Realm of Gadigan

This is the setting-half of the now-split Q&A thread from the old forum. Mechanics questions go in the other one down in Key Threads.

Q: what exactly is casting.. how does casting in RP threads work compared to what spells you have and abilities? like. can i cast whatever I want even without a spell and the spells are just there to facilitate it always working??

A: Assuming you're a standard PC, you're probably using a combination of spells and RP powers. Most casting is coming from spells, but if RP-wise you're a lich or something, I'd probably let you do some level-appropriate RP stuff, particularly if you have the right abilities (like 'Necromancer' in that case). In general, spells are the most concrete way to tell that someone can cast something, but you can ad-hoc a bit with your abilities (though coming up with new magic-effects like that isn't guaranteed to work). As for what exactly casting is, it depends wildly on what is doing it, what it's casting, and what world it's in. In general, it's the manipulation of internal mana reservoirs to produce predefined effects in a manner that resonates as 'spellcasting' within a standard set of universal parameters.

Q: Can I have more information about Phalerin?

A: How broad. I do want to tell you more, but right now I'm trying to plow through the rules-questions / more-narrow setting questions here. This is one of those things that would be good to ask on one of those nights where I ask 'Hey, does anyone have any BA setting questions?'.

Q: Who would win in the BA: a horse sized duck or a duck sized horse?

A: Horse-sized duck (at least, assuming they were both standard representatives of their respective things and the duck wasn't fighting a transmutation-magic-wielding Slepnir or something).

Q: Here's a great question that was never answered. "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?" We're assuming a level 2 wood-chucking focused wood chuck and level 1 wood. Then bump the wood up to level 20 and let's hear the answer.

A: The woodchuck would chuck as much wood as the woodchuck could chuck.

That said, since I'm amused and want to give a more thorough answer:

If it were in a battle thread, the Woodchuck would have Chuck Wood as an attack. It would probably be its best attack, though it might have a Bite that inflicts Wounded at a low percent. It would probably be chucking a lot of wood in that case (until someone killed it).

If it were the Woodchuck versus the wood, and the wood were somehow attacking back (and not Unusually Weak, let's say it's 'Animated Wood' or something), it could probably chuck a good 20 or so pieces (given that even though a Level 2 couldn't normally take that many Level 1's RP-wise, chucking wood is its specialty).

That's if the wood is animate, though. If the wood is an item or something, it would probably chuck tons of it. Give it enough time and thousands of pieces of wood would be chucked.

With the Level 20 wood, the Level 2 Woodchuck would fail to throw it in-RP if it were an entity fighting it.

If it were an *item*, though, that Woodchuck would have really good gear all of a sudden. All of the other woodchucks would be in awe of its astounding wood-chucking skills. It would likely go on some low-scale adventure and chuck the wood at some goblin lumberjacks or something. Given that the wood is Level 20, it's not breaking on impact either, so the woodchuck would be scampering around and re-grabbing and re-chucking the wood. The wood, at that point, would probably be classified as a Throwing Weapon, albeit a rather weird one.

Q: And now the DOOM post. I decided to put those two seperately because they're important and I didn't want this one overshadowing them.

Geddoe42 wrote:adding some of my long standing questions:

1. what exactly is casting.. how does casting in RP threads work compared to what spells you have and abilities? like. can i cast whatever I want even without a spell and the spells are just there to facilitate it always working??

Lord Gadigan wrote:Assuming you're a standard PC, you're probably using a combination of spells and RP powers. Most casting is coming from spells, but if RP-wise you're a lich or something, I'd probably let you do some level-appropriate RP stuff, particularly if you have the right abilities (like 'Necromancer' in that case). In general, spells are the most concrete way to tell that someone can cast something, but you can ad-hoc a bit with your abilities (though coming up with new magic-effects like that isn't guaranteed to work). As for what exactly casting is, it depends wildly on what is doing it, what it's casting, and what world it's in. In general, it's the manipulation of internal mana reservoirs to produce predefined effects in a manner that resonates as 'spellcasting' within a standard set of universal parameters.


This is something I was talking with Geddoe about and I'd like to offer some more to this question, because it's also something I've been wondering about.

The question basically comes down to, in a distilled and sharp form, this:
What benefits are there to taking a casting class?

Let's say, for instance, someone's sunk a ton of time and abilities into Elementalist, Pyromancer. They like their fire, this is their focus.
I, by contrast, have Anathema focusing on Swordsman with a side order of Blazing Sultan. Anything they can do, I can do just as well, and then more. They've got spells to cast, I can just DO it. They sink mana into throwing fireballs around- I can just ignite my sword. Throw out fireballs. Turn my body into fire. Control the fire they create with their spells, and so on. They've got a list of pre-set effects they're limited to. I've got raw mana manipulation on demand. And it's not remotely my specialty.

Pattern recognition has been sugggesting to us, pretty heavily, that having a specialty in a casting class is getting a "Your combat style is unrefined and ineffective" when put into practice and that specializing weapon classes is the way to go. Also that element (and probably subtype, for such things as Necromancy and Divine Magic) classes eclipse anything you can do with a caster specialization. When I was creating Taran and started my training, Wriggle straight-up told me that Elementalist was a waste of my time and to focus on the element classes, and what I've seen in the years since then has convinced me that he was right.

So, again, aside from giving us pre-set mana patterns that we can throw power into for a specific effect, what is spellcasting? What advantages does it bestow? Sure, spells are going to remain part of everyone's combat style, but when just anyone can throw out a fancy high-level spell as an augment to their existing combat to devastating effect, with nothing in the class... and anyone with a cursory investment in an element class can already do "magic" on par with or exceeding "spellcasting": what does our specialization get us? And to break it down to an overly negative point: Why should we bother with the classes at all?

Additional Post: Casting, bwahahahahahaha
In-stat-combat: MP reductions (on top of the global 3/4), extra spell slots, a few nice techniques here and there (I'm looking at you Maximal Casting)

Extraneous Sidenote: Some higher-level spells receantly have insanely high costs, PC MP pools w/o gear (which can be rather limited) scale on average at 3500/level. Likely we have only a million or so from gear.

Out-of-stat-combat: The only argument I can toss back against you Celas is that it grants a character access to higher theory pertaining to the inner-workings of that school (though Mystic and Void already do that to a degree). I can thoroughly cite Vashna's shenanigans here and there as examples of this. But it's hard to float that notion since Vashna seems to swagger a degree of bullshit in his actions anyways that I'm not always sure of myself.

I think part of it has to do with the item-ability interactions going on. Power seems relative to the direct application of the ability. The Elemental classes being the pinnicale in that everything inherently is already tied to an element (and it's the only category with blatant tiers, esoteric spell categories not being too exceptional). Weapon classes are a direct reflection of training a skill that is already inherent in most beings (anyone can shoot a gun) and these are chock full of techniques that add spell-like effects to said inherent swings (and then can STILL be used with spells).

But spells already have effects, so the classes are filled with passives, which by their very nature are weak. Spells have sooooooo many categories, so each becomes a little less distinct. Spells can only be done if one possesses the spell, so the entire class can't perform much when the concept is specifically item-focused. RP-wise the implications are that a build of weak passives is a weak build. The only argument a caster can claim for power is 'versitility' (still item based), and given the swordsmaster can swing his sword 50 different ways makes that a stretch.

So blah, blah, blah, I have more to rant but I'm not going to. My engrish compadres have been missing as I wrote this post and now I'm actually concerned.

Additional Post: That seems kind of related to what I was saying. Spell classes do not come with RP powers in and of themselves, for the most part. There are exceptions. Sometimes notable ones. Mostly, though, as Draconics said, you end up with a modifier to a spell of that class, and that's fine. Or at least it would be fine... if spell classes were considered the equal of weapon classes.

Which evidence strongly suggests that they are not.

And that represents a disconnect between Gad's thinking and the players'.
I look at our characters and I see this:
Celas is an Adept Necromancer. He's a master of commanding undead, of infusing dark energies into offensive mana patterns. He is a fully fledged Wizard, a scholar of mana patterns, and so forth.
Geddoe is an Adept Priest. He's a master of channeling his god's divine energies into the spells he casts, of blessing the worthy and destroying the unworthy. He's an Astral Mage, a student of the stars, empowered by them and able to call down celestial destruction. It goes on.
Volatilis is a Wizard. (...among other things) The mages that populate it are versatile and skilled in creating and using mana patterns to fill their needs. You get the point.

To me, and I think Geddoe would agree, the spells are our weapons. This is our art, of shaping mana into the form fitting our expertise to destroy our foes.
This is what we've trained for, focused on. It's how we fight. We don't give consideration to whatever trinket we're focusing our power through. It doesn't matter what we're holding.

Or at least, it shouldn't.


But to Gad, this is not the case. Instead, spells modify your weapons for the attack. They're treated as flavor, an extra technique. Something anyone can use. Casters recieve very limited benefit for using spells they specialize in over ones they don't. Focused spellcasters, those whose highest class is a casting class, are given no consideration for having specialized in this style of combat.

Instead, we've ended up sinking years of time into specialties that end like this:
"* He's lacking an artifact. He's lacking cost-X items."
"Unfortunately, your overall fighting style remains not-up-to-par, and you don't manage to dish out enough damage to take out the giants."
"The juggernaut asserts its defensive supremacy and full-blocks the sun-blaze, its bodily potency outclassing what Volatilis and its artifacts can pull magic-wise."

Take the example of Geddoe. He has combo'd up weapons that are an astonishingly effective channel for his spellcasting... and that amounts to nothing in RP, because the focus and attention you've paid your casting is not taken into account. He's combined his spells time and time again until he made ones both powerful and representative of his specialties, an effort at least comparable to the Sword of Vashna.

And this results in mediocrity, because they're not a weapon and they don't have a *

A good example of this conceptual disconnect is the Sun Spheres. They are a magical attack weapon. I had not dreamed that they would end up being a projectile weapon, and was quite taken aback when fighting with them consisted of "I throw them at the enemy."

So the issues facing primary casters right now are 1) That anyone with an appropriate element or subtype can do everything you can as a caster, freely and probably better. and 2) Weapons are weighted too heavily in terms of your combat ability when contrasted with the amount of time and effort you've sunk into a casting class.

Additional Post: My last word on the subject, until/unless Gad responds and I have something else to say:

I'd already become aware of this some time ago, though I hadn't put most of it into words until the last few weeks, and only parts of it today. I knew that people with weapon specializations were outperforming people without, and I have (to some degree) adapted accordingly. It was most of the reason I've been attempting to make a Force specialization for Celas. Elyion, however, still seems to be moving towards my Archmage/ALL THE MAGICS goal, and I hope that today's posts'll inspire Gad to share some thoughts regarding those of us who have spells as our primary instrument of combat and how to make us more viable/tell us how he envisions magical combat.

One final thing:
lordgadigan:
Yes, you can
And you're good at convincing me of it too
I honestly think that other people
Would succeed more
If they understood the mechanics and nature of the setting like you do
Which would be hard
11 mins ago
lordgadigan:
Given that you've actively worked on it for a few years
had all sorts of conversations with me
Etc
wriggle:
That's probably true
lordgadigan:
That said
It's possible for others to do, I think
And I'm quite willing to talk about the setting most of the time
To help people better understand it
It's just most of the time... people don't want to

(12:53:38 PM) driftwood 153: I know, but I never talk to the guy.
(12:53:57 PM) driftwood 153: So it's like every time he hears from me, it's "hey, do this for me" or "hey, I've got a problem with your masterwork. FIX IT THE WAY I SAY!"
(12:54:06 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) *shrug* He stays a bit distant from a lot of us xD

You've got that backwards, Gad. We always want to talk about the BA, the setting, the mechanics. We're here, every day, in a chat room about this site. We're always talking about battles, the quests, the NPCS, where we want to take our characters going forward.
But the only time you're available is when you want to run stuff, and the only time you suggest talking about stuff is when nobody's on to run things with. And then you promptly leave. Or you pop in and tell us you're not doing BA stuff, which we all take to mean "I'm busy and don't want to talk." You've made yourself remote and unapproachable and all-business. You're really disconnected from the community. Nobody wants to pester the busy, secretive DM, least of all me. I've been moderately terrified all day typing up these posts. We all try to stay out of your way and let you do what you want. Well, except Kit, who is more than happy to use his wallet to make sure you talk to him.
I spend tons and tons of time talking to Wriggle and Cael about BA stuff, on a daily basis. Pathaky, too, when he's around. I know I'd love it if you could be a part of these discussions, too. I'm sure everyone else would, as well.

Additional Post: Celas wrote:Stuff


*Manly Tear*

This so many times over. I've said in chat, knowing Gad in real life helps soooooo much since it grants such a knowledge advantage, even just considering the latent psychology about what runs the site. Even if you don't want to run things but want to chat, feel free to just openly discuss setting info or mechanics! There is a large group of people that want the site to function!

On that note, yeah, there's a definite disconnect between what's run when people are available as opposed to when people are all MIA. Like how there really isn't a lot of quest potential at 3AM. You've been doing a lot better though. Just please don't underestimate weekday play-by-post and that things CAN be done in tiny steps, like combos, abilities, and content.

Additional Post: The one thing we didn't want was to upset you with this (at least speaking from personal side). It is good to know that you will take the time to post a response and to know you aren't upset.

A: Before we start into the meat of this, I think it's important to bring up one of the examples (because it's recent, I think it was a fair bit of why this thread got posted when it did, and there's a large misconception in it):

You're bringing up the lack-of-success against the Doom Juggernaut as an example of spell-failure. It's really not. It's an example of PC-power-level failure. Throw spells at it, throw swords at it, shoot bullets at it, the difference is negligible. That juggernaut would have been full-soaking almost anything sans multiple-level-appropriate-artifacts or an overcrash from under-Level-60 people. Level difference is a *massive* factor in determining RP-thread results. In the baseline formula (discounting really-high or really-low rolls, each point of Level difference (for people under Level 100) tends to equate to *roughly* a 5% shift in can-I-beat-this-or-do-this. A 20-Level difference therefore typically equates to a 100% shift (which means auto-no); Vashna and TSG are pretty much the only ones who could have fought those in an RP thread. Again, there are exceptions, but that's the general rule.

Regarding spell-based classes versus elemental classes:

You're seeing elemental classes as being stronger in their focus and giving cooler powers than spell-based classes.
To a large degree, you are correct.

I bring up the following counterpoints-
* The element-based classes are about *being* the element. They alter your fundamental state far more than the spell-based classes do. This has a potential downside. If something specs as anti-fire and you're a mono-focused fire-based Elementalist, your magic doesn't work and you can't do much to them; you probably lose. If something specs as anti-fire and you're a mono-specced Blazing Sultan, you're fairly thoroughly screwed. Let's add a second class onto that, though. If you're a Pyromancer/Necromancer, you can opt to quit using the pyromancy, switch to the necromancy, and fight back. If you're a Blazing Sultan Necromancer, you're still fairly screwed since the anti-fire-spec is constantly triggering things on you and keeping you in a state of weakened lockdown; even if you base your offense in your other skillset, they have a fair advantage over you. This issue can be mitigated by being an Arena Member by jumping into Transmuter, Flux Baron, Enchanter, Illusionist, or something else that can element-spoof you or transform you out of element mode, but that requires an additional skillset (and relates to the following point).
* The element classes are a lot more of a 'thing' for BA members (and Fated Ones) than for general people. Most people flat can't get into them. Go take a look at the PC-NPCs on page 5 of the boss list. None of them have element classes. Extrapolating that, most adventurers don't. Those that do (for example a moderate number of dwarves can get into Mountain King) typically can't get into more than a couple. Being able to multi-synch with a bunch of elements (particularly exotic ones) is one of those not-obvious-at-first-glance PC perks.
* The element classes are very good at manipulating and synchronizing with the raw power of an element. The spell classes tend to be better at setting up (and, even moreso, analyzing) special long-term magical effects. If you're exploring a dungeon and find some massive enchantment-matrix, you're pretty much going to need Enchanter to utilize it properly. If there's a complicated negative energy symbol-trap somewhere, a Necromancer should be better at analyzing and disassembling it than an Ebon Chancellor or a Deathless One; the later two might be better at *tanking it* if it detonates on them, but the spellcasting classes typically give a sort of effect-manipulating finesse that the element ones don't.
* Tiers are very important. I think a fair bit of the comparisons are coming from comparing tier 2 nonbase element classes (which is both rare and a step up in power) to tier 1 base spell classes. While not absolutely blanket-true, higher tier classes tend to be better. There are niches and power-routes and subtrees in the low-tier classes that can pull better things sometime, but those are the exceptions rather than the general rule (and those things tend to be not for sale in the base ability shop). Let's take an example. Unreality Coordinator is stronger than Illusionist pretty much across the board (There's the notes above on effect-finesse and the being-a-thing-can-be-a-weakeness still, but by and large it's just flat better). That's because you're expected to be getting it later in your adventuring career at a higher cost. It's an advanced cost. It's a tier-2 nonbase. If you want a general power-comparison (this won't work across-the-board and will sometimes lead to weird, incorrect assumptions, but is better than having no baseline), for each tier something is, add a tier of class-name-power to it. For example, a Basic Illusion-Synchronized Unreality Coordinator (tier 2)'s abilities are roughly on par with an Apprentice Illusion Magic Attuned Illusionist (tier 1). Similarly, an Unreality Coordinator is probably on par with an Adept Illusionist in the field.

Next point: The spell-classes versus weapon classes issue.

You're saying that your spell-classes are less effective in combat because they're being seen as supplements and not as primary weapons.
My intent is that they're less effective in combat because they're supplements and not primary weapons (mostly).

Here's some of the thinking that goes into that:
* You're seeing 'Magical Attackers' as primarily spell-based attack-wise. That's not the intent. Magical Attack is related to Orbs, Staves, Wands, Stones, Forces, etc more than 'spells'. There are spells for melee classes (Combat Arts, Unarmed Techniques, Sword Arts, Murder Arts) and ranged classes (Gunslinging, Archery) too. I think that most people connotate 'magical' with 'spells' on some level; while there are more spell-based magic-related classes than melee-related ones or ranged-related ones, there isn't necessarily a strength-difference between them. A Magus using Wizard Magic and a Swordsman using Kensei are intended, on some level, to be quasi-similar, at least in the terms of spells-being-used-in-conjunction-with-weapons.
* Spells are supplemental to attacks. If a spell-specced person casting a spell unarmed had as much combat-effect as someone with a weapon making an attack with no spell, then someone with both a weapon class and spell class would be doing effectively double damage. That's not the intent; I don't want to be either ramping up damage or requiring constant spell-use for attacks.
* Spell-classes tend to be broader than weapon classes in terms of effect. Weapon classes are good for combat (mostly)! Spell classes tend to have multiple areas of power or semi-unique areas of focus.

Let's go down the list! (Perhaps having better descriptions of classes will help some here. I'm giving the *main* focuses only, there's plenty of odd subtrees. I'm also listing what weapons go well with classes style-wise.)

