The Sun Sets OOC and info

Why would making potions have easier DCs for the same effects as It's Witchcraft?

Edit: Cardbo and Xel.

Edit 2: Also, it is totally unclear to me if "You’ve learned the craft of brewing potions to mimic magical spells." is just a flavor excuse for why it lets you take Unicorn talents or if that's actually supposed to be a mechanical effect. If it's the later, it's kinda a kick in the nuts to Unicorns because that makes it exactly the same as It's Witchcraft PLUS allows you access to their entire utility list. And neither pegasi or unicorn have any talent that gives them full access to each other's lists, so I think it's unlikely it was intended to be that strong as, it's sorta obviously unfair.

Bronymous wrote:If I'm reading this right....no? IW is a Unicorn talent, so you don't can't use it, and the way I've worked it out means that making potions to give yourself IW for magical effects is actually a major disadvantage. You can make just make potions that allow you to perform various magical spells and effects, and they'll be at a much lower DC than giving yourself IW and forcing magic that way.

Ok, I traded IW for Thundercrash

And also, Freaky Knowledge doesn't apply to specific skills. For example, A stunts check for just flying would not use the FK boost, and there might be a History check that applies to weather crafting, in which case you would get the bonus.

Fixed.

Also, if you want to switch it up, I determined that Mechanics can be used in place of Arcana to make potions. But that's up to you.

Edit: what two have that combo?

EDIT:Is this just a case where we can use either Arcane or Mechanics?

What happened to the archer concept?

This seemed funnier in my mind.

Is the whole potion making thing essential to the character? Because we already have witchcraft effects pretty well covered and there's plenty of good stuff out there we don't have.

We talked about this last night. In the same way that using IW in place of another talent would jump the DC, because there is an easier way to go about it, Potions can be used to any end, and using a potion to just give you magic and THEN trying to accomplish one of those ends in unnecessary, and cultivates the higher DC.

Its not totally essential to my character. Do we have a healer? I could shift storm eye in that direction.

EDIT: I see Elfowlgirl's Shooting Star has Medical Training. How would you feel about another character with this?

I think Shooting Star does actually, lol. Anyway, apparently I'm not supposed to be giving unasked for character decision advice.

You could run as a healer. Star's only got two healing talents, which I added 'cause I wasn't sure if we'd have one or not.

elfowlgirl wrote:You could run as a healer. Star's only got two healing talents, which I added 'cause I wasn't sure if we'd have one or not.

Sounds good. I've put StormEye's trained skill in healing and he's a healing potion maker.(But without Pinkie's Brew for arcane effects)

I am always amazed at how many utilities there are and yet every game I've been in our initial ideas have a ton of overlap.

Btw, Cardbo, when you were talking about the initial ideas of the disaster prone character were you talking about Misfortune Magnet and Jinx? Or did you just mean Derp?

Ramsus wrote:I am always amazed at how many utilities there are and yet every game I've been in our initial ideas have a ton of overlap.

Btw, Cardbo, when you were talking about the initial ideas of the disaster prone character were you talking about Misfortune Magnet and Jinx? Or did you just mean Derp?

I was just thinking about Derp. And some Utilities are super good like Freaky Knowledge, Its Witchcraft and Nightwatch.

Well, we don't really need Nightwatch since my character is a walking lantern. =P

Freaky Knowledge I don't find so bad because everyone tends to put it in different stuff.

It's Witchcraft though....yeah, it's really good and people take it a lot.

People also don't use it correctly a lot of the time. I take it this means you're ok with dropping potions? Because I've literally been reading through every resource for the last half hour trying to figure out how it is balanced correctly. I think I came up with the solution, but if it's no longer needed then I can drop it.

Xel still has it too though, so wouldn't you still need that information anyway? Honestly I don't care if it's not balanced because of a few things. 1) They all have lower arcana than my Unicorn does anyway, so they won't be as good at it, which while not a mechanical balance is a character created side effect balance. 2) I never saw the reason to limit utilities by race in the first place aside from trying to keep them distinct. The fact that there are official talents to circumvent that makes the entire barrier stupid pointlessness. 3) Having one Utility talent be better than another is still better, in my opinion, than having one that technically gives you nothing at all by itself.

Now that you mention that, a few questions:

Xel, how exactly does your minotaur have IW? Is there some talent or something that lets you pick it?

And, 7/9, I haven't completely looked over Dodger, bu why does he change color when his clothes come off? Also, what kind of doc is that, because its being weird.

Edit: And for anyone without a pic as of yet, please add in a general description of what your character looks like.

The same exact way Cardbo's guy did. Pinkie's Brew lets you take Unicorn talents.

That's how Pinkie's Brew works? It lets you mimic Unicorn Skills by use of Potions or whatever you reflavor it into... In my minotaur's case by Stage Magic Traning somehow giving him real magic... If that's just dumb... I guess I'll just drop the character. I used Pinkie's Brew before and that's how I did it with my Pegasus with Zebra stripes, Zeela... It'd be totally dumb if it didn't work that way.

