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5 months ago ::
Dec 20, 2012 - 11:30PM
#21
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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Aye, a little flexibility wouldn't go amiss, or have different builds for example athas might favor two builds of wizard, preserver and defiler, while Krynn has three red, black, and white. The core wizards could be segragated by school spec for example, the point being to limit and unify the wizard's abilities so that while the class can still do all the things a dnd wizard ought, it doesn't turn into Swiss army wizard.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 12:24AM
#22
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2012
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Yet another problem cause by trying to make wizards cover dozens of mythic and mythological archetypes. Because DnD tries to make wizards every robe wearer who ever spouted a cryptic phrase it means magic ends up a massive incoherent conglomeration of a thousand mythological traditions.
The wizard, fighter and to a lesser degree, have a lot of problems from tryng to represnt too much IMO. I wish we could tear them down and do something better...
A few guidelines for using the internet:
1. Mentally add "In my opinion" to the end of basically anything someone else says. Of course it's their opinion, they don't need to let you know. You're pretty smart.
2. Assume everyone means everything in the best manner they could mean it. Save yourself some stress and give people the benefit of the doubt. We'll all be happier if we type less emoticons.
3. Don't try to read people's minds. Sometimes people mean exactly what they say. You probably don't know them any better than they know themselves.
4. Let grammar slide. If you understood what they meant, you're good. It's better for your health.
5. Breath. It's just a dumb game.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 12:49AM
#23
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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Yeah the fighter has some of the same problem, but at least his mechanics usually force him to choose which archetype instead of the way the wizard gets to be merlin, the oracle at delphi, Chandra Nalaar, and lord voldemort all at the same time.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 12:54AM
#24
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2012
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See, there's a 3.5 book called complete mage that encourages a DM to create and define their own rules for all of this. Yagamifire actually had a great post about this on the question of "why." You keep asking, "why is this?" Until you arrive at a point where you can't create an answer to why anymore.
The specific example he used was actually magic in a setting. This was actually something I wanted to do with my last PC. Specifically, it was a focus on necromancy and the manipulation of life and death. It was a lot of fun while it lasted, but I may be able to revive the character concept in a month or so.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 9:37AM
#25
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2004
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See, there's a 3.5 book called complete mage that encourages a DM to create and define their own rules for all of this. Yagamifire actually had a great post about this on the question of "why." You keep asking, "why is this?" Until you arrive at a point where you can't create an answer to why anymore.
The specific example he used was actually magic in a setting. This was actually something I wanted to do with my last PC. Specifically, it was a focus on necromancy and the manipulation of life and death. It was a lot of fun while it lasted, but I may be able to revive the character concept in a month or so.
Necromancy is one of the biggest incoherence in D&D.
Why do necromancy is related to life force in D&D ? If you are the master of death and undeath, then life force is not in your domain of competence at all.
How DMs can build an immersive world when something like being master of death consist in being a master of life force manipulation ? And when being master of healing doesn't grant any mastery on death force which would be undeath…
That is one of the numerous incoherences that make me think that someone just cared about mechanics before thinking about the game, just to give more spells to the necromancer specialists or something like that.
It's one of the reasons why I don't like the eight schools of magic, too much schools having to be balanced against each others (and half of them are totally redundant), leading to bad decisions, like making necromancers masters of life force when undeath as its own concept should have been developped in opposition to life force.
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion
"Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe
"In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer
"Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition.
"you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 9:46AM
#26
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2012
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The thing about Necromancy, is that it isn't about death and undeath. It's traditionally defined, both in the real world and in 3e D&D, as the school of magic that manipulates the energies of life and death. The reason for this is because in a lot of ways the lack of one equates to the presence of the other, and vice versa. It's a very Taoist concept.
My character gets to do really cool things like, say someone is wounded, and we have limited methods for healing them. Well, we've got a prisoner left over, or an animal nearby. I kill it with vampiric touch, and then use healing touch on the person I want to heal. Healing touch actually makes me sacrifice my own hp, but since I'm loaded up on temporary hp from vampiric touch, that goes first. I'm effectively taking the life force of another creature, and giving it to someone else. Now that is power over life and death.
