Magic and Sources

[Question]

I read the arcane sanctum feat but consider it would be too rare to of use.......for instance the bonus isnt that great in the first place, secondly most adventures wouldnt occur in your arcane sanctum, which is msot likely your resident tower or whatever surrounded by wards, etc, etc unless there was an assassination attempt or something similar the DM was doing.

I mean most of the time where are you going to be fighting..........dungeons maybe, on the fields of battle maybe, in/near your home?Well maybe if hostile armies have penetrated that far........

[Osprey]

I read the arcane sanctum feat but consider it would be too rare to of use.......for instance the bonus isnt that great in the first place, secondly most adventures wouldnt occur in your arcane sanctum, which is msot likely your resident tower or whatever surrounded by wards, etc, etc unless there was an assassination attempt or something similar the DM was doing.

I mean most of the time where are you going to be fighting..........dungeons maybe, on the fields of battle maybe, in/near your home?Well maybe if hostile armies have penetrated that far........

Arcane Sanctum's benefit is mostly limited to Close Range from your source manifestation...at which point it grants a bonus to spell DC's of 1 + source level! That's immense, if you're say, sitting on a level 7-9 source.

This is obviously a defensive feat for your arcane realm's "capital", and could be very significant between dueling source regents, or someone trying to physically obliterate your most vital source manifestation. Placed on a strong source, a source regent would be very powerful when defending this place. Imagine attacking such a place, and having almost no chance of saving against any of the mage's spells. Slow? Hold Person/Monster? Mass Suggestion? Illusions? Full damage from evocations (evasion no help)? Throw in a few guards to protect the mage, and he can deal with far stronger enemies than himself. Security is definitely worth something on the domain level - even a feat.

Osprey

[graham anderson]

There are a couple of things not mentioned so far in relation to magic one being the damage caused to some area's magic by daesmar. How you would represent this other than a lower source level is up to you and the old 2nd ed and I think the 3rd ed have shown more than one type of null or wild magic.

This could cause some problems in some area's.

Then there are the crystal gazers (magicians from 2nd ed) who could channel more magic than other magicians by risking things like paralysis. You could have all kinds of problems and events not just for wizards but for magicians too. Say in a more powerful source like dragon bones or natural ley lines magicians might have their magic enhanced but with a chance of nasty side effects. They try and channel magic only for much more mabhaigl to come than they expect. In area's of damage by daesmar a wizard might not be able to channel enough mabhaigl and might be reduced to being the same as a magician.

I dont think any effect like this should be common but you could put in the odd event that would effect magic.

I tried to represent this a while ago with a crystal gazer prestige class. The class wasn't perfect but I liked the ideas involved in it and it should be on the site somewhere.

I like magicians and have written a good bit on them in the past but most of what I write does not fit with the new magician class which I was never keen on.

[ausrick]

Osprey, about your house rules, got me thinking. You could maybe make it so that someone trying to tap into the power of a manifestation can make a spellcraft check to findout if it is claimed or unclaimed but don't automatically know. A regent who has claimed a manifestation that someone else is attempting to tap into becomes immediately aware of the intrusion and can do some sort of limited scry on the manifestation. They then have a choice as to allow it or stop it with their will . . . (and my favorite, go to the manifestation and investigate). This could add all sorts of role playing dilemas as angry Wizard NPC encounters, players protecting their source manifestation from interloper wizards. Or if you made certain rituals that needed to be cast from certain level manifestations help, you could have all sorts of fun with PC's needing to time an incursion for when a realm wizard is far away so that he can't react to them, because they need to tap into his sources to cast some sort of ritual to break some curse for the greater good or something like that. It also can cause some punishment of characters who too hastily tap into a manifestation before they investigate whether someone else uses it or not.


Another fun thing you can do, which I don't have the book infront of me but the basic rules come to mind as being appropriate, is treat them as Nodes of Faerzress from the Underdark book. These were basically geological nodes of magic in the earth that have different properties. I can't remember exactly but I thought that certain spells or save DC's are increased/affected near them, but most importantly they really screw around with the reliability of teleportation spells, even of the without error, blink, dimension door, dimensional anchor, summon, and gate variety. As much as Birthright flavor usually tries to limit/discourage teleportation, it could be a fun concept to add.