Family wizards

[Don E]

Related to the discussion on how many wizards there should be in a low magic campaign (see: http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php...opic=2736&st=0) (http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2736&st=0)), I was actually wondering why there is no culture of the noble families in Anuire trying to have one or more wizards trained for their own family use. Considering how powerful a wizard is in a rare-magic setting like BR, one would think there was a greater emphasis on ensuring one had some to back up ones own political intrigues.

To take an example for literature that gave me the inspiration, the Farseer trilogy, where the bastard son on the lord is trained in the arts of an assassin. In this role he is a key tool for the king to weild his power, and similarly one would think wizards ought to be a sought after tool for any ambitious noble.

While some have suggested making the Magician into a full PC class, I have yet to see an example (same goes for original 2e version) where the Magician would be more usefull than a full blooded true wizard.

My main problem is perhaps that there is no game mechanical way of reducing the number of blooded people taking up the wizard class.

[Raesene Andu]

In Anuire most who wish to be trained as a wizard would go to the College of Sorcery, and it is not cheap to send someone there for the years of study that is required, as compared with training a son or daughter in the arts of war. This would prevent everyone but the rich studying as wizards.

However, there is nothing to suggest that the major noble families don't send one or more children to study as a wizard or magician. A wizard in the family is a valuable asset, especially in a low-magic campaign like Birthright. If you've read the Shadow Stone this is implied by the presence of one of the Avan family, and also in Ruins of Empire where both the Alam and Diem families have daughters who are wizards.

[irdeggman]

Also regent families are probably more concerned with maintaining their ability to rule effectively and carry on their legacy. Wizards make terrible rulers, most are afraid or at the very least uncomfortable around them (except for the Khinasi, who do have a large amount of the wizards of Anuire).

[Don E]

Originally posted by Raesene Andu@Jul 13 2004, 06:40 AM
In Anuire most who wish to be trained as a wizard would go to the College of Sorcery, and it is not cheap to send someone there for the years of study that is required, as compared with training a son or daughter in the arts of war. This would prevent everyone but the rich studying as wizards.

If the College of Sorcery is so expensive the less wealthy families could try apprentice their offspring with some other wizard. Here it very much the point of my post, why not have one of the sons/daughters in the family as a wizard in every generation. Once the next generation comes along the older takes on they younger as an apprentice. One hardly requires super genious intelligence to become a highly competent wizard, and even if a potential candidate comes along every 2 generations this would be more than enough.


However, there is nothing to suggest that the major noble families don't send one or more children to study as a wizard or magician. A wizard in the family is a valuable asset, especially in a low-magic campaign like Birthright. If you've read the Shadow Stone this is implied by the presence of one of the Avan family, and also in Ruins of Empire where both the Alam and Diem families have daughters who are wizards.

(Unfortunately I haven't got my hands on the Shadow Stone book, it seems to be out of print and hard to get.)
So if three of the families have wizards I think this is a trend more would follow. While one could argue that these three are all students at the College, I can't find any material to support that. It is also a problematic issue ragarding the fundamental principles of DnD works, as one can much more easily gain power as a wizard by practicing on killing bad goblins or similar instead of studying

As for the College itself, where does those dowen of students fr meach year actually end up? The text implies there is a vast number of high level wizards running around in Anuire, and in general smacks a bit too much of high fantasy spellslinging to me.

[Don E]

Originally posted by irdeggman@Jul 13 2004, 11:15 AM
Also regent families are probably more concerned with maintaining their ability to rule effectively and carry on their legacy. Wizards make terrible rulers, most are afraid or at the very least uncomfortable around them (except for the Khinasi, who do have a large amount of the wizards of Anuire).
I'm not thinking that one should appoint ones first born or heir to be the family wizard. Rather somebody like the oldest daughter or youngest son, in general somebody who doesn't have much hope of becoming the regent of a realm. As the person in question is not meant to control any sources, the bloodline is not an issue even if the mother or father married somebody with significantly lower bloodline.

