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Post by stanrick on Mar 3, 2014 15:01:32 GMT -5
two points. 1st: I would like the wording for rage to be fixed, right now it say ignore attacks. that means any attack, you have said it means ignore damage. I would like to wording to reflect this so it helps pervent confusion.
2nd: I can see brotherhood as a game braker. last thing we need is all the longfangs going ragey because harlok dose what he dose best. at one time we talked about a bodyguard skill. is there a way to maybe make a skill that if a faction member fall, you can protect him better? or maybe you gain a hit point while protecting your fallen members?
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Post by shanaaber on Mar 3, 2014 19:19:48 GMT -5
Thoughts On Magic stuff.
Buffy Cleric vs Healer Cleric: If Clerics where suppose to be buffers in battle we need some actual buffs. A one hit soak that doesnt work on magic isnt much of a buff. Its good for a squishy cleric as that one hit may mean you make it out of there but for a 7 point armor warrior its sort of ehh. If We where fighting undead then yeah buffy cleric make alittle more sense as there buff weapon skill is way use full but most of the time we are not fighting undead.
Not keen on the idea that Regen will cost more mana. It already says Regen is already 3 mana per wound. For the same example given it means the same two light and mortal instead of nine mana and three mintes will now cost 12 and 3 minutes. Thats getting alittle extreme. I could heal one person and that even after the fighting is over and I am a level 3 cleric. 12 mana is all my mana. Clerics should be better then a one hit wonder especially if you are a maxed out Cleric.
I understand the want to keep the Healer trade viable. I think it still is cuase they dont have to worry about Mana limitations. That is also the other prime differance between a trade skill and a Class. Trade skills you apparently need to carry 10 to 40 lbs of gear inorder to use your trade anywhere which means during any sort of travel or combat event your trade skill isnt useful cuase there isnt time for you to set up shop. Clerics are then your only primary healer but they are still limited by there mana. Even with Meditation currently I would only be able to get up to 8 out of 12 mana back after 10 minutes and I can forget doing that during a fight event.
I also get the not wanting to be revolving door either, but I hate combat event cuase I am just not viable as a cleric. I dont like fighting (Since I am bad at it) and I cant really heal anyone enough where I feel that they should be going back out into the frey but of course its a combat event so its not like there is a choice in the matter. So in the end i feel like I wasted my mana and feel pretty useless as everyone is still injured and I really didnt save anyone life cuase its a combat event, its not like that player can just stop playing cuase he is mortally wounded.
Idea for Cleric Badages, Use cloth bandages like first aid does but instead have them have silver or Gold on them like the red is for the Improved First aid could even use red and silver to represent an improved divine bandage. Spray painting ace bandages comes to mind. This way at a glance it still looks like a normal bandage and we can still keep the normal color patterns of no red and red for wound level. Silver or gold just tell us that it was cast by magic and not done by skill.
Thoughts on Other stuff: Factions: A seperate list of skills Factions can use. Not have mixed in with the general list of what players can buy.
Downtime Healing: Can we have it listed somewhere how one get healed during downtime. You end game with wounds, I thought wounds would heal over time if you sended game in a friendly place, OR write downtime saying blah is healing you, this is not the case.
