Who joins your Party?

[PrimeJunta]

I stated that in PoE is magic quite common so there is probably no need for scietific research as most people would instead of eg. engineer call mage/shaman/druid to make them magical car, flying carpet etc instead of creating mechanical one. But it is just my opinion. IF magic would exist in real world and was quite common I think we would be using it instead of science - who would buy car which consume costly fuel if you can have magical one? Even guns dont make sence since you can summon bullet from thin air and by use of telekinesis thrust it on your oponent

 

What if not everybody is magically talented? What if permanent magic items are extremely time-consuming and expensive to create? Check the item creation rules in D&D for example -- they cost lots of GP, special materials, and XP to make, as well as quite high levels of magical power.

[PrimeJunta]

Maybe, thats just my sense for 'atmosphere' or styling. I dont like mesh-ups. With ''you dont understand'' I meant that I dont know why you thinked that I dont like diverse classes (or more of them). On other hand I am quite looking forward to Numenera, where 'magic' and science will mix up, but settings have some interesting explanations on how those things exists

 

How is Renaissance with magic a "mash-up?" Our real Renaissance had the likes of Nostradamus, Paracelsus, and Faust -- these are as close to wizard archetypes as you can find in real history, fer cryin' out loud.

[Messier-31]

How is Renaissance with magic a "mash-up?" Our real Renaissance had the likes of Nostradamus, Paracelsus, and Faust -- these are as close to wizard archetypes as you can find in real history, fer cryin' out loud.

 

Or ALCHEMY for that matter.

[Chilloutman]

 

Maybe, thats just my sense for 'atmosphere' or styling. I dont like mesh-ups. With ''you dont understand'' I meant that I dont know why you thinked that I dont like diverse classes (or more of them). On other hand I am quite looking forward to Numenera, where 'magic' and science will mix up, but settings have some interesting explanations on how those things exists

 

How is Renaissance with magic a "mash-up?" Our real Renaissance had the likes of Nostradamus, Paracelsus, and Faust -- these are as close to wizard archetypes as you can find in real history, fer cryin' out loud.

 

 

well faus was quite plain christian heretic because he make pact with devil and it was literature figure only if I remember correctly. Nostradamus was astronomer and doctor, dont know what it have to do with 'fireballs or controling plants'

[Chilloutman]

 

How is Renaissance with magic a "mash-up?" Our real Renaissance had the likes of Nostradamus, Paracelsus, and Faust -- these are as close to wizard archetypes as you can find in real history, fer cryin' out loud.

 

Or ALCHEMY for that matter.

 

 

Alchemy which works is plain chemistry/herbology

[PrimeJunta]

Come to think of it, consider Skein Steel. That's a combination of advanced metallurgy and animancy -- drawing the soul of a victim into copper, then alloying that with iron and other things to create a super-strong steel. That indicates that animancy itself would be a major driver of technological innovation. Perhaps the discovery of skein steel led to metallurgical techniques that made production of arquebus barrels easier.

 

To continue the real-history parallel, the alchemists Messier-31 mentions were mystics and magicians, but that didn't stop them from discovering formulae that actually worked. Trying to discover the Ultimate Essence or the Philosopher's Stone, they developed techniques for extraction, distillation, purification and so on that proved vital to technological progress.

[PrimeJunta]

well faus was quite plain christian heretic because he make pact with devil and it was literature figure only if I remember correctly. Nostradamus was astronomer and doctor, dont know what it have to do with 'fireballs or controling plants'

 

No, Faust was historical.

 

I don't believe real-life medieval magicians could throw fireballs or control plants either. If pseudo-medieval fantasy magicians are legit, why do they suddenly stop being legit when 1400 rolls along?

[Chilloutman]

 

well faus was quite plain christian heretic because he make pact with devil and it was literature figure only if I remember correctly. Nostradamus was astronomer and doctor, dont know what it have to do with 'fireballs or controling plants'

 

No, Faust was historical.

 

I don't believe real-life medieval magicians could throw fireballs or control plants either. If pseudo-medieval fantasy magicians are legit, why do they suddenly stop being legit when 1400 rolls along?

 

 

Ah I think they still can roll in 1400, what I think is that there will not be much 'real' scientific or technological progress if those 'mystics' really have magical powers instead of few tricks and knowelidge about real chemistry/herbology/astronomy etc.

