Blooded vs Unblooded/Mages vs M

[Bearcat]

>No unblooded character (or elf-blooded) can cast spells above 2nd level in any
>school other than Illusion or Divination, right? Why should this exclude
>specialist Illusionists and Diviners? Provided, of course, that they still
>abide by the rule that prevents them from casting "true" magic, I can't see any
>reason for non-blooded Illusionists and Diviners to exist in a Birthright
>campaign. In fact, they could have pretty much the same skills/abilities as
>Magicians.

A Magician is the equivalent of a specialist in _both_ Illusion and
divination schools. For a relatively easy (when compared to the requirements
for illusionist and diviner characters). If there was an illusionist then
not only would he be restricted to spells of lesser magic, he would also
limit his repretoire of higher level spells and their effectiveness.

Bearcat
lcgm@elogica.com.br
Come visit Bearcat's Birthright Homepage at:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/6204

[Druid]

Question:

Blooded humans can be either Magicians or Wizards, as per Book of
Magecraft. Why would a blooded human wish to become a Magician? And
what stops him from becoming a Wizard later on? I'm toying with the
house rule that only blooded humans (and elves, of course) can become
Wizards, while unblooded characters can only become Magicians. Makes
being a Mage all that more special, I think, and explains why an
unblooded character can never wield True Magic.

Does anyone else do this in their campaign, or have an opinion on it?

Regards.

[gandalf]

>Question:
>
>Blooded humans can be either Magicians or Wizards, as per Book of
>Magecraft. Why would a blooded human wish to become a Magician? And
>what stops him from becoming a Wizard later on? I'm toying with the
>house rule that only blooded humans (and elves, of course) can become
>Wizards, while unblooded characters can only become Magicians. Makes
>being a Mage all that more special, I think, and explains why an
>unblooded character can never wield True Magic.


I may be getting this wrong, but isn't this the actual, 'official' case?
As for blooded character becoming just magicians, I think there have been
such cases, explained through
'he was a promising student, but the burden of his nation was upon him
before he managed to complete his studies as a wizard, and thus he was never
able to master the more powerful magic'.
I think this is the case of some regent in (ummmmmm...) i think the Khinasi
Lands. I am not certain who it is though... I'll look it up and tell you.

Gandalf

[Bret W. Davenport]

> Blooded humans can be either Magicians or Wizards, as per Book of
> Magecraft. Why would a blooded human wish to become a Magician? And
> what stops him from becoming a Wizard later on? I'm toying with the
> house rule that only blooded humans (and elves, of course) can become
> Wizards, while unblooded characters can only become Magicians. Makes
> being a Mage all that more special, I think, and explains why an
> unblooded character can never wield True Magic.

Actually, according to the rule book (page 12), "True Magic includes all other schools of wizardy
(outside of the illusion and divination based lesser magic), but only elves, half-elves, and blooded
humans can command its arcane power." In other words, you already have your answer. To be a
specialist or even generic Wizard, a non-blooded can not qualify for unless they are elven or
half-elven. And, as the book says, there exists only a handful of them in the world (with even much
fewer having domains and realm magic). Allowing for a Wizard PC, with or without Regency, should be
a distinction of some note (and should be role-played, imho, with that in mind).

Bret

[Brandon Quina]

> >Blooded humans can be either Magicians or Wizards, as per Book of
> >Magecraft. Why would a blooded human wish to become a Magician?

Because he didnt want to take the time to learn all of magic.
Blooded wizards can still use some weapons, and are better at
defending themselves than normal wizard. A rich lazy noble
might become a magician just because he didnt want to take the
time and dedication required to learn true magic.



