Naming New Classes

[Kaja Rainbow]

Heavy sounds too generic (more like pure physical Bulwark style class) to really work on its own--the pun isn't enough to make it work for a chronomancer concept. Needs a modifier like Horizon Guard has Horizon (just Guard would be too generic). Not to mention said pun is only going to spoil the gravitas of the class to some people when they realize it, even if you add on a modifier.

Overall, I think Horizon Guard's a better name.

[Doctornull]

Heavy sounds too generic (more like pure physical Bulwark style class)

This class is LITERALLY a physical Bulwark style class, in that it inflicts physical damage while holding a shield. (His weapon is physical, and his spells tend to inflict physical as well.) So if that's your impression, the name is doing its job right.

Needs a modifier like Horizon Guard has Horizon (just Guard would be too generic). Not to mention said pun is only going to spoil the gravitas of the class to some people when they realize it, even if you add on a modifier.

Horizon Guard is cool, but ...
- the most common meaning for "horizon" is a thing far away, and this is NOT a ranged class; and
- horizons (including event horizons) aren't actually something that this class guards; and
- the chain linking "heavy infantry" -> "black hole" -> "event horizon" -> "Horizon Guard" is only visible after it's been explained -- it's not something anyone would ever intuit.

Basically, unlike the name Paradox Mage (which is indeed a mage who messes with paradox), the name Horizon Guard doesn't describe, it just sounds cool -- and that's cool! Cool is good! But it's insufficient IMHO.

I'm more willing to settle for descriptive-yet-boring than I am to settle for cool-yet-uninformative. The best name will be cool AND informative, and maybe we can find that name, so if y'all don't like Heavy then let's keep going.

---

How about Centurion?

It's a reference to both time and heavy infantry.

[Kaja Rainbow]

Let me clarify that. Heavy has ZERO connotations of temporal magic or any magic at all to me. In other words, it sounds more like a pure stamina-based class; essentially an alternative name for the Bulwark. You speak of wanting a descriptive name, but it's descriptive of the wrong thing to me. Centurion has the same problem for me--it makes me think of some Roman soldier. Heavy infantry but nothing to do with chronomancers or spatial magic.

I think you're actually heading down the wrong trail trying to think up one-word names. The name Paradox Mage would have a very different meaning if it was only Mage. Likewise the Temporal Warden name would be far less descriptive if it was simply the Warden. Chronomancers're exotic enough that there aren't really sufficient one-word descriptors for them. You pretty much have to go to two-word descriptors.

I don't know why you'd connect horizon with ranged classes just because of its literal meaning, by the way, but I'll accept the point on needing a better prefix than Horizon.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Other prefixes... In some way related to time/space/gravity/distortion/whatever else scientific and pseudo-time related.

Entropy/Entropic?
Dawn/Dusk? (More a celestial thing. But it's time related.)
Flow? (As in flow of time?)

If he's a last stand guardian then maybe... Rubicon? (A point of no return, according to an online dictionary.) Could cast him/her as the point of no return beyond which nothing comes back, rather like an event horizon?

[Doctornull]

I think you're actually heading down the wrong trail trying to think up one-word names.

Okay.
Throw me some good two-word names.

Other prefixes... In some way related to time/space/gravity/distortion/whatever else scientific and pseudo-time related.

Entropy/Entropic?
Dawn/Dusk? (More a celestial thing. But it's time related.)
Flow? (As in flow of time?)

If he's a last stand guardian then maybe... Rubicon? (A point of no return, according to an online dictionary.) Could cast him/her as the point of no return beyond which nothing comes back, rather like an event horizon?

Entropy is cool... hmm... but it's sort of an antagonist to the Guardians of Order, right? So he'd be an Anti-Entropic, or an Entropy Killer? Hmm...

Something simple like Gravity Guard could work, or maybe Graviton (which is both a particle and an Avengers villain).

Chronobrute, or Chronogrunt, or Gravity Grunt? Actually I kind of like that last one... how about it, Gravity Grunt?


Rubicon is a river, and the Roman legions weren't permitted to cross it (so they couldn't threaten the senate); bringing your legion across the Rubicon meant declaring your intent to perform a military coup d'état. So as a name for a type of infantry, that'd be a bit confusing to anyone who knows the etymology.

