Sign Up/Discussion Luminous: An RP With A Convoluted DM-Ran Magic System

Nah, Li is probably too nice for that. The ominous part is all Lassus

 

@SAF @ID Zeta @Jupjami @WavePearl @122 Generation

Heya! So life is currently beating the crap out of Lassus, and I'll be gone for a while next week - I won't have time to write the long posts I'd like. So yeah, consider Luminous on pause for a bit. If Lassus updates next week, I'm allowing y'all to talk to Li and all while I'm gone and I'll see what happened when I'm back/if I have to adjust anythin.

Aight see yall

 

Had a short discussion with Lassus, so I'm gonna post first. I won't make my next post for possibly ten days for now, to let the drop kind of smooth over and let Li re-enter the scene so she can make her decision here too.

Also, reminder for @ID Zeta - Ando still has the mysterious letter he picked up in the bandits' camp.

 

It's most comparable to Chinese yuan (one qin to one yuan), and they're coins. Traditionally they do have holes in the center, though this is really more for weight than the ancient string method given how many one person carries at a time. They're not incredibly heavy or anything, and we're running on hammerspace logic when it comes to large amounts of qin.

 

Oh, and for the recent post, about the whole major injuries (limb loss level) and dying thing. Your characters are safe from either. I've signed my DM contract to not kill your characters here, and I'm not going back on that.

 

If you remember the poll I set up earlier for all of us? Y'all voted "no death for our characters unless we're stupid (and you warned us) otherwise we just get KO'd and lose". If you guys roll so bad you genuinely party wipe, it'll be on me to keep the story running logically.

Mind you, though! Death is still a content warning in the RP itself. I did list it as a warning and you guys voted "ok but no gore or crazy stuff and preferably offscreen".

 

@122 Generation @SAF @Jupjami @WavePearl @ID Zeta
Hey y'all! I think a while back I said it would be spell time when you guys got accepted? Well congrats, we reached the acceptance point, and it's spell time! Oh boy this will be the doozy!

I'd like to ask whether you'd prefer we all do this together in the OOC thread or in private DMs?

OOC Thread
Pros: Everyone can craft spells together to round out party immediately, questions you ask will have immediate answers here
Cons: Probably messier, will take much longer, and puts more pressure on individuals, you can't keep secret spells for some reason I guess?

Private Messages (both LV PMs and LV Discord)
Pros: Faster, easier to ask me for questions, privacy, everyone can take their own time and I won't tell you if anyone else has finished their spells first, less walls of text lol
Cons: You won't be able to see everyone else's spells (I will be communicating your choices to each other, tell me if you don't want that) so syncing is a little harder (but you can get creative in-game)

 

Right. In that case, we'll stick to the OOC thread mostly, but you are still free to reach out to me privately for any reason.

Anyway! SPELLS.

The way this works:
You'll all be given points and can invest the points in different levels of spells, and I will tell you that with my current plants you will have roughly 40 points total, so plan ahead.

You won’t be able to scrap a spell once you learn it. You can, however, upgrade it to a higher level using a certain amount of points, which will either directly strengthen it or also widen its abilities. (For now it's one point per level, like when you get to the next spell sesh, you can add two points to a spell to raise it two levels.)

Spoiler: Restrictions (IMPORTANT, READ):

In total, you are not allowed more than 10-11 spells. That's 50-55 spells between the lot of you already.

You must know at least one spell on a previous level in the school you’re learning in order to learn a spell on the next level, and so on. For example, if you know a level 3 Battlemage spell that allows you to make your sword become a magic blade dealing magic damage, you can learn the level 4 Battlemage spell that lets your sword shoot lasers, but you cannot learn the level 4 Terraforming spell that speeds up the growth of plants and controls them unless you have a level 3 Terraforming spell. However, you can use your one level 3 spell to learn two level 4 spells.

Level 1 has no school alignment, and level 2 spells are general enough to align to multiple schools (but you can talk with me and we’ll figure things out.)

I'll give you guys a certain amount of points that you will assign to different spell levels after every mission or so, until there are no more points to give. Of course, your earlier spells can also be “levelled up” and grown for a certain amount of points as well - especially for Summoners whose constructs will grow stronger as they do. For now, you don't have that ability, since you're newbies, but after your first mission, that restriction will be gone and you will be completely free to go buck wild.

Also, this is uh, not playtested. So if everyone’s feeling super underpowered or overpowered, talk with me about it and I’ll dial up/down the spell intensity. Do keep in mind the fact that there are five of you, which is a lot of power when all together, which is why your spells might not seem like much at first.

The points system isn’t a hard code, of course. If you talk with me I can try and finagle a system that works better. I just want a way to make it so that everyone has reasonable growth over the pace of the RP.

In total, you guys will have six levels of spell.

Spoiler: Spell "Levels" and examples

Level 0: Your Luminous is active. You can summon it and unsummon it. It glows. Sometimes some have strange physical properties, but that doesn’t happen at Level 0.

Level 1 spells: These are very basic spells, weak but versatile. These will be at a level of: a small fireball, a minor boost in speed/haste, a shield about the size of a garbage can lid, a gust of wind to knock one enemy off their feet, et cetera.

Level 2 spells: These are the advanced forms of basic spells. They’re the most common types of adventurer spells early on. They start to hone in on certain schools, but aren't too limited. A shield that covers two people, a flash of light that can blind a whole cave, a drowsiness that sets people to sleep, and so on.

Level 3 spells: Intermediate spells. This is the point at which they tend to branch into schools and the like. Think "early advanced". Trance-like songs for Bards, early deep wound healing magic for Vitalists, simple potions for Alchemists, and the like.

Level 4 spells: Quite strong and dependable. These spells require more focus, and many of them can be direct upgrades/evolutions from Level 3 spells. Lasers for Duelists, small noncombat animal for Transmutationist, two to four constructs (as a group) of middling strength for Summoners - or one strong construct with a rough overall strength of like a flaming wolf that spits lava or something, you know.

Level 5 spells: Strong. Changing the entire texture, taste, and look of a dish for a Bard, transforming your entire body into a giant lightning wolf for a Transmutationist, forging permanent enchantments into a chestplate and gauntlets as a Battlemage, etc.

Level 6 spells: Very Strong. Usually only learned after dedicating a lot of time to one school. Things like rapidly shifting into three chimeras for Transmutation, conjuring entire storms as a Terraformer, bringing someone back from the brink of death for Vitality, absorbing and reconstructing someone else's spell as an Alchemist or Duelist, etc. You won't get many of these, and honestly probably just one or two per character - consider them your Ultimate Mega Moves, your Z-moves or whatever, and they will have more limited times you can cast them (a roughly once per combat and taking a lot of energy limit, though I will be somewhat flexible depending on situation.)

Also not very hard-coded, as you can see.

Now everyone! You guys get 7 points to start with. But your restrictions are that you must learn a Level 1 spell. To make up, the "typing" restriction is loosened, so if your Level 1 can tie into a Level 3 spell, I'll allow you to learn both, so long as you still have a Level 2 spell of a different type.