[PrimeJunta]

@Chilloutman if everybody had magical powers, then yeah, there might not be all that much room for technological progress. However if everybody doesn't -- and it's pretty clear that even in P:E not everybody has a soul strong enough for that -- then there'll be just about as much demand for it as in our world.

 

What's more, the traditional pseudo-medieval fantasy world already demonstrates a lot of technological progress. We typically have steel armor and weapons, monumental architecture with arches, domes, and perhaps flying buttressess; we usually have elaborate siege artillery like catapults, ballistae, and trebuchets. We have crossbows, sometimes repeating crossbows. We have complex mechanical locks and traps. And so on. If magic is so universally useful, why did anyone bother inventing those? And if they did invent those, why would they suddenly stop just before gunpowder?

Edited May 28, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Chilloutman]

Well you dont need much knowledge about basic mechanics or metalurgy and even if they do it can be secret transfered from generations. I see relation in todays word. A lot of people can use things they dont know how works, they dont need to know it to use it. For example not everyone can build computer but a lot of people know how to use it. It can be considered as 'magic' even its not. On other hand thats why I like when fantasy stays in dark ages.

 

Enjoying that conversation guys, keep it comming and sorry for my poor english, too lazy to do spell checks

[Azmodiuz]

What is everyone's favourite party composition?

 

Thinking about PoE what excites me is that you could have whatever combination you like, so what is everyone excited to try and why?

 

I wish to try all rogue so I can see if there are any benefits to playing a party as one class. Maybe there are some extra role-play options and quest chains as a result. I can try out lots of different builds of rogue and see if I can get them to complement each other. Maybe one rogue is good with traps, another good with stealth etc.

gonna try the white mage challenge, from nintendo ..lol

[PrimeJunta]

Well you dont need much knowledge about basic mechanics or metalurgy and even if they do it can be secret transfered from generations. I see relation in todays word. A lot of people can use things they dont know how works, they dont need to know it to use it. For example not everyone can build computer but a lot of people know how to use it. It can be considered as 'magic' even its not. On other hand thats why I like when fantasy stays in dark ages.

 

Enjoying that conversation guys, keep it comming and sorry for my poor english, too lazy to do spell checks

 

Why couldn't gunpowder and the crafting of firearms be similar trade secrets?

[Chilloutman]

 

Well you dont need much knowledge about basic mechanics or metalurgy and even if they do it can be secret transfered from generations. I see relation in todays word. A lot of people can use things they dont know how works, they dont need to know it to use it. For example not everyone can build computer but a lot of people know how to use it. It can be considered as 'magic' even its not. On other hand thats why I like when fantasy stays in dark ages.

 

Enjoying that conversation guys, keep it comming and sorry for my poor english, too lazy to do spell checks

 

Why couldn't gunpowder and the crafting of firearms be similar trade secrets?

 

 

Can be, but then some classes are out of time period - druids, barbarians, chanters.... In real world first firearms in europe where around 15th century, that time anyone acting like shaman or druid would be burned on stick for heresy and demonogy. Church got monopol on miracles - so only 'real' sience was allowed (and sometime they burned them anyway if it was too ahead of time )

[PrimeJunta]

What if we're in a world where there isn't an equivalent of the Roman Catholic Church? P:E's doesn't. 

[Chilloutman]

What if we're in a world where there isn't an equivalent of the Roman Catholic Church? P:E's doesn't. 

 

So why there have to be equivalent of firearms, renesance clothing, weapons, colonization etc. 

[PrimeJunta]

Of course there don't have to be.

 

The question is, why is it a problem if there are?

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I certainly understand chilloutman's concerns. For me, it's best not to use our real world as a comparison.

[Sensuki]

Luckily there's no Christianity in Eora.

[PrimeJunta]

I still don't get it. 

 

We had magicians, both fictional and real-world, in both periods, doing more or less the same thing and having more or less the same status. Even the old AD&D rulebooks explicitly state that the rules are applicable up to and including Renaissance-level settings. I think there are even stats for an arquebus in there somewhere.