I'm not going to go into the pages and pages of notes for how magic works in the setting that I was playing in, but I will say that co-developing that and actually getting to play in a system where I understood the meta-physics of the setting was a blast. The flavor for my powers was pretty sweet too.
I won't argue that the schools of magic could stand a re-working. Illusion and enchantment should have been fused a long time ago, and some of the schools in evocation and aburation should have been yanked from each other and combined into their own school, and then the rest of evocation and abjuration should have been melded into their own more specialized school. Those are just a couple of the changes I think they should make to those.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 10:38AM
#27
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2004
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The thing about Necromancy, is that it isn't about death and undeath. It's traditionally defined, both in the real world and in 3e D&D, as the school of magic that manipulates the energies of life and death. The reason for this is because in a lot of ways the lack of one equates to the presence of the other, and vice versa. It's a very Taoist concept.
I don't have the same references. I didn't see this reference to life force in necromancy a lot outside D&D (I'm being prudent, but the fact is I don't remember any at the moment).
Most revolve about divination, death/resurection, inflicting agony or decay, dead summoning and necromancy as mastering entropy.
But if D&D keeps this necromancy point of view, coherence would make healers able to inflict death and decay with healing spells.
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion
"Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe
"In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer
"Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition.
"you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 10:47AM
#28
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2012
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The thing about Necromancy, is that it isn't about death and undeath. It's traditionally defined, both in the real world and in 3e D&D, as the school of magic that manipulates the energies of life and death. The reason for this is because in a lot of ways the lack of one equates to the presence of the other, and vice versa. It's a very Taoist concept.
I don't have the same references. I didn't see this reference to life force in necromancy a lot outside D&D (I'm being prudent, but the fact is I don't remember any at the moment).
Most revolve about divination, death/resurection, inflicting agony or decay, dead summoning and necromancy as mastering entropy.
But if D&D keeps this necromancy point of view, coherence would make healers able to inflict death and decay with healing spells.
Well, clerics already have access to two sets of spells that are little more than two sides of the same coin. Cure/Inflict. Interestingly enough, they even have reveresed effects against some creatures. I've seen positive energy spells actually deal damage to living targets, and negative energy heal living targets. I've also seen the two have opposite effects on undead as well. You'd be surprised what you can do with the right effects.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 1:47PM
#29
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2004
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The thing about Necromancy, is that it isn't about death and undeath. It's traditionally defined, both in the real world and in 3e D&D, as the school of magic that manipulates the energies of life and death. The reason for this is because in a lot of ways the lack of one equates to the presence of the other, and vice versa. It's a very Taoist concept.
I don't have the same references. I didn't see this reference to life force in necromancy a lot outside D&D (I'm being prudent, but the fact is I don't remember any at the moment).
Most revolve about divination, death/resurection, inflicting agony or decay, dead summoning and necromancy as mastering entropy.
But if D&D keeps this necromancy point of view, coherence would make healers able to inflict death and decay with healing spells.
Well, clerics already have access to two sets of spells that are little more than two sides of the same coin. Cure/Inflict. Interestingly enough, they even have reveresed effects against some creatures. I've seen positive energy spells actually deal damage to living targets, and negative energy heal living targets. I've also seen the two have opposite effects on undead as well. You'd be surprised what you can do with the right effects.
These spells were the same spells before, you had to memorize them as the version you wanted, healing or the wounding. They were necromancy spells.
Vampire touch was another bizarre conception. It was just a transfer of life force, it could have been enchantment, conjuration or alteration, but it was tagged necromancy for just one reason, necromancy was just the bad boy spell list. Any spell that caused a moral problem, like clone or contagion, was put in the necromancy school.
Creating a clone from a living being has nothing to do with death, and a contagion inflicted disease, something that is not even about the life force abstraction.
But necromancy is still just a revealing detail regarding the incoherences of the supernatural in D&D.
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion
"Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe
"In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer
"Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition.
"you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 1:51PM
#30
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2012
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I never saw any conflict with the Necromancy sphere; it's all about manipulating life energy. You can restore life energy to heal someone, or take away life energy to hurt someone (but only a living creature - not a construct). Even the clone spell is about imbuing something with life energy.
Life energy (positive energy) is one of the few things in D&D that has usually been pretty consistent.
The metagame is not the game.
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