Abjurer: This is for defensive buffs. It's for layering on additional defense effects and keeping them around when you're not present. If you're an armor-based class, you have to generally be present to be defending other people; adjurers tend to not be limited by this. Is Warding better? Mostly. Abjurer is better at finessing specific complex defensive magic things for when you're not present in non-Warding-mana-filled areas generally, though. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Shield.
Alchemist: Buffs. Potions. Potion-boosting. Some attack magic. This is for taking spell effects, buffs, and debuffs, bottling them, and handing them out or using them later. It boosts crafting. It has attacks, but it isn't intended to be someone's sole means of attack. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Throwing Weapons. If your main attack is throwing potions (Doctor Miracles!), you should probably grab some assassin and mix up a potion-bomb weapon to go along with your magic.
Anarchomancer: Random as the Dickens. I have no real suggestions here. It's a weird class. It's a kinda-bad class at the moment.
Arcanist: This is a grab-bag of effects. It makes equipment, has buffs, has debuffs, has effect-wiping, has summoning, and has attacks. Grab-bag magic classes tend to be good at a lot of things and have a lot of versatility. If you aren't in a sub-tree and are just using them to base-attack, you're going to be under-par against people who are using something less grab-bag-y and more attack-y. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Card. If you're an Arcanist and want to spec in card-stuff, you should probably have a Card weapon.
Artificer: This is supposed to make and improve items and synch with constructs. It doesn't really work yet, but it should at some point. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Stone. I think 'Stone' is a little-understood and little-considered weapon category; the *general* attack is you hold the stone aloft and focus power into it, it causes something to be created or materialize on or around the target. A blazing stone, for example, could cause fire to rain down.
Astromancer: This sets up constellations that cycle in power throughout battle (and tend to grow in power over time in the battle if you're hitting their triggers). It also has attack magic and big AOEs. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff.
Bard: This is meant to go hand-in-hand with Musician and produce the 'effects' to supplement the Instrument's base power. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Instrument, full-throttle.
Blight Druid: Debuffs, summons, unsummons, drain, land-destruction, negative zones, summon-hate, lingering debuff clouds. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff, Wand, or Force.
Channeler: This is for linking with other things and using their power or giving them your power. It also has some drain. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Force.
Commander: This is for group buffs, morale-boosting, extra-ally-actions, and summon-boosting. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Sword.
Dancer: This is for buffing, AOE-but-poorly-stacking debuffs, and dodge-builds. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Dagger, as both are focused on bodily-speed a fair bit.
Delver of the Forbidden: This handles 'effects at a cost or with backlash if ill-prepared'. It has some powerful ritual-based effects. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Book.
Diabolist: This buffs, summons, and interacts with demons. It's meant to synergize with the leading-Demons branch of the Demon pet class and isn't nearly as good without it. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Scythe, Soul.
Diviner: This is for scanning and information gathering. I think PCs have actually managed to use this one really well. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff.
Druid Magic: This is for summons, buffs, and a lot of zone-boosts (though not so much zone-creation). It also has some attacks and transformation-stuff. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff, Fist Weapon.
Elementalist: This class got very overshadowed by the element-based classes. It lost its unique niche when they got added. It's still decent for control-elements-without-being-part-of-them, though. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Force, Wand, Orb, or Stone.
Enchanter: This is for buffs, debuffs, and putting lasting effects on things. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Force.
Force Mage: I'm honestly not entirely sure where this is going to go. I have ideas, but I'm not sure if they'll materialize as I see them yet. It probably contains attacks, defense moves, buffs, push-effects, and block-stuff effects. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Force.
Geomancer: This is terrain manipulation and zones. Its effects depend on where you are and can alter the landscape. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Stone, Force.
Glyph Mage: Upper-planar-being focused healing, status-clearing, buffing, and summoning. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Wand, Book.
Golomancer: This is for buffing and healing Golems. It goes with the Golem pet class. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Stone, Book.
Gunslinger: This is for boosting Guns. You pretty much need Gunner to go with this. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Guns, full-throttle.
Healer: Healing, debuff-clearing, status-clearing, buffing. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff, Knife. Is Life better since it's higher tier? Kinda. Life has more raw power, but I think it has enough of a summon-bent for a focused healer to stay ahead healing-versatility-wise (the Genesis Architect could be throwing higher amounts of health restore and revive the dead better, but the Healer could cure the Vile Taint of Corruption, fix nested debuff-curses, and safely detach a brain-parasite.)
Hunter: This is for adding subtype-hate (or other boosts) to Bows. You pretty much need the Bow class. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Bow, full-throtle.
Illusionist: This is for creating fake effects, pretending to do things, hiding stuff, trick-debuffs, vanish-if-scanned-summons and other stuff like that. See the above note about Unreality Coordinator. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Wand, Card, Force.
Kensei: This is for adding magic effects and on-strike-trigger effects to swords. You pretty much need the Sword class. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Swords, full-throttle.
Luminary: This is the Celestial equivalent of Demon Magic, only with buffs and heals to replace some of the offensive bits (though not entirely). What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff.
Mentalist: This is for harder-to-resist-than-usual-for-most-stuff grab-bag effects. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Deadly Item, at least RP-wise with telekinesis.
Monk: This is for passive self-boosts and operating unarmed or (to a both lesser-in-overall-intent-to-a-point and probably-right-now-stat-wise-due-to-what-is-out-greater extent) with Fist Weapons. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Fist Weapon.
Necromancer: It's Leadership for Undead plus summoning plus undead healing and reviving. It also has drain, debuffs, and corpse-transformation. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Scythe, Book, Staff.
Ninja: This is in a wonky place at the moment. It's meant to be the non-Magic-Attack focused grab-bag featuring attacks, stealth, self-buff, dodge, debuff, movement-boost, and some other things. As-is, it's startilingly lame. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Sword, Dagger, Throwing Weapon.
Paladin: Debuff-clear, defense-boost, defend-others, evil-ish-subtype hate, melee and magic attacks. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Sword, Shield.
Priest: This varies based on what deity you pick since the deities tend to have their own more-unique subtrees (at least in planned theory). It typically has heals, buffs, rezzs, and some attacks / buffs / debuffs. It also is meant to sync with fellow worshippers and to boost worshipper benefits. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Varies by deity. Staff and Book if I opt to pick generics.
Ritualist: This handles long, time-and-effort-intensive ritualistic magic effects. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Book, Staff.
Rune Mage: Group summons, summon boosting, debuffs, buffs, AOE attacks, floating do-something-each-turn things that people have to spend actions to get rid of. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Book, Soul (also Puppet Strings if we're getting non-basic).
Scientist: Technological grab-bag. Ranged and magical attacks, buffs, debuffs, summons, temporary item creation. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Assault Matrix, Gun.
Shaman: Kinda bad at the moment. Like a more grab-baggy non-deity-focused priest with added broad-but-not-super-powerful-offense and summons. This class sorta needs help. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff, Soul.
Shrine Maiden: Boosting, interacting with, summoning, and unsummoning spirits. Zone effects, buffs, setting yourself firmly on a buff-based-good-ish-aligned or debuff-based-evil-ish-aligned path and atcking marks of power on yourself. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff, Wand, Soul.
Sigil Magic: Like rune and glyph magic but vague to the extreme. Kinda needs help. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Book, orb.
Summoner: Summoning, replicating monster abilities as one-time effects, summon boosting. To get max effect out of it, you also want a pet class, but it allows for broader summoning. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Soul, Force.
Thief: Stealth, trap-disarming, trap-boosting, debuffs, sneak attacks, speed, passive-ability-self-boosting. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Knife.
Technomancer: In a floaty vague place right now. It's like a mix of wizard, scientist, and artificer. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Assault Matrix, Bailartix.
Transmuter: Buffs, debuffs, transforming things, untransforming things, lasting effect changes, self-augmentation, summon replacement. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Book, Force.
Umbramancer: Darkness-element grab-bag magic. Has summons, attacks, drain, buffs, and debuffs. Requires Darkness-element for a lot. It supplements Ebon Chancellor and the Umbral class. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Force.
Veilwalker: Buffs, debuffs, denial, travel, dodge. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Force.
Wanderer: Travel (mainly), zone-effects, land-related effects, passive self boosting based on knowledge gained while traveling, a little trap-disarm in not-yet-seen branches. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff.
Warlock: Debuffs, magic attacks, negative status effects, lasting curses that stick on opponents. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Soul, Force, Knife.
Warrior: Boosting weapons and combat ability. That's pretty much it. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? All the base ones, really, with melee taking primacy, ranged in second, and magic in third.
Wizard: Pretty much the grab-baggiest of the base classes. This has magical attacks, buffs, debuffs, zone effects, land effects, rituals, travel, denial, unsummoning, stuff-wiping, general knowledge, and a lot of weird effects. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff, Orb, Book, Wand, Stone, Force.

And the non-base classes for added fun:
Archmage of the Ancients: A tier-boosted grab-bag class. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff, Force, Stone, Book, Bailartix.
Bullet Maestro: Weird, combined, hard-to-dodge-but-not-actually-undodgeably ranged, nonlethal or healing ranged, putting on a pretty show. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Gun, Throwing Weapon.
Cook: For boosting Food consumables. You pretty much need Chef. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Knife.
Dracomage: The dragon-equivalent of Demon Magic, but a bit broader. Note: Lower-tier than the real Dragon-class. It's honestly not as good as class as Dragon Lord in most respects. It's more style and rarity than raw power (there are plenty of classes like this hiding around. Not every class is great.). What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Fist Weapon and Force because those boost Dragon natural stuff the most naturally.
Dread Banker: A reasonably new class. Focuses on Gold for effects. It's not well-developed and synchs with Merchant. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Throwing Weapon and Deadly Item.
Elder Scribe: A higher-tier version of Sigil Magic without the 'bleh' connotations that Sigil Magic seems to have gained. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Book, Stone.
Eschatologist: Huge AOE attacks. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Force, Book.
Hemotheurge: Drain, mostly meant to snych with the Blood element class. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Knife.
Litigamancer: Counters, denial, prepped effects, defense against gold damage, gold damage and drain. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Book (and Clipboard if you can somehow get it)
Pan-Cosmic Haberdasher: HATS! Not sure where it's going, if anywhere. It's mostly a novelty thing, though perhaps a higher-tier-than-most-novelty-stuff one. Synchs with Clothier. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? HATS! (Those aren't weapons? They might be with this! Cosmic Oddjob mode, engage!)
Spatial Mage: Battlespaces, meant to synch with Reality Arranger, Subspace Architect, and Wanderer. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Staff.
Superhero: This is a weird class and not actually focused on its spell-subtype. It requires a bit to explain well and isn't terribly relevant here.
Time Mage: Speed-manipulation, buffs, debuffs, haste and slow, turn order, actions, AGI damage. It's meant to supplement Wizard, Enchanter, or Temporal Primarch. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Force, Deadly Item (watches)
War Mage: Combat and damage dealt, linking spell-triggering to attacks. I have a special note on this one that deserves its own section. What weapons supplement this best style-wise? Swords, Guns, Spells*

As can be seen in the list, the only spell-classes that actually have combat as a main focus (without descending into other foci and becoming grab-baggy to an extent) are Eshartologist (which is hard to get, lacks content, and is something I'm producing content slow-as-dirt for) and War Mage. That's two classes out of the giant bunch, and they're both non-base. The base spell types aren't intended to be unsupplemented primary means of attack. People are meant to have some sort of focus or thrust behind the casting; not counting nonbase stuff and odd subtrees, Magical Attack weapons are a foundation of magical combat.

As a supplement to the weapon-reccomendations, though, Force and Book are probably the go-to ones if you want to cast without the weapon getting a lot of the SFX, particularly Force (which you can more easily make something generic and you-based with, such as 'Force of Soul' which would cast from the power of your inner spirit or something).

Discounting weird classes, the different base categories of class do different things. If you want to attack well in combat, grab a weapon. If you want to defend yourself without relying on buffs or absurd armor (or property, Volatilis can pretty much entirely avoid this bit thanks to the grid) grab an armor class (I've been more forgiving about people not having them since content for them is... sparse; at some point the primary-casters should probably grab Robe, Ward, or Aura, though.), to supplement your focus and add tricks that prevent your build from entering one-trick-attack-pony mode, grab some other classes. Spells will probably add the most versatility, and versatility can be huge for overall build effectiveness. Subtype classes are important for your pets/summons and to give you the abilities your entity-type is supposed to have. Element classes bring you into a state of element-synchronization and can add a lot of weird, cool, strong powers, serving as build cornerstones.

So I seriously suggest grabbing the suggested weapon types for your spell or (if you don't want to look like you're using a weapon), grabbing 'Force' for your primary-casters. That saaaaaaaid, if you really want to use spells as your weapons, it's hiding in War Mage. War Mage (in a manner that's slightly ironic given that it's also the class that has spellstrike), has a subtree hiding in it that lets you put spells in weapon slots and use their magical attack bonus without paying MP.

I hope this helps explain things.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding talking about the site, I'm honestly surprised (and pleased to hear people are interested). Whenever I get on openly, it tends to seem like 'HEY, COMBOS!' 'Can we do a quest' 'This player thread has been sitting around for a while' 'HEEEEEEEEY, COMBOS! Combos haven't moved since three months ago!' 'Let's talk about <NOT BA Thing (ex. Touhou, League of Legends, funny Youtube videos of whales)>', etc.
I'm not complaining about that; don't take it as a complaint (seriously, I'm not upset), I like the site moving, like running threads, and like talking to you guys about non-BA subjects somtimes. I just didn't see the enthusiasm for the BA-talking.
I think I also on some level assumed that with the site being as backlogged as it is, that when I'm on for long enough and am awake enough, that people would want me to move threads or make active site content (like combos) and have just defaulted to trying to do that. When I'm in a state where I'm on but not up to doing those main-BA-things, other people tended to not be on (meaning my 'does anyone want to hear about the BA' inqueries tended to miss people).
Thank you all for pointing out to me that you do actually want to hear about site-things and how the setting / game work.

(10:46:38 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) Hey Gad, it doesnt need to be answered, but I am curious about Lancer's 6th test. the other ones are drakes. this one is a wyrm.
(10:46:39 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (caelzeph) Although I think I'll need a bit more elaboration before I do that, lest I end up inserting interminable pauses mid-quest-flow.
(10:46:49 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) aren't wyrms after dragon on the power scale?
(10:47:37 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) Makes sense, yeah
(10:47:45 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) wb
(10:47:49 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) I've got that on my agenda
(10:47:52 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) you log on lol and we can do one
(10:48:06 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) MAKE THAT A PATH
(10:48:15 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) In the process of doing so
(10:51:35 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) Regarding geddoe's question
(10:51:54 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) overlord goodloeHey Gad, it doesnt need to be answered, but I am curious about Lancer's 6th test. the other ones are drakes. this one is a wyrm.
overlord goodloearen't wyrms after dragon on the power scale?
(10:52:19 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) If the entity that needs slaying is level 70~, I'm wondering how far outside help is supposed to take him
(10:52:22 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) If at all
(10:52:44 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) A level 19 cannot kill a level 70 under any conditions in ay sort of match-the-power fight
(10:52:53 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Haha
(10:52:59 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) So I'm wondering what's intended there
(10:53:01 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I doubt he would pull that.
(10:53:03 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) (doubt)
(10:53:04 PM) lordgadigan: Standard wyrms are. There's a subset of low-level wyrms that are plot-important to random low-level locations. Case in point: Manethos, Landwyrm. I don't want to give spoilers on this particular one, but I will say it's nowhere near 70.
(10:53:13 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) Haha, k
(10:53:19 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) Good to know
(10:53:20 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) kk
(10:53:23 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) very much so
(10:53:24 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) and thanks
(10:53:30 PM) lordgadigan: np
(10:53:37 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I posted a question in that standing-thread, btw.
(10:53:38 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) My current plan was have TSG hop in and Cosmos-Ender him once before laughing and leaving
(10:53:59 PM) lordgadigan: Aha, I'll go look there
(10:54:00 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (wriglenigtsparow) Cosmos-Darkener-Debuff + 70 might make it slightly more reasonable
(10:54:01 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) *snort*

(10:44:28 PM) lordgadigan: I arrive post-dinner and am working on a post for that question thread!
(10:44:47 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (scamper922) gwah~ I may peek after reading then
(10:44:54 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (scamper922) but I must stick to sleeping XD
(10:45:01 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (scamper922) good luck
(10:45:04 PM) lordgadigan: Thank you
(10:45:13 PM) lordgadigan: Have a good night, and hopefully this post helps explain things
(11:42:11 PM) lordgadigan: Stiiiiiiiil working on it
(7/11/2013 12:29:04 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Woooo
(12:29:08 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Net's back up.
(12:29:38 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I hopped on my phone earlier. That Questions thread blew up a bit more than I meant for it to >.<
(12:29:41 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Sorry about that.
(12:29:58 AM) lordgadigan: Post
(12:30:04 AM) lordgadigan: Haha, that's alright
(12:30:19 AM) lordgadigan: I'm going to get a drink and prep for bed, but I'll be up a short bit more, if you have a response to my post, I'm interested
(12:30:33 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) One thing I meant to post too, mainly in relation to the bit that Celas posted from me-
(12:31:14 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) There are times you ask us for questions about BA stuff and we go 'Muh', 'I've got nothing', 'Do combos!', so... We need to get better about that too.
(12:33:34 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) This is interesting!
(12:35:10 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Gad, I admire your thoroughness.
(12:35:47 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I had the idea that there were supposed to be 'magical weapons' burbling in the back of my head, but i hadn't really managed to put all the pieces together.
(12:35:56 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) This all makes sense to me, honestly.
(12:38:06 AM) lordgadigan: Back
(12:38:12 AM) lordgadigan: Thank you!
(12:38:18 AM) lordgadigan: I'm glad you're finding it helpful.
(12:38:26 AM) lordgadigan: And that it's helping things make more sense
(12:38:54 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I didn't have much of a problem with the element>casting class issue, except for perhaps with Elementalist
(12:39:42 AM) lordgadigan: Yeah. Elementalist was almost a precursor to them. Element classes weren't around for over half the BA's span. Elementalist did what they do now, only to a lesser extent and without the sync
(12:39:56 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I was looking at it for vrishni earlier.
(12:40:04 AM) lordgadigan: It still has its place for casters who want to handle a lot of elements and don't want to entangle themselves with them
(12:40:06 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) It's an intimidating chunk of the ability shop, haha.
(12:40:08 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Yup!
(12:40:11 AM) lordgadigan: Haha, yeah
(12:40:22 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Once he gets t3 in all the base elements I'll probably dive into it.
(12:40:34 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) It's easier to just hop into transmuter for now though.,
(12:40:58 AM) lordgadigan: *nods*
(12:41:10 AM) lordgadigan: How close is he on the T3 thing?
(12:41:11 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I appreciate you going through and answering those.
(12:41:14 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Haha, not even barely.
(12:41:18 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) He's got t2 in...
(12:41:24 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) 8 or 9 of the 13, I think.
(12:41:30 AM) lordgadigan: *nods*
(12:41:34 AM) lordgadigan: Is that even with spheres?
(12:41:37 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Yup!
(12:41:40 AM) lordgadigan: Hah, k
(12:41:44 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I blitzed him pretty hard with those.
(12:43:13 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I had never heard of a few of these classes before, haha.
(12:43:16 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Eschatologist?
(12:43:25 AM) lordgadigan: Catastrophe Magic
(12:43:31 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Oh, riiiight!
(12:46:31 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Oh, I suppose I have one setting question
(12:46:42 AM) lordgadigan: Sure, what is it?
(12:46:51 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) (It's also relatively late, so no worries if you're heading off. I'm getting ready to do that as well)
(12:46:53 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Melek Taus!
(12:47:06 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Is he just the HO equivalent of Iblis?
(12:47:11 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) A different entity entirely?
(12:47:39 AM) lordgadigan: Hm, a question for you before I answer that: Are you aware that I'm referencing actual religion on both counts?
(12:48:00 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I was not!
(12:48:11 AM) lordgadigan: Let me give you the rundown of that first, then
(12:48:12 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Iblis, I knew about, but I never made the connection!
(12:48:15 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Haha, neat!
(12:48:35 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) A few days ago I learned about the Sol Invictus and remembered that that was an item on the BA too.
(12:49:12 AM) lordgadigan: Iblis is analagous to Satan in Islam. Allah created Iblis from fire. He made man from the soil. He told Iblis to bow down. Iblis, out of pride, refused to bow to something made of dirt. He fell and became the devil.
(12:49:23 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) *nod*
(12:51:19 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) 'The Peacock Angel', eh? This is pretty neat.
(12:51:50 AM) lordgadigan: The Yazidi belief system has him as Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel. God made him out of divine fire. God made man out of the earth. God ordered the angels to bow to man. Melek Taus said he could not, for he was of the illumination of God and therefore could not bow to something that was not of God. This was the correct choice, and he became one of the most exalted angels.
(12:52:08 AM) lordgadigan: So it's the same being, one version good, the other evil
(12:52:10 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) That's so interesting!
(12:52:11 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Yeah!
(12:52:18 AM) lordgadigan: Similarly in the BA, there's a good version and and evil version
(12:52:22 AM) lordgadigan: *nods*
(12:52:45 AM) lordgadigan: Any other questions?
(12:53:06 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) That's been the main one scratching my brain, haha.
(12:53:08 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Oh, uh
(12:53:11 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Doctor Dolduvai.
(12:53:19 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) He's Progress and Agony bad-man, right?
(12:53:25 AM) lordgadigan: Correct!
(12:53:43 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Have any BA people had dealings with him before?
(12:53:54 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I know his followers are on the enemy list.
(12:54:33 AM) lordgadigan: No. They got offered the chance to event-fight him, but they went after one of the other options instead
(12:54:36 AM) lordgadigan: He hasn't shown up in person
(12:54:42 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Gotcha.
(12:54:51 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) He's got a disc of Nexus now, which is a bit..worrying.
(12:55:15 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I think I may assemble a counter-doctor-squad to go investigate that.
(12:56:16 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Ack, probably time to get to sleep.
(12:56:21 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Have a good night, Gad!
(12:56:37 AM) lordgadigan: You too!
(12:56:40 AM) lordgadigan: Have a good night!

In reference to:

New World Law wrote: The World's True History Is Unknown and Madness-Inducing- (World Law, Herald of Lunacy) Each round, non-Darkspawn who are not afflicted with Confusion or Insanity and who do not possess the ability Delver of the Forbidden or Herald of Lunacy have a 25% chance of treating the current round's number as having reverted to 0 (and incrementing forward again from that point normally) and ceasing to count as having scanned the stats of anything whose stats they previously scanned; non-Darkspawn who are not afflicted with Confusion or Insanity and who do not possess the ability Delver of the Forbidden or Herald of Lunacy have a percentage chance equal to the Level of the highest-Level Darkspawn in the same battlespace of being afflicted with Insanity upon scanning an entity's stats
Requires: Herald of Lunacy, Scholar, Delver of the Forbidden
Additional Requirement: Task: Edit the history of a country-sized portion of a world (or wider) to prominently-yet-secretly include Darkspawn when it previously did not
Cost: 3,000,000 Gold, 3 Weeks

A question was asked:

Chat wrote: [21:40] The Nottest of Daves: out of curiosity, what scale of Geomancer/Channeler/whatever would you need to edit a mana pattern of that scale?
[21:42] Gadigan: It really depends on your Level and what you're hitting. Expert would be most-reliable, but Adept is doable in a lot of circumstances. Through concerted effort or high enough Level, you could do it earlier, particularly with a lot of targeted decorating: i.e. infiltrate the royal archives, the oldest temple ruins in the nation, a major library, and a couple other sites, add enough Darkspawn-themed decor with sufficient (but not overwhelming) amounts of mana, and you can hit the task without needing the skill or power to do a direct edit
[21:42] Gadigan: Yes
[21:42] Gadigan: Level of the area and its traits play a large role in things, though
[21:44] Gadigan: A five-continent-spanning Level 95 Heaven-themed holy kingdom with major opponents that are classical Devils and no contact with Lovecraftian entities previously would be egregiously hard to edit compared to a Luxembourg-sized mini-country that has had unsolved mysteries in the past and a notoriously disorganized national archive
[21:45] The Nottest of Daves: hmmmm
[21:45] The Nottest of Daves: and what exactly do you mean by "Darkspawn-Themed Decor"?
[21:45] The Nottest of Daves: am I running around leaving bowls of Lashmordu Stew around?
[21:46] The One True Pathaky: Build fast-food places with Cyclopean Geometries
[21:47] Gadigan: An Outer Terror idol, a painting of a horrid symbol of sign shining above a ruined city, piles of ancient texts with mad notes in the margins, fabricated tapestries of ancient kings consorting with tentacled abominations before their coronations
[21:47] Gadigan: Etc

Originally posted by Celas, 2017-09-25

And for Celas's next big interrogation, a little number I've been mulling over for a couple months that I call:

MP, Spell classes, RP calls, and you!

So there was a recent thread that highlighted a potential gap in player knowledge: Calling mechanics from classes.

The very delightful subtype and stuff post has a list of associated effects from classes, and a lot of the more successful players have started basically calling those directly, with a statement of our skill level in the associated class with any reinforcing equipment, instead of trying to provide a specific mechanical source we own for it.

However, there was a recent thread where Kit rather notably, uh, didn't. And discussion about the choice to try to bastardize a spell in a weird not-its-purpose direction for what seemed like no reason at all got me wondering if maybe the style was less well-known than I thought.

To provide an example: in that situation, instead of "Kit casts the only divination spell on her person whether it's a match or not.", I'd have gone with an action somewhat like "Elyion is a fully practiced Diviner, skilled in several schools of scrying. She concentrates on the aether and summons up knowledge of where the soulless bodies lie, marking them on the guard's map.", using the class's abilities without any mechanical foothold, and specifically in this case: Whether or not she had a spell equipped.

So I'm thinking about several concepts related to the traits of abilities, spellclasses in particular, and MP.

I suppose the first big question is "Well, is my hypothetical Elyion scenario a reasonable action?"
I mean, it's in pretty common use, it makes intuitive sense, it's the purpose of the class and one of its stated effects. But at the same time, I wouldn't call a Swordsman ability like that without a Sword equipped, and having neither a spell nor a specific ability call makes it a bit different than, for instance:

"Elyion peers into her Crystal Ball, calling upon her Fortune Telling expertise in the use of such, to determine the location of the soulless bodies."
Predict Future with a Crystal Ball- (Active Ability, Diviner) Possessor may spend an action if possessor has an Orb equipped to scan a target's stats

The former example is very generic, the latter has a mechanical hook and an actual action spent on a specific class ability.

So the TL;DR distillation of that is this: How dependent are spell classes on having associated spells equipped? To extend, also, since I used a ridiculous example above: In comparison to other classes?

