Somna

That's actually the same in my example. A mage that maintains eg. fire portals that heat furnaces, or the golems/zombies/mind controlled peasants that work is a distinct, separate class of worker. Not quite. You're providing examples of what a day job version could be. What I'm saying is that those options are unlikely to exist if the wages are too low compared to what a spellcaster would be able to get casting a spell for someone else -- a silver vs. gold level of difference normally.

For the same reason most people are. Not every person practicing magic has to be a wanderer, changing the world. Plenty of people would like an opportunity to have an honest day job, place to live in and grub to chow. The key thing here though, is if it is more profitable for the mage to simply sell spellcasting services or something else over having a day job that he augments with magic. For something like D&D, manual labor is significantly cheaper than magic, and it is still more cost effective to spend money on laborers than using it on magic to do it for you.

Unique Class/Discipline defining powers for Psionics (i.e. I'm just picking a few, they aren't the only ones): So... Psionists have different spell lists? Psionics is a magic system, not a class. I read Doppleschwert's comment as asking how the spell list was different because it sounded like he wanted an idea of how the magic is flavored. So I listed examples for him. Psionics isn't a class in the link, it's a magic system. Your request is the equivalent of asking someone to compare Arcane Magic to a Cleric. Please look through morrow1nd's link first.

Just check Pazio's '' Psionics Unleashed '' then you will have good idea mate.. too long to explain for me ==>> http://www.d20pfsrd....onics-unleashed That's basically the same as I've seen in the NWN mod. Wizards with mp instead of vancian magic and at glance I can't find any spells that wizards don't have. I don't really want to read through all of that stuff to spot the differences, so it would be kind if anyone went into the detail about how wizards are different from psionic class. Unique Class/Discipline defining powers for Psionics (i.e. I'm just picking a few, they aren't the only ones): Metacreativity: Astral Construct (A Make-Your-Own-Monster power valid across all levels) Clairsentience: Hypercognition (Give me an answer to my question, no side effects.) Psychometabolism: Fusion (Exactly what the power says it does) Psychokinesis: Fiery Discorporation (If you're close to a fire and use this, make a will saving throw if an attack will drop you to 0 HP or lower. Success = you don't exist for a day, come back at the closest fire from where you discorporated from after.) Psychoportation: Mass Time Hop (Have everyone affected skip X hours.) Telepathy: Psychic Chirurgery (Super-cure for all mental effects, negative levels and ability damage/drain, can give another psionic user extra powers.) These are all in the Discipline Specific Powerspage. More general powers that are unique IMO and not just psionic analogues (like Breach vs. Knock) include: Assimilate Shadow Body Decerebrate (instant death that isn't instant death) Fuse Flesh (read it, it's disgusting what it does to the target.) Personality Parasite Correspond Touchsight Feat Leech Sense Link Synesthete And this is just the Psion/Wilder list.

I'm grossly over-simplifying here, but from the known information, we do know or suspect the following: Rangers - Ranged weapon specialists Paladins - Martial Cheerleaders Wizards - Will be storing their prepared spells in tomes to use instead of the other way around. Priests - Narrowly focused battle-casters with a penchant for buffs and guns Druids - ??? Fighters - Jack of all Trades for weapons -- not as effective as a specialist when dealing with a situation that caters to the specialist, but better at things overall. Rogues - Hit and run shadowy assassins Barbarian - Raging warrior that can mitigate stamina damage taken while raging Ciphers - Soul puppeteers and mind mages. Think Enchanter/Psion, only more so. Chanters - Bards that don't have to concentrate on singing/playing to do so, but are limited to one AE buff at a time. Monk - ???

As long as Obsidian truly "decides." As in, it becomes an actual decision-making process and not just "let's use what's been done in the past." A lot of the fears stem from the lack of thinking that has gone into making those classes in the first place. I really find the poll interesting. The two classes that have not been voted for are the monk and the barbarian. It's too early to tell, but the poll is indicating towards those classes needing some major "thinking about and decision making." Not necessarily. In the monk's case at the very least, the class is distinctive enough for someone to explicitly not vote for it.

