7 replies to this topic

[Scipio]

Here is where I reveal the depth of my ignorance yet again. What prompted the following questions is that I looked again at the mod I may EVENTUALLY finish, a mage, and wondered about some of my planning so far. (Please note this is intended to be a post about magic in BG/BG2, not just about mods! It could also have a bearing on some of my plans for fanfic.)

I realise I have broken a rule in planning to give this mage a different kind of special ability at higher levels. He gains one cleric spell, a healing spell. He doesn't learn it. It happens in the same way that other classes gain abilities such as Whirlwind Attack. Even so, it may be completely wrong ? or is it?

QUESTION SET ONE: Should some mages be able to learn (or "know") some cleric spells, and vice versa?

Imoen gains a cleric ability, heal. This is presumably because she has the taint of Bhaal. Is this the only reason, or is it because she has also lost her soul? If so, could other soulless characters gain similar abilities? Would it be against all the rules for a vampire mage to know some cleric spells? I know this might result in a terribly overpowered character ? a sort of vampire cleric/mage with +5 claws would be just about unstoppable ? but is there a logical reason why such a character couldn't exist?

QUESTION SET TWO: Where does the distinction occcur between divine and arcane magic?

Clerics and mages can learn many identical spells ? Summon Undead, True Sight, etc. Is there a cut-off line separating certain types of spells so that only mages can learn them, or only clerics can? What defines this cut-off? Maybe a dumb question, but just look who's asking it!

QUESTION SET THREE: Why is mage specialization a handicap, not an asset?

By this I mean, why should specializing in one arcane school make it impossible to learn spells in the opposite school? A non-specialist mage can learn from all the schools. A specialist doesn't learn any new types of spells that a general-purpose mage can?t learn. What is the logic behind this?

QUESTION SET FOUR: If Bioware breaks the rules, why can?t we?

It's no doubt a result of inattention to detail in the original game programming, but most SHS people know the tricks that let a non-magical class cast magic from scrolls. My fighter or paladin often uses this trick to gain a familiar. Is it any more unreasonable to use a trick of scripting, or something like Shadow Keeper, or just my imagination, to give some magic abilities to classes that shouldn't have them?

QUESTION SET FIVE: Why do summoned beings have "more magic" than the people who summon them?

My mage can summon only one planetar at a time. My group of magic users can summon no more than five of anything at a time. Yet if I cast Restore on a Simulacrum it can summon six skeleton warriors, a gang of invisible stalkers and three planetars. If I cast several Simulacrums I can totally carpet an area with Skull Traps. Why? Isn't this an extreme way of breaking the rules? Was it faulty planning by Bioware or is it acceptable in the D&D rules?

[Tempest]

1. It depends-different styles of manipulating the Weave (the raw power of magic, as it were) can yield different results. Search the spells section of the various 3.5E splatbooks, and you'll run across lots of spells that can only be accessed by one particular method and style of spellcasting-and not just clerics, druids, bards, and sorcerers/wizards, but also spirit shamans, warmages, wu jen, shugenja, favored souls, dragon shamans, warlocks, and more. There are indeed prestige classes that add certain arcane spells to a divine caster's list and vice versa-the Rainbow Servant prestige class in particular eventually adds the entire cleric's spell list to what a wizard or sorcerer can learn spells from (yields particularly interesting results with the warmage class, due to the way that class's spell selection/list works).

2. Again, different methods of accessing the Weave and casting spells-clerics and wizards may have spells that yield approximately the same results, but they're invoked through different methods.

3. It's to represent intensive study and training in one particular school of magic-if you're spending half or more of your arcane studies on one particular school, you won't have as much time to study and practice with other schools-presumably, to maintain as broad and deep a range of training as possible, you simply choose one type of magic you won't study, so you can stay specialized in one school and reasonably up to date on the others.

4. That's strictly personal choice-there's no right or wrong answer in terms of DnD because the problem does not occur (though DM's may fudge a monster's abilities a bit to provide a bigger challenge or some such).

5. PnP rules on most spells can and do differ dramatically from their depictions in BG. There are of course ways to work the system (see the Locate City nuke), but a combination of PnP restrictions on spells that aren't in BG and DM fiat generally stop that sort of thing dead in its tracks.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I realize I have broken a rule in planning to give this mage a different kind of special ability at higher levels. He gains one cleric spell, a healing spell. He doesn't learn it. It happens in the same way that other classes gain abilities such as Whirlwind Attack. Even so, it may be completely wrong ? or is it?

Well, if it suits the char, it's not wrong, but if it doesn't... like say, this char has thousands of hit points, can cast every megaspell in the multiverse and kills gods for dinner, he can cast healing spell, -but is he balanced? Not very well, unless he kills the god, once every million years and then disappears for the next 999 999.

QUESTION SET ONE: Should some mages be able to learn (or "know") some cleric spells, and vice versa?

Well, if you want, you can give yourself what ever innate spells you want to, to the thief char to solo around but don't come knocking to my door, when the testers want to burn the mod on their witch hunt.

? a sort of vampire cleric/mage with +5 claws would be just about unstoppable ? but is there a logical reason why such a character couldn't exist?

Don't know about the BGII's rules, but if you can justify and make the char balanced, you can do what ever you wish... as for the vampire mage/cleric with +5 claws might be balanced, if you take the undeath as a ruleset, making his leveling slower, much slower, like 10 times slower, so he gains only 10% of the original experience(this is even easy to code, with Shadowkeeper ).