Second question: MP, y'all! What is it good for?

H'okay. MP is a pool of noncritical mana that we have to spend on things without compromising our mana patterns (unless we're like a Hollow Soul or something). Uh, to use a terrible analogy, if our primary mana pattern is blood, I guess MP is our spit/tears, right? Sort-of the same thing, but running out of one is unpleasant and the other'll kill you. (look, I said it's terrible >.>)

But... We're gonna go on a detour for a bit here and establish some stuff and revisit some exposition.

Any Overcrash includes this lovely bit of text: "Reduces user's MP to 0 for remainder of thread". Mechanically, as far as battle threads go, this is a pretty obvious limitation. "Just don't do anything that costs MP." Since there are very few things that actually cost MP (Spells, Overdrive), avoiding that is pretty easy, or circumventable (MP discounts, casting from alternative sources, burning HP from classes that allow it, etc).

However, in RP, this winds up being rather more complicated in non-obvious ways.

(9:10:11 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (lordgadigan) When you're in burnout, you can't tap magic reserves. They're burt out. Gone. Your power is on its last strings, and you don't have the ability to 'push' for more energy without a small miracle as a requirement.
(9:10:23 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (lordgadigan) Your 'best' stuff is pretty off-limits
(9:10:30 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (lordgadigan) As is anything that has notable 'cost' associated
(9:10:49 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (lordgadigan) Or that is particularly 'freeform' or 'newly developed'. Creative use of element synch in new ways is counted here
(9:11:25 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (lordgadigan) So that leaves you with your lower tiers of spells (which are usually, though not always - burnout sometimes just yanks your turn pretty entirely, castable)
(9:11:35 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: ("The Real Path" pathaky@hotmail.com) How does that translate to spells that have been discounted down to 0?
(9:11:41 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (lordgadigan) And your gear (which you can't draw as much from, but which doesn't itself usually run on your mana reserves, so it's fairly open)
(9:11:49 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: ("The Real Path" pathaky@hotmail.com) Still dicey, due to being tied to your casting?
(9:12:11 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (lordgadigan) Spells down to 0 that are of lower Level than you / lower skill req, tend to work. You can cast those with local ambient power or the fragments of what you have

So in short, trying to avoid actions that specifically state they spend MP is not a cure-all for functioning through Burnout, and the complexities involved in such actions may actually make them less successful.
All told, this means that having your MP set to 0, the Burnout state, is far more punishing than it would appear from the raw mechanics, and this may suggest that MP is, well, more integral and far less superfluous/expendable than it seemed.

So, uh, what is MP? How tied into using various actions IS it? What all gets shut down by a lack of it? How badly does going dry from consecutive Overdrives bork you up vs. Overcrash Burnout? Does Burnout, for instance, shut down Elemental techniques you have in your weapon class? Why/Why not? Are spell classes, being, apparently, more "actively magical" even when not invoking a spell, more shut down than other passive/background/RP effects of classes?

Addendum by Draconics, 2017-09-25
For any of the above inquiries if the answer would vary for the Hollow-Soul schtick, I'd be rather curious.


Response by Lord Gadigan, 2017-09-26

I suppose the first big question is "Well, is my hypothetical Elyion scenario a reasonable action?"

Yes, your action is reasonable. That's a basic use of a core power of the class tree.

How dependent are spell classes on having associated spells equipped?

It's a sliding scale that depends a lot on your proficiency in the class itself and a moderate amount on the class in question.

To put things into a better frame:

* If you have Basic or Apprentice proficiency in most spell classes, you can't really improvise or do things without having an appropriate spell or ability. Level helps mitigate this some with 'generic' powers that are assumed to be held by a lot of things of a particular Level-band, but it doesn't really help nearly as much as it does with some other things.

* If you have Class-Name, Adept, or Expert proficiency in most spell classes, you can improvise with them and perform core functions of those classes as actions / incorporate them into other actions without having spells and abilities specific to those functions.

* If you have Master or Grandmaster proficiency in most spell classes, you get to start doing dynamic named callouts of custom-on-the-fly stuff that fits within the overall umbrella of that class combined with your other abilities/themes.

Note that this varies by class.

To expand on this info, here's the answer to another important, but not quite directly asked, question:

"If I have Class-Name or better abilities, what use are specific spells?"

They have four primary uses:

* Expanding the domain of the class - Namely, with the tier-abilities, you can do basic things with the class, but having the right spells or abilities lets you do more unusual things without having to deal with increasingly-likely failure odds as you get farther from the class's core domains.

* Hitting the 'you have the right tool for the job / right power to exploit this weakness' bonus on actions / attacks - Specifically countering an enemy actions / specifically hitting an enemy weakness / specifically pulling out a useful power for solving some out-of-combat problem adds a decent bonus to your roll for the action. Improving shooting fire with Wizard Magic (which is in-line for a Wizard, but not necessarily something you would have an ability from the class for) at an Ice Golem wouldn't have the same effect of hitting its weak-point roll-bonus-wise as doing it with a Level-range-appropriate spell or specific ability; it could still work as an attack, but it'd lack the same degree of behind-the-scenes 'oomph'.

* Improving odds of success on actions slightly, even discounting the bonus above - Having an appropriate spell as part of an action that's of a power-Level appropriate to the task being done (or overkill for it) adds a minor bonus to your roll so long as it isn't directly inappropriate/irrelevant to the action.

* Avoiding attack-sameness penalties in fights - If you do attacks using just a spell-school plus your weapon, they count as moreso repetitive penalty-over-time-wise even if you describe them differently if you aren't actually using different Level-appropriate spells/techniques (with techniques applying more than spells to certain weapon groups).

To extend, also, since I used a ridiculous example above: In comparison to other classes?

In rough order from least-necessary to most-necessary:

* Elemental-based classes require you being the element the least of the various class types requiring their things, though it still helps.

* Armor-based classes don't tend to require the specific armors for all of their functions, but it's a bigger enhancer than in the element ones. Light armor abilities, for example, are pretty much always helpful for being dodge-y, but most helpful if you actually have light armor. Diplomat abilites are helpful regardless of what you're wearing, but the right clothes can accentuate your diplomacy attempts. Etcetera.

* Spell-based classes are as described above.

* Accessory/Crafting classes are by their nature a grab-bag, leaning more towards being able to make stuff than requiring existing stuff.

* Entity-subtype-based classes are also a grab-bag. Some abilities really require you to be the right subtype or interacting with the right type of thing, whereas others are pretty much always-on.

* Transformation-based classes start out absolutely requiring transformations of the appropriate type, but some of them (moreso the turn-into-stuff ones, as opposed to the 'use a vehicle' ones) get dynamic like spells at higher tiers (generally a tier higher than the spell tiers).

* Weapon-based classes tend to require the appropriate weapon (or a really similar weapon type, like Spear / Polearm).

Second question: MP, y'all! What is it good for?

It has changed from the earliest days of the BA. Originally, it was just magical power reserves. I quickly realized that, narratively and mechanically, that didn't really *work*. PCs got ways to make spell costs trivial too broadly, too quickly. They got the ability to full-regen their MP in a turn. They realized that having low MP totals allowed the totals to be regenerated faster, so in a way, high MP was a liability for characters who weren't doing something funky like using it as a second MP pool. That wasn't the fault of the players, it was good strategy on their part to set things up that way, but it got my thinking more on MP. If I left it as-is, MP would basically be worthless unless people were trying to cast super-high-cost spells. I didn't want MP to be some kind of worthless afterthought compared to other stuff, and I didn't want investing in it to just be a trap.

Measurement of MP, like measurement of HP, became fuzzier in RP threads. Things stopped doing direct numerical quantities of HP Damage, instead doing low/medium/high/massive/etc Damage. Similarly, MP became more abstracted, but less-called-out (since people mostly were using 0-costed spells). HP regen had, since early points, gotten a built-in brake on it with healing effectiveness (particularly from the same healing source with no supplementary abilities) decaying over repeated use in the same quest. MP recovery, similarly, became abstractly degraded, with the max of the MP 'reservoir' getting a bit lower and harder to recover as it kept being used over and over.

That doesn't quite answer what it 'is', but I think it's an important background note for people referencing early threads and the like.

So, uh, what is MP?

MP is a few important things, all bundled together:

* It is semi-loose/self-tethered magical energy that is held by your mana pattern, but not integrally part of it. It's magic you can pull out and weave to accomplish things. This is the biggest thing it represents, even if some of the others become almost more-important when you're really, completely out of it.

* It is energy. As you expend and tire yourself, it runs down. Conversely, when you're high on MP, you're more energetic and vivified.

* It is potential to enact an effect on the world around you.

* It is the ability to give extra effort and reach above what you're normally capable of.

* It is willpower and tenacity.

How tied into using various actions IS it?

Actions that don't push at your upper limits don't tend to use much of it. In HP terms, it's negligible Damage.

Spell-using actions (and actions that require other things that use MP) take more. In HP terms, you're going from light to heavy Damage depending on cost and how much MP you have.

Really pushing yourself to do something uses more. Overdrives are an example of this. You're using a large chunk of your power for extra oomph at a key point. This is a piece of why they shouldn't be your standard attacks in RP threads. In HP terms, heavy Damage, raised to massive if you're combining one with some kind of really high-end spell.

And then an Overcrash just kills it entirely (see below).

What all gets shut down by a lack of it?

In simple things, a lack of MP reduces the upper threshold of what you can do. You lose your best options, the ones that take the most of you to be accomplished.

Narratively, let's go down that list again, but with a 'lack' of what's there.

* You don't have easily-accessible magical energy to weave into effects. You have to rely on things that are trivial to cast or have to tap into some kind of outside source.

* You're out of energy. You're tired and sluggish. Think video games where you've got a stamina meter that got expending by too much running and jumping; you not only can't run, you're slower than normal and dragging around. If you have resistance/immunity to the associated status effect (Fatigued) here, it moves more into 'You don't have any extra energy' and gets rid of the 'worse than normal' bit, but keeps the 'you can't draw on 'extra' to exert yourself'.

* Your potential is spent. It's harder to narratively effect things. This doesn't mean you can't do things (you can), but it takes a bit of that BA-member spark that lets you have undue influence on events / the potential to do weird and unique things, and dampens it.

* You can't give things 'extra' any more than you already have. You've used your super-attacks, and you can't pull a desperation-move that's staking extra self-expenditure in exchange for extra effect.

* You've lost your active will. You're stuck in a foggy, apathetic malaise and can't feel as much / can't give as much of yourself. Again, proper status resistances can help here (Confusion + Fatigued + Stat Drain), putting you in a more 'normal' state, but you still can't do a 'dramatic burst of power' or reach deep in your will to resist/throw-off some kind of effect.

If you're killing someone with HP damage, you're normally cutting their limbs off / destroying their body / breaking them, slaying them.

If you're killing someone with MP damage, you're normally cutting their options off / grinding away their inner being / making them irrelevant, causing them to fade away.

How badly does going dry from consecutive Overdrives bork you up vs. Overcrash Burnout?

Burnout is much worse.

Going dry from consecutive overdrives is bad, but recoverable. You can't get back up to your max, but you can get *somewhere*.

An analogy: Think of a kid who just ran around playing and completely exhausted themself. Let them take a brief rest, and they can have energy back pretty soon even if they were about to flop over at the end of the running. They'll be more tired later, but they're not completely out for the day just from the burst of energy use.

Burnout, though, doesn't just empty all of your reserves. You fly high in a nova of all of your power and potential pouring out on the battlefield, and then, when that brief moment of glory ends, you come crashing down hard. You poured forth the essence of your spirit, and you cauterized your soul with the power of it; there's no way to get 'more' back into you without an extensive (nearly always outside-of-an-active-thread) recovery.

Another analogy: You have a hot water heater. If you use a bunch of Overdrives, it runs out of hot water; you're just getting cold. If you wait a bit, you get kinda hot water, but you can't run it for as long as before without it getting cold again. If you're in burnout, though, your water heater isn't just cold and empty. It exploded. It isn't just that it lacks hot water; it can't heat water until it gets massive repairs. It can't even *hold* water until it gets repairs.

Does Burnout, for instance, shut down Elemental techniques you have in your weapon class? Why/Why not?

Maybe / yes to a degree. They're active, which means they're more likely to get hit than passives. They require less magic expenditure than spellcasting, though. This means that, while you still can't push yourself with them or act at your best using them (and if you try too much / try your best stuff with them, you're still going to crash and burn with actions outright failing), they're hit a bit less than spellcasting.

If you're in burnout, drop back away from your best techniques and your upper range of spells. Don't try to do dynamic things with them or mix them together. Work under the assumption that you're exhausted, on fumes of magical energy, etc.

Are spell classes, being, apparently, more "actively magical" even when not invoking a spell, more shut down than other passive/background/RP effects of classes?

Yes. Due to its representation of semi-loose magical energy and spell-based classes reliance on some degree of improvisation / self-pushing to work at an on-Level capability, combined with burnout hitting active stuff more than passive stuff, they get harder by Burnout than other things. That's not to say that other things don't get affected (see above), but they do get hit harder.

The draconian addendum: for any of the above inquiries if the answer would vary for the Hollow-Soul schtick, I'd be rather curious.

First off, I'll note that I treat the MP-as-HP more like HP than straight MP. Damage values start coming more-directly into play, and it acts like a particularly-good additional-HP ability or a self-resurrection against a death that doesn't spill too far into overkill.

Narratively, though, you're a being whose spiritual essence is abnormally integral to its health, but whose life force is somewhat detached from corporeal reality. Your physical form is an extension of your purpose and your power. Physical destruction can only do so much. You are adjacent to life, but not of it. You don't tire; your mechanisms wind down and require repair or vivification (for both, in their own ways, are equally useful to you). You don't have emotions or active will so much as a cold, burning emptiness that can reshape reality in accordance with your directives. Your true body is an empty shell running on mechanisms of 'lifeforce' that is anathemaic to conventional life. The strange, alien light that suffuses you isn't just your power, it is your innermost self. You don't burn out; you explode.

Originally posted by Lord Gadigan, 2017-10-22

As requested in chat, the relative commonality of various spell-classes for Archmages and for individuals in general. More info on why stuff is placed where it is in the list may come later when I'm not part-focused on the big Lili vs. Tide Key fight.

Archmage-Very Common:
Wizard
Enchanter
Elementalist
Geomancer

Archmage-Common:
Abjurer
Artificer
Diviner
Necromancer
Summoner
Illusionist
Transmuter
Wanderer
Ritualist
Warlock
Alchemist
Golomancer

Archmage-Uncommon:
Rune Mage
Glyph Mage
Astromancer
Arcanist
Umbramancer
Anarchomancer
Shrine Maiden
Diabolist
Druid
Healer
Sigil Tracer
Shaman
Mentalist
Monk

Archmage-Rare:
Veilwalker
Force Mage
Bard
Priest
Scientist
Technomancer
Commander
Kensei
Warrior
Thief
Biomancer
Delver of the Forbidden
Paladin
Gunslinger
Dancer

Archmage-Very Rare:
Ninja
Luminary
Blight Druid
Hunter

General-Very Common:
Monk
Wizard
Warrior
Enchanter
Elementalist
Scientist

General-Common:
Healer
Priest
Thief
Geomancer
Diviner
Transmuter
Commander
Artificer
Abjurer
Summoner
Necromancer
Wanderer

General-Uncommon:
Bard
Druid
Warlock
Alchemist
Mentalist
Gunslinger
Shrine Maiden
Illusionist
Ritualist
Paladin

General-Rare:
Veilwalker
Golomancer
Dancer
Shaman
Rune Mage
Glyph Mage
Kensei
Astromancer
Arcanist
Diabolist
Technomancer
Hunter
Delver of the Forbidden

General-Very Rare:
Umbramancer
Biomancer
Anarchomancer
Sigil Tracer
Blight Druid
Ninja
Force Mage
Luminary


I'll note that, in relation to BA Members and successful high-Level entities in general, Diviner moves into the Very Common zone, as does Wanderer.


A Follow-up Discussion in Chat, 2017-10-22

(12:21:07 AM) lordgadigan: Was an artifact of an earlier format I was considering
(12:21:41 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Veilwalker being uncommon is a surprise, all things considered
(12:22:09 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (daveishere55) I was also pleasantly surprised at how close Dulcinea is to being a babby Archmage
(12:22:10 AM) lordgadigan: What were you expecting?
(12:22:12 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) A little surprised by Force mage, but less so considering overlap with Abjurer, the latter seeming to be much broader
(12:22:16 AM) lordgadigan: Hah, very good
(12:22:21 AM) lordgadigan: *nod*
(12:23:11 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Oh, it's just... Veilwalker's a very high-utility/boost/insurance class. I'd expect that to be more appealing to spellslingers, haha
(12:23:23 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (daveishere55) Ah, one thing that's missing here is a general sense of "How high do you need to be in one class or set of classes to even be considered to be an Archmage?"
(12:23:35 AM) lordgadigan: It is very appealing to the ones who can get it / use it. It's just unusually hard to use for a base class and rare compared to some of the other ones
(12:23:46 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) aha
(12:23:56 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) I'm remembering that "reduced chance of failure" in the ability
(12:23:59 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) that's never come up, haha
(12:25:01 AM) lordgadigan: I'm wibbly on the details of that, but a general ballpark would be Level 59, Expert Wizard Magic, Adept 2-3 of the others, Classname 10-12 of the other-others.
(12:25:33 AM) lordgadigan: With the right build, though, you could work it through gear/artifacts/esoterics via other methods, though
(12:25:46 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (daveishere55) Hmmmmmmm
(12:25:47 AM) lordgadigan: Like having Esoteric Wiseman, for instance, would help a lot
(12:25:56 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (daveishere55) What about Wonderworker?
(12:26:05 AM) lordgadigan: The Orb/Wand/Book/Robe classes could fit in there instead of spell ones too
(12:26:09 AM) lordgadigan: Wonderworker would help too

(7:15:28 PM) fruedestruction: Also two questions
(7:16:00 PM) fruedestruction: 1)How powerful do you need to be to be an unreality anchor: a thing that brings a set of rules with it which override some other rules.
(7:16:36 PM) fruedestruction: 2)At what point of HP/CON/regeneration trifecta does vital organs become merely suggested organs
(7:20:12 PM) lordgadigan: Interesting questions.
The first one depends on your skillset and what you're trying to impose them on. While there's some special items and rare mana-spark-ish powers that'd kick in later (Reality Baubles, for example), that's generally a Level 41+ power against weak things and a Level 61+ power against things of more note (and even then, stronger stuff can normally override it). It exists some in lower-end classes, but the ones that really play with it are things like T3 element classes (Dream, Triumph, Primordium) or the Orlue/Strickland/Shurakawa meta-control powers.
Lili is an example PC who can do it, and she only really started being able to do it when she passed the Level 60 jump and hit 79.
(7:20:23 PM) lordgadigan: Though really, it depends on what you mean by 'some other rules'
(7:20:33 PM) lordgadigan: Monster Trainer, for example, can do it and is down around 20-ish Level-wise
(7:20:43 PM) lordgadigan: But that's just against weaker things or things that go along with it
(7:20:53 PM) lordgadigan: It can't forcibly pokemon-fight a god
(7:20:57 PM) lordgadigan: The second one
(7:22:00 PM) lordgadigan: Again, varies some, by your theme. Above 20 they become weirdly durable. Above 40 they start entering the 'suggested' zone except against specced attacks that carry specific effects by hitting them (ie an instant-death-inflicting heart-rip would still work). Above 60, they become even less important and durability becomes even more of a nebulous thing.
(7:22:07 PM) lordgadigan: Base CON increases toughness and vitality
(7:22:22 PM) lordgadigan: So with enough of it, you could go without them for longer / survive more hits to 'em at points where you'd still need them
(7:22:42 PM) lordgadigan: HP adds more toughness to the pile, but has less of a part-loss-mitigation effect that CON or specific abilities would
(7:22:50 PM) lordgadigan: This whole bit can go in the Questions thread
(7:22:55 PM) lordgadigan: Since it's relevant general questions

What Is XP?

