In-game powers and in-character powers

[aleithia]

This came up regarding Aleithia recently, but I think it's relevant for lots of people, so here's a thread.

Which of the in-game powers of our characters are seriously difficult to acquire? On the one hand, a lot of the powers of a lvl 80 character seem pretty epic, but on the other hand, they're clearly meant to be within the reach of an exceptional human adult. The weirdness is compounded by there being no significant in-game difference between, say, humans and Kaldorei, despite the latter's vastly superior training and experience. Honestly, if I was designing WoW from scratch, I'd make Kaldorei, Sin'dorei and Draenei unlockable hero-races.

One approach is to RP that some of us don't have the powers our characters have in-game. I sympathise with the sentiment but I find it a major handicap - especially since, if we regularly RP'd with humans, we'd have to nerf them mercilessly. So I prefer the alternative: I take level 80 powers (with a few important exceptions like rez) to be advanced, but achievable, by any talented, well-trained (human) adult. This leaves experience (or the lack of it) as something to be roleplayed, including through the IC-only aspects of characters' powers.

Thus, as I imagine it:

Healing: Permanent magical healing is an advanced power, at least for Druids. Serious natural healing requires years of study, as in the real world. Temporary magical healing and simple first-aid, on the other hand, are learnable by the young.

Physical combat: This is anyway an area where the young have some advantages of their own, to balance the knowledge and experience of their older counterparts. A Captain will be a veteran, and a rookie will be ineffective, but the finest fighter may very well be one of the younger ones.

Magical powers: As with healing, the kind of magic seen in combat might be learnable with (relatively few) years of study, whereas rituals creating more powerful, permanent (IC) effects would require advanced learning.

Shapeshifting: I think of this as a kind of "motor skill", like physical combat or playing a musical instrument - it takes practice and dedication to learn, but with talent, even the very young can be brilliant at it.

Druids and the Dream: As I imagine it, all Druids can visit the Dream, but as wisp-like, malleable forms, effectively ethereal and helpless except towards themselves and other non-native creatures in the Dream. A talented Druid might be able to dance around, shift forms and play little tricks with the different laws of that realm - but would still be helpless to actually do anything there. What sets older Druids apart, then, is their ability to "walk the Dream", i.e. take tangible form in that realm and take actions that will in some way have an impact in the Dream itself.

Kaldorei training: I imagine that many of the skills Kaldorei learn at 100 are things they could learn at 20 - after all, humans do. The reason Kaldorei start later is that they spend so much more time on what they regard as the essentials: getting to know the forest, listening to the wind, and studying ancient lore (as I described in the Kaldorei RP guide). By the same token, whereas a level 80 human would be a rare and mighty hero, for Kaldorei I would take level 80 as "fully trained and experienced Sentinel", and would look for IC explanations for lower levels (such as Mehtomiel's illness). Aleithia, meanwhile, is exceptional not only in being precociously talented and intelligent, but also in having been permitted to learn advanced skills before learning many, many things that Kaldorei consider fundamental.

How does this work for you? Do you imagine things differently? And (crucially for me) could these ideas be a basis for making sure that Aleithia seems like an annoying little genius rather than simply unconvincing?

[Kestrel]

Jun 16, 2009 17:18:48 GMT 1 @aleithia said:

Which of the in-game powers of our characters are seriously difficult to acquire?

In my opinion, all of them. If it's a class skill, it takes professional level training and dedication to that particular profession to do -- else any character could do it. Certainly any elf, because what else are they gonna do with all those millennia but pick up random skills that catch their interest?

My rule of thumb is, a char can do any one thing like a natural, "easily". More than one, and they trigger my Mary-Sue scanner. Me and that bint don't get along.

The weirdness is compounded by there being no significant in-game difference between, say, humans and Kaldorei, despite the latter's vastly superior training and experience. One approach is to RP that some of us don't have the powers our characters have in-game. I sympathise with the sentiment but I find it a major handicap - especially since, if we regularly RP'd with humans, we'd have to nerf them mercilessly.

...err, what? Why would humans need a nerf? It's not them that suck, it's us who are either anal about detail (e.g. proper martial form to a warrior) or chase skills that are genuinely too difficult and time consuming for humans to learn (druidic and priestly power, or a hunter's animal affinity -- there has only ever been -one- human hunter natural enough to train with the Quel'dorei rangers).