I keep thinking there was something else but I cant think of it now, so this will do for the moment. Shana
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Post by Jopper13 on Mar 4, 2014 9:23:41 GMT -5
I'll reply to some of the points you detailed out. Buffs We are toying with the ability to allow a cleric to cast protection on themselves two times (like it stacks) but we have to be very careful with the balance of this. If buffs become too strong, it makes things too high-fantasy as people shrug off immense amounts of damage. I am more than willing to add something in if it is balanced and works well in our game, but nobody has been able to come up with some solid ideas for additional buff spells. If you can throw out some ideas, I am willing to look at it. Regen We discussed Regen a lot during these rules updates. Regen is an immensely powerful skill, and we are 99% sure it will be going to 3 mana per wound level. You are correct, that if someone had 2 light wounds and a mortal wound it would take Selena all of her mana in order to Regenerate their wounds and a good chunk of time. This is exactly the balance we are looking for, as in this example you are taking someone with two messed up locations and one that has been damaged enough that they will die soon. That is like fixing a gouged thigh (light), a broken arm (light), and a crushed lung and rib cage (mortal) and be able to send them back into the fight. Magic of this level is very powerful, and 3 mana per wound level balanced out nicely. Yes, you would have to spend all 12 mana now to get a completely wrecked fighter back on their feet... but keep in mind the other factors that balance into this. If you have greater meditation, you can do this every 20 minutes (8 mana in 10 mins for greater meditation, then another 10 minutes to get the remaining 4 mana). This means that your magic is so powerful that you can heal two brutally wounded fighter back to good health in less than half a hour. Now, add in that fact that Selena can take Mana Reserves 3 times (3 + 3 + 3 = 9 mana) and you can heal even more wounds. There are also items in the game like mana stones (gives you additional mana), Mana Transfer (other casters can willingly give you mana) and Mana Potions (drink a potion, instant full mana) and you could very quickly heal people back up. We crunched out some numbers and I personally think 3 mana per wound level is too low, that is should be higher, simply because of how quickly a cleric can heal people. Also, one spell that I think a lot of people overlook is Rejuvenate... it brings back hit points at a 1:1 ratio currently. This means that Harlok (who has 6 hits) can take six sword hits after his armor is wrecked, come off the fight for a minute or two, and get all hit hits back by a 2nd level cleric for only 6 mana. That is powerful, and combined with Mend and First Aid skills there are tons of opportunities to get people back into the fight. As I stated previously, I honestly think it is too easy but I am in favor of a more harsh wound system. Now, keep in mind that I am not debating against you to try to convince you that clerics are completely combat effective. They are not, clerics are purposely meant to be more of an assist in combat and not a way to control combat through revolving door fighters being pumped back into the fray. Clerics will never be able to influence combat enough to be the sole reason that one side wins, as it is MUCH easier to swing a sword and cut flesh/break bones than it is to mend that damage and heal it. In real world combat, a simple swing of an axe could take months for a fighter to recover from (if they even do, since infection was horrible and one off the main reasons people died). This is a running theme for magic in our game world, as both Arcane and Divine spellcasters have a solid influence on a fighter or scenario but die off quickly as their mana is spent. That was the balance and feel we wanted to capture in our larp. Combat Event If you are referring to Selena healing footmen, it may seem like she has less of an impact because of the respawn mechanic... but I assure you, healing wounded is super important in combat events. The amount of deaths each side takes is heavily influenced by first aid skills and healing magic, so wounded fighters pulled off the line have a higher chance of living or getting back into the fight. Your feeling of inadequacy is quite normal in this situation... imagine being a medic in a war zone who has to patch people up as wounded come in by the dozens. You are trying to make an impact on a very despairing situation, which is very realistic in this kind of thing. Clerics may have to triage or make hard choices on who or what they heal during larger fighters or else they will blow through their mana. Also, these events use a representative mechanic to replicate a bigger fight. I want people to think in the terms of "I am a cleric/healer and there is a fight... people are going to get hurt and I can help them" instead of the the more rules oriented "I am a cleric/healer and this is a combat event with a respawn mechanic... healing people makes no sense since they can just go back and respawn". This isn't a line of thinking that a character would have, since in-game there is no "respawn" happening... in-game there are simply fighters fighting and people getting wounded and dying. Trade vs Divine You are correct, a Trade can focus on things (like a healer) and do it very well at the cost of requiring a lot of gear and setup. Again, just like clerics, I didn't want "pocket healers" and "pocket blacksmiths". We looked at a lot of real world examples of how some of these skills work... it takes me a week to heal from a good sized bruise I get from practice. It took Mischelle months to heal from a cut and a broken and repositioned bone from her foot surgery. I joke around with her that it kinda looked like the size and depth of a battle axe strike to the foot. It can take a good