Including discussions of Gold, Quest Patterns, Developing a Baseline of Action, and Special BA-Member Powers

[22:33] Gadigan: Hm, I feel like briefly explaining something BA wise or answering some BA setting question before heading off for the night
[22:33] The Nottest of Daves: Excellent
[22:33] The Nottest of Daves: I have a question
[22:33] Gadigan: Oho?
[22:33] The Nottest of Daves: What is XP?
[22:33] Celas: hahaha
[22:34] Gadigan: Raw mana in easily absorbable/processable/utilizable form. It's in a non-elementalized state that's absorbable into things and can easily flow into their mana patterns - improving/expanding them.
It's more reactive than ambient mana, which is in turn more reactive than Gold.
[22:35] Gadigan: If left floating around, XP will make things stronger, add properties to them, make things spawn (more often entities than items due to the extra 'motive' nature of it compared to some other forms of raw mana), and, eventually, will tend to sink into and become ambient mana
[22:36] Gadigan: In some cases it'll crystallize into a more stable XP-granting item that can be absorbed in for power by a creature
[22:36] Gadigan: It carries a property of 'becoming better/stronger', but it applies that property less than Gold applies its correspondent property of 'being wealthy or surrounded by wealth'
[22:37] Gadigan: Gold is, similarly, a form of mana, more stabilized and solidified than ambient mana or XP
[22:37] Gadigan: Carrying connotations of wealth with it
[22:37] Gadigan: These let it more easily be exchanged for items, and its presence, like many things, carries law of attraction with it
[22:37] Gadigan: So like attracts like
[22:38] Gadigan: So wealth attracts wealth
[22:38] Gadigan: Someone carrying a lot of Gold is recognized as 'rich', and while there are hazards of becoming a plump target for robbery
[22:38] Gadigan: Being wealthy enough is self-perpetuating
[22:38] Gadigan: This applies to properties, businesses, and the like too
[22:39] Gadigan: Once something amasses enough Gold
[22:39] Gadigan: It becomes 'wealthy' or 'successful', and incidental upkeep costs tend to self-fill/waive themselves
[22:39] Gadigan: So long as they're small and ill-defined enough
[22:39] Gadigan: Compared to the wealth source
[22:39] Gadigan: Bills with exact, defined values are harder to duck / require more presence of money to attract money
[22:40] Gadigan: XP, by the same dint, if somehow being carried en masse, would indicate that something is in the process of acquiring power
[22:40] Gadigan: There's a few hiccups to the use there, though
[22:40] Gadigan: XP is really hard for normal people to carry
[22:41] Gadigan: And BA members already have a funky relationship with gaining power over time - training in weeks what could take years or more of study for others
[22:41] Gadigan: Or that wouldn't be possible for others at all
[22:41] Gadigan: Gold is easier to carry
[22:41] Gadigan: But an individual's power has an effect on what they're able to do in one swoop, manipulating it
[22:41] Gadigan: Gold can be used as a resource to generate items
[22:42] Gadigan: But the amount of Gold a person can manipulate like that is dependent on their Level and skill-set
[22:42] Gadigan: So if Normal Joe the Level 5 Shopkeeper had 500,000,000,000 Gold
[22:42] Gadigan: He couldn't do planet-scale wealth actions with it
[22:42] Gadigan: He'd have some unwieldy amount of money he couldn't really manage
[22:42] Gadigan: Other people with more agency and latitude of actions might be able to trade him for it (if they were feeling generous and didn't just take it)
[22:43] Gadigan: But there would be a limit to what he, himself could do
[22:43] Gadigan: Someone Level 40 with some banking and political/rulership/planning abilities, though, could nebulously invest a larger share of it into city-wide changes
[22:43] Gadigan: And have the money sort of flow on its own from that point
[22:44] Gadigan: I kind of went on a tangent
[22:44] Gadigan: Do you want me to keep going down it, or do you want me to refocus on the XP part?
[22:45] The Nottest of Daves: Can we do both?
[22:45] The Nottest of Daves: XD
[22:45] Gadigan: Hah, sure
[22:45] Gadigan: I think one of the important principles here that may not have been laid out formally enough yet
[22:45] Gadigan: Is the general presence and importance of patterns and the law of attraction
[22:45] Gadigan: Things more easily flow into states they've already been in
[22:46] Gadigan: Things that have been proven to be accomplishable are more easily doable in the future
[22:46] Gadigan: At least in a general sense
[22:46] Gadigan: There are, as always, exceptions
[22:46] Gadigan: But if someone develops a new technology through super-intense research, it becomes more easily for other, unconnected people to develop it elsewhere unless something specific happens with it that designates it as area/person unique
[22:46] Gadigan: Or, more relevantly
[22:47] Gadigan: Quest patterns
[22:47] Gadigan: If someone goes out on a quest and defeats a lich
[22:47] Gadigan: That's one data point
[22:47] Gadigan: If someone defeats a lich 3 times, that's a pattern
[22:47] Gadigan: And defeating liches becomes a bit more easy for 'em
[22:47] Gadigan: If they defeat 12 liches on 12 different quests, that's a strong pattern
[22:47] Gadigan: Things happening with unique stuff gives it more weight
[22:47] The One True Pathaky: That sounds like one of the things that Hope specifically interfaces with
[22:47] Gadigan: Things happening in more cosmically important circumstances gives it more weight
[22:48] Gadigan: Yes, Path is correct there
[22:48] Gadigan: On the flip side, if someone starts losing under a particular circumstance
[22:48] Gadigan: Or to a particular opponent type
[22:48] Gadigan: It can also become a pattern
[22:48] Gadigan: That makes that sort of thing rougher for that person
[22:48] Gadigan: On a less-trajectory-based but related note
[22:49] Gadigan: When people start interacting with a thing enough, it can become more of a 'thing'
[22:49] Celas: now that's a segue
[22:49] Gadigan: People can get memes or tropes associated with them, whether intentionally or by accident
[22:49] Gadigan: Lili, for instance, has developed a tendency to acquire unique pairs of pants
[22:49] Gadigan: It was random the first couple of times
[22:49] Gadigan: But now there's a bit of a tilt there
[22:49] Gadigan: Not a strong one
[22:49] Gadigan: But it's there
[22:50] Gadigan: This ties in with numerology, with specific numbers being more important in the BA
[22:50] Gadigan: 3, 5, 10, 12, 24, etc
[22:50] Gadigan: Things occurring at least that many times or on those particular numbered instances gain weight
[22:51] Gadigan: So individual quests have success or failure momentum, but there's longer momentum trains beyond that
[22:51] Gadigan: An important aspect of this is balancing patterns with dramatic weight
[22:52] Gadigan: You want to be able to establish strong patterns
[22:52] Gadigan: But patterns become baseline
[22:52] Gadigan: And you want to be able to rise above it when needed
[22:52] Gadigan: In key circumstances
[22:52] Gadigan: So
[22:52] Gadigan: You'll want to improve yourself and have a strong regular baseline
[22:52] Gadigan: But also keep aces in the hole to pull out when you need something extra on top
[22:52] Gadigan: Don't Overcrash every opponent
[22:52] Gadigan: I think I went over this with Geddoe specifically at one point
[22:52] Gadigan: He got a great baseline with his meteors
[22:53] Gadigan: But meteors were his baseline
[22:53] Gadigan: So they became a 'standard attack'
[22:53] Gadigan: And lost the 'super move' element that they initially packed
[22:53] Gadigan: So he had to reach for other abilities/techniques/powers/ways to upgrade them to hit harder in dramatic circumstances
[22:53] Gadigan: All of this plays together
[22:54] Gadigan: Spawning mechanics are based on patterns around entities' existences and rely on ambient mana (and can be forced with XP)
[22:54] Gadigan: Why does decorating a room with a crib and toys and bright colors tend to make a baby spawn? Because those are the things that are around babies and that exemplify babies
[22:54] Gadigan: There are exceptions. Stuff can be hard-coded, and there's some patterns out there that I've intentionally made resilient
[22:55] Gadigan: But in general senses, consider actions over time, building a 'legend' around yourself, taking dramatic action with a flourish when need-be, interacting with the world in ways that put the world onto the tracks you want it to follow forwards
[22:58] Gadigan: So let's spin off a bit from there
[22:58] Gadigan: Into at least a couple related topics
[22:58] Gadigan: What happens if you get yourself into a rut?
[22:58] Gadigan: You can try to fight it - interrupting a pattern could work out well
[22:58] Gadigan: But if the rut's deep enough, you're flinging yourself into danger
[22:58] Gadigan: Or risking getting some weird corollary tacked on
[22:59] Gadigan: Like 'Allen loses to dragons, except when they're much lower Level' or 'Allen loses to Dragons, but if Sarah is around buffing him, he can win'
[22:59] Gadigan: Which are better than just 'Allen loses to Dragons', but still not ideal
[22:59] Gadigan: Reinvention of identity can help get around that
[22:59] Gadigan: It's a rough thing to go through
[22:59] Gadigan: And isn't generally worth it
[22:59] Gadigan: But
[23:00] Gadigan: If you remix your skill-set enough
[23:00] Gadigan: Or your style
[23:00] Gadigan: Or get your Name changed
[23:00] Gadigan: It can help set you up as a 'brand new you' that has gone through some sort of rebuild/refresh/new start
[23:00] Gadigan: It wipes both positive and negative momentum/patterns
[23:01] Gadigan: In accordance with the amount you've changed things up
[23:01] Gadigan: Now, it is eventually possible to get stuck into some super awful pattern of 'refreshes identity regularly, then still loses badly'
[23:01] Gadigan: But that takes repetition of the process
[23:01] Gadigan: And hopefully PCs avoid that
[23:03] Gadigan: If an individual makes statements about expecting to lose something
[23:03] Gadigan: Or for something to go wrong 'again'
[23:03] Gadigan: It is more likely to do that
[23:03] Gadigan: The universe likes to fall into patterns
[23:03] Gadigan: And, to an extent, to meet expectations
[23:03] Gadigan: So going into things with a positive, but not cartoonishly overconfident, attitude
[23:03] Gadigan: Backed by some tenacity/resilience
[23:04] Gadigan: Helps
[23:04] Gadigan: Lots of these things are small nudges
[23:04] Gadigan: But small nudges add up
[23:04] Gadigan: Patterns don't have to be entirely personal either
[23:04] Gadigan: Things can work on a broader scale
[23:04] Gadigan: They're harder to set up or change on that scale
[23:05] Gadigan: Particularly when Ascensions shift them because the planned Ascension narratives supercede standard patterns (and set them for the future)
[23:05] Gadigan: (Though future Ascensions that aren't laid out can be influenced by individuals performing particularly well / being particularly entertaining / setting up patterns)
[23:05] Gadigan: But larger-scale patterns can exist
[23:05] Gadigan: Like 'bosses on this world get beaten quickly by Arena members'
[23:06] Gadigan: Or the reverse, where it would be possible for a wide enough streak of PCs losing to Voidstalkers (made more easy the more different PCs were having the problem) would set a pattern of Voidstalkers being dangerous against Arena Members
[23:07] Gadigan: Questions/comments/areas you want more on?
[23:07] The Nottest of Daves: Let's head back to the tangent on Gold for a bit
[23:07] Gadigan: Okay
[23:09] Gadigan: Ah, do you have a question on it?
[23:09] Gadigan: Or did you just want me to ramble about Gold more?
[23:09] Gadigan: Because I covered what I was intending to cover on it, but would be glad to expand in response to questions
[23:10] The Nottest of Daves: Well, the specific question I was wondering about, is what, aside from the obvious Merchant/Coinlord/World Merchant set, are the kinds of classes that improve your ability to manage and use Gold?
[23:12] Gadigan: Well, Dread Banker, but that's in the obvious boat
[23:12] Gadigan: Let's see
[23:12] Gadigan: The crafting classes in general help (Chef, Blacksmith, Tailor, etc)
[23:12] Gadigan: Executive with the Cigar weapons helps a lot
[23:12] Gadigan: Subspace Architect helps with infrastructure applications
[23:13] Gadigan: Artificer and Alchemist help with making vaguer resources into items
[23:13] Gadigan: Channeler helps with turning one thing into another
[23:13] Gadigan: General, Warlord, and other more 'civilized' entity classes can help on a societal scale, though less than some others
[23:13] Gadigan: There's subtrees of some other stuff
[23:13] Gadigan: Like the Greed sub-branch of the Devil subtype class
[23:16] The Nottest of Daves: You also mentioned political management during the Gold discussion. I assume Commander, Noble, and the entity classes of whatever the most common entities that live there are major factors, but are there other classes that add to that?
[23:17] Gadigan: Diplomat, the Clothes armor class, may or may not be obvious
[23:19] Gadigan: There's subtrees or weird applications of some others (the Bailartix class, for example, can improve logistics of resource distribution, but that's a really weird reason to invest specifically in it)
[23:19] Gadigan: But the obvious ones are the main ones that come to mind
[23:21] The Nottest of Daves: Alright, let's pull around to something that's not quite so directly related to what was discussed, namely, the sorts of default powers BA members have that most other kinds of entities do not
[23:22] The Nottest of Daves: Obviously, scanning is one of those things, and apparently being able to cart around XP like it's going out of style is another
[23:22] Gadigan: BA members can, in general hold intangible things well
[23:23] Gadigan: Most entities can't carry 'Purity' for instance
[23:23] Gadigan: Similarly, BA members, while they don't by default have a unified type of item storage, adapt to it really easily as soon as they have an excuse for having it, whether via RP power, item, or ability
[23:23] Gadigan: BA Members are better able to enter new classes and expand / rework their builds
[23:24] Gadigan: And are less prone to falling into ruts of behavioral limitations
[23:24] Gadigan: They can accept information from a variety of worlds
[23:24] Gadigan: Instead of a fantasy-homeworld-BA-member just being utterly unable to understand phones or circuitry
[23:24] Gadigan: They can pick up element-based classes a lot easier than most entities can
[23:25] Gadigan: They can pick up multiple different elemental classes and swap between them much easier than nearly all entities can
[23:25] Gadigan: Again, there's exceptions and outliers to everything here
[23:25] Gadigan: But in general terms
[23:25] Gadigan: Let's see
[23:26] Gadigan: Combos
[23:26] Gadigan: Combos are pretty much a BA-member-exclusive thing
[23:26] Gadigan: The number of non-BA-members who can combo is minuscule
[23:27] Gadigan: BA members also generally carry an 'I am an adventurer' type of aura/personal gravity
[23:27] Gadigan: So if a world has adventurers or is set up to accommodate them
[23:27] Gadigan: Which a lot of worlds are
[23:27] Gadigan: BA members slot into that role
[23:27] Gadigan: And people call them out less on weird things
[23:27] Gadigan: Or being itinerant
[23:27] Gadigan: Or having no particular local structure they're embedded in
[23:28] Gadigan: That, of course, depends by world
[23:28] Gadigan: Some worlds very much recognize them as potentially dangerous outsiders
[23:28] Gadigan: Some places like where Larry Phibbens was from are weirded out by their weirdness
[23:28] Gadigan: But in general, they get latitude to work with more things in more places than they otherwise might
[23:28] Gadigan: As a narrative role
[23:29] Gadigan: On that note, they also get to define their own place in general narrative a bit more than other entities
[23:29] Gadigan: They still have some cornerstones they're automatically hitting
[23:29] Gadigan: Like 'adventurer' above
[23:29] Gadigan: But if someone focuses on joining particular types of groups / doing particular types of missions, they can make it their 'thing'
[23:29] Gadigan: And when a place needs someone to fill a 'thing' role, they'll be more likely to end up there
[23:30] Gadigan: A BA member who collects unique Swords is more likely to find unique Swords. They almost 'gravitate' towards them if otherwise cosmically 'stray'. Similarly, a BA member who is notorious for getting in fights with innkeepers is likely to run into an above-average number of dramatic, battle-ready innkeepers.
[23:30] Gadigan: As far as Nexus goes
[23:31] Gadigan: You've got access to more discs than most people
[23:31] Gadigan: And have access to a lot of Nexus facilities
[23:31] Gadigan: Like the fast travel in Town
[23:31] Gadigan: The Nexus Portal Nexus
[23:31] Gadigan: Etc
[23:31] Gadigan: There's plenty of others with access to those sorts of things
[23:31] Gadigan: You just have 'more' in a lot of ways
[23:31] Gadigan: 'Less' in a few too - Bascaradine can't sell you as much as their overall product lines might indicate
[23:32] Gadigan: It's 1:30 and I have work
[23:32] Gadigan: I need to head to bed
[23:32] Gadigan: I hope this helped out!
[23:32] Gadigan: Tomorrow is gaming night
[23:32] Gadigan: But I might be up for more of this some time in the future
[23:32] The Nottest of Daves: It did! Thanks for taking the time on this!
[23:32] Gadigan: Someone can post this whole big block if they want to. If nobody else does, I probably will at some point
[23:32] Gadigan: Excellent! You're quite welcome
[23:32] The Nottest of Daves: I've been copying it out in chunks for that purpose

Geomancer von Channeler visits Genericville!

Celas wrote: Celas's ponderation of the moment!

Enviromental effects of different kinds of mana, especially nonbase elements!

We've previously talked about how bringing lots of mana into an area- be it by individuals with the skill directly flooding the area, or by people bringing in lots of items to decorate- changes it. Causes different things to spawn, changes existing structures and things. So, revisited!

Let's say Genericville is a small size town of a couple hundred people. Medieval, farming, has a mill and a general store and... stuff.
Geomancer von Channeler, PC extraordinaire, comes in and starts dumping mana all over the place.

How does Genericville respond to...
Wealth?
Nobility?
Grandeur?
Divine?
Corruption?
Glitz? (that's a curious one)
Void? (assuming that doesn't just collapse it into a black hole or something.)
Aether?
Fury?
Basic?
Beast?

Any you can think of that might have a humorous or noteworthy effect would be great, too. (And if this actually becomes a topic of Chat, I might ask for ridiculous things like sequences, too. hahah)

Kit addendum wrote: how about blood?

* Wealth would likely be highly beneficial to the town. The newly-introduced wealth mana would promote prosperity, and over time, everyone in the town would slowly transform to be rich. The buildings would likely upgrade the place over time too. Odds are Genericville would become Richville where everyone was rich.
- On the other hand, if introduced selectively near places that are already rich, it could be used to enhance and concentrate the wealth in those parts. If, for example, GvC specifically amped up one minor noble or merchant, that individual would likely end up significantly richer, to a degree that would overshadow everyone else in the area. There would, for example, be one guildhall, mansion, or small castle that would dominate an otherwise poor town.
- If not specifically stabilized, it would probably turn into Earth mana with a similar effect over time, though that'd take long enough that it wouldn't really impact the results (since by that point, the 'wealth' patterns would have stuck). GvC could stabilize it fairly easily.

* Nobility would, if released generically, probably start giving the town nobles. It would morph into Air element mana if not stabilized. In the process, though, it'd probably build a castle, spawning a king/queen/grand prince or something and a bunch of minor nobles. The decay into air-element would likely be much faster than in the above scenario with the decay into Earth.
- That said, GvC could easily stabilize and direct it. If placed in a more lasting field, you'd end up with a town entirely composed of aristocrats.

* Grandeur mana would, above all else, suddenly power up Lili. She'd probably get and ability or two and some XP out of this.
- If not stabilized, it'd decay into some combination of Wealth, Nobility and Glory that would then decay into Earth and Air in most locations. Again, though, it's easy to stabilize.
- Results of the outpouring would, in most cases, be a sudden, localized, fancifying. It would make some monument, or house, or group of people stand out, be fancy, and increase in overall 'value' and probably also 'pompousness'. That said, the effects would be temporary (with the mana not being terribly self-sustatining, so the newly-rich people wouldn't know how to handle the money well or the fancy statue would start having its metal peel or something).
- That said, if Lili or GvC adds to the overall integrity of the mana type, it could be used to make a place some combination in the middle of the Wealth and Nobility above, only with really fancy, overdone architecture.
You head through the City of Night riding inside an invisible clown.

* Divine mana, in any concentration notable enough for this mass-pouring, would completely overwhelm the pattern of Genericville. Odds are the place would undogo a fairly thorough transformation into a city built around a grand temple, in which a newly born god would be enthroned.
- That said, that much Divine mana would likely be really hard for GvC to control. The new god is likely fully uncontrolled.

* Corruption mana is nasty. Genericville has no defenses that would prepare it for this. The releasing of the mana could be subtle or overt, depending on what GvC does. If it's just randomly released, though, it tends to pick subtle.
- If it went subtle-mode, people's spirits and minds would become completely twisted, creating psychotic villagers who would detect, isolate, and brutally eliminate anyone who didn't become corrupted. The village would then cultivate the corruption, sending newly-spawned villagers off to different nearby towns, bringing the hidden corruption with them. It would affect, people, beasts, and the land itself. As the subtle outer parts spread, the interior would become more overtly corrupted; animal eyes would glow red, people would grow and merge into tumerous abominations, and the ground would writhe up with creeping, wormlike rot. Even in that, though, there would some whose bodies would remain unchanged, with only their inner selves fully warped by the corruptive influence.
- If it was released in overt-mode, it would go directly into tumerous rot-city. It would likely begin pumping out rivers of black sludge, filling the sky with smoke that smells of fresh corpses, and actively gathering the populations of nearby woodlands and settlements to mass-convert into new extensions of itself in its processing-cysts.
- An important note is Genericville's population is getting a significant power boost from this. The villagers are now easily able to take knights and the like. As the corruption spreads, the power of things it could infect would rise also.
- Above all else: the taint must grow.

* Glitz is an interesting one. It's good at fake-integrating with stuff. The default result would be a celebrity-obsessed town with a lot of stardom-related attractions. The objects would have Glitz mana merged with them, but the populace, despite the mental shift, wouldn't actually gain any Glitz.
- That said, GvC could forcefully integrate it with the people. This would be a ritual that would take a bit and require direction, but it would be able to create some celebrities whose reputations would begin spreading themselves across Genericworld. If this option was taken, the place would become sort sort of 'Old Hollywood' type city.

* Void is in unusual case in some respects. If Genericville was experiencing some sort of destructive elemental unbalance, the Void mana would work towards actively repairing that.
- Genericville isn't experiencing an element-disruption crisis, though. That means there's a lot of excess void mana. The villagers would likely slip into ennui as the town became transformed by an apathetic malaise.
- That said, Geomancer VonChanneler could prevent this situation by properly setting things up so that the Void mana was held in reserve to come forth and suppress future elemental balance-disruptions.

* The Aether mana would start randomly unsummoning people and buildings. Some others would become transparent or only exist at particular points in time. After the place got turned into a partially-present hologram-town or something similar, the Aether mana would form into an invisible fog that would (about 50-50 odds of each, with GvC being fairly easily able to tip things) either start randomly summoning or randomly unsummoning things that were in it.

* Fury would make the villagers ANGRY! Feuds and fights would break out, and suddenly Farmer Dave would be breaking Farmer John's barn door in a rage, trying to locate and kill the man who dared to eat his ear of corn at the big feast four years ago.
- After the general depopulation of the village, the place would start spawning something more Fury-relevant. The place would pick a theme (anarchic rioters, orc horde, murderous bandits, drunk-and-irate clowns with axes, rabid badgers, etc) and start filling the town with hostile creatures that fit the theme.
- The Fury mana would likely degrade into a combination of Fire, Energy, and Physical unless stabilized.

* Basic! Genericville becomes even more generic! There's pretty much no change except a lot of things shift their element to Basic.
- Basic also becomes a Base Element in Genericville, at least until someone comes along and looks at it sternly enough while coughing disapprovingly.

* Beast would spawn a bunch of animals. Grass on the town outskirts would probably grow some, and some animal burrows would appear. The sudden bears and wolverines all over the mayor's office and the tiger in the bakery would probably be more pressing concerns, though.
- Depending on what animals and monsters are in the nearby area, what creatures spawned would change.

* Blood would have strange effects if not applied properly. Blood, by default, doesn't mix well with things. It would end up initially making stuff really bloody, like a murder scene from an over-the-top anime spread on a town-wide scale. It would then start degrading into a roughly 50-50 mix of darkness element mana and spawned creatures. As the darkness mana prevalence increased, the creatures that spawned would become more darkness-related. So you'd end up with a really shadowy city with a lot of rats and bats and a few random giraffes, gorillas, and kinkajous running around the looming, narrow streets.
- If GvC manipulated things, though, he could turn the blood mana into a creeping, blood-red fog that converted people into undead creatures and blood cultists. The overall atmosphere of the place would either go gothic or Aztec, and the lingering cloud would add a lot of environmental drain effects that were hostile to outsiders.

* Flux could do a lot of different things. It could stabilize as a statue of jelly, could give everyone scythe-arms, could make everyone a talking three-eyed cat, could turn everything blue, or could make it so the town skips Wednesdays.
- What GvC could settle it as would depend a lot on GvC's powerset and other abilities.
- Beyond that, though, the esteemed Geomancer VonChanneler could turn it into a permanent Flux-field that warps things that enter it.

* Wonder would either make some singular 'wonder' to serve as the most notable thing in town or would be so "*frustrated*" by the lack of anyone or anything 'special' to latch onto that it would soar off into the distance, hunting across Genericworld for something less-generic to empower.
- GvC could try to encourage it to amp up something particular (Murray the baker bakes really good bread. Now he bakes GOLD bread! Gina the shepherd breeds sheep with lots of wool. Now she breeds Breathtastic Sheep-Hydras with lots of wool and heads!) That said, it'd be reasonably hard to wrangle.

