Quote from: RPGPundit;602397Thing is, it could happen that a fighter will want to find some specific weapon, or the ranger some rare animal, but these things aren't as absolutely tied to his efficiency as the mage's spells are to the mage!
And likewise, if it happens, it is likely to happen what, once? Twice in a campaign?

Whereas with a wizard, think of how many spells he has to find...

RPGPundit

No.
That was the point I was makig above.  You can easily set up advanced skills and feats, as well as items and spells, require a ton of money and research or adventure or both to obtain.

Quote from: RPGPundit;602207But that's not what we're talking about here; what we're talking about is when the player of the wizard says "ok, now I want the Haste spell so we all have to go to this place for no other reason than so that I can get the haste spell, and it reduces you guys to my Followers, but you have to come along anyways because you all recognize that making me more powerful will make everyone in the group much more efficient.. you fighters want to be hasted, don't you? Even if it just compounds the problem!"

RPGPundit

It's an adventure driver.  It's the same thing if the fighter wants to get some mithril or whatever from the dwarf mine for a new magic sword.  As long as their's a balance between game goals and everyone getting their time, it's all cool.

I like Glorantha - you have an adventures to learn new spells, by questing into the Heroplane and reenacting a myth. If you engage in a new or undiscovered myth, you get new spells. You can also head to shrines for a particular hero cult and get unique magics by enacting quests.

One of the things I've always disliked about D&D clerics and druids is that no matter what god is worshipped, everyone gets the same base spell lists, especially in earlier editions. I like the idea of clerical domain/spheres and the 2E speciality priests.

Quote from: RPGPundit;602207But that's not what we're talking about here; what we're talking about is when the player of the wizard says "ok, now I want the Haste spell so we all have to go to this place for no other reason than so that I can get the haste spell, and it reduces you guys to my Followers, but you have to come along anyways because you all recognize that making me more powerful will make everyone in the group much more efficient.. you fighters want to be hasted, don't you? Even if it just compounds the problem!"

But that's not how it works. The lore-hungry wizard doesn't get to choose which spells the ancients buried in their ruins, or which scrolls the dragon holds in his hoard. It's not so much this...

QuotePlayer: "I want to learn haste"

...which I consider boorish, vaguely entitled, and unimmersive; but rather more along the lines of:

QuoteGM (by way of NPC sage or the old man's treasure map or whatever): "The sorcerer-kings of old Lemuria knew many eldritch secrets, lost to us since the great purge of the Atlantean Arcanomachy; and it is said that the catacombs beneath Old Tartessos house the remains of Hyrcanus IX 'the Uncrowned', last of the ancient Lemurian royal blood. Who knows what strange incantations of the distant past lie entombed with the long-dead scion of that dynasty of mighty warlocks, who ruled half the Known World, from the Sea of Dusk to the Hungry Steppes, before the Atlanteans could even figure out how to smelt bronze?"

Quote from: The Butcher;602475But that's not how it works. The lore-hungry wizard doesn't get to choose which spells the ancients buried in their ruins, or which scrolls the dragon holds in his hoard. It's not so much this...



...which I consider boorish, vaguely entitled, and unimmersive; but rather more along the lines of:

A problem with well known games and systems.  I love creating found, ancient, arcane versions of spells that are not like on the wiki (or a company rulebook, back in the day).
It is also one of the reasons I have skills that vary on how good they are are based on who teaches the skill.

Quote from: Opaopajr;602445*gasp* Are you suggesting that the fighter has a significant advantage over the wizard by not needing to find new power through adventuring?

(I know, I know, it's flirting with an already beaten and dead topic. But it was a most entertaining sarcasm opportunity, you must admit.)

This is rather edition dependent, but Fighters can be very, very gear dependent at higher levels.  When the Wizard can craft wonderous items at will, it can actually be the Fighter who has to go out and seek the magic items they need to be competitive.  

And if you don't think Fighters need specific magic items, just take the magic items off an NPC in the Paizo NPC Codex and you'll see a shocking degradation in capabilities.

Quote from: Votan;601593I have always wanted to try this system (Ars Magica) out  but it seems to require a rather dedicated and constant group of players to make this balancing between characters work.

Balance Ars Magica?

