The Deal with Magecraft, and what it should be

Except for Stealth, which started the whole mess. To me that just sounds like you're claiming the problem is that you used Arcana instead of cleverly using some other skill to accomplish tasks. The transformation seems like the only "problematic" magical thing involved that you couldn't get in some other way and... it didn't seem to do anything for purposes of the story. Really, the issue seems more like you came up with a way to roll in response to everything. Which is.... what anyone in that situation would have done. Regardless of if they had Magecraft or not. They would have just been forced to used explanations aside from magic as to why. I can't imagine anyone just throwing their hands in the air and strop trying to accomplish anything.

Ramsus wrote:Except for Stealth, which started the whole mess. To me that just sounds like you're claiming the problem is that you used Arcana instead of cleverly using some other skill to accomplish tasks. The transformation seems like the only "problematic" magical thing involved that you couldn't get in some other way and... it didn't seem to do anything for purposes of the story. Really, the issue seems more like you came up with a way to roll in response to everything. Which is.... what anyone in that situation would have done. Regardless of if they had Magecraft or not. They would have just been forced to used explanations aside from magic as to why. I can't imagine anyone just throwing their hands in the air and strop trying to accomplish anything.

The point is not that I would've tried to fix the situation and still made rolls without magecraft. The point is that magecraft let me do everything with one skill and very little thought or creativity. It makes arcana a god mode do everything skill.

I'm pretty sure I could have done similar with Mechanics (exactly similar in fact with Crazy Contraption and Fabricate or Personal Project) and just as insane without a ton of thinking with Athletics or Acrobatics.

Ramsus wrote:I'm pretty sure I could have done similar with Mechanics (exactly similar in fact with Crazy Contraption and Fabricate or Personal Project) and just as insane without a ton of thinking with Athletics or Acrobatics.

1. Crazy contraption takes a magic point and has prep time, thus is not actually as spammable or as useful in the moment for fast manuevers.
2. Mechanics cannot light things on fire out of thin air
3. Your solution still involves using more than one talent and/or skill, while magecraft uses ONE talent and ONE skill to do anything, making aracana op
4. I am done with this argument and shall go no further. It is quite clear we have irreconcilable differences of opinion and can't come to an agreement. We're both just hitting our heads against walls at this point.

I thought Arcana was suppose to be super strong so it balances out how situational and underused History and Heal is...

There are currently plans in the works that will make heal much more useful. Also, the proposed change still leaves arcana in a strong place, just not an over-powered one.

Lapis-Lazily wrote:

Ramsus wrote:I'm pretty sure I could have done similar with Mechanics (exactly similar in fact with Crazy Contraption and Fabricate or Personal Project) and just as insane without a ton of thinking with Athletics or Acrobatics.

1. Crazy contraption takes a magic point and has prep time, thus is not actually as spammable or as useful in the moment for fast manuevers.
2. Mechanics cannot light things on fire out of thin air
3. Your solution still involves using more than one talent and/or skill, while magecraft uses ONE talent and ONE skill to do anything, making aracana op
4. I am done with this argument and shall go no further. It is quite clear we have irreconcilable differences of opinion and can't come to an agreement. We're both just hitting our heads against walls at this point.

4) You can stop if you want to but, I do feel the need to respond to the other three points you mentioned.

1) Crazy Contraption would have been used for the transformation, where time would not have been an issue and you said you had to spend magic points during the scene anyway.
2) If you are a mechanic who wants to light things on fire, you almost certainly carry around the materials to do so. It really doesn't take much at all.
3) Unless you somehow acquired Magecraft without actually taking Magical Tricks, so does your example. And I only listed Mechanics for the prime example. Athletics and Acrobatics were just examples to state that pretty much any skill can be used brainlessly to create crazyness if you feel like it.

The point of all this is that your scenario doesn't highlight any kind of problem with Magecraft. In fact, I'm not sure it highlights any problems at all. But, if there was one, it was that your GM didn't clearly tell you when you could no longer roll/should stop rolling or that you pushed the reasonable limits of things you are allowed to roll for. Neither of these issues have anything to do with Magecraft.

Lapis-Lazily wrote:

Zarhon wrote:Also, Lapis, how did you 'break' Magecraft, exactly?

