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Mar 18, 2012 -- 3:51PM, Samrin wrote:

Mar 18, 2012 -- 3:42PM, Seroth wrote:

Its funny that when people think about high magic they just imagine flashy combat spells (...well its also kinda sad). 

I'll love to see magic like the old "Grease" spell return to the game.

Mar 18, 2012 -- 8:25AM, ReaperTatt wrote:

Depends on setting. Eberron will be high magic. Dark sun will be low magic. The genre itself will more than likely be high fantasy simply die to the amount of fantastical and commonplace mythical creature that exist in the game world. IIRC birthright had a more low fantasy feel to it as it was modeled more on medieval life historically, but it's been a long time....

I´m not sure that Eberron is a high magic setting. Magic shaped Eberron, put an end to the war, destroyed Xendrik, but its also mundane, magic in eberron works like technology, nonetheless Wizards are respected in a society full of magic dabblers. (Also remember Eberron plays the best at low-mid lvls.) 

Eberron is extremely high magic, and is the only high magic setting that really makes sense to me. In a world with that much magic, it is a logical conclusion that it has woven itself into the fabric of every day life, such as tech, economics, and politics. This is why I don't like FR. It is super high magic, but people are still oo'd and aa'd by it.

Yep, that’s true but... what about the iconic characters? (There’re really few high lvl wizards on eberron and none of them reach the power of FR´s Wizards) 

Don’t you think the pulp aspect of Eberron makes that, while it’s a setting with a high amount of magic, everyday magic doesn’t feel that "high"? 

IMO in Eberron High magic is the sort of stuff that characters seek, but can only witness on the most extreme circumstances, like the destruction of Cyre in the day of mourning. 

I'm not saying that Eberron isn’t high magic, just that it’s a setting that makes me doubt about this assessment. (And I think that’s one of things that makes Eberron such an great setting, IMHO).

Mar 18, 2012 -- 4:24PM, Butcha wrote:

Mar 18, 2012 -- 3:51PM, Samrin wrote:

This is why I don't like FR. It is super high magic, but people are still oo'd and aa'd by it.

People will always be oo'd and aa'd by things they cannot understand. There's a wanna-be-mage who can do some nifty card tricks in every company I've ever worked in, and people are still oo'd and aa'd by it (me too).


Imagine... if we are amazed by people fiddling with cards... why should not a village commoner be amazed by a a flying wizard shooting lightning across the sky (even if they have heard such things exists by reputation from travellers) 

  

Yeah, but when magic is that common, it should effect the world around it. People still live in a feudal medieval setting and act weird around magic. It's like us being oo'd and aa'd about electricity 2000 years from now.

When you have a Ye Olde Magick Shoppe on every street corner like a 7-11, and a wizard tower in every town. Magic items are getting traded often. They would be entrenched in the economic structure of the land. Eberron does this. I'm just saying that Eberrron takes a world like that to its logical conclusion. It is an aspect of everyday life like electricity is for us.

Mar 18, 2012 -- 3:08PM, Kalnaur wrote:

I'd say the trap is mechanical if it deals damage, because HP are mechanics.   Also, that what you call reflavouring is by my account houseruling, since source keywords are also mechanical.

If you go by that definition almost all meaningful reflavoring is houseruling. It is probably a language disconnect here. When I see houseruling I think of pages and pages of rules for a new class just to achieve the concept "I'm a dragon trapped inside a human body, and I want to break free". When I think of reflavoring I think of "Hey, can I play the blind incarnation of Void who sees by hearing the air movements around him? Sure, just roll a Warlock and we'll reflavor it a bit. Switch Cha and Wis for skills, you gotta have high perception but I don't think you're very diplomatic." Done.

I know we have different routes to reach the same conclusion though.  If a player asked if they could houserule the Paladin into an arcane champion, I'd ask what their concept was, what they were looking at doing, why the paladin instead of a predesigned class, etc.  If the reasons are good, change it from Divine to Arcane, remove holy symbols as an implement, and replace with a similar, singular implement (not sure why, but I want to say 'orb'), and at that point yes, the trap would trigger.

Yeah, that's what I'd do. I'd probably grant him swords as an arcane implement and call it a day. As to why he would do that, suppose he wants to play a heavy armored arcane caster with PHB only - it's the easiest way to go, really. I'd probably have him switch all radiant damage to elemental, too. Your choice of fire / ice / lightning for each power mark included.

Note, everyone, I'm not saying that houserules are bad.  Just that we should recognize that a power source confers mechanical workings, and thus has an impact on the game workings, where flavour has none and can be changed at will.  The moment a game mechanic comes into play, it's a houserule.

The point of my example was to show how flavor has a game impact. The example didn't work well, did it? Can you give me an example of pure reflavoring? I'm pretty sure I can point at an instance where it has a game impact too.