Das neue Magie system/new casting system - im prinzip gut, a

[Ishans Schatten]

ich finde das neue Magie system im Prinzip sehr gut.
Warum sollte auch ein grosser Kriegsherr die selben Sprüche wirken können wie ein Meister magier der jahrelang die Magie studiert hat. Der Magier haut ja auch nicht ebenmal einen Dämon um. Und keiner soll sagen das ist in anderen Spiele anders. Entweder ist man ein guter Magier oder ein guter Krieger oder in beiden sachen nur durschnitt. Das sollte jedem schon bei der Charakter erschaffung klar gewesen sein.

Allerdings finde ich die umsetzung nicht sehr gut. Hier ein paar vorschläge.

1. Man bindet jeden Spruch an einen eigenen Inteligenz level.
 zum Beispiel Heilen braucht mindesten 3 inteligenz, paralyse eine Intelligenz von 7, Eisbolt  
 eine intelligenz von 16 usw.
die wär noch realisticher, den immoment kann ein "Ideot" die selben sprüche wie ein
überdurschnitlich intelligenter.

2. wenn punkt 1 nicht geht könnte man zumindest ein oder 2 stufen mehr einrichten.
    sprich, nicht entwerder nur 6 oder alle Sprüche sondern ein 1 oder 2 stufen dazwichen


Auch wenn mich viele für folgenden vorschlag hassen werden mach ich ihn trotzdem
(denkt dran das dies von Ishans spieler gepostet wird nicht von Ishan)

Ich finde der fairnis halber und um einen Druiden überschuss zu verhindern soltte man auch die tränke and die Intelligenz koppeln. (allerdings soltte da die ganze wesentlich tiefer leigen als bei den Magier z.b Sattmache, heiltrank, manatrank, bier für leute mit niedrigem level und starke heiltränke sowie windpotions für leute höherer intelligenz zb ab 11 oder 12)

ich denke die wäre eine gute möglichkeit beide parteien zufrieden zu stellen ausserdem wäre es wesentlich realisticher

Könnte das bitte jemand übersetzen? den ich denke das ist etwas das jedem was angeht.

danke

[Emhyr van Emreis]

Translation:

I find the new magic system principally very good.
Why should a great warrior be able to cast the same spells that a magician who has studied the arts of magic for ages knows? Well, the magician doesn't just go and kill a demon with a sword just like that. And don't say it is different in other games. Either you are a good magician, or a good warrior, or just average in both. That should have been clear for everybody when he was creating his character.

I do not find the practical implementation very good though. Here's a few suggestions:

1. Every spell is bound to a specific intelligency level. E.g. Heal needs at least int. 3, paralyse 7, icebolt 16 etc.
That would be even more realistic, as, at the moment, an idiot can cast exactly the same spells an especially intelligent person can cast too.
2. If point 1 can not be implemented, at least 1 or 2 levels more could be created, which means, not just 6 or all or no spells, but some 1 or 2 more levels inbetween.

Even if many will hate me for the following suggestion I will post it here: (remember, this is posted by Ishan's char, not by Ishan)

I think that out of fairness, and to evade too many druids running around, the potions should be linked to the intelligence too (the borders there should be significantly lower than with magicians though, like normal postions for int 3+, and strong heals and wind potions for 11+ or 12+)

I think this would be a good way to satisfy both parties, and it would be way more realistic.

Thanks.

[Emhyr van Emreis]

Yeah, I must say that I really like thos proposal... problem is, I'd also vote for a possibility to, at least in decent borders, redistribute the stats in existing chars. I mean, when the system is totally changed, there will be quite a few people who won't be able to play their chars the way they intended to... I hope you know what I mean


Der Vorschlag gefaellt mir an sich, aber ausserdem wuerde ich vorschlagen, bei dessen Umsetzung auch eine Umverteilung der Stats (zumindest in gewissen Grenzen) zu erlauben. Ansonsten wird es viele Leute geben, die ihre Chars nicht mehr so wie vorher spielen koennen werden... Ich hoffe ich drueck mich halbwegs verstaendlich aus

[Sir Aragonius]

pssst ich glaube das gehört auf das Board für die Vorschläge

[Dyluck]

Quote: from Emhyr van Emreis on 10:54 am on April 7, 2002
Translation:

Either you are a good magician, or a good warrior, or just average in both. That should have been clear for everybody when he was creating his character.

