Antimagic (possible spoilers)

[edge2054]

There needs to be an ingame means of telling the player what he can and can not use for this unlock. Considering the setting rewrite I think these guys would be more out in the open and there could be a quest giver someplace that tells you exactly what qualifies as magic.

Once you get the quest, you can't use magic for your next 10 character levels (so to ever get anti-magic you have to pick up the quest before level 40).

Got a wyrmic up to level 17 and must have botched the anti-magic quest somehow and that was with some really heavy spoilers. Without an ingame means of communicating these requirements this quest will never be open to people that don't like to be spoiled.

[Dervis]

I do admit the Antimagic quest is a bit obscure at best, but my biggest concern actually is that you just have to live by their standards for 15 levels and once you get the quest you can use all the magic you can and keep your antimagic skills.

I'd think it would be much more logical if you'd get increasing rewards for following the rules for an extended period of time. For example:
- Level 10 - Unlocks the talent tree and allows training Resolve
- Level 20 - Allows training Silence Aura
- Level 30 - Allows training Antimagic Shield
- Level 40 - Allows training Mana Clash
- Level 50 - Awards a powerful Ziguranth Artifact.

By the way, I don't know if people wanted feedback on the Antimagic Tree.
Resolve - It's awesome, everyone who can should get at lest one point in it.
Silence Aura - I don't like it much, could be more useful if it was a sustain instead.
Antimagic Shield - It's quite good, however it has 2 problems. First the chance to crumble is a bit too high and maybe should get reduced by increasing ranks in it, second it shouldn't return you the Equilibrium cost if it crumbles.
Mana Clash - A bit too low powered for how deep it is. The loremaster taught "Mind Sear" is dramatically more powerful than this even with one point. Maybe if it was a beam or a wide area AoE it would be more interesting.

[Zonk]

Something I suggested in chat - after you turn to antimagic, lower your Magic stat to 1(or perhaps lower it by 1 per antimagic talent taken). Remember magic affects both scrolls and potions, thus...

[teachu2die]

yeah, taking anti-magic should forever render magic useless for a character.
someone suggested initially that silence aura be passive...i like that idea....
zonk's idea of lowering the magic stat seems appropriate as well... (although i never fully understood why magic effected potions...)

[darkgod]

I have made antimagic more accessible now (the quest at least).

PS: aura of silence can not be a sustain because I dont know how to handle permanent efftecs like that yet

[Taxorgian]

If the final monsters are as nasty as some of them I've seen, lowering the entrance requirement is suicidal for a player. It's one thing to get a corruptor or maybe a blood mage, but a dread is fatal to most non-magic level 15 characters.

[Vee]

As of SVN 1843: Dwarven Berserker managed to beat the Arena at CLvl 13. Used quite a lot of pots and maxed Metabolism and Recovery.
Went directly to the Questgiver at CLvl 1...

Most beginners will do their first quests, which would bring them to at least CLvl 7, wich makes 17 the earliest to do the Arena. I think as it is of now, should be ok.

I second the call to disable the Magic Talents, wands, scrolls, etc... MAG should either be uncoupled from pots or untouched by Antimagic, as I imagin Antimagic users relying heavily on those...

Alternatively any use of those items could give a massive hit on NPCs with Zig. allegiance... (Shoud spawn some on most dungeons then.) This way you *can* use the PD scroll to escape certain death, but... Doesn't force the player but makes for some very difficult decisions?

[Sirrocco]

Is it wrong of me that I want to play an Antimagic Cursed?

...after all, if he can make it to level 15 and then finish the arena without ever using an activated or sustained power...

[darkgod]

Cursed talents are not spells

[Sirrocco]

And again my appreciation.

Being able to spend class talents meaningfully before level 15 will certainly make that character easier to play.

[Sirrocco]

PS: aura of silence can not be a sustain because I don't know how to handle permanent effects like that yet

Too easy. You steal the Gloom code off the Cursed, and make it silence with a short duration rather than its current debuffs. Higher levels of skill give you a wider area. Alternately, you have it steal magic-based resources (mana, light, shadow) from everyone in the area every tick, and possibly have that feed your character's hp/equilibrium/whatever. Of course, if it also steals that stuff from you, that's going to limit how effective some of those skills are - but if it feeds you in other ways, it might still give you a reason to cart mana potions around.