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Don E+Jul 13 2004, 06:33 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Don E &#064; Jul 13 2004, 06:33 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-irdeggman@Jul 13 2004, 11:15 AM
Also regent families are probably more concerned with maintaining their ability to rule effectively and carry on their legacy.* Wizards make terrible rulers, most are afraid or at the very least uncomfortable around them (except for the Khinasi, who do have a large amount of the wizards of Anuire).
I&#39;m not thinking that one should appoint ones first born or heir to be the family wizard. Rather somebody like the oldest daughter or youngest son, in general somebody who doesn&#39;t have much hope of becoming the regent of a realm. As the person in question is not meant to control any sources, the bloodline is not an issue even if the mother or father married somebody with significantly lower bloodline. [/b][/quote]

But daughters would be groomed to marry off and into other influential families. Again, grooming/breeding for rulership and influence. Having a daughter go off to become a wizard, falls into the same arena as having her locked into a tower and removed from social life.

The BoM talks about apprenticeships also, so that is another path for becoming a wizard.

[Don E]

Originally posted by irdeggman@Jul 13 2004, 01:45 PM
But daughters would be groomed to marry off and into other influential families. Again, grooming/breeding for rulership and influence. Having a daughter go off to become a wizard, falls into the same arena as having her locked into a tower and removed from social life.
I think this is entirely different. While it might be a wizards tower, this comes with a tangible benefit. I would even go so far as to say it might be a much greater benefit than some dubious alliance through marriage. Too often those turn out to be more burden than boon.

This could also be a way of putting some of those bastard children to good use. Give them power, but at the same time make them more or less unfit to effectively rule a realm. You gain a tool at the same time as removing a potential contender for the throne. (Well, that is the theory at least, and is in particular plans like these that make for good stories :D )

[geeman]

When it comes to why blooded families don`t have a "family wizard" in them

more often the short answer is that they would. It`s far too sensible a

decision to ignore. One can rationalize it away, but most of those

rationalizations are pretty hollow when examined in the context of either

the BR or the D&D game mechanics and the relative power of true magic users

created by the exclusivity of that class. From a social standpoint,

blooded families would be more likely to have a wizard in the family than a

priest IMO due to the relative scarcity of true magic and the fact that the

class itself would represents nobility since only scions have access to it

amongst humans.



BR commits several such transgressions of form over function. Probably the

most obvious of which is the immortality of elves, which isn`t portrayed in

any particular way in the actual setting`s character levels or magic item

distribution. Accurately portraying the character levels and inventory of

characters who cold be centuries or millennia old, however, could easily

unbalance the campaign, so it`s understandable why that was done. In the

case of a regular set of "family wizards" I`d suggest they probably didn`t

include such a thing for a similar reason. They wanted to keep true magic

relatively rare, so they didn`t describe how blooded families might send

certain members off to learn true magic on a regular, systemic basis--no

matter how sensible that might be.



In the long run, however, the question is whether adding a family wizard

concept to the setting would really make a difference? Would it throw off

the balance of the setting or make the "low magic" aspect of it less

apparent? Since blooded characters are so rare to begin with (usually 1 in

1,000) increasing the number of them that study true magic doesn`t readily

impact the setting. It does increase the number of people who might use

true magics, but that number is still quite low. I usually assume there

are more true wizards around in BR than most people do, however, so I may

very well be in the minority on this. Sometimes folks take the prose in

the BR setting that "perhaps" numbers the wizards in the setting to under

200 to heart and find any increase of that number to be unacceptable.



Gary

[irdeggman]

Ahhh so now we are talking about bastard children vice legitimate heirs. Hmmm what famous bastard son of a major ruler was placed into a position of power only to rise to infamy???? No, I don&#39;t think anyone in Anuire would remember Raesene and let that decision affect their desire to invest an illegitimate heir with a great deal of power (a wizard is after all a great power source, and that was the point of this discussion in the first place).

