Warrior Mages?

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fernao
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Warrior Mages?

#1 Post by fernao » Mon Oct 01, 2012 4:04 pm

I am really beginning to wonder.

Are shao-lin mages the future of the mud? I mean, first you start as shao-lin, master their arts, gain power with the limitations of your guild, then you leave, become a mage, get what seems limitless magical power while retaining your shao powers, now unbound by guild limitation.

Is this really what we are heading for?

I understand the need for a great diversity of spells and also powerfull spells, but why the hack can they also keep all their warrior powers? Where is the ballance?

And yes, I am currently pissed and might write a more thought through note after thinking it over. But right now, I write this note as it is.

Feel free to discuss.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#2 Post by Drayn » Mon Oct 01, 2012 4:33 pm

Yeah, it's a little bit wonky. If you're a cleric and leave to become something else, you loose all your miracles and such and crusaders loose their battle cries I think. I don't think the monks should loose their fighting abilities (that makes no sense) but maybe some of the more funky chi based things might go?

From a logic point of view, you could argue that if you're no longer spending all your time meditating on the inner self and are distracted by other pursuits like magic, theology or flower arranging, that you can no longer maintain the high level of focus required.

Saying that though, if mages become a guild in their own right (which they are currently doing), what would be the logical reason for them loosing their magic suddenly? One solution might be some sort of binding ritual that cuts them off from magic entirely, or drastically limits it, but then that would sort of put the kibosh on rogue/evil mages which would be loads of fun.

Balance is hard, no wonder Zhakrin doesn't have an active clergy :D

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#3 Post by ganandorf » Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:02 pm

I don't think it matters that they were past shaolin and are now mages. It might seem like it is an overpowered combination but I think you're forgetting how much time they put into getting their shaolin skills up, anyone could put that much time into other combat skills and then become a mage and be just as good...
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#4 Post by Allurana » Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:22 pm

Years ago, several evils used to do similar- start in Shaos, once they got access to the advanced specials, leave and join the Satho priesthood.

Unfortunately, however noble (or not) people's original intentions to join the Shaolin, several of them tend to eventually leave for greener pastures. It's not something only the Mages are guilty of doing.

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#5 Post by Delmon » Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:28 am

Another issue might be that the shaolin cannot take care of their deserters. All shaolin deserters walk free. Feel free to place bounties on the heads of magician/shoalin and maybe there are a few warriors who need some gold. :twisted:

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#6 Post by Delia » Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:54 am

Monks do lose stuff when they leave. The ability to call upon advanced chi techiques will be suspended. Delia for one no longer can chainsaw through masses of the undead as was her favourite hobby in the past. I think the monks have easier time using their specials as well but of that I am not absolutely sure.

As far as specials are discussed having shao skills somewhere averaging around 60-70 is not going overboard. Especially as that stunts other skill growth. Those skill points could be, of course directed towards maxing out magical skills or a couple of handy fighter specials. This said warrior mages are not the trend IMO. All in all Delia is an aberration but even she does
not have any maxed out combat skills ;)

Still Geas is a combat oriented MUD and most characters inevitably learn how to fight. Spellcasters, mages and priests alike, are not different. Infact it is crucial for a mage to learn how to fight is you wish to cast spells without a nibbler disrupting your every spell. Javing a "pure" spellcaster is not simply a viable option. Dedicated veteran fighters will still hand broken staff splinters back to the mages even if they take time learning how to fight.

Mages in a good team can be devastating. With a solid fighter at the front and a priest casting a breeze it can be good times for the mage. Still there are a lot more options towards countering a mage than a priest. Or a warrior priest for that matter ;)

As for the Shao-Lin problem of leaving, I know my character will live with the consequences and I will keep enforcing them myself as a player unless something drastic happens RP-wise. Main problem is the general lack of shaolin around. Once again. And yes, I do feel guilty.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#7 Post by Delia » Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:59 am

Oh and mages are prohibited from overtly building their bodies or atleast the mental stats have to be clearly greater.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#8 Post by fernao » Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:39 am