QUESTION SET TWO: Where does the distinction occur between divine and arcane magic?

From where the power comes from, mage taps the Weave himself, cleric taps the god shoulder and asks for the power... but they really should ask the power from Chaos, then they would know what it really is.

QUESTION SET THREE: Why is mage specialization a handicap, not an asset?

It's actually both, a specialist mage can cast more spells(+1 on every level), while loosing one or two spell schools, or the ability learn most of the spells(Sorcerer), or giving the Chaos the chance to balance their lives(Wildmage).

[vilkacis]

Technically, the gods can grant their priests any spells they like, and mages can research any effect they need. 2E seems to have something against mages using healing spells, though. I don't remember where, but I've read that it's one of those things that Just Don't Happen, probably because the gods want a monopoly on such spells. (On the other hand, Wish spells can restore hit points, although they also have a negative effect on the caster...)

Pretty much, the difference between arcane and divine magic is that arcanists have the ridiculously powerful 8th and 9th-level magic, but lose out on healing.

(The PC and Imoen's Cure Light Wounds are not arcane or divine spells, but special abilities granted by their "unusual circumstances". Losing their souls has nothing to do with it; the PC gets his in BG1, long before any soul-sucking takes place.)


Specialization is not necessarily a handicap, but becomes increasingly so for mages with very high INT and higher levels. The extra spell slot per level can be an enormous help at lower levels, and the increased chance of learning spells of the chosen school isn't bad for anyone who doesn't have maxed INT and thus a very high base success rate. It's more helpful in P&P, which doesn't generally let you re-roll until you have the stats you want or reload the game if you fail to scribe that rare and expensive scroll. Of course, once you're up to level 28 with 20 INT and more spell slots than you can count, it doesn't do much good.


There's nothing wrong with breaking the rules when you're playing, but ýou will get called out on it (and probably whined and complained at) if you do it in a mod.



Oh, and the vampire cleric/mage would still get 'sploded by a high-level cleric's Turn Undead or the various anti-undead spells, and his claws would still be subject to Stoneskin or other protective spells. There's no such thing as an unbeatable character, but a high-level arcanist is probably as close to it as you're going to get.

[Scipio]

Thanks for the most interesting information thus far. I knew I was an ignoramus in such matters. I am trying to learn, and not because I want to build impossible mods but because this strange universe of magic gets a hold on you.

You've all told me things I might have found after... um... 16 years on Google.

It's good to know that the limitations on magic use are not quite as rigid as I'd thought. I see the lines between different types of magic can be blurred, as the lines are often blurred between the skills mastered in our mechanical universe.

[Grunker]

Thanks for the most interesting information thus far. I knew I was an ignoramus in such matters. I am trying to learn, and not because I want to build impossible mods but because this strange universe of magic gets a hold on you.

You've all told me things I might have found after... um... 16 years on Google.

It's good to know that the limitations on magic use are not quite as rigid as I'd thought. I see the lines between different types of magic can be blurred, as the lines are often blurred between the skills mastered in our mechanical universe.

Well, it being blurred also comes down to the fact that Dungeons and Dragons really isn't a system. Don't misunderstand me, it's great fun and I enjoy it very much, but a system is by definition something that uses coherent values and non-versatile responses. For example, your question of what the difference between arcane and divine magic is, has a different definition in each D&D book, even Forgotten Realms supplements say different things. Different authors just throw about things, because D&D is about having fun and making money, so who cares if there's a master plan? There isn't, by the way

But, that also means that you the definitions are pretty loose, and mostly made up to just be simple concepts like arcane and divine; easy enough to understand, unless you delve into it (by which time it will be impossible, since their is no correct definition, as it isn't a system).

What I'm trying to with too many words is: Don't presume to necessarily find logic behind the terms and concepts of Dungeons and Dragons. Both definitions and descriptions therein are thought up on a whim, and have two primary goals; to sound cool, and inspire fun and creativity.

If you want to take a look at a roleplaying system some day, go check out GURPS

Ooookay, I just used a ton of space just to say D&D wasn't logic. Sorry.

- Casper

Edited by Grunker, 22 August 2008 - 05:21 PM.

[Scipio]

Ooookay, I just used a ton of space just to say D&D wasn't logic. Sorry.

Why say sorry, Grunker? You've just added another useful explanation for dummies like me. Thanks!

Maybe I should embark on a private quest to seek the logic behind magic in general. The Weave from which magic power is drawn (is this right?) may be parallel to the void from which our universe generates vacuum energy and virtual particles. There, already the seeds of a quantum explanation. Not that it would be my own idea -- I remember a Terry Pratchett novel in which he had a whizkid of a wizard talking about harnessing energy to manipulate sub-atomic particles and calling it magic.

When I've completed my thesis on "Correlations between Magic Missile and alpha particle emissions from nuclei" I'll post it in the fanfic section.

So, guys and girls, where should I start reading up on D&D-type magic since I don't own any manuals or handbooks? Wikipedia? Bluenose previously pointed me to some good reading about races and lore in D&D. I'd like to find some useful AND AUTHORITATIVE stuff about the magic that keeps zapping my Berserker.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, it being blurred also comes down to the fact that Dungeons and Dragons really isn't a system.

But it is a system, even if the rules are taken at a face value, as the logic behind is, there might be many logics... see Chaos.

So, guys and girls, where should I start reading up on D&D-type magic since I don't own any manuals or handbooks?

You can't just read about magic and be done with it, you have to experience it, so read a book.