[soudhadies]

I have to agree with irdeggman here. Noble offspring are notoriously jealous and ambitious. The older child already has to worry about poisonings, intrigues and all other sources of nonsense. They would most certainly not appreciate their parent giving one of their younger siblings the power to ensorcel them as well.

Also, given the discussion, we seem to be assuming that magical apprenticeship is a relatively successful venture. This needn&#39;t be the case. It could be that a bloodline in and of itself doesn&#39;t guarantee an aptitude to understand the weirdness of the arcane. It may also turn out that less than qualified apprentices have a tendency to destroy themselves in magical mishaps. Think of it, most damaging 0th and 1st level spells can deal enough damage to take a 1st level wizard out of commision (but not kill them), a badly botched casting could be catastrophic. So perhaps only a few would make it out of magical bootcamp.

The few, the proud, the true wizards ;).

[ConjurerDragon]

Don E schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=2739

>

> Don E wrote:

> QUOTE (Raesene Andu &#064; Jul 13 2004, 06:40 AM)In Anuire most who wish to be trained as a wizard would go to the College of Sorcery, and it is not cheap to send someone there for the years of study that is required, as compared with training a son or daughter in the arts of war. This would prevent everyone but the rich studying as wizards.

>-----------------------------

>

>If the College of Sorcery is so expensive the less wealthy families could try apprentice their offspring with some other wizard. Here it very much the point of my post, why not have one of the sons/daughters in the family as a wizard in every generation. Once the next generation comes along the older takes on they younger as an apprentice. One hardly requires super genious intelligence to become a highly competent wizard, and even if a potential candidate comes along every 2 generations this would be more than enough.

>

Not every wizard is willing or able to teach or has the means to teach.

The non-core "The Quintessential Wizard" from Mongoose Publishing

published a feat called "Arcane Tutor" which enables a wizard to train

apprentices and has the prerequisites of "Arcane caster level 6+, you

must own a permanent base of operations that provides living quarters

and workspace for your team of students".



A wizard who tries to become more powerful must earn XP to raise in

level - which denies him the opportunity to teach apprentices at a

permanent base of operations. Most wizards of Birthright that are not

sourceholders I do not expect to be level 6+. So that leaves few room

for family wizards trained by family wizard tutors.



>(Unfortunately I haven`t got my hands on the Shadow Stone book, it seems to be out of print and hard to get.)

>

Try Amazon or Ebay periodically that´s the way I found it eventually.

bye

Michael

[ConjurerDragon]

Bearcat schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=2739

>

> Bearcat wrote:

> I have to agree with irdeggman here. Noble offspring are notoriously jealous and ambitious. The older child already has to worry about poisonings, intrigues and all other sources of nonsense. They would most certainly not appreciate their parent giving one of their younger siblings the power to ensorcel them as well.Also, given the discussion, we seem to be assuming that magical apprenticeship is a relatively successful venture. This needn`t be the case. It could be that a bloodline in and of itself doesn`t guarantee an aptitude to understand the weirdness of the arcane. It may also turn out that less than qualified apprentices have a tendency to destroy themselves in magical mishaps. Think of it, most damaging 0th and 1st level spells can deal enough damage to take a 1st level wizard out of commision (but not kill them), a badly botched casting could be catastrophic. So perhaps only a few would make it out of magical bootcamp.The few, the proud, the true wizards ;).

>

From Quintessential wizard "Arcane Mishap table" D100 result

25-27 "Should smoke be coming out of it?" Energy backlash during item´s

creation causes a moderate explosion. Treat this as a fireball cast by a

7th level wizard centered on the apprentices work area. ;-)

bye

Michael

[epicsoul]

If the College of Sorcery is so expensive the less wealthy families could try apprentice their offspring with some other wizard. Here it very much the point of my post, why not have one of the sons/daughters in the family as a wizard in every generation. Once the next generation comes along the older takes on they younger as an apprentice. One hardly requires super genious intelligence to become a highly competent wizard, and even if a potential candidate comes along every 2 generations this would be more than enough.
>


Well, first of all, I would say that 1. many wizards don&#39;t WANT to take on an apprentice. 2. if they do, they may not be a good teacher at all.

