magic - antimagic factions antagonism

[Postman]

Related to this thread:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=4 ... 12#p100912

IMHO magic - antimagic factions should be more antagonistic, you shouldn't be able easily switch allegiance, it should be a non-trivial quest if possible at all. What anti-magic faction need is non-magic ring shop though. That is jewelry without magic-related talents activations and without +magic/mana. Also some speed and burrow infusions to replace teleport runes. To make life easy for anti-magic it should be impossible to use magic(runes, talents etc) without switching allegiance.

[Grey]

Some nice ideas. It would be much better if anti-magic was a game choice rather than a simple quest.

[yufra]

I also support further integration of the anti-magic vs magic strife into the game.

[Freddybear]

One possible line is that the Zigur folks are there to help non-magical adventurers to fight *evil* magic users, while acknowledging that the mages are not all evil. But that's too easy and basically just leaves the antimagic quest as it is now.

Another line is that the Zigurs are firmly prejudiced against all magic users and refuse all dealings with them, and that they require the same attitude from the adventurers whom they train in the antimagic skills. You'll need an alternative path to Urkis without going through Angolwen in a way that makes sense in terms of the anti-magic faction and similar reworking or wholesale scrapping of the city of the Sun Paladins in the East for antimagic player characters.

And then you have to consider the impact on magic user players too. Will the Zigurs just avoid all contact with magic user characters, or will there be a battle at some point? Can my mage go try his power against the anti-magic powers of the zigur fanatics? Can some overconfident zigur faction Dwarf Fighter try to carry the fight to Angolwen? How will you handle all the branches in those story lines, or will you simply lock them out?

[Sirrocco]

"Magic" in this world explicitly and specifically is talking about things keyed off the magic stat - that ability to warp the world in ways the world never intended. Wilders are explicitly natural - odd, but natural, seen in much the same way there as the martial artists in our world that practice animal style kung fu - gaining powers that most men do not have (but that any could learn, given time, training, and will) by mimicking existing animals. Infusions likewise work off of wild powers. Cursed? Well, I have an image of one of the zig saying "oh, yeah. I met one of those guys once. He hates mages more than *I* do. We're cool with the hate-wielders."

...and the zig aren't entirely crazy. Mages go power-mad and do bad things on a fairly regular basis in this world, and then other mages cant be bothered to do anything about it until someone else comes along to help. Hello, Urkis. Hello blue mages. Hello necromancers in general. They may be fanatical, and perhaps a bit (though not entirely) misinformed, but that's not at all the same as being downright crazy.

[Grey]

I have to say I find the antimagic theme to be a little out of context "as is" with the rest of the story in a sense. I mean I know there are people who hate magic because of the spellblaze but it is a kind of quixotic thing because how do you hate something so fundamental as magic? This strikes me as madness. So the Zigurians are madmen right? They have internally consistent logic but their plans and ideas do not jibe with the reality around them.

Have you no experience of real-world religion? :P The attitude of the Ziguranth is really no different than the racism, anti-semitism, and political or religious fervour we see in many groups around the world today. They have strong views and enforce them in a way that seems to border on madness, but in the context of the setting it can be appreciated somewhat. If my ancestors had suffered for centuries because of the misuse of magic, and my wife had been killed by a raid of elven cultists and my grandmother had been raised as a ghast by some fecking necromancer I'd be pretty pissed off! Screw all the damned mages and their interfering, unnatural spells that do naught but bring trouble to an already tortured world!

*ahem*

I quite like the anti-magic talents as they stand, but I think as Gandolfo says there needs to be some alteration to the player to reflect their choice. The PC should be imbued with some anti-magical aura that prevents certain item use and turns mages away. Some thoughts:

- Can't use runes once you receive the anti-magic tree. "Your fingers burn even trying to touch this accursed rune."
- Can't use wands once you receive the anti-magic tree. "The wand fizzles and does not respond."
- Angolwen mage will not appear to anti-magic users, will disappear if he had appeared before, and the portal will disappear if you had already unlocked it.
- Magic-using escorts will appear hostile, or not appear at all.
- Spells received from escorts prior to the quest will not activate, or perhaps will be deleted from the player's memory altogether.
- Items that activate magical effects will not activate.
- There must be an alternative way of accessing the Urkis quest.
- Rod of Recall should remain of use, since it is an important element to game enjoyment, but there should be *no* dungeons that require it to escape (Tempest Peak being the prime offender here) in case people want to role-play the magic-hater fully.

Sun Wall is more tricky, and I guess one must presume that even a magic-hating Ziguranth will be tempted to seek solace there when appearing in a strange land filled with powerful orc mages.

I like the idea of the player being forced to drink a potion of sorts at the end of the anti-magic fight test, in some bizarre Ziguranth ritual. Perhaps it would be a vial of blood from some creature that is very resistant to magic. This would unlock the anti-magic tree for them whilst also instilling the aura of anti-magic that has the effects listed above.

[erdraug]

- Magic-using escorts will appear hostile, or not appear at all.

They could still appear - but the player should only be given the option to reject the escort mission.

[darkgod]

I concur.
It is badly implemented as it is and learning antimagic should prevent any use of magic in any form.
Infusions are ok, they are natural.