The wizard runs the show, the companions are there essentially as henchmen. The grogs are your basic mooks, only run by the players. AM is about as balanced as a Yugo after an off-center crash.

In Mythus casters (and that potentially includes every Player Character) usually finds himself with a book of castings after learning the skill. And seeing as there are a number of casting using skills, that translates into a lot of books.

These aint small books, so most of the time the PC leaves them at home where, one hopes, they are kept safe. (A library where you pay a fee for them to store your books for you, now there's an idea.)

As a Mage or Priest a character can create his own castings, though the rules are a bit much to get through. Other characters are stuck with what's already been invented.

A caster may also find castings in various locations; old books, wall inscriptions, a pamphlet, a scroll, in a tattoo. He does not automatically gain new ones whenever his skill rises to allow him use of higher grade magicks.

Unhallowed (an unreleased companion game to Mythus) does not have standard spells. Instead all magics must be spontaneous. Created, that is, on the spot. The character's level of skill in dweomercraefting tells you which of the seven laws of magick he can use, and the rules give guidelines telling you what effects he can affect based on that law.

Quote from: LordVreeg;602493A problem with well known games and systems.

Absolutely, and it's my job as a GM to put these spells back where they belong: into the bowels of the Earth, interred beneath layer upon layer of rubble of fallen empires and their ruined palaces and shattered statues, buried by the sands of time and turned into the abode of unclean things.

That's D&D, bitches.

Quote from: The Butcher;602786Absolutely, and it's my job as a GM to put these spells back where they belong: into the bowels of the Earth, interred beneath layer upon layer of rubble of fallen empires and their ruined palaces and shattered statues, buried by the sands of time and turned into the abode of unclean things.

That's D&D, bitches.

I appreciate the sentiment.
Nothing scares and intrigues players more than the regular appearance of the non-standard.
'cept maybe gnomes in chaps.

Quote from: The Butcher;602786Absolutely, and it's my job as a GM to put these spells back where they belong: into the bowels of the Earth, interred beneath layer upon layer of rubble of fallen empires and their ruined palaces and shattered statues, buried by the sands of time and turned into the abode of unclean things.

That's D&D, bitches.

Or a government warehouse.

Quote from: The Butcher;602475But that's not how it works. The lore-hungry wizard doesn't get to choose which spells the ancients buried in their ruins, or which scrolls the dragon holds in his hoard. It's not so much this...



...which I consider boorish, vaguely entitled, and unimmersive; but rather more along the lines of:

I have no problem with the idea of the PCs trying to go to dangerous places that might or might not have spells, along with other treasures.  That's pretty much standard D&D play.

What I thought we were talking about here though is the idea that learning any new spell requires going to do a specific thing (ie the 'where can spell knowledge be found' table someone posted on another thread earlier), and that it then works with the player asking the Gm "what does my wizard have to do to learn haste", the gm says "go to x" and then everyone gets dragged around by the wizard to go get the spells he wants.

Because that is the danger here: its a short step to where the player starts to say 'well, my wizard would research just how to get spell X and then everyone will have to go do that for me, because I'm the wizard'!

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;602804...its a short step to where the player starts to say 'well, my wizard would research just how to get spell X and then everyone will have to go do that for me, because I'm the wizard'!

RPGPundit

Back in the day we called that "metagaming". In my case I would tell the player, "Okay, you've figured out how to get spell X. Now it's time for you to go and get spell X."

Quote from: Votan;601593I have always wanted to try this system (Ars Magica) out  but it seems to require a rather dedicated and constant group of players to make this balancing between characters work.

Yeah. I love the premise of Ars Magic, but the system is way too complex for anything but a dedicated group of hardcore gamers where everyone takes the books home to study.

Quote from: RPGPundit;601867It does create another problem though: the potential for the entire campaign to now revolve around the Wizard.  It becomes a campaign of everyone having to accompany the wizard on his quest for more spells.

I've seen this happen in my games. The rest of the players go along for awhile, but eventually they balk at yet another mission to explore some mad wizard's tower.

Quote from: Haffrung;602818I've seen this happen in my games. The rest of the players go along for awhile, but eventually they balk at yet another mission to explore some mad wizard's tower.

Try a diversion. The wizard wants to go find another spell, along the way to find that spell the party gets diverted by something else. Just think of this sort of thing happening in real life.