I've also been thinking about the bizarre little moral quandry that goes on that goes on, where once you have the antimagic skills, you either have to basically betray everything the organization stands for by heading over and making friends with the wizards or leave Bree in the grip of a Tempest. It feels like the Zig, being *built* for the task of hunting down and killing evil archmages, ought to have a quest that leads to the same showdown - and possibly have the training camp be a city that's mutually exclusive with the hidden wizards (once you gain access to one, you cannot gain access to the other). They might have a potion shop, and would have a weapon and armor shop that sold items of about one material type notch up from what you could get anywhere else on the continent, but you wouldn't see a jewelry shop of any sort until you made the trek east.

It would go something like...
- You go to the training camp as normal, and finish the arena fight. As a reward, they give you a free skill point in the starter skill - which among other things basically cuts off your ability to do a lot of magical stuff. You are now a probationary member, and you get the quest to deal with the Tempest. If you've betrayed them by using magic in between being told about this stuff and showing up at the arena, you get attacked by a bunch of Ziguranth instead, who do their level best to wipe you out as an abomination and a traitor. If you successfully wipe them out (hard) and then go tell Angolwin about it, they'll be appropriately pleased and probably give you something.
- You get dropped off on the same mountaintop by one of the elders of the organization. The idea is that he knows he's better than you are, but he's not sure how strong the enemy is. You'll go in there and try to kill the tempest. If you succeed, great, welcome to the team, and he'll take you back. If you fail, but do a fair amount of damage, he'll know he can handle the rest, and do so. If you fail miserably and instantly, he'll have a better idea of the scope of the threat, and he'll go get support.
- Once you thrash the Tempest, you come back out, and talk to the NPC, You give him the Nifty Magic Thing as a token of your triumph, he takes you back to the training camp, and they open up the rest of the tree.
- Presumably, the contents of the tree and camp are cool enough to make up for the fact that you just permanently gave up the ability to recall and use scrolls.

- As previously noted, the Zig are a group of people who go around trying to wipe out evil mages. As such, in "evil mage"-themed dungeons, it would be not inappropriate to find a few. Perhaps if you've encountered them, they might show up as part of certain boss battles - either you come in as one of them is about to fight the big guy, and he hollers out to you as a brother and invites you to join him, or you come in as one of them is about to fight the big guy, and they quickly make some sort of peace so that they can both wipe you out, depending on your relationship with them.

[kazak]

If the final monsters are as nasty as some of them I've seen, lowering the entrance requirement is suicidal for a player. It's one thing to get a corruptor or maybe a blood mage, but a dread is fatal to most non-magic level 15 characters.

As I'm now discovering with my level 15 Dwarf Cursed fellow. I've been happily swatting everything aside for the past few levels, and I'm now reduced to pillar-dancing around one of the rubble piles with the dread a step behind, leech life killing him at 0.5 hp a turn. Probably the dullest cheezy tactic I've had to resort to, but with the dread's blur sight, I can't land a hit on him.

[Dervis]

It would go something like...

Although I disagree with the model, I second one idea here: There should be a solution to the Bree problem on the Zig side. Just splitting up the quest so you're not forced into Angolwen would probably do A LOT for the magic/wild immersion. (More even, joining the Zig should disable Angolwen for you, and the opposite as well)

[Susramanian]

Let's just eliminate the whole 'go ten levels without stumbling across one of many mysterious and poorly-defined lose conditions' idea. It's confusing and not much fun. How about this instead:

1) Walk into Zigur. Anybody can do it, but they'll look at you funny if you're wearing a pointed hat.
2) If you're above level 15, the quest guy offers to let you prove your devotion to the antimagic cause by running through their private dungeon in which no form of magic works. Again, anybody can accept the quest. These guys will be perfectly happy to dump an archmage in their dungeon with all his spells turned off. They'll be laughing and eating popcorn while he dies.
3) If you get out alive, you win.

This accomplishes the same thing without all the confusion and hassle.

[onyhow]

Let's just eliminate the whole 'go ten levels without stumbling across one of many mysterious and poorly-defined lose conditions' idea. It's confusing and not much fun. How about this instead:

1) Walk into Zigur. Anybody can do it, but they'll look at you funny if you're wearing a pointed hat.
2) If you're above level 15, the quest guy offers to let you prove your devotion to the antimagic cause by running through their private dungeon in which no form of magic works. Again, anybody can accept the quest. These guys will be perfectly happy to dump an archmage in their dungeon with all his spells turned off. They'll be laughing and eating popcorn while he dies.
3) If you get out alive, you win.

This accomplishes the same thing without all the confusion and hassle.

What happens if the magic-using character wins then?