I don't think it's always very clear to everybody who or what they want their character to be the first time they play this game and create their character.

(Edited by Dyluck at 12:22 pm on April 7, 2002)

[Korwin]

I think it is a good idea except that if you created your character
before this was implemented and you have been a mage ever since,
your role has to change completely. There should be some way to
gain intelligence, such as possibly digging up ancient books and
learning from them or something. I want to get smart!

[Ishans Schatten]

perhaps some way to help them, who have realy bad stats is to give them one time the chance to change the points between strengh and intelligence.

if you would gain intelligence on some other way (like this books) you should loose strengh
but  and if you rise strengh you loose intelligence. this could be the beginning of  a new learning system. strengh rise if you cary heavy things a lot time and intelligence rise if oyu read a lot but it should need realy long time.


@ aragonius ich denke das gehört zu beiden den ich wollte damit nicht nur ein vorschlag machen sondern auch auch eine vernünftige Diskusion über dieses thema auslösen den bis jetzt hat jeder nur gemeckert ohne a) vernünfitg darüber nachzudenken und b) ohne verbesserungen vorzuschlagen. meinetwegen sollen die götter es aufs andere board verschieben solange es nicht die ergebnisse behindert.

[Bror]

Quote: from Ishans Schatten on 5:31 pm on April 7, 2002
1. Man bindet jeden Spruch an einen eigenen Inteligenz level.
 zum Beispiel Heilen braucht mindesten 3 inteligenz, paralyse eine Intelligenz von 7, Eisbolt  
 eine intelligenz von 16 usw.
die wär noch realisticher, den immoment kann ein "Ideot" die selben sprüche wie ein
überdurschnitlich intelligenter.

2. wenn punkt 1 nicht geht könnte man zumindest ein oder 2 stufen mehr einrichten.
    sprich, nicht entwerder nur 6 oder alle Sprüche sondern ein 1 oder 2 stufen dazwichen

Das verstehe ich nicht ganz. Es ist exakt (bis auf die Zahlen) so wie unter 1 geschrieben. Punkt 2 hat sich damit erledigt. Im Moment kann ein Idiot 5 Zauber und der sehr intelligente alle Zauber.  Dazwischen gibt es Abstufungen. Sollte das anders sein, dann bitte ich um eine Benachrichtigung, denn so ist es geplant und eigentlich auch programmiert.

Bezüglich Attribute umverteilen ist meine Antwort am RPG Board zu lesen.

[Ishans Schatten]

soweit ich weis ist es im moment nicht so

((tut mir leid so offen über werte zu reden))

ich habe einen inteligenz von 4 und kann die besagten 5 sprüche ein elf mit der Intelligenz von 13 kann aber auch nur genau die 5 (hat er zumindest gesagt und ich habe kein grund ihm nicht zu glauben).  Wenn du seinen Namen wissen willst maile mich bitte an aber (die adresse stimmt jetzt). Aber ich möchte nicht die werte anderer offen über die boards bekann geben.


(Edited by Ishans Schatten at 10:47 pm on April 7, 2002)

[Avenarius]

Ich habe damals Avenarius als Magier eingestellt,

ich kannte das Spiel noch nicht. Ich bin davon ausgegangen, das
ein Magier intelligent sein muss und wenig stärke braucht. Ich habe demnach
viele Punkte auf int gesetzt. Wieviel weis ich leider nicht mehr. Ich bin aber Elfe und habe
vom Anfangswert auf jeden Falle 6-7 Punkte vielleicht auch mehr auf int gesetzt.

Mehr als die 5 Zauber gehen bei mir auch nicht.... das mit dem abändern der Anfangsstats
finde ich fuer "ältere Spieler" nicht schlecht.
Ist natürlich ein Riesenaufwand, denn dann kommen wieder die, ich kann jetzt nix mehr tragen, ich will mehr stärke usw.

naja, ist eure entscheidung, aber ich glaube richtig geht das mit dem zaubersystem noch nicht. wie wäre es denn, wenn man sagt int ist 11 man kann 11 zauber, int ist 13 demanch 13 zauber......nur eine fixe idee.

