[OOC] General Discussion

[Yuul]

I think they are directed at new Guilded tome, and Beez's definitely magic intensive necromantic district.

[TheMagicalMick]

Yeah, if the magic level of the game rises, I might have to drop a bit more money into personal magic items to counteract it as well as a larger group of magic users in my military.

[sanitas infirma]

My concern is actually spread around - despite Paizo doing to arcane spellcasters what an iceberg did to the Titanic, I did not plan on Malachi being an arcane power outside of the Grey District, and I never saw the north as hosting more than a few wizardly npc colleagues for Malachi to deal with. To be fair, I also did not foresee the Isle of Ice as a force to contend with, the establishment of a magical college, or the mass reanimation of undead being portrayed neutrally, which brings us to where we are.

I think the core of the matter is flavor and balance - magic should not lose its mystery or allure in a fantasy game, and nothing should come without cost.

 

To address flavor, how are we to think of magic when we might only a few steps away from lightning railways and skyships? I think that Pendragon hit the nail on the head by making PC classes cost 50gp per level and capping them at our level minus two - the solution is to keep it rare and expensive. All district leaders should have the wealth and the influence to have access - we are the leaders of a nation after all. That said, powerful casters and magical items are clearly rare and not easily available (even if you could find someone to teleport you about, or someone who can craft a a flying broom for you, they're hardly likely to break from their studies to demean themselves by working for vulgar coin).

In short, while there are no doubt npc casters within the magically inclined districts making their magical industries work, they probably do not work directly for us: we handwave the Gilded Tome as having wizardly professors, the Isle of Ice having its sorcerous tribes so that the setting works, and so on, but these individuals do not work for us, must be persuaded rather than ordered about, and generally have little ambition beyond living quiet lives. This has the advantage of making magical districts possible without giving the owners exorbitant expenses or overwhelming power, and if we say that magical talent is even more scarce and mistrusted outside of these districts then the overall effect should be rarity and wonder.

This brings us to balance. While scarcity will help somewhat, I think that the only way to prevent abuse is to observe the laws of Equal Exchange and Unintended Consequences - nothing should come free, especially when tampering with fundamental and mysterious forces of the universe, and unwary magic users should find that carelessly forcing changes in their favor should bring less desirable changes down on them like a ton of bricks.

If I might borrow from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and Sepulchrave's Tales of the Wyre story hour, the reason casters are probably rare and feared is because of the atrocities magic is capable of against the unmagical and against themselves - wars between sorcerers leave nations where nothing will ever grow again; the aftershocks of ancient fanatical druids have scoured entire continents clean of settlements to preserve the sanctity of nature; and clerics have led good men after bad by the millions into war and slaughter all for the veneration of distant gods. The result is a fragile balance - plenty of non-magical folk see the imperative in dealing with any caster before disaster strikes, and a large enough mob will give most casters pause for thought. Responsible casters watch each other carefully to prevent harm, to anyone from malicious casters and to the magical community from the non-magical community when fear, ignorance, and the acts of malicious casters prompt indiscriminate violence. Gods can intervene directly to further their agenda but probably do not as part of some divine detente - the world may be host for the games of gods, but they voluntarily limit themselves to avoid serious risk to themselves and the world (divine agendas are well and fine but no god, good or evil, wants to compete in a clash where there lack of limits could mean their own destruction - caution and mortal agents are key).

More specifically, problematic magic should be met with problems that limit it. If a district that utilizes undead labor starts having too many undead for the game to remain balanced, perhaps the diffuse negative energy that undead generate starts to blight crops and cause spontaneous reanimation of uncontrolled undead, or perhaps political and social forces come into effect (a mob of peasants angry about skeletons taking their jobs leaps to mind). If Malachi binds and coerces too many outsiders into service, perhaps he eventually draw negative attention from planar powers (the Heavens take a dim view on demon summoning, and the Infernal bureaucracy would probably take umbrage at its own servants being called away from their appointed tasks), or perhaps a rival wizard sets up in the north and attempts to challenge his rule. If the Gilded Tome starts making cheap or dangerous magical items, perhaps they start to fall into the wrong hands and blame lands with the district, or perhaps some research at the magical college goes horribly wrong and results in some magical turmoil. If druids in the Western Forest start enlisting too many powerful fey or magical beasts, perhaps they draw some of the more dangerous creatures to their woods as well, or perhaps some of their allies start to take issue with the logging operations in their district.

These are just my thoughts and musings, mind you, and none of it actually has to be implemented. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, I would love to hear them.