It's not that Kaldorei have physical or mental superiority, it's that they have superior lifespan and will eventually learn more. They're not naturally gifted past the human norm, just extremely experienced by the time they reach their first millennia or so. For all general purposes and all other factors being equal, human/elvish performance level at any one thing will IMO be roughly even.

In particular, very young Kaldorei (~80) should have no advantage at all over humans of equivalent age. If anything, they should have a disadvantage at advanced skills (but advantages performing under pressure) because they're being taught much more thoroughly, since they have the time to learn skills -properly-, not at the unreliable quick and dirty version humans use.

Healing: Permanent magical healing is an advanced power, at least for Druids. Serious natural healing requires years of study, as in the real world. Temporary magical healing and simple first-aid, on the other hand, are learnable by the young.

"Temporary"? If it closes the wound or cures the poison/ailment, it's serious healing in my book, revisiting it later is just bedside manner. If you can do it mid-combat, without asking the target to lie down and hold still while you concentrate, you're not doing anything simple -- you're performing the equivalent of complex surgery while being shot at with a machine gun.

Magical healing of ANY kind has to be hard to learn. If it wasn't, every elf over the age of 50 would have this useful and simple talent, and that would make things ridiculous. This applies to all magic, IMO. Plus there's the cultural component - magic of any kind should never be trivial or the first solution to a Kaldorei. That sort of thinking is exactly why the Highbourne screwed up the world.

Physical combat: This is anyway an area where the young have some advantages of their own, to balance the knowledge and experience of their older counterparts. A Captain will be a veteran, and a rookie will be ineffective, but the finest fighter may very well be one of the younger ones.

Raw talent may differentiate, but only where all other things are equal. Lorewise, having been immortal, all Kaldorei are still 'young' physically, even the ancient ones -- old combat veterans are vicious because they have the advantage of youthful vigor *and* ancient experience. For the next few hundred years at least, young years will never be an advantage against an elvish opponent.

Shapeshifting: I think of this as a kind of "motor skill", like physical combat or playing a musical instrument - it takes practice and dedication to learn, but with talent, even the very young can be brilliant at it.

The lore doesn't support this. Rather, both lore and the druid quests underline fairly heavily that shifting is spiritual chanelling of the animal's essence - really old school druids may still only have the one totem form (Druids of the Claw, Druids of the Talon), and refuse to shift into anything else -- even the Druids of the Wild who have less limits stick to a few practical forms, cats, bears, seals and ravens. Shifting is hard and its dangerous, and if you're not careul you'll end up as Savagekin -- so deep in the spirit that you forget yourself entirely.

Druids and the Dream: As I imagine it, all Druids can visit the Dream, but as wisp-like, malleable forms, effectively ethereal and helpless except towards themselves and other non-native creatures in the Dream. A talented Druid might be able to dance around, shift forms and play little tricks with the different laws of that realm - but would still be helpless to actually do anything there. What sets older Druids apart, then, is their ability to "walk the Dream", i.e. take tangible form in that realm and take actions that will in some way have an impact in the Dream itself.

This we agree on, though I'd imagine that since the Dream is Ysera's realm, elder druids would consider altering it rather akin to scribbling on granny's walls when she ain't loooking (relation intended, as Ysera is Cenarius's adopted mother). I'd also put 'older' at around 5k in this context.

Kaldorei training: Whereas a level 80 human would be a rare and mighty hero, for Kaldorei I would take level 80 as "fully trained and experienced Sentinel",

I don't think this is practical - simply because at lvl 80, gameplay will let you pull silly epics regardless of your race. I parse level 80 IMO as skill level "professional adventurer" -- we're not Vader or Luke, but we might, on our very best day, be Han Solo for a little while. Basically I think our job as players is to look at how the lore portrays the heroes, and then stay a few notches under that at all times. They're the epic heroes -- we're the adventurers they could take as backup to help out (but will not, because special relationships with NPC's are a naughty thing to have).

Aleithia, meanwhile, is exceptional not only in being precociously talented and intelligent, but also in having been permitted to learn advanced skills before learning many, many things that Kaldorei consider fundamental.

This is the crunch -- if advanced skills like healing or shapeshifting or hunter magic were possible to learn just like that, all elves over a millennia old would know them. Since they don't, we have to assume there's more to it.