Gruss
Avenarius

[martin]

the only problem as i see it at the moment is, that you don't know what "INT 14" means.
we would agree, that INT7 is far below average and INT 19 is far above average. that does not mean, that 13 is the average intelligence of a char.
i'd have a problem desinging my character, because i'd have an idea how intelligent the char should be, how strong he should be, but i'm abolutely clueless about the value of the corresponding attribute in illarion. i'd consider that a serious problem and i'd suggest to do something here.

(this is not only valid for INT, but also for every other attibute).

martin

[Bror]

The attributes are mainly based on a 3-18 scale. This gives us an average of 10.5
Elfes have Intelligence between 4 and 19, so the average is 11.5
Avenarius said, he wanted to play an elven mage and wanted him to have high intelligence, so he made him have intelligence 10 or 11. I don't see how this should get an intelligent elf? All I can say for sure is, that its below average.

If you look at any fantasy literature, is there everyone able to cast the strongest spells? If you take the "Lord of The Rings" for example. Who casts spells there? Its Gandalf, Saruman, Sauron and two or three of the elves of Rivendel and Lothlorien. How many non-spell-casting persons apprear in the the film? I guess its 1000 times more (and in this book mainly heroes appear, not ordinary people).
The persons who can cast spells. Are they ordinary people, or are they special?

In Illarion EVERY-Non-Druid can learn how to cast 5 spells (right now). This is more than in any fantasy book I know.
If you have an Intelligence of slightly above average, you get more and more spells.

Most people her seem to think, there is no offensive spell except the strongest. Trust me, there are others! Those mages who whine "I can't be a mage anymore" - what have they lost? Some of them have only lost the strongest spells! Not every mage must be able to cast every spell! Aren't there mages of any size? Isn't it possible that someone can call himself a mage, even if he doesn't know the spell to slow down the time and move the montains a little bit to the right? Is he no mage, because he is only able to cast fireballs, levitate and heal persons and NOT move mountains?

Casting the highest spells should be a privilege of the most intelligent persons. As in real live - who develops new things in theoretical mathmatics or earns nobel prices? Is every person with an intelligence of above 10 able to do this?

When you have chosen your start attributes, you (should) have chosen the profile of your character. Your character concept put in values. It was not your task to create a character by allocating the attribute points in a way that gives you an optimum of kill-effectiveness and money-earn-abilities.

I think in all RPG systems I can recall (which are many), the mages spell casting ability is keyed to intelligence, so it shouldn't be such a great surprise, that this game does it the same way. I think in some computer AD&D games, it is also not possible to even choose the profession of a mage without an intelligence of at least 13 (15?). The attributes are based 3-18 there too. And no one suspects, that he would be a very good mage, if he just satisfies this need by setting the intelligence to 13 (15?).

@Ishans Schatten: The person with intelligence 13 would have six spells, not five. And even if it wouldn't - 13 is no extraordinary intelligence that must have more spells.

[Damien]

The main Problem is, that the most players created characters with developed with time. And those who did not want to "Powergame" the attributes have chosen over-average attributes that are not the maximum attribute.

The Lord of the Rings-Example is a good one, but again it's background tells a total different story. Who ever has read the "Silmarillion", the book by Tolkien that described the world he developed, will see WHY there are so few mages. Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast and the others are no humens, nor elves. In fact, they are beings that are much older than even elves, and the highest and oldest elves who have learned to cast spells with the purity and strength of will, cannot cast as powerful spells as they do, and the power of the elements they command (which are different because they are different beings).

In AD&D, there are different magic types. Paladins and priests were casting with wisdom, mages with intelligence, and psionics who used different attributes (belonging to their way). In the new D&D 3dEd, there are additional spellcaster types, for example "Sorcerers", who cast intuitive spells - their main attribute is charisma.

In illarion, we have several attributes. In order to use different types of magic, we would need more attributes, or different use of them. That would require great technical changes (and the old characters would all become useless because it would be hard or impossible to "translate" them to the new system).  So in Illarion, there is no elven or intuitive or mind-powered magic, and no elementary-based or spiritual one. We have to use what we have. It would require great system changes or long development to add different things - so it needs time. I am sure, within several years, we may have priest magic perhaps even elven and sorcerer magic, a job system, quests and perhaps other things like developing Characters during the game. But now, it is still impossible - we must wait and be patient as long as the game develops.

Until then, try the best to do with your old characters. Perhaps, the "dumb" persons still can cast too many spells, so you just cannot see how good you really are ;o)

[Sharag]

I have another point, that speaks for both opinions. Against the change short time and for the change and also NO character wipe longtime.

