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Political Studies Student
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Short Answer: No.
Longer Answer: Not exactly. Magic may primarily be viewed as a weapon in this game – hence the strict guidelines for its control and application. However, it is true that most Magicians do not regularly fight monsters and demons – magic does have more practical applications than killing people. The spell-growth aspect of MTPL! is actually based around these ‘more practical’ applications – clubs encourage students to use their magic to improve the quality of their work, or meet challenges that are not strictly related to combat, to help them prepare for a life where overt magical displays are simply impractical. Put another way, magic may – and in-fact, should be – used to improve the quality of work you put out in your day job. A magician must be careful not to create overtly magical objects, and therefore, they must walk a very fine line. However, the Masquerade does not prevent Doctors from using spells to subtly improve the health of their patents (though curing Cancer miraculously is another story entirely – some plausible explanation must be maintained), nor does it prevent a baker from making their products taste better (making them addicting, on the other hand, might cause problems – if such a thing is detected, that is). The Guilds believe that, while revealing magic to the general public will cause more harm than good, there is value to using it carefully to provide benefits. Consequentially, Guilds officially encourage such actions. But no, in the modern world, outside of working an Administrative, Educational or Military-esque position, you can not live on magic alone. Oh, Government Organizations also have Research positions - dedicated to finding ways to do what the Guilds do, without so much specialization or decentralization. In the past, when belief in magic was more widespread, people could make a living as magicians more obviously, yes. However, these people still needed to provide some sort of service – magical healing was probably the most common one. Nobles might have kept magicians on staff for more combat oriented uses. Priests, associated with the Catholic Church, had a larger (and vaguely Military-esque) role in the past as well. This arrangement is still present, to varying degrees, in less-developed countries. * * * Good news Rhiya! Your bio requires very little attention from me. Backstory, relationships and clubs all check out. I have a few comments about some of your spells and the Elite Ma - Oh you changed the name in your edits? Elite Maid Sisterhood, then. Gonna work off what's on the pad, but please post an updated bio on the forums when you have a chance. Let's start with some basic stuff. Inconspicuous Maid, as I recall, also requires her to avoid making aggressive or attention drawing movements, while the spell is active, so add a note about that to the spell. Otherwise, that one's fine. Broomstick Defense is also fine - the ability works on most objects she can get ahold of. Quiet Determination works, going by the form on the pad. A physical boost increases the amount of power her muscles can put out - her jumps will go further, she hits harder and etc. Downside is that it'll put a fair stress on her body, though the Will drain is around moderate, as far as Mode-Shifts go. Whether or not this is the best way to get Emme a 'get serious' mode is another matter. The two alternate options I can think of would be something like a competency boosting mode-shift, wherein she emulates a master of her style (like her mom?), or a luck enchantment. The former wouldn't improve her attributes, but would allow her to act more rapidly (not quite a reflex boost, but close), while the latter would prevent her from getting tripped up by outside influences. If you'd prefer a straight-up attribute boost though, like I said, fine. It would be Yellow Elemental, in that case. Moving onto Summon: Extra Hand. I don't have a large issue with this, but I would like to clarify its limitations. Right now, Emme needs to know what the hand will do before she calls it, using a Wizard Spell, I think. I would recommend making the command she gives the hand at least partially verbal. Since its a Wizard spell, it probably needs to be Latin (incidentally, when speaking a foreign language in this game, unless you know the phonetics of the words, just write what you want to say in italicized, quoted, English). Even if the command is simple and short, Emme can use her thoughts to fill in details. The spoken command, incidentally, would prevent the hand from getting completely confused if she has a poorly placed stray thought. Regarding further limitations: The hand must remain relatively close to Emme, it can levitate, is invisible (through obvious to the Awakened) and is relatively weak (though I won't give it a strict weight limit). Assuming there's a Mental or Spoken command involved, it would be Green. Teal if the command is purely Mental. Once the task Emme set for it is fulfilled, it vanishes. She can only have one hand summoned at a time. After the hand is summoned, Emme may continue to use spells (its not a Mode-Shift). Altering or adding to the command would be a relatively easy free cast, incidentally. Oh, minor additional question: Does this summon a spirit from another location? If so, is the spirit a real ghost that Emme bound to her, or an artificial ghost someone (maybe Emme) created? The alternative would be to make this into something she creates each time she uses the spell - making it less a Summon Spell and more, well, a normal one. Maid's Step. If this is just Flash Step, fine. However, I thought you wanted the long range variant of Flash Move? As a review, Flash Move requires Emme to stop moving and generate a spell circle (the sending circle) beneath herself, before firing an invisible projectile for magical energy. The projectile bursts on contact with a physical obstruction and creates a second spell circle (the receptor circle). Emme is then able to teleport instantly between these two locations. In theory, the order that these circles are created isn't important (though if she's not careful, the spell might fail, since this would technically be a free-cast) but the spell requires her to stop moving for an instant before the teleport can occur, and she needs to be fully within the sending circle to activate this spell. It's Blue Elemental. Flash Step is Yellow. Quote:
Beyond that, I would also suggest either making the organization gender-neutral with a deceptive name (like the Witch's or Wizard's Guilds) or simply giving it a gender neutral name, rather than make two organizations divided strictly along gender-lines. Doing that seems to needlessly overcomplicate things, without adding significantly to the flavour. Seems easier to collapse them into a single body - even if Maids and Butlers would be housed/trained separately – unless you can think of a good reason to keep them divided, that is? Alright, that stuff said! Please post an updated bio as soon as possible. * * * Quote:
Okay, Relm? This is the same thing I just warned you about doing. The way you phrased that makes it sound as those Alice was always intended to have throwing skills and specialize in hucking munitions at people. This isn't remotely implied in your profile. But, it sounds as though you were gonna put this in anyway. That's bad. It's also an incredibly stupid thing to do, on the bunch of levels. The least of which being Capoeria requires your hands to be free to use the moves properly, and does not leave openings to throw grenades at people. A wholly different point is that, as a Wizard, using mundane munitions instead of a spell is pretty dumb and expensive. However, it is precisely because this is overwhelming stupid that I won't expel you, this time. Make no mistake, you messed up. But, I'm just going to assume you didn't understand my warning, rather than that you knowingly broke the rules. To be clear: If something isn't clearly present in your profile, do not pretend that it was. Do it again and you're done. Other kinds of stupid will get warnings, for now. Quote:
The reason I'm limiting you like this is quite simple. You, the player, have not conducted yourself in a way that treats martial arts or magic as 'serious' things. Therefore, I do believe your characters will not treat them appropriately either. You'll have the opportunity to prove otherwise in-game, but you won't be beginning the game with huge advantages by virtue of a particularly advantageous backstory alone. Quote:
Additionally, while I had originally intended to leave most of the details surrounding Alice's attendance at Amaranth a secret, I've decided to inform you of several of these changes. I've also included a few clarifying details, required to make her backstory make sense. Alice is a foundling found by Maria and raised, essentially, as a princess in a magically concealed castle in the Irish country-side. Maria, incidentally, is Samuel Marshall's second wife. Alice was denied little by her foster-mother (Maria raised her, primarily) - save the freedom to leave the castle (it appears Alice didn't want that anyway) and formal combat training. Maria would have liked to train her as an Enforcer from birth, but Samuel insisted that, while it would a disgrace for her to be raised in this castle without knowing some magic, as she is not a true Ex Nihilo, and could not be trusted to as an Enforcer until she was tested. Consequently, Alice was allowed to live a normal - well, normal enough - life, which just happened to contain some magical instruction. It would be acceptable for her to learn one or two battle spells for self-defense reasons, incidentally. Now, she's being sent to Amaranth to prove she can follow in the family business. Upon reflection, I'll also allow Gary Marshall (if Gem approves it) to be one of her elder siblings (not by birth) who was sent to Amaranth a year before. I will note that their relationship won't be terribly happy - he doesn't like her overmuch. If these constraints and modifications aren't suitable for you, you can design a new character to play. However, if the new character is worse than Alice (or no better) I'll end the review process there. Ball's in your court, regarding her initial spell set. Don't plan on getting Grade 2 spells without in-character justifications for how hard she'll have to work for them, though. Magic is really hard, and no one's going to push her to learn tricks. * * * Right, aside from the club-based levels (I'll get to those in a moment), I suppose Naomi's fine. She's technically at the point she'd be when entering Amaranth - just need to cover the past two months. Her four clubs are...Fitness, Veterinary, Computer and Meditation. I'll give you a quick run-down of what goes on in them and then I'd like you to pick two Grade 1 abilities for your character to learn, which are thematically appropriate to two of those clubs. Alternatively, I am willing to consider boosting the grade of a pre-existing ability if it applies to the club at hand - but no promises there. Upping a Grade is hard. Keep in mind that your character's pre-existing training and knowledge limits what they may learn. As I implied to Dante, Meditation's first two months are mainly about breathing/relaxation techniques and learning to sit in one place for long periods of time. Very little martial stuff goes on at this point, and most of the more academic elements relate to anatomy (specifically, breathing!) or Buddhism, with bits of Daoism and Shintoism thrown in. Emphasis so far has been overwhelmingly on getting the basics of Meditation down, though. The idea that everything is connected has