Team Building In Magic Horizons

<BODY BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#C0C0C0" LINK="#FFFF00" VLINK="#808080"> <TABLE WIDTH="400" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0"> <TR> <TD> <P ALIGN="CENTER"><IMG SRC="../images/mhb1.jpg" ALT="Magic Horizons Title Graphic" ALIGN="BOTTOM" WIDTH="398" HEIGHT="162"></P> <H2>Building Efficient Teams</H2> <P>Characters in <EM>Magic Horizons</EM> do not exist in a vacuum. Because of the character creation process, no single character can cover all of the skill bases needed for success. This reflects the genre of <EM>Magic Horizons</EM> quite well; there is next to no place for the lone Conan-esque hero in a LARP.</P> <P>The primary focus of this essay is on adventuring characters; in town characters and producers will be treated in a future article.</P> <HR> <DL> <DT><A HREF="#fighter" TARGET="Main">Building A Better Fighter</A></DT> <DT><A HREF="#spellcaster">Building A Better Spellcaster</A></DT> <DT><A HREF="#thief">Building A Better Rogue</A></DT> <DT><A HREF="#teams">Building Teams</A></DT></DL> <HR> <H4><A NAME="fighter"></A>Building A Better Fighter</H4> <P>The first decision about making your fighter is whether or not you're going to go with two picks in the Martial Branch, or three. Three picks gives you more hit points, and greater damage potential, at the loss of a great deal of flexibility. If you do choose to go with three martial picks, choose your remaining pick carefully; taking a philosophic list or a mage pick is probably the most efficient use of the pick. Two martial picks reduces your damage considerably, but allows you to pick up a broad range of other abilities as well.</P> <P>By far and away the single most important pick a fighter can make is one rank in Weapons Mastery. This allows a character to pick up and use any weapon in the game. If your concept of a fighter involves throwing weapons as well as swinging them at someone, advancing in weapons mastery is a good alternative. Taking weapons mastery exclusively is probably not worth the extra picks, unless your character has three martial picks to work with, or it's called for by your character conception. (Three martial picks and one Craft pick, taking the craft pick in Scholarship: Weapons Mastery is a way to get a bit more efficiency out of taking weapons mastery as your martial skill of choice.)</P> <P>After your obligatory first pick into Weapons Mastery, it's usually a good idea to expend picks on Armor. For a beginning character, spending more than one or two picks on armor probably isn't worth it. By the time you can afford chainmail, you can probably expend the next pick into it.</P> <P>As far as weapon skills go, choose the weapon style you're most comfortable with, and specialize in it.</P> <P>For players wanting a bit more flexibility, many character concepts are viable with only two martial picks, including most of the fighter-spellcasters. If you don't care about getting high level spells, going two martial, one mage, and one philosophic is a very flexible character. Fighter-spellcasters are usually better built as support spellcasters rather than offensive spellcasters.</P> <P>For characters with no spellcasting abilities, it's often useful to burn a few picks into the Utility skill Literacy; for two picks into Literacy, your character can read, and has access to 20 spells, assuming there's a Scrollcrafter in town.</P> <HR> <P><FONT SIZE="5"><EM>By far and away the single most important pick a fighter can make is one rank in Weapons Mastery.</EM></FONT></P> <HR> <H4><A NAME="spellcaster"></A>Building A Better Spellcaster</H4> <P>Spellcasters, unlike fighters, have a great deal more variety in the way their characters can be built. The first decision you need to make is what sort of spellcaster you want to be, offensive or support.</P> <P>Offensive spellcasters are usually built around avoiding combat, or throwing combat influence or damage causing spells over the heads of the front line fighters. Offensive spellcasters are the likeliest ones to go with three spellcasting picks and one martial pick. The primary focus of offensive spellcasters are damage producing spells and having enough spell points to cast them. The three best lists for an offensive spellcaster are Darkness, Energy and Void. </P> <P>Support spellcasters are built around enhancing the capabilities of other members of the party. Philosophic lists such as Creation and Light, and the Mage lists of Matter and Life are both well suited to support spellcasters.</P> <P>Regardless of which type of spellcaster you're playing, you should plan on allocating one pick per level into spell points. It's almost always a good idea to take one pick in each spellcasting Branch (philosophic or mage), as this gives you access to 7 spell lists.</P> <P>Some spell lists have more general utility than others; the Nature philosophic list can be seen as something of a Whitman's Sampler of spell effects, having defensive, healing, damage producing and damage increasing spells. Other spell lists (Spirit, Death) appear to be more specialized in their focus.</P> <P>When taking spells from a mage list for a primarily philosophic oriented character, take the time to consider how complementary the lists are. Try and take spell lists that don't have duplicated spells between them. Some of the best combinations are Darkness and Life, and Matter and Light.</P> <P>Taking philosophic spells to round out a mage list works along a similar bent, although the generalist nature of Mage lists allows you to shore up weak areas a bit more readily with other mage picks.</P> <HR> <P><FONT SIZE="5"><EM>The first decision you need to make is what sort of spellcaster you want to be, offensive or support.