It is, that the other attributes will affect the game one day, too.
Altogether, we have:
-agility
-constitution
-dexterity
-essence
-intelligence
-perception
-strength
and willpower.

Agility is very important for all kinds of roles, except maybe those warriors, that are like a walking fortress, hardly impossible to be killed and therefore don't need to be fast.
Realistically, this should be an attribute of fast and light armoured roles, like elven archers, hobbits, druids and YOUNG mages. Really powerful mages are normally too old to run like hell.

Constitution is very important for warriors and especially for those walking fortresses, I already talked about.

Dexterity is most important for long range fighters and thieves. Secondary, there are melee fighters, that still have to hit their enemies, no matter, how strong they are.

Essence is important for...er...well, can anybody tell me, what essence actually is?!?
Essential is something, that goes to the very core of something. It's the most inner part of your being. So, what should it be for? I really don't know it, except, that it belongs to the magical part, or should. It sounds more mental than physical.

Intelligence is obviously important for those people, that have to UNDERSTAND, what they do. What's hard to understand as warrior, when you just have to hack and slay through the enemy-lines. And I don't mean the strategical war heroes, I mean only those, who fight at the front. So, it's important for wizards and in a smaller extent for druids. (I don't think the knowledge about elemental principles and composition of the forces, that keep our universe together can be compared with the knowledge of someone, that mixes certain ingredients into a beverage.)

Perception is important for those, who have to SEE and HEAR very good to succeed in their live. In the first line, these are of course the warriors, melee fighters as well as distance fighters. Additionally druids, who always have to search for the most valuable herbs.

Strength is obviously important for the melee fighters and hard working professions, that have to carry much weight, doesn't matter whether that is coal and iron or heavy weapons and armour. AND NOT WIZARDS, WHO DON'T HAVE TO CARRY MORE THAN THEIR HAT, THEIR STAFF AND THEIR ROBE.

Willpower tends to be a measure of the control your mind has over body or your environment. So, with much willpower people can withstand pain (physical and mental) and suffering. So, it is useful for everybody, that has to be defensive in any kind. Often it's also used to refer to the mental or physical work somebody can do, before he is too tired to do anything, while constitution represents totally the physical stamina.


One day, all of these attributes will be activated and then everybody wants an attribute re-distribution, again. This time to gain more willpower or more strength, when every mage finds out that he can't carry anything anymore or the fighters notice that every second blow misses.


So, which of those parts didn't you get, when you created your character in the beginning?
You can't all tell me, that you didn't knew, what the different stats meant?
I have myself THREE different characters, but only, because I wanted to experience the different roles in any way. I have a craftman (Sharag), a warrior and a wizard. Why do you all try to succeed in every part of it? There might be some RPG-newbies, who started their RPG-career with Illarion and might not have known about the meanings of the stats, but admit it, most of you knew very well, what each attribute meant and you abused, that most of them affected the game play more than others. At the moment, intelligence has the strongest affect. One day, it might be again strength or dexterity.
Maybe willpower. How many of you have a high willpower attribute? I bet hardly anyone and when willpower would represent the amount of the spells you can cast ( = amount of mana)
then there will be whine threads for attribute re-tribution, too.


My suggestion: Get your character deleted and make a new one with the same name, but with different attributes. You still have your name and even stronger roles, you just have to learn your spells again. In my opinion, that's better than nothing.

(Edited by Sharag at 6:10 pm on April 9, 2002)

[Ishans Schatten]

Escence is for you magic resistence
Willpower and Percision is not used (!in the Moment!)

but this stand ONLY in the English pdf Manual

@ Sharag I realy dont like your suggestion

[Sharag]

Me and a friend had a very long discussion about this and I still think, that it's impossible for single persons to be a strong warrior, a master of the arcane magi arts, maybe additionally a craftman, an angler, a farmer and more at the same time. And everything in a perfect way.

But at the moment, people do this and also want to do this in future.

I think, everybody can be happy, that even people with average intelligence can cast some spells.

In my opinion, there should be much more degrees, e.g. that people with the minimum of intelligence can cast no spells at all and then maybe every 2 INT points some additional spells.
Although my opinion is, that people who are totally stupid wouldn't understand magic, exactly as people who are only half stupid.

