[.11] Time to Get a New Life

Quite possibly due to the making of channeling available at 1st level instead of an aspect of formal/high magic. This opens up EC a lot. Which is where I think will balance out the need for the amount of life spells.

Yes, spells pump out more healing than channeling. But again EC are resource management and force depletion mitigation.

Me, a level 7 fighter with 20 body, can consume 3 packets of channeling and be good to go. Where as a high level character actually needs a healing spell used on them because the amount needed exceeds the practically (or character's build) of channeling.

The availability of channeling creates a lot of versatility assuming characters actually use it. Where 1 point of Earth channeling us equal to 5 level 1 signature spells. For bith low level EC and and high level EC channeling frees up a lot of build that would have been used for healing per day spells.

The same is true for CC, and as someone building a Archer Spellsword - channeling is gonna be my jam.
 
non caster looking in.
I appreciate that you continue to skim posts and take away whatever point best fits your argument. As a fighter I can soak up a fair amount of that wand damage as it didn't come out fast enough to stop the damage of a fighter in your face, though I agree that the wand changes are going in a good direction. Lets not forget that with mettle and resolute being skills, high number bursts AND take down spells are going to be strictly worse for the casters using them. the bread and butter of what I see people go into celestial for are some of the most effective take outs in the game with utility to spread around on various other uses. Unfortunately as it was already pointed out Earth casters get the vast majority of those takeouts plus the soon to be even more effective curse school of magic. I'm not arguing that Earth is overpowered, I think the 2.0 changes so far are great. I'm simply saying that the celestial difference between 1.3 and 2.0 haven't shifted as much as the earth difference and perhaps with the game concept of building team unity between players, this theoretical spell fix to give more life spells could have been in the celestial spell list
 
I don’t care who gets the “other way to make you Not Dead.” My objective is to have an additional method of making people Not Dead so that

1) Earth Casters do not feel as strong of a social expectation to memorize Only Life spells at 9th.

2) Ideally, have a production item available so that Earth Casters aren’t the only way to make someone Not Dead.

I based the fix out of Earth casting because, thematically, “restorative” magic is there. Alchemy could have the fix, too. I can’t think of a fix that feels thematically appropriate to Celestial magic, because C Magic doesn’t fix anything, outside of Dispel. You’d have to invent a new school, like Time magic, and we are expressly trying to reduce schools.
 
Why couldn't it be part of the enhancement school? Grant you the power of "copy spell" or to renew or something? The hard part of this is the combination of "life is an Earth capstone ability" and "don't force Earth casters to memorize life". We mostly seem to be agreed that SOMETHING needs to be done it's just the what and where of the fix. Meditation seems like a whole avenue of modifiable with spells as the current place to make that change and putting a spell (or spells) into celestial seems to shift the responsibility to non Earth scholars just as much if you feel pressured. In my group I would certainly expect the scholar to bring 1-2 "can meditate the next spell/ability no matter what" and as long as the earth scholar had a single life spell they would be fine to take other 9th levels. Adding a 7th level mini life would still keep that responsibility on the earth casters to have those pick me ups without changing the dynamic.
 
There has been a lot of discussion about the high end of game balance. I'd like to offer some perspective from the lower end, as someone who was both played many larps and written successful rules systems.

I'm playing a templar who has gone almost entirely for buying earth spells. I generally rack healing on every level I can, and defensives on the rest. The healers at game don't consider me a healer, because I can't cast life and I can't heal the local big fighter even once. The young healers aren't relevant to the person running healing triage for town battles. For someone whose concept is 'sturdy healer', this is a pretty bad game play experience. (My chapter's players & staff are awesome; but the current rule set is just poor.) To be honest, my single 1st level celestial spell + scroll use has felt much more combat-time effective than being able to cast 6th list earth spells.

I'm very hopeful about the changes in 2.0 towards making it so that you don't have to be 9th list capable to be considered a healer. If I were trying to make the game play experience better for the not-high-level folk, I'd want to see a spell probably at 5th level (to compete with spellshield and make it a _decision_) that had some way to bring someone back with some serious side effects - maybe they are alive but diseased and withered for 10 minutes (or drained); maybe the caster becomes withered (or drained); maybe both take side effects.
 
There has been a lot of discussion about the high end of game balance. I'd like to offer some perspective from the lower end, as someone who was both played many larps and written successful rules systems.

