Talen said:Auric said:I can't think of any fantasy fiction where that has happened, can you?
Who says Alliance has to go by what others have gone by? Why can't the alliance create it's own special things, especially when the game depends on it's players so much to keep it alive. You want to keep your dedicated players playing, they bring new people to the game and support chapters so they can continue to run. When these players get bored with their skills but have dedicated years into their character development, they don't want to just give that all up and start new.
Even to reference a popular game right now, World of Warcraft allows you to change race/class. They have learned that people will just quit when they get bored, changing something like this might renew their fun and love for the game, and more importantly continue to play and support the game.
Matt
And at that point, it becomes a tool to min/max. WoW does have race/class changes, but that's because the skill and ability bases for both can and do often change radically- to the point where character builds really DO become unplayable. Thus, being able to respend points/race/class change.
Spirit Forge is kinda jarring. There's a plague killing the elves? Spirit Forge em into hoblings till the disease passes. Panterghasts hunting that innocent dwarf? No problem. Need a sudden mastery of the mystical arts? BAM, you're a super-scholar as the OP put it.
It's optimization in ritual form and it gets around a lot of things that IMHO, "a wizard did it" shouldn't solve. If anything, I think it should have more risks and invite visits from creatures of order and fate that don't appreciate you messing with your destiny.
The main point of this post and what a lot of people have agreed with is to...do what the player will have fun doing (as long at it doesn't hurt others). So if some one is against role playing, wants to be a stick jock and min/max so what. Let them. It doesn't hurt you. Let them have there fun. I understand that some people are against it and they have every right to voice there opinion just like every one else.
Forge already has a draw back that after the first one it adds a death to your card and you need to find teachers for all the skills you want. If some one is forging and they are against it then don't teach them and start a revolt, getting people to join your cause.
I'm sure that if there was a plague killing people that there would not be a huge flux of people race changing (I could understand plot giving one to the King but leaving the Duke to show some form of urgency).
As for the argument about it being "magic". What about every thing else in our game world? How does the mists work? How did all of a sudden we all get a forge? How are my magical items being held in these lands? How does the land bond work? How come, after more then 10 years of using this magical item, that now if some one else uses it they have to say the incant? There are explanations for all of them and the main point of it is that its magical (I understand that the "its magical" doesn't stop there).