You don't understand the most complicated math formulas of math genies, when you are in primary school and you still don't understand them, when you are in junior high school. Both is too little.


@Ishans Schatten:
I really can understand, that you don't like this suggestion, as most of the others sure don't, either. But people could make money or ressources much easier until now with their high strength (either by fighting, chopping wood or other things, with was much easier with much STR, for example), than it had been possible with low strength or low dexterity to protect themselves with two shields.
That all is money, for that people didn't work for that hard as they actually had to.
A person with minimum strength can't really carry very much. Until now, most people got their magic for free, even with only 3 intelligence, which would be really ridiculous in real life.
If there were a measure for intelligence IRL and 11 would be the average, people with 3 were hardly able to speak, let alone cast spells, that affect the elements.

Until now, wizards had an easy life with high STR and DEX. That's over now.

[Bror]

Quote: from Ishans Schatten on 2:13 pm on April 10, 2002
Escence is for you magic resistence
Willpower and Percision is not used (!in the Moment!)

but this stand ONLY in the English pdf Manual

ONLY in the english pdf manual, the german HTML manual and the english HTML manual.

[Rovac]

well @sharag:
when we are in a fantasy world i dont regard magic as something like a high technology or like a nuclear bomb, but more as some kind of technique like a car. Why shouldnt it be possible in a fantasy world for an average human being to control the elements to some level or to move objects just with the will of your mind. You don't have to understand everything what you are doing only for the purpose to do it. Do you have to understand love to feel it? Do you have to know how a machinegun works to use it? Do you have to understand how the brain works to think? If you want to fly, you just do it. You only have to understand it if you want to fly longer, faster, higher etc. So in a fantasy world there is a huge difference between the half dumb and the full dumb. And if you are too stupid to fly a tornado does this still mean you are unable to drive a car? And no offense, but I have seen many retards having a driving license...
And for the sake of balancing and gameplay there - absolutely no discussion about this issue - has to be a difference between the half dumb and the full dumb.

[Rovac]

and i overread the part in your last post with the 11 as a measure for average..
where for gods sake is written that 11 is the average value of a variety from 2-19? Maybe some of you slept in mathematics, but the average value is not only affected by the range of the scale, but also by the distribution of the values. If you have 500 people with a int of 5 and one with a int of 19 is the average still 11? I hardly believe you think that...
And this is what angers me the most, that the small-minded calculation of an average number, that has absolute no foundation in logical thinking is used for argumentation to improve realism. The whole discussion will lead to nothing as both parties, those who think the change is good and those who think the change is bad, have their opinion, search for arguments, and arguments for both sides are just a bad joke, as noone will convince the other side and when arguments differ too much and even base on two different points of view, a discussion is meant to fail.
It is all based on the different ways of interpreting a scale of numbers not more and not less. All other arguments are worth nothing for the other side..

[Sharag]

You and me and surely most of the others know, that traditionally (from fantasy books, of course) magic is a very dangerous and serious area. I would say, that anyone, that wants to throw around fireballs to roast enemies, fry them with a lightning bolt or freeze them with ice, has to have the ability to control these elements and therefor has to understand them, not to cause accidents.
For example: You want to kill someone with a large lightning bolt and summon a thunderstorm and steer the storm against your enemy, while you stand very near to him, you are very unlikely to go to bed peacefully this evening, because you will be FRIED too!
Ergo: First of all, you have to understand, that lightning is very dangerous and has a large areal effect and why this is so.
Those, who want to take part in this dangerous field, have to understand the characteristics of the element, they want to controll. Or think about magic affecting time, gravity or speed, for example. Do you want every small wizard be able to walk around and change the flow of time or tries to make a friend faster and this friend suddenly becomes age-old and falls dead to the ground, because the wizard didn't consider, that someone, who is faster, might have a faster metabolism. (Stoffwechsel)
Understand this and you may use this. Knowing this might not be enough, as there might everytime be more, you don't know, yet.

And yes, everybody who wants to fly has to understand how it works. You might fall into an air-pocket and if you don't understand aerodynamics, you are as good as dead.
And about love: Nobody of us really understands love and because of this there are so many broken hearts out there. But we can't forbid anybody to love. At least, we can forbid everybody to do magics, which reduces the deaths a bit.
And yes, you have to understand how a machine-gun works to use it, at least on the long term. Weapons can have malfunctions and can explode and suddenly you don't have a face anymore or only one hand.