chunk of time to make a simple S hook out of iron, let alone fix entire suits of armor. But this is also a game, so things are condensed a lot. The trade off for Divine is that they are portable where trade skills are not, but they have to expend mana to do things and a lot of mana to do powerful things (like heal wounds or bring people back from the verge of death). Bandages I do like the idea for the bandages. We could use the same bandages we are using for first aid so it is basically the same as that mechanic, but I am honestly still in favor of simply using Silver ribbons for Light Wounds and Gold ribbons for Mortal Wounds. The reason is because of the exact trade-off I just described above. First Aid can treat wounds until the player is blue in the face or until they run out of bandages... there is no point where they have to stop other than supplies. Divine casters, however, have to spend mana to use Close Wound and requiring them to lug around bandages to get the same affect doesn't seem fair. This would allow a Cleric to carry multiple ribbons of Silver and Gold with them to wrap limbs, because the whole point of this spell is the cleric using magic to close wounds, not physical supplies. Thoughts? Downtime Healing We have an entire chart available at check-in that explains how players can fix armor and heal wounds and damage in between events. This is not free, as it is a representative cost of "finding good hearty meals, paying for good rooms at an inn to get good sleep, finding a healer to tend to bruises and change out clean bandages" etc etc. This is influenced by your skills (Healer's heal themselves for free, blacksmiths repair their own stuff for free, we are probably updating this that 3rd level clerics act as Healers for downtime healing purposes) and also with your faction (does your faction have a Healer's Guild or an active healer that has recently/is playing?) and sometimes certain areas in the game may influence the price of this both up and down. We don't want to post this simply because we do make changes to it and it is variable and honestly characters in the game wouldn't know exactly how much things may be to repair but could have a good idea if they ask. These are fairly reasonable rates (for example, a faction with an Healer's guild can heal wounds at about 2-3 silver per level which is pretty reasonable). This mechanic was brought in because people would actively avoid going to healers and blacksmiths because "getting stuff fixed in-game costs money, but after the game my stuff comes back for free". This is a great discussion. Everything really helps us tweak and detail out things and make solid changes to the core rules. Please continue to post ideas and discuss!
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Post by Jopper13 on Mar 4, 2014 9:42:06 GMT -5
By the way, please don't take these replies as me saying "you are wrong" because a lot of these points are correct. I am simply trying to explain them more in detail, expand on them, or explain reasoning behind current ideas/changes. I appreciate the time every one has given to help myself and the herald's crunch out some ideas, regardless if we end up using them or not. Thanks!
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Post by ungrim123 on Mar 4, 2014 11:07:16 GMT -5
I have some ideas for buffs that shouldn't unbalance combat to much: Immune to poisons for x minutes Immune to disease for x minutes There could also be buffs that make a shield immune to cleaving bolt, but all other magic is still effective, or the reverse or whatever.
All of these could be one mana, as they are all very specific thus are fairly easily sidestepped.
I would also put them into groups, like a armor (cleaving/acid bolt immunity) and health (poison/disease immunity) and say you can only have either or at any one time, but never both to keep it balanced. For example, I can have acid bolt immunity, but not cleaving bolt immunity and so on.
To show them on players I would keep it easy, a large colored sticker or something with a symbol, like a big red one with a shield for cleaving bolt immunity.
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Post by shanaaber on Mar 4, 2014 17:36:47 GMT -5
Soo
I agree if there was a way to have access to way to regen mana quickly be it through mana transfer, or potions or what have you then yeah a cleric becomes slightly more useful, but currently the Item way to regain mana are not accessible. There isnt a mechanic or way for me to currently go down to the apothecary in down time and say hey will trade you for mana pots. (though this might be a good way to diversify Resources) I was told the item way of regaining mana or heath was meant to be rare. So this stuff is hard to come by.
As for getting the more mana reserves its an exp dump. Inorder to be come effective as a spell caster you need to currently spend alot of exp. which is off kilter with those that take a fighting class. Your natural skills dictate how well you are at fighting not the same for a healer or caster the amount of exp you can spend does. Right now the amount of time and exp needed to play a cleric effectively or any spell caster for that matter is just silly compared to a fighter. I did a quick Exp math this is excluding the notion of how many skill you have already this is just base costs. TO play a Cleric to level 3 you need 25 exp. Full Mana reserves would be another 20, Mana transfer another 5, and full meditation is another 15. That is 65 exp. To be a full fighter most of your skills are 0s save for Rage which is 20 and shield expert which is another 5. (using armor proficiency, duel wield, rage, shield proficiency, shield expert, 2 handed as my figher skills)
So right now for the average person to play spell caster there is not logical reason to. Our cost to effectiveness is out of balance. We will never turn the tied of battle, our job is to assist I get that but why should anyone play a spell caster at this point.
