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I have been thinking some about the magery skill. Ffor a single skill slot it gives lots and lots of options, pretty much a no brainer to put it in at least as a secondary on almost any character, if it's possible (I think so but not 100% sure) how about splitting it into 2 skills (note these skills would not be opposites in the same sense druidry and necromancy are, there should be nothing stopping someone from specing both of them):

Evocation - acts as your magery skill when casting offensive spells. Possible title if first prime: Sorcerrer. I would also use this skill as the necromancers magery portion of their casting check.
Spells I would put in this category are magic arrow, harm, fireball, lightning, mind blast , explosion, energy bolt, chain lightning, flamestrike, meteor swarm, earthquake, fire field, paralyze field, poison field, poison, paralyze, blade spirit, energy vortex, air elemental, fire elemental, demon, mana drain and mana vampire.

Alteration (not too happy with this name) - acts as your magery skill when casting defensive/buff spells. Possible title if first prime: Priest. I would also use this skill as druids magery portion of their casting check.
Spells I would put in this category heal, greater heal, agility, strength, cunning, bless, protection, arch protection, polymorph, wall of stone, energy field, dispel field, cure, arch cure, dispel, mass dispel, water elemental, earth elemental, summon creature, resurrection, weaken, clumsy, feeblemind, curse and mass curse.

The spells not listed above recall, reactive armour, gate, mark, nightsight, create food, reveal, telekinesis, teleport, reflect, invisibility, incognito could use the higher of the above two skills.

While I am sure the spell lists will need some tweaking I did include my first stab at it. In particular I was of two minds about the debuffs and summons.

Wait, did you mean "Evocation" or "Invocation"? As it is magery is already divided into two skills, in practice anyway. Magery without any invocation is pretty much useless as it is, so a change like this wouldn't be much of a change (except perhaps for the tank-mages who would be totally screwed ).

I actually wouldn't mind dividing offensive vs defensive spells (and the other misc ones), but from a tech point of view, that would make spellbooks kinda obsolete, wouldn't it?

By the way, in other fantasy games I've seen the term "cleric" used more often in connection to defensive spellcasting, and a sorcerer is of course the hardcore offensive spells character.

Joram Lionheart wrote:Wait, did you mean "Evocation" or "Invocation"?

I was afraid that might happen, being as the names were so close togeather. I am adding a skill.

Instead of the casting skills being:
Magery
Invocation
Meditation

I'm proposing it be
Magery - Offensive (I called it Evocation)
Magery - Defencive (I called it Alteration)
Invocation - same as before
Mediation - same as before

except perhaps for the tank-mages who would be totally screwed

Actually I wouldn't think so. I bet that 90-95% of tank mages use magery primarily for buffing and utility spells which I left as "other uses the highes of the two skills", which they would get from the defencive line.

but from a tech point of view, that would make spellbooks kinda obsolete, wouldn't it?

I don't see this affecting the spellbook at all really. I am not proposing the two schools of thought be opposites each other, one could still spec both and have total access to all spells. Though it would probably wind up more the norm for one to be primed and the other as a secondary.

I am guessing that part of the idea here is to make it harder to have all three of the current magery skills as primes (Magery, Invocation, and Meditation) while keeping the full range of standard magery spells. In other words, if one were to spec both Evocation and Alteration as primes, then either Invocation or Meditation would have to be specced as a secondary skill.

However, in terms of the Alteration spell line, there is some trouble with the logic I think. Most of those spells could be cast even with Alteration at 60. The only really important ones you couldn't cast would be Polymorph, Summon Earth/Water Elemental, and Ressurection. Dispel might be a bit of a problem, but you could still cast it with scrolls. Resurrection isn't a problem if you carry wands.

Some of the same logic applies to the Evocation spell line. At 60 skill you would still have a good group of offensive skills available, even if only via scrolls. The area affect spells would be out of reach, and Mana Vampire would be too, but perhaps not Mana drain (with scrolls).

