The Clan Lord Sentinel

I found this on CSMGA and thought I'd share it.

There are some great ideas listed that (as far as I know) have not been implemented, and some ideas on this list have been discussed again recently (specifically mystics having the ability to send sunstone messages without the sunstone).

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Clan Lord: Mystics
Joe Williams Aug 31 1998, 3:00 am

OK, I'm starting to implement Mystics, though it's still several weeks
away. And Mystics will suck for several weeks (or months) after they're
implemented.

Mystics are the Mind class. Their powers are mental. They're often
informative in nature. They aren't going to cast fireballs, and they
aren't going to slay monsters by the dozen.

Mystics ar secretive. Many Mystic powers will work better if fewer people
are using them, so once a Mystic learns how to use a new spell, they'll be
inclined not to share it with others.

Mystics are the rarest class. They will probably gain ranks the same way
that Healers do: by being /shared with, but their powers won't be in such
high demand. Being a Mystic will lead to slow, painful growth, and will
not be capped by being the all-around most powerful character in the game
(as in most fantasy systems).

Mystic powers will be difficult to discover and expensive, and they will
work less effectively the more Mystics are using them.

That said:

Becoming a Mystic should be a painful process; far more painful than
becoming a Fighter or a Healer. This process should let the new acolyte
know what he's in for, and discourage him from playing a character he will
not enjoy. (We expect that most Clan Lord players will enjoy being a
Fighter most.) I will entertain suggestions from the crowd as to what the
Mystic initiation process should be.

Potential Mystic powers, to be implemented over a long period of time:

Sending and receiving thoughts without sunstones.
Tuning sunstones for public use (much like Elendil Fa'ril does now).
Tuning sunstones for private use -- making non-public sunstone networks.
Paralyzing a monster (something like Fairy Dust)
Knocking a monster down (something like Spriggins)
Placing a sunstone beacon in a spot, and teleporting to it.
Giving a special sunstone to a person, and teleporting that person to the
Mystic.
Determining if a specific person is alive or fallen.
Determining where a specific person is.
Gathering more information about a person than normally possible.
Gathering more information about a monster than normally possible.
Transporting an item instantly to a specific person.
And so on.

These are all neat powers, admittedly, but a group of seven Mystics is
useless on a hunt. One Mystic with two Healers and four Fighters, on the
other hand, could be formiddable.

In short, Mystics are going to be so pathetic that I don't want people to
pop into the game for the first time and say, "Fighter, Healer -- oh,
Mystic sounds fun. I'll be that!" only to find that they're doomed to a
hell of not knowing what to do or how to improve.

--
--Joe Williams
President, Delta Tao Software, Inc.

Hey all,

Personally I think if Joe's goal was to have Mystics suck, he has succeeded. OOC I'm in the military, in the military there are two general terms: Tactical and Strategic. Tactical refers to a smaller sized element deployed to the field, in CL I equate this to small hunting groups of 2-4 healers and 3-6 fighters. In this capacity mystics are irrelevent. I know some people will say, they can boost etc, but honestly, how often are mystics invited on a KI hunt? Hardly ever is the honest answer. Strategic refers to a rear echelon element that supports tactical elements and serve a broader goal. In CL terms, this is the capacity that mystics serve. They are good short term but arent useful in a long term capactity. IMO this is why mystics are not used in CL, in a broad sense they are needed, especially for places like FH and in the past noth, but not on everyday hunts. This is why most mystics rot in the library now adays.
If DT wants mystics to be useful, add an element to make them extremely USEFULL on hunts, I'm not devising a way for this to happen but it needs to if DT doesnt want all mystic's to go into hibernation like has already happened.


Anyway,

Darnok

it's a common theme. Bows and arrows, nobody uses those, some poor GM spent all that time to code bows and arrows into CL, and they suck so badly because of how bad DT impliments them that nobody uses the stuff! Nobody uses the post office either 8P and now shieldstones got screwed over and i highly doubt training 100 ranks in shieldstone training will be worthwhile. There's the court system, well heck, you can name half the stuff in game and explain how DT's CL policys on implementing stuff suck. I'm guessing it's all Joe's doing. *shrugs* anywho, give up on mystics and just stick to what works.

darnok wrote:[Mystics] are good short term but arent useful in a long term capactity. IMO this is why mystics are not used in CL, in a broad sense they are needed, especially for places like FH and in the past noth, but not on everyday hunts. This is why most mystics rot in the library now adays.

I'm not certain that we have the same definition of "long term", but I'm of the opposite opinion: Mystics aren't terribly useful in the short-term, but tend to mess with things in ways that affect events in the long-term. The presence of a strong booster may affect a hunt, but the things that Mystics do outside of ordinary hunts seem to affect things more.

I agree that it'd be nice to have more things to do on a hunt, but what I'd honestly like more is access to more types of information that, as far as I can tell, are deemed too powerful for a Mystic to straight-up know.

I've read that post of Joe's from August '98 many times. I believe that all of the abilities on there have been discussed at least a few times with stuff like tripping monsters and paralyzing them deemed to be more Fighter abilities than Mystic abilities. A lot of the rest of them are deemed too useful.

HWC for Valtrim

Somebody should publish "Michael - The Collected Sayings".

darnok wrote: Tactical refers to a smaller sized element deployed to the field, in CL I equate this to small hunting groups of 2-4 healers and 3-6 fighters. In this capacity mystics are irrelevent.

As a member of a regular tactical hunting group that includes a mystic, I have to say:

You are mistaken.

If all you want to do is CW, then yes mystics are not that much use. If you want to push your group's limits or explore, a mystic can be very important.

Well for some places you are correct Delirium. However for all purpose situations with a high level group, they are redundant. The only things I can think of that they do besides open places and teleport is to boost, but with higher level groups this is not needed really.


Darnok

Sunoril wrote:Somebody should publish "Michael - The Collected Sayings".

http://www.gigagraphica.com/clan/pix2/mikefan.html



--Creed

Creed wrote:

Sunoril wrote:Somebody should publish "Michael - The Collected Sayings".

http://www.gigagraphica.com/clan/pix2/mikefan.html



--Creed

Fuck

How do I sign up? He does have a way with word.

Manx wrote:
http://www.gigagraphica.com/clan/pix2/mikefan.html

Where is Manx these days anyway?

Where's my spriggan knockdown twig?
*stamps her feet*

Creed wrote:

Sunoril wrote:Somebody should publish "Michael - The Collected Sayings".

http://www.gigagraphica.com/clan/pix2/mikefan.html



--Creed

If you can find that now, I can immortalize it in clanlord.net.

Tried the wayback machine. No joy. The site has a "robot blocker" implemented.

How are we looking 12 additional years later?

Fogtripper wrote:How are we looking 12 additional years later?

A true mystic wouldn't ask the question again after so short a time.