NecroticPunch
First Post
How would you go about turning true sorcery to high magic?
True Sorcery to High Magic
jedavis
First Post
I think one of the things that pulls TruSorc away from high magic is that the lower level powers are mostly very... not-flashy. A standard first-level wizard can do things like Burning Hands, Jump, Magic Missile, and Mage Armor. A first level TruSorc might be able to do force damage... but it'll be nonlethal, and won't automagically hit. Burning Hands is out of reach until Create Element at First Magnitude, while the spellcraft required to produce Mage Armor (+4 AC for an hour) is well out of the range of a first level TruSorc. Jump isn't possible until 10th level with Enhance Person.
With that in mind, one thing you could try would be shifting certain talents down a magnitude for purposes of learning them and base DCs. For example, in a high magic game, healing should probably be available before 5th level. Likewise elemental damage. Enhance Person and Obscure could both be dropped to First Magnitude from Second; they're both available at 4th level for standard Sorcerers, so opening them at 5th for TruSorcs would bring them a little closer in terms of power availability. Changes like that might be what you're looking for.
However, I will say that high-level TruSorcs don't need any help being high magic... I recently found that a properly prepared 20th-level TruSorc could beat a spellcraft DC of over 7000, which is more than sufficient to build a spell capable of killing deities with nearly high probability. Granted, you die in the process... but a caster of that power is easily able to cast a contingent resurrection on himself beforehand.
A 15th+ level TruSorc is likely to be running a pretty big defensive buff suite (I tend towards Reflect to stop enemy spells, Obscure for general miss chance, Force, Protection, or Enhance Person for +AC, and Wards for elemental resistance and DR), has access to good general purpose enhancers (Enhance Person, lots of Foresee, conceivably Enhance Item), and can take out opponents even with low-level powers because save DCs scale with class level (Afflict is a perennial favorite of mine. For under DC40 spellcraft and a will save, you can blind, deafen, and deny sense of touch. While they're flailing uselessly and biting their own tongues off, the fighters kill them. Also fun is an emanation of Afflict in say, a 10-foot radius about yourself with the same sense-denying effect. Enemies close to melee? Will save or useless.).
Some of the mid-level terrain control powers really open up offensively at high levels (Air Lore for tornadoes and Earth Lore for earthquakes, respectively), and the Third Magnitude offensive talents are pretty brutal on their own (see the above Afflict Emanation, except with Fort save or die. If you're really worried about enemy melee, use both Afflict and Slay emanations at once).
Finally, when you combine Time Lore for 5-round guaranteed Time Stop at 15th level with the ability to cast both a swift and full-round action spell every round, you can really unload (or insta-buff your friends with whatever is most useful given the opposition, or control the battlefield in ridiculous ways, or pile emanations onto yourself and teleport into the middle of the enemy, or do whatever you want, basically).
Effectively, high level TruSorcs are easily on par with high-level standard casters, and are significantly more versatile. Just make sure you bring friends with healing to keep you conscious...
So I guess the thing is that True Sorcerers scale from low magic at low levels to really high magic at high levels. Be careful if you change anything; if you scale up the low end, you may inadvertently scale up the high end, too.
With that in mind, one thing you could try would be shifting certain talents down a magnitude for purposes of learning them and base DCs. For example, in a high magic game, healing should probably be available before 5th level. Likewise elemental damage. Enhance Person and Obscure could both be dropped to First Magnitude from Second; they're both available at 4th level for standard Sorcerers, so opening them at 5th for TruSorcs would bring them a little closer in terms of power availability. Changes like that might be what you're looking for.
However, I will say that high-level TruSorcs don't need any help being high magic... I recently found that a properly prepared 20th-level TruSorc could beat a spellcraft DC of over 7000, which is more than sufficient to build a spell capable of killing deities with nearly high probability. Granted, you die in the process... but a caster of that power is easily able to cast a contingent resurrection on himself beforehand.
A 15th+ level TruSorc is likely to be running a pretty big defensive buff suite (I tend towards Reflect to stop enemy spells, Obscure for general miss chance, Force, Protection, or Enhance Person for +AC, and Wards for elemental resistance and DR), has access to good general purpose enhancers (Enhance Person, lots of Foresee, conceivably Enhance Item), and can take out opponents even with low-level powers because save DCs scale with class level (Afflict is a perennial favorite of mine. For under DC40 spellcraft and a will save, you can blind, deafen, and deny sense of touch. While they're flailing uselessly and biting their own tongues off, the fighters kill them. Also fun is an emanation of Afflict in say, a 10-foot radius about yourself with the same sense-denying effect. Enemies close to melee? Will save or useless.).
Some of the mid-level terrain control powers really open up offensively at high levels (Air Lore for tornadoes and Earth Lore for earthquakes, respectively), and the Third Magnitude offensive talents are pretty brutal on their own (see the above Afflict Emanation, except with Fort save or die. If you're really worried about enemy melee, use both Afflict and Slay emanations at once).
Finally, when you combine Time Lore for 5-round guaranteed Time Stop at 15th level with the ability to cast both a swift and full-round action spell every round, you can really unload (or insta-buff your friends with whatever is most useful given the opposition, or control the battlefield in ridiculous ways, or pile emanations onto yourself and teleport into the middle of the enemy, or do whatever you want, basically).
Effectively, high level TruSorcs are easily on par with high-level standard casters, and are significantly more versatile. Just make sure you bring friends with healing to keep you conscious...
So I guess the thing is that True Sorcerers scale from low magic at low levels to really high magic at high levels. Be careful if you change anything; if you scale up the low end, you may inadvertently scale up the high end, too.
NecroticPunch
First Post
I suppose I was wondering if it was possible to keep it balanced while lowering spellcraft costs.
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Is this anything like elven mythal magic?
Short of flavor restrictions, I don't think you can distinguish between it and generic epic magic. Epic magic is self-researched, so any epic human wizard could come up with the same idea as any elven mythal weaver.
Short of flavor restrictions, I don't think you can distinguish between it and generic epic magic. Epic magic is self-researched, so any epic human wizard could come up with the same idea as any elven mythal weaver.
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
It was from 2e Realms elf stuff.
Elves tapped out at 15th-level or so as wizards, despite making the "best" wizards in lore/flavor terms. So naturally in FR there had to be a workaround. There was some high mage "kit" or something that let an elf keep taking wizard levels, but it required high stats (IIRC you needed really good Wisdom).
A mythal was a powerful magic field laid over a geographic area, like the city of Cormanthor (later called Myth Drannor due to the field). Within the field, you could draw upon the magic for more powerful effects, but I don't recall the mechanical effects and frankly don't care anyway
Indeed, the field gave regular elves decent abilities like limited flight that other inhabitants of the city didn't get to enjoy.In 3.x terms, however, that kind of distinction wouldn't stand. Elven high magic would just be an elf's snooty way of saying "I'm better than thou". Instead, it's a flavor thing; an elf using "high magic" would make lots of appeals to ancestors while casting an epic spell, or would "anchor" the magic to a specific area (something a human wizard could probably do, too).