Combat Events: Yes overwhelming odds, making hard choices I get that is all morbid and depressing but its also a game. Ideally as a Cleric PC or NPC in a combat event I would want to save my Mana for other PCs though, instead of wasting it on those that auto respawn. PCs dont get the auto respawn ability. It would be helpful if there was a more clear cut way to tell apparent people that where NPCing Vs those that are PCing.
Downtime healing: Can we post that there is a chart in the rules book so people know are injured know to ask. I didnt know to ask and was confused as to why after the swamp event some people got healed and other didnt even though we all stayed in the same place.
Shana
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Post by ungrim123 on Mar 4, 2014 18:49:11 GMT -5
As for who's who at combat events, don't they usually wear some kind of tabard/insignia if some kind?
There's also just asking...
I do agree the xp balance is way lopsided. Having it be a bit lopsided makes sense, we can wiggle our fingers and make shit happen, but it's to far at the moment.
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Post by stanrick on Mar 4, 2014 19:05:28 GMT -5
I still don't understand why to have a cleric heal my wounds I first need first aid. I know that it was important with undead but now its for every wound. That seams unfair. Its hard to maintain balance. But all Im reading is it feels that there is no up side to divine. Yeah its great in old world but its like they have a nerf gun with blessed foam darts. Shana has a point and she didn't even add the exp. prices going up for each skill its 60 XP for 3 levels of divine and 3 levels of Reserves. You know what a warrior can do with 60 XP? Rage, 2 levels of toughness, shield pro, 2 levels of armor, duel, two hand and still have 2 XP left. yes undead show up Shana can bless 7 weapons and that rocks. but till then it feels off balance. now I know we don't want to make a divine the fighters revolving door. but a thought that makes sense for balance that I had what if mortal wounds are 2 MP a wound light wounds are 1 MP a wound and HP is 3 or 4 MP a point. this way you can fix people to run but not really fight. I think it is important that Divine helps keep player alive without sacrificing the divine player. they do have to spend more XP to have their skills so I think we should let them be able to use them. not every one who plays our game wants to hit stuff I know part of the reason I get people interested in this game is because they don't have to be a stick jock to play. lets not make it that you have to be a stick jock to feel like you are a part of the game.
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Post by Jopper13 on Mar 4, 2014 21:08:13 GMT -5
Well, if you think about it, having divine level 3 and full mana reserves SHOULD be an exp sink, as it represents your character focusing on being a powerful spellcaster and not branching out from that. We never want the "arcane spell flinging cleric fighter" unless someone is immensely powerful because they have gathered a ton of exp to pull off something like that. Even just branching out of the core class types is pricey. It was designed to be this way for a reason and it has balanced out quite well. I know you guys don't have access to the player registration file, but I have spent a lot off time looking at all the PCs of all the players in the game, how much exp they have, the skills they have taken, trends on how the progression works, etc... it actually balances out quite nicely. If there is a specific angle you could recommend that we evaluate to see if it needs a tweak, let me know.
I am very curious that the current discussion is about divine spellcasters interacting with combat or healing damage from combat, yet the comment was made several times that non-combat players may not want to fight. We haven't looked at any other aspect to divine magic other than this, we have focused solely on combat. Divine magic is the only way, other than exp and prop intensive trade skills, to stop disease and poisons through Purify Blood. They also have ritual magic that can be critical in the game (blessing items and fighting dark magic and corruption) both which are extensively non-combat based. I don't want that aspect overlooked simply because of the lack of powerful combat or healing-from-combat abilities. Also, that line of reasoning is similar to saying that the merchant or bard in town is underpowered because they can't do anything for combat. Those are roles that focus on something other than combat... which is important to keep in mind as divine magic is a little bit of both.