The situation does get trickier when you add Necromancy or Animal Lore (for Druids) into the mix, however. Those skills already take up an additional spec slot. By dividing up Magery the situation gets much tougher for them. In the case of Necromancers, they could probably spec just Evocation and be pretty happy. In the case of Druids, who do not have a lot of good offensive spells now, speccing just Alteration would seriously hurt them, and this class (as pure druids, not as druid/tamers) already has problems according to some. Speccing Evocation, Alteration, and Animal Lore as primes would hamper them by forcing them to make Meditation and Invocation as secondaries, weakening their characters. Add to this that many druids only find themselves really effective if they spec Taming as a prime alongside Animal Lore, and the situation gets still worse for them.

I don't dislike the idea in general, but I think there might be repercussions for both solo and group fighting mages and especially druids that could turn a lot of people off (introduce a lot of frustration and take the fun out of it).

If this is part of the "Mages are too powerful" argument (and a suggestion for a possible remedy), then I think there are other less dramatic solutions that are likely to have fewer repercussions. For example, Drocket dicsussed a while back merging all of the buffs spells and making Bless into a sort of anti-curse spell. He already decreased the effectiveness of Polymorph a bit (and is it just me or have the other buffs spells been giving lower results on average over the last couple of days?). The damage dealt by various spells could also be adjusted a bit, reducing the mage's effectiveness a little.

But I suspect that if you really reduce the effectiveness of mages so that they deal damage at about the same rate as a tank and are a bit more vulnerable, then you will see a lot of people respeccing their mages into tanks or tank/mages (as is often the case even now, as you pointed out). I have noticed recently while hunting in groups that I can not kill mobs faster than tanks unless I use scrolls to "insta-cast" spells (which really isn't instant because there is a delay after casting higher level spells before you can cast another). I am mostly there to buff at the start, heal along the way, drain any mages we encounter, and dispel any summoned creatures I can. Once in a while I might target a marksman and blast him quickly, while mostly ignoring those other imperatives for a few seconds. But with tougher mobs, I often can not take them down any faster than the tanks. I am not complaining, since my mages are very versitile characters, capable of soloing or grouping as needed, but the reg/scroll cost does eat deeply into my share of the loot every time I/we go out. That is one reason I used to prefer to solo all the time when I was poor and still training up my other characters.

If mages are reduced in effectiveness much more I think many will respec so that they spend a lot less on regs and get better protection. I for one wouldn't want to see that happen.

Not sure I can easily put this into words well, but here goes.

On my mages, I typically have 3 skills I need, magery invocation, meditation thats really all I need, pretty much everything else could be 60, wouldn't matter a whole lot so I have 3 of the 6 spec slots used and 3 to do whatever with.

My tanks on the other hand also have 3 must haves weaponskill, tactics, magic resist, and a whole bunch of stuff I also want at 80 (or 100) archery, parry, healing, anatomy, magery, leadership probably a couple more that arn't coming off the top of my head.

This was in part something of an attempt to add a similar level of decision making to specing a mage.

Also, as per a bit of the preamble to the original post, you spec magery you get access to healing, travel, damage and a bunch of utility spells all for 1 spec slot, a deal at twice the price.

Eldric wrote:

except perhaps for the tank-mages who would be totally screwed

Actually I wouldn't think so. I bet that 90-95% of tank mages use magery primarily for buffing and utility spells which I left as "other uses the highes of the two skills", which they would get from the defencive line.

Um, I know a lot of tank mages and also myself that also fire field, dispel, lightning Bolt, magic arrow, harm, etc in addition to the buff spells. I think your percentages are pretty high. Cut it in half and it would be a little more accurate.

Eldric wrote:Also, as per a bit of the preamble to the original post, you spec magery you get access to healing, travel, damage and a bunch of utility spells all for 1 spec slot, a deal at twice the price.

