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3 years ago ::
Jul 16, 2010 - 12:12PM
#41
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I suggest you take a look at the Solomon Kane movie. The basic premise might fit your campaign world. Basically those who wield "magical powers" have made a deal with the devil to gain this power, at some point and are damned as a result. They can cast spells, but the price is their eternal soul (though they may not appreciate this at the time).
There may a bunch of characters who seek salvation by saving the innocent (a divine grace bestowed by God) and destroying the guilty ( any wizard).
It's not a bad film either.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 16, 2010 - 1:02PM
#42
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Date Joined:
May 14, 2010
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I'm going to help you here, sparky. A world that says all magic is evil isn't a world the 4e rules flourishes in. Case in point:
The following races are allowed player character races upon the start of the campaign:
Human
Half-Elf - evil
Dwarf - evil
Halfling - evil
Elf - evil
Gnome – PHB2 - evil
Half-Orc – PHB2 - evil
Dragonborn - evil
Githzerai – PHB2 - evil
Goliath – PHB2 - evil
Minotaur – PHB3 - evil
Warforged – Eberron - evil
The following classes are allowed player character classes upon the start of the campaign:
Fighter - evil
Ranger - evil
Rogue - evil
Warlord - evil
Knight* - evil
Barbarian – PHB2 - evil
Bard – PHB2 - evil
Monk – PHB3 - evil
Artificer - Eberron - evil
Everything marked evil uses magic in some shape or another. Every pc uses magical healing surges to undo injuries. Therefor, your entire campain saying magic evil is a load of croc. That's why people can't understand you. You say magic is evil in your world, but everything uses magic. That doesn't work.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 16, 2010 - 6:40PM
#43
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Date Joined:
Nov 12, 2005
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I'm going to help you here, sparky. A world that says all magic is evil isn't a world the 4e rules flourishes in. Case in point:
The following races are allowed player character races upon the start of the campaign:
Human
Half-Elf - evil
Dwarf - evil
Halfling - evil
Elf - evil
Gnome – PHB2 - evil
Half-Orc – PHB2 - evil
Dragonborn - evil
Githzerai – PHB2 - evil
Goliath – PHB2 - evil
Minotaur – PHB3 - evil
Warforged – Eberron - evil
The following classes are allowed player character classes upon the start of the campaign:
Fighter - evil
Ranger - evil
Rogue - evil
Warlord - evil
Knight* - evil
Barbarian – PHB2 - evil
Bard – PHB2 - evil
Monk – PHB3 - evil
Artificer - Eberron - evil
Everything marked evil uses magic in some shape or another. Every pc uses magical healing surges to undo injuries. Therefor, your entire campain saying magic evil is a load of croc. That's why people can't understand you. You say magic is evil in your world, but everything uses magic. That doesn't work.
Ok, you are just wrong there. 4e has always been clear that healing surges are not magical. Now, healing powers from a magical source are magical, but second wind and healing granted by a warlord are not magical. That's just stamina and adrenaline. And understanding that hit points in 4e don't represent only severe wounds - it's tiring out in battle and thus losing your focus and ability to defend yourself, opening yourself up for a lethal blow.
Therefore: fighter, ranger, rogue, and warlord are not evil. If you've read previous posts, barbarian and monk are not evil, because they've been reflavored as martial. Which isn't all that hard - 3.5's barbarian was martial, so you're just going back to its roots and throwing out some inappropriate powers. And the monk has always straddled the borderline between psionic and martial; the OP is just pushing it to the other side of the fence.
As for races: half-elf, dwarf, halfling, elf, half-orc, goliath, and minotaur are certainly not inherently evil (strange that you neglected human when they fit your argument just as well). Even if I thought your argument had a shred of validity, only adventurers (and a rare number of monsters) have access to their healing surges without an outside ("magical") influence. Monsters usually don't get second wind, so they can only spend a healing surge if someone grants them a chance to use it. Being subject of a cleric's healing word hasn't yet been declared evil. Only being the cleric who casts it. So the only races your argument holds to are dragonborn, gnome, and githzerai. Oh, and warforged. But warforged have already been addressed in this thread: they're creations designed to eat magic and get rid of it. They're meant to clean up after evil, and are not themselves so magical. As for the other magical races, to me I'm fine with declaring them supernatural instead. Maybe it's just from my experience with 3.5 and the difference between spell-like and supernatural abilities, but I see a difference there. Dragonbreath is innate to all dragonborn, and it's got nothing to do with magical talent. Related to my earlier posts, I put that and gnomish invisibility in the realm of supernatural but not magical, along with miracles and direct acts of god. I've seen this done in books too: where dragons can fly because evolution in a world with magic has allowed them this one specific ability beyond what physics allow, but they have no control or even intent with it. I'm rambling, trying to find words to express it, but I see a world of difference between biology harnessing magic and an intelligent creature willfully harnessing magic. They're different to me.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 16, 2010 - 6:47PM
#44
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Thanks Omni. I was just trying to ignore the obvious bait, but you summed it up nicely and better than I ever could. I appreciate it. 
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
Default module =/= Core mechanic.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2010 - 1:28AM
#45
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2007
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Treat D&D like it was warhammer 40k... lol!
I'm completely serious. Build up an imperium to combat the evils of sorcery and demons. Third edition couples with this alot better do to it's many forms of mechanics for magic...
Spellcasters=Devil worshippers. Unknowingst or not. Arcane casters may be more along the lines of misguided people who think they're performing science or have just been mislead into doing evil workings. Clerics and such are directly in worship and therefore know exactly what they're up too. They might even be corrupting churches and stuff. (Binders and shadowcasters are more "savage casters" like voodoo type stuff...) Sorcerers/Warlocks may be more like humans who made pacts or were born that way through some ritual.