Conceivably, a Kaldorei child could be very gifted at a particular thing, and be taught in taht one thing as fast as they can progress. But again -- more than one thing, and people's Mary Sue detectors start going off. Whether or not you can explain your IC skill doesn't matter. It's still something you made up to benefit your char, and a big enough pile of benefits will look silly, no matter what explanations go with it.

[aleithia]

Jun 16, 2009 20:37:47 GMT 1 Kestrel said:

In my opinion, all of them. If it's a class skill, it takes professional level training and dedication to do as a professional level -- else any character could do it.

Yup, I meant "seriously difficult" as in "impossible for anyone who isn't one of the best in the world" as opposed to merely "requiring professional training and dedication". So we agree, I think.

A character can be a natural at one limited thing, two things trigger my Mary-Sue scanner. Me and that bint don't get along.

With you on that - so thanks for the warning! I certainly want to keep Aleithia un-cliched. Irrelevantly: have you read Name of the Wind? One of the main inspirations for A is the central character, Kvothe.

This is where I apply the "less is more" rule. The older your character is, the more sub-par skills you can viably pull out of your hat -- "I can do the ritual if no-one else can, I spent a few decades at the Temple before I realised it wasn't my calling".

Yup. As regards the ritual, I didn't see that as a skill, more like "I remember most of the words and I can look the rest up." As in, *any* Kaldorei could have done it if they'd made the effort, we just had to say the words and mean them, and Elune would do the rest.

...err, what? Why would we have to nerf humans? It's not them that suck, it's us who are anal about detail and comprehension.

It's not that Kaldorei have physical or mental superiority, it's that they have superior lifespan and will eventually acquire superior maturity and a broader selection of skills, or deeper fine control over the same skills. They're not superhumanly gifted, just extremely experienced by the time they reach their first millennia or so. For all general purposes, their performance level at any one thing will IMO be roughly equal.

Okay, thanks, this is a more helpful way of looking at it. :-)

In particular, young Kaldorei (~80) should have no advantage at all over humans of equivalent age.

Yup, absolutely.

If anything, they should have a mild disadvantage because they're being taught less things much more thoroughly and slowly, since they have the time to learn them -properly-, not at this silly shorthand version humans use.

Still with you - in fact I'd say, a huge disadvantage, below the age of about 60-80. I've made Aleithia a partial exception to that, at least regarding Druidic skills, with the excuse that she lived with an actual Druid teacher for years. Shout if you smell Mary Sue already...

Um, if it closes the wound it's serious healing in my book. If you can do it mid-combat, without asking the target to lie down and hold still while you concentrate, you're not doing anything simple -- you're performing serious magic in extremely stressful conditions.

It has to be hard. If it was easy, every elf out there would have such a simple and useful skill. This applies to all magic, IMO. Plus there's the cultural component - magic of any kind should never be trivial or the first solution to a Kaldorei. That sort of thinking is exactly why the Highbourne screwed up the world.

There's another way around this, which is to say either you have the Druidic gift, or you don't (more or less). If you do, you become a Druid; if you don't, you simply can't do (proper) Druidic magic.

Getting rid of actual injuries would correspond to an in-game rez, right? So if we just gloss over the occasional OOC Rebirth, I'd say it was something she could only do out-of-combat, with great difficulty and in dire necessity, with the need for a proper Druid to patch things up afterwards and much tut-tutting and "oh Aleithia, you really screwed this one up." We had something a bit like this at the Splintertree event, although Jarob didn't lay it on quite that thick, since she only messed up her own shoulder.

As for the pressure, I'd say she might very well screw up, again as we saw at Splintertree.

Raw talent may differentiate, but only where all other things are equal. Lorewise, having been immortal, all Kaldorei are still 'young' physically, even the ancient ones -- old combat veterans are vicious because they have the advantage of youthful vigor *and* ancient experience. For the next few hundred years at least, young years will never be an advantage against an elvish opponent.

Yes. I'd actually expect Sarama to beat a talented young rogue in a fight - but not that easily, because talent plus in-depth training plus loads of experience is not that much better than talent plus intensive training plus a moderate amount of experience.

The lore doesn't support this. Rather, both lore and the druid quests underline fairly heavily that shifting is spiritual chanelling of the animal's essence - really old school druids may still only have the one totem form (Druids of the Claw, Druids of the Talon), and refuse to shift into anything else -- even the Druids of the Wild who have less limits stick to a few practical forms, cats, bears, seals and ravens. Shifting is hard and its dangerous, and if you're not careul you'll end up as Savagekin -- so deep in the spirit that you forget yourself entirely.