Offensive spells with 60 invocation might be somewhat useful but it's a wasteful and long way to hunt. I don't think having magery at 80 does much except for polymorph and gate, the rest can be casted fairly easily with 70 or 60 magery.
Like I mentioned above, invocation is already a must-have for the pure mage, and making magery into three skills instead of just two would be a terrible blow to necros and especially druids. Think about it, if people had to choose between using magery spells and druid ones, people are going to choose magery hands down. No one would seriously consider hunting with a pure druid (no magery offensive spells), or even a pure necro because it'd just be so friggin' expensive and tedious (no scrolls for druid spells, and the necro scrolls would run out pretty quick).
Magery = 3 skills would simply reduced the amount of necros and druids out there, or at least make them more of hassle to spec, and druid magic sucks badly enough as it is.

Orion Michaels wrote:

Eldric wrote:

except perhaps for the tank-mages who would be totally screwed

Actually I wouldn't think so. I bet that 90-95% of tank mages use magery primarily for buffing and utility spells which I left as "other uses the highes of the two skills", which they would get from the defencive line.

Um, I know a lot of tank mages and also myself that also fire field, dispel, lightning Bolt, magic arrow, harm, etc in addition to the buff spells. I think your percentages are pretty high. Cut it in half and it would be a little more accurate.

That seems fair enough, the damage is still going to be done based on invocation skill so that won't change (much there is a slight bit of added damage for your magery skill I beleive), arrow is circle 1 it will still be castable, the buff spells I suggested the tank-mages would have access to via them taking the defencive line, lightning bolt and fire field would have to resort to scroll casting to reliably get off., they may lose dispel or have somewhat erratic access to it via scroll.

Joram Lionheart wrote:

Eldric wrote:Also, as per a bit of the preamble to the original post, you spec magery you get access to healing, travel, damage and a bunch of utility spells all for 1 spec slot, a deal at twice the price.

Offensive spells with 60 invocation might be somewhat useful but it's a wasteful and long way to hunt. I don't think having magery at 80 does much except for polymorph and gate, the rest can be casted fairly easily with 70 or 60 magery.
Like I mentioned above, invocation is already a must-have for the pure mage, and making magery into three skills instead of just two would be a terrible blow to necros and especially druids. Think about it, if people had to choose between using magery spells and druid ones, people are going to choose magery hands down. No one would seriously consider hunting with a pure druid (no magery offensive spells), or even a pure necro because it'd just be so friggin' expensive and tedious (no scrolls for druid spells, and the necro scrolls would run out pretty quick).
Magery = 3 skills would simply reduced the amount of necros and druids out there, or at least make them more of hassle to spec, and druid magic sucks badly enough as it is.

Snipping this is going to be icky, actually I don't think I can. I also find my mind wandering as I do this which isn't helping much.

A straight druid (no taming) wouldn't have a huge problem a druid tamer would be something of a problem.

Druidry, Magery-defensive, Taming
Meditation, Magery-offensive, Invocation

No magic resist but it looks workable.

For Necromancers it dosn't really look too bad

Necromancy, Magery-offensive, Invocation
Meditation, Magery-defensive, Magic Resist

Actually, a necro could possibly skip Magery-defensive altogeather, spectare touch covers strength, agility and cunning, lich covers polymoph, that only leaves out bless which could still be wand cast. Hmm and the dispel line. *ponders*.

Eldric wrote:

Orion Michaels wrote:

Eldric wrote:

except perhaps for the tank-mages who would be totally screwed

Actually I wouldn't think so. I bet that 90-95% of tank mages use magery primarily for buffing and utility spells which I left as "other uses the highes of the two skills", which they would get from the defencive line.

Um, I know a lot of tank mages and also myself that also fire field, dispel, lightning Bolt, magic arrow, harm, etc in addition to the buff spells. I think your percentages are pretty high. Cut it in half and it would be a little more accurate.

That seems fair enough, the damage is still going to be done based on invocation skill so that won't change (much there is a slight bit of added damage for your magery skill I beleive), arrow is circle 1 it will still be castable, the buff spells I suggested the tank-mages would have access to via them taking the defencive line, lightning bolt and fire field would have to resort to scroll casting to reliably get off., they may lose dispel or have somewhat erratic access to it via scroll.

I meant cut your percentage of Tank Mages that only use buff spells in half.

So, what in my specs should I replace with said new proposed skill?

