Sorcery

So, we know there will be sorcery, but how will it be done. I know I have talked about this with people, but not sure where. It does not matter, It needs it's own topic.

Okay, so, my idea for sorcery and become a shade is this. After a certain magic level, you can do a quest to learn Sorcery. So, you learn spells, etc. The higher the level, the greater the chance you will summon spirit(s) that are too powerful. A low level spell would have say a 5% chance, while a High level Spell would have over 60% chance.

This way, it makes it hard to become a shade. You can NOT Just go out and do it at level 1. It takes work and skill to become one. It also allows sorcerers who are not always worried about becoming a shade, they have the chance, but if the are careful, it will take a lot for it to happen. The chance it would happen is that percentage each time it is cast.

So, your thoughts?

I think that's great. It would suck if a regular sorcerer accidentally became a shade so it needs to be hard. Also since shades will be very powerful, it needs to be hard for them to become one.

Well, a weaker sorcerer can't even summon a spirit strong enough to take over their body, so yeah, you can only become a Shade at a high level of sorcery. So yeah, I agree.

Well, this is all kinda backward from the story line isn't it? I mean it's probably better for the game...but...in the IC weak sorcerers are actually the ones that are in danger of sommoning spirits and losing control of them, in which case, they then become a Shade.
My problem with the shade class is that becoming a Shade in the IC isn't a desirable thing even to an evil person because they lose conrol of their own persona and the spirits make a totally new entity. That would be a negative consequence, the way we are setting this up, becoming a shade has no negative consequences because it's one of the most powerful characters in the game.

Where am I going wrong with this reasoning?
Are we deviating from the IC to make Shade a powerful class to offset the Dragon Rider Order so the changes from the IC don't matter?

I guess what I'm saying is maybe we should re-think the Shade class to try to make it parallel to the IC and also make it a balancing class to The Order.

Thoughts?

I agree. We need some way to fix the shade class. Hmmmm, we could restart you stats, and shades can not wear armour. We could have a whole new set of stats for shades. Making it a big pain to become powerful and we could have other undesirable effects.

Well, I don't know what we should do. Part of me thinks that we should leave things as planned with the shade class. The other part of me screams that it is whacked and out of line with the Inheritence cycle storyline and logic. So...I'm torn greatly between one and the other.

I'm not saying that we should change it...more like I'm wondering if we should. What we have should work well for the sake of the game play but it feels wrong to me being a fan of the IC. I'm interested to know what all of you guys think and especially Spaniard.

Actually, restarting the stats could be sort of an ingenious way to deal with it. It just seems to me like there should be some division and penalty for being reckless or weak enough to be overwhelmed by summoned spirits...or...in the case of being evil enough to desire that result. WHereas Riders are powerful from a need to do good, they have no such penalty.

Well, it is Eragon BASED. So technically, we cen skew thing quite a bit. Look at the movie.

Lol, the only thing is IC fans hate the movie, and they hate it because it nowhere near the actual book. So I don't think we should skew it too much. Alfy does have a rather good point, but it may be hard for us to think of a way to make there have big drawbacks, but big benefits to being a Shade. I don't really know what you mean but resetting the stats.

Yes, I also don't get what you mean by restarting the stats. If you mean like strength, dexterity, etc., then I don't agree because Shades will be level 80+, and having to restart all of the stats would make it too undesirable.

Well, right, obviously a Shades level couldn't start over at 0 but maybe their skills list could start over and he could have few skills or maybe...uhm.....maybe his strength level could be pretty weak. Something to make the Shade have to rebuild to reach it's high potential. I dunno?

Maybe his sorcery skills go down to level 1 or something?

Actually, I was speaking of having a new skill set for Shades, more limited, and all. It would have to be tweaked. So, you would have quite a bit of power, but you would also have a new, shade only skill set tailored to the. They wont need to have a cooking, etc as skills, so it has its advantages, but as i said, it needs to be tweaked.

Hmmm... This is getting complicated. It's gonna be hard to figure out a way that everyone is okay with

What about this: There'd be a quest(maybe as soon as sorcery would be avaible to you?) that would automatically turn you to a shade temporarily(let's say some wicked scientist does it for experiment and than vanishes without a trace), nothing really changing about you but the fact that you'd die after some time and have to do it again (or something similiar). Anyways you'd have to find a way to return you to your old self and than you could do two things : really find a way to go back to human(and never become a shade after that) OR find a way to become shade(for ever).
If you'd choose to be human, everything would be as if nothing happened (except that you probably wouldn't be able to do sorcery anymore), and if you chose to stay a shade, you would probably be weak, presuming this quest would be a low level one. This way after becoming a shade, you'd have to train equaly hard than if you chose to be human(and maybe somewhere in the future become a rider).