Also, of all the families in Anuire, only the Aglondiers and the Khoriens (maybe the Dhoesones?) seem to have put forth good lines of wizards. The rest? Frankly, it is more important to have a battle leader, or send them off to the temple. A wizard could be a rival to the throne - a person in the clergy could, and quite probably would, take all sorts of vows prohibiting this.

Doesn&#39;t require a supergenius? Ummmm... ever notice how expensive it is to maintain a wizard? And if they don&#39;t have the intelligence bonus, they aren&#39;t going to be making those spellcraft rolls very well, which means it is going to take longer to research spells, which costs more money, not to mention living expenses. And time. And, one can assume, the less intelligent the student, the longer it will take for apprenticeship, which of course, costs more money.

Putting a wizard through school/apprenticeship, then trying to get them up to any kind of power level of use is beyond the means of many KINGDOMS. It is a major, long term investment that may never pay off. And, if you actually want them to become even more useful by becoming a source holder, you are going to have to lend them RPs, because, let&#39;s face it, none of the wizards around suffer young upstarts easily. The established wizard is going to squish the guy down who has the one level 1 source. So, now you have to keep pumping GB and RP into a wizard that still might not make it. Or, let&#39;s say you want a battle wizard... in strict game terms, fact is, you have now created a BIG target. As the bad guy, I am going to be flinging lots of thieves with sneak attacks out to take out that low hp wizard. In terms of the campaign: I am sending assasins to take out your big cannon before war starts. (this paragraph pasted from the low magic thread).

[Don E]

If we assume the apprenticeship to become a 1st level wizard is very expensive, this is an even greater incentive for influential families to try keep somebody with this knowledge wihtin their family.

Once the wizard has reached first level there is little in the way of support she needs. She gains spells when increasing in level, and she doesn&#39;t even have to think about sources to be useful. In general even low level spells can make a huge impact in a campaign where magic is scarce.

I see a lot of suggestions here for rules to make wizards more scarce, which is ok with me. The only issue is then how much should one include before one is well outside the range where wizards are playable characters. If one include rules that wizards have to use insane sums of money to gain any power at all, it leaves them in a bit of trouble in a campaign where they do not have access to the resources of a domain. Similarly it raises the question where varios wizards who are clearly described as not having much in the way of money have become as powerful as they are.

As for the bastard/younger it only makes me wonder why they don&#39;t cull of every sibling as quickly as possible. If they were all so power hungry would one truly attempt to marry of ones siblings? No, they would rather be put in a tower as they wouldn&#39;t be the potential threat they can become when gaining access to the resources of different noble family.

I agree with Gary on many of his points, and I think it is a problem whe nthe rules in a game don&#39;t correctly reflect the actual game setting. If one want to play with the DnD rules I think one should take that into account when building the world.

[Raesene Andu]

Ok, very quickly (because I have to get back to work).

1. A wizard who takes on an apprentice is going to want some money, propably even more than it would cost to send someone to the College of Sorcery. Also not every wizard wants an apprentice hanging around the place, getting in the way, blowing up valuable components, that sort of thing.

2. Family wizards. This is possible, but again it assumes that the family wizard has the time, and is inclination to train a nephew or whatever. If it is a son or daughter, then it is possible, as they would learn the basics growing up, but there are already a couple of obvious wizard families in Anuire, the Aglondiers are the prime example.

3. Don E&#39;s idea that once a wizard is up to 1st level, he is set. That assumes that the wizard is an adventuring wizard, in which case fine, but only a small percentage of people become adventurers and most wizard/magicians (especially if they are from a noble family) are going to stick to the nice easy path and stay at home conducting research, which means they are not going to be out earning experience, and therefore are not going to gain new levels that often, and therefore are not going to be high enough level to start training new apprentaces for some time. Most wizards may only take on a single apprentice in their lifetime.