I rolled nat 20 on my stealth check to sneak into the bedroom of someone whom the Dm said I had had unfavorable dealings with in the past, because my character was crazy. This guys happened to be very affluent and well protected, important later. Once in there, I spent the night preparing and used my magic point to perform magecraft to change him into a ridiculous combination of parts from multiple animals. Then I magecrafted to make myself mostly invisible and hide under his bed for when he awoke. After he got confused for while and decided not to leave his room, I knew I'd just have to make a run for it, so I ran for the door. The man grabbed my character so I rolled magecraft to burn him off of me. My roll was lowish, so the DM said I lit myself on fire. The only reasonable thing to do at this point was to run around the house covered in flames lighting things on fire. The house went into full lockdown, so I couldn't get out. Finally, I found myself cornered in a room, at which point I rolled magecraft again to extinguish the flames on me. With nowhere else to run, I blew myself up with one final magecraft roll to go out in a blaze of glory. It was a rather hilarious spectacle, actually. The number of times I used magecraft as well as my exploitative use of bonuses, mostly through magic points, to succeed almost every time showed Kindulas just how ridiculous magecraft can be and how much time it can eat up when one person uses it at-will as a response to every situation.

How did you use magic points more than once? Did you take Derp 5 times or was everyone in there with you expending their magic points? Because most of this seems more like an issue with the DCs than magecraft itself. Those all would've had some pretty high DCs I'd assume but particularly turning someone into a chimera and blowing yourself up come to mind.

Dr Blight wrote:

Lapis-Lazily wrote:

Zarhon wrote:Also, Lapis, how did you 'break' Magecraft, exactly?

I rolled nat 20 on my stealth check to sneak into the bedroom of someone whom the Dm said I had had unfavorable dealings with in the past, because my character was crazy. This guys happened to be very affluent and well protected, important later. Once in there, I spent the night preparing and used my magic point to perform magecraft to change him into a ridiculous combination of parts from multiple animals. Then I magecrafted to make myself mostly invisible and hide under his bed for when he awoke. After he got confused for while and decided not to leave his room, I knew I'd just have to make a run for it, so I ran for the door. The man grabbed my character so I rolled magecraft to burn him off of me. My roll was lowish, so the DM said I lit myself on fire. The only reasonable thing to do at this point was to run around the house covered in flames lighting things on fire. The house went into full lockdown, so I couldn't get out. Finally, I found myself cornered in a room, at which point I rolled magecraft again to extinguish the flames on me. With nowhere else to run, I blew myself up with one final magecraft roll to go out in a blaze of glory. It was a rather hilarious spectacle, actually. The number of times I used magecraft as well as my exploitative use of bonuses, mostly through magic points, to succeed almost every time showed Kindulas just how ridiculous magecraft can be and how much time it can eat up when one person uses it at-will as a response to every situation.

How did you use magic points more than once? Did you take Derp 5 times or was everyone in there with you expending their magic points? Because most of this seems more like an issue with the DCs than magecraft itself. Those all would've had some pretty high DCs I'd assume but particularly turning someone into a chimera and blowing yourself up come to mind.

I didn't. I used one magic point to create the chimera and then high rolled my way through the rest. Technically, I didn't abuse magic points as much as I could have. I had failsafe spell, and by combining that with derp I could have made it pretty easy to succeed on the hard checks. However, the big problem is that magecraft can either do or attempt to do anything and thus makes arcana the most powerful stat without question.

I think the point Lapis-Lazily is making guys, and feel free Lapis to correct me if I'm wrong. Is that Magecraft, essentially let him do EVERYTHING in one UT. It literally comes down to "I can do anything I want, at any time"

Give a situation, in which "You can't use Magic" isn't in effect and it's possible and probably quicker in some cases to solve it with magecraft then any other skill. Seeing as it's essentially Instant at-will when you need it to be.

Edit: ninja'd

Hayatecooper wrote:I think the point Lapis-Lazily is making guys, and feel free Lapis to correct me if I'm wrong. Is that Magecraft, essentially let him do EVERYTHING in one UT. It literally comes down to "I can do anything I want, at any time"

Give a situation, in which "You can't use Magic" isn't in effect and it's possible and probably quicker in some cases to solve it with magecraft then any other skill. Seeing as it's essentially Instant at-will when you need it to be.

Exaclty what I have been saying this whole time. Thank you.

While yes it can in theory "do anything" (not quite true, there are plenty of things it can't do). There are many things it can't functionally do and many many things it can't reliably do that other skills can. What it really allows you to do is things you can't do with other skills. I don't think I've seen any GMs let Magecraft substitute for something another skill can do without making the DC higher (in some cases way higher). I don't really have a problem with it being more versatile since it already comes with an increased chance of failure and that's basically one of the only things that Arcana is any good for (the others being Forcefield, identifying magic, and dispelling magic).

