The Royal Artificery Society - OOC II: electric boogaloo

[WindStruck]

Yeah that's a crazy scene going on.

Reminds me of Starship Troopers or something. Maybe the grey creatures are native to a plane of reality they are traveling through to cross distances??

[DeTess]

@mrabdiel, can you roll me a sense motive?

[MrAbdiel]

@mrabdiel, can you roll me a sense motive?

I can theoretically do anything! :)

SenseMotive - (1d20-1)[13]

Not bad! Not good - but not bad.

[DeTess]

Alright. With Ulrik you could clearly tell that he was a very open, honest, 'what you see is what you get' kind of person. You have a lot more trouble reading his sister though. She seems more calculating and keeps her cards closer to her chest, but you can't tell any more than that.

[Prehysterical]

@prehysterical, just FYI, that's my special effects budget for this month gone.

Oh dear...

Bolten: PANIC

[DeTess]

@prehysterical, Bolten remembers seeing an illustration resembling these creatures in a bestiary on extraplanar creatures. Bolten can recall these are called Sorrowsworn and are native to the shadowfell. He can't remember anything else right now (but given that Bolten knows what they're called, looking them up would be easy once Bolten has acces to a library)

[DeTess]

So, because it came up.

Long, long ago, there was a period known as 'the time of legends'. little is known about this period, as it was characterized by cataclysmic monsters rampaging the lands and wars fought between people with powers far, far greater than what is currently available the humanity (used as an inclusive term to cover all humanoids). Some historians doubt that the legends from this time period are even grounded in truth. Nonetheless, there is knowledge from this time about the supposed existence of all kinds of extremely powerful spells.

In other words, if you want your character to know about a high level spell, your character could have head about it in one of the stories from the time of legends. No information besides the spell's effects and rough level of difficulty would be known, but if you want your character to use it as inspiration, go ahead.

@windstruck, if you want to adjust your post given this bit of background you can, but it would make sense for a person steeped in bardic traditions to be far more familiar with the time of legends than a researcher.

[MrAbdiel]

I must admit, I may have misunderstood the limitations on magic in the setting (or previously understood but later forgot!)

I thought the level cap was mostly to represent the level of play that seemed most fun, and that accessing weirder/higher level/more powerful stuff was just rare or unreasonably expensive.

If spells higher than like… 3rd level just don’t really exist in the world outside of hushed whisper myth, that may transform some of my character goals. For example, the whole “teleport to the frozen north to get a tree for this art project” thing was based on the notion that the Archduchess probably had some teleport capable wizards in her rolladex; and perhaps a scroll or Gate or two. Presumably, magic items that expect spell components above what a 6th level caster might manage are also mythic..?

[WindStruck]

Well no you weren't entirely wrong. It seems very much possible to cast these higher level spells, but it basically takes whole rituals that involve many casters and/or complex magical setups. Like in Bolten's scene...

But my point is, a high level spell that might just sit on a scroll and be cast by a singular caster in one standard action wouldn't exist. And even if that effect did exist... an offensive spell like Freezing Sphere wouldn't be practical at all, and it most likely would go by different nomenclature.

But amyway! With Aiden not only being a bard but a former celestial, I think he would have foggy memories of those times of legends. Honestly it makes sense I think....

I won't change my post and still have Shandara look at him strangely though. Hm. Maybe I'll roll history.

(1D20+8)[15]

[DeTess]

I must admit, I may have misunderstood the limitations on magic in the setting (or previously understood but later forgot!)

I thought the level cap was mostly to represent the level of play that seemed most fun, and that accessing weirder/higher level/more powerful stuff was just rare or unreasonably expensive.

If spells higher than like… 3rd level just don’t really exist in the world outside of hushed whisper myth, that may transform some of my character goals. For example, the whole “teleport to the frozen north to get a tree for this art project” thing was based on the notion that the Archduchess probably had some teleport capable wizards in her rolladex; and perhaps a scroll or Gate or two. Presumably, magic items that expect spell components above what a 6th level caster might manage are also mythic..?

Yeah, teleportation is not quite that easy (yet, there is a well funded research group in the artificery society trying to crack it), but if it was impossible to get a tree on roughly the schedule you imagined I would have said so.

Generally in-world there are some casters that after decades long study might manage a 4th level spell on their own, and items casting up to 4th is not unheard of. Beyond that things become very expensive and rare (either new creations that took years or decades to put together, or artifacts from ancient times). The most common among these would be the ocassional artifact capable of bestowing the miracle of regeneration once in a while, as temples and religions safeguarded those through the millenia.