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Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:49 pm
by TH - The Hunt
It's much less important when there's a single keystone to fracture than when there's some real work to do... If it's possible for one caster to destroy an army with one spell, so long as they're given enough resources, then the most successful 'strategies' are going to look more like cutting the Gordian knot than not in both directions, most of the time. The game and story are both going to be more interesting if it doesn't come down to that.

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:58 pm
by WM - The Waste Mage
I think spells should do double damage against Dwarves.

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:02 pm
by TH - The Hunt
They do, if by double damage you mean twice as much damage as bludgeoning weapons, since those do half damage to dwarves.

...Dwarves are supposed to be more magic-resistant than other races, though. They get a bonus on saves vs. spells, and a 20% chance for magic malfunction. That's part of why they don't have mages (in the BRCS, at least).

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:16 pm
by TPK - The Pirates
KC - Kavagh Clan wrote:
Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:49 pm
It's much less important when there's a single keystone to fracture than when there's some real work to do... If it's possible for one caster to destroy an army with one spell, so long as they're given enough resources, then the most successful 'strategies' are going to look more like cutting the Gordian knot than not in both directions, most of the time. The game and story are both going to be more interesting if it doesn't come down to that.
There's always a keystone.

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:24 pm
by TH - The Hunt
That's like saying 'there's always a short-circuit'. If the game encourages that set-up, those who don't use it are at a disadvantage, and it isn't focused on the way conflicts are going to be resolved as a result, it's a faulty design that's going to be boring to play with... at least, for anyone who's expecting more out of it than a brief moment of smoke and sparks before someone else needs to come in and fix it for them.

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:30 pm
by TPK - The Pirates
I was speaking less of the game and more of life.
War, diplomacy, negotiations, relationshisp -- there's always a keystone, whether it is recognized is another question.

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:44 pm
by TH - The Hunt
I'm not sure why we'd be talking about life philosophy, here, but the idea that complex problems can be easily solved by someone with the right insight is common, dangerous, and most often wrong in real life. To the extent that's relevant to the game: For complex, large-scale problems to, by and large, need complex, large-scale solutions is good because it rewards players for rising to the challenge instead of for bailing out and sinking to the lowest level.

Though, it's nice to have that option sometimes. It's just... it should be an unfavourable one, otherwise there's no point.

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:09 pm
by TPK - The Pirates
No one said complex issues can be easily solved. This goes back to a continued effort to misunderstand intentionally and to change the statement in manner which makes it more conducive to your particular point of view.

What was stated is that there are keystone's in everything. Moving, breaking, or changing a keystone has its own intrinsic risks and rewards.

Assassinating a wizard can be an incredibly resource intensive effort; meeting an enemy army head on can likewise cost an incredible amount of resources; sinking a fleet before it sets sail could be costly; fighting an alliance of regents is often resource intensive. None of these are simple solutions -- however each could be a keystone in a particular setting and under particular circumstances.

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:25 pm
by TH - The Hunt
There are not 'keystones in everything', a single arch or vault has a keystone. An undead army led by a single necromancer has a keystone. And, if a single wizard could be responsible for the outcome of a battle with 50 units on a side, they, too, would be a keystone--for the victory, if not for the army or realms they benefit. But it's not something that can be generalized the way you're doing unless you're redefining 'keystone' to mean any weakpoint, even if it isn't a singular one that supports an entire structure.

I could just as well say what you're doing here is making a continued effort to obfuscate and veil your position, so you can make false equivalencies... or maybe you're unintentionally using the word 'keystone' in an overly broad way, and you're listing false equivalencies because you don't know what the argument is about.

The suggestion was to allow wizards to hit unlimited target units with their offensive spells, so long as they have the resources. If we allowed this, then killing that one wizard could make or break an entire side's strategy, removing the attention they (and their opponents) need to pay to the rest of the game, and compressing what could potentially be the game's main conflict in to be resolved by the (rather ad hoc) assassination and investiture rules.

That's why I made the 'short-circuit' analogy. The 'keystone' one works better for undead legions, where the loss of their commander--either from death, or simple removal from the battlefield--instantly causes their undead legions to collapse. I think it's fair to have a 'keystone army' in that case, because the way it encourages assassination (and leaves the regent particularly vulnerable to it) is a way to discourage careless use of what are otherwise very powerful undead armies.

Edit: Note, cost does not equal complexity. A solution that costs thousands of GB and RP but only requires one action from one character (...the actions to give them resources don't add complexity, if they're all identical) is far less complex than one that costs nothing but requires more actions from more characters.

Re: Realm Magic at Sea

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:38 pm
by TPK - The Pirates
There's always a keystone.