Tomes are lame

[Xienzi]

The only way I could see a Sorcerer in Pillars is if their spells used a different kind of Soul Arts that destroyed fragments of their own soul instead of just drawing from it or the environment.  I don't think that would work very well, though.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Xienzi

[PrimeJunta]

I like the grimoire. The mechanic itself – switchable lists of spells you cast sorcerer-style – combines the best of the wizard and sorcerer classes, while the grimoire provides a convenient in-game peg to hang it on. Plus you can slam people with it.

 

Plus if you really don't like the idea, there are plenty of magic-using grimoire-less classes to go with, even if they're not all that wizardly. Cypher, chanter, priest, druid...

[Calmar]

 

I see no point in Mage being Sorcerer. Cipher is like Sorcerer, albeit with a unique set of 'spells' (and whole lot different source for their powers).

 

 

Soul Magic is supposed to be tough to handle or grasp so the Mages help themselves by deciphering complex codes, embedding them in those specially prepared tomes. Nothing lame about that, they are cool in that they are the only ones who can manipulate the vast, chaotic soul magic and bring it in some orderly form.

 

Ciphers seem like psionics to me, mostly mindy powers, not the stuff you find on the standard wizard spell list.

 

 

If you don't want to learn your spells from nerdy books, they automatically end up mindy, don't you think? Where else should your spells and your knowledge of them come from? Unless you are happy to play a druid or priestess as a wizard. 

[Mr Moonlight]

 

If you don't want to learn your spells from nerdy books, they automatically end up mindy, don't you think? Where else should your spells and your knowledge of them come from? Unless you are happy to play a druid or priestess as a wizard. 

 

I meant mind-y like they affect the opponants mind, not stuff like cone of cold.

[Nonek]

I like the grimoire spell mechanic myself, just not enchanted with using it as a weapon, for obvious reasons. If the slam were a forceful closing of the book that produced a burst of arcane power, at the loss of some per encounter uses perhaps, then i'd be fine with it. As a weapon however i'm not impressed.

 

Still it's a little thing, and nothing to really deter one.

[Stun]

I'm not too fond of carrying grimoires into battle myself and I always thought wands were truly pathetic, and became even more so with the advent of Harry Trotter. Two Wizards having twig battles has always struck me as extraordinarily naff,

Thankfully, this game will also have Rods and Scepters, so such brawls might at least see 2 twig wielders battling out with different-looking twigs!

[Shadenuat]

 

I like being magic, not a nerd.

Books not hip enough for modern spellcasters.

 

I fail to believe OP is not some sort of very creative troll.

[Stun]

Er.. I meant that I see wizards as some nerd with a book, that the book is where the power is and I couldn't care less about the chump holding it. And since I can't play as the book I don't want to be the chump wizard.

I suppose that due to the culture-changing popularity of the Harry potter series, this is how people view Mages nowadays. But it didn't use to be like that.

 

Not too long ago, mages were not seen as weaklings hiding behind their toys, so much as ultra-powerful, miracle workers with long beards, who could... you know... part the Red Sea, utter devastating ancient curses against whole civilizations, and raise armies of the dead to do their bidding, even as they live out their solitary existence in giant foreboding towers that no sane person would dare try to tresspass.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Stun

[Tamerlane]

Now I'm curious: how many RPGs out there are good at letting you play an "ice sorceress"?

 

The old IE games are out, of course. Not enough ice spells; you're not going to play with nothing but chill touch and cone of cold. NWN 1 and 2 have a few more cold spells, but I don't think those will really carry you, either. The Elder Scrolls is in, especially back when you could make your own spells.

[Hormalakh]

All mages in DnD were book reading nerdlings, that was part of the lore. Harry potter being a Mage is the exact same as DnD mages in that they both were nerds. Harry potter just had a wand. Both wizards all had to study many years to learn that stuff. Mechanically, the DnD mages had to memorize spells each night to use the next day. That means, the night before, they were reading up on their books.

 

Sorcerors had innate talent and this was the difference between them and mages.

 

Let's make sure we're all on the same page first before making crazy incorrect assumptions about DnD, Harry potter, and whatever else.