Here's picture of StormEye's CM, BTW.


EDIT: How about Fillydelphia for a starting location?

Yeah, but it isn't a constant thing. You don't just automatically have It's Witchcraft on 24/7. The point of potions is that they have to be crafted with a specific intended effect, consumed, and then the effect is active until it wears off. The way I understand it (or at least the way that makes the most sense here) is that you down the potion when you intend to used the effect, use said effect, and then its gone. If you don't have the potion crafted ahead of time, you would either have to stop and take the time to do that, or go without.

And as for balancing it against Unicorn talents, it works like this: All unicorn talents are SURE things, as long as they hold to the listed effects. Anything outside of those effects, or any talents you don't have, fall under Its Witchcraft, initiating an arcana check. Potions, on the other hand, are not a sure thing. To craft them correctly requires foresight, time, and a successful arcana or mechanics check. Assuming success, THEN the potion affords one of the listed Unicorn Talents. If you attempt to try anything outside those effects, then it works as the Its Witchcraft Talent- which means you then have to roll ANOTHER arcana check to successfully work the effect. So, it's much more effort then simply being a Unicorn, which is how it remains balanced. However, any effect that I think would operate under a different skill- eg, a healing potion would operate under the heal skill- would either then require that check instead of an IW arcana check, or simply not require a secondary check.

This is how I myself have interpreted IW and potions and whatnot to work, so that's how I will judge it in this game. I am not concerned with materials, since that isn't a thing yet. I will, however restrict the use of potions that mimic talents to the amount the talent can be used per day, per session, etc. SO, these are some examples of how I will rule potions:

Echo Potion: gives the echo talent- once per day
Arcana or Mechanics check- success, consumer may immediately use the echo talent's effect

Dispell potion: Grants IW, uses arcana to dispell an effect
Arcana/Mechanics check- success, consumer makes arcana check to dispell

Healing Potion: restores HP (probably not necessary, ever)
Arc/Mec check- success, consumer makes heal check, gains that amount HP OR simply gains xdx health

I'm pretty sure if it was supposed to work at all like that it would be more than one really vague line. Still, I like that a LOT more than the options of "It's Witchcraft+" or doing nothing aside from just letting you take Unicorn talents. And house rules are fine and expected in any game anyway. And doubly acceptable when the people who made said talents clearly weren't considering balance or fairness no matter what way you interpret it.

After discussing with Bronymous about what would be required for us to spend time in Cloudsdale....I suggest we start somewhere really close to Cloudsdale, lol. I'm pretty sure I can make the Arcana checks necessary (with the aid of Generosity possibly) to let the three of us who can't fly to walk on clouds. Of course the pegasi will still probably need to fly us up there in the first place or make us a cloud stairway up or something.

I forget if anyone else actually suggested anywhere else.

I totally think I should start an honest chat about Pinkie's Brew and all of it's effects... (Cause the more I hear about your views on it Bronymous, the more amazed at how limiting I was seeing that talent's possible usage. Cause I liked thinking it only just allowed access to Unicorn talents.) (edit: in fact I did) But then I've gotta ask, just to be sure, with how I've reflavored Pinkie's Brew for my Minotaur, I'd only get such "potion" effects, if I set up a Stage Magic style Trick to do some type of assist for myself or an ally, right? Cause mostly I was just planing on playing more It's Witchcraft stuff with a Non-Unicorn character... (As that's how I've used Pinkie's Brew on my other character.)

Ramsus wrote:After discussing with Bronymous about what would be required for us to spend time in Cloudsdale....I suggest we start somewhere really close to Cloudsdale, lol. I'm pretty sure I can make the Arcana checks necessary (with the aid of Generosity possibly) to let the three of us who can't fly to walk on clouds. Of course the pegasi will still probably need to fly us up there in the first place or make us a cloud stairway up or something.

I forget if anyone else actually suggested anywhere else.

I threw Phillydelphia out there earlier. I don't mind starting close to Cloudsdale, but is there a particular reason for that?

Personally I don't mind where we start this thing off at... After all my character is more just a wondering stage performer like Trixie.

Cardbo wrote:I threw Phillydelphia out there earlier. I don't mind starting close to Cloudsdale, but is there a particular reason for that?

Just because I thought it would be amusing and it's one of the places I generally want to visit in a PT game. (The others happen to be the other two we aren't allowed to start in. Well, really normally I don't care about Ponyville but, it seems like it would be pretty interesting in this game.)

Ramsus wrote:

Cardbo wrote:I threw Phillydelphia out there earlier. I don't mind starting close to Cloudsdale, but is there a particular reason for that?

Just because I thought it would be amusing and it's one of the places I generally want to visit in a PT game. (The others happen to be the other two we aren't allowed to start in. Well, really normally I don't care about Ponyville but, it seems like it would be pretty interesting in this game.)

If Bronymous is cool with it, I've got no objection to starting near Cloudsdale.