</EM></FONT></P> <HR> <P>Finally, you should put some consideration towards taking some of the Enchanting or Alchemist abilities; low levels in both of them allow a character to identify magic items and potions in the field. If your teammates have enough ranks in Literacy, a few scrolls of low level spells can spread the spell casting around quite effectively.</P> <H4><A NAME="thief"></A>Building A Better Rogue</H4> <P>The single most important pick for a rogue is Spycraft. Getting at least Rank 2 in Spycraft is essential for most rogues; detecting traps is one of the essential tasks of a rogue. Detecting traps by setting them off tends to be hard on the help.</P> <P>Depending on how you want your rogue character to be built, effective rogue characters can be built with 1, 2 or 3 picks in the Clandestine Branch.</P> <P>One pick per level in the Clandestine Branch pretty much limits your character to Spycraft and Sneak Attack. A character with 3 Martial and 1 Clandestine can be a terrifying shock if he specializes in one or the other of these.</P> <P>Two picks per level gives the most flexibility; at this gradient, a character can advance in both Disarm Traps and Pick Locks quite rapidly, or in Disarm Traps and Set Traps while still keeping good fighting abilities and hit points.</P> <P> Taking two Clandestine picks and one Mage pick allows a character to specialize in Disarming and Setting traps, while using the Rank 3 Matter spell to open locks. (It effectively costs 1 spell point per Rank of lock to be opened; any lock can be opened for 18 spell points, barring resists enchanted into the lock). With the expenditure of one Free Pick into Apothecary, it also allows the character to get 3 ranks in both Alchemy (needed to identify potions), and 3 ranks in Enchanting (which has the "Reveal Enchantments" spell.)</P> <P>Another interesting variation on the two Clandestine pick Rogue is two Clandestine, one Craft, with the Craft going into Mundane Craft: Locksmith. This allows the character to pick locks and earn an income during the game that doesn't depend on adventuring or stealing, and allows the acquisition of Scholarship later in the game.</P> <P>Three picks in Clandestine allows a rogue to cover several bases at once picking locks, disarming traps and setting traps. High levels of Waylay can make up for the lack of Martial picks if attacking from behind. </P> <H4><A NAME="teams"></A>Building Teams</H4> <P>The key to building a team is to have complementary abilities. The smallest viable combat team is two people; more than 6 or 7 people dilutes the treasure considerably. 5 people is just about ideal.</P> <P>Every team should have at least 2/3rds of its members capable of front-line fighting, which effectively means a minimum of 2 Martial picks. No team ever went wrong by adding more combat ready fighters.</P> <P>The most effective defensive spells are the ones that grant DR. The spell lists that have that effect are Void, Energy and Light. After that, the Life list's Fortify Body spells, and the armor spells from the Matter and Nature lists round out the defensive spells, while the Spirit List and the Light list also have the ability to prepare combatants with resists.</P> <P>Every team should have at least one, and preferably two people capable of healing damage, in case one gets disabled. The more healing that's available, the better off the team will be. </P> <P>Try to have at least one person who can cast damage enhancing spells. (The Nature, Life, Matter and Creation spell lists all have them.) If you have more than one person thinking of these lists, pick lists with spells that stack together, such as Matter and Life, or Nature and Creation.</P> <P>Your offensive spellcaster can either specialize in doing damage, or in hindering the target's abilities. The Darkness and Energy lists are quite good at doing damage. The low level Nature, Darkness, Void and Spirit spells are all quite good at hindering a target's abilities, and the Spirit and death lists are built around this principle.</P> <P>Additional information on the basics of character <A HREF="creation.html" TARGET="_top">creation</A> is available on this web site, as is a more detailed <A HREF="analysis.html" TARGET="_top">analysis</A> of the use of picks.</P> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0"> <TR> <TD><A><IMG SRC="../images/left_h.jpg" ALT="Left End Of Scroll Bar" WIDTH="32" HEIGHT="116"></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../info/info_toc.html" TARGET="_top"><IMG SRC="../images/info_h_n.jpg" ALT="[Logistics]" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" WIDTH="45" HEIGHT="116" NAME="info"></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../game/game_toc.html" TARGET="_top"><IMG SRC="../images/game_h_n.jpg" ALT="[Game Info]" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" WIDTH="60" HEIGHT="116" NAME="game"></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../misc/misc_toc.html" TARGET="_top"><IMG SRC="../images/misc_h_n.jpg" ALT="[Miscellaneous Information]" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" WIDTH="62" HEIGHT="116" NAME="misc"></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../faq.html" TARGET="_top"><IMG SRC="../images/faq_h_n.jpg" ALT="[Frequently Asked Questions]" BORDER="0" WIDTH="58" HEIGHT="116" NAME="faq"></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../new.html" TARGET="_top"><IMG SRC="../images/new_h_n.jpg" ALT="[What's New]" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" WIDTH="52" HEIGHT="116" NAME="whatsNew"></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../index.html" TARGET="_top"><IMG SRC="../images/home_h_n.jpg" ALT="[Magic Horizons Home Page]" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" WIDTH="59" HEIGHT="116" NAME="home"></A></TD> <TD><IMG SRC="../images/right_h.jpg" ALT="Right End Of Scroll Bar" WIDTH="22" HEIGHT="116"></TD></TR></TABLE> <P>Problems with the page? 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