Oh well, I quess there is still the problem that in the book no one really wanted to become a shade freely, and as soon as they did, they gained monstrous strenght from the spirits that possessed them.

Hmmm..... tricky: either the IC - based Shade creation, or the idea Mindrop has given..... well, what about this?: once a person has completed the study of sorcery (I don't know about the levels, that's for you guys to decide), he/she can request other sorcerers to summon spirits more powerful than him/her, & with their consent, he/she will become a Shade (kind of like how Varaug was created in Brisingr). The bonus for the creators would be that the Shade would be more friendly to them, which would tempt people who are sorcerers to make seekers Shades, to gain it's friendship. This way, people won't be forced to become Shades, because sorcery - training would be under heavy supervision. Of course, if the Riders found out about it, they can punish those responsible, & they would never create one by their own hands, since they don't want an abomination running around the land. The Shade would lose the power of sorcery, but would become around 1.5 times more powerful than before (& of course, they can't become Riders after that, even if they want to). Just a thought.

Well, Shades don't lost their ability to summon spirits, so that can't be taken away. If our Shades are more IC-based, then their power will mostly come from there speed, strength, magic, and swordsmanship, but I thought that we decided that we were going to make things a little different from the IC?

Hmm. . . I think I have an idea, making the player believe that the new Shade character he holds is possessed by spirits. The idea is, having the player wander to other places when he is not online. Though, when he does get back online, he is in a totally new location, and stat levels have changed slightly. Maybe sometimes, a random item would be taken or lost. It wold be a negative, but realistic side effect of becoming a shade. What do you think?

I like Thorns idea of being able to be transformed into a shade via others like Vaurag in Brisingr and I kinda like Bris's idea of not totally having control of your Shade character. I mean if spirits are actually controlling the shade then it stands to reason that it might do some things that are unintended by the user.

I know this is complicating things a bit but Shades are one of the top two classes, I think they deserve a bit of over development and care.

I wonder if we shouldn't make two different types of Shades? I mean that would solve this problem wouldn't it, since actually there are two types of Shades in the IC. We have one that is made on purpose and one that is made by accident. The one made by accident by a weak sorcerer could temporarily totally lose control of their character for a time while the one made intentionally might only lose a bit of control while offline or something.

This is interesting stuff.

I like the idea of loosing control. However, for now, I do not think we will have teh second shade. It will take a lot more programaing to turn others into shades.

I doubt it.

True, it may not.

Fallen Elf wrote:Well, Shades don't lost their ability to summon spirits, so that can't be taken away. If our Shades are more IC-based, then their power will mostly come from there speed, strength, magic, and swordsmanship, but I thought that we decided that we were going to make things a little different from the IC?

Well, we've never seen any Shade summoning a spirit before, so I'm assuming that they can't. But why should they even summon them?? They already have full control over their magic. Sorcerers summon spirits to use the spirit's powers to cast spells. Shades don't need that, since they already have spirits inside them.

Alfreredocsil wrote:I like Thorns idea of being able to be transformed into a shade via others like Varaug in Brisingr and I kinda like Bris's idea of not totally having control of your Shade character. I mean if spirits are actually controlling the shade then it stands to reason that it might do some things that are unintended by the user.

I know this is complicating things a bit but Shades are one of the top two classes, I think they deserve a bit of over development and care.

I wonder if we shouldn't make two different types of Shades? I mean that would solve this problem wouldn't it, since actually there are two types of Shades in the IC. We have one that is made on purpose and one that is made by accident. The one made by accident by a weak sorcerer could temporarily totally lose control of their character for a time while the one made intentionally might only lose a bit of control while offline or something.

This is interesting stuff.

I think you should go for this!!
And by the way, nice skin!!

I don't think that Shade should be able to lose control like that. I thought that becoming a Shade was nearly as hard as becoming a Rider, so why should there be drawbacks? And if there is a drawback, it shouldn't be losing control of your character. You might be doing a quest at a crucial part, and what if that just messes everything up? Becoming a Shade would be very undesirable then.

Riders, the Shade's opposite and enemy to balance it, have their drawbacks as well. It's like the saying: With great power, comes great responsibility. Riders are torn from most of the other players, unable to converse with them as freely as others, as well as having to be responsible enough to keep their dragon from dying. Shades have the drawback of wandering when offline. Both though, are given incredible power. It makes it more balanced that way.

And, Shades will be easier to become. Especially if players can aid another in becoming one.