I'm playing a templar who has gone almost entirely for buying earth spells. I generally rack healing on every level I can, and defensives on the rest. The healers at game don't consider me a healer, because I can't cast life and I can't heal the local big fighter even once. The young healers aren't relevant to the person running healing triage for town battles. For someone whose concept is 'sturdy healer', this is a pretty bad game play experience. (My chapter's players & staff are awesome; but the current rule set is just poor.) To be honest, my single 1st level celestial spell + scroll use has felt much more effective than being able to cast 6th list earth spells.

I'm very hopeful about the changes in 2.0 towards making it so that you don't have to be 9th list capable to be considered a healer. If I were trying to make the game play experience better for the not-high-level folk, I'd want to see a spell probably at 5th level (to compete with spellshield and make it a _decision_) that had some way to bring someone back with some serious side effects - maybe they are alive but diseased and withered for 10 minutes (or drained); maybe the caster becomes withered (or drained); maybe both take side effects.

This?

This right here?

This is why we need a lower level Life type spell.

This. Right. Here.
 
I think you’re unwilling to really take the conversation of balance as far as it would have to go, so I apologize, but I see no further benefit in engaging you in this circular conversation.

I agree we are having a circular conversation, but I don't think "distance" so much as direction is the issue.

As a celestial caster (adept), celestial has been OP for quite some time now. I think with this packet, things have finally evened out, personally.

Most certainly a optimized golem, that can heal itself and has dodges is OP. I'm not talking about golems, and they have been removed with good cause. Basic Celestial Magic has been weak for a long time; wands and golems were added to fix it, but I feel were added in the wrong way.

I am going to start a new thread outlining my thoughts on this as opposed to hijacking this thread with it.
 
I was catching up in here and this caught my eye. I mean this sincerely when I say I'm sorry if you ever put up with this. This is not standard, common, or frankly acceptable (barring extreme circumstances of course)..., but most importantly it is also not the norm for most chapters that I visit and talk to. I certainly hope this isn't reflective of any given event. You shouldn't have to put up with that unless it is for perfectly IG reasons.

These sorts of issues shouldn't be factored into balance for resources for low level players. There is no balance for that except perhaps to say "stop hitting me in the wallet and good times for no reason".

Apologies for the late quote, that just really bothered me that people would be acting that way.

It is a thing.

I generally shrug it off because it is an in-game thing, but it is absolutely a factor in my experience that low level PCs rez because resources are being reserved, and it makes sense from an IG perspective that people are keeping back resources to make sure their team and their friends survive over the general populace. I have long held that making 'playing the healer' a social responsibility is a serious flaw that we've brought over from D&D's 'who has to play the cleric' days, and that death should be something that happens due to specific intent rather than screwing up timing.

I also see low level PCs targeted more often with things like DFM because unlike well equipped high-level characters they are unlikely to have a pocket full of once-ever Dodges and will take the effect. It's frustrating, but I understand fully that from the NPC side, it is also frustrating to have your effects never seem to land, so consciously or subconsciously you will sometimes go for a target you know will take it.
 
I also see low level PCs targeted more often with things like DFM because unlike well equipped high-level characters they are unlikely to have a pocket full of once-ever Dodges and will take the effect. It's frustrating, but I understand fully that from the NPC side, it is also frustrating to have your effects never seem to land, so consciously or subconsciously you will sometimes go for a target you know will take it.
[Off Topic]
I could give a 5 day lecture about why I think thrown rituals are generally stupid, and never really land the scare factor they're supposed to. (We try to limit it as much as possible at South Michigan, our first 2 years on plot I don't think we had one ritual thrown). Which is frustrating all around. They're great for things like wards and circles where destroying some protection can be an unexpected turn. But generally trying to destroy player's magic items via a packet doesn't achieve any effect. It's certainly possible this will change in 2.0. But, in 1.3 mannnnnnnnnnnn. [/Off Topic]
 
(Off topic)

Honestly, I don’t see DFMs or Shatters thrown at low levels. If it does it’s because a target moved and it was a wrong place at the wrong time. 5 years on plot I didn’t see this happen intentionally in Chicago. 8 years playing SoMN I never saw this either. (Back on)
 
I'm playing a templar who has gone almost entirely for buying earth spells. I generally rack healing on every level I can, and defensives on the rest. The healers at game don't consider me a healer, because I can't cast life and I can't heal the local big fighter even once. The young healers aren't relevant to the person running healing triage for town battles. For someone whose concept is 'sturdy healer', this is a pretty bad game play experience. (My chapter's players & staff are awesome; but the current rule set is just poor.) To be honest, my single 1st level celestial spell + scroll use has felt much more combat-time effective than being able to cast 6th list earth spells.

