while mages in this RP have more of a "one time use" other characters are able to be effective consistently. the dwarf doesn't use the gun once and then have to wait for it to cooldown for a few hours. same thing with a swordsman. The swordsman can go on fighting until their weapon breaks or they're dead. mages can use some skills of magic but is much more limited to how and when they can use it. and when they do use it there is a exhaustive drawback. I feel like there isn't as much of a gap between mages and regular warriors. and the late game is pretty far away to really be worried about it for the time being. i'm pretty sure we have a ways to go before mages are calling down meteor storms or summoning impassable walls of flame.

 

[Prrrgadilly]

If I were Dain and I wanted to send a message to Markku in retaliation for his attack on my employees, knowing how OP mages are, I would perhaps want to find a more sneaky, roundabout way to do it than sending someone physical like Belegor after him directly.

For example, no matter how powerful a mage, he's vulnerable if he's not casting his magic and doesn't know he's in danger. I would want to make clear to him exactly how vulnerable he actually is. So, maybe a crossbow bolt from a concealed sniper in the middle of a crowded street (or wedding) that just barely misses his head with a simple message attached to it (don't fuck with me, man, don't do it, love the pickpocket kids' boss xoxo--or something like that) would be something he wouldn't be able to counteract with his lightning bolts because, if done right, he wouldn't know who fired the crossbow bolt or from where it came. He could fry the entire crowd with his magic, but, well, that would likely cause more problems than it would solve for him. The only information he would gain is, my enemy knows who I am, they have access to me, and they can kill me before I know I need to use my lightning. Message sent.

Or you can go the Godfather route and leave a nice horse's head underneath his bedsheets for him to wake up to. Can't beat the classics.

Except in Markku's specific case, he could see the archer easily distance doesn't affect the sharpness of his vision in daylight. so if the archer can see him clearly, Makku would them even more so, just as if they were standing directly in front of him.

 

[Prrrgadilly]

i'm quite enjoying the conversation going on here. But there is one thing that seems to be overlooked. it's that the mages' "mana pool" is pretty limited. at least starting off. while mages in this RP have more of a "one time use" other characters are able to be effective consistently. the dwarf doesn't use the gun once and then have to wait for it to cooldown for a few hours. same thing with a swordsman. The swordsman can go on fighting until their weapon breaks or they're dead. mages can use some skills of magic but is much more limited to how and when they can use it. and when they do use it there is a exhaustive drawback. I feel like there isn't as much of a gap between mages and regular warriors. and the late game is pretty far away to really be worried about it for the time being. i'm pretty sure we have a ways to go before mages are calling down meteor storms or summoning impassable walls of flame.

also, Markku's magic is hella expensive to use. Where it may take a thimble full of mana to light a candle for a fire mage, it would take capfull for Markku and he'd only manage to sublimate the candle int he process.

 

[Prrrgadilly]

you know it is true that all I meant was for Markku to tell the kids to tell the thieves that he didn't feel like having to deal with attempted robbery while he was in the city, but somehow, Markku decided he was gonna just include all the cities undesirables AND show the kids his magic. Now, I tried to get him to let the kids go and just let the carriage keep going, but he just had to make a show of it and summon a lightning bolt.

I literally sat there and banged my head against the table for a few seconds going "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?" because my character had written himself a dark little intro and wouldn't even let me change it that much. Luckily, he was wiling to let me shift the bolt a bit farther from the children to just daze them instead of causing brain damage, which, I must point out wasn't his goal.

 

[Avari]

Except in Markku's specific case, he could see the archer easily distance doesn't affect the sharpness of his vision in daylight. so if the archer can see him clearly, Makku would them even more so, just as if they were standing directly in front of him.

Ah.

I'm sorry Prrr, I think this might have been a misunderstanding on my part. I wouldn't have accepted this if I realized how bonkers that was. When we spoke, I said he could have 20/20 - so basically just really good normal eyesight. But, that vision ability is kinda crazy when you combine it with his magic and wealth. His magic wouldn't give him that, and he's a standard human so no sort of...genetic advantage there. I will have to ask you to nerf that, I'm sorry. I should have clarified.

 

[The_Omega_Effect]

Here are two graphs I just drew by hand of the power level scaling that I am talking about. Is it fair to have Makku be more powerful than Belegor for the entire rp or only a part of it?

i'm quite enjoying the conversation going on here. But there is one thing that seems to be overlooked. it's that the mages' "mana pool" is pretty limited. at least starting off. while mages in this RP have more of a "one time use" other characters are able to be effective consistently. the dwarf doesn't use the gun once and then have to wait for it to cooldown for a few hours. same thing with a swordsman. The swordsman can go on fighting until their weapon breaks or they're dead. mages can use some skills of magic but is much more limited to how and when they can use it. and when they do use it there is a exhaustive drawback. I feel like there isn't as much of a gap between mages and regular warriors. and the late game is pretty far away to really be worried about it for the time being. i'm pretty sure we have a ways to go before mages are calling down meteor storms or summoning impassable walls of flame.