[Doctornull]

Okay, I've released an initial version of the classes discussed here:
http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/nullpack

I went with Heavy because ... uh ... I don't know how to enable a subclass with a space in the name. That's kind of a sad reason. Can someone point me to an example of how to do this?

Thanks!

[HousePet]

getBirthDescriptor("class", "Celestial").descriptor_choices.subclass.['Moon Paladin'] = "allow"

At least, I think that is right.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Uhm... Don't both temporal warden and paradox mage already do this, in the same chronomancer file you added heavy too?

[Doctornull]

Uhm... Don't both temporal warden and paradox mage already do this, in the same chronomancer file you added heavy too?

No, those are defined in the section which initializes the array, rather than added to the array later.

I'll try what HousePet suggests.

[HousePet]

Apologies, I was wrong.

getBirthDescriptor("class", "Celestial").descriptor_choices.subclass['Moon Paladin'] = "allow"

[Planetus]

Entropy is cool... hmm... but it's sort of an antagonist to the Guardians of Order, right? So he'd be an Anti-Entropic, or an Entropy Killer? Hmm...

If you like the idea of entropy, but it doesn't work for order, you could go with enthalpy instead. While directly associated with heat measurement, it is effectively viewed as the opposing side to entropy in thermodynamics. Entropy is a measure of the disorder in a system while enthalpy is associated with a measure of how easy it is to order a system. Confusing, and not direct, I know, but it's really the only opposite to entropy there is.

Maybe something like Enthalpic Guard? Or maybe just Knight of Order, if you want to be direct.

[Doctornull]

If you like the idea of entropy, but it doesn't work for order, you could go with enthalpy instead. While directly associated with heat measurement, it is effectively viewed as the opposing side to entropy in thermodynamics. Entropy is a measure of the disorder in a system while enthalpy is associated with a measure of how easy it is to order a system. Confusing, and not direct, I know, but it's really the only opposite to entropy there is.

Maybe something like Enthalpic Guard? Or maybe just Knight of Order, if you want to be direct.

As you note, Enthalpy is usually associated with thermodynamics and chemistry, which in this setting would be stuff like fire magic and alchemy.

An class with "Enthalpic" in the name is a great idea, some kind of a fire-mage who supports Order.

Actually, looking at the Fire Alchemy tree, it's got a shocking amount of Order already: none of the chaotic "burn everyone" effects like in Fire & Wildfire, it's very tightly controlled already. Huh.

Maybe one or two trees to tie Fire Alchemy and Stone Alchemy together with some of the Paradox based stuff, and we'll have a new type of hybrid. On the Chronomancy side, both Energy & Matter seem appropriate. What else might fit?

[Umbrall]

Except the common layman doesn't know what enthalphy means, and enthalphic is too dense with consonants to really sound good on its own.

[Doctornull]

New Classes, Part Three: the Wrath of Silicon

Some meditative Higher peer inward, seeking to gain power and insight from exploration and mastery of the mind. This is a quest of self-discovery undertaken by many Psionic characters, but what a Higher discovers at the end of his meditation is not what other races would find: for the Higher has been endowed with Arcane magic through his body and soul, and even those among the Higher who go looking for other sources of power are prone to tap into their innate Arcane affinity.

This profession centers around gemstones: the creation via Spell / Stone Alchemy, their magical applications via (new tree), and their use as a telekinetic focus via Psi / Focus. They split into physical spells (Earth and Stone), mastery of defensive forces (Psi / Absorption), and have some ability with staff combat.

Their new tree uses Alchemist's gem ammo to generate fire and physical attacks (which are unlike those of an actual Alchemist), to heal themselves, and to summon crystals to fight for them. Unlike Archmagi and Mindslayers, they are low-mobility.

They are known as: _____________________________________________.



(PS: should the class be available only to Higher?)

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Definitely Higher only, given your backstory. If we can have dwarves in touch with there inner earth, we can definitely have highers in touch with their inner arcane.

Is the magic of a higher in ther DNA and blood/tissue, or is it more metaphysical, existing in the soul? Because Soul Mage sounds kinda badass.

Unsure where exactly the arcane infusion into the Higher race is. Can we get a dev's ruling on this please?