I agree mostly with Drayn that the problem might lie in the fact that far too many of the shao powers can be taken on when heading for another guild.
Also the lack of being hunted for betraying the (life-time) commitment to a guild could play a role.
As for losing the magical powers, well, most of those powers can, at least in small doses, be learned in other guilds as well. However, there could be restrictions, known e.g. from Pen&Paper RPG's such as not being able to wear metal/chain or heavier armours and still be able to use the more powerful spells.
Higher magic has quite some limitations already, you cannot use it as cleric. I think similar restrictions apply to crusaders, leaving magic mainly to rangers and shao-lin as well as "guild-less" people.
Perhaps all but the basic shao-techniques should be lost. The basics could be kept, as a "reward" for the time spent. However, if that were the case, I can already imagine hordes of shao pupils mastering all but the basic techniques and then leaving for "greener" pastures. Maybe its just the best to have something similar to the other main guilds, that most of their non-mundane powers are simply lost when leaving. Might require some tweaking on the iron will skill perhaps, which is a mundane yet restricted skill to certain guilds.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#9 Post by luminier » Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:59 am

I don't know if this was everyone elses experience, but until I "unlearned" all my Shaolin skills I gained skills at a snails pace.

Perhaps it is the same way with mages? If thats the case im fine with that. If learning "combat skills" has no effect on your ability to learn "mental skills" I might take a small issue with it.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#10 Post by Allurana » Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:03 am

One problem with Shaolin deserters is that they often join powerful guilds like Crusaders and Sathonites. While martial arts might be great against NPC mobs, they often fall short when going against heavily-armoured PCs backed with undeads, unicorns, revenants, watchtowers, godly miracles/abilities, and a guildmate or three. In situations like that, the Shaolin are often helpless to punish deserters or monitor the use of their guild techniques.

To an extent, I imagine the same goes for the Rangers and Thieves. The mundane guilds have a bit of a difficult time stand toe to toe against the divine guilds.

And well, one problem with fixing skills will be that more than just iron will and martial arts would need to be adjusted- there are other guild-specific skills out there too, though not many. And they may arguably be a little harder to justify locking opposed to the aforementioned ones.

Something that might help with the Shaolin, though, is making it so that the efficiency of martial arts is dependent on inner balance, but make the access of this inner balance only available to Shaolin- outsiders/deserters would be cut off from it, and thus the efficiency of their martial arts would suffer accordingly.

Personally I'd not mind seeing things like focus chi disabled for non-Shaolin too, but maybe too many people would complain about that. Still though, it was kind of a blow to Shaolin uniqueness when meditation became easily trainable by everyone, and chi became that thing every other person learned how to do like it were as easy as counting to ten (at least for non-tshaharks).

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#11 Post by Delia » Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:15 am

There are quite many limitations to magic of which the metal armours and encumbrance in general is one. It can be done to a degree but it will always be a trade off. Low magic is "available" to everyone. Even clerics even if it is problematic. High path magic is a full guild. If someone did not know the guild exists.

As for shaos there are no powers that are retained. Only mundane skills, which I do not see a problem with. If those were cropped out fighters would have to lose weapon skills if they wanted to learn how to read or a priest becoming illiterate if he/she joined a warrior guild. As for the two characters leaving for the mages from the shao-lin it was kind of known for the parties involved. Perhaps it was poorly handled, I don't know. The problem is that most people sever all ties to their former life which is kind of odd. Anyways if people see the two shaos turned mages as a huge problem, talk to poGlorfinfel or he could post his own thoughts if possible.

IMHO, if you play long enough your character will eventually learn quite a lot of stuff and does not necessarily stick to the choices that were made shortly after character generation nor I would want it to be so. Eventually some guild-hopping might happen as a natural growth for that character. I'd see it as silly to punish people for that as I see it silly to force people into strict roles. I do agree that intentional abuse of the choices offered is a problem and it is hard to deal with gracefully.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#12 Post by Delia » Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:22 am

The inner balance thingy is already in place. It leads to loss of chi powers and from what I have seen Glorfindel breaks skulls with backhand chops, Delia does not so I guess it affects specials as well.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#13 Post by anglachel » Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:34 am

luminier wrote:I don't know if this was everyone elses experience, but until I "unlearned" all my Shaolin skills I gained skills at a snails pace. .
If you have already many skills is more harder to learn a new skill or improve an old one.
The shao-lin and the mages are the guilds the most and hardest skills to learn. So the 'snails pace' effect will be very strong in combination. If someone leave the shao-lin and join the mages it will be good idea to let some of the shao-lin drop.