I'm also going to point out that Failsafe spell has to be used before you roll so, most of the time you waste it if you're doing anything besides dispelling other magical effects.

I keep coming back to this point about versatility and the way people use Magecraft that just makes me think that the people complaining about Magecraft being too versatile just aren't being creative when they use other skills and have this misconception that they aren't all incredibly versatile. (Yes, even Endurance. It does not have to be passive use only. I have no idea why people think that.)

Edit: @Hayate: To reply, opening a locked door. Yes, magicking it open is faster than picking the lock. On the other hand, just kicking the door down is actually the fastest thing you can do and doesn't require any utilities at all.

No Ramsus, not every skill can do everything. That's how it should be. No skill should do everything the way arcana does. It doesn't matter that there's a chance of failure, there's a chance of failure with every other skill. Arcana shouldn't be able to usurp the usefulness of most every skill, yet it does at present.

Lapis-Lazily wrote:No Ramsus, not every skill can do everything. That's how it should be. No skill should do everything the way arcana does. It doesn't matter that there's a chance of failure, there's a chance of failure with every other skill. Arcana shouldn't be able to usurp the usefulness of most every skill, yet it does at present.

I agree, I mean ponytales isn't a game played on ones own, versatility is good but the players are a party a good chunk of the time so there can also be specialists and covering for each others weaknesses and with magecraft as it is currently the Magecraft guy can do almost everything the rest of the party can with their utilitys, which generally makes the rest of them feel left out.

Except that never actually happens (at least not in any party where the wizard isn't just a self centered jerk). The Magecraft guy can do that if he nat20's every roll the entire game but, otherwise the person who has a Utility does the thing and the Magecraft guy tries and fails over and over and over (unless he's epically minmaxed but, that's an entire other can of worms). Like, seriously. Have you actually tried using Magecraft to copy utilities of other members of the party? It was set up to be incredibly hard. And basically any GM worth their salt is going to make mimicking any Utility with an actual daily limit even harder (or flat out impossible). Most people with Magecraft that I'm aware of also tend to avoid intentionally doing the things the other characters do. I don't see you guys complaining about the Element of Magic. It's power is to literally only do things other people could do with their utilities (and unlike Magecraft, I have had people steal my thunder by doing something my character does with that).

And again, it seems like you just didn't listen to me. Arcana can't do everything and most skills can do a heck of a lot more than it seems like a lot of you think they can.

It seems like maybe those of you so worried about Arcana's versatility should try making characters without it for a while and trying to accomplish the same things you could with it (that overlap with other skills) and see if you actually find yourselves unable to do so (or something incredibly similar) more than 3% of the time. Unless the only things you use Arcana for are magical things that other skills can't do (which would be mostly what I want it kept around for), I'm sure you'll find you can do just as well without it. (On the other hand, if you want to do stuff only a wizard can do that isn't the strongest possible effect, changing Magecraft to daily uses is going to make that impossible.)

Here's a build that pretty easily demonstrates how easy magecraft is to break:

Spoiler:

And that's only level one. At later levels, adding this is whining and freaky knowledge to some really useful effects like teleporting or invisibility can make you even more dangerous. Also putting later utility talents into more racials to grab Adept can make things really ridiculous. You can also use Magic to grab awesomeness if need be. If teammates have Awesomeness or can provide rerolls, all the better. This build really heightens the chances of success with magecraft to ridiculous levels. So you see, magecraft can get a high rate of success and overshadow everything. And Ramsus, your argument revolves around people always being nice and/or smart, as well as a severe underestimation of what magecraft actually does. People will not always behave how you expect.

Yeah, I've said it about a million times now. You can minmax to insanity for anything. It's actually the worst for Weather-crafting. I've tried numerous times and approaches to alleviate that problem and gotten ignored every damn time. However, minmaxing is not a problem with Magecraft. It's a problem with minmaxing.

My apologies for thinking people should attempt to behave nicely and intelligently. I can see how that would upset some people? (No, seriously what. We're catering to idiots or something now? Might as well remove everything and replace it with "describe what you want, the GM holds you hand and pats your head and tells you how good you are".) No seriously, why would we design a game based on the assumption people are going to behave poorly? No game functions under that condition. That's just... yeah. I feel like I've been massively wasting my time now. I'm going to sleep. Have fun designing a game for people without cognitive abilities I guess?

Ramsus wrote: I don't think I've seen any GMs let Magecraft substitute for something another skill can do without making the DC higher (in some cases way higher). I don't really have a problem with it being more versatile since it already comes with an increased chance of failure and that's basically one of the only things that Arcana is any good for (the others being Forcefield, identifying magic, and dispelling magic).