[sjsilver]

Edit TL DR All that to say, I don't think we need to worry about magic in the setting if we cross that bridge we can worry about it then. And I intend for the island of ice to get all the more scary to mainland Tylanis as I work on it. Any issues you have specifically about the island or concerns like too much tribal magic bring up and perhaps help suggest other ideas and perhaps you'll give me a new avenue to explore.

So very good, all-be-it long post Sanitas, I think you have alleviated a lot of you own fear by explaining possible repercussions of abusing magic I mean just as many repercussion should occur if you a have huge mundane army and you go around trying to strong arm everyone. I think Pendragon is more then capable of keeping the game interesting magic or no, high fantasy or no.

 

My post begun to get long.

While we have said that raising of the dead is "neutral" in Beez district there is nothing stopping people from saying it's just unnatural. I would be VERY surprised if Neqq's character did not see it as dangerous and unnatural and worthy of scorn, plague or no.

1 wizard might be able to cast fireballs at range but with 200 archers all firing at a general target area you have 200 men (lvl 1 commonders) firing at say longbow can fire at a target 1000 ft away which happens to be the range of a lvl 18 wizard or sorcerer casting fireball. and sill do ~10d8 damage which more damage then a fireball. Natural 20s auto hit, so even with the -20 pentaly from range increments of the 200 men some 10 or so of them should land on the mage. Ok sure you have protection form arrows but my example still very much stands. Numbers > magic users.

Quick fix if magic get truly out of control for the setting

Magibane Ore (place holder name)

This strange and rare ore produces an antimagic field as per the spell. The radios of the field is directly proportional to the weight of the ore. For every 10 pounds of the ore it projects a 1ft anti magic field.

So with a 2000 pound lump of ore, roughly the size of a car you can produce a 200 ft anti magic field.

Wizard problem solved. Even in a high fantasy setting having a relatively mundane way of dealing with magic users solves a lot of the issues.

Hell same thing could perhaps be made into a tonic / poison that when drunk / gets into the blood stream prevents the drinking individual from casting spells for say 24 hours no save outside of some for of perception check to know what they are drinking before doing so.

- - - -

I think some of your issues stem from the new / remade district and I understand that, I want to say while there are sorcerers and shamans in the north is more of a tribal term then a mechanical term. They are simply mystical leaders of there peoples sure some of them have some real power behind them but that's nothing too crazy.

Pendragon specifically mentioned that I should change my focus away from banking and towards either trade competition perhaps something that competes with neqqs ship yards which seems really impossible given the size and location of district 2 it's just not a route I took. Or towards magic. I went the magic route but with more of a savage wilds twist. I get it thought, I understand district 2 previously had no player character development and was not something terribly frightening, honestly if the island doesn't have you worried I'm doing a bad job because I'm not making a district that you see / respect as a formidable force to deal with in the setting. Expect the district to get scarier if I can make it work at all. Think about the kind of leader that would be needed to get all these barbarian peoples to work together / bend the knee to them. What I will say is that I as a player have limitations to what is on that island and how scary I can make it for anyone. Pendragon when there was no player can my that place a hell on earth for just about everyone. Sill could. So its a bit of the devil you know verse the devil you don't.

While writing up a new district is fun I was very pleased with the work I did with von Ruuth and will be sad to not play that character (literally putting months of time into development). However, I do not see the island of ice as being a locus of trade and viable location for me to relocated my banking / trade master theme. Therefore for now, I'm going to say the course and make up a new district.

If Beez was up for a trade of districts I would be willing to swap back to the von Ruuth family and just remove my banks from other districts, that could then become more of a long term goal for my character spreading branches of the bank to other districts rather then something I started out with. But this is only a viable solution if it makes everyone in the game happy and I think that would negatively impact Beez concepts though and that is absolutely not fair. I'm plenty happy just writing up a new district, the act of creation is very enjoyable to me.

[Beez]

Sorry, I disappeared for a bit there, school overtook me. I haven't gone away though, still here. I'll look through the new posts and remark tomorrow likely.

Responding to what I caught so far, yes, I fully expect to be the social pariah of the group. And if my magic starts becoming too powerful I'm all for toning it down a few notches.

Silver, I think I could pull off a district trade. I'm sure I could figure out something with regards to food, probably underwater farming (undead don't need to breathe) or the like. Being on the island of ice would make for a good separation between me and everybody else too, which makes a good excuse for the plague to not have spread and for everyone to feel just a little more secure about the distance between them and the undead abominations.