I have a hard time deciding. Currently it's a flip between: Cipher Chanter Paladin (That "like the Warlord class" comment has me VERY curious.)

Here's the blurb on the fighter from Marceror's information thread for reference:

I'm thinking in the realm of "it depends." If they include must-have spells like Stoneskin, then absolutely there needs to be expensive material components, and in limited quantities so people don't just keep spells like that up 24/7. If they don't have anything like that, I don't see any particular reason to have expensive material components other than for a quest to help an NPC.

It'll be interesting if Cipher magic is in the form of encrypting and decrypting information, or creating some sort of mathe-magical formula and putting in the user as the variable.

As someone who played it, I can tell you that none of the written descriptions tell you that you can also equip the skills from the other weapons while using your primary. You just may not necessarily be as effective if it focused on stats not focused by your fighter class. (Edit: You can always gear to try to compensate though.) That's where the similarity comes in to play.

Osvir: I'm 99% sure you are thinking of something like the Armoury System for FFXIV.

Given what they've said so far, I'm inclined to believe that there is no such thing as a "non-caster" in P:E (unless you have no soul). The only problem is wrapping our brains around how Fighters and Rogues are going to draw on their soul. If I'd have to guess, I'd say fighters will get to pick abilities like Whirlwind, while Rogues would probably get more shadow-themed abilities.

Ugh.... You've just described Icewind Dale 2's Fell Wood, only instead of portals they had.... er... I don't remember what they had. Knowedge of how to get deeper into the wood, I think. Followed by defeating some ghostlights in order to leave or some such. [...] I was wondering where I got that thought from. Towns make good dungeons too, especially with the illusion of being able to leave at any time spurring the party further if they stumble on something strange.

It's going to REALLY depend on how souls and magic are intertwined. If souls are actually your "fuel" for your magic, pretty much anything goes. Then it's a question of whether it's a finite fuel or not, or if will damage your soul using it this way. If soul-based magic is more about imposing a different state on a soul, it's still going to depend on if souls are said to exist in non-sentient objects and background and if you can create a soul or not (and how). For example, you could easily say that the wind has a soul, and your soul-based magic changes the soul of the wind to force a windblast on your opponent. Or maybe you could also say that you break off a infinitessimal piece of your soul to create a fire, providing the soul for the flames that burn or explode. (Now where that bit of soul goes when you're done is a different story.) I'm sure there are other possibilities. Just because it is soul based magic doesn't mean it is necessarily restrictive.

It's because people take what works, then build on it. It does sound like you'd like how some Psionic powers worked in 3.5 D&D though. It's a point system for "power" (the Psionic "mana") where you start with a base power cost on a spell, and then can tack on augmentations to boost what it does. For example, here's Psionic Charm. The base power costs 1 power point. You can choose to spend more power points on it to augment it in the following manner: If you spend 2 additional power points, this power can also affect an animal, fey, giant, magical beast, or monstrous humanoid. If you spend 4 additional power points, this power can also affect an aberration, dragon, elemental, or outsider in addition to the creature types mentioned above. If you spend 4 additional power points, this power’s duration increases to one day per level. So if you spent an extra 8 power points, you make it also affect up to 4 different types of creatures on top of humanoids and extend the duration to 1 day/level. On top of that, if you spend it on those effects, you also increase how hard it is to resist.

I'd think I'd like the bottom floor to be several thousand feet in the air...coupled with the realization that the entire dungeon and its immediate surroundings are actually floating in the air as an invisible floating island. You teleported in by walking in the doorway of the ground version of the area, which does not actually have a dungeon below it.

