I'm sure this has been posted before, but I'd really like the ability to shift races. Mostly I thought of this because I have a bunch of characters of the same race, and I'd like to have a little more variety, but I don't want to go back through 30 circles of weapons/lore/etc/etc. I think it would be really interesting from an RP perspective. Say I'm a Prydaen and I want to have kids with my Gnome husband, but that's not possible, so instead of adopting a Toggler or hoping for a divine miracle, the Prydaen becomes a Gnome and enjoys looking up everyone else's kilt ;) (plus, how to explain this to Mom and Dad?), or I rolled up a Human 9 years ago and I'd really rather be Rakash, but I don't want to roll a new character, presto-chango, now I shift with Katamba!

I know there's a potential for abuse with it, say people want to train strength to an obscene degree after spending forever as an Elothean, but then again, if they can afford the plats for it (I'd imagine it would be really difficult to do, somewhere along the lines of shifting someone's age a few years.), then I'd say, let them. More money for empaths makes me happy.


~Player of many

~Anything not nailed down is mine. Anything I can pry loose is not nailed down.~

Welp, I know you didn't mean it that way, but thanks for the inspiration for my new sig.

---

Rev. Reene

<Reene> I'd temp shift Cael to S'kra!
<Reene> LET'S MAKE BABIES TORT <3 <3
<Tortolia> I'm glad I know you're kidding or this would be a very uncomfortable conversation

ponders about leaving the stats as they are but just shifting the looks to the race, you see an elf that looks like a rakash ::runs for cover::


--
Treat empaths with respect, you'll live longer
--
let us paint you a picture with our words
--
http://blog.myspace.com/57223313

>Two variables, one holds the race for stat training, the other for everything else.

Apart from the fact that this sounds to me like a difficult-to-code change in the player database, I think it would be extraordinarily confusing, and rather pointless, to have 'real' elves or what have you and 'fake' elves in the game.

If you want to change races, roll up a new character.

~ Player of Farman et al.

http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Main_Page

I just would like to see more options on the features we have. Any