[Birthright-L]

> Raesene Andu wrote:

> Ok, very quickly (because I have to get back to

> work).1. A wizard who takes on an apprentice is

> going to want some money, propably even more than it

> would cost to send someone to the College of

> Sorcery. Also not every wizard wants an apprentice

> hanging around the place, getting in the way,

> blowing up valuable components, that sort of

> thing.2. Family wizards. This is possible, but again

> it assumes that the family wizard has the time, and

> is inclination to train a nephew or whatever. If it

> is a son or daughter, then it is possible, as they

> would learn the basics growing up, but there are

> already a couple of obvious wizard families in

> Anuire, the Aglondiers are the prime example.3. Don

> E`s idea that once a wizard is up to 1st level, he

> is set. That assumes that the wizard is an

> adventuring wizard, in which case fine, but only a

> small percentage of people become adventurers and

> most wizard/magicians (especially if they are from a

> noble family) are going to stick to the nice eas

> y path and stay at home conducting research, which

> means they are not going to be out earning

> experience, and therefore are not going to gain new

> levels that often, and therefore are not going to be

> high enough level to start training new apprentaces

> for some time. Most wizards may only take on a

> single apprentice in their lifetime.





Just speaking in terms of my own campaigns, I kind of

see wizards and magicians taking on a role similiar to

the hypocratic oath that American medical

professionals take. In addition to such irrelevent

things as pacifist and anti-abortion policies, the

oath binds the practitioners to certain virtues such

as secrecy, discretion, total commitment, and

education. It says that you will perform a task to

the best of your ability when called upon to excersise

your craft, you`ll aid the next generation of

practitioners (including rendering free lessons to

your kin), you will have the utmost respect for your

profession and other practitioners, you will use

discretion and secrecy when your craft permits you to

come across knowledge you would otherwise not have,

etc. etc.



Under a similiar oath, taking an apprentice could be

seen as an obligation that all wizards much inevitably

perform, and indeed be seen as a great sacred act. I

would also qualify it as an adventure and earn XP for

the wizard. Just as some adventures can be run under

the logistical and macromanagement affairs of running

a state, or leading a mercenary company, which leads

to all sorts of adventure hooks, training an

apprentice could eat up quite a few interesting

sessions of gameplay, too...







=====

"Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson







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[tcharazazel]

Well, its just the Kenasi casters who need to take the Oath, and that oath is binding. While, it does make sense that the students at the College of Sorcery need to also take some kind of oath, however, it is not really binding (certainly not like the Kenasi Oath) and that wouldnt account for those trained outside the college.

[Birthright-L]

> tcharazazel wrote:

> Well, its just the Kenasi casters who need to take

> the Oath, and that oath is binding. While, it does

> make sense that the students at the College of

> Sorcery need to also take some kind of oath,

> however, it is not really binding (certainly not

> like the Kenasi Oath) and that wouldnt account for

> those trained outside the college.





Yes, and no. Legal authority is only one such

application of a binding oath. The cultural history,

on the other hand, can pass on its own regulatory

influences. For example, we have a God of Magic,

Rjuornil, whose priesthood might in some way regulate

the way wizardry is taught, practiced, governed, and

seen in public view. Among the elves where wizardry

is purely an academic affair and the institution is

chaotic and stale by nature, we wouldn`t be as likely

to see this `safeguards` as opposed to an Anuirean

realm which might place a higher cultural value on

matters of duty and responsibility. Surely, the oaths

taken to your mentor and trainer must matter as much

to most wizards as whatever bond ties family members

to be loyal to their House. Among, the Rjurik and

Vos, religious and superstition might be the catalysts

which gives these oaths their power.



I`m not talking about issues of enforcement, mind you.

That has little to do with this. I`m suggesting

other cultural values that might counteract the

cultural influence of one`s family or one`s

inclination to sell one`s art in some form of service

or product-based economy.