Okay, I'll rethink that bit.

This we agree on, though I'd imagine that since the dream is Ysera's realm, elder druids would consider altering it rather like scribbling on granny's walls (relation intended, as Ysera is Cenarius's adopted mother). I'd also put 'older' at around 5k in this context.

Sure. I was imagining fighting the Nightmare and stuff like that.

I don't think this is practical - simply because at lvl 80, gameplay will let you pull silly epics regardless of your race. I parse level 80 IMO as skill level "professional adventurer" -- we're not Vader or Luke, but we might, on our very best day, be Han Solo for a little while. Basically our job as players is IMO to look at how the lore portrays the heroes, and then stay a few notches under that at all times. They're the epic heroes -- we're the adventurers they could take as backup to help out (but will not, because special relationships with NPC's are a naughty thing to have).

Okay, I see your point... so I'll go with what you mentioned earlier, that "a very good professional Kaldorei" is no better than a "very good professional human" - just maybe with a wider range of skills, and more experience.

This is the crunch -- If healing or shapeshifting or hunter magic were trivial things, all elves over a millennia old would know them. Since they don't, we have to assume there's more to doing it well than just skipping the basic lessons and learnign to push the buttons.

I don't suggest they're trivial; rather, that the majority of Kaldorei simply can't use Druidic magic (or call down Elune's healing blessings, come to that). Or, that they can only use it in a very limited way, or choose not to try to do more (cf. Kestrel herself).

I keep thinking of playing the piano: it's something the vast majority of people can't do at all, and it takes a lot of work even to become reasonably good at it, but a few talented teenagers are technically nearly as good as the real masters. I emphasise technically because it's precisely the musical insight which tends to be lacking in these cases - and that's just how I imagine Aleithia and her Druidic magic.

To my mind, skipping the basics isn't precocious talent, it's being too lazy to acquire any understanding of what you're working with. Sooner or later it'll fail because you'll fail to do something insanely obvious that anyone who does understand the basics would know about.

Well, it's not necessarily laziness so much as misguided enthusiasm, but yes, I agree. By using powers far beyond her years or maturity, Aleithia is in serious danger of getting into a very nasty mess.

As for Aleithia's demonstrated abilities IC: She *is* messing up her IC healing half the time - remember you haven't actually seen her do much healing IC. At Splintertree she only healed herself, and it was basically a botched job that barely got her through the next half hour. As I mentioned, I think of the communication stuff as a clever-but-simple trick that any Druid could replicate with the stones if they cared to, like juggling. And the ritual was just a case of memorising a page of text.

I'll try to play up her ineptitude more (which will be easier when we do more stuff together), but I don't think she's yet shown any ability a 19-year-old couldn't have. That being said, I want to find a balance you're happy with too, so I'll try it some more and see how you feel. :-)

[Kestrel]

Bah, I miskeyd at some point and posted a draft. Read back.

[aleithia]

Jun 16, 2009 21:30:34 GMT 1 Kestrel said:

Bah, I miskeyd at some point and posted a draft. Read back.

Yup, I realised. :-) Response revised.

[entriia]

It's not that Kaldorei have physical or mental superiority, it's that they have superior lifespan and will eventually learn more. They're not naturally gifted past the human norm, just extremely experienced by the time they reach their first millennia or so. For all general purposes and all other factors being equal, human/elvish performance level at any one thing will IMO be roughly even.

There is one thing Elves are naturaly better at than Humans, which is channeling magic. Its written somewhere in an RPG book or another, I forget which, that Elves are far far better than Humans at using magic with finese even though humans are innately more 'powerful' at using magic.
For instance, wheras an Elven mage could quite easily have multiple subtle and intricate spells going on at once, a human mage would struggle greatly at doing such but could easily summon a huge, destructive ball of fire.

Just a random thought I'd decided to chuck in

[Kestrel]

Ah, true -- I disregarded automatically since it applies to mages and Arcane magic, which the Kaldorei don't use, but you're right. Natural magical affinity due to their long exposure to the Well of Eternity

[Fae]

Regarding magical healing in combat- instead of a healing spell working as the game mechanic does:

"Dragon burns Kestrel for 25% of her health, Fae heals that damage after it's happened so Kestrel is fine again"

Could the healing spell perhaps interrupt, block or dissipates the majority of the enemy's attacks? So...