And sirrocco, you're spot on with how you see magic & wilders

[Sirrocco]

Before we go too far on this trek, I will note a few things
- The antimagic tree is currently nice, but not overpowered, and you get it in exchange for doing some fairly annoying things for the first bunch of levels. This is reasonably well-balanced from a gamist standpoint. It's a bit lacking from a narrativist standpoint, and fixing that is fine, but it's important to not break the one when you try to fix the other.

Consider the things that are being suggested here as long-term penalties for antimagic use:
- No magic-using escorts. No Anorithil, no Sun Paladin, no Alchemist, no Seer. Note that those are the four escorts with the best escort bonuses, even for characters that never invest any points at all into magic - hymns, chants, gem bonuses to armor, and precog. That, in and of itself, is a serious long-term cost in character power.
- No runes. Infusions aren't a bad replacement, but this does mean that you don't get teleports on your skin. That's a not entirely trivial cost. Loss of mapping and shielding runes as options are also somewhat costly for certain characters. This may become less of an issue when other forms of inscription come out, depending on what sorts of inscriptions are available, which ones are prevented, and so forth.
- No wands, and denial of most artifact activations. Now you really don't have any teleports, and a number of other useful on-demand effects are just gone.
- No access to Angolwin. Since we've already gotten rid of wands, the only part that really matters here is the loss of access to the ring shop, but that's pretty significant, as it means that you won't get gem rings until you manage to finish the (really rather nontrivial) quest for them in the east. Tier 3 gem rings are pretty much just plain better than anything you can expect to find before heading east, and they're close to guaranteed for anyone who *does* have access to Angolwin. Technically you could get access to Angolwin, get your rings, and get out, but that would mean getting access to the place, getting enough money to buy the rings, getting enough money (and scumming the gem shop) to buy the right gemstones, and then getting enough money to actually put the gems in the rings (at least two, more if you want options)... and only then starting the 10 level timer for antimagic. Not really a practical answer, and not something we should be encouraging anyway. Honestly, I'd just say that people who've opened the way to Angolwin shouldn't be offered the quest

...and you still have to go through the hassle up front, before they'll let you in.

All of this is entirely in keeping with the fluff, and I'm not claiming that this is inherently wrong or bad, but that's a *hefty* price to pay for antimagic. That's the kind of price I'd expect to see for something like old TOME 2 "mages get near me and weep"-style antimagic. We'd need something *significantly* more beefy than the current antimagic tree to make it anything other than a cruel joke, perpetrated by people who hate the idea of antimagic PCs. (Hi, Gandolfo.)

[greycat]

I have to agree that antimagic is not strong enough to be worth the price of completely and forever forsaking all wands, runes, escort quest talents and artifact activations. It's worth the price of temporarily forsaking those things, with the knowledge that you'll be able to use them later, when the game is in a more interesting stage.

Even in beta 19, the balance has already tipped to "not worth doing", since you either have to murder (!!) the escortees who come to you seeking help, or you have to go hugely out of your way to avoid all the regular dungeons.

[gogis]

Last times i used runes under antimagic shield, it crumbled. I mean, always. Isn't that enough punishment?
Also I believe, that antimagic shield with sufficient willpower is actually very strong, borderline OP.

Also i found comparison between magic and IRL religion hilarious

[Postman]

Even in beta 19, the balance has already tipped to "not worth doing", since you either have to murder (!!) the escortees who come to you seeking help, or you have to go hugely out of your way to avoid all the regular dungeons.

Murder magic users is exactly what anti-magic faction intend to do.

[darkgod]

Indeed

If antimagic is not worth it as it is, then Zigur should provide other advantages.
But pledging your eternal hatred of magic and then going on your merry way using it at every corner really sound silly

[Freddybear]

I still don't see why it has to be some huge game-changing hassle to take the quest to gain anti-magic skills for a non-magical character. The skills can be very nice to have, but they're not game breakers.

[Sirrocco]

Personally, I might suggest two (or more) different tiers for antimagic.

The first is pretty much the same antimagic we've always had. You swear to give up magic for a period of time, and if you keep to your oath, the folks at the Zig swear you in as a Reserve Auxiliary Ziguranth member and teach you the basic insights necessary to teach yourself the fundamentals of antimagic. They're not inducting you into the inner circle, and they don't really expect you to go completely non-magical at that point. It's partially something that they do as a recruiting schtick, and partially something they do as PR. They figure, you spend 10 levels eschewing magic, you may come to realize it's not as important as you thought it was. After that, they spend a pretty trivial amount of time cluing you in on how to teach yourself antimagic - ie, how to spend your own time and energy training yourself to be more effective at killing mages. Honestly, as far as they're concerned, "and now we shall teach you the holy secrets of antimagic" is the moral equivalent of "the first hit's free, kid". Seriously, what do you *think* people are going to do with a bolt spell that does horrible things to magic-users and absolutely nothing to anyone else?

The second is where you actually get inducted in a more serious way. This may require spending a certain minimum number of skill points in the antimagic tree or whatever (or perhaps a series of quests, each of which requires a higher investment?). It involves forgoing certain specific things forever, and may have certain base requirements (for example, if the quest required that you give up consorting with mages, then it wouldn't be available if you'd either unlocked Angolwin or accepted a magic-based skill from one of the escort quests.) Those in turn would likely involve hunting down and butchering various mages (the one that involved giving up consorting with mages would probably involve killing Urkis) and would have rewards commensurate with their costs.

Also, Gandolfo, I acknowledge, to my shame, that that I was taking you entirely seriously, and thought that you'd just gone off the deep end or something.