Also, based on how most events play out, the presence of spellcasters is immensely important on their overall success. We have had assaults on outposts, fights in the woods, disease from unclean wounds and powerful enemies that need magic to counter... because of the presence of spellcasters, the adventurers prevailed where a strictly fighter group would have died. This LARP system has never been about perfect balance or fairness, but in capturing the essence and feel of different parts of it. Ask an archer how fair he thinks tower shields are, or ask William how fair he thinks archers are, or ask the armored knight how fair he thinks acid bolt is, etc. A lot of this was done for a reason after careful evaluation of how things play out.
This discussion is helping us identify some areas that we could take another look at, but I still want to heavily encourage everyone to help give solutions to things. There have been some great ideas to consider with new mechanics or changes which is helpful, so please continue to do that. The more complete the idea, the easier for us to consider and test/analyze.
PS- Jake, the idea behind First Aid being required before a Cleric can heal you is simple. The wound needs to be stablized before it can be healed. Divine magic fast forwards the natural healing process, so if the wound is gaping open and gushing blood or growing infection then the healing process can't begin... or it could heal wrong. Requiring the wound to be treated represents that the wound is under control... bleeding has been controlled, the wound is stablizied so THEN the healing can begin. The new Close Wound spell idea would allow a cleric the ability to do this without First Aid, but the overall mechanic of Treat Then Heal will remain. Imagine trying to fast forward the healing of someone's broken leg... if the bone isn't set wrong, healing it will not help, but setting the bone properly and then fast forwarding the healing makes sense.
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blueruby
Order of Starkhaven
Plot Staff
Captain Anne Cash
Posts: 924
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Post by blueruby on Mar 4, 2014 21:10:30 GMT -5
The way I see it, the Divine Magic would still be pretty balanced this way. If Clerics are going to be doing some battle-healing, it's going to be regaining hits. Mending wounds should be done more at the end of the fight: Either you won and have time to meditate to fix the victors up, or you lost, and need to have as many people able to flee under their own power as possible. If a player has a light wound in their leg and arm, and a mortal wound in their chest, they're essentially out of the fight. If things go wrong and their allies are routed, that player is now either dead or a POW. If they have a cleric on hand, though, they can drop the three mana to fix that mortal wound in the chest up to a light wound, which would mean their ally couldn't fight anymore, but he could still leave without being dragged and slowing the rest of the group down. Another three mana to fix up the light wound in the leg, and the ally still can't fight, but now he can run. It takes so much more time, effort, and knowledge to, for instance, clean, dress, stitch, and seal a gash in someone's thigh, or set, splint, and fix a broken arm than it will to mend a bruise or a smaller scrape. It's also going to take more precision to mend a shattered rib and remove the pieces from a punctured lung than it would to set a broken bone, which is how I see the mana costs justified.
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Post by shanaaber on Mar 4, 2014 21:13:14 GMT -5
Jim to reply to your why dont you ask cuase it will douche to kneel down next to an injured person going you an npc and if they say yeah getting up and walking way. It also not how a cleric would be there more in the oh god your hurt let me fix you. It break immersion if I have to constantly ask.
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Post by shanaaber on Mar 4, 2014 23:08:26 GMT -5
Yes being powerful caster should be pricey, especially if you are going to witch magic it up. I am all for paying out of class costs for arcane. But your own starting class shouldn't be so pricey especially compared to another players starting classes. Focus solely on magic and not nothing else in order to be effective isnt cool. I shouldnt have to power game my sheet and exp spends in order to feel useful as my starting class.
As for the cure poison/diseases yeah that is TOTALLY an important part of being a cleric I completely agree. I have had opportunity to use that once at the market faire. It maybe come more useful with the introduction of the poisoner trade, we will see. But as of right now not as useful during game as it just doesnt come up as often.
Mordok corruption/defiled magic seems to be a different beast entirely and so far it hasnt not been made really clear if clerics even ulven clerics are even effective towords it. Yes we can bless weapons and divine barrier and the like but unless we are playing old world its mostly ineffective, unless a big ritual is performed and nobody know its really divine barrier.