 

this game doesn't have sorcerors because they didn't want to fund a twelfth class. Maybe future games will allow such classes to exist. I can still see it as feasible from a lore perspective. But as it currently stands, both DnD mages and Poe mages required books. One memorized the spells the night before, the other reads off the spell as he casts it.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Mr Moonlight]

Not sure why several people are all like, "must be because OP likes X/Y/Z thing".

[Stun]

Now I'm curious: how many RPGs out there are good at letting you play an "ice sorceress"?

 

The old IE games are out, of course. Not enough ice spells; you're not going to play with nothing but chill touch and cone of cold. NWN 1 and 2 have a few more cold spells, but I don't think those will really carry you, either. The Elder Scrolls is in, especially back when you could make your own spells.

Icewind dale 2 lets you come close:

 

It's got:

 

1) Chill Touch

2) Snilloc's Snowball Swarm

3) Icelance

4) Ice Storm

5) Otiluke's Freezing sphere

6) Fireshield (blue)

7) Cone of Cold

 

And, you can multi-class anything, so one's "ice Sorceress" could take a couple of druid levels in order to add Frost Fingers, Ice blade, and Ice Dagger to her arsenal. And of course, rounding out the build with adequate weapons is a given. So equip returning frost darts, Glacial Darts, frost Axe and ice axes, and that Frost Dragon Helm, and there you go, a virtually viable Ice Sorceress build....for the suicidal glutton-for-punishment player.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Stun

[Mr Moonlight]

Now I'm curious: how many RPGs out there are good at letting you play an "ice sorceress"?

 

The old IE games are out, of course. Not enough ice spells; you're not going to play with nothing but chill touch and cone of cold. NWN 1 and 2 have a few more cold spells, but I don't think those will really carry you, either. The Elder Scrolls is in, especially back when you could make your own spells.

Very few actually, which is why I'm always eager to find more. Skyrim has been the best I've played so far, Morrowind too especially with Bloodmoon.

[rjshae]

One thing that's always bothered me since getting into RPGs, especially Dungeons & Dragons-styled ones both on paper and in computer form, is the magic-casting class being tied to a spellbook, wand, or some other physical object. It just seems like I'm playing just some chump with an encyclopedia rather than a powerful mage with magic and all that jazz.

 

The book, wand or other physical object is a 'focus'; a game-balancing limitation that provides a point of weakness in exchange for the class flexibility. Yes, D&D sorcerers don't have that weakness, but they also don't have anything like the same flexibility. An analogy might be PC games vs. Consoles: PCs have the limitation of requiring a keyboard and mouse for input devices, but look at how flexible they are in terms of what you can do with them.

[Stun]

All mages in DnD were book reading nerdlings,

Oh, I wouldn't call Halaster Blackcloak or Khelbin Arunson "nerdlings".

[600lbpanther]

Mages may or may not be inherently nerdy but us guys and gals arguing over the semantics of how to classify and label a stereotypical "mage" certainly are.

Edited April 19, 2014 by 600lbpanther

[rjshae]

This game doesn't have sorcerors because they didn't want to fund a twelfth class. Maybe future games will allow such classes to exist. I can still see it as feasible from a lore perspective. But as it currently stands, both DnD mages and Poe mages required books. One memorized the spells the night before, the other reads off the spell as he casts it.

 

If they did that, I think I'd like to see more of a flavor difference between Wizards and Sorcerers than we had in D&D. The latter might have fewer 'spells', but they should have more flexibility in how they use them. Possibly like Chanters, or the Warlock class from NWN2.

[ManifestedISO]

One thing that's always bothered me is the magic-casting class being tied to a spellbook

 

I was severly disappointed after hearing that the source of magic comes from the soul

 

 

Doesn't this seem contradictory, or am I reading with ironic glasses, again.

[Mr Moonlight]

 

One thing that's always bothered me is the magic-casting class being tied to a spellbook

 

I was severly disappointed after hearing that the source of magic comes from the soul

 

 

Doesn't this seem contradictory, or am I reading with ironic glasses, again.

 

Oh, sorry. Sloppy grammar there. I meant I was disappointed that wizards worked with grimoirs and vancian D&D casting because it seemed contradictory to the root of magic coming from the soul, a more poetic/intuitive sorceror-like theme.

