What are your thoughts on Artificers from a writing/lore standpoint? Obviously magical items need to have been made by someone at some point, do you include them in your campaigns? Are there famous smiths and artisans?Personally, I love having my Wizards specialize into crafting magical items during the later portions of the campaign. Artificery just seems like something any self-respecting Wizard would invest their time in.I know there's an artificer class in certain games but that shit isn't anywhere near as cool as making proper magic items via crafting feats and material gathering
3e: usually most magic items were crafted in the past because there aren't wizards/etc. around anymore.Homebrew games: varies, usually little to no magic items
Wizards SHOULD dabble in artifice and craftwork, since it's a very old and very classic aspect of the wizardly trope/stereotype. SpellCRAFT.
>>94840256I don't like games with "classes", but the magical crafting stuff is fun.Writing/lore wise, it'd absolutely be a mage thing, whether old sagely scholar mages or forest witches. But I like the idea of quirkier crafters who manage to imbue magic in stuff such as paintings or textile crafts.And ofc, smiths.
When making items for you and your party, what should you prioritize?I think obviously you should start with making items that facilitate easier means of crafting magical items, and then probably weapons or offensive tools, no?
Wizards use staves and wands and make potions using alchemical equipment and build astrological contraptions to observe and record and calculate the movements of the stars.What >>94840305 said. The idea that magic is just superpowers is gay and retarded.
>>94840374But, anon, that implies machines and math and shit are magic, and that upsets the "nooo science can't be magic" crowd.
>>94840395Magic can imitate or surpass machinery, it just happens to be far more complex and instead of using the laws of nature, it utilizes the laws of magic, which you can be a lot more flexible withThere is a good amount of overlap between the two when it comes to objects that can serve a purpose, but magic provides a much wider range of applications
>>94840476>Magic can imitate or surpass machineryFucking retard.
>>94840496Someone get his feelings hurt?
>>94840507Magic IS machines, and machines ARE magic, you twat.
>>94840522No, magical items are magical items, machines are machines.Machines use basic concepts like friction, weights, force, you know, engineering. They adhere to the laws of nature and the rules that govern the basic universe.Magic doesn't use any of those, magic is an omnipresent resource that is woven into being or into objects to reside within, and its implementation/purpose depend on.. "supernatural" factors.
>>94840522gayest take ever
>>94840554>>94840561>he thinks magic is separate from natureGot it. You're just stupid.
>>94840599>philosophical bullshitOr, you can be a regular human being and get with the fucking program instead of trying to needlessly complicate and segregate the differences about shit that doesn't even exist and therefor cannot be reasonably arguedYou know what the fuck people mean when they say magic vs. machinery. They're different fucking schools of thought. Arguing that they're the same only makes you look like a pretentious faggot that wants to argue and shout into the wind.Thats why there's a difference between engineers and practitioners of magic in fantasy settings. You don't call a wizard to make a windmill or a waterwheel.You don't call an engineer to make a ring of invisibility.
>>94840599>he doesn't recognize it's all flavor, and his choice of flavor is strongly disliked by other anonsstay gay
>>94840757>You don't call a wizard to make a windmill or a waterwheel.???
>>94840798see? this is the shittiest way to do magicfuck your bad taste
>>94840256>What are your thoughts on Artificers from a writing/lore standpoint?The constraints need to be VERY carefully considered to dial in magic item scarcity for the desired setting. Additionally, a specialist in crafting rules tends to be troublesome for pacing as they turn downtime and liquidity into party assets orthogonally from most of the rest of the system.>spoilerThe reason there's an Artificer class in D&D 5e is because it was a headline feature of Eberron back in 3.5, which was in fact all about making permanent items.>>94840332Meta-tool buildup turns the downtime+liquidity=power pacing constraints into a far more sensitive exponent, and will often support proto-industrial behavior patterns that has generally unwanted effects on settings.>>94840599"Nature" is rarely used as all-encompassing and settings with non-monist cosmologies easily favor those definitions that are particular to the baseline state when not interrupted by only conditionally relevant forces. When using such definitions, >>94840785Reflavoring stops being valid the instant you write a mechanic relying on categorization of effect for system expectations. A given campaign can change the flavor of the entire category, but reflavoring only parts of it necessarily damages system function as the categories no longer align.