* Whimsy would make everything happy and quirky and picture-book-y. Genericville is now from a Doctor Seuss book or flies around on a giant fish and is made of watercolors. It rains beachballs on Thursdays, and the new neighbors down the block are snowmen.
- Whimsy would actually attract the Wonder back if it were applied after the Wonder.
- As a funfact: Whimsy + Void would go badly, with both wearing away at each other. Whimsy + Wonder + Void ends up saccharine and reasonably inviolable; the Wonder amps the Whimsy enough to make the Void go into element-disruption-protection mode, leaving the place very good at fending off non-thematic stuff.

Kit addendum the second wrote: what about Agony and Wood?

Draconics addendum wrote: I'd actually be curious about a large flux in Time mana personally.

I know it debases to Air. However . . .

Does it speed things up? Slow them down? All around? Does it bring stuff from alternate timelines? Is it possible to Time-Stop-Prison an entire city?

* The Agony mana would leave everyone in terrible pain and suffering for a long while. It would eventually degrade into darkness and physical mana, and the time period would be remembered as some horrible period in the town's history.
- If the villagers required food/water/etc, they'd probably die of starvation / dehydration while writhing in pain on the floor / ground. In this case, with no one left to torment, the mana would probably begin spawning Torturer Imps and the like.

* Wood would cause an upswell of plant life. Trees would grow in the streets, grass would get tall, and wooden buildings would sprout branches and flowers. The wooden buildings would likely also become stronger and more damage-resistant. Plant creatures, were there any native to the nearby areas, would spawn more.
- It would degrade into Earth mana if not stablized (assuming Genericworld didn't have Wood as a base element, which it probably wouldn't)

* Time mana would add 'excess' time to the place, meaning that things there would speed-up proportional to the world around them. People would begin getting an hour and fifteen minutes to everyone else nearby's hour or something similar.
- The other effects you list could happen, but they'd require GvC to have some sort of Time-focus beyond the general Geomancy and Channeling, with the time-freeze-prison being particularly hard to achieve.
- You're correct that Air would be the element it would degrade into if not stabilized.

JTL addendum wrote: As long as we're on this path... Cute Pets and Universe.

* If flooded with Cute Pets mana, everyone in Genericville would get lots of cute pets! The place would turn into some sort of almost-cartoon in some respects, and the various adorable animals with their aww-inducing antics would be the most interesting thing about the place.

* Universe mana would likely have way less effect than most people would expect. It would assume the types of the mana already there, reinforcing the existing patterns and basically just making the town bigger / more populated.
- Unless you got a truly *enormous* amount, in which case something random and huge (or, if GvC was high-level and had the right ability set, something specific and huge) would appear.

Draconics response wrote: Wait, wait, wait, so if you get enough you mana-spark the town?!

Pretty much, yes!

It has better odds of spawning a creature than most sparks, but yes.


On How the Above Can Be Accomplished

Kit wrote: Questions:
1. We release EXP to release the mana, correct? Just double checking.
2. if 1 is true, are there abilities that let one get more mana bang for the exp buck?
3. How obvious is mana release?
4. if it’s obvious, are there abilities in channeler tree that let you be more subtle?

1. Yes, you're releasing mana. It can, depending on how you do it, retain some sort of connection to you, or it can just be extra mana expended for stuff.

2. Theoretically yes. They're probably mostly in channeler.

3. By default reasonably, though it differs by circumstance. If you're randomly releasing XP, it probably looks like a shiny torrent of sparkles / power. If you're directing it towards specific purposes, it can be harder to detect.

4. Yes, I believe there are.

The Question Digest, Vol. 1


On Outer Lords and Transformations

[20:54] Ordo Hereticus: The other question is a double-check that Outer Lords can enter Transformations that are not their initial subtype
[20:54] Gadigan: I... think so? Let me look at their special rules, since there's probably something in there that is prompting the question
[20:56] Gadigan: "* An Outer Lord's subtype may not be changed by things that do not specifically modify the subtype of Outer Lords."
[20:56] Gadigan: Interesting
[20:56] Gadigan: I'm going to rule that they can transform, but that they retain their subtype from before while transformed
[20:56] Gadigan: Your car is a Darkspawn. Your horse is a Darkspawn. Your form of fluffy bunny is also a Darkspawn.
[20:56] Ordo Hereticus: hahahaha
[20:57] Gadigan:
[20:57] Ordo Hereticus: I am very amused
[20:57] Gadigan: Excellent
[20:57] Gadigan: You can post the question and answer on the site
[20:57] Gadigan: So that we have it recorded


On Summoning Without Spells

What could someone with Summoner summon in the absence of other abilities, spells, or equipment?


Basically nothing. Summoner, at just class-name rank, without support from other stuff, isn't really capable of summoning specific things. I'd allow some stuff based on RP powers, and might let basic celestial/fiendish animals ride in deference to their being the most bog-standard summons over in D&D, but something else is nearly always needed.

Having a subtype-based class would give an angle to summon things of that subtype.
Having some mix of Geomancer/Channeler/Diviner/Scholar/Subspace Architect would let you summon from local spawn tables, with more of the above making you better at it.
Having some magic classes would let you summon things related to those magic types, like Umbrals for Shadow Magic or Golems and Daemons for Rune Magic.
Having spells would let you summon based on those spells - and is basically assumed for summoners who don't have some sort of ability sub-tree that lets them summon something else specific.

Summoner, on its own, would really just let you bolster existing summons (though having Enchanter or Channeler would help boost that) and manipulate summoning-based objects/magic setups (which Ritualist or Magewright or the like would also help).


On Weapons of Legend

Ordo Hereticus: Where do Weapons of Legend stand in the tiers of Unique vs Artifact vs Combat Artifact for purposes of actual fights? What about as more generic tools?

Gadigan: Weapons of Legend are generally better than normal unique weapons for combat purposes, but not as good as Artifacts - with a big asterisk there in that they're sometimes sorta better.
Weapon of Legend works kind of like Wonder. It doesn't do much on its own. It's a subtype that extends another weapon subtype into a better tier of power and lets it do more. Namely, Weapon of Legend is a T3 weapon subtype. Therefore, weapons that use it are T3. All the Weapons of Legend (or at least almost all of them) have another weapon subtype. That's the subtype you're mainly using theme wise. So, for example, you have a Weapon of Legend that's a Swords. Swords are T1. Having a Weapon of Legend Sword lets you use Swords at T3 - it lacks the versatility and hax of an actual T3 skill-set, and you'd generally lack the ability-investment backing that you'd have in a more filled-out T3 class with more of a focus, but it lets you use that particular weapon much better than you otherwise would be able to against other higher-tier threats.
So it subs in partially as artifact (they're kinda like x10 combat artifacts in some respects - but without aspects) and partially as a T3. Having an actual artifact and an actual T3 skillset would be better, but if you don't have either, then the Weapon of Legend is a really good power booster to pick up.


On Clones and Undeath

[22:09] Ordo Hereticus: Also, I've been thinking about how using backup bodies would work in terms of BA classes...
I recall you mentioning it would be possible to do with clockwork bodies, Steam, and enough backup from some supporting classes, but what about things like replica biological bodies vs undead resurrection vs becoming a ghost/spirit?
[22:17] Gadigan: Sounds like Biomancer + Mad Scientist + Theoretical Scientist on the first one (mostly Biomancer)
Necromancer + Deathless One (mostly the latter) on the second
Third one would be Deathless One or (Binder + Shrine Maiden + Necromancer) or something like that for the latter ones
[22:18] Ordo Hereticus: hmmmmmm
[22:19] Ordo Hereticus: thank ye


On the Combat Consequences of Ascendant Skillsets

[21:32] Ordo Hereticus: Actually, that prompts some possibly rather abstract questions from me in regards to how Ascendant ability sets interact with narrative forces in combat
[21:33] Ordo Hereticus: Say Dulcinea is up against somebody who has an ability set from someone who was involved in the First Ascension, whichever person it was who had the Prioress as a plot foe and participated in the defeat of KIRGA at the final battle
[21:33] Ordo Hereticus: er, correcting
[21:34] Ordo Hereticus: corrected
[21:34] Ordo Hereticus: All other abilities/equipment being equal, would there be narrative force in favor of Dulcinea's opponent in such a battle?
[21:40] Gadigan: That's an interesting question that I hadn't really considered.
I think there would be some, but it would only tend to come up if they both leaned on those particular skill-sets. I wouldn't rule it out of coming up otherwise on a particularly good or bad roll streak, but in general if you fought one of them but used unrelated powers, you'd probably be fine in terms of narrative advantage/disadvantage.
If you started including more elements from the Ascension, like being in a location from it or having a unique item from it or involving some character who somehow was still around from back then but still around your Level, then things might start to come more into play.
[21:41] Ordo Hereticus: Thanks!


On Inherent Spell Lists

[21:01] The Nottest of Daves: How do Inherent Spell Lists work?
[21:02] The Nottest of Daves: RP-wise, mostly
[21:02] Gadigan: They're spells you know that are part of your primary mana pattern as opposed to items attached to it.
[21:03] The Nottest of Daves: Alas
[21:04] The Nottest of Daves: I have additional questions
[21:04] Gadigan: Yes?
[21:04] The Nottest of Daves: namely, what are the consequences of something being part of your primary mana pattern rather than an item
[21:04] Gadigan: It's harder to remove and counts more as being 'you' than 'something you own or are carrying'
[21:06] The Nottest of Daves: How does one reach the point of making a spell part of their primary mana pattern? Frequent use? Special effects from items? Abusing Channeler?
[21:08] Gadigan: Special effects from items would be the main method.
Some beings could do it through frequent use, but that's not inherently an ability that most BA members have.
Use of Channeler, backed by enough Wizard, might be able to get something in there, but would probably cost Weeks and XP to solidify. Easier for putting spells that are below someone's general Level range into a list that already exists than putting top-tier spells or unique spells in or giving someone a list who doesn't have one.
There's theoretically a branch of Wizard that does it too (requires some Scholar too), but I haven't fleshed that out and don't estimate that it will be out within any reasonable frame of time.


On Opposing Elements in the Same Action

[20:50] Ordo Hereticus: I've been talking with Armocida some more, and an additional question has been born of it
[20:51] Ordo Hereticus: namely, what happens if someone tries to channel oppositional element pairs to the same task?
[20:51] Ordo Hereticus: e.g. THE LAW OF THIS REALM SHALL BE: CHAOS IS THE ONLY LAW
[20:51] Ordo Hereticus: or something similar
[21:06] Gadigan: That depends on the task, the method, the element pair, the user's skill level with each element, the user's skill with channeling and/or elemental magic, what gear the user is wielding, and (to a lesser extent) lots of other things (like the area it is happening in).
By and large, BA members can handle it better than other beings. That having been said, trying it without skill in the elements (or low levels of skill) tends to flomph out the action and make it less effective than it otherwise would be (sometimes failing entirely). As skill improves, the ability to do weird stuff and apply oppositional forces to the same task increases - Adept or better and you're able to leverage the combination as a weird, harder-to-deal-with force where appropriate more often than not. Proper gear or specialized abilities, like Impossible Arbiter stuff, helps a lot. So would Elemental Researcher. Channeler and Elementalist help bolster skill and reduce the minimum requirements, but not quite as much.
[21:08] Ordo Hereticus: Makes sense, though some of that I hadn't considered
[21:08] Ordo Hereticus: thanks for the explanation!


On Stacking Creature Types and Synergies

[21:01] Ordo Hereticus: I have recalled a BA-related question that has been lurking in my mind for a while
[21:02] Ordo Hereticus: How does the stacking of multiple higher-tier creature subtypes work out narratively for power level?
[21:05] Gadigan: They operate at the tier of the highest, with additional ones adding to overall power (but not as much as the first higher-tier subtype) and giving other high-tier skillsets, but not tier-multiplying or increasing to a higher overall tier. There was one time segment earlier in the history of the BA where they multiplied, followed by one where they were additive, but both of those resulted in things getting weirdly too powerful, so things got pulled back a bit.
Note that Elite/Unique/Plot Foe do stack with the subtype and boost it relative to that (and Elite technically stacks with unique, but that combination is rare)
[21:06] Gadigan: Does that answer the question, or do you have more questions related to it?
[21:06] Ordo Hereticus: I am pondering if I have further questions
[21:07] Ordo Hereticus: That answers most of it, definitely
[21:07] Gadigan: nods
[21:07] Ordo Hereticus: Aha
[21:08] Ordo Hereticus: How do equal-tier skillsets synergize with each other? Say one is weak against anti-res, and another is strong (or neutral) to such things, or opposing elemental alignments (like Solar Beings and Umbrals)
[21:11] Ordo Hereticus: (so for clarity: things that only one skillset has a weakness to, or opposing weaknesses and strengths; the general case is too wide for more than a case-by-case basis)
[21:18] Gadigan: It depends on the specific skillsets, level of proficiency with them, what items are equipped, character themes and RP powers, and whether any specific bridging abilities connect the two.
In general: They interact very poorly with each other at first, fizzling out actions where you try to use them together. Around Adept, they start playing together. Expert and up they start being able to cover each other's weaknesses. If you get a bridge ability, these thresholds generally go down (with cooperating being automatic and weakness covering hitting more around Adept), with the two ending up merging into a harder-to-counter, rarer hybrid skillset.
Certain abilities help ameliorate issues, though. Channeler and Unbound Guru help with basically every pairing; Monk helps with most pairings, but to a comparatively tiny extent. Transmuter helps with entity subtypes; Mad Scientist kind of does too. Elemental Researcher, and to a much lesser degree Elementalist, help with elements (with Elementalist helping when using actions but basically never covering self-as-element mixes' weaknesses). Anarchomancer and Walker from Beyond help a mid-low bit with everything that doesn't conflict with themselves.
Some skillsets just inherently don't play well together, though - Glyph Mage and Rune Mage would take Master+ in both to not blow up in your face (I'm frankly considering making them nonbase because of how badly they interact with each other).
[21:20] Ordo Hereticus: You already did that, actually
[21:20] Ordo Hereticus: (the Glyph Mage/Rune mage no longer being base, I mean)
[21:20] Gadigan: Aha, k! Somehow forgot I pulled the trigger on that change.
[21:20] Gadigan: Good that my recent thoughts on it have been consistent, at least

Comparing the Battle Arena to other Fantasy RPGs

[5:55 PM] The Nottest of Daves: What are the BA classes your bog standard D&D Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Bard, Barbarian, or Rogue would have, and at what tier at D&D level 1/5/10/15/20/epic?

A Fighter would have:
Swordsman
Lancer
Archer
Defender
Guardian
Warrior
Smith

Notes: They'd also, depending on specialization, have parts of other weapon classes. I'm avoiding directly giving them the other classes here since a lot of the other classes have sub-build things that a standard Fighter wouldn't get.

A Wizard would have:
Sage
Seer
Wizard
Enchanter
Abjurer
Diviner
Necromancer
Transmuter
Wanderer
Summoner
Magewright

Notes: I added weapon and armor abilities because the build just would not work on the BA without them. Possibly gains Scholar depending on build.

A Cleric would have:
Lawbringer
Defender
Guardian
Priest
Healer
Necromancer
Summoner
Abjurer

Notes: Some variance by deity and alignment.

A Rogue would have:
Shadow Blade
Assassin
Protector
Diplomat
Thief

Notes: The diplomat part covers the bluff/social and disguises; they might go into spy, archer, or ninja depending on build.

A Bard would have:
Musician
Swordsman
Scholar
Diplomat
Bard

Notes: Optionally Shadow Blade, Dancer, and/or Enchanter depending on focus and style; Scholar expands them to more attack magic than is base normal, but is pretty needed for their lore sub-spec. Swordsman is questionable, but I feel like they'd need it to be able to operate in melee when needed.

A Barbarian would have:
Ravager
Crusher
Protector
Warrior
Monk

Notes: Plays vaguely awkwardly with the BA Monk class, which is kinda needed for the physical fitness and movement boosts, but doesn't fit with the ki and martial arts, leaving the Barbarian travelling only down certain sub-paths of it.

General note: A 3.5/PF version of one of these classes, built with expanded supplement options to be less 'bog standard' would get some more classes, of course.

D&D Levels to BA Levels:

The conversion is kinda sketchy.

Frankly, I'm not entirely comfortable placing myself as the final authority of where non-BA things translate onto the BA power scale, so treat the following as not-exactly-official. The BA's power scaling works differently than most other things do: In the BA, if you're at a certain Level of power, your baseline basically-everything is amped up to that point, you resist stuff below that point, you get the ability to deal with expected-at-your-level things (so a Level 80 colossus can probably fight someone attacking from another dimension by punching through, even if it can only do that as a counter most of the time, and isn't specced in it), way-lower things can't overpower you by proc'ing a build hole (normally), and you can't jump way above your general power by combining things that enter infinite loops or the like (due to restrictions placed on beings). The BA also tends to do massive scaling on speed and scope - characters are sending storms of moons around as attacks, and fight rounds get progressively faster as the characters rise in level, moving from 7-15 seconds down into tiny fractional pieces of seconds.

It fluctuates depending on where on the BA scale the characters are, but tends to end up in the 2-4x boat. The D&D characters acquire some hax (petrified, global teleport, better incorporeal) a bit sooner than the BA characters. A lot of BA monsters tend to have higher ranges for what they can effect and are just more dangerous to normal people / towns than their D&D counterparts. The D&D characters, even at epic, never hit the high tiers of BA PC power unless they're breaking the setting's general assumptions with locate city nukes and the like.

I'd generally call x3 as a decent estimate. That puts a Level 1 character as being a bit more durable than a starting BA character, a Level 5 at 15, making them a village hero but nothing notable, a Level 10 at 30, putting them in the band of a lot of classic monsters and starting to get them interesting powers, a Level 15 at 45, putting them above the 40 jump and giving them reliable access to major status effects and making them some kind of national hero who could take a city on, Level 20 at 60, putting them at the peak of city-busting and getting towards the point where they can affect countries with actions (which only really translates mechanically to spellcasters, and even then is kinda weird, but at the same time, it'd be narratively weird if they weren't that impactful at what is supposed to be the peak of their careers). That then puts mythic/epic level characters capping out in the 90-120 range... which is in many ways way too high - a Level 40 D&D fighter flat can't do what a Level 120 BA character can (or even what a Level 80 one can). I'd downshift the multiplier to 'double' at that point, and cap them at 80 as a result. That puts them able to square off with gods, and, while their power scopes, particularly on martials, are way broader than they'd be in D&D, they get to be the epic heroes that they're narratively supposed to be. If we're being less-generous with narrative intent and ignoring broken builds, a lot of things are being downshifted and we're going to 'not even double', where they'd be capping at 59 since they don't get casual planet-busting magic. The D&D characters, in the BA, can't really have build holes, are going to be moving faster than they otherwise would be, are going to have way bigger AOEs, and are going to get other boosts because that's just how the BA works - if they didn't get those things, they'd be Anomalous and inappropriately weak for their Level. At the same time, mechanical trick Punpun stuff / simulacrum hax just won't work right - the BA shuts that sort of thing down.