[rjshae]

 

 

One thing that's always bothered me is the magic-casting class being tied to a spellbook

 

I was severly disappointed after hearing that the source of magic comes from the soul

 

 

Doesn't this seem contradictory, or am I reading with ironic glasses, again.

 

Oh, sorry. Sloppy grammar there. I meant I was disappointed that wizards worked with grimoirs and vancian D&D casting because it seemed contradictory to the root of magic coming from the soul, a more poetic/intuitive sorceror-like theme.

 

 

All classes are supposed to have abilities that come from the soul, but they all have a different mechanic for employing it. I.e. they all have some type of constraints on what they can do and how they do it.

[PrimeJunta]

I like the "logic" of the soul magic too as a matter of fact. Souls are raw power, but it needs to be shaped. Different classes do this in different ways. Monks through physical pain (wounds), cyphers through intense concentration in combat (focus), chanters through their voice, and wizards through their intellect. A grimoire is a natural extension for an intellectual type.

 

Unlike most systems, I can actually imagine what it would be like to be each of these magic-using classes, and how the experience of using magic would be different for each of them. That's pretty damn cool IMO.

[teknoman2]

 

if you read the known lore, you will see that magic in PE is based on soul power. paladins expand their own soul to create auras, clerics use their faith to draw power from their soul to cast spells, ciphers directly affect the souls of others, wizards use crystalized souls embeded into books, druids use the power leaking from the souls of all living beings that is floating around etc.

I mentioned soul power in the OP, but the point is, for the wizard class it isn't the wizard's soul that's the fuel for the power and there's no class that uses the wizard spell list that does feature fluff like the Sorceror class in D&D with souls fit in.

 

that is the point. wizards do not use their own soul's power or anyone else's. as i understand it, the spell is not an actual series of words, but something like a tribal design painted on a book with soul shards embeded in the pages. the wizard can channel through the shard the power of the magic drawing in his hand and then unleash it. a high level wizard can draw the power from simpler spells more often before damaging the drawing and simpler spells have simpler drawings that can be repainted on the fly if damaged making the spells per encounter, but for higher level spells the page will go blank with use and it will have to be repainted at camp since the design is too intricate

this is my speculation on the matter... you should ask Josh for how it really works

[Mr Moonlight]

None of what you're all saying is really changing my outlook on tomes and wizards being cool. I think the thread has run its course. I'm most likely going to go with a paladin the first time around, or a whip-wielding sado-masochistic anti-villain/villain-to-be-redeemed if there are whips.

[Klice]

I don't know if that's relevant, but I read several times that at some point a good deal of low-level/frequently usable spell would become "free", i.e. not needing to put them in some books and the possibility to use them several time at each encounter.

So, if you can imagine that suchs spells would be something like ice spikes/cold touch, it could be that you'll reach what you want at some point. You'll still need a grimoire and you'll still have a lot of limitation to use very powerful spells like blizzard, but that's good because you shouldn't be able to tear the world apart at each encounter.

Think about it that way : instead of being just naturally gifted and able to use ten spells per encounter right from the beginning, you would be able to do so after a hard time of practice and learning. I find it pretty cool to come out incredibly powerful after you applied and dedicated yourself to study and fully understand a system than to just "do it"; the last thing is cool too in its own way, though.

AND you could still say that you have to be gifted/very attuned to magic to attain that kind of magic/power.

 

It's funny that you mentionned skyrim because all that you seem to despise is exactly what all the mages in the college of winterhold are and what appealled to me : they are scholars and researchers who try to understand the way of magics and while they don't have to carry tomes to cast spell, they still use them to learn the spell. And they live in community to just do that, learn. Pretty nerdy huh ? Anyway, I really love what they did with that, the stuff with the psijic order, the eye of magnus, the labirynth of shalidor, the part under the college, the guy lost in the north.. But I digress. It is still implied that not everyone can cast spells, so that still a point for you.

 

P.S. Yes the tomes in skyrim were just anecdotal. That bugged me a little, 'cause the learning felt cheap.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Klice

[Gfted1]

I don't know if that's relevant, but I read several times that at some point a good deal of low-level/frequently usable spell would become "free", i.e. not needing to put them in some books and the possibility to use them several time at each encounter.

Low level spells will eventually become "free use" as the caster levels up but afaik, all (mage) spells will require a tome.