Psionics=A little more leeway here. Think of psionics as human potential, but that must act within the will of God. Psionics much like in warhammer 40k, would be strictly regulated. Anyone practicing psionics better work for the empire or be accused of all sortsof heresy and smited.
Your party is not going to be able to keep up with monster threat levels using strictly martial classes. Even if you allow more arbitary classes like Factotum and Marshal. (Dragon Shaman is a bit sketchy. That'd fall into the purviews of warlock/sorcerer...) So either the empire needs to provide pimped out weapons that are holy arms decreed as tools against the hordes of evil through your D&D version of the vatican. Or you're going to have to give them more action points and more feats to go "mundane magic" crazy and justify it as miracles.
This has alot of potential and could be very fun though. So goodluck to you. Quite honestly, I wouldn't go through the trouble of forbidding classes or anything, and just do a sweeping "evil is not a toy" and use sanity check rules for those who'd dare to dabble in the arts... Arcane and divine casters would face more harsh san penalties then psionics or smaller casters like warlocks and bards... Losing large amounts of sanity at one time wouldn't kill you persay, but could make you fatigue, sickened, shakened, frightened, confused, or dead. Depending on how many you lost at once.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2010 - 6:56AM
#46
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Date Joined:
Nov 12, 2005
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Jhari, you're welcome.
JimProfit, your issues with "martial only" are really only relevant to 3e, and I'm pretty sure this is a 4e game, so don't worry there.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2010 - 1:19PM
#47
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I think there's a very simple solution that someone already touched on. Use magic as if it were the dark side of the force and ignore the binary of light/dark. Make it all the dark side. Basically, having the ability to warp reality, whatever the scale, is extremely addictive and thus, magic users find they inevitably wish to draw more and more on the power of magic to accomplish things. Since they must use their bodies as a conduit, either this reality-warping energy takes a physical toll on them, eventually mutating them horribly and turning them into fantastic monsters of some kind (lichs, demons, devils, etc.), or, the ability to modify their bodies eventually causes magic users to assume forms more in-line with their personalities. Likewise, their mental state becomes increasingly deranged, delving into megalomania, co-dependence on magic, violent outbursts, pathological dishonesty, obsessions with control, or being loved, worshipped, etc., and the rationalization of evil, perhaps even questioning the substantiality of reality itself leading to a solipsistic and amoral outlook... Such is the price of ambition.
This is very in-line with a Christian conception of magic and what you were discussing earlier about assuming God-like powers. Basically, consistent magic use boils down to supreme hubris, i.e. thinking you can improve upon God's creation, or outdo God in some other way, in the end though, the only one you outdo is yourself. There are also a lot of ways you can use this premise to convey moral lessons as almost every magic-user ends up as a somewhat tragic, pitiable figure. Perhaps you could even work in a quest or two to save a magic-user or something.
Idk, just thoughts, I'm not at all a Christian, I actually think real-world magic can be incredibly useful in terms of self-psychlogy, exploration, and artistic endeavors but magic in a fantastic setting has always made more sense to me as a corrupting force than a benevolent one as it represents indefinite potential to impose one's will upon reality, which, in my mind, would almost inevitably lead to the above-mentioned mental disorders.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 25, 2010 - 12:47PM
#48
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Date Joined:
Jul 14, 2010
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magic in a fantastic setting has always made more sense to me as a corrupting force than a benevolent one as it represents indefinite potential to impose one's will upon reality, which, in my mind, would almost inevitably lead to the above-mentioned mental disorders.
I agree, some people will be corrupted. However I belive that their will be many who try to use magic for good ends.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 25, 2010 - 6:59PM
#49
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Aye, but is not the road to hell paved with such good intentions? I'm not completely disagreeing with you, personally, if I had some amount of magical power or something, I would like put it to good use, though I can see myself giving into little vanities and deceptions here and there but that's me, and, I guess in a lot of ways, you could consider me a moralist. For instance, I'm a vegan, I never buy things that aren't second-hand if I can avoid it, my calling is more or less to help people (via sustainable/regenerative design and music/mentoring) etc. etc. But on the other hand, I will use drugs, I will sometimes engage in petty conceits or deception, etc., things that I don't generally feel hurt anyone but likely are not in any way morally 'good.' I think if you had magic, it would just basically make you more of what you are but I personally do believe that power, while not necessarily corrupting itself, does attract the corruptible and because of this, magic would likely lead most of its practitioners down a dark path.
All that being said however, I was trying to look at it from a Christian perspective for the benefit of the OP.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 25, 2010 - 8:20PM
#50
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Look no further than Robert E. Howard, Brian Lumley, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, or H.P. Lovecraft.
They defined the "magic is evil" genre. I can't believe the posts above, religion has nothing to do with what this guy is asking for.
Controlling magic in the world you describe is like controlling nuclear power in ours: it's difficult, wildly dangerous, and ultimately ends up doing more harm than good.
The rulers that extend boons are actually imposters (aliens, beings from another dimension, insert here...) looking to corrupt as many people as they can to usher in a new age of Darkness.
In this world, using magic for good intentions is like creating a vaccine-resistant strain of smallpox for good intentions: in the eye of the beholder, all things are bright. PC's tread a thin line between corruption and goodness, and most times that line is blurred.
I completely understand where you're coming from. What's more, I enjoy the concept.
For subject matter, I would suggest World of Darkness or the Socerer RPG, not to mention such fantasy classics as "Rats in the Walls", "Red Nails", "Beyond the Black River", and "The Call of Cthulhu."
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