Hey Feldor, this isn't a game balance issue. This is a mentality issue with the people at your chapter. Lower level healers are incredibly important even if people don't realize it. Pick me ups are needed. Whoever is running your triage should be counting your healers who don't have life spells as important too. This doesn't change if you you implement a 'lower level life' or not.
 
That is an important point we have only glazed over. Life is the emergency back up. In the coming 2.0 normal healing will be far more critical than Life spells. The whole point is to remain vigilant and prepared with normal healing to keep situations from ever getting to the point of needing a Life spell. This leads into my points from earlier in that plot teams will have to treat Doom and other death effects with as much respect as they might treat present day dragon magic.

That said you don't even need Doom effects on the field when they can show up on their own in the right circumstances. So pulling back even more from these powerful effects becomes even more important.

Can I have you on my side Feldor? If people aren't respecting a focused healer in some way I'll take every single one of you. :)
 
Hi everyone ! So I am an earth caster - I am a healer - literally all I want to do is heal.

I am no longer a low level healer, but I am by far not a “big healer” in my town. I remember clearly what it was like to be a low level healer. It was a tough path to get that first life and every other after it- but I was never unimportant nor did I feel I needed a lower level life like spell.
I learned resource management (that was a hard one for me lol) and I learned to love potions and elixirs - because a pick me up is a pick me up:) low level Healers need to learn how to best use what they have and learn what options they have to be as useful as possible. You start with the understanding - spells will go quickly - how else can I help ?

I think I General these new rules are gonna be a learning curve for everyone - and I think it will be a tough curve for a lot of people - but I do not think we need to panic about life just yet ! Everyone will be learning together and if after playtesting earth “don’t die” spells need to be reviewed- they will be .
But as of right now Earth is the more powerful school and I would love to see celestial get some more love !

- Nette
 
Seconding the feeling of being a healer and not ever really feeling useless even at low levels. Hell, I still don't have 3rd level spells (I focused on Potions and Alchemy), and I'm still useful just because of how much mitigation I provide. Before I got my stocks up, I ran body collection and did First Aid on while higher-level healers were patching up other people.

And I've said it elsewhere, but here I'll just echo other people: If your chapter sees people without Life spells as "not really healers", that's a problem with mindset, not rules.
 
I was lucky - I started game as part of a team that was crafter heavy. When I moved out to my current chapter, people were generous with potions and scrolls. So I've always had a good amount of consumables. I'm good at resource management. I use healing spells to stand people up in a clutch in combat, and potions when I have the time to use them. But as a 6th list capable earth caster, my typical load out gives me 8 healing spells per day for a total of 58 body (I do take magic armor instead of cure wounds; things are always hitting for 5+ and it can be used well tactically.) And because spells are dear, I picked up shield & blunt because its something I can do when spells aren't available or appropriate; and lets me provide cover for the "life capable" healers. (At an HQ event, I had a mod where I'd been instructed to guard the healer; and that my spells were to be used solely to stand them up if they somehow got dropped; and that I wasn't to try swinging my weapon except in defense of the healer since that was more important than my 2-silver.)

At the current chapter, the town outfits any new player with healing potions and instructions on how to use them. That level of support is just expected in my chapter. I don't think that should really be considered part of being a healer, because at least in this chapter, it is everyone's job.

The new rules set will have me with 12 spells for 170 body healing, and likely the ability to 'pinch' hit up to 6 more (converting spellshields and magic armor). And channeling and flexible casting looks potentially great for low level healing. I'm pretty enthused to see how this feels.



But as of right now Earth is the more powerful school and I would love to see celestial get some more love !

Its interesting, as a low level templar with scroll use, I've felt like celestial casting was really strong. Way more so than earth. Likely the important bit was actually treating the spells like a consumable, and having something else I was doing most of the time. But each time a vulnerable creature came out, celestial magic just wrecked them; and even against the big bad of one mod, my celestial scrolls were the only thing I had that could contribute. It may actually be that I feel that scroll use is really strong.

I will also say I think barehanded caster of either type is definitely 'hard mode' at alliance.

I didn't go in to this game thinking I could play a low level healer and heal all day. I've been playing it smart. But if you want to have fun playing a low level healer, the current alliance rules don't support this as well as many other larps.
 
(Off topic)

Honestly, I don’t see DFMs or Shatters thrown at low levels. If it does it’s because a target moved and it was a wrong place at the wrong time. 5 years on plot I didn’t see this happen intentionally in Chicago. 8 years playing SoMN I never saw this either. (Back on)

You may not see everything. I caught a thrown DFM that was headed into the crowd in SoMN last year.
 
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