>>94840256>Obviously magical items need to have been made by someone at some pointProof it
What do you guys think about priests and other holy magic users creating holy items to fight back all the magic items used and made by mages and such? Like we already know that they uses holy items to fight evil magic like the undead and devils what with holy water and sacred symbols and other such things. So why not make thing that fight normal magic as well?
>>94841178Im a huge wizardfag so I haven't involved myself too much when it comes to clerics or the implementations of religious and holy magic in settings like these, but I imagine this would work a lot differently.On one hand, I couldn't see a Warlock imbuing an item with magic or something without the approval or intent from their Patron deity. I think its instances like this why we see a lot of magic artifacts being made by gods themselves instead of actual people.I'd normally apply these rules to clerics and priests as well, but they ARE capable of blessing things, which itself is similar (or synonymous) to imbuing something. So I don't actually know.>Why don't they make holy items to fight normal magicI think that depends heavily on the settings themselves. There's probably a lot of potential with an idea like that. But on paper? I don't think combating regular magic is a real priority for most gods. From my understanding, their magic is how they influence the world to begin with.
>>94841228Well what with how in most settings it seems like all it takes for a mage to go full necromancer is one bad day or seeing one to many age lines on there face. And all of the horror that comes with good wizards going bad like that. You would think the priests and paladins of the setting would put more effort into long term solutions after the first few times Merlin burned down the world and made all the dead body's dance the Thriller over what was left. I mean just a big armory of blessed weapons and items such as holy sword and icons of protection from the undead would be more than enough in my mind to keep a setting viable as such if any mad bastard can make an near endless army of monsters rise from there graves to kill the living at any given time. I mean just as an emergency option the good living factions can call on if things get really bad really fast is all.I mean if you have the power to heal deathly wounds with the blessings of your god and other such divine acts of healing and protection. You should also at least have some power to bless a sword so that it can defend its wielder from the dark power that seek to steal his or her vary soul from there still living body's? Its only fair what with all the bullshit powers the forces of evil and even normal magics can get up to. After all what is a skeleton warrior but a magic item under the control of a necromancer. Or at-least that is how most necromancers seem to think of there creations.
>>94841178"holy magic users" -> just a type of mage/wizard/sorcerer/whatever you call spellcasters.Sure, some types of casters might be opposed to others.
>>94841389It's not exactly like this is rock paper scissors. Magic at the end of the day is still magic. The only thing that matters is how much is behind it, and believe me, the Lich tends to have more than everyone.>Just have magic that counters magic!I don't mean to demean your argument by saying that, either. The real answer behind all of it?Its just hard. It takes a lot of resources, it takes a lot of magic, and it takes a lot of people knowing how to DO that magic. And the people that know how to do that magic haven't been planning for 300 years like the Lich up the street has.
>>94840599Smart (not dumb) catposter (for once).
>>94841489Nah he's a retard
>>94841489>>94840599Samefag.
>>94841419Which begs the question. If Lichs and dragon are all such badasses that have planned everything out for such a long time that there victory is forgone. Then how is it that anyone ever wins any fights with them while still being believable in any way?Like if a story has no video game systems like leveling up or putting points in your stats to make yourself stronger. And lichs and dragons get stronger with age just because that is how there body's and souls work naturally. Then how are mortal peasants and nobility supposed to in any way defend themselves from just being stomped out may super monsters like them?Like in Game of Thrones the only reason the last of the young dragon that was burning down the capitol stopped doing so. Was because his human mom got killed by her boyfriend in a sneak attack she and her guards should have seen coming and stopped. So the dragon got sad and flew away to part unknown.If that is the only reason for mortals to logically survive in a world full of such super monsters like lichs and dragons than that setting has no valid reason for any mortals to still be alive in it. Other than maybe the mountain holds of the dwarfs being made into such perfect protective fortification that they can keep out the undead army's of the damned and elder dragon attacks. As other than that i can not see how anyone can survive outside such impenetrable walls.
>>94841554Oh, that's an easy one. The answer is always complacency.The weakness of any immortal being is complacency. Having infinite time lets you do infinite things, but that doesn't save you from monotony. And don't think that our parties and our PCs are the only ones to ever try stopping one of these threats.We're just the ones that pull it off. We're the only ones that won where the dozens, hundreds or potentially thousands have failed. That Lich will get out of bed every morning, prepare his spells like he did the thousands and thousands of days before, remain in his domain like the hundreds of years that he has, and he will do the same thing he did yesterday and he will do the same thing tomorrow. He'll kill the adventuring party on Thursday, much like the previous one last Monday.But what that Lich doesn't know in that coming fight, is that his concentration slips for just a moment. The fighter gets too close to him, he loses his temperament. This isn't according to plan, he's not used to mistakes. But now he's wavering, and the fight just became real in his mind. That's okay though, he has back-up plans-->Oh my fucking god, is that Wizard holding my fucking PHYLACTERY-That's how a Lich loses, that's how any immortal creature loses. Time is an infinite thing, so you'll always have infinite opportunities to falter. And all it takes is just one.
>>94841608Utter shit answer, whether applied to liches or to elves (where a very similar logic is used to shittily explain elves as being 800 but still being useless retards).>But what that Lich doesn't know in that coming fight, is that his concentration slips for just a moment. The fighter gets too close to him, he loses his temperament. This isn't according to plan, he's not used to mistakes.No, it's the opposite.It's those who are still young and with little life experience who behave like that.And boomers whose brains have already been fried due to aging, lead, and lifestyles where they don't need to do as much thinking as they had to before they got into that position in life.
>>94841644>But it's the oppositeNo that's the thing you don't get, anon. Its not that young people aren't prone to it, they most certainly are.But you throw hundreds of them at a problem and something eventually sticks. Eventually something punches through.And these hundreds of groups tackling this threat ARE seasoned adventurers, it's not like they're level 2 asshats that walked out of a bar fight. They may be more or less prepared than the previous set of adventurers. This party running at the lich? Most likely going to die like the rest of them. All of the rest have failed so far, odds are these will too.But what if they don't? Time is infinite, after all. Eventually, something snaps. Again, that's how something immortal loses.
>>94841669>No that's the thing you don't get, anon.I'm >>94841644 , but I'm not >>94841554>But you throw hundreds of them at a problem and something eventually sticks. Eventually something punches through.And the lich would be the one most aware of that.So having them be defeated through complacency is gay.The lich himself should be extra aware that people can rise to become more powerful than anyone else expected anyway, since that's what the lich himself did.
>>94841694I understand anon, but that's just how time works. It's not fair, everything rises and falls. You can conquer a natural death, but that doesn't mean you'll ever be free from something trying to kill you.>Having them defeated through complacency is gayIts not because they're complacent, they're just a subject of time like the rest of us. You aren't always at your best. You're not always in that headspace where you can take everything on at your peak.Success breeds confidence. Overconfidence creates complacency.>The lich would be the one most aware of thatHe also knows he is powerless against the true extent of time. A lich knows that one day they'll lose. But is that reason for him to give up and stop trying one day? No, obviously not. It would contradict why they became a lich in the first place. So they continue on with what they're doing.It's also stuff like this that shows us how bored a Lich becomes. Hundreds and thousands of years are brutal amounts of time on any sane mind. It's why they play games with adventurers, make puzzles or riddles, lay complex and ridiculous traps, or taunt them throughout the adventure.
>>94841743>It's why they play games with adventurers, make puzzles or riddles, lay complex and ridiculous traps, or taunt them throughout the adventure.Come on, anon.That's 100% due to meta reasons.
>>94841757I'm 100% serious.I'm a wizardfag obsessed with puzzles and riddles myself and love all sorts of challenges of wit. If I were a lich and I had been killing hundreds of adventurers in my dungeons, I'd like to play with them in all kinds of ways. I'd just concoct all sorts of traps and puzzles to see what makes them tick. That's just me.But you know gladiators were criminals, slaves, and prisoners of war right? Do you see them just being outright executed? No, they were stuck in Colosseums as a spectator sport.Have you ever looked at those rat-trap videos on youtube of people concocting all these wild and over-the-top means of catching rats? It's crazy what people will do for fun or curiosity, dude. They'll stick a domestic rat on the safe side of a trap and watch as hundreds of rats will fall in purely out of curiosity about the domestic one.
>>94841772Come on, anon.Yeah, seeking entertainment makes some sense (only some: they are undead creatures that went through some eldritch process after all).But that specific type of entertainment is extremely blatant meta: DM wants to send the party to a weird dungeon that otherwise makes no sense, DM wants the party to interact with the main big bad so that it won't feel like a giant space monster out of nowhere.Lich can surely entertain himself in less retarded ways.>GladiatorsCompletely irrelevant. Keeping the masses entertained has practical uses.
True wizards know that the supernatural is just a point of view.
>>94841791Look, life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Obviously dungeons are fun. And concocted in the means we see in games and modules, I can certainly see a reason why a Lich would make them so exciting to go through. A dungeon reflects the personality and ideals of a Lich very well. As a narrative tool? It's a great concept.But this is all a bit irrelevant from the original argument-The truth of the matter is that anything, given enough time, will fall, regardless of their efforts. Immortals may stall for hundreds or thousands of years, but all it takes is 1 mistake for them to be gone forever. And that one mistake can show up at any moment, and happen in an instant. The bigger their plans are, the more holes they have, and the more things that can go awry.
>>94841743OK lets say for a given that you are right. That time and a single bad day is the enemy of all things. Well that is one badass lich down. And all it took was thousands of super heroes lives over hundreds of years and who even knows how many towns and city's that lich burned to the ground and defiled the earth of in between his endless hero killing streak.But what the hell is the world of mortals going to do about the hundreds lichs in there own tombs plotting the downfall of the living, the thousands of still mortal necromancers still on there own damned path to immortality paved in the blood and bones of hundreds to thousands of innocents. the 20 to 30 elder dragons that dream of ruling the world and destroying all the mortal races that would dare defy them there destiny, or there thousands of dragon spawn that see a human city as nothing more than a free dinner with nothing the humans of said city can do to stop the dragons from turning them all into roast pork? Not to mention all the other super monsters out there that hate mortals and want to see them all die like pigs. Like the giant kingdoms of all types that see mortals as only useful when being used as meat in mass for there stews or as a carpet for them to stomp on when they want to feel something soft and crunchy under foot. Or some other bullshit giant monsters that hates us all and wants to see us all die like the Kraken or some other beast that humans just can not kill easy.At a certain point your own logic turns on you my dude. And time becomes the invincible enemy of the mortal races and not the monsters. As there are far to many super monsters out there and it takes the lives of far to many heroes to bring down even one of them. At a certain point you run out of heroes, then city's, the town, then nations, and last of all you run out of mortals themselves as they have all been killed by super monsters. And the gods would have to stop the killing of the mortals to be believable.
>>94841910The living doesnt have to do anything, these liches and necromancers certainly aren't going to get comfortable with each other. It'd certainly be bad for humanity if all of them sprung up at once, but then those threats would be at odds with each other, not humanity itself. It would be counter-productive for all of them.>BUT THATS NOT A GOOD ENOUGH EXPLANATION FOR METhen I don't know, get the fuck over it?The games and stories are cool, I don't slave over these thoughts like you do. If I gave anymore of a shit, I'd continue arguing with you but clearly nothing is good enough for you because you keep moving the goalposts and shit and now I'm just bored of wasting my time on you
>>94841910imho this opens a door to something that makes more sense than>hurr just send millions of "adventurers", eventually one will succeedthe problem is that this new solution that makes sense just amounts to PCs are now shitty extras in a scenario full of big player NPCs
>>94841974you're arguing with multiple anonsI guess it's because you're trying to present your points as if they were obvious and logical in-universe explanations when they're not.But that's ok, accepting that they're just choices for the sake of gameplay is better than this silly pretending.
>>94842057I'm not saying they're obvious explanations, I'm just explaining what happens. Liches lose because they just are a product of time on a grand scale like any immortal creature is.>as if they were logical explanations when they're notNo.., they're actually pretty logical explanations. You can choose to believe something else, but that's how a lich loses. Not even because that's how *I* view a lich losing specifically, like it's some sort of head-canon I'm trying to push, either. A Lich genuinely loses because at some point, they falter, like any other living creature does.
>>94841974I was just trying to say that the churches and cults of the lands should be mass producing holy weapons and items as best they can so as to provide a certain level of defense for the world. As it seems like normal magical weapons can only be found in the old ruins of past civilizations that most likely got stomped on by some lich, dragon, or demon lord in the past themselves.So you would think the new civilizations that built up from the survivors of the old magical civilizations would try something new to protect themselves from the super monsters. Like faith, godly worship, and holy weapons that are hopefully up to the task of protecting there holder from dragon fire and the death touch of the undead. Like this iteration of the kingdoms of man and other races see the path of magic as a failed one that only leads to the birth of magical monsters and the death of the world as we know it. So the mortals of the world now follow the path of faith and the gods to seek protection from there pasts of magic use that doomed there ancestors.I do not even know if holy and blessed items should even be as powerful or more so than old magical items you can find in the old ruins. But for the sake of the adventure i guess magic items should be more powerful. But blessed weapons are the new normal that everyone relies on to protect themselves now adays as nobody trusts the old magics anymore and some kingdoms have even passed laws that say all magic that does not come from the gods is illegal and what not. So now the blessed weapons of the world are the new elite standard of the world that everyone relies one and anyone seen with a magic item is seen at best as an asshole that is one day going to get whats coming to him. Or a dead man walking if a holy servant of the all loving gods ever gets there hands on them. And fuck mages. the trouble making assholes all of them. I hope they all get eaten by dragons before we do the bastards. Says the random peasant.
>>94842104>fuck magesindeedin world they're the ones fucking up everythingout of the world, they're a shitty narrative device being simultaneously too capable but also too fucking retarded
>>94842104>fuck mageswell fuck YOU too pal your cities would be mud-huts and you'd be in the fucking stone age without us
>>94842038Well yeah but kings and there kingdoms can be a real pain to deal with as well until you get strong enough to deal with or topple them as well. Being blasted with dragon fire and being drowned in the blood and body's of an army of peasants loyal to the king sound much the same in the end. One just take more time and tosses of the dice to pull off than the other is all.
>>94842119We were driven back into mud huts and we now live in a new stone age because you damn wizards could not keep your dicks in your robes when it came to summoning demonic succubus from the abyss. Until one day you bastards opened to big a portal to hell and summoned the demon lord of lust to our world and he started literally fucking out shining crystal city's to death. Like he would literally just start humping the buildings of our city's and horrible unspeakable things would happen to them and everybody inside them.Then the bastard summoned the rest of the demon lords of the deadly sins after he got tired of raping us all to death on his own. And then things get fuzzy as it seems time its self erased its self just in the hopes of forgetting what the seven deadly sin lords did to all of us in that age of hell on earth. Hell i was born during that time of madness and i do not remember anything from before i was a adult.Said by prince mud builder one of the first of the new leaders of the age after the end of the rule of the demon lords of the deadly sins.
>fuck magesOnly if they're young, hot, androgynous long haired bishonen types.
>>94840256What game are you talking about?
>>94842304Hey, I play exclusively those kinds of mages..
>>94841799No, wonderfag, something being relative doesn't make it subjective.
>>94842317Oh do you play Exalted?
>>94842361I've been learning various systems recently and going down the TTRPG pipelinePassed 5e and down to PF2E, what's Exalted like?
>>94842317Hot
>>94842368sadly haven't had a party that appreciates it yet
>>94842367Anime the role-playing game is what i heard.Also i was trying to be a cheeky asshole by saying you play Exalted. It did not land right and i am sorry for that. Have a good day.
>>94842379Its okay anon I try to be a good sport when it comes to jokesI appreciate your explanation
>>94842372Thats not a bishonen pretty boy. That is just a dorky femboy everyone wants to bully in bed for being so soft and cute.
>>94842104The distinction being made is typically put as Arcane vs. Divine in the TTRPG space as D&D has both use the same pseudo-Vancian casting mechanics, and there's a lot of material throughout the years making a point of their underpinnings heavily overlapping.
>>94842394th-there's nothing wrong with either
>>94842372My first character was a cute male wizard but after that I decided to play crazy or retarded characters instead.If anything, because I don't like being the one "boring" character in the party.and also, to not make my fetishes too obvious
>>94842395What that you like smelling unicorn centaur hooves or something like that magic man?
>>94842417I just wrote magical realm, then decided to replace it with fetishes but only deleted the word realm.Oh well.Point is, I really like cute male wizards.
>>94842408Yeah that is true. but one of them is normally a bully and the other is the one getting bullied is all i am saying.
>>94842394There are many types of bishonen pretty boys.Otome games with casts large enough often do have a borderline (or straight up) shota guy, and a crossdresser/borderline mtf guy.(Pic: first otome game, pretty sure everyone there is a love interest except the two girls in the bottom, who are protagonist and rival)
>>94842432Yeah and I enjoy playing wizard boys able of being the team's comfy utility caster while also being able to blow things up in a fight despite being very easy to bully by the party
>>94842450That guy is not a wizard, not cute and not comfy.
>>94842455I'm runnin' out of art here gimme a break
>>94842450Just play a healer cleric then. You will get all of the submission play you could ever ask for if you did that.
>>94842494Well in PF2E cleric or medic is my Archetype feats so I kind of bridge the gap I guessbut I love playing wizards too much because of all the different utility they have, Clerics are neat but they're not as multi-purpose as wizards are
>>94840757>about shit that doesn't even exist and therefor cannot be reasonably arguedWhat amusing way to start a post where you argue about the nature of magic.>Thats why there's a difference between engineers and practitioners of magic in fantasy settings.You need to read more fantasy.'In this fashion did Turjan enter his apprenticeship to Pandelume. Day and far into the opalescent Embelyon night he worked under Pandelume's unseen tutelage. He learned the secret of renewed youth, many spells of the ancients, and a strange abstract lore that Pandelume termed "Mathematics.""Within this instrument," said Pandelume, "resides the Universe. Passive in itself and not of sorcery, it elucidates every problem, each phase of existence, all the secrets of time and space. Your spells and runes are built upon its power and codified according to a great underlying mosaic of magic. The design of this mosaic we cannot surmise; our knowledge is didactic, empirical, arbitrary. Phandaal glimpsed the pattern and so was able to formulate many of the spells which bear his name. I have endeavored through the ages to break the clouded glass, but so far my research has failed. He who discovers the pattern will know all of sorcery and be a man powerful beyond comprehension." ' - Jack Vance; Turjan of Miir
>>94844038bitch about it
>>94840496Yes, a supernatural force is inherently superior to natural forces.
>>94844038Based Pandelume. Math was seen as a form of magic for thousands of years. All the way back to the numerical cults of Pythagoras, and all the way up back up to Isaac Newton and his obsession with sacred geometry.
>>94845046The supernatural is just exotic nature. You think God isn't natural to Himself?
>>94841910It seems to me that the solution is to reduce the number of ancient dragons and all powerful liches in your world until civilization can reasonably coexist with them.
>>94845046Superior and inferior are relative terms.Ghosts that can only be barely heard in recordings are inferior in power to my neighbor screamingn at his kid, he lives multiple houses away and I'm well aware of what he wants at most times.
>>94840757>You know what the fuck people mean when they say magic vs. machineryYeah but it’s still dishonest/disingenuous when machinery goes along with wizards as a trope/stereotype.>They're different fucking schools of thoughtNo they’re not. The devices of the Greeks were seen as the stuff of wizards.