"Dragon breathes fire at Kestrel, Fae throws a handful of magical leaves which catch more of the fire damage, leaving Kestrel with no eyebrows but relatively intact?"

Or maybe the healing spells don't heal the wounds during combat, but instead suppress pain and infuse the target with enough energy to soldier on until they can be treated properly after the battle?

"Dragon breathes fire on Kestrel, Kestrel is painfully burnt, Fae using magic spell to stop the pain so Kestrel can resume peppering it with arrows?"

[aleithia]

Back on the shapeshifting topic: a Tauren can apparently be a perfectly acceptable Druid of the Wild at 50. As such, I'd suggest that while shapeshifting is difficult and dangerous, and of course clearly a professional skill requiring both talent and years of training, it's not actually unthinkable for under-age Kaldorei to have acquired it. For Aleithia I'm wondering what limitations we can introduce, given that we've already established that she shifts quite freely and often. I'm thinking in terms of "she can do it, after a fashion, but she really shouldn't do it so recklessly", and wondering about a mini-plot where she screws it up royally. Not for this week though, as we've just had two "Druid has difficulty shifting back to Kaldorei form" stories in as many weeks. Meanwhile please feel free to scold her in-character when she does it again. :-)

Jun 17, 2009 8:46:24 GMT 1 Fae said:

Or maybe the healing spells don't heal the wounds during combat, but instead suppress pain and infuse the target with enough energy to soldier on until they can be treated properly after the battle?

"Dragon breathes fire on Kestrel, Kestrel is painfully burnt, Fae using magic spell to stop the pain so Kestrel can resume peppering it with arrows?"

I think we should go with this last suggestion, as we interpret loss of HP as not-an-injury, but only superficial or painful injuries and buffeting that might cause people to make a mistake and get injured. In-game death is then an actual injury, and resurrection spells perform actual healing. As such, as you suggest, normal healing would be more "invigorating" and perhaps shielding magic.

This is the crunch -- if advanced skills like healing or shapeshifting or hunter magic were possible to learn just like that, all elves over a millennia old would know them. Since they don't, we have to assume there's more to it.

Surely it makes more sense for that "more" to be talent rather than training? If acquiring a skill *absolutely requires* decades, never mind centuries of training, humans (or Tauren) could never have it.

Conceivably, a Kaldorei child could be very gifted at a particular thing, and be taught in taht one thing as fast as they can progress.

So, for Aleithia, that thing would be Druidic magic, with an emphasis on healing and shapeshifting. I'm working on a concept under which they are essentially different aspects of the same skill. Is that really too broad? Again, it wouldn't be remarkable to meet a teenage pianist who can also compose a decent-sounding symphony. She wouldn't be a great pianist or a great composer (at least, not at that age), but no musician would say "how can she possibly have learned both of those things?" They'd just say, "gosh, she's very precocious... she should take her time."

But again -- more than one thing, and people's Mary Sue detectors start going off. Whether or not you can explain your IC skill doesn't matter. It's still something you made up to benefit your char, and a big enough pile of benefits will look silly, no matter what explanations go with it.

To be fair, what I've made up is a big pile of handicaps for my character, i.e. being very young, she can't do things properly, no Kaldorei will ever take her seriously, etc. The abilities she has are those the game gives us, and I'm already doing my best to hedge them around without making her so completely useless that she simply couldn't be a Guardian in the first place.

I totally sympathise with the concern, but I think there's a danger here of us as players thinking too much like Kaldorei. Of course, *Kaldorei* would find it incredible that someone so young could have learned those skills, just as they would probably be astonished by any competent human. But we as humans should remember that there are very few (real life) disciplines in which a very talented and well-trained 19-year-old cannot excel.

Finally, on her actual age: I'm flexible on the number 19, and I don't mind altering the backstory a little to fit that. However, I really do want to keep it low; above about 30 I would start to feel she seemed too young and irresponsible, and I'd start playing her differently. Whatever agreement we come to about her abilities, I hope we all agree that we like Aleithia's character the way she is. ;-)

[Kestrel]

Jun 17, 2009 8:46:24 GMT 1 Fae said:

Could the healing spell perhaps interrupt, block or dissipates the majority of the enemy's attacks? So...