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#14 Post by anglachel » Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:50 am

The shao-lin loose their most power full ablities then they leave their guild. Not at once, but they will vanish quick. They also loose some boni on the normal techiques, too.
The ic reason is that the loose their inner balance, because the miss the support of ther guild to keep this balance.
It is not so easy to state a good reason like with the clerics, because their is no deity who grant the powers or withdraw them.
A good mage must focus himself on the mental stats. So he will never be a suprior fighter.
A non mage character with the same experince will always stronger, more agil
and tougher as a mage character.

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#15 Post by Allurana » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:02 am

Delia wrote:The inner balance thingy is already in place. It leads to loss of chi powers and from what I have seen Glorfindel breaks skulls with backhand chops, Delia does not so I guess it affects specials as well.
Ah, I thought the current thing in place affected everyone, Shaolin or not.

As for chi abilities... I mean everything. Including mending bones and enhancing str/agi. I'd like to see them limited to just the Shaolin. But on second thought, it wouldn't make any sense for people who can already do this suddenly not being able to do so.

I do agree, though, that it doesn't make much sense for people to magically forget how to do completely mundane things if they no longer belong to the guild, and it kind of goes against the classless theme of GEAS- which is why I think tying the martial arts to something "mystical" like chi/inner balance that only the Shaolin could truly nurture/obtain is one of the few rational explanations to limit yet not outright disable it.

Though if that's how it already works (which anglachel has ninja-confirmed while I was making this post), great. Having not used my own Shao skills since leaving the guild, I couldn't say from first hand experience.

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#16 Post by Drayn » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:07 am

There we go then,

Sounds like it's more an issue of perspective. It's easy to feel like someone is the ultimate doom monster when you're on the bad end of their pain stick :D I feel like that ALL the time :S My first knee jerk reaction is to blame balance, because no one loves getting their ass handed to them. But later I calm down and realise that the character that did the ass handing has worked really hard for a long time to get that good and I just need to spend more time developing my character :)

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#17 Post by Delia » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:18 am

Do not forget the effect of a good team. It can really twist your perspective as it can boost character power a lot.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#18 Post by anglachel » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:33 am

An 'old' charater is always good. Many skills, high experience and good equipment (or the knowlegde there and how to get it). Such character will domaint all the other younger, whatever guild he will join.
And dot not forget the most important point, the player behind the charcater.
Some master the art to go to the limits of theirs chars und able to use the whole pontential of the characters. :o
This can be the differnce between a good character and suprior character.
Some reach such a mastery in this, that is amazing. It would be dream only to be half so good :oops:

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Re: Warrior Mages?

#19 Post by Delia » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:50 am

I recall Jezz turning it into a form of art.
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Re: Warrior Mages?

#20 Post by anglachel » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:57 am

Allurana wrote: Ah, I thought the current thing in place affected everyone, Shaolin or not.

As for chi abilities... I mean everything. Including mending bones and enhancing str/agi. I'd like to see them limited to just the Shaolin. But on second thought, it wouldn't make any sense for people who can already do this suddenly not being able to do so.
The common chi abilities which can be learned by erveryone are not effected by leaving the shao-lin guild, beside the they loose some boni.
But the advanced chi abilities, will vanished the leaving the shao-lin guild.

To limited the guild hopping, the shao-lin have now a new kind of master, the 'sensei'. A sensei is not able to leave the guild. He or she is bound to the guild and can not leave and can not be expelled. He can be banned and
ignored by the other, but will be a member of ever.

May be we should add such a rank to every major guild. Such a master should get some stylish feature (not very powerful) and can demand respect from the other. To give then double votes by internal affairs, would be a good point to show this respect.

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