Mages and Armor - brains without brawns?

Dyluck · Post by **Dyluck** » Thu Aug 23, 2001 4:17 am

Well I'm not a GM or anyone working on the project so i don't know what exactly is planned for the future versions....but judging from a comment that you left on my webpage Bror, it seems that eventually mages will not be able to wear heavy armor and perhaps have very poor fighting skills. I know that many games and rpgs give the impression that mages wear robes and staffs and not heavy weaponry and armor. But does a person who have the ability to use magic neccessary have to be weak and a poor fighter? If a person trains equally hard at his fighting skills as a knight and his magic skills as a mage, can't he be a good fighter AND a good mage? Sure, this would give mages considerable advantage in battle, but isn't someone who has supernnatural powers like fireballs and healing supposed to have the advantage in battle? Every class has their own advantage and that is their advantage, as druids have economical advantage of being able to sell potions, and priests can bless themselves with protection etc.

I do think that not being able to absorb mana while wearing heavy armor might be a good idea, although i think it should just slow down absorbing mana considerably rather than stopping mana absorbing comlpletely

Bror · Post by **Bror** » Thu Aug 23, 2001 6:47 am

A person that concentrates equaly on physical and mage skills would either be
1) a bad fighter AND a bad mage
2) have a 48 hour per day training program

Armor is planned to reduce spell effects. It is not planned to disallow armor to be worn by mages.
About the comment on the webpage: I was just wondering why a mage, after his full education to a master mage receives a present that is normaly used by knights and not by mages. Its like giving an old man, that is a mathematical scientist a birthday present like a sharpshooter rifle.

Dyluck · Post by **Dyluck** » Thu Aug 23, 2001 9:22 am

If a person wants to become a good figher AND a good mage, then it just means that he will probably have to spend twice as much time training than someone who only wants to become one. So if someone is willing to put in the time and effort to become good at both, why can't he?

Well the reason i gave them knight items is because the only mage item is a magic wand and its not that hard to come by. Maybe the math scientist would rather have a sharpshooter rifle than a calculator which he probably already has dozens since he does math? If it was a super expensive highly powerful limited edition calculator then it would be different. But i don't have that, so perhaps you would like to give me a "super expensive highy powerful limited edition magic items" Bror? :biggrin:

Dyluck · Post by **Dyluck** » Thu Aug 23, 2001 9:33 am

P.S. The Academy's website and system has changed a lot since when i gave the knight items.
Please come and take a look again sometime

Bror · Post by **Bror** » Thu Aug 23, 2001 10:49 am

In medival times the people spent their whole day working (except sleeping and eating). Spending twice as much time for training means: praying to the gods that they may give a day 48 hours as I have pointed out before.

Corvinus Mytheril · Post by **Corvinus Mytheril** » Thu Aug 23, 2001 12:15 pm

Greetings Bror .... humm yes .. mages should have lower skills than fighters .... (i am a mage no fighter) .. thats a part of every RPG .... BUT!

than fighters should not use magic except spells like mes pen, ra kel .... weak spells AND! than mages should be able to kill a fighter with one single spell .. like a fighter can kill a mage with one hit.

May the gods be with you

Corvinus Mytheril, proud high elve mage and protector of Falkners shrine

Caranthir the great · Post by **Caranthir the great** » Thu Aug 23, 2001 3:49 pm

:shocked: i dont like the idea that some pking moron would kill me with one frigging spell! I DONT LIKE IT AT ALL! BAD IDEA

Dyluck · Post by **Dyluck** » Thu Aug 23, 2001 8:13 pm

Well fine i guess i'm not gonna win this argument no matter what i say but i just think mages who are bad fighters is just so sterotypical.