Prime: Sword, Tactics, Healing
Sec: Anatomy, Parry, Magery

Take any of those out and it would suck. But then again, who is surprised that I'm not real fond of this?

My suggestion:

If we want to make mages and Tanks more balanced, just make it so that Tanks with high weapon skill don't miss. It's annoying to be fighting a Vamp lord and you need one more hit, yet it takes you 7 swings to do it and by then he's sucked enough or your life to put himself out of 1-hit range.

the monsters use the same formula figuring their to hits as the players do so if you want to hit more often then you will get hit a lot more often. tis a very delicate balance to maintain.

Orion Michaels wrote:I meant cut your percentage of Tank Mages that only use buff spells in half.

So, what in my specs should I replace with said new proposed skill?

Prime: Sword, Tactics, Healing
Sec: Anatomy, Parry, Magery

This would become.

Prime:Sword, Tactics, Healing
Sec: Anatomy, Parry, Magery-defensive

Buff, healing and travel wise it would be identical to what you have now. If you use attack spells higher than Circle 3 you would need to use scroll instead of book casting if you wanted to be assued of never failing.

My suggestion:

If we want to make mages and Tanks more balanced, just make it so that Tanks with high weapon skill don't miss. It's annoying to be fighting a Vamp lord and you need one more hit, yet it takes you 7 swings to do it and by then he's sucked enough or your life to put himself out of 1-hit range.

That or giving mages a similar chance to miss when casting that tanks do swinging. Either would bring the two clasess into some kind of alignment damage-dealing wise.

Druid magic sucks, there's just no getting around it. Even if druid magic actually had an offensive spell better or at least as good as ebolt, I can't use druid scrolls or even MOVE while casting (which is another reason I'm THIS close to dropping that PITA skill). I dropped taming because I got bored from watching the dragon doing all the work (besides from healing it every now and then). Invocation at 80 also sucks, especially if your offensive spells are going to be at 80 too. The difference between 80 and 100 is not just how fast you can kill a mob, it also means how many scrolls your going to use up (and every scroll costs 30gps).
Oh and one more thing, there's just NO WAY I'm going to get near anything tougher than a lich with 60 resist. That's just not smart.

And before you start telling me that it's possible, yeah I agree, it's a workable skillset, but it's not appealing or practical. I mean, cmon let's get real for minute here, Eldric. Who in his/her right mind is going to waste more resources in killing something with a type of magic that is barely worth the skillslot when you have a perfectly better alternative that is much cheaper and effective?

It's the same issue you brought up in our last discussion on spell buffs. Yeah sure, you can kill a vampire lieutenant without buffs (IF you carry the right equipment), but who would want to? Would it make the game more fun? Certainly not. It would only make killing things as a tank FAR more tedious and boring than it already is.

I think we need to start thinking realistically and make a real assessment whether the positives of making magery into three skills outweight the negatives. Otherwise, making a change this drastic just because it sounds neat is not good enough justification.

I think you're got the best strategy, Joram. Drastic changes like this really need to be playtested if possible and definitely discussed thoroughly. Druids definitely don't need a nerfing if we hope to balance them with the other "classes."

Still, it's nice to see all the ideas flying around. Active boards are a good sign for the shard. Don't you agree?

Well, I think the original idea would just be a bit too complicated to be workable. Not from a scripting point of view, but from the fact that you'd have one spellbook that would use two different skills, which I guarantee would generate 5 posts per day from new players trying to figure out which skill does what. Not to mention that it would be another skill to balance, leading to constant 'Evocation is better than Alteration!' posts

Something I find rather funny is that just a couple of years ago, tanks were considered the powerhouse (well, far behind bards and tamers...) Mages were mostly religated to healers. I certainly seem to have gone a bit too far in 'fixing' them

Currently I'm kind of bracing myself for a rather large number of assorted changes. Currently my thoughts on the main thing that needs to be done to magery is to make Magic Resist a bit better (which is sort of a boost to tanks too, there, though that's not directly my main reason for doing so) and nerf the buffs somewhat, especially polymorph and bless. Then just see how that works out.