The power still flows through him

[Mickeroo]

Can someone get bonus dice to the sustaining tax test by doing it patiently or any kind of equivelant? What is the spell is cast patiently originally?

[luke]

No. Unequivocal No.

:D
-L

[Mickeroo]

yeah, comparing the classic rules to revised, it seems like you really hate sorcerers. Anyone looking to make a mage in my game who played revised is complaining about raised obstacles and cost to learn spells.

[luke]

yeah, comparing the classic rules to revised, it seems like you really hate sorcerers. Anyone looking to make a mage in my game who played revised is complaining about raised obstacles and cost to learn spells.

weh. This is what my ears hear from mage players in general: "Weh. I'm super powerful! I'm super human! Why can't I break the game and make you all sit around while I do everything myself. Weh."

:twisted: :roll:

We've taken great pains to bring mages back into the fold. They are extroardinarily powerful, but they have to pay the price.

As far as increased obstacles go, it had to be done. Mages were just a little bit on the "eesh, that's too powerful" side.

As for the increased spell costs. Cry me a river. A long deep one. Mages have more lifepath choices, more resource points per lifepath AND more spells to choose from.

Thunk 'em on the head with the Monster Burner if they complain.
-L

[Mickeroo]

*shows thread to all players making any sort of mage character*

[Redoid]

That depends... If you stick to the spell list, I feel it's balanced (and that's my only experience with magic in the hands of PC so far, as I can't really make my mind on abstractions and summoning.

Summoning feels very good, because it's "story neutral". You are trading a solution to a problem (I'll ask the earth spirits to delay the marching enemy army until the reinforcement are here) against a "promise" for spiritual revenge, which can be either a mild punishment (raised obstacle in a test afterwards) but can be used to introduce new story complications. So you may solve a problem and help introduce a new one in the future. It's magic, it's powerful, and the more powerful it is, the more it may help the GM to introduce new story development.

Abstraction, on the other hand, have very difficult obstacles, and help break with the "magic as a tool" feel any spell list has. I don't enjoy magic when it's a combination of ladder (mmm, a wall, I cast Fly), sword (mmm, an enemy, I cast white fire) and leaven (mmm, a bakery, I cast raise bread). It's not creative, no more than a sword, and magic could be far more than that. Abstractions can give the wizard the power to do anything, but that anything should be balanced, not because of the fear of munchkin players stealing the spotlight, but because any story could be resumed to the quest to find the proper series of spells to solve it.

And in that aspect, the very high obstacle of full distillation isn't enough. Unless you wanted people to abstract spell on the fly by spending artha, to double their pool, and only spell list in normal circumstances. I would rather give wizard the power to do anything at a cost in story term. I am envisioning the wizard as someone with great power but incentive NOT to use it, other than "I will collapse from tax if I fail". And incentive other than "there's a remote chance the world will collapse" because we all know that players won't worry too much about a fictionnal world having 1 in 1000 chance of exploding. The incentive should be something happening to the character, not killing him (it's a player punishment, not a character's punishment) but making life harder for him.

[TickTockMan]

I personally have no problem at all with the adjustments that were made to mages, and they are historically my favorite type of character. I think they work just as well now as ever. I do not see them as handicapped at all.

One thing I think is interesting in this discussion is that usually it seems that Burning Wheel does not go out of its way to balance races and what have you, opting rather for realism. Elves are more powerful than humans, too bad-so sad, cause that is how it is. Yet mages required reigning in for some reason, even though in most stories they are mighty, strange, and to be feared.

What makes mages different? They never were gamebreakers in my games, were they in other peoples' games? Was the decision a matter of taste, or game functionality? I am curious...

[luke]

even though in most stories they are mighty, strange, and to be feared.

they are still all of these things. in the previous version, I felt they broke their idiom and were TOO MUCH of these things.

Elves work because the fit their idiom perfectly. This took YEARS of playtesting to get right. The early BW Elves were not pretty -- we used to call them Buddha on the Lotus Leaf because they were all freaking gods. But we eventually managed to reign them in and make them fit.

Mages are not exempt from this treatment!
-L

[Kublai]

I never felt the mages in BW were overpowered and reeled at their new rules, too. I don't know what magic-using player scarred Luke in the past, but I wish I could find him and pound him! :evil:

I agree with Thor. Why feel the need to balance sorcerers when there isn't a need to balance other aspects of the game like races?

[TickTockMan]

I definitely think mages retain all the good stuff that sets them apart, and I am all for refinement. I just did not see a problem with them as they existed previously. I did not think of them in terms of idiom though. My focus was less on the idiom of "mage" and more on the what each character was an individual level.

But then a game designer and author has to operate on a more macro scale anyway, and I should be focused on the character level as a GM.

At the end of the day, mages are still scary, strange and powerful, especially when you factor in the potential of Abstraction and Summoning. They are even more versatile than they were before. Most importantly, they still seem like a blast to play.

[friartuck]

weh. This is what my ears hear from mage players in general: "Weh. I'm super powerful! I'm super human! Why can't I break the game and make you all sit around while I do everything myself. Weh."