"Dragon breathes fire at Kestrel, Fae throws a handful of magical leaves which catch more of the fire damage, leaving Kestrel with no eyebrows but relatively intact?"

This is what I generally assume: everything that doesn't kill you is stopped by armour or protective magic and not a relevant injury, because otherwise IC-instancing would involve stopping after every fight to fix the tank at least, and that gets slow and dull very fast. Not to mention implies that the tank is horrifically bad at combat, since they keep getting hurt.

Surely it makes more sense for that "more" to be talent rather than training? If acquiring a skill *absolutely requires* decades, never mind centuries of training, humans (or Tauren) could never have it.

The thing is I don't think it's *possible* to be 'talented' at druidic magic -- druidism is a religion, not a craft, magic is what you get by being dedicated and devoted at it and keeping that magic requires responsible use of the gift or Nature may take it back. Piano playing and overclocking analogies don't apply when the basic way the power works is based on a third party's involvement. Rather, it's a matter of having the faith to be granted this divine power, and then learning the wisdom to use it (or in most cases, NOT use it) acceptably. Part of the Balance philosophy is that Nature's gifts are never free -- there is always consequence, always cost, and a druid's true skill IMO is not producing the effect, it's only tampering with nature where the cost and the consequence are justified and for the good.

And yes, that should take time. That's why the humans can't be druids at all (the dude in Nighthaven in the archivist, not a druid), and why there's a great controversy in the Cenarion Circle over if the Taurens are acceptable druids -- whether they actually can learn to the same level as Kaldorei can.


To me, druidic magic, healing, and shapeshifting are three separate skills, not one -- it's basically the specialties of Entriia, Fae and Yinka in one. In my mind the distinction is that any druid is expected to heal, to command nature and to channel animal forms in a basic way, but being combatworthy with it is a different story.


As for "thinking too much like Kaldorei" ... isn't that sort of why we play them in the first place?


Thirty isn't any different from 19, in my opinion. Seriously, I'm gonna start carding you people ... the next person to tell me they're underage after they've joined gets beaten with a cod.


EDIT by Kestrel -- I fucked up and broke the post. I fixed it from a cache version, but it left an edit mark .. this note just to explain why. X(

[Sarama]

Im suppose to be working, so I dont have time to make this organised. Just some random thoughts.

I think its very much like Kestrel say when she claims they have time. Kaledorei probebly put down very long time making sure they make one thing properly. I can imagine that at 19, kaledorei has just started to lean towards the one "thing" they going to spend the next thousand years being. So I think a typical druid at 19 has probebly just come to realise she/he might become a druid based on spending alot of time hugging trees or just sitting in the nature doing nothing. If training has begun, for druid its probelby something simular to learning to pick flowers the right way to not hurt the fibers in the stalk. And when the druid has perfected the art of picking flowers, a year later or so, they move on to observing maggots for an other year.

For a soon to be sentinel I imagine it being simular, but he/she probebly start out waxing the tooth of the sabers to get the right motions for a year, then paint the fences for a year, then wave their hands in the air with a "air-sword", then moving on to a wooden sword and eventually 20 years later maybe get to do the same particular sword swing with a real sword.

I also think that there might be a bubble effect in Kaledorei society, where the young people spend the days in temples or barracks and whatnot. Getting pretty isolated and in a way "retarded" in the sense that when they get done with basic training after a 100 years or so, they are pretty inexperienced in common day activities since they lived their sheltered life for so long. Meaning a 100 year old Kaledorei might very well behave very immature and childlish since its a phase of his/her life that hasnt happend yet.

For healing and resurection. When I played druid, I played that the healing was crude and based on encourage the body to selfgenerate faster. If there was worse injuries that wasnt possible to self generate, you had to pull up tricks to make the body think it could. For the one being healed this was basically pretty uncomfortable feeling, Imagine a wound you have healing. It itch abit, maybe stings, over the course of 2-3 weeks. Imagine that being compressed and healed over a matter of seconds. Paladins and Priest had more miracle healing in my opinion, their healing was mroe divine internvation where cut was removed based on that it actually never happend in a wierd way.