On Universal Control System KIRGA

[9:46 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Hokay, so now that threadly stuff appears to be done for the day, I would like to return to Questions About KIRGA
[9:46 PM] Gadigan: Sure!
[9:46 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Specifically, the RP-effects of Origin of Elements and Root Command
[9:46 PM] Gadigan: (Note - I'm heading downstairs for some toast and to watch an episode of a crime drama with my family, but will probably be briefly back after before bed)
[9:47 PM] Gadigan: On the first one, you're generating and to a degree defining the properties of elements
[9:47 PM] Gadigan: You act as a 'Source', but on a lesser level at this point in the skill set
[9:47 PM] Gadigan: There's more stuff later in the tree to define and control and distribute/manage elements further
[9:48 PM] Gadigan: On the second, you take a position as the control system behind all things and direct the core of something's being to work in a manner that takes full command of their action (and how well that action is executed)
[9:48 PM] Gadigan: Again, it'll be refined as you go deeper in the tree and get related abilities
[9:48 PM] Gadigan: That help?
[9:48 PM] Gadigan: You have other specific questions?
[9:48 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Yes!
[9:49 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Do people know that you used Root Command on them?
[9:50 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Does OoE (or something later along that tree) allow you to counter Total Elemental Control from Source Guardians (ex- or otherwise) like Ouetzzer?
[9:50 PM] Ordo Hereticus: and semi-related: Are there things later in the tree that let you count as higher level for purposes of these initial abilities?
[9:51 PM] Ordo Hereticus: (done with questions for now, further answers may spawn additional questions)
[9:57 PM] Gadigan: If you don't have Enchanter/Illusionist/other powers to mask its use, and they have some manner of divination or special sense, they can tell. If they can't detect normal mind control or the like, they can't detect it, but if they're particularly aware (moreso than most dungeon monsters or random non-uniques) they can tell that something briefly made them do something even if they aren't sure what or how.
[9:59 PM] Gadigan: OoE, on its own, kinda sorta acts as a defense asset against someone with one of those powers who is around your same Level. That said, it, on its own, isn't built to resist them. Unlike the Bascaradine power that specifically does that or the Cabinet of the Viper stuff that came beforehand, the KIRGA's stuff comes before the Sources were a thing - this means that it will, over time, get stuff that builds up to preempt Source Control passively as side effects of what it's actually doing, but none of its skill set is actually built to specifically counter them directly
[10:00 PM] Gadigan: I haven't fully decided what's in the rest of the tree. My current inclination is to not include Level-raisers. Basically, that's the tree's achilles heel to a degree. The KIRGA is Level 9,999. It never had to deal with anything of equal standing (Gad and company excluded), and it had trouble when the Ascendants made their own UCS. The KIRGA is meant to be sitting on top of the metaphysical hierarchy of being, and when it plainly isn't, it starts having difficulty.
[10:01 PM] Gadigan: I'm heading off to do the family stuff but will probably pop around later before bed. Feel free to ask if you have more questions. I encourage you to post this chat bit so that people know how to run your powers better unless you have a specific reason not to.
[10:01 PM] Ordo Hereticus: I'll post it after we're fully done, I think
[10:13 PM] Ordo Hereticus: For clarity, Root Command is a brief moment of control, rather than being able to be parlayed into a longer-term single action ("Open this door" vs "Go to the security console in another room and tell it to open every door")? Does that scale based on level differential?
[10:13 PM] Ordo Hereticus: (also, does it scale based on skill level with Enchanter?)
[11:14 PM] Gadigan: I'm back
[11:15 PM] Gadigan: It's a brief moment of control. If you have other Mentalist/Enchanter stuff, you could leverage it so that you could slip something longer-term in, but it's you assuming temporary, direct, exacting control. On its own it doesn't really duration-scale, though at a 20+ Level difference in your favor, you could handwave that and force it as long as you had classname in Enchanter
[11:15 PM] Gadigan: Efficacy does scale with Enchanter, though not really duration a ton, just piercing-ness
[11:15 PM] Gadigan: What would help
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: That isn't in the KIRGA's actual skillset
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: Because it wasn't a tree back then
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: Is Reality Coder
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: It actually synchs really well with the KIRGA's stuff
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: And could be used to extend it to do things it doesn't do natively at this point in the tree more easily
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: The KIRGA does have longer-term control, but that's a little deeper in
[11:17 PM] Gadigan: After all, it's Level 9,999, it can afford to have an awkard, huge skill set that doesn't fully come together until you have a ton of it - it started with nearly the whole thing
[11:18 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Oh dear, haha
[11:18 PM] Ordo Hereticus: I am beginning to suspect that no matter how many tickets I dump at it, I will only ever have a small fraction of its abilities
[11:18 PM] Ordo Hereticus: ;D
[11:19 PM] Gadigan: Haha
[11:20 PM] Ordo Hereticus: (At least I'm in a good place to eventually grab Reality Coder)
[11:20 PM] Gadigan: Kinda true for any Ascendant / Ascendant Foe skillset. You get a ton of cool, key stuff, but you only get their signature things up to Level 99. After they break the 100 cap and head onwards towards 10,000, there's not really a lot you can access. Really, the only ones you'd be able to theoretically get the whole thing for (and even then, it's in question) would be the Level 99 bosses at the end of Chapter 1 of each Ascension
[11:20 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Oh my
[11:23 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Does the Reality Coder tie-in rely on being a Coded Being, or is it more of a side effect of rank-tiers in the class?
[11:24 PM] Gadigan: Rank-tiers of the class. The control-virtual-environments part would be a lot more useful than the be-a-coded-being half
[11:25 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Ah, if only that half had abilities
[11:25 PM] Ordo Hereticus: XD
[11:25 PM] Gadigan: The KIRGA skillset would stretch 'control virtual' to 'control lower reality, which is just as illusory and irrelevant from the KIRGA's position high above'
[11:25 PM] Gadigan: Yeah, there isn't really enough in the class right now to do a ton with it
[11:25 PM] Gadigan: I mean in the longer term, though, if it gets filled in
[11:26 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Well, that's something I definitely need to put on the docket for "suggestions for Ability Creation Day"
[11:27 PM] Gadigan: nods
[11:31 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Ah, I remembered my last question
[11:31 PM] Gadigan: Yes?
[11:32 PM] Ordo Hereticus: What ability sets should I be keeping an eye on for filling in to meet the Task Requirements once I hit that point (since it should be coming soon)?(edited)
[11:33 PM] Ordo Hereticus: I assume Enchanter, Conjurer, and Commander (since there are 2 of each so far)
[11:33 PM] Gadigan: Ah, dropping a point in here before it gets misconstrued - The KIRGA's interaction with Reality Coder is an aberration. Most Ascendant skillsets work really well as themselves, but don't stretch as well to other things they aren't meant to work with (i.e. combos). The KIRGA working with Reality Coder is working because the KIRGA would have had some of its abilities moved into that skillset if it were around at a later point
[11:33 PM] Gadigan: Those are indeed three of them
[11:34 PM] Gadigan: Leaning, but not confirming, General and Weirdworker as the other two
[11:34 PM] Gadigan: At some point, though, it's probably going to move to some utterly angry requirement set to fit the power level of its overall skills. Haven't decided when.
[11:35 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Master Skykeeper Knowledge
[11:35 PM] Gadigan: Haha
[11:35 PM] Gadigan: Kit's skillset getting that as a req
[11:35 PM] Gadigan: Is actually also part of a consequence of it being from the first Ascension
[11:35 PM] Gadigan: It's because, as an angel, the character flies and has air powers
[11:35 PM] Gadigan: It'd be Wind Duke (and Radiant Hierophant) were the character from around later
[11:36 PM] Gadigan: But element-based skill sets weren't really a thing at that point
[11:36 PM] Gadigan: So Skykeeper subbed in
[11:36 PM] Gadigan: Oh
[11:36 PM] Gadigan: Lawbringer
[11:36 PM] Gadigan: Pick up
[11:36 PM] Gadigan: Lawbringer
[11:36 PM] Gadigan: It's probably subbing in instead of General
[11:36 PM] Gadigan: Which can be handled by Commander for now
[11:36 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Alrighty!
[11:37 PM] Gadigan: brb
[11:37 PM] Ordo Hereticus: All things I was planning to get already!
[11:37 PM] Ordo Hereticus: well, except Commander, but hitting Name Rank in Commander will be pretty easy with Spheres and Attunement Books
[11:37 PM] Ordo Hereticus: (assuming someone has name rank in it, haha)
[11:42 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Enchanter I already have name-rank in, Conjurer for Boxmeister, Lawbringer for eventually getting LAW, and Weirdworker just because I nearly had name-rank in it from other things
[11:44 PM] Ordo Hereticus: I think I'm going to curl up and drift off to slumberland, so have a pleasant night. You can post all of this, or I can when I wake up.
[11:51 PM] Gadigan: Back
[11:51 PM] Gadigan: You have a good night too!
[11:51 PM] Gadigan: I'll post this and then head to bed myself


EDIT: MORE QUESTIONS
[22:41] The Nottest of Daves: Would it be possible for Dulcinea to spawn Sub-processes for specific tasks by making use of: 1. KIRGA's powerset in general, 2. what she has of said powerset right now (possibly enhanced with extant class abilities)?(edited)
[22:43] Gadigan: 1. That's probably in there somewhere. You wouldn't get Ethryl, Nathryl, and Descendent Processes at your Level, but you might be able to get something.
2. Probably not, no.
[22:43] Gadigan: I mean, you could fake 2 if you had enough Reality Coder and Summoner
[22:43] Gadigan: But that'd mostly just be using them
[22:44] Gadigan: If you want to go that route
[22:44] Gadigan: You'd want
[22:44] Gadigan: Reality Coder
[22:44] Gadigan: Channeler
[22:44] Gadigan: Worldbound God
[22:44] Gadigan: Summoner
[22:44] Gadigan: Roughly in that order
[22:44] The Nottest of Daves: would another Divine subtype be able to sub-in for Worldbound God?
[22:44] Gadigan: Probably also Commander and Noble, though the KIRGA wouldn't actually be using Nobility as an element given its point in time
[22:44] Gadigan: Yeah
[22:45] The Nottest of Daves: Well, my desire to get into Reality Coder continues to be PUMPED UP
[22:46] Gadigan: Haha
[22:46] The Nottest of Daves: as does my desire to find a way to get Divinity inside Gatekeeper

Deities of Nexus

The Nottest of Daves wrote: We know some details about who the PCs are known to be worshipping thanks to Cael, but who are the most commonly worshipped gods among other segments of the setting? In particular:

• The Battle Arena
• Town
• Nexus as a whole

are of interest to me, but feel free to share about anywhere you like!

These are the lists I come up with after thinking about the question for a bit. Bear in mind that I may be forgetting some important data point and have omitted something by accident (and straight up am ignoring a few outlier discs that have bajillitons of inhabitants with specific deities that are basically nowhere else in Nexus) - I think I've generally got stuff covered, though.

These lists omit Gadigan, The Saints, Ascendants (that includes Naria, Shalmarkion, and Gilfried), and Valcont.

The Battle Arena
1. Harkala
2. Selereth Helios
3. Maleficus
4. The Celestial Lord
5. Bascaradine Corporation
6. Zaga Yazrath
7. The Veil Render
8. Justoriel
9. Mausmangarde
10. Kriele
11. Lady Luck
12. Zalmo, the Violet Wind of Ten Billion Hands
13. Ingerhekt, God of Items
14. Savvekh'Lambh
15. Nokt
16. Grandmother
17. Astruloc
18. Valquniethor
19. Warmaster Kharmannion Galasor
20. Myr Hieradraise

Town
1. The Celestial Lord
2. Justoriel
3. Dalnetheros, Goddess of Architecture
4. The King of Storms
5. The Veil Render
6. Bascaradine Corporation
7. The Celestial Emperor
8. Zohl Tothmut
9. Kriele
10. Harkala
11. Iepterro
12. Zaga Yazrath
13. Ganseed the Collector
14. Mausmangarde
15. Larry Williams, God of Ordinary People
16. Savvekh'Lambh
17. Sereyn
18. Selereth Helios
19. Candolcar
20. Zarquoxx, God of Deadly Monsters and Reincarnation

Nexus Overall-
1. The Celestial Lord
2. Maleficus
3. Justoriel
4. Kriele
5. Bascaradine Corporation
6. Harkala
7. The Celestial Emperor
8. Zohl Tothmut
9. Zaga Yazrath
10. The King of Storms
11. Dalnetheros, Goddess of Architecture
12. Mausmangarde
13. Zarquoxx, God of Deadly Monsters and Reincarnation
14. Lady Luck
15. Savvekh'Lambh
16. Selereth Helios
17. Phalerin
18. Iepterro
19. Astruloc
20. Yelmra the Nest-Maker

The Nottest of Daves wrote: I'm curious about a few of these gods that we don't have much (or any) info on from other sources:

• Zalmo, the Violet Wind of Ten Billion Hands
• Ingerhekt, God of Items
• Nokt
• Valquniethor
• Dalnetheros, Goddess of Architecture (present in the Patron Deities list, but without an entry)
• Ganseed the Collector (present in the Patron Deities list, but without an entry)
• Larry Williams, God of Ordinary People
• Candolcar
• Zarquoxx, God of Deadly Monsters and Reincarnation
• Yelmra the Nest-Maker

[8:23 PM] Gadigan: Howdy
[8:23 PM] Gadigan: I have a bit of time before dinner
[8:23 PM] Gadigan: Probably around a half hour
[8:23 PM] Gadigan: And was thinking of answering the open Question from Ryan
[8:23 PM] Gadigan: Figured I'd do it in chat
[8:23 PM] Gadigan: Bit by bit
[8:23 PM] Gadigan: So people could ask follow ups if they had them
[8:23 PM] Gadigan: And so that I could get some of the info out there if I didn't get to all of it before dinner hit
[8:24 PM] Gadigan: So Ryan is asking about various deities
[8:24 PM] Gadigan: Since there's not a ton of info on some of the BA-popular, Town-popular, or Nexus-popular ones
[8:24 PM] Gadigan: Zalmo, the Violet Wind with Ten Billion Hands
[8:24 PM] Gadigan: I don't think has been mentioned before
[8:24 PM] Gadigan: He's a god of thieves
[8:25 PM] Gadigan: Lightly in the chaotic-evil alignment corner - more chaotic than evil and not averse to having gentleman-thief or robin-hood-ish fringe followers
[8:25 PM] Gadigan: The main focus is on planning complex, impressive heists that flaunt your abilities while making off with rare, valuable loot
[8:26 PM] Gadigan: Breach whatever defenses are in your way, etc
[8:26 PM] Gadigan: With a focus on stealth over combat, but with flourish where allowed
[8:26 PM] Gadigan: Favors Disguises, Thief Arts, Ninjutsu, Air, Darkness, Aether, Gate Magic, Ethereal Magic
[8:26 PM] Gadigan: Daggers
[8:26 PM] Kitsune106: Cool. Abd it's likes ... Phantom theif zero?
[8:27 PM] Gadigan: Zalmo would probably like the Phantom Thief, yes.
[8:27 PM] Gadigan: Next up
[8:27 PM] Gadigan: Ingerhekt, God of Items
[8:27 PM] Gadigan: Runs a Cave-of-Wonders-like realm full of rare items
[8:27 PM] Kitsune106: Oh. I think I know him.
[8:27 PM] Kitsune106: Can also give a blessing to remove item level stuff
[8:27 PM] Gadigan: Focuses on obtaining rare items, keeping them safe, and activating their full potential
[8:28 PM] Gadigan: Yes, that's also one of his powers
[8:28 PM] Gadigan: Removing restrictions on item use
[8:28 PM] Gadigan: His favored skill list would line up fairly well with Reyd's invoker training
[8:28 PM] Kitsune106: Now I am curious what he thinks of kits hoard.... I actually have an item with said blessing on catrice
[8:28 PM] Gadigan: With a bit more Merchant and Crafter type things in there
[8:29 PM] Gadigan: Ingerhekt is neutral-leaning-lawful-good alignment wise, I'd say
[8:29 PM] Gadigan: Next up
[8:29 PM] Gadigan: Nokt
[8:29 PM] Gadigan: Manifest of Office Supplies
[8:29 PM] Gadigan: Has a big ol' stapler for a head
[8:29 PM] Gadigan: Works for Bascaradine
[8:30 PM] Gadigan: Can theoretically be pantheon'd by Bascaradine employees
[8:30 PM] Gadigan: Prefers efficacy in business, proper use of supplies, elmination of waste, thoroughness, doing things according to procedure but trying to optimize procedure when given the latitude to do so
[8:31 PM] Gadigan: Bizarrely powerful for a random Manifest
[8:31 PM] Gadigan: Essentially lawful neutral
[8:31 PM] Gadigan: Has a sub-spec in coffee and allows it to be considered an office supply
[8:31 PM] Gadigan: Next up
[8:31 PM] Gadigan: Valquniethor
[8:32 PM] Gadigan: God of exploration, magic, swordplay, stories, adventure, and travel
[8:33 PM] Gadigan: General patron of adventurer-types, handles a wide variety of things and encourages - but doesn't require - well-rounded skillsets in his followers
[8:33 PM] Kitsune106: I like him
[8:33 PM] Gadigan: Doesn't tend to take strong moral stands and is equally fine with loot-seekers, conquerers, and wandering heroes who help the downtrodden
[8:34 PM] Gadigan: Has established some - but not too many - of the portals in the Nexus Portal Nexus
[8:34 PM] Gadigan: Dalnetheros, Goddess of Architecture
[8:34 PM] Gadigan: Has the expected purview listed in her title
[8:34 PM] Gadigan: Worshipped and served by an extremely large number of sentient buildings
[8:35 PM] Gadigan: Amongst more conventional architects and the like
[8:35 PM] Gadigan: Has a vast city-dimension of layers of buildings expanding in all directions escher-style
[8:35 PM] Gadigan: Opposed to the Warmasters
[8:35 PM] Gadigan: And can actually hold her own rather well in battle with them
[8:35 PM] Gadigan: Currently actually winning against them
[8:36 PM] Gadigan: Prefers peace to war, at least in a general sense, but is entirely supportive of defensive battles
[8:36 PM] Gadigan: Mourns the loss of fine architecture and seeks to see it restored wherever possible
[8:36 PM] Gadigan: Prefers built environments to natural ones
[8:36 PM] Gadigan: But is fine with urban parks and engineered green landscapes
[8:36 PM] Gadigan: Or cities built in trees
[8:36 PM] Gadigan: Next up
[8:36 PM] Gadigan: Ganseed the Collector
[8:37 PM] Gadigan: Collector of rare items, places, and beings from across the multiverses
[8:37 PM] Gadigan: Charges his followers with collecting as much as they can of whatever they specialize in
[8:37 PM] Gadigan: Preferring collections of rare things
[8:37 PM] Gadigan: But also accepting vast quantities of specific more common things
[8:37 PM] Gadigan: For a while, kept his treasures to himself
[8:38 PM] Gadigan: Then attempted lending them out to servants in attempts to put them to use to acquire more treasures for him
[8:38 PM] Gadigan: This, at least in part due to BA member actions, failed horribly
[8:38 PM] Gadigan: Ganseed's folks kinda got stomped hard and treated like loot pinatas wherever they went
[8:38 PM] Gadigan: This has led to a reevaluation of policy
[8:38 PM] Gadigan: And return to stinginess
[8:38 PM] Gadigan: As well as Ganseed backing out of major interdimensional affairs to a degree
[8:38 PM] Gadigan: His overall position is hurting right now
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: But he still has quite the storehouse of treasures
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: Next up
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: Larry Williams, God of Ordinary People
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: Larry did not choose the god life
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: The god life chose him
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: Once a mortal, Larry was invested with vast divine power
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: And quickly became overwhelmed and overworked
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: He sees it as his duty, however
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: To try to protect people as best he can
[8:39 PM] Gadigan: From the strangeness of reality around them
[8:40 PM] Gadigan: And allow them to leave relatively normal lives
[8:40 PM] Gadigan: Undisrupted by weird interdimensional adventurers, marauding monsters, and freakish occurrances
[8:40 PM] Gadigan: His powers spec to a degree is screening areas to make them appear more boring and less useful to potential disruptive threats
[8:41 PM] Gadigan: Also in making people's days go just a little bit better
[8:41 PM] Gadigan: Next up
[8:41 PM] Gadigan: Candolcar
[8:41 PM] Gadigan: God of suns, magic, and knowledge
[8:41 PM] Gadigan: He is the light that illuminates the mind
[8:42 PM] Gadigan: Worshiped by a variety of sages, priests, and adventurers
[8:42 PM] Gadigan: Supports the development of new magic
[8:42 PM] Gadigan: Also supports the blending of arcane and divine magic, particularly in the form of rituals or exorcisms
[8:42 PM] Gadigan: Next up
[8:42 PM] Gadigan: Zarquoxx
[8:42 PM] Gadigan: God of Deadly Monsters and Reincarnation
[8:43 PM] Gadigan: Serves as both a patron to monsters
[8:43 PM] Gadigan: And a being to be placated to avoid drawing the attention of dangerous monsters
[8:43 PM] Gadigan: Grants powers sometimes that can control spawn tables to a degree or bind a monster to a worshipper - sometimes well-controlled, sometimes not
[8:43 PM] Gadigan: Worshippers frequently hope
[8:43 PM] Gadigan: Depending on denomination
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: To either be reincarnated in a peaceful place far away from monsters
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: Or
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: To be reincarnated as a monster
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: Able to possess power they did not in their previous life
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: Supports biomancy,
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: And
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: I am being
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: Called away
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: I'll have to finish this some other time
[8:44 PM] Gadigan: Sorry

[10:41 PM] Gadigan: I'm back
[10:41 PM] RiotofBlood: wb
[10:41 PM] Gadigan: So! Where I left off!
[10:41 PM] Gadigan: ty
[10:41 PM] Gadigan: Biomancy
[10:41 PM] Gadigan: Also Transmutation
[10:42 PM] Gadigan: Also variants of Divine Magic and Druid Magic that resurrect and transform through reincarnative processes
[10:42 PM] Gadigan: Has some spawn-table muckery stuff too
[10:42 PM] Gadigan: And last on the list, Yelmra the Nest-Maker
[10:42 PM] Gadigan: Nature deity, also a deity of the hearth and home
[10:42 PM] Gadigan: Helps establish wardings around homes
[10:42 PM] Gadigan: To prevent predators from finding them
[10:42 PM] Gadigan: Or hunters
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: Or aggressive stuff spawning inside them
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: So there's a mix of worshipers
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: Between animals
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: That'd be the main group
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: And a smaller-but-still-sizable group
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: Of people living in dangerous areas
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: Who want their homes and families protected
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: So that's the list
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: At least in basic terms
[10:43 PM] Gadigan: I'll post this info blurb

[10:50 PM] Caelzeph: Speaking of deities, I'm kind of curious about Dargannon's deal. Although I guess he wasn't a deity in the usual sense.
[10:51 PM] Caelzeph: (Also kind of weird in that he was a second-chapter boss of the First Ascension, yet was pushing towards the Level 1,000 mark. That must've been a hell of a climb for the Ascendants. Grind city!)
[11:12 PM] Gadigan: Anything saying Dargannon is the boss of Chapter 2
[11:12 PM] Gadigan: Is wrong
[11:12 PM] Gadigan: He's the second end boss
[11:12 PM] Gadigan: Of Chapter 10
[11:12 PM] Gadigan: Of the 1st Ascension
[11:13 PM] Celas: The Second Chapter Boss of the 10th Chapter of the 1st Ascension is Dargannon.
[11:13 PM] Celas: hahah
[11:13 PM] Gadigan: He was originally created by Gameri and Kensadi
[11:14 PM] Gadigan: As a sub-process of the KIRGA
[11:14 PM] Gadigan: To be broadcast to various Lower Realities
[11:14 PM] Gadigan: When they wanted to overwhelmingly destroy the contents of one
[11:14 PM] Gadigan: Without breaking restrictions (in the vein of those placed by the Church of Gadigan and the Saints, as basically nothing else would apply)
[11:14 PM] Caelzeph: I apparently misread that bit, haha
[11:15 PM] Gadigan: He was a nathryl specializing in destruction, conquest and dominion through devastation, and overwhelming all possible resistance from Lower Reality residents
[11:15 PM] Gadigan: Mostly existed as a Descendent Process since he was specialized in taking out harder-to-access Lower Realities
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: As opposed to the full on Nathryl that could operate without restriction in others or across Higher Reality
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: Master Anandale learned of the structures in place in Higher Reality
[11:16 PM] Gadigan: At least in general terms
[11:17 PM] Gadigan: And figured out how to broadcast a call to Dargannon, essentially contacting him to come down to the reality, but altering his parameters to set the Council of Netheryn and associates as not-to-be-destroyed
[11:17 PM] Gadigan: Managed to pull it off just as the Ascendants were attacking his final base
[11:17 PM] Gadigan: Gameri and Kensadi undid Anandale's modifications to the call
[11:18 PM] Gadigan: And were going to have Dargannon just destroy everything anyway(edited)
[11:18 PM] Gadigan: But the Ascendants managed to defeat Dargannon after defeating Anandale
[11:18 PM] Gadigan: And then rose up to Higher Reality to deal with Gameri, Kensadi, and the UCS KIRGA.
[11:18 PM] Caelzeph: So basically he's concerned with ragesmashing through boundaries that are usually hard to breach and mass-wrecking stuff?
[11:19 PM] Gadigan: Yes, all of that plus getting control of whatever's left at the end
[11:19 PM] Caelzeph: ...well, it sounds rather like he's a pretty good fit for Tolva using that permit to worship him, then.
[11:19 PM] Gadigan: Haha, yeah
[11:20 PM] Caelzeph: Or him as played by Sharon From the Absent And Obliterated Deities Department.
[11:20 PM] Gadigan: Haha
[11:23 PM] Caelzeph: Once he's done Bascaradine-ing, I think I'll have him do that


