Posted by Klaak on October 26, 2000 at 07:14:53:
In Reply to: Suggestion... posted by An Elven Ranger on October 25, 2000 at 20:14:01:
> Would it be possible for Rangers to have their magical abilities listed as something other than Spells? I know that communes are reserved for priestly classes, but it seems strange that Rangers can join Battle and still have the ability to learn spells if they wish. The "spells" are more nature based than they are magical aswell. Also it gets rather annoying that after Battle sees you using control weather (or something to that effect) they label you a magic user, even though you are a combat class.... Just my thoughts... First off, rangers have VERY limited magical abilities. Take away their spells and they are still a hell of a fighting force. Reguardless of the fact that their spells are nature based, they ARE still magic. Reguardless of what you might think, that doesn't violate the theme of Magic and Nature being mutually exlusive. To explain it as I would during an interview to Masters: Think of it like this, does lightning naturally strike people when asked to? No. Magic distrupts what is natural. Do vines commonly wrap themselves around people's legs when asked? No. Again, magic is disrupting the way things naturally are. As far as "Imbue Staff," that is quite obviously magical since a part of your own life force doesn't normally reside in a big stick used for a weapon. As far as retaining the potential casting ability even after you've been intducted into Battle, I don't think you CAN cast them. You retain the potential to cast, should you ever break from the ways of Battle, but when you try to cast, you get a message like, "You're a BattleRager, not a filthy magician!!" As of yet, I've never played a Battle ranger, but I come to that conclusion based on the many times with Klaak and Pleckis that I tried to type "cal resist" and accidentally typed "ca resist." I think whenever you try to use the "cast" command, you'll be prevented. I also discovered that eating pills as a rager is just as in-effective. I recall a couple times when I was starving that I found some berries and forgetting to lore them first, I ate them thinking they were just food and got a message, "Pills are much better when used as food," or something like that. Same thing when I first discovered the fat purple berries and thought they were food. I never bothered to check what a message would be for a potion since it's quite obviously magical and the other two messages were discovered entirely by accident (in case some of you are doubtful, not all pills flag magical, so truesight doesn't necessarily reveal their nature). I do know, however, that if you have spellbane up, and drink from certain magical springs, you will spellbane yourself, (that's how I initially discovered they were magical) so I also assume that quaffing a potion would do the same. As for scrolls with thieves, I never tried to recite a scroll, so have no clue. Never even wasted a practice on them since both my ragers were intended to be ragers from creation. When it comes to Vanish, that's not intended to be magical. The concept behind vanish is that the assassin throws down the globe which creates a flash and a cloud of smoke which creates a brief diversion and something to conceal the assassin's movements. During the time the person(s) are distracted, the assassin then runs out of the room. I realize that also brings up the problem of vanishing out of noexit rooms, but I figure, hey, it is just a game. That's a minor thing anyway, so why worry? Cloud giants don't use magic to fly. They just can. Maybe their race adjusts its density to that of a cloud, who knows? It's a fantasy game, anything is possible. But based on everything else in the game, innate racial abilities are not magical. Now I'm not talking about racial aptitude here, either. Racial aptitude could be, as is the case with Drow and Faerie Fire. I think that pretty much covered it