For resurection. I only think I ever IC resurected one guy ever. Else death is usually played has a player being knocked uncouncious. For the resurection it was something about calling down the spirit into a seed that was placed in the body to trick the spirit the vessel was whole, then heal the body and sacrifice the seed and make the spirit stay in the body. I played this has very hard thing to do, and I remember the one time I did it my character wasnt herself for 1-2 days after.

[Kestrel]

On druid training -- as story I wrote a while back. When did Sil ever rez? I remember the seed, but I always classed it as a classic revival from the brink through shiny magic CPR. Very hard, but not raising the dead because she'd been struck down like a minute earlier.

cenarionguardians.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=stories&action=display&thread=107&page=1

[Sarama]

Yea, it was on a fresh corpse.

When Riiva, Darrian and Silnaen did the dream walk. She got abit emo and didnt want to show Darrian the way down. Darrian jumped and the player got pissed about dying and insisted that he was perma dead forever and thats the only time I have had to resurect someone IC.
The whole thing was abit silly but I guess it made my character feel bad about it for a while and the actual resurection ritual was pretty nice RP.

[Kestrel]

Gaaaaaah, I'd forgotten that. But yeah, it was the same deal as the other time, so D's emo aside I still wrote it off IC as spectacular CPR, not raising the dead.

[aleithia]

The thing is I don't think it's *possible* to be 'talented' at druidic magic -- druidism is a religion, not a craft, magic is what you get by being dedicated and devoted at it and keeping that magic requires responsible use of the gift or Nature may take it back. Piano playing and overclocking analogies don't apply when the basic way the power works is based on a third party's involvement. Rather, it's a matter of having the faith to be granted this divine power, and then learning the wisdom to use it (or in most cases, NOT use it) acceptably. Part of the Balance philosophy is that Nature's gifts are never free -- there is always consequence, always cost, and a druid's true skill IMO is not producing the effect, it's only tampering with nature where the cost and the consequence are justified and for the good.

Okay, this is interesting; I'll go and chew on it for a while, and see what I come up with.

And yes, that should take time. That's why the humans can't be druids at all (the dude in Nighthaven in the archivist, not a druid), and why there's a great controversy in the Cenarion Circle over if the Taurens are acceptable druids -- whether they actually can learn to the same level as Kaldorei can.

I see your point. However, even if Tauren aren't necessarily taken seriously by the Circle, they are clearly meant to be capable of doing what Druids do - including some shapeshifting, some "healing" (not the hard kind) and some other Druidic magic - at 50. If Tauren can, in principle Kaldorei can too.

To me, druidic magic, healing, and shapeshifting are three separate skills, not one -- it's basically the specialties of Entriia, Fae and Yinka in one. In my mind the distinction is that any druid is expected to heal, to command nature and to channel animal forms in a basic way, but being combatworthy with it is a different story.

Okay, fair enough, but this really is opinion now. I accept the concept that A shouldn't be a combatworthy bear/kitty/boomkin IC; she can be a rather flawed support tree and I'll save dual-spec for OOC. What I'm resisting is the idea of retconning her either to the point that she can't shapeshift or use Moonfire at all, or by making her 110 years old. Either of these, to my mind, imply throwing out the whole character and starting again.

As for "thinking too much like Kaldorei" ... isn't that sort of why we play them in the first place?

Yes :-P which is why it's important for us to remember that The Way Things Are in lore does not have to correspond to Kaldorei prejudices. Just because Kaldorei think of a 20-year-old as a helpless mewling infant, doesn't mean 20-year-old characters should be played that way, even if they're Kaldorei themselves.

Thirty isn't any different from 19, in my opinion. Seriously, I'm gonna start carding you people ... the next person to tell me they're underage after they've joined gets beaten with a cod.

Oooh, no fair, she told Kestrel IC pretty exactly how old she was way before she joined the Guardians. OOC I also asked Sarama specifically about whether it was okay for her to be 19, we checked with you and you okayed it - still before she joined the Guardians. It's in my FlagRSP, it's in my character description on this forum, I've been going "she's just a kid" for months; by all means let's find a mutually acceptable approach, but it really is a bit late to say "she has to be five times older or she's Mary Sue."

The Moonshine story rocks! I'll use that as food for thought too - although obviously A wouldn't be capable of anything similar to what Anadurion did there.


EDIT by Kestrel: I fucked up with the reply button - the admin interface makes it easy to hit the modify button instead. That's why there's an edit tag, I didn't change anything =(

Edit by Aleithia: Hihi, no worries. :-)