You reload guns u know. And It is an old fashioned gun so it will take quite a bit of time.

The thing is, Crow is not going to jump up, do a back flip, slice off the heads of all 10 hypothetical goblins that are attacking then just dodge every single fucking attack and win a 20 vs 1 battle of swords. If my point was buried in bullshit, allow me to better express it. A physical character has limits. A physical character has many things that it will not be able to do. But a magic character? They have no limit as to what they can do. Like we are told that Makku is a lightning sorcerer. We know that he can see everything and zap anybody a mile away. But do we know how much he can use these powers close up? Do we know in what quantities he can use it? Do we know what forms he can use it in? The point comes across better with the fire mage thing. We don't know what this guy can do with fire other than the fact that he is a "fire" mage. Meaning that the person writing for him can pull all sorts of bullshit out of their asshole, add a single fucking spark and make it "fire" magic. A person writing for a physical character does not have the liberty to do that to any extent.

And mages are not just walking bots of magic. We have established that a mage can also be a functioning character. With this in mind, they do not have to use all of their mana at the same time. They will naturally use it sparingly. I "untrained mage being able to curb stomp a large group" by using all of his power, then maybe he can take on a smaller group, but use only a portion of his power.

And like the gun, the mages have a way to reload their mana pools in a sense with these rituals. I think that these rituals should be hard af to do, otherwise they will just come across as something you write at the bottom in 1 sized font or something due to how unimportant it is.

My suggestions is to have the mana be something that can be targeted for people, mages, that opened their mana pools up. Like we could have bandits or bosses use anti-mage weapons that target the mana of the enemy instead of their physical health. That way, we could even have a way to bully around the mages and put them in positions where they would have to rely on the physical characters, just like how the physical characters would have to rely on their firepower/healing or whatever.

 

[Avari]

I do see how having all characters be balanced can reduce the amount of fun interactions and whatnot. But I get the feeling that having incredibly powerful characters can make other characters somewhat useless if you catch my drift. I wrote Andwyn around the fact that he is useless. That's pretty much it and no matter how strong or weak the other characters are, I intend him to stay that way unless he is pretty much forced to get more powerful using some church magix. But what about the characters that are not meant to be useless? Why have Belegor take aim and shoot down some people with some skill when they can be blasted away at a wave of a hand? Why have Crow clash swords with anybody when that person can just be destroyed with a snap of a finger? Why have Arryn smash some fuckers while you can much more easily dispose of them with MAGIXX? Now I am not saying any of that is a bad thing. But the existence of such things does remove the need for some of the "normal" characters.

Because as it's already been explained - Mages function on a very limited mana pool and it can be weeks before they have the opportunity to recharge. A mage that has a power of fire for example, or ice or some kinda psychic ability isn't going to go all in unless they're either 1) Probably about to die 2) See no other choice 3) Panic and not think ahead.
A mage in your group is not going to waste much mana on some bandit or thug. If they're gonna use it, it would be weak attacks that simply help the others. They have to ration.

These rituals used to power them back up really need to have some sort of major sacrifice if they are truly meant to be drawbacks. Realistically, they will just make the characters go a little crazy bit by bit but ultimately won't be a drawback at all. Its like reloading a gun and then cutting yourself while doing so. You wont be shooting any slower let me tell you that. These rituals have to be incredibly hard to do for them to have any impact on the story as if that is not the case, it can just be dealt with in an offhanded manner with a simple paragraph in a post or something. It would be equivalent to a character sharpening their sword with the sacrifice being that they reduced the lifespan of their whetstone. Except you can't solo a raid boss with a sword.

This has already been established between Prr, Vince and myself. You're worrying over nothing here.

Like my point is, why use a tactician to create some distraction like luring them into the church with the strength guys holding them off and then having the guy with explosives or whatever blast the back of it to easily escape as the undead have moved in the church? Why use a master of escaping to figure out some secret path or something to escape? Why use a dwarf that can dig really fast (lul)? Why do anything when this mage can just summon some walls made of fire and create a path for them to easily rush through while destroying the few undead that survived the fire and they can just escape that way. The mage will only use a fraction of their mana and they won't be completely dead weight. Besides, even if they did, unless the ritual needs 50 gallons of pig blood, the legs of a frog from Zimbabwe and the nose hair of some unhygienic orc, then they can just settle down for a few days in a tavern, do the ritual, and then get right the fuck back on that trip.

Because I literally explained in my previous post they wouldn't be able to do anything else for the rest of the trip. Also that's not how rituals work. Please relax until this has been explained in the RP, coz you're getting awfully worked up here.

I think that in order to open up these magic users to more weaknesses mana and magical force should not just be a pot of power you can draw from at any time, but it should be like a second health bar. Every player would have mana bar but mages would have the mana opened up so that they could sacrifice it, their life force, and do magic. That way there could be monsters that do not attack the health but absorb the mana of the players. This makes it so that the mages casting any more spells would lead them to dying even faster and when using powerful magic, they would have to consider whether they would die or not afterwards, making them rely on their "normal" companions. Would that not make it so that the magic characters are not immediately considered superior to the normal ones?

