The Easting Reach

My understanding is that it uses a casting mode where you turn it on and then if you cast scare, fear is cast and the scare slots and animated hinge slots are used up.

Yea, for that example you would need both the scare and animate hinge spells memorised; I confess (it was over 2 years ago) I cant quite recall how it gives you the option to cast fear, but I did try the combinations out and they did work.

That actually makes a lot more sense than what I had imagined. Thanks!

Dead again.
Too little magic,
Too much adventure.

I'd love to (rather selfishly) hear Holy Rage's perspective on RPing a 'low level' wizard of a venerable age.

That is easy, be as obnoxious as possible and no one dares ask about why it took him a hundred years to cast a light spell.

Ponyrealms wrote:I'd love to (rather selfishly) hear Holy Rage's perspective on RPing a 'low level' wizard of a venerable age.

Wizarding takes a long, long time to get good at, which is why Elves are at an advantage in the first place. Especially proficient human Wizards below the age of 40 should probably be considered academic prodigies, although undoubtedly doing the adventuring stuff can accelerate the beta phase of spell research because you can accumulate a wealth of field experience, rather than holing up in your tower and studying theory your entire life.

One way to go is to invest heavily in at least one or two Knowledge skills so that you can vouch for a lifetime of scholastic involvement. Another might be to blame The Time of Troubles or an invasion of some sort for pillaging and laying waste to libraries and Arcane schools in your character's region, putting a delay upon their ability to get ahold of Arcane notes.

Regardless, it probably isn't the wisest idea to claim they have officially been a 'Wizard' since their early 20s, or they're likely to be met with a degree of scepticism by their adventuring buddies. That said, the races that live longer naturally feel less compelled to hurry to achieve their goals the way short-lived humans might, so maybe your character was only picking up a couple of spells every year in quiet periods between a different priority which they were dealing with, like a family or enterprise.

Apologies for the resurrection, and this may belong in suggestions - but it is mostly wizard related; feel free to move it however.

Two things I'd like to raise (apart from the thread) - summon themes and polymorph options. Firstly, I love the summon themes as they are, and I appreciate that sort of thing takes a bit of work, but with a fair number of high level casters (mostly divine, but they get this too) around whose players have had a while to get used to the themes, I was wondering if there was any appetite for adding a few more? I was thinking along the lines of mechanical constructs (gnomes and priests of Gond would like this), shadows (available as a 4th level arcane spell, but maybe some scaling series of summons could suit some), spirits or undead. The last two step a bit on prestige class toes, I am aware, but the same could be said for the availabilty of demon summons for non-good casters generally, and the available options should not be as potent as those available for a prestige class. I'm sure there could be more themes others could think of, and I think the current themes do cover most bases pretty well; more variety is always going to be nice however, while retaining the overall server balance.

Secondly (and served with a large dose of self-interest, I will admit) is the choice of options for a polymorphing wizard. It's been a while since I rampaged as a stoneskinned damage shielded troll, but as that combination could traditionally be used as a mechanically strong device, and could be here, this isn't really about mechanical uberness and a replication of the iron golem or red dragon shapechanges (although should you see fit...) but more about the rp flavour that this spell can offer. It's not about matching the druid's wildshape either - at 8th level the druid has 2 attacks per round, the wildshape lasts longer, is not dispellable and the druid can take feats to make it more powerful - the polymorphed wizard does not have any of that, and that is fine - they can still join in the melee as a stoneskinned troll with none of those benefits. That really isn't the wizard's strength, but it's nice to have as an option. What I'm angling at is the wizard having some of the variety that even a 4th level druid has - I have sadly not spent much time either playing a druid or mingling with them outside of dungeons, so I have yet to see one wildshape into a rabbit...but it's cool that they have that option. The polymorphing wizard (who gets that at 7th level and not 4th) has a fraction of that variety. The wizard may not want a selection of edible furry critters, and a different set of creatures would be desireable (there is a good range in the shifter options, which I assume have all been made, so really a selection of those would tick this box, at least for me). Again, I wouldnt look for the wizard to muscle in on shifter territory too much, but it's perhaps telling that there are a few 7-8 level druids on the server, and no shifters, which suggests to me that many of these shapes are mechanically less able than the wildshape forms, while also being unable to advance in spellcasting. The polymorph, for a wizard, would be one trick among many, so some "rp" shapes (they have pixie already) would be fine.

Further with polymorph self, this spell is also available to higher level animal domain priests and rangers. I'm not aware of any such priests on TER, but we do have a goodly number of rangers, and should this spell become available through whatever 8+ system may come into operation, the current polymorph options really don't suit most rangers - so, without self interest, some modification may be worth looking into for those classes in the future, so they can be a rabbit and not a troll.

But for now - red dragon. Thanks.

Highlander wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 18, 2017 11:03 pm

Apologies for the resurrection, and this may belong in suggestions - but it is mostly wizard related; feel free to move it
Further with polymorph self, this spell is also available to higher level animal domain priests and rangers. I'm not aware of any such priests on TER, but we do have a goodly number of rangers, and should this spell become available through whatever 8+ system may come into operation, the current polymorph options really don't suit most rangers - so, without self interest, some modification may be worth looking into for those classes in the future, so they can be a rabbit and not a troll.

But for now - red dragon. Thanks.

For priests polymorph self is a 5th level spell, impossible to reach at the current level cap of 9, even if they had the animal domain.

It's not available to rangers until 14th level with 18 wisdom, or 15th level which would be beyond even the considered level cap of the server.

I personally also feel red dragons as a shape for players to take on is too high magic for the setting.

Yes, I am aware of those points, hence the qualification around the future development of an advancement system beyond level 8. I don't know what that will look like personally, and if access to higher level spells is not part of that system, then this will obviously not apply to priests or rangers. As for the dragon, just to remove any doubt for those whose tongue in cheek detector isn't working, I'm not suggesting replicating a 9th level spell in TER, as a fully grown dragon would clearly be unbalanced for the setting.