also been stressed. Compared to other clubs, relatively light homework, for now. Meets daily for Meditation sessions. Fitness Club is pretty straight-up. The goal of the club is to teach students to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Surprisingly theory heavy - there's a lot about anatomy that students need to learn. Most topics are related to exercise, like sports injuries (and how to avoid them), but there's also information on vitamins, diet, first aide and some simple disease prevention tips. More practically, students need to exercise regularly, and are frequently tested on how 'fit' they are - which includes blood tests to determine if they're eating right. The test is probably magical! It's also accurate. Something like a Sports/Naturalist Medicine program, with a Gym Membership rolled in. Veterinary Club! This is the closest thing you'd get to a real medicine course in Amaranth. You learn about injuries (predicting, diagnosing and treating), anatomy (mostly animal anatomy, but it's not without application in humans) different diseases (how to diagnose, prevent and some cures) and also need to raise a pet (you select the breed and the club provides it) while you're enrolled in the club. Very heavy theory component - there's a lot of information to take in. Computer Club, unlike more of Amaranth's clubs, is pretty straight up. First few weeks are a brush-up on practical applications of basic programs - should be pretty easy for Naomi or anyone raised in Human Society. Gets into programming assignments - gradually building in complexity - afterward. Workload gets pretty high - it's similar to most Art classes, in that a new project is due basically every three days. Periodically, you're required to play videogames and write reports on them, instead of assignments. So, please rank the clubs in order of most focused on to least focused on - then submit some spells. They probably should match the clubs she's putting most of her effort into, though it depends on the rationale she has for learning the spell (some students develop spells to make clubs they're not focusing on easier, after all). * * * Quote:
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Otherwise, backstory looks good. I am going to assume the last Witch he met gave him some winter clothing, though. Quote:
A different sort of spell would be one which allows him to alter the direction of a pre-existing natural wind, within a certain range from his position. Requires him to attune to the wind first/spread his magical influence through it, then speak a command in Arabic. Changing the direction of the Wind isn't a quick action, either though. Strengthening or stopping could be done as a free-cast, but they're a lot harder, comparatively (and in ascending order of difficulty). Alternative there would just be a spell with a long incantation - slightly different with each direction. Wouldn't have the option to stop/strengthen it. Former is Chartreuse (Yellow-Green), might be more expensive, second is Green. Neither is cheap. Starting or stopping winds are wholly different spells, incidentally. Shorter range of effect is faster casting, as a rule. Quote:
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Little confused about the final part of the 'can burn wet wood' bit, though. Does it only burn wood of any kind? Or is the fire supposed to be ever-burning (and non-fuel consuming)? Just really, really hot? Created magically by using the Wanderer's power to force the material to be flammable? Either the wood-only fire or the ever-burning fire seem the most useful in that situation. Former is much cheaper and more powerful because of how specific it is (runs out when the will invested is used up, but great efficiency rate). Latter either has a high cost initially, or require a steady Will investment (ei: Mode Shift). It's also a lot more versatile. Quote:
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Different options are pain-canceling surge/modeshifts, anti-blunt defenses, or an invisible barrier around his whole body. Barrier is more expensive but, provided he has a Wind-blessing, he can make it work with Yellow magic like the others. Quote:
Regarding the Martial Arts (Advanced) club. His abilities suggest he's more of a hybrid than a Melee-specialist anyway - which is the only way he'd get into an Advanced class. If you want to shift his skills around to reflect that, go ahead. As it is, he seems to lean more toward the magic side (weather and healing spells are really hard) than the melee side anyway, even if he'd be passable in both. Meditation and Wilderness fit. Ah, should note, I count one ability from his great journey, and four from before the journey. He should have room for one more pre-journey spell and one more journey spell. See what you can come up with. Oh, though large-scale weather spells (smaller ones might be alright) and healing spells are more difficult than other abilities, as a note – improving your existing ones (or learning more) will probably push you into Mage territory. Quote:
I'm assuming the staff is made of bone? Wood would be hard to find (and rare) in a desert. Quote:
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Anyway, I see Lilluim edited her bio. 'fraid I don’t have time to get to it tonight. I'm going in for a minor surgery tomorrow, so I also won't be around for the next few days. Sorry everyone, I'll continue where I left off when I get back. Sorry about typoes, no time for a real proof-read.
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I'm always available to chat on AIM and Skype/MSN, so if you've like to speak further with me about anything I say, or just address something to me personally, feel free to add me. I welcome such conversations. Also obligatory signature! Last edited by Teal Mage; 06-09-2012 at 11:53 AM. |
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