Hear, hear. Being a mage ought to be tough. Powerful spells should be hard to cast and the consequences significant. I'm thrilled with the new iteration.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Seriously guys, wizards have not really been toned down. Take a look at the Duels of Sorcery, Artillery and Steel section on page 222 of the system book. Now imagine a wizard with a Sight Origin Destroyer spell in Range and Cover!

[Redoid]

Seriously guys, wizards have not really been toned down. Take a look at the Duels of Sorcery, Artillery and Steel section on page 222 of the system book. Now imagine a wizard with a Sight Origin Destroyer spell in Range and Cover!

Eheh, of course, you have chosen the best possible case, where the wizard has ample time to see its adversary coming. In which case, he's most assuredly toast, unless he has ranged weapons and the sense to knock the wizard out I think the concern was not over fighting ability of wizard, was it? I have no problem with high obstacles for taking out people with lightning, if only because enemy mages are as inclined to cast these spells in detrimental ways on PC as they are. So having mages as artillery platform is a dangerous game :) We'll soon see, as I will redo Ethanias with the revised rules, how can a wizard built specifically for killing can hold its own in the Arena, where we won't benefit from the added advantage of Range and Cover.

[Thor Olavsrud]

It's not really about being an artillery platform. Just pointing out that Wizards now have substantial NEW power under the new rules. Being a wizard in melee range can be bad news. Just as it was in Classic. It's a position you don't want to be in. However, if you are, it is essential to control the position. You want some good 1 or 2 Action spells and to make sure that they grant you some Positioning dice. Make sure you have a good Speed too.

However, wizards really shine outside of the Fight! mechanics, when there isn't time pressure. One ting everybody should notice is that casting Carefully and Patiently is not quite as limited as it used to be. You can add a fair number of dice to both the casting test and the Tax test, assuming you have the time to spare.

Imagine a wizard with Will 5, Sorcery 5, and Forte 5. His henchman have captured some guy (Will 4), and he wants to turn the guy into his willing slave with the Force of Will spell. Let's say the sorcerer is none too bright, and doesn't torture the guy first in order to lower his Will.

The spell will be Ob 10 and 133 actions (about 2.5 minutes, give or take). So the wizard needs 10 successes on 10 open-ended dice to cast the spell, and 10 successes on 5 regular dice to fight off The Sickness. Hard, right? If he casts Carefully and Patiently, he can add up to 5 dice to his casting roll and up to 5 dice for his Tax test!

He now needs 10 successes on 15 open-ended dice and 10 successes on 10 regular dice to fight off the Sickness. Hopefully, he has some Fate handy to open the sixes. He'll probably be Taxed a few dice of Forte after, but chances are he'll still be standing, or at least won't take too much damage. :twisted:

The spell will take 7,980 actions or roughly 1.5 hours, give or take.

[Redoid]

However, wizards really shine outside of the Fight! mechanics, when there isn't time pressure. One ting everybody should notice is that casting Carefully and Patiently is not quite as limited as it used to be. You can add a fair number of dice to both the casting test and the Tax test, assuming you have the time to spare.


Yeah, but you used to reduce obstacle, now you merely add dice!


Imagine a wizard with Will 5, Sorcery 5, and Forte 5. His henchman have captured some guy (Will 4), and he wants to turn the guy into his willing slave with the Force of Will spell. Let's say the sorcerer is none too bright, and doesn't torture the guy first in order to lower his Will.

The spell will be Ob 10 and 133 actions (about 2.5 minutes, give or take). So the wizard needs 10 successes on 10 open-ended dice to cast the spell, and 10 successes on 5 regular dice to fight off The Sickness. Hard, right? If he casts Carefully and Patiently, he can add up to 5 dice to his casting roll and up to 5 dice for his Tax test!

He now needs 10 successes on 15 open-ended dice and 10 successes on 10 regular dice to fight off the Sickness. Hopefully, he has some Fate handy to open the sixes. He'll probably be Taxed a few dice of Forte after, but chances are he'll still be standing, or at least won't take too much damage. :twisted:

The spell will take 7,980 actions or roughly 1.5 hours, give or take.

10 successes on 15 open-ended dice has a probability of happening of around 30%, and on 10 regular dice of 0,1%. On average, the tax test will be failed by 3.

In the old version, confronted to the same problem, the wizard would cast patiently and carefully to halve the obstacle for casting, and lower the obstacle to tax by 3. It would take 9,975 actions (OK, slightly longer) and he would have to face an ob 5 casting and and ob 7 tax.

5 successes on 10 open-ended dice happens more than 80% of the time. The tax test will fail, on average, by 5.

So, with the old rules, one could expect, by taking his time, to be successful a lot more often than now, at more risks since the "tax decreasing effect" was capped at 3.

I am not arguing against the lowering of the effectiveness of taking one's time, just pointing out the probabilities in a more readable manner. (I admit, I love the feel of dice pools, but I suck at intuitively know the probability, so I calculate it often).