When dealing with matters of an occupation and

philosophy that requires intense study and dedication,

an understanding and kinship that can ONLY be

understood by other practitioners of the craft, and

one that necessarily alienates you from your other

groups or associations, even possibly replaces your

old value system (say, greed and wealth) with a new

one (opening the secrets of the universe; battling the

Shadow World, etc.), it`s easy to see why cultural

influences that might drive the outside world might no

longer apply.



A family might desire to have a family member as a

wizard, but once ordained, could he still be trusted?

Is he still a member of the family?





=====

"Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson







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[Raesene Andu]

Unfortunately, Anuire&#39;s major wizards don&#39;t really seem the type to follow any sort of tradition or oath, perhaps with magicians this might be true, but not with wizards (this may be why Anuire has a college of sorcery, to handle the training of new wizards and give the skilled wizards time to concentrate on destroying enemy armies). There are only probably a few of the major domain wizards who are going to be interested in apprentices, the rest are either loners, awnshegh, elves, or crazy. Of course, an aspiring wizard could apprentice to some minor wizard, but they aren&#39;t going to learn much about realm magic and battle spells.

[Ksaturn]

all right here is an idea IMC and i want you ppl to pick it apart and tell me how Exactly how bad it will screw things up...

True Clerics < 1000
True Wizards < 200
True Sorcerors < 5

heh heh heh.... Couse i&#39;m going to do some tinkering... i intend to make the sorcerors something like &#39;Recharge Varient&#39; from UA... while the others much closer to the norm. (for those who lack UA, if a wizard can destroy an army unit in an hour a sorceror can level a province)

The idea being something like : While the wizards learn to control the Earth Power the sorcerors COMMAND it. Sure wizards are the stuff of legend and destiny but sorcerors are closer to apocalyptic omens. They are born with thier power... they don&#39;t need to spend years reading musty tomes... a Teen sorceror who is afraid/pissed/bored might accidentally blast someone with a M-Missle (whereas a wizard must focus, train and otherwise put a great deal of effort into thier magic). Also thier magic is much more destructive to the mebhigal... a wizard may carefully shape a fireball out of earthpower but a sorceror rips out a chunk and ignites it.

This idea WILL make them NPC classes unless someone REALLY earns it. (IMC you have to earn wizard, and possibly cleric)

Also i will be much more stric on wizards about thier compnents... in my mind the wizards art is something of an &#39;Artificial&#39; magic and requires Every spell to havee one or more components and/or focuses. The sorceror meanwhile has no need for either much as dragons(aren&#39;t they sorcerors?)

A Dragon can use it&#39;s breath once every 1d4 rounds and in the recharge varient the sorcerors fireball is similar if he is of high enough level. of course sisce dragons are natural sorcerors this makes thier magic and overall power MUUCH more signifigant.

I belive while elvenblood may work for wizards it won&#39;t for these ultra-sorcerors... you must have godsblood and a lot of it. i&#39;m thinking a minimum of great. also as the magic is so natural i&#39;m thinking something like a watered-down gestalt varient (i.e. they get classes normally fighter/druid/warrior/bard/whatever and the spells add on like monster spell-like abilities.)

Sadly all this laughs in the face of balence. But if you ask me This is how you make the &#39;REAL&#39; bad guys (i assume there were few restrictions on how to create the Awnsheg in 2nd Ed.) and &#39;children of destiny&#39; and what not.

(pasted from original post on low-magic settings thread)

[irdeggman]

Hmmm removing elves from sorcerers seems like a bad idea to me. Bloodspawn specifically refers to the Sie (precursers of elves) as being able to cast arcane (inserted 3.5 word to describe) spells without memorizing (like a wizard) and then says the the elves acquired that portion of themselves while their shadow world equivalent acquired the mastery of divine spells. There are many references in 2nd ed BR to elves being like sorcerers (as they ended up being described in 3.5).

The definition of true mages here also refers to elves and half-elves, since it is removed from the ability to cast Realm Magic. Casting realm magic further restricts the number of &#39;true&#39; mages, since it eliminates the elves and half elves who can naturally cast greater magic by placing an additional requirement that they be blooded.