On Phalerin
(11:18:17 PM) lordgadigan: Other questions?
(11:18:40 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) I'd like more information about Phalerin if time permits
(11:18:51 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) starting with how he became a deity (if there is that information)
(11:19:03 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) i read the post about planetaries and such
(11:19:11 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) and the different levels of deitys
(11:19:18 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) it is very interesting and involved
(11:38:10 PM) lordgadigan: So, Phalerin
(11:39:21 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) can someone post this to the site later?
(11:39:34 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) it will be kit
(11:39:41 PM) lordgadigan: Phalerin's origin was that he sprang into existance as a pandimensional deity.
That's the boring answer, though. I'm going to get a drink and return with the 'Phalerin's first appearance' story, which I think will likely be more enlightening.
(11:39:41 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) you can sleep and read it all later no worries
(11:39:52 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) lol
(11:39:54 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) sounds good
(11:40:19 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) I was curious as to if he was there always with this iteration of the BA or not and if he rose to pandimensional level or just was
(11:50:11 PM) lordgadigan: Back.
So, like many BA things, Phalerin was first encountered in one of my dreams.
(11:50:38 PM) lordgadigan: I had managed (in an avatar-body) to wander my way into some huge desert, and after walking (and teleporting) around for a while, I ran into Donna
(11:51:00 PM) lordgadigan: Who explained that it's the Endless Desert, and that it stretches on forever, connecting the deserts of many different worlds
(11:51:17 PM) lordgadigan: She was leading a large group of pilgrims seeking divine guidance through the desert
(11:51:51 PM) lordgadigan: The desert was, as a whole, attracting large numbers of religious wanderers, and it was also rife with various shrines and newly-appeared deities of varying rank
(11:52:42 PM) lordgadigan: One of the most notable ones we ran into there was Phalerin, who was taking in as many generally-good people as he could find and giving them shelter in the massive desert (and given that he could be numerous places at once, the number was truly massive)
(11:53:18 PM) lordgadigan: From there, he was learning about the various perils of the homelands of various groups of pilgrims that had driven them to wander into the deserts seeking some manner of salvation
(11:53:29 PM) lordgadigan: And he spread to those worlds, to comfort and lead the people there as well
(11:53:42 PM) lordgadigan: He gave his priests many miracles and was one of the forces most strongly responsible
(11:54:07 PM) lordgadigan: For individuals such as the Buzzard Priest not managing to corrupt the Endless Desert and cause it to also being spitting forth great numbers of evil gods
(11:54:30 PM) lordgadigan: The Buzzard Priest is likely to appear on-BA at some point. His level varies, but it's acutally generally not too majorly high.
(11:54:39 PM) lordgadigan: He just tends to find high level stuff to release
(11:55:16 PM) lordgadigan: He briefly showed up in something related to Wriggle's mod-run-world, but that never got posted, so its status is iffy
(11:55:22 PM) lordgadigan: Regarding Phalerin, though
(11:55:26 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) So does Phalerin just generally stick to trying to provide individuals the opportunity to find shelter in their travels?
(11:55:33 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) he mostly stayed out of princess, and knot
(11:56:41 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) We've seen a lot of a few of the other deitys but Phalerin has definetly been one of the unnassociated ones for most of the events thusfar
(11:58:20 PM) lordgadigan: That's one of his major things. He doesn't just stick to it (he goes after various evil forces), however ->
He's actively trying to avoid the metaplot. He's basically been doing it for the same reasons as Mausmangarde, but with motives flipped.
If he gets entangled in metaplot, there's a decent probability that he's going to get power-slapped like Mike or ganked by one of the other major powers. If he goes down, suddenly his dimensions upon dimensions of followers are left without a god and are generally much more likely to fall prey to evil forces. In short: Metaplot, while it can bring large rewards, is also a massive risk. It almost invariably attracts the attention of more-power-than-you figures, like Gillingman.
(11:58:47 PM) lordgadigan: That's not to say he'll avoid every major plotline, but he's mostly sticking to the sidelines and letting his people support other forces of good if they want to
(11:59:18 PM) lordgadigan: Make sense?
(11:59:33 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) yes, of course
(11:59:48 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) honestly it makes even more sense considering your original meeting
(11:59:58 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) if he is trying to protect followers and provide shelter
(7/15/2013 12:00:12 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) there is too much to lose in a power gambit
(12:00:16 AM) lordgadigan: *nods*
(12:00:43 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) knowing this, what sort of higher teir abilities could be expected later on
(12:01:02 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) Geddoe currently knows every priest ability not directly tied to another deity or "nun"
(12:01:43 AM) lordgadigan: Phalerin-specific or general priest?
(12:01:53 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) both with emphasis on the former
(12:03:11 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) beyond the ability question - If in the next megaquest, Geddoe did well, could that stand to actually draw aggro on Phalerin?
(12:04:05 AM) lordgadigan: A selection of things I see coming in priest/priest of Phalerin: I don't think there's many shield-other things yet, so those. Probably more negative-effect clearning. Something to detransform and rez unwillingly transformed undead. Exorcismal stuff. Things that boost rezzed people. More synergy with Wanderer/Astral Mage.
Unlikely. Geddoe is an agent of Phalerin but likely would be questing for someone else, so the hate would probably get directed at the person he was questing for
(12:04:28 AM) lordgadigan: Unless, of course, the next quest happened to be a huge battle between good and evil that Phalerin actually was participating in.
(12:04:51 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) fair enough
(12:08:13 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) Back to Phalerin (xD): Are there any offensive-based high level priests of phalerin? or do they all tend to side on the excorsismal/cleansing side?
(12:09:31 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) It just seems like Geddoe is more and more out of place since the BA setup favors all damage over cleansing and heals (which, only now at high levels, is changing slightly)
(12:09:48 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) at least for arena matches, nearly everything is decided on round 1
(12:10:10 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) in rp it is different, but since healing effectiveness is reduced, damage still seems to be preferable
(12:11:08 AM) lordgadigan: There are indeed some offense-based ones
(12:11:37 AM) lordgadigan: I think part of the issue we may be having with the Phalerin stuff is that Phalerin himself is reasonably well-detailed from dreams and stuff
(12:11:37 AM) lordgadigan: But
(12:11:49 AM) lordgadigan: The two people who have done the most relating to him are myself and Donna
(12:11:53 AM) lordgadigan: Followed by Mrs Winters
(12:11:59 AM) lordgadigan: None of these people are priests of him
(12:12:22 AM) lordgadigan: I think maybe I should spend some time coming up with some important priests / figuring out events relating to the clergy of Phalerin on various worlds
(12:12:39 AM) lordgadigan: Then maybe the massive gap between where PCs are and where Phalerin is will have something notable in the middle
(12:12:54 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) it would be appreciated on my end because I still feel that I am without much direction
(12:13:03 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) everything I have done via quest is like lv 5
(12:13:07 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) and even then
(12:13:23 AM) lordgadigan: It's bread delivery, yeah
(12:13:30 AM) lordgadigan: So I'll try to keep that in mind
(12:13:38 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) alright
(12:13:41 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) it is appreciated
(12:13:45 AM) lordgadigan: Maybe I'll throw you at the Buzzard Priest or something
(12:14:01 AM) lordgadigan: He at least has a name and backstory and has fought Phalerin in the past
(12:14:10 AM) lordgadigan: (Again, waaaaaay lower Level than Phalerin)
(12:14:15 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) I'm sure you could think of any number of things xD
(12:14:20 AM) lordgadigan: Haha, thank you
(12:14:25 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) Geddoe is still in the dessert seeking out priests and such
(12:14:45 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) lol
(12:14:46 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) dessert
(12:14:59 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) 2 ss for something you want :/ 1 for when you don't
(12:15:08 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) by that information perhaps this is the dessert
(12:15:35 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) Bah i need to head to bed. Thanks for answering these questions
(12:15:40 AM) lordgadigan: haha
(12:15:42 AM) lordgadigan: You're welcome
(12:15:45 AM) lordgadigan: Have a good night, Geddoe
(12:16:01 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) i will need it. i am being sent to WCM training the next 5 days
(12:16:15 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) World Class Maintenance - not sure why I am going
(12:16:21 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) my entire department refuses to participate
(12:16:28 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) even my division manager said we aren't doing it
(12:16:32 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Waugh
(12:16:46 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) but the HR and learning people are forcing A2 level employees to go
(12:16:49 AM) lordgadigan: Huh. Hope that goes well / at least doesn't go badly
(12:17:19 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) a week of not working (work piling up) can't be that bad
(12:17:25 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) the week after will be a nightmare tho


On Zaga Yazrath and the Fated Ones
(11:17:56 PM) lordgadigan: Hah, that's fine
(11:19:02 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) i had a quick one. giuve me a moment
(11:20:05 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) can fated ones hold concepts and metaphyiscal items like ba members can? Since i remember from mreau that concepts can be held b ba members due to a perk
(11:21:40 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) and goodloe, that sounds interesting. alas, i should be getting ready for bed. night all, well, semi night
(11:23:08 PM) lordgadigan: First the quick one, then Phalerin.
Yes, Fated Ones generally can. They also have access to element classes, the ability to multi-class a ton, change-on-the-fly equipment sets and a lot of BA member type perks.
(11:23:09 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) Reading through the setting information also explained why Geddoe can't just "be an avatar of Phalerin" >.>
(11:23:29 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) nice
(11:23:30 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) to build on that short one:
(11:23:41 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) what really sets BA members and Fated ones apart
(11:23:47 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) not in the what is clearly seen
(11:24:01 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) but I suppose .. deeper?
(11:24:05 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) im not good with words,
(11:24:16 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) but i mean. fated ones are Bez beklins pets, no?
(11:24:20 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) err
(11:24:21 PM) lordgadigan: No
(11:24:23 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) yag
(11:24:25 PM) lordgadigan: Yeah
(11:24:25 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Zaga!
(11:24:25 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) w/e her name is
(11:24:26 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) hahah
(11:24:27 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) yeah
(11:24:31 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) sorry brain fart
(11:24:41 PM) lordgadigan: 1 moment while I go do something on the site, then I'll give answers to those things, haha
(11:24:46 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) kk
(11:26:33 PM) lordgadigan: BA discussion post
(11:26:52 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) o.o
(11:26:54 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Whoah!
(11:26:58 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Congrats, Cel.
(11:27:05 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) bwahahahahah
(11:27:08 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Now you stand alone!
(11:27:09 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) o.o
(11:27:09 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) he has been offered it multiple times iirc
(11:27:13 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) It's
(11:27:15 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) just me
(11:27:17 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) o.o
(11:27:23 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) welcome to modhood.
(11:27:29 PM) lordgadigan: Feel free to talk to me about becoming one if you want to sometime, Path
(11:27:37 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Haha, It'd be a while.
(11:27:41 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) *hands you an hourglass* please break this to smbolize kissing your free time goodbye....
(11:27:49 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I've thought about doing the half-measure of being a battle mod
(11:27:52 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Buuut
(11:27:57 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I have enough stuff going on right now xD
(11:28:02 PM) lordgadigan: hah, k
(11:28:14 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I'll letcha know when/if that changes, though.
(11:28:17 PM) lordgadigan: So, Fated Ones versus BA Members.
(11:30:39 PM) lordgadigan: Fated Ones are designed to fulfil their fates. They also exist to fulfil Zaga Yazrath's will, though that's usually in the background and indirect (carried out through the results of the tasks they accomplish on the road to realizing their purposes).
BA Members exist to be entertaining to Gadigan and aren't tied down by much else at all. They can go down all sorts of roads without going off-course; while they can end up via circumstance or choice in the service of someone or some cause, there's nothing inherent about the BA member state that forces that. They also don't *have* to go out and do anything beyond Arena fights. They nearly always do, of course, but they don't have the same focused quest-perogative.
(11:31:23 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) that makes sense
(11:31:49 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Yup!
(11:31:55 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) could it be reasoned then, that Fated ones actually could never have the potential of the BA members?
(11:31:55 PM) lordgadigan: That's the main difference that isn't straight-mechanics. There's other minor ones like:
BA Members also have a more difficult-to-break respawn than Fated Ones. Neither will be cut off by anything remotely near PC power, but things that could fight Zaga could theoretically fry a Fated One.
But they aren't the main thing
(11:32:12 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) so they're puppets, but Zaga is a benevolent puppermaster.
(11:32:20 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) And just sort of piggybacks off their Fates
(11:32:45 PM) lordgadigan: The Fated Ones are a tier below. They probably hardcap somewhere up in hundreds below where Zaga's power is.
That said, I don't see either ramming into an 'out of potential' block in-game.
(11:33:01 PM) lordgadigan: Given how hard it is for either them or BA members to pass 100 in the first place
(11:33:24 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) aye
(11:33:33 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) i meant it more along the lines of ultimate potential
(11:33:45 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) that answers all of my setting info on fated ones
(11:33:49 PM) lordgadigan: *nods*
(11:33:52 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) So, not that I think this is really on the table, but let's throw a theoretical situation out there
(11:34:10 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Let's go with... hrm.
(11:34:12 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Veil Render.
(11:34:35 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Veil Render arranges all his/its/their shiny new Knot-looted ducks in a row and launches a megaquest.
(11:34:44 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) PCs chime in and stuff happens.
(11:34:54 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) BA plot-course is bumped off in an unexpected way!
(11:35:03 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Zaga's plans get a little dewheeled.
(11:35:45 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Any in/direct effect on the Fated Ones?
(11:36:32 PM) lordgadigan: Depends on the dewheelment level. Probably some indirect thing. They might all get their active quest batches shuffled or experience something like some of the BA member changes from Knot.
(11:36:39 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) if i remember right, BA members can defy Fate. I assume fated ones have that ability too?
(11:36:56 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I doubt it >.>
(11:37:00 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) It's kind of their schtick.
(11:37:06 PM) lordgadigan: Eh. Fated Ones are much more the 'work within fate to be awesome' crew.
(11:37:13 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) which i like
(11:37:17 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) it is neat
(11:37:20 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Yup!
(11:37:20 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) \m/
(11:37:24 PM) lordgadigan:
(11:37:30 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) yeah. while pcs are more, screw fate. we do what we like
(11:37:35 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) i mean ba members
(11:37:47 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) 'I WANT TO HEAL EVERYBODY'
(12:05:28 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) oh. I had another question about the relics we received from the fate well
(12:05:36 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) (sorry for the mental scatter tonight)
(12:05:49 AM) lordgadigan: Hah, it's fine
(12:06:07 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) The relics themselves gained more power as we leveled.. do they also gain power through completing the fate quests?


On Lady Luck and Madame Misfortune
(12:22:12 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I wonder if Lady Luck and Madame Misfortune sprung into being at the same time
(12:22:22 AM) lordgadigan: Answer: Yes
(12:22:27 AM) lordgadigan: Anyway, off to Titan
(12:22:31 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) (pssst, they're totally the same being!)
(12:22:32 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) ehehe

The Question Digest, Volume 2

On Holidays of Nexus
Kitsune106: I have a semi silly Question. What are the major Nexus Holidays? Any minor ones you are willing to share?
Gadigan: You've already mostly seem 'em. Walrusfest, the Holy Festival, and Battle Day are the three biggest. There's other ones that are a tier below, like the Halloween, Easter, and Thanksgiving equivalents that have popped up for special battles and events. Then there's more-localized ones that affect less of Nexus as a whole.

Kitsune106: We have a Santa Analog, so, do we have a Krampus analog in the BA? just curious.
Gadigan: There presumably are several out there, but none have directly appeared yet. Krampus may even eventually show up as an Enemy List enemy or something.


On Armor and RP Mechanics
(11:02:07 PM) lordgadigan: Back
(11:02:13 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) syup
(11:02:15 PM) lordgadigan: I think I'll answer that armor question
(11:02:19 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) thanks
(11:02:19 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) ah, heya
(11:02:19 PM) lordgadigan: Syrup!
(11:02:31 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) syrup is teh answer?
(11:02:41 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) but syrup armor is all sitcky on fur and icky
(11:02:43 PM) lordgadigan: No, just a response to Pathaky
(11:02:44 PM) lordgadigan: Haha
(11:02:49 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) hehe
(11:02:55 PM) lordgadigan: So
(11:03:37 PM) lordgadigan: Heavy Armor is focused on providing Defense, HP boosts, CON, tanking things, and guarding others. It's one of the most defense-focused base armor categories.
(11:04:06 PM) lordgadigan: Grand Armor typically provides even more Defense than Heavy Armor, but it often comes at an AGI penalty. It forgoes the 'defending others' bits for offense boosts.
(11:04:37 PM) lordgadigan: Light Armor is less defense-focused but has Dodge-boosters and things that allow wearers to move around while fighting. It has more AGI boosts than most other categories.
(11:05:27 PM) lordgadigan: Clothes tends to have a mix of generic boosts, Charm effects, and synergy with accessories. It also includes by far the most Armorx.5 items.
(11:07:26 PM) lordgadigan: Heavy , Light, and Grand Armor go with Gauntlets, Helms, and Boots. (Light less so than the others, Heavy probably the most) Cloaks to a lesser extent on Light / Heavy, but not really normal branches of Grand.
Clothes go with Gloves, Hats, and Shoes. Also Crowns, Amulets, Broaches, Wristwear, Earwear, Eyewear, and Cloaks.
(11:07:57 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) You know, I was wondering about accessories.
(11:07:58 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) posted celas... shame on you
(11:08:23 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Also, obligatory: Robes?
(11:08:32 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) I've been curious as to why they have the Seer class name, too
(11:08:32 PM) lordgadigan: Robes tend to go along wellwith MIN and SPI boosts and tend to synergize with Magical-Attack-based classes.
Heavy / Light / Grand tend to be Melee, though Light also has appeal to Ranged since most Coats are in it.
Clothes are for whatever, but have more Ranged and Magic than Melee.
(11:08:57 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) Ward and Aura?
(11:09:19 PM) lordgadigan: Robes have the Seer class name because they jump into a bunch of branch-off magic effects, particularly with Scholar, Diviner, and Ritual Mages. They also have some scan stuff in them if you want scan without diviner
(11:09:40 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) and what is this new.. pelt class? (note, gillian migth go into that class.
(11:09:59 PM) lordgadigan: Auras are another magic-based one that's a bit more defense-focused than the robes, usually. They tend to have the most aura-type powers and the most when-you-hit-me effects.
(11:10:17 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) and higher up, can equip some thigns as X0
(11:10:26 PM) lordgadigan: Auras also have a fair bit of effect-nesting in them
(11:10:37 PM) lordgadigan: Wards tend to be specialized against particular things, usually subtypes, and less useful against other stuff.
(11:10:44 PM) lordgadigan: There's not much going on with Wards yet
(11:10:48 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) yeah, i've noticed. auras are cool
(11:11:01 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) espeically the spirit of hte dragon slayer. have the right abilidads and it's an armor x 0
(11:11:03 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) Is the stacking effect from the Knot wards terrifically unusual?
(11:11:13 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) er, the fact that they're armor/12, I mean
(11:11:25 PM) lordgadigan: Pelts are a mostly-Animal/Monster focused armor type. They probably have a fair bit of Melee Attack and Speed in their class, but exact details aren't fully set out yet
(11:11:51 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) nice. also weird resistances
(11:12:12 PM) lordgadigan: To that extent, yes, but they tend to do that better than other classes (likely exception being Clothes, which also get some stacking, but the Clothes stacking is based on stuff like 'You can wear a shirt and pants and underwear and shoes and socks' etc)
(11:12:19 PM) lordgadigan: Weird Resistances on what?
(11:12:30 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) That's probably specific to that pelt, yo.
(11:12:50 PM) lordgadigan: Ah, if you're referring to your pelt, yes. That's specifically a thing for that one, not a subtype wide thing
(11:13:41 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) ah. will the pelt class show up? and i assume that gillian if she catches and killes a monster, coudl make her own pelt with the great ability?
(11:13:58 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) sorry, just thinking long term. a rarity for me, i know.
(11:14:03 PM) lordgadigan: Likely at some point, yes.
What great ability?
(11:14:24 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) sorry, somehow i meant to type basic/pelt
(11:14:32 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) if it even gets its own class.
(11:14:45 PM) lordgadigan: It has a class, yes
(11:14:52 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) Awesome.
(11:16:10 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) what would that class specialize in?
(11:16:19 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) but thanks for giving us the information
(11:16:26 PM) lordgadigan: (11:11:25 PM) lordgadigan: Pelts are a mostly-Animal/Monster focused armor type. They probably have a fair bit of Melee Attack and Speed in their class, but exact details aren't fully set out yet
(11:16:29 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) lol
(11:16:40 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) lol
(11:17:44 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) oh, missed that. heh
(11:17:54 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) facepalm


On Setting Respawn Points
(11:24:56 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I have a question as well!
(11:25:04 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Can BA members set their respawn points?
(11:25:25 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Or do the Lili's have to hoof it from the tavern to the Crimson Citadel every time they bite it?
(11:25:42 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (xcom102a) normally we respawn in nexus, but that migth be possible, maybe. you mean on a quest, or in more lodging style things?
(11:25:51 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I mean lodging-wise
(11:26:16 PM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I understand why it's always in Nexus, to prevent people from cheesing quests (usually)
(12:05:54 AM) lordgadigan: Ah, regarding an earlier question
(12:06:01 AM) lordgadigan: You generally can't set your respawn point
(12:06:13 AM) lordgadigan: It's usually 'arena clerical ward' and/or 'Nexus Inn room'
(12:06:20 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) ah, I was wondering that m'self.
(12:06:44 AM) lordgadigan: It falls into the 'possibly to even probably as a side effect of some, but not as a regular thing for all the quests'
(12:06:56 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) that is what i was hoping for
(12:07:18 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) I am excited for when they go on their first endeavor
(12:08:12 AM) lordgadigan: Hah, very good!


On Megaquest Loot
(12:18:40 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) ah one final question before I go if you will:
(12:19:02 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) Princess of suns loot.. how does that compare with normal items?
(12:19:13 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) like i have those unusable robes which are epic in everyway
(12:19:22 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) save forcing me to use light element always by lv 80
(12:19:33 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) but they have more stats, defense, and MA than any gear i have
(12:19:34 AM) lordgadigan: Loot from megaquests is typically better
(12:19:38 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) ^
(12:19:44 AM) lordgadigan: Things made from it also tend to be a bracket up
(12:19:47 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) I know my Knot stuff is the finest i've recieved
(12:19:58 AM) lordgadigan: So those robes are indeed still good robes. Same with the sword.
(12:20:24 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) is it even possible, however unlikely
(12:20:43 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) that through absorbs or reforging, the robes could loses the effect that overrides everything forcing light element?
(12:21:12 AM) lordgadigan: Yes. It's within the realm of possibility to make that optional
(12:21:21 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) lol
(12:21:28 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) okay and im for reals going to sleep
(12:21:34 AM) lordgadigan: Hah, very good
(12:21:36 AM) lordgadigan: Have a good night
(12:21:39 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (overlordgoodloe) Great sleep to all of you as well
(12:21:40 AM) lordgadigan: I'm going to go watch Titan. Have a good night, guys.
(12:21:44 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (pathaky@hotmail.com) Nighto
(12:21:48 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) g'night!
(12:22:00 AM) [yogurtrunsfreenow]: (driftwood153) and that's my cue to go be unconscious


What is the worth of an Adept?

Celas wrote: What is a class worth? I remember, previously, you said that a good metric for it was to look at higher tiers classes as being a higher... rank (to avoid "tier" ambiguity, haha) in a class. To use an example, based on that: Apprentice Blood Synchronization would be roughly equivalent to Blazing Sultan.

But what does that mean? What's the worth of an Adept?