Forest "dungeon." You're magically tossed into the middle of a forboding forest shrouded in mist. You can go wherever you like in the forest but the exit involves triggering several keystones at the same time to activate a portal to leave. Trying to leave in a more mundane manner simply has you circle back to where you started. You can only get in with at least 3 people, however. Elemental Air "dungeon." More of a gravity maze. You can float around, but down is up or right or left, depending on what part of the maze you're in. Combat, as a result, is awkward, and your goal is just to GTFO ASAP. You can spend a round to stop moving and re-orient yourself, but as soon as you stop concentrating, it's free fall time all over again.

I'm a fan of the Archetype system Pathfinder threw in, where you can adjust the default class template with a different flavored set of abilities. Here's the fighter ones for example. They also have one for Races and a pseudo-point buy of sorts for racial features, but I hear designing one from scratch is a little broken, although I don't know specifically why. It changes the Prestige Classes/Multi-class thought from a "must have" to a much more optional situation.

OK. Normal wizard casts Shocking Grasp. Normal wizard attacks target, hits, and discharges Shocking Grasp. Rune Magic wizard casts Shocking Grasp with the trigger of "When this hits something" and places it on...a dagger. (An arrow would probably have too small of a surface area to take the rune) Rune Magic wizard throws at or stabs the target with the dagger and successfully hits, discharging Shocking Grasp. Normal wizard casts Stoneskin Stoneskin is cast. Rune Magic wizard casts Stoneskin, on the trigger of saying a trigger word, on his armor/clothes. Rune Magic wizard says the trigger word later, causing Stoneskin to activate. Focus magic, gameplay-wise, would be casting twice as fast unless the spell's already really fast, before you consider any other benefits it may be applying. And if you get disarmed or your focus is broken, you can't cast anything until you equip another one. You could do that, but a lot of people would rather just not cast it until you needed to in the first place and not have any loss at all. The Rune Magic and Focus magic thoughts came because of the hint that wearing armor would slow down spellcasting speed. So as a result, you'd either slow it down some more and not care because you're pre-applying spells you think you will need anyway or speed it up to counter the speed penalty from casting.

That's not quite what I mean. Let's grab how spellcasting from AD&D works as a base, since that's what the IE games were pretty much based off of -- 1. Combine components (Verbal, Somatic, Material/Focus) 2. Finish casting spell (the "cast time") 3. Effect goes off. Rune Magic changes that order to something like this for ALL your spells (i.e. you don't have the option to cast the normal way): 1. Combine components (Verbal, Somatic, Material) 2. Apply Trigger effect ("when I hit someone" or "when I am hit" for common options) 3. Finish casting spell (At least twice as long as a normal spell) 4. Effect goes off when triggered Focus Magic, on the other hand, alter it this way (think Harry Potter) for all your spells: 1. Combine components (Verbal, Somatic) 2. Finish casting spell (at a faster speed than normal or Rune Magic) 3. Effect goes off. Cooperative Magic is a bit more tactical then a specialty, yes. As far as I've seen, it usually gets implemented either as a feat or as a prestige class ability, so I guess having that as a style of magic doesn't quite count. I probably shouldn't have used "specialization" since it already has a pre-defined meaning in D&D with Specialist Wizards that specialize in schools of magic, which is definitely NOT what I was trying to go for.

For bashing heads in, yes.

I'm wondering if it would be interesting to have magic styles/specialties in the game. By this, I don't mean something like "Arcane Magic" or "Divine Magic" or "Fire Magic" where it is a category. Something I'm defining as a "style" would be a bit more about how you do it rather than what kind of magic it is. Some examples of what I mean: Rune Magic - (Delayed spells) Cast spells by putting magic in a rune and discharge it later, with a limit to the runes you can have active. Focus magic - (Channeled spells) Cast spells through a focus for a benefit on the spell (maybe more damage or harder to resist), but you have to have a focus in order to cast anything Cooperative magic - Team up with another spellcaster. If you both cast specific kinds of spells in sequence or at the same time, get complementary or boosted results. Any thoughts?

And then you have landscapes where it's super pretty...and then you pass another spot and realize it's the exact same map, only rotated 90 degrees.

Zanpakutous are simply intelligent Weapons of Legacy that use Incarnum.