 

So other than conservatism ("all the IE games were pseudo-medieval and had no guns"), why does pseudo-medieval + magic make sense, but pseudo-Renaissance + magic is "a mashup?" It's not a bloody mashup. The Renaissance with its alchemists and astrologers, saints and miracle-workers, was just as "magical" a time as the Middle Ages from where I'm at.

[Chilloutman]

I still don't get it. 

 

We had magicians, both fictional and real-world, in both periods, doing more or less the same thing and having more or less the same status. Even the old AD&D rulebooks explicitly state that the rules are applicable up to and including Renaissance-level settings. I think there are even stats for an arquebus in there somewhere.

 

So other than conservatism ("all the IE games were pseudo-medieval and had no guns"), why does pseudo-medieval + magic make sense, but pseudo-Renaissance + magic is "a mashup?" It's not a bloody mashup. The Renaissance with its alchemists and astrologers, saints and miracle-workers, was just as "magical" a time as the Middle Ages from where I'm at.

 

Completely agree, alchemists, astrologers, saints could be good classes for PoE age period, but I am talking about druids, chanters and barbarians now which I have hard time imagine in renesaince era

[IndiraLightfoot]

I love the D&D Ravenloft setting, and in many ways that's almost Georgian/Victorian, sometimes even with light steampunk automata and apparatuses. I really liked Spelljammer too. Just think of the myriad of cultures that co-exist today, or fifty years, or 250 years ago, etc. Even without magic, almost everything makes sense in creating a new world. even if we do go on our own world history as source for templates, and not even mere inspiration.

 

Barbarians (literally Greek for people that go blablabla - that is, any societies that didn't speak a language they didn't understand) have always lived side by side with quite different cultures. Druids are no different in this regard. They are also CRPG-tropes in their own right, so anything goes in making a game, and in fact it would work just as well IRL, right here, right now, or way back when.

[PrimeJunta]

Ahhh... OK, now I get what you're saying.

 

Thing is, the P:E setting is a colonial type situation. We have the Vailians who are a lot like Renaissance Italians, and then we've got all the other cultures like the Aedyr, the Glanfathans, the Rauatai, and so on. Some of these cultures have coexisted for a long while; others have only recently encountered each other. 

 

Now, a Vailian druid or shaman would be odd, but a Glanfathan druid or Rauatai shaman wouldn't. The tech level has nothing to do with it IMO, but cultural context does.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Precisely. The world of PE is made up of several interwoven cultures and societies, with different languages and varying tech level and religiosity, and that's just for starters.

[Chilloutman]

Ahhh... OK, now I get what you're saying.

 

Thing is, the P:E setting is a colonial type situation. We have the Vailians who are a lot like Renaissance Italians, and then we've got all the other cultures like the Aedyr, the Glanfathans, the Rauatai, and so on. Some of these cultures have coexisted for a long while; others have only recently encountered each other. 

 

Now, a Vailian druid or shaman would be odd, but a Glanfathan druid or Rauatai shaman wouldn't. The tech level has nothing to do with it IMO, but cultural context does.

 

a little, problem is that more advanced culture should know that druids doest really cast spells are more like charlatans, which is not true in PoE settings, their magic is real and its strange that one culture would probably have in previouse era druids, shamans but for some reason stop belive in them even tho they really can cast real spells

[rjshae]

 

I still don't get it. 

 

We had magicians, both fictional and real-world, in both periods, doing more or less the same thing and having more or less the same status. Even the old AD&D rulebooks explicitly state that the rules are applicable up to and including Renaissance-level settings. I think there are even stats for an arquebus in there somewhere.

 

So other than conservatism ("all the IE games were pseudo-medieval and had no guns"), why does pseudo-medieval + magic make sense, but pseudo-Renaissance + magic is "a mashup?" It's not a bloody mashup. The Renaissance with its alchemists and astrologers, saints and miracle-workers, was just as "magical" a time as the Middle Ages from where I'm at.

 

Completely agree, alchemists, astrologers, saints could be good classes for PoE age period, but I am talking about druids, chanters and barbarians now which I have hard time imagine in renesaince era

 

Imagine a different world in which the early Celtic culture didn't get repeatedly squashed by various empires and kingdoms. There's your Druids. As for Barbarians, Russian was invaded by the Mongols and Tatar tribes well into the early Renaissance. Chanters seem unique to this setting, unless you equate them to the Celtic Bards.