- --
(lore@tmgbbs.com) \|/// Zzzzzzzzzzzz
Brandon Lance Quina (- -)
ICQ Number: 6809944 ---ooO(_)Ooo---

[James Ruhland]

>
> Maybe the blooded magician couldn´t find a wizard master and is self
> taught.
> He has the potential but can´t use it fully because he doesn´t know how -
> result:
> a blooded magician.
> ( I have an NPC just like that)
>
could just be for personal reasons he didn't choose to study "Wizad" stuff.
Magicians get some nice benifits, they don't in our opinion prolly
completely make up for their restrictions. But a person who wants to lead a
certain kind of life, I.E. finding things out for people & doing "special
effects" type work would prolly rather be a magician than a Wizad, even if
he is Blooded. Not only does he get several advantages which will help him
in his work, but he won't have as many people coming by trying to dragoon
him into the national armed forces, either ("oh, him? yah, he's good for
locating my wife's broach when she looses it, but I want someone who can
burn my enemies with fireballs!" --Regent who forgets a magician can cast
Rain of Magic Missiles and Rolling Fire.)

Plus, there is prolly something "extra special" involved in becoming a
Wizard. We know for example that about 1% of all Cerilians are Blooded. But
perhaps 1% of that total (circa 150-300) are Wizards capable of True Magic.
If all that was nessisary to become a Wizard was that you were blooded,
then in the Khinasi lands at least (where Mages are especially revered)
there would be a lot more of them.

I donno what this "something else special" might be and I for one don't use
a rule to tell my players "no, you can't be a Wizard because you lack the
special ingredient", just as I don't make them roll 01 on a d100 to see if
they're blooded or not. So I.E. I don't see a rule covering this, and every
DM will have to decide why fewer seemingly qualified people (I.E. because
Blooded) don't study to become Wizads.

N.B. re. that: I'm also one of thouse people who sees a character, NPC or
whatever, who has a listed Int of, say, 17, but is a Fighter (or whatever;
I.E. not a Wizard) and says "why? I'd be a mage, gosh darn it! But perhaps
that person just prefered being a warrior (or whatever). Same holds true
for Blooded Magicians (to circle back to the original point of this screed.
Think of it this way: a lot of you see people playing Humans, or Halflings
and ask "why not play an Elf, like smart people do?" well, perhaps we're
sick of eating leaves. . .

James Ruhland, whos characters
always USED to be Elves

[CBebris]

In a message dated 98-03-06 11:30:11 EST, you write:

>Blooded humans can be either Magicians or Wizards, as per Book of
> >Magecraft. Why would a blooded human wish to become a Magician?
>>

1. Lack of access to wizardly training.
2. A strong interest in illusion or divination (same reason a wizard in
another setting would specialize in one of these schools).
3. Cultural taboos against wizardly magic (e.g. Rjurik and Vos)

I'm sure there are others...
CB

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Fri, 6 Mar 1998, Druid wrote:

> Blooded humans can be either Magicians or Wizards, as per Book of
> Magecraft. Why would a blooded human wish to become a Magician? And
> what stops him from becoming a Wizard later on? I'm toying with the
> house rule that only blooded humans (and elves, of course) can become
> Wizards, while unblooded characters can only become Magicians. Makes
> being a Mage all that more special, I think, and explains why an
> unblooded character can never wield True Magic.

I might be misremembering this, but don't Magicians (as opposed to
wizards) have BIG weapons advantages over the wizards, i.e. ability to
wear armor and sling around the swords with at least rogue, if not cleric
level of ability? I thought that the magician class was cheifly a means of
allowing players to play "swords and sorcery" type characters.

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[J D Sivyer]

gandalf wrote:

> I may be getting this wrong, but isn't this the actual, 'official'
> case?
> As for blooded character becoming just magicians, I think there have
> been
> such cases, explained through
> 'he was a promising student, but the burden of his nation was upon him
>
> before he managed to complete his studies as a wizard, and thus he was
> never
> able to master the more powerful magic'.
> I think this is the case of some regent in (ummmmmm...) i think the
> Khinasi
> Lands. I am not certain who it is though... I'll look it up and tell
> you.

I know there are a few cases of blooded humans becoming magicians, as
there is one in the Book of Magecraft, but...even if they were a
"promising student", what stops them from completing their studies later
on? When you start your studies you do not learn how to manage higher
level spells, but learn that as you go along.

Personally, I prefer my ruling that blooded characters do not becoming
magicians, that only unblooded characters do - it fits in better to the
world, I think.

Regards.