And if you are too stupid to fly a tornado does this still mean you are unable to drive a car?

That's not said, but maybe this should be changed. Enough people die, because they or others should have no driver's license. And you still have some spells. To be a doctor, today, you still have to be quite intelligent, but in Illarion even with the lowest IQ, you can heal yourself and others.


The average of 11 is determined by the possible distribution of points. Everything from 3 to 18 (for normal humans), in which 3 is total dumb and 18 high intelligent. Ergo, the middle of it, which is 10.5 rounded up to 11 has to be the average, no matter, what the people REALLY have. It's a measure for someone, that has a usual IQ.
With the possibility of 3-18 and the assumption, that there are people, that choose 3 as well as people, that choose 18, there is a statistical possible average of 10.5. That WOULD make also an actual average of 10.5, as we can assume, that not everbody wants to be total wizard or total warrior. With 500 people with INT 5 and 1 with INT 1, we have an actual average of about 5.028, but still a possible average of 10,5 on a scale from 3 - 18.

Just different ways of "average", which you surely wanted to point out.



(Edited by Sharag at 6:12 pm on April 10, 2002)

[Zorain]

if you choose 19 int and youre a human then you turn in too a fucking Einstien its a bit ureal that a human can have a int of 19 because there can only be one fucking Einstein or can there be more then one........ see in the next part of there can only be one fucking Einstien

[Ishans Schatten]

@ Zorian   i dont think that everyboy choose an intellegience of 19. Not everybody wants to become a Master Mage... .  
And who said that only one intellegence person live on the World?
We had Einstein, Isaac Newton, Michelangelo, Davin, Sokrates,  Galileo , Bill Gates (hate him,love him, doesnt matter he is very intellegence and rich ) and a lot other smart guys.....

and please dont use this f word again

[martin]

@zorain

i'm not sure if you understood the concept. further i'd ask you to use a more appropriate language.

martin

[Gurok]

ok Zorain how about this, who has the highest IQ in the entire world now?  Steven Hawking.  Have you ever seen him shoot fire balls or paralize people by muttering silent worlds!?  I think not.  So there you go, you must be very very inteligent in order to cast effective spells.

[Dyluck]

@Gurok: Stephen Hawking wouldn't be able to shoot fireballs or paralyze people by muttering silent words even if he was a billion times as intellegent as he is now, so that doesn't prove anything.

@Bror: I hope you're taking the time to read every single argument of every person on this subject, even though there are so many of them and that points are often repeated.

Although it is a possibility that makes sense, the notion that you must be very intellegent to cast great magical spells is still an opinion, not a fact. Since magic is not real, it is forever impossible to lay down the exact universal law for what is required to use magic. How can you assume that everyone should've had the same opinion as you when creating their character that they HAD to max their intellegence to play a really good mage? People's opinion could have been that they are a good mage from being given powers by a god, or inheriting powers from their bloodline, where using magic is as simple as pointing your finger and shooting. You have every right to say that your opinion should be how Illarion's magic system works, but how would we have known this if you never told us before?

@The opinion that magic requires intellegence: The only thing we DO know for sure is that intellegence would increase the effectiveness of doing almost anything such as being an athelete, a cook, or a fighter. For example: A very strong warrior is not a very good swordsman if he is stupid and repeats the same attack technique over and over which his keen opponent will see and exploit. One might say the intellegence required for this is still relatively low, but then I ask you this: How do we know that casting fireballs is that much more difficult than a druid studying how to make a mana potion (which then also correlates to spellcasting), or a bard trying to paralyze someone by playing melodic tunes?

Even Bror admits that his interpretation of what intellegence means is his opinion, so when Bror decides that the mechanics of magic in Illarion will be dependant on something called "intellegence", how were people supposed to know what exactly it meant if Bror never wrote it down anywhere? The only thing people would have been able to conclude for sure is that intellegence increases the effectiveness (which was presented to us as: less intellegence=waste more mana)of doing something, not whether you are able to do something at all.