Again this is something that has been accounted for and I urge you to relax.

 

[Avari]

if anyone else is worried about Mages or any other factor of the RP, I'm happy to answer questions. It's why there's a prologue. But I urge you to relax. If it worked for a successful DnD campaign which actually had numbers such as hit points and stats, it will work in a setting that's focused on creative writing.

 

[Keidivh]

Well here's one way physical characters could stay on par or at least not be grossly outclassed by mages. Enchanted weapons. We haven't really established any rules for them, but they have clearly powerful properties. Perhaps you find an enchanted hammer able to conjure flames or other elemental effects. Or enchanted armor made to help survive a magical attack, increase a wearers speed or strength, etc. Just an idea.

I have no issue with mages being powerful, I'm just curious to see how other charries won't be grossly outclassed by them.

 

[Avari]

Well here's one way physical characters could stay on par or at least not be grossly outclassed by mages. Enchanted weapons. We haven't really established any rules for them, but they have clearly powerful properties. Perhaps you find an enchanted hammer able to conjure flames or other elemental effects. Or enchanted armor made to help survive a magical attack, increase a wearers speed or strength, etc. Just an idea.

I have no issue with mages being powerful, I'm just curious to see how other charries won't be grossly outclassed by them.

No Mage will survive getting shot in the face y'know.

 

[The_Omega_Effect]

Pai Chan Larry
I'm gonna write a post for Andwyn where he goes into the main churchy area and just talks to Aurora and Dom. Lemme know and we can write together.

 

[Larry]

Good stuff buddy, do you want to use that Pirate Pad thing?

 

[The_Omega_Effect]

Good stuff buddy, do you want to use that Pirate Pad thing?

Ye. I gotta write a bit for him before hand though so just give me a bit of time.

 

[Larry]

No bother buddy, would you it be better if I wrote my post before yours or would you like to set up the situation first?

 

[The_Omega_Effect]

No bother buddy, would you it be better if I wrote my post before yours or would you like to set up the situation first?

I will have Andwyn submit his work and then come into the main room. Then hell just approach Dom and etc. just to talk cuz hes kinda bored or smth.

 

[Larry]

No bother so, although Dominicanes is outside at the moment with Sixtus and Aurora; I can bring him inside with Aurora, with Sixtus being sent on his way to prepare for the ceremony.

 

[MagicPenguin]

Except in Markku's specific case, he could see the archer easily distance doesn't affect the sharpness of his vision in daylight. so if the archer can see him clearly, Makku would them even more so, just as if they were standing directly in front of him.

How exactly an encounter between your characters or your characters' lackeys would work out is up to you guys to decide, but I feel the need to point out that if good day vision was the only requirement to avoid being shot by a hiding sniper, many fewer people would ever die that way.

In a crowded setting where people are everywhere and there's a lot of potential cover, I have trouble believing he would be able to pinpoint the sniper immediately after the bolt missed him, no matter how good his vision was. On top of being momentarily distracted by nearly having your head taken off, it'd be like playing where's Waldo, except you don't know what Waldo looks like, Waldo is probably going to stand behind cover so he's out of your line of sight altogether if he's not firing his bow, and Waldo has a crossbow trained on you and can kill you at his leisure while you're not looking in his direction.

This also assumes the sniper's intent is merely to scare Markku; if he wanted to outright kill him, well, it wouldn't matter if Markku could see him if he weren't looking in the right direction before he got shot. He'd be dead before he even knew what was happening, assuming our sniper had a clean shot.

And even if we assume he does get lucky enough to spot the guy who shot at him before said guy disappears back into the crowd, what will he do about it? Shoot a lightning bolt at him in broad daylight where his target is surrounded by innocent bystanders? How could he avoid killing anyone but his target if said target were dwelling among closely packed citizens? Lightning doesn't discriminate; I have trouble believing no one would get caught in that crossfire, and if he did kill innocent civilians by mistake, or even risk the possibility, that'd bring the Church down on him pretty quickly, I'd imagine.

But again, you guys can decide how this works. I'm just making suggestions.

 

[Keidivh]

No Mage will survive getting shot in the face y'know.

But you said a mage could roflstomp Belegor even with his rifle xD Mixed messages!? but cool!

Also what're your thoughts on enchanted weapons having such properties? Would be a decent way for physical charries to keep up seems like?

 

[Avari]

But you said a mage could roflstomp Belegor even with his rifle xD Mixed messages!? but cool!

Also what're your thoughts on enchanted weapons having such properties? Would be a decent way for physical charries to keep up seems like?

Well yeah of course. If you stood in front of him and announced you were going to shoot him.

You could be a top-tier God level Mage and still get shanked in the back.

 

[Avari]

But you said a mage could roflstomp Belegor even with his rifle xD Mixed messages!? but cool!

Also what're your thoughts on enchanted weapons having such properties? Would be a decent way for physical charries to keep up seems like?

Enchantements will be a thing when you kids complete an expedition.

Of course who gets to keep them is up to debate

ahoyoyoyy