[Gary V. Foss]

As long as someone is talking about blooded and unblooded magicians/mages there
is an issue I've been meaning to bounce off some people for quite some time. To
wit:

No unblooded character (or elf-blooded) can cast spells above 2nd level in any
school other than Illusion or Divination, right? Why should this exclude
specialist Illusionists and Diviners? Provided, of course, that they still
abide by the rule that prevents them from casting "true" magic, I can't see any
reason for non-blooded Illusionists and Diviners to exist in a Birthright
campaign. In fact, they could have pretty much the same skills/abilities as
Magicians.

Why would anyone choose to be an Illusionist when s/he could be a Magician you
might ask? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, Magicians are required
to have a Wisdom of 14+. Depending on what method of rolling up characters you
choose, a character with a high Intelligence score could still be prevented from
becoming a Magician because of a low Wisdom score. Second, in the case of dual
class characters (which seems to be causing so much grief amongts BR
afficionados) an unblooded character looking to switch to the Magician class
would be required to have 17's in both Intelligence and Wisdom. This might not
always be possible. Of course, a character looking to become an Illusionist
would have to have 17's in both Intelligence and Dexterity, but the point is
that the option should be open to players.

Anyone have any thoughts along these lines?


> >Question:
> >
> >Blooded humans can be either Magicians or Wizards, as per Book of
> >Magecraft. Why would a blooded human wish to become a Magician? And
> >what stops him from becoming a Wizard later on? I'm toying with the
> >house rule that only blooded humans (and elves, of course) can become
> >Wizards, while unblooded characters can only become Magicians. Makes
> >being a Mage all that more special, I think, and explains why an
> >unblooded character can never wield True Magic.
>
> I may be getting this wrong, but isn't this the actual, 'official' case?
> As for blooded character becoming just magicians, I think there have been
> such cases, explained through
> 'he was a promising student, but the burden of his nation was upon him
> before he managed to complete his studies as a wizard, and thus he was never
> able to master the more powerful magic'.
> I think this is the case of some regent in (ummmmmm...) i think the Khinasi
> Lands. I am not certain who it is though... I'll look it up and tell you.
>
> Gandalf
>
> ************************************************** *************************
> >

[MANTA]

Maybe the blooded magician couldn´t find a wizard master and is self
taught.
He has the potential but can´t use it fully because he doesn´t know how -
result:
a blooded magician.
( I have an NPC just like that)
MANTA

- ----------
> From: Druid
> To: birthright@MPGN.COM
> Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Blooded vs Unblooded/Mages vs Magicians
> Date: sexta-feira, 6 de março de 1998 9:21
>
> Question:
>
> Blooded humans can be either Magicians or Wizards, as per Book of
> Magecraft. Why would a blooded human wish to become a Magician? And
> what stops him from becoming a Wizard later on? I'm toying with the
> house rule that only blooded humans (and elves, of course) can become
> Wizards, while unblooded characters can only become Magicians. Makes
> being a Mage all that more special, I think, and explains why an
> unblooded character can never wield True Magic.
>
> Does anyone else do this in their campaign, or have an opinion on it?
>
> Regards.
>
>
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> 'unsubscribe birthright' as the body of the message.

[Gary V. Foss]

Bearcat wrote:

> >No unblooded character (or elf-blooded) can cast spells above 2nd level in any
> >school other than Illusion or Divination, right? Why should this exclude
> >specialist Illusionists and Diviners? Provided, of course, that they still
> >abide by the rule that prevents them from casting "true" magic, I can't see any
> >reason for non-blooded Illusionists and Diviners to exist in a Birthright
> >campaign. In fact, they could have pretty much the same skills/abilities as
> >Magicians.
>
> A Magician is the equivalent of a specialist in _both_ Illusion and
> divination schools. For a relatively easy (when compared to the requirements
> for illusionist and diviner characters). If there was an illusionist then
> not only would he be restricted to spells of lesser magic, he would also
> limit his repretoire of higher level spells and their effectiveness.

I think my point was that there are reasons why the Illusionist and
Diviner classes
could and should exist as well. I listed a couple of reasons for them
to exist
later in the post. Perhaps they would be similar to the Magician class
(for the
same reasons that the Magician class differs from the Mage class) but
they should be
available to nonblooded characters in the Birthright setting.