Very little on its own. It expresses a general 'competency' in a field equal to what is expected from a certain level of skill, knowledge, and focus. RP powers can be filtered through them, and they give a level of 'competence' to some other powers in their fields.

The following are usually roughly true-
Someone with Basic has knowledge of the earliest fundamentals of a field.
Someone with Apprentice has a bit more training than that, without a huge difference in general skill, but generally a bit more formalized learning or acclimation, allowing for slightly-more-advanced stuff.
Someone with a Class-Name ability can generally describe themselves as being able to act as a <Classname>. They know the general stuff from the field. They can access general level-appropriate powers up to Level 20.
Someone with an Adept ability is able to do fancier stuff. They can access general level-appropriate powers up to Level 40.
Someone with an Expert ability is able to do fancier stuff. They can access general level-appropriate powers up to Level 60.
Someone with a Master ability is able to do fancier stuff. They can access general level-appropriate powers up to Level 80.
Someone with a Grandmaster ability is able to do fancier stuff. They can access general level-appropriate powers up to Level 100.

So you can pull Level 39-appropriate tricks with Adept Fire Synchronization.
You could also pull Level 39-appropriate stuff with Reality Arranger.
If you were Level 39 and had Blazing Sultan but not Adept, you could still operate on your Level, but you wouldn't be as good with the Fire stuff as someone of your Level who was more properly focused on it.
If you were Level 39 and had Adept Spatial Synchronization, you could do stuff that was above what normal-for-your-Level people specializing in non-oddly-powerful stuff, for the most part (but not completely outclass them as though you were Level 59 because you don't actually have the Level difference, you just have powers that are more powerful than standard powers for your Level).

That's a rough, not-always-accurate answer to the question there. Hopefully it at least helps.


On Ascendants

Draconics wrote: Double-Up! Caues I'll be the guy for Duality.

For the purpose of this post I speak in terms of NPCs since I beleive that's moreso where this all applies since the PCs are under weird rules. If any of this DOES apply to PC's though, I'd be curious. I've noticed some unique trends and qualities and was curious how things might pan out.

*As recently seen, I know people can pull all sorts of strings of Fate and similar to get themselves onto Ascension teams. What I'm curious about is is it feasible (or has it happened even) where someone has managed to replace the main ascendant?

Argantannion got herself kicked out of the First Ascension by generally annoying me, which got the whole 'traitor' thing established and had me put a side-character in as a replacement main. After that, though, I laid down the law a bit more and regulated stuff more heavily, so the later Ascendants didn't drift into the 'annoying' territory, and no one managed to sneak-grab a role in an ongoing Ascension.

*I know this was mentioned before, I know the good/evil-ness is predetermined, but are all of the remaining Ascendents more or less laid out? I'm pretty sure it was mentioned before and I cannot recall it.

No. I'm intentionally trying to not lay them out in advance of my dream-continuity stuff, which is why Shalmarkion and Naria are the only stated members of the Sixth Ascension (given that the Fifth is ongoing in the dream-continuity, but Naria and Shalmarkion have essentially been confirmed. Harkala and Kriele (who hasn't even appeared on the BA yet) are also fairly confirmed for showing up eventually. Beyond that, it's fairly open.

*What level are Ascendant's typically before they sink back to level 1? I recall this happening to Naria (as noted when Firenza talked to her before PoS) but wasn't sure if she was a special case.

Highly variable. Illyri Hope was Level 1 and never Level-dropped. Shalmarkion reached 9,999 during his tempoarary-merger with Gya-Karus's All-Things-Are-One dealio at the end of the Third Ascension (though that's not common knowledge, most people aren't quite sure what happens after an Ascension passes Level 999. It's not unkown, but most members of Shalmarkion's own organization though 999 was the highest he hit).
You head through the City of Night riding inside an invisible clown.

The Adventures of Meatslab von Hammerschmidt, Archer von Rangerman, and Magus von Spellslinger, and the glorious return of Geomancer von Channeler

The Nottest of Daves wrote: So, I was wondering how much HP and MP come into play in terms of RP Questing.

First off, how much HP and MP would you expect to see for

LEVEL 19
Meatslab von Hammerschmidt, Melee Attacker
Archer von Rangerman, Ranged Attacker
Magus von Spellslinger, Magical Attacker

in terms of being prepared for a quest of appropriate danger to the tier?

Is there a threshold where someone becomes notably squishy or sturdy (for HP) or weak or strong in spellcasting (for MP) in comparison to (similar character archetypes) or (the tier as a whole)?

How do these values change as the trio advance up the tiers of power (39, 59, 79, etc)?

Lord Gadigan wrote: The actual number doesn't matter unless something weird is going on.

It used to, once upon a time, but over time things have moved to be more abstracted than numbers based. At this point, it's basically all abstracted unless you're fighting the bizarre monster that ignores even numbers or something.

Instead, thematics, general abilities/items, and base stats are examined. Like with a lot of other things, the most-relevant/powerful defenses are considered most prominently, with more piled on top of that being desirable with abilities/items, but having diminishing returns in quantity as the stack gets higher. Rust of using the same defense all the time is a thing, like with the same offense, albeit to not quite as strong a degree, that means that having backup defenses that you can lean into once fights or quests get longer, or that you can pull out as an 'ace in the hole' above whatever your baseline is, is important (with importance growing at higher levels).

Looking at this trio:

Meatslab von Hammerschmidt should have the highest base CON (other HP-determining stats would work equally well, but there's no real reason for a Level 19 bog-standard fighter to be basing his HP on something else). He'd be expected to have at least 10 Base CON, probably more like 15-20. Different armor types tend to contribute different 'amounts' of abstracted HP to their wearer - Meatslab, a front-line tank, would want Grand Armor, Heavy Armor, or Power Armor. Those give the most out of the standard types. He also might be using a Shield, which would add more, but that'd be more of a defense (and by consequence, RP-health) focused build than average; his having 'Hammer' as the weapon instead of Sword or Mace suggests more of an offense-focus. He wouldn't really be expected to have deep investment in his armor class or special abilities related to stuff.

Archer von Rangerman should have an average base CON, around 8-12. He should be wearing Light Armor, probably. It synergizes more with dodging things than tanking things, and allows for a more mobile, AGI-based fighting style with counterattacks and movement, though he won't really have counterattacks or super-reliable dodge at low levels. He's kinda squishy, but he's under Level 20 and isn't expected to have a lot of life.

Magus von Spellcaster is in the same boat as Archer von Rangerman, but to a slightly larger degree. His base CON is probably 5-10. He's probably wearing Robes (which have low RP health bonuses, but up Dodge and magic power, with the Dodge boosts coming later and not applying at this level) or using an Aura (which have mid RP health bonuses like Light Armor). He might have a Ward (which have low RP health bonuses and more resistance-based defense), but most people don't use those. He's also squishy.

At Level 39, characters should have the class-name ability for their armor. Their main armor should be a unique or artifact optimally, but it's fine for it to be a notable Level 20+ non-unique quest-drop, or a drop from a Level 40+ monster on the enemy list.

Meatslab should have some abilities that are Defense or HP focused. A couple defensive accessories too. Those will help him tank.

Archer should have actual dodge upgrades, luck-boosters, and some kind of 'tricky' stuff to defend with. He should also have a pet screening him or be questing like he's in a stealth game.

Magus should be buffing with abjuration, enchantment, or something else defensive. He'll also want summons if he's adventuring alone.

At Level 59, characters should have the Adept ability for their armor. They won't, because I haven't made many armor abilities yet, but they should. Their main armor should be an equivalent Level artifact, a unique from a Level 40+ quest, a really good unique from a Level 20+ quest that's been absorb-upgraded a bit, a notable Level 40+ non-unique quest-drop, or a drop from a Level 60+ monster on the enemy list.

Meatslab needs to get decked out. He'll want defensive class abilities, a strong main armor, gauntlets/helms/boots to round out the armor set, other HP-granting things, etc. He can still straight tank at this point, but he needs to be invested and to have his bases covered.

Archer should have some boosts like that, but be more focused on hitting hard/with effects and using that plus dodge and counters (for extra damage) to kill things before they kill him.

Magus should have some kind of 'trick' or two going in addition to summon swarms, always-on buffs (backed with class powers), and defense magic stuff. He can probably also start either force-fielding things with aura effects if he wants to tank more or predicting and evading specific effects with robe-seer stuff.

All of them should also have an off-standard defense trick or two that they can activate in a pinch. If it uses something different from their main skill sets, all the better.

At Level 79, characters should have the Expert ability for their armor. Again, not enough abilities yet due to me not making them, but it's a thing. Their main armor should be an equivalent Level artifact, a unique from a Level 60+ quest, a really good unique from a Level 40+ quest that's been absorb-upgraded a bit, a notable Level 60+ non-unique quest-drop, or a drop from a Level 80+ monster that's been combo-upgraded several times (or that came from an elite bonus fights monster of that tier).

You'll want HP (or other defensive 'value) from some items (which should be Level appropriate) and some abilities (which should be at least Adept+, with Expert+ preferred, to make a notable difference) in addition to your armor and classes. Raising your base stats to keep up also starts being a thing here.

At this point, all of the characters need to branch out from their cores. Bog-standard Fighter/Ranger/Wizard just doesn't cut it as a BA adventurer at this Level unless you have something weird and borderline-unique hyper-boosting you within that theme.

I'm seeing Meatslab replacing his body with a giant adaptive mech that is powered by the glory of his victories, Rangerman picking up geo-merge to fight as the mountains, the forests, and the sky itself, and Spellcaster going full-ethereal and possessing large, meaty monsters to act as shells for his arcane presence. Or something else. Things broaden out a lot here, but the basic deal is that you don't just want one defense at this point. If it's even remotely common, something out there will have a fairly hard counter to it, and you'll want multiple life-sources to fall back on and compound with each other. You'll want to be good with all of them too (albeit not as good as with your main one).

At Level 99, characters should have the Master ability for their armor. Same dealio as above. Their main armor should be an equivalent Level artifact, a unique from a Level 80+ quest, or a really good unique from a Level 60+ quest that's been absorb-upgraded a bit.

The advice for 79s extends and expands here.

Overall, though, party composition matters, and you can get away with more experimental / less defensive builds if you're with others. That said, you'll at least semi-frequently be forced into solo fights, so I highly suggest you remain baseline competent for your level at defending.

MP is not an important stat in RP threads unless you have a real deficit in the base stat (under 5), you're fighting something that can damage it, casting above-your-Level spells, trying to non-chain-cast big ritual magic effects, or doing something funky like using it as a second HP Pool. If you are using it for one of the above, follow the advice above for HP stuff as a general guideline, and make sure your numerical value is higher than the MP cost of whatever spells you're bringing.

The Nottest of Daves wrote: Further questions have sprouted up as to "What exactly can Geomancer be used for?"

Mechanically, it's obviously used for making Zones, imposing Phantom Terrains, and attuning to specific types of terrain (phantom or otherwise). However, what those mean in RP terms is somewhat unclear, especially at higher tiers of Geomancer. So, tying this back to the previous example dudes that have appeared in this thread, what would:

Geomancer von Channeler
Meatslab von Hammerschmidt
Archer von Rangerman
and Magus von Spellslinger

be able to do with:

name-rank Geomancer at 19 vs 39 vs 59
Adept Geomancer at 39 vs 59 vs 79
Expert Geomancer at 59 vs 79 vs 99
Master Geomancer at 79 vs 99
?

Celas Addendum wrote: For additional context, the overly-grumpy (it's been a rough week and I didn't sleep much, so my tone is awful and should not be taken personally) bit of rant-musing that lead to this request and the nature of the confusion, because it includes "what I know" (or at least think I know) and why I don't get it.

4:34 PM] Celas: (been thinking that we need to push Gad to have an NPC actually use it in quests of various tiers, so we can figure out what the actual fuck it's for)
[4:34 PM] Celas: (I don't think Nole's illusion-katamari is an intended purpose, haha)
[4:38 PM] Celas: Like, Geomancy is an inherent property of- or rather, a name of any inherent properties of- terrain, environments, and, haha, property. Geomancers are people who've studied the magics of those effects and learned to manipulate or replicate them.
[4:38 PM] Celas: (Still curious that it's done primarily via illusion)
[4:39 PM] Caelzeph: Clearly, Geomancer Von Channeler needs more spotlight
[4:40 PM] Caelzeph: I think the illusion bit and phantom terrain is due to that being the 'easier' route of changing the area
[4:40 PM] Celas: And, I mean, I can see why it's kind of part of the "neccesary skills" grab bag
[4:40 PM] Caelzeph: Whereas straight up altering the actual terrain is harder and more blatant
[4:40 PM] Caelzeph: Although that makes me wonder what Caelum can pull now
[4:41 PM] Celas: "ah hell, maybe throwing out necromantic shadow bolts is not going to work very well while i'm sitting on a sun. Better uncouple myself from the solar effects."
[4:41 PM] Celas: (Pairs with Wanderer for that effect. Supporting evidence to be found in the tree!)
[4:41 PM] Celas: Accustomed to Cold- (Passive Ability, Geomancer) 1% Ice Resistance
Requires: Basic Gate Magic Attunement, Basic Geomancy Attunement
Cost: 130,000 Gold, 2 Weeks

Accustomed to Heat- (Passive Ability, Geomancer) 1% Fire Resistance
Requires: Basic Gate Magic Attunement, Basic Geomancy Attunement
Cost: 130,000 Gold, 2 Weeks
[4:42 PM] Celas: Likewise "ha ha, my necromantic shadow bolts work better if I'm in a dark crypty area! I'll just MAKE this place be one!"
[4:42 PM] Celas: so it makes sense that any mage wants to bring the home field advantage with them
[4:42 PM] Celas: thus dabbling in it
[4:42 PM] Celas: but beyond that, what's the point of it?
[4:43 PM] Celas: because it very much seems to lack anything else.
[4:45 PM] Celas: Why would anyone bother to train up to master in it? y'know, from a lore/function perspective?
[4:45 PM] Celas: aside from "beat people trying to oppose me at this thing" which
[4:45 PM] Celas: is not compelling by any means
[4:45 PM] Celas: particularly given how fragile environment stuff is at the higher reaches and... damnit, I forgot my "and"
[4:45 PM] Celas: ah, right, illusion, again.
[4:46 PM] Celas: (it bothers me. it bothers me a lot.)
[4:46 PM] Celas: (Particularly now that Truth's a thing, but even still, it seems to make the class... really, really weak.)
[4:46 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Well
[4:47 PM] Ordo Hereticus: Note that Archer von Rangerman, in his description
[4:47 PM] Ordo Hereticus: was noted as being able to use Geomancy to attack as local terrain
[4:48 PM] Ordo Hereticus: "AAAAAA THE TREES ARE TRYING TO ARROW MEEEEEEEE"
[4:48 PM] Celas: Except that
[4:48 PM] Celas: at that point
[4:48 PM] Celas: (59)
[4:49 PM] Celas: both melee and mages are expected to be able to blast (between city and continent-sized) areas into glassy craters.

For clarity, why I keep yammering on about this part of it: Illusions are already exceptionally fragile, limited, and ephemeral effects even when there isn't an Element in play to further weaken and oppose them. Finding out that a lot of the class's mechanics hinged on them made it seem like putting in the effort to use them wasn't worth it.

Like I alluded to earlier, Nole's got Expert in there and the only thing he can think to do with it is a really complicated version of "One Hundred Thousand Shifting Veils", themed after terrain. I feel like we're collectively missing... not just something, but everything about the nature, purpose, and point of the class, and really, really need a primer.

Lord Gadigan wrote: Geomancer is the 'Utilize the area' class.

At classname tier, you're pretty much limited to either using the actual terrain around you (limited by where you are and what you have bond abilities with), or you're bringing in a Phantom Terrain (which is illusory and is getting a power-hit from Truth, which can dispel/break/pierce/etc it).

At Adept tier, you've gotten to a point where you can shape the world around you. Instead of bringing in fake terrain, you can (assuming the area you're in isn't too powerful) able to resculpt area types that you're familiar with into different area types you're familiar with. This isn't illusory and is actually messing with the area's mana pattern.

At Expert tier, if you've got Spatial Mage or something else fitting, you get a third option: You can create planar pockets and then pull localized planar overlays with them. That overlay-stacks terrains like the phantom stuff, but isn't illusory and lets you pull dimensional things with your spatial-combat stuff and whatever summoning you have.

Geomancer digs heavily into 'utilize features of the environment'. If you're somewhere boring, it is kinda boring. If you're in a forest, you can start having the trees blast people with super-sharp pine needles, make trees sprout from the ground to block attacks, or reach over and thump someone over the head. If you're near a volcano and appropriately powerful, you can make it erupt, aim the eruption, and start selectively routing lava rivers at things. If you're in a desert, you can call up sand storms to screen you, blast things with sand, or suck things down into it to entomb them. At Adept or higher, you can start deploying weirder planar terrain features when you're in the right areas, tapping into memory-loss, lassitude, and life-drain from an underworld or causing a hell-plane to attack with almost-living curses, spirit-burning hell fire, or tides of power-draining shadow.

It also includes 'protection from environmental effects', particularly when coupled with Wanderer or Abjurer. That starts with protection versus heat/cold, and then ramps up to odder stuff like 'see through sand storms', 'my ship is unaffected by the waves and tides', 'I can stand on top of my space ship as it flies around', or 'this prison-plane cannot hold me'. Mix in Veilwalker and you can get a 'the non-unique things in this area will treat me like I belong and generally ignore me like a local resident instead of attacking me just because they're area-monsters and I'm not from here' things going.

The environment utilization isn't just for combat, though. You can use it for utility things too. Grow some fruit to eat in a forest. Make a ledge wide enough for the caravan you're travelling with to cross without danger in the mountains. Use Geomancer to call up a taxi in a city!

Combined with Summoner, Diviner, Scholar, and Channeler, you can basically seize control of an area's spawn table, controlling local currents of ambient mana and forcing them to pop out specific results. Dungeons would require Subspace Architect on top of that.

Deep Geomancer investment isn't really encouraged unless you have some build that it actually helps; it isn't a class that's needed past classname for too many people. Without the proper skills to compliment and expand it, it basically does just start working as the 'useful against other geomancers' or 'useful for higher-tier areas' skill set.

Meatslab von Hammerschmidt probably doesn't want to go past classname with it unless he gets some secondary powerset that it specifically keys off of. Geomancer isn't a very good class for straight-up melee-users. It plus channeler can channel area effects and hazard-results into your strikes (giving area-based attack elementalization too), but that's about it besides 'activate environmental feature to improve attack or defense timing'. I supposed it'd mix with crusher for better 'knock down this cliff face with the damage just so happening to result in the creation of a big staircase leading up it' or the like.

Archer von Rangerman can merge it with the Thief or Ninja skills he probably picked up on the side. Locked doors are part of the environment; Geomancer + Thief would let you ask them to open (or would shut them in the face of pursuers). Terrain could be shuffled out of the way to line up shots, then pushed back into the way to block retaliating attacks; the speed and amount of terrain shuffled there would scale with class tier, and if you hit expert, there'd be mountains diving in front of you to stop people while the forests you're in would plunge underground into sealed bubble-environments to get you away from aerial foes. If dungeon geomancy was picked up, the thief stuff would extend it to controlling trap activation and placement.

Magus von Spellslinger would be in the best place (besides the dedicated Geomancer build) to pull shenanigans with controlling the spawn table. Similarly, just Geomancer + Diviner would get lots more detail on area-info than Diviner alone would. Diviner would tell you what would be incoming spawn wise and what else was likely to spawn. Geomancer + Diviner would give you maps of area mana currents, would track impending spawn progress, would let you better understand the results of changing an area's decoration, etc; Subspace Architect would still be needed for full use there, but Geomancer is an important part of that.

Geomancer von Channeler, as his build fully comes together, is going to be attacking with terrain hazards, controlling spawns, defending with the world around him, and then starting to pull the planes into physical reality along with all of their strange effects and planar guardians (all of which the Geomancer resists and controls whereas the opponents likely don't). Multiple terrains can be juggled, incoming attacks are going to have damage partially shuffled off onto nearby objects/terrain features, the land itself can be merged with as some sort of genius loci controlling a land-colossus body, cities and their inhabitants are micromanaged like a sim game, and permanent travel waypoints are going to be getting set up.

An Addendum for Outer Lords

[18:43] The Nottest of Daves: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
[18:44] The Nottest of Daves: This makes it clearer why Outer Lords are expected to have piles of Geomancer/Subspace Architect
[18:45] Gadigan: nods
[18:45] Gadigan: Similarly, they're very connected to the plane they're in and its 'rules'
[18:45] Gadigan: And 'area rules' fall into Geomancer and Subspace Architect
[18:46] Gadigan: World Laws are just a bit stronger and more globally-mandatory about it
[18:47] The Nottest of Daves: Are Planar Guardians some kind of non-standard summon-ish things, or would they be something that are actually being spawned out of the terrain?
[18:47] The Nottest of Daves: (and are there any things in the Enemy List that would count as a Planar Guardian?)
[18:47] Gadigan: I mean Celestials, Angels, Devas, Elementals, Demons, Devils, Daemons, Illuminated, Primes, or whatever
[18:47] The One True Pathaky: Probably depends on the terrain
[18:47] The One True Pathaky: for example Nole can overlay Imperial Heavens
[18:47] Gadigan: Things that would spawn from the plane that's being created and uplinked
[18:47] Gadigan: And guard/defend that area
[18:47] The One True Pathaky: and probably get a posse of celestials
[18:48] Gadigan: So Nole would get Celestials, but also Chinese dragon things, Spirits, and (when he hits 99) Planetaries
[18:48] The One True Pathaky: Aha, that kind of imperial
[18:48] Gadigan: nods
[18:48] The One True Pathaky: I hadn't been thinking of it in a 'pseudosummoner' direction
[18:48] The One True Pathaky: that'll be useful in the future
[18:49] The Nottest of Daves: what would pop out of something like a Storehouse of Wonders?
[18:49] Gadigan: Golems (including a bunch of living items), dragons, genies, treasure-elementals
[18:49] Kitsune106: cool.
[18:50] The Nottest of Daves: Twisting Nightmare? Sea of Madness?
[18:50] Caelzeph: CTHULUS
[18:50] The Nottest of Daves: hahaha
[18:51] The One True Pathaky: Darkspawn and Aquatics I'd imagine
[18:53] Caelzeph: I haven't really been keeping up with the category-list in this hugepost
[18:53] Gadigan: Mainly Darkspawn and Horrors, but also Spirits, Living Rumors, Demons, Devils, Daemons, and Voidstalkers
-
Darkspawn, Aquatics, Abstracts, Primes, Oozes, Mindshadows, some Dragons double-subtyped with one of the above
[18:53] Caelzeph: I'll get to some updating tomorrow, I think
[18:54] Gadigan: (The answers to these things can get posted on the site so they're recorded for posterity later)]