Speaking of ritual stuff. That gets thrown at me hey there this thing we need done...make it up. Sure awesome..lets rock this. I do like big butts, I can not lie. Its great for story but unless there is a harold there guiding this aspect it not something a player can just go off and do and expect results. Its a good downtime element and story mechanic but I am thinking unless we make a list of you preform x ritual you get y result its not something we are going to see much of.
I am all for performing rites and the like. As a non combat type i love this stuff. I think that stuff is awesome but its not something you see will see during a fight. Why I think we are so focused on the combat is cuase its the back bone of the game even our non combat events have the potential of combat.
And when we have event that are specifically combat designed those of us that are non combat are kinda scratching our head on how to be useful. Yes a divine caster can use there mana to make so allies are well enough to escape (and I agree that is mostly there purpose) but there is no such thing as retreat in a combat game. I have seen two game with specific end points and as it turned out even if you make it to those end points you are not necessarily okay in the end. So even if I keep everyone up durning game it may all be for naught. So you can understand where this feeling of uselessness come from.
Just so we are clear. I have had awesome time at game even nearly dying I am just trying to voice some the the hurdles I have seen as a divine caster type.
Shana
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Post by ungrim123 on Mar 5, 2014 5:04:32 GMT -5
Why not just lower the mana costs for divine healing and say you have to have see a first aid person before you can be divine healed again?
That would stop the revolving door in its tracks.
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Post by ungrim123 on Mar 5, 2014 5:08:31 GMT -5
Just ask before the game Shana.
Baring that, is it a bit douchy when playing the game? Yes.
Is it a bit douchy looking at the situation in the game as RL, so staying in character? No. It's standard military triage. Just say they were to far along to help or more important people need help first.
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Post by Jopper13 on Mar 5, 2014 8:27:17 GMT -5
Divine magic is still important in the current setting, even if it doesn't look like it. I think I explained this in another thread (I know I typed this out a few times) but divine magic has two "codified" mechanics based combat effects with Bless Weapon and Divine Barrier. In the description it says how undead react to them, which is how they play out in combat, but these two spells are still useful and very necessary. When dealing with corruption (like the swamp or with mordok idols) items must be blessed in order to interact/contain/destroy them and rituals usually require some sort of barrier to control corruption so the work can be done. These are different angles to the same types of effects, just a different spin on it.
Cure Disease/Poison has been critical in saving lives in the last two years. Keep in mind that Mordok love to use the poison Mordok Bile... it kills its victim in 30 minutes (60 if you are an ulven or have Poison Resist) and there are some other nasty ones used. Poison isn't as relevant in the Ulven VS Ulven conflict but Mordok frequently poison a lot of PCs.
There are two types of rituals... plot based ones (like cleansing the idol in the swamp or activating a May'Kar paladin blade) and then more mechanic based spells (like sucking mana out of other people or amplifying a meditation circle). These are rare forms of magic that are difficult to do, usually requiring numerous spell casters, and therefore are much more rare. We have introduced magic like this before and sometimes players lose the ritual sheet or give it away instead of keeping it to use it again in the future. We have even created new rituals for players based on their backgrounds, such as Casey M's new syndar being Reclament trained... he will have the rituals describing how to "ping" for nearby dead syndar and how to extract their mana essence from the corpse. Selena will be getting a generic cleansing ritual due to her knowledge as a Daughter of Gaia (most small things are handled with barriers, blessed weapons, and purify blood... so rituals are normally only for the big time stuff). This is where the new Lore skill will really come in handy, as taking Lore: Ritual Magic may open up some new doors for characters. Also, it is up to the players if they wish to pursue ritual magic in the game... we have had *VERY* important things pass by unnoticed simply because players didn't do rituals or were unable to perform them due to not having powerful enough spellcasters or any spellcasters at all. In one of the early events, a Pack Field Crow Daughter of Gaia lost her arm because when a magic-imbued mordok trap clamped onto her arm, it took someone with magic to disarm or open the trap... nobody had magic, so the only option we had was to hack her arm off and drag her back to safety before she bled out. Ritual magic is not meant to be codified but more circumstantial, as most rituals were specific and detailed, dangerous if tampered with, or so complex that most people don't bother. This angle of the game is meant specifically to be more ominous and vague and will always be, but PCs can look into it more and learn as they go... if a PC spellcaster wants to journey down the path of learning more ritual magic the option is there. It would be like the real world us knowing a bit about math and calculating equations, and we may even use the formula to find the area of something or the percentage ratio of two numbers, but a long handed equation involving huge equations would be alien to us and knowing it may be useless unless it is the precise moment when it is needed. Ritual magic can easily be compared to math.