[Moderator]

@discussions concerning "real" intelligence:
this is a very controversial topic and "intelligence" is everything but a well-defined thing. there are different "kinds" of int, begining from social aspects to logical thinking etc. there are certain tests, so-called IQ-tests, which try to give a little "overview" and which have quite a good (reproducable) output and are therefore used to determine the "IQ" (!= intelligence!). in general, different things require different amounts of "intelligence" (in the sense of "abilty to think logically, abstract and correct"), e.g. punching a ball wouldn't require much whereas certain aspects of certain sciences require quite some more of it. there are a LOT of myth about intelligence, including things which were mentioned here as well, e.g. that steven hawking (a british phycisist) would be the most intelligent human being on earth. thats simply not true. AFAIK nobody measured his IQ, so you're just guessing something. you are not able to understand what hawking does (in fact quite ordinary physics like thousands of others too with the exception that he's physically extremely handicaped and that he wrote a bestseller explaining some of the basics of the basics of the basics of modern physics + some badly explained, hypothetical kosmological theories were he works on, including black holes etc.). that's it, i know a lot of people who work on the same or similar fields and i asure you: they're all not stupid. but there is no reason why einstein or hawking (two of the most misspelled physicists ever ) are much more intelligent than someone else.

of course, if you measure IQs of physicists and, lets say, shopkeepers, probably the first ones would have a little bit higher value. but there might be a homeless someone who has an IQ twice as high as hawking, who knows.

this is all OT. we are talking about dwarfes, hobbits and such, we are talking about an RPG. INT does not necessarily have to have the same meaning and effects as in RL. in most RPGs i know of, INT has something to do with magic (there are only exceptions of games where INT does simply not appear, e.g. earthdawn or tibia). it might be a measurement for the amount of mana you have, for the amount of spells you are able to cast or for something else. in illarion, we now have something like that. maybe the details are not perfect, but in general, it's a good first step. you can make suggestions to change that system, but always remember: stay *REALISTIC*. use your brain.

martin

[Bror]

Quote: from Dyluck on 10:24 am on April 11, 2002
@Bror: I hope you're taking the time to read every single argument of every person on this subject, even though there are so many of them and that points are often repeated.

I always read everything written on all boards except RPG and guild board. If I abandon a thread (2 times last 2 years I think), I tell this by my last posting in the thread.
This is the reason why I am not very happy if I come back from a 3 day holiday and know ... If I open the board, I have to read through 3-4 hours of text (+ Emails + ICQs + GM-Board)

[Astral]

This is getting just a bit out of hand now.  I believe that there have been some good compromises that could be put in place until an even better system can be put in place.  That way, it is still harder for low and mid intellect mages to cast most spells, but we wont have thousands of arguments about what a "high" intelligence level should be.  If you have read every post, then you should know about them already.  Have to say this here since martin closed the other one.

[Dyluck]

I don't see why martin had to close the other thread right after I had just proposed an alternative solution and doesn't give it a chance to recieve feedback. I think martin is getting stressed out and should take a break so his emotions don't cloud his thinking.

To repeat what I had said there:
How about this solution: Just apply this new system only to characters created from now on. There aren't many older players still around who "misused their stat distribution" and are now using them to go around causing trouble. If there were any, they weren't roleplayers and have either been banned or got bored and left already or leave pretty quick. I don't see many good mages around without max intellegence and who challenging people to swordfights and such. There are barely any characters with "imbalanced stats" who actually stay around long and ruin the roleplaying. It's usually new different characters each used for a short time only, so how about just make sure there won't be problems with future characters only. Any actual problems caused by "imbalanced stats" are at least limited to old characters only, and would still be tracked down anyways if these problems should ever show up, since there is only a finite number of them.
I don't think the arguement that old characters will have a tiny advantage over new characters is important. Since as I understand it, the fighting system will need much tweaking anyways, and for the average character who roleplays, the time he spends fighting another player is less than 5%, so a slight disadvantage in a new character shouldn't be a problem.

(Edited by Dyluck at 11:22 pm on April 15, 2002)

[Astral]

I have already heard of many cases where newbies maxed their attributes and went around on a killing spree.  I just went to log on today, and what do I see?  Ice fields scattered around the town.  This is just newbies fooling around.  But they were probably the same ones who were doing the killing, so that just goes to prove my point.  I dread going on because I know that some newbie will be running around casting hept kels and ra kel qwans and I cant compete.  But is this fair?  I dont think so.  After all, a newbie is NEW, and I am not so new.  So is it fair that they have so much of an advantage over me?  I think it should be the other way around.  But this is only the first of the reprecussions that will soon result from this.