Higher DC's is basically a moot point because
A) Not every DM knows how to scale DC's accordingly.
B) The ones who are using Magecraft in the way Lapis has been describing already have the base +18 to 20 bonus on their Arcana skill along with any other bonus/fail prevention effect they might have.

Ramsus wrote:It seems like maybe those of you so worried about Arcana's versatility should try making characters without it for a while and trying to accomplish the same things you could with it (that overlap with other skills) and see if you actually find yourselves unable to do so (or something incredibly similar) more than 3% of the time.

Not really an argument in favour of Magecraft. Taking 5+ UT's to cover whatever you want to do or take 1 UT to cover everything you want to do and have several other UT's just tailored to specific situations. That's an easy choice to make.

The way I see it, Magecraft is the Swiss Army Knife against the other UT's kitchen utensils. It can be used for anything those can do and yes, while it can be more difficult to do so, once you get the hang of it/be creative with it, it's a lot more preferable to carry along 1 Swiss Army Knife rather than a drawer full of seperate kitchen utensils.

Ramsus wrote:My apologies for thinking people should attempt to behave nicely and intelligently.

That's not the issue. The problem is that Magecraft pretty much states
"Min/max Arcana and you can do whatever you want, whenever you want."

If your argument is "Players shouldn't min/max", then we're barking up the wrong tree here.

I'm all in favour of changing/nerfing Magecraft to make Arcana less of the god stat, which basically was the reason why the Archmage destiny got revised.

Ramsus wrote:Yeah, I've said it about a million times now. You can minmax to insanity for anything. It's actually the worst for Weather-crafting. I've tried numerous times and approaches to alleviate that problem and gotten ignored every damn time. However, minmaxing is not a problem with Magecraft. It's a problem with minmaxing.

My apologies for thinking people should attempt to behave nicely and intelligently. I can see how that would upset some people? (No, seriously what. We're catering to idiots or something now? Might as well remove all the numbers and replace it with "describe what you want, the GM holds you hand and pats your head and tells you how good you are".) No seriously, why would we design a game based on the assumption people are going to behave poorly? No game functions under that condition. That's just... yeah. I feel like I've been massively wasting my time now. I'm going to sleep. Have fun designing a game for people without cognitive abilities I guess?

Not my point. Not my point at all. I'm saying people don't all think like you. Some people are new to rpg's and mess things up. Some people are jerks. We have to at least be aware of all types of players, even if we aren't exactly catering to them. Also, I'm sorry that you feel you've wasted your time as it means you haven't even considered anyone else's points and have taken absolutely nothing away from this.

I don't appreciate you claiming how I think or what I've thought. Just because I feel like you've wasted my time does not mean I haven't seen other people's perspectives. I just don't think it's worth effort to design for lazy stupid jerks or whatever our lowest common denominator of choice is. The nice and intelligent people are who we should design for because they're the ones worth the effort. You can leave the others to Fatal or whatever troll game they want to play. Yes, some people are new. That really has nothing to do with anything as I've met several people brand new to gaming here who almost instantly grasped how to behave. Demonu is right they might not get DCs right on their first time GMing but.... how does that matter for Magecraft more than anything else? It really just doesn't. A learning curve for a system is always going to include the whole system, not just one part of it.

So, what I've really gathered from this whole thing is that Magecraft should have the perquisite: Player doesn't act like a troll. As really, that seems to be the big concern. Not whether the numbers are right or what can and can't be done is fair. It's about how people can use it to troll. And I've been gaming and designing too long to think that anything is remotely troll proof. There just isn't any way to do it. Yes, you want to design things so that it's not easy for people to abuse on accident or incredibly tempting to do so. But some things can't be temptation free by their very concepts but, are too important to do away with. And Magecraft is one of those things. Punishing everyone who isn't using it trollishly because trolls exist is horrible. All you're doing is helping trolls troll without having to lift a finger.

(And as I mentioned before, going to sleep now. If you could refrain from making more personal attacks against me until I'm around to respond to them, it'd be appreciated.)

If you honestly don't see a problem with
Magecraft: roll an Arcana+20 check with whatever additional bonuses you have to do whatever you want whenever you want.
And your only argument is
Players shouldn't be dicks/trolls/min-maxers.

Then this discussion isn't worth having.

That's all I have to say on the matter. I purposely refrained myself from ever taking Magecraft because I didn't want to drive my DM batshit insane with how ludicrous it is at the moment. I'm all in favour of changing it and I'm sure there are better people qualified than me here to do so.