Elves are the masters of arcane magic in Cerilia. That is something that should never be forgotten when developing something new. The only ones who are (or might be) better are the dragons, and there are so &#39;few&#39; of them that they should be considered singularly and pretty much never show up in any type of random table. As an example would the Gorgon show up as a random encounter? I think not.

And yes, it will screw things up greatly - if only because it destroys the &#39;balance&#39; concept. Remeber we are also talking about PCs here and not jsut the &#39;bad guys&#39; or &#39;monsters&#39;, so balance between players is an essential part of 3.5. It sounds too much like Dark Sun where the use of arcane magic destroyed the planet. Cerilia on the other hand &#39;embraces&#39; arcane magic by empowering it as it were, instead of being in conflict with it.

[Ksaturn]

When i created this i had no intention of letting a PC near it. I also concede to your point on elves. Note my only source for BR material is Wotc BR memories and of course this site.

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Ksaturn@Jul 16 2004, 04:55 AM
When i created this i had no intention of letting a PC near it. I also concede to your point on elves. Note my only source for BR material is Wotc BR memories and of course this site.
If PCs can not have access to it, then what is it really all about then?

PCs can be born to be power of true magic in their veins. Elven blood does this, pretty much automatically. And that uber sorcerer concept just doesn&#39;t work for elves at all, as you have no doubt figured out.

What of the Khinasi? They foster education and knowledge to the point that using arcane magic is probably more common there thatn anywhere else other than elven lands.

There are 2 colleges of arcane magic mentioned in the 2nd ed BR material. The Royal College of Sorcery (in the Imperial City) and there is one in Moedore (founded by Sirus Enlien and the church of Ruornil there). Other than Ruornil being the god of magic, all temples of Avani are said to be libraries. This implies that wizards and magicians could actually do some type of research there (she is also a god of magic, secondary profile).


Try this link for the free WotC BR downloads (including Bloodspawn and the BoR).

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20020121x5

[Ksaturn]

irdeggman i&#39;m not sure we both have the same idea of my view... and i havent slept in a good 2 digit time period... I left wizards basically as they were in 2E(i think)

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Ksaturn@Jul 16 2004, 05:50 AM
irdeggman i&#39;m not sure we both have the same idea of my view... and i havent slept in a good 2 digit time period... I left wizards basically as they were in 2E(i think)
This was were I got confused on the issue.


This idea WILL make them NPC classes unless someone REALLY earns it. (IMC you have to earn wizard, and possibly cleric)

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Ksaturn@Jul 16 2004, 05:50 AM
irdeggman ... and i havent slept in a good 2 digit time period...
Haven&#39;t slept in a two digit time period? Does this mean that every 9 hrs you have to take a nap? And I thought I was old. :lol:

[epicsoul]

IMC, I still try and go by a few of the old 2e standards on racial restrictions. Specifically with wizzie and clerics.

Sorcerors= elves and halfling ONLY class (half elf as well)
Wizards= any, but mostly human, or halfelf, the VERY occasional dwarf
Cleric/druid= human, halfling, with dwarves for priests of Moradin

[Ksaturn]

Originally posted by irdeggman@Jul 16 2004, 10:47 AM
Hmmm removing elves from sorcerers seems like a bad idea to me. Bloodspawn specifically refers to the Sie (precursers of elves) as being able to cast arcane (inserted 3.5 word to describe) spells without memorizing (like a wizard) and then says the the elves acquired that portion of themselves while their shadow world equivalent acquired the mastery of divine spells. There are many references in 2nd ed BR to elves being like sorcerers (as they ended up being described in 3.5)
You are correct here... I was basing my view on High Elves not the Sie. They are much closer to sorceror then what was noted before. My intent was to require a great deal of divine blood to wield sorcery, but wizardry would still be as (realitivly) easy to attain as normal.

A good compromise was stated by Epicsoul... for standard sorcerors. My idea removed sorcerors from the standard classes. Whether or not i use this idea has come into question now and is still pending.