[sjsilver]

Originally Posted by Beez

Sorry, I disappeared for a bit there, school overtook me. I haven't gone away though, still here. I'll look through the new posts and remark tomorrow likely.

Responding to what I caught so far, yes, I fully expect to be the social pariah of the group. And if my magic starts becoming too powerful I'm all for toning it down a few notches.

Silver, I think I could pull off a district trade. I'm sure I could figure out something with regards to food, probably underwater farming (undead don't need to breathe) or the like. Being on the island of ice would make for a good separation between me and everybody else too, which makes a good excuse for the plague to not have spread and for everyone to feel just a little more secure about the distance between them and the undead abominations.

I think at this point I've spent enough time on making the island as a district that I'm fine staying the course. Continue working under the presumption that you are district 8 unless we hear otherwise from Pendragon. I'm very pleased where I've come in the past week of work on the island and will be happy to play as either Cthuun or Lissandra.

Think I'll leave it to Pendragon as to if he'd rather another trade / banking centered district or one that is more of a isolated tribal groups with a mysterious origin.

[TheMagicalMick]

I must have missed something in the discussions. How is Beez getting undead anyway? Adepts need to be level 8 to cast level 3 spells and we can't have anybody over level 7... plus how do you get undead to do things like farming, anyway? Zombies and Skeletons have no Intelligence score and can only perform simple tasks once verbally commanded, no? Like.. "stay, follow, guard, attack" or whatnot.

Sorry if this has already been discussed.

[Yuul]

I believe Pendragon told us to stop at the 8th rank on the enlisted ranks, that would make them 8th level. 4.5gp/month though.

It's PC levels that can't go over 7.

And while he may or may not have to pay the skeletons, though depending on the route I would motion for at least militia pay to family members, he'd still have to pay to equip them. Furthermore going outside the bounds of volunteers or forced criminals(hell of a death penalty) could be seen as breaking whatever legally allows him to raise them. I don't know...

[sjsilver]

I believe he negotiate to have lesser animate dead as a spell for adepts as a 2nd level spell so they would only need to be level 4-5 adepts each controlling between 16 and 20 HD of zombie and skeleton "farmers." I think non intellegent undead can be give more complicated tasks just nothing mind blowing I don't think, dig here or push the plow back and forth is anything out of the realm of realism for a skeleton or zombie to preform just would require a great deal of supervision any time you wanted them to change from one simple task to another. That said you could have 1-3 adepts basically running an entire farm / plantation with ~60 undead farmhands.

[Beez]

Yes, I negotiated into Lesser Animate Dead. And yeah, simple commands given by the level 4? Adepts should be enough to get them to farm, long as the Adepts micromanage well. I'll figure something out for the skeletons, I'm liking the payment to family portion, though maybe a lower amount than if they were living. I'll come up with something semi-fair.

[Pendragon]

Just letting you all know I am letting this play out. I am reading everything.

I will allow a swap, but only if both parties want to do it, but it sounds like sj has become attached to his new district.

You guys have the power to change anything you want, just let me know so I can edit the things that need it.

[Yuul]

So to bring up my previous long buried proposal for a district GDP table, and expanding it with publicly known counts for Standing Military and Militia, something Pen could put into the info thread.

This good or bad?

Naturally all secretly secreted forces would not be listed.

[sanitas infirma]

Militia pay to families as part contractually purchasing bodies is a nice idea, and explains why dirt-poor farmers might would sign up if it meant income for their surviving relatives. Alternately, the adepts might simply charge that amount for loaning out the undead under their control.

Arming them shouldn't be much of a problem: human skeletons start out with AC 14 from dexterity and natural armor, so studded leather and a large shield will have them up to 19 cheaply. As for attacks, they have 2 claws and clubs are free, so that shouldn't be a problem either. The savings in equipment can go toward offsetting the cost of onyx, which I imagine will be a large upfront cost (once the savings in wages and revenue from undead labor starts coming it in should be easy to finance the creation of new undead).

Also, there should should probably be an onyx mine somewhere just to explain where the supply comes from. Having it in Beez's district would make sense, but having it in a nearby district that depends upon importing food would be just as good if Beez does not have the funds for it.

[Pendragon]

@ Yuul - I think doing a google doc would work better. A spreadsheet that you all can edit, it will make editing easier when events happen. I will have it up by the end of the weekend.

[Yuul]

So how is everything coming? Whether it be that spreadsheet, sjsilver and beez's apps, and life in general?