Magecraft is the 'playground' ability. By flatly saying 'no it can't do this' or, heaven forbid, limiting the daily uses it still attacks the core of the ability. I suppose since I can still tell where this is headed, I'll say this.

DON'T limit its uses, but you can limit its usage. The things listed in the DC section of the sorceror supreme document all seem viable options, but if you really must an example listing of dos and don'ts could give you the peace of mind your taking here...

Do: Deanimate the enemies magitech knight - Don't: try to rewire the nonmagical automaton
Do: Give you and your allies the ability to hover around at steady pace - Don't: expect any sort of helpful fly checks out of the event
Do: Use your mighty HORNLAZOR to slow the encroaching boulder or alter its trajectory - Don't: try to chuck boulders with your brain (manipulate the momentum, don't conjure a lot of physical force)
Do: Cast a spell to undo a standard door lock - Don't: try to crack the safe bigger than you are

...etc.
If I had authorial control (but editorial mandate to still get out the nerf bat) I'd probably do that.



This can prevent arcanists from stomping all over characters specced for other skills even at higher DCs, but if sheer overuse is your problem (because all those dice look messy or something) just add a few penalties for failure. Give magic burnout if you fail, or temporary weakening of other skills immediately following usage, or trying to do vastly different things with Magecraft within a short period can injure you if your unlucky, etc... It will encourage players to be slightly more discerning with it, and use it sparingly. (Mind you, those penalties would have to be balanced, too. We don't want to make the party wizard pass out every time he tries to disenchant an evil tree.)

What I always hate about Magecraft is that when I look at it I keep feeling that the system basically is telling everyone. "If you don't Min-Max with Magecraft your goina have a bad time..." Then when the devs are shown that people can and do min-max with the very stat BUILT to be min-maxed with, they act in shock that people min-max one's magecraft to do INSANE things.

Personally I say not-so-easy way that'd TOTALLY fix the issue is help brake magecraft in half and give better options for the mid-level (14 - 8 arcana) and low-level (7 - 3 arcana) mages...

Also I'd argue that Magical Tricks should have some more power... Cause it keeps striking me as a total "meh" talent that the only good thing about it is that you unlock Magecraft when you have it.

I'd totally rebuild the magic system from the ground up... With a three or two tiered magic system that'd reward low level magic users taking the utitlies... (I personally STRONGLY feel that the fact magecraft is built to demand both at least a 15+ base in arcana along with taking two utilties is only punishing to anyone who doesn't min-max one's arcana to their best possible max stat and it basically tells the players "min-max this one stat if you wanta take this utility or your goina have a bad time"...) And I'd put in a good deal of other options for the more specialized mages out there (like what this topic set out to do). Next I'd give the this tiered system to be like where "Magical Tricks" can unlock a good deal of the magical options that magecraft normally does in those few other utitlies... Maybe even make more magical edit options that are unlocked when you take magical tricks, but make them minor that you don't feel like you need them... Or something akin to that. Maybe just making it noted that havign Magical Tricks allows you to do minor edits to other utitlies demendent on what the GM allows... (this might already be a thing, but I'd enjoy it being more put out there or something) Also I'd have magical tricks have a limited like 5/day "do magic" stat where you can do the basic magecraft skill check. Level 2 of magic would have more magical stat uses and allow more magical options where you can spend multiable uses of the X/day "do magic" skill to give a bonus to one skill check of some kind... Level 3 would be mostly just more of level 2, along with getting more bonusi you can do with spending "do magic" points along with geting better bonusi from spending pre-times... Or something, I don't know... Just the ideas I'd think would improve the magic as a whole in this system to feel more like the show.

Admin Mode here: Things are getting heated up again. Everyone, calm down. I don't want to start having to send out official warnings, but I will if this keeps up.

Ramsus? People aren't saying that people shouldn't act like trolls/dicks/douchebags with the utility. People are saying (Isolated for effect and so it doesn't get glanced over like I tend to do)




Magecraft is one utility that can be used for almost everything and it doesn't need to take a creative mind to do it, or to use it for every task put in front of the person with Magecraft.

Are we seriously arguing this about a PONY GAME? If people are trolls or abuse abilities for no reason other than to break the game then they are going against the very CORE of the game, and does anyone here want to change that? Probably not but I can't tell because I'm posting. That's, All, There, Is. You should never need to account for trolls in a PONY GAME. Otherwise I'm just going to say "Screw you" To all admins and house rule it anyways. Still like the idea for the rune skill though.