Yes i don't think the power of a mage's spell should be increased to balance things out. Rather i think the damage done by weapons should be toned down instead. That way i don't have to sweat every time someone stands next to me and i'm wondering does this guy wanna introduce or does he want to introduce me to his friend the firesword :biggrin:

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Aug 24, 2001 12:28 pm

Not increase the spells over all - only make some stronger spells a bit stronger. And : Give the mage different Methods to defend against physical attacks. And : Make the runes harder to get - quests for example - Mages are really powerful beings, but in the same time, they need MUCH money and MUCH time to increase their knowledge.
The mix-class mage and fighter in one should not be made impossible. We have an attribute system now that grants something like that : To become a high power mage, you will not have enough attribute points to become a high power fighter too. At least elves dont have hehehe(10 points less in chargeneration and higher minimal attributes in now unused parts)... and since Mages later will need intelligence, willpower and essence, like fighters now need Agility, Strength / Dex, amd Constitution, we must simply set some higher spells an intelligence minimum (like 12 or 13, not too high) and for some weapons a minimum strength (like 12 or 13, not too high). Then we have a good balance.
Mages would for example not use normal weapons - could be too heavy - but magical blades instead. Or rapiers... We can simply let the attributes work for us. Other runes may use other minimal attributes, like essence or willpower (not perception or physical attributes hehe). A bow for example could have the attribute dex related to it (min 12/13).
That way, a person who wants to be able to do ALL things, will have the nice little problem of needing all necessary attributes at 12. Would leave the others like Agility and Perception quite low. An all-spells-caster and bowmen and fighter would need : Str, Dex, Int, Ess, Wil at 12 ! He might be able to learn all spells and use all weapons at average effect, he will not be able to stand against a specialized fighter in only fighting, or against a specialized mage in only casting. Additional, the spells would draw more energy from him than the full mage needs.

Caranthir the great · Post by **Caranthir the great** » Fri Aug 24, 2001 5:04 pm

well.... that sounds better

well...about this is maybe off-topic , but maybe if mages could enchant weapons and armor..

like this, fire sword +1 , (these weapons arent in game) , poison sword +2 , bolt sword +3 , and ice sword +4 (something like that) but mages could enchant abilities for these swords..
like sword of fireball (5% shange of casting fireball at target) , sword of greater fireball (5% change of casting greater fireball) , sword of ligthning (5% change of casting lingthing bolt) ,
sword of poison cloud (5% change of casting poisoncloud at target) , icebolt sword ( 5 change of casting icebolt at target) and greater icesword (4% change of casting Icebolt AND iceflames at target)

err...

and that these weapons would require some co-operation with the mages and smiths , there could be time-limit in wich the swords could be enchanted...
like X minutes?

Dragon Blaze · Post by **Dragon Blaze** » Sun Aug 26, 2001 3:38 pm

Ah, heres an idea: (im putting this in a situation)

You are now fishing and you bring your mana up to full.
You put away your rod and have the strange feeling you should enchant your sword with Ra.
This is a short-sword, mind you, so you cast the material spell and fire on your shortsword...
and it turns into a FIRESWORD!! This takes no mana to do, but think about this:
Your mana drains slowly as long as you have it so enchanted. So, you have an enchanted sword for a LIMITED time. Although you can get a Firesword, made by a master blacksmith,
you dont have to be a perfect blacksmith to be a little more powerful for a while.
When you have the enchanted sword(s) equipped. no spells may be cast, so it controlls the powergamers. You can also do this with Ice, Poison, Thunder, blahblah etc.

See what I mean? The only thing would to enhance Poison, because Poison hurts you very little right now. It would hurt you after the fact (you lose life VERY slowly)
This also leads to another spell idea, Antidote! Just a suggestion for next version...

Concerning the spells and knights, if you are a specialty-type Knight such as I, you only cast spells such as Ra-Kel, Ra-Pen, Ra-Sij, and so on... so it would block them from using other spells? That wouldnt help much, just make it hard for us to kill a Necro or Pk because fire spells now are pretty weak. maybe enhance fire spells? Make it so spells are a little tweaked.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Aug 27, 2001 1:05 pm

The system will be fine-tuned later in development progress. No need to tune it now. As far as i understood, at the Moment the Programmers have to "tune" everything with programming scripts and by coding every detail. When they have changed the relevant things to a data base system, they will be able to fine-tune without wasting hours and hours for a little effect instead of making it possible to tune it better/easier/faster later. And there will be many changes and additional things that would make it necessary to retune everything related everytime a new feature is added.
As for the magic smithed stuff, and protective spells for mages and all such stuff - guess there is a need for Graphics too =)