I also disagree about rituals not being used in a fight, mainly because we have specifically created them to be performed during fights. If you meant there are little to no rituals that are meant to be like "Oh, there is a fight, let's do ritual X so it helps the fight" then you are correct... as most rituals don't work that way. I also have to keep in mind that Shana's first season in Last Hope was 2013, where the civil war was picking up, but I will explain some examples from some previous events. 1) Previous Old Worlds: There are numerous examples of rituals the PCs had to either perform or protect while penitent and undead roamed around killing everything. 2) Gravestones: These are primarily in Old World but there was one in Mardrun in the Dirge Swamp during the time of the lich. A gravestone requires divine spellcasters to "leap frog" divine barriers to get close enough to perform a long and complicated ritual in order to crack the stone and render it inert. So picture trying to cast divine barrier after divine barrier after divine barrier inside of a cloud of corruption and dark energy that will instantly bring everyone in it to a light wound on ALL body locations (thus instantly bringing your torso to Mortally Wounded because you can't hold it) if the barrier drops with undead that are close enough to stab and attack you while other caster's try to perform a complicated ritual. 3) Numerous corruption sites in the game have been cleansed, usually under threat of mordok attack. 4) A previous Old World involved a ritual that strengthened the magic of those around them, allowing spellcasters to expend more mana and be more influential to a fight if the ritual was maintained. There are plenty of ways that ritual magic have been crucial to the game, but it is very uncommon that all players know about them all... so I understand the limited perception of each individual player.
There must be a misunderstanding on some of the game mechanics, which I will try to clarify more in the future, but there is always a "retreat mechanic" in the game but it will usually not be what players are expecting. Retreating off the playing field during an excursion could mean you get lost and die in the surrounding area... kind of like the dirge swamp trip. Retreating off the playing field during a combat event means basically an instant loss and a chance to have your routed forces hunted down and overrun. Imagine going hiking in a state park and a bear attacks you, you pick a random direction and run... you may outrun the bear, but you may have just run deeper into the park and lost your way, meaning you are safe from immediate danger (the bear) but not from danger (being lost). This is done purposely because I have played WAY too many airsoft games and other themed events where an "exit point" was a cheesy broken/abused game mechanic. This makes people think of real world consequences. But regardless, exit points to events are actually not relevant to the current 1.3 discussion, so we can shift focus back to the other stuff.
I have done some feedback gathering from people who have been spell casters for a while, we seem to get more feedback that the divine magic system works out well or is even overpowered more than it is under powered (these players just apparently never jump on the forums)... but if players feel strongly about angles of it then we will take another look at it. The discussion has taken a turn into hyper focusing on divine magic, so I would like to try to broaden the scope back up. Divine magic is already getting a big boost in v1.3, but some of the proposed ideas will completely over power it and won't work... but the ideas are good to look over. I would recommend trying to look at it with the view of "Does divine magic make sense in terms of feel and spell affects" rather than "Is Divine Magic balanced in regards to what other classes can do?". This topic isn't really meant to be a discussion on solely divine magic, but the ideas related to it are nice to add to the mix. You guys have brought up some ideas, some points for us to reconsider, and we have confirmed that divine magic will be getting another look at and we will see if it needs some tweaking in some other areas. It isn't that this stuff isn't important, but it actually reaffirms the previous issues we have had with rules and rules changes... players are vocal about aspect X of the game so we focus on it, but aspect Y and Z go untouched until someone brings it up after the rules change. I am trying to avoid that.
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