Arcane Schools

[zerotkatama]

The burser (a bound imp) advises on Infernal 'locks, apparently.

 

[Kirnon_Bhale]

Oh my goodness, while I skipped over most of the fluff at the moment - I have to say that the feats and powers are really fun. I am not sure if they are overpowered or not but I felt that the Wizards Fury power was brilliant and what a flavour filled power without even having to write flavour text. Imagine this one at 21st level with a masters wand? You could go crazy with the magic missiles every round and then if you hit a large group of minions combine it with a staff of missile mastery to blast 8 of them in one round? Or combined with a masters wand.

What about the feats especially the riposte for a wizard - Last session loads of ranged attackers were targeting my character in return for blasting them throw in an out of turn attack with scorching burst and perhaps a masters wand again and you are doing butt loads of damage.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Arcane schools are rarely founded. Those that are, rarely last long. They gain reputation just by surviving their first year.

Really? Why?

It's because of the POL stuff that I generally ignore. You know, the whole "no empires" so there's no Arcane schools.

And it can't be a POL world if you have arcane schools everywhere. Even they're ignoring the fact that arcane schools can easily be hidden away in other worlds or made so that they're only reachable through secret paths.

 

[Inyssius]

Imagine this one at 21st level with a masters wand? You could go crazy with the magic missiles every round and then if you hit a large group of minions combine it with a staff of missile mastery to blast 8 of them in one round?

How do you plan on doing this? A +5 Staff of Missile Mastery can target three enemies with a magic missile, once per day. With Wizard's Fury, you can fire off an additional one magic missile per round.

That... doesn't add up to eight.

 

[Rechan]

It's because of the POL stuff that I generally ignore. You know, the whole "no empires" so there's no Arcane schools.

The funny thing is that in a PoL world, Arcane Schools also make sense.

An Arcane School can be its own PoL; think of a small college town in the middle of the wilderness, where instead of a militia or a fort with a garrison, the Protectors of the PoL are the school itself. Or, it can glom onto another Point - a large city, for instance.

Certainly you won't have Arcane Schools scattered like an epileptic with a salt shaker, but one or two in any given nation would seem reasonable, even in your typical PoL.

And it can't be a POL world if you have arcane schools everywhere. Even they're ignoring the fact that arcane schools can easily be hidden away in other worlds or made so that they're only reachable through secret paths.

OOooooo.

 

[Jack99]

Uhh,

"A school attracts danger by its very nature. Rivals seek revenge upon the instructors or headmasters for real or imagined slights. Governments feel threatened by the concentration of power. Even the curriculum can destroy the school, when practiced by careless or over-reaching students."

I thought the reference was funny. It was inevitable, really...

 

[Kirnon_Bhale]

How do you plan on doing this? A +5 Staff of Missile Mastery can target three enemies with a magic missile, once per day. With Wizard's Fury, you can fire off an additional one magic missile per round.

That... doesn't add up to eight.

Yea, thats why I put the question mark I hadn't read the description before posting and wasn't sure of the numbers. Still a fun combination though. And I still love the power.

Wonder if a feat or something like that will come out which lets you split your magic missiles so that you can do each d4 damage to an individual target.

 

[muchan]

Wow...just wow. Those White Lotus feats are just win for a Shielding Swordmage. Honestly, imagine a Hyrbrid Swordmage|Warlock armed with Eldritch Strike and Sword Burst and Riposte Mastery...

By the way...did any one else think that the art for the article page looked suspiciously like two Jedi?

 

[hong]

Even so, it just seems unrealistic that they'd not last. I mean, military schools/fighters guilds/etc would gather the same amount of threat and danger, since all things are equal.

Maybe they do. Maybe they're just as uncommon as mage schools.

The point of the intro is to emphasise that arcane schools are rare, not that they don't exist. If they didn't exist, then the rest of the article would be pretty pointless, yes? And if you read further down, the White Lotus school has been around for 143 years, so it's quite possible for a school to be long-lived.

- This fits into the PoL philosophy of having centers of civilisation being few and far between.

- It makes the school something unique and memorable within the setting, instead of being just another random guild among dozens of other guilds.

As for Harry Potter... I actually get as much of a Shaolin vibe from this article. From the name ("Lotus?" As in anti-BLACK Lotus, AMIRITE?) to the illo (two baseball d00ds jedi), you can run it as monastic arcane warriors-in-training.

 

[ppaladin123]

I like it, and it's a simple way to make it stat independent by linking it to powers you have anyway.

Wizard's get Ice Tomb at 17, which entombs and therefore stuns a creature (normally until end of next turn). At 23 is Thunderclap that stuns, and unlike Ice Tomb the party can still attack the target while it's stunned. Don't really see anything else that is as good for the other arcane classes, but that was just looking for 'stunned' or 'dominated' ... in terms of effects (and I didn't check the dragon stuff).

This is good for an orb wizard though it still pales in comparison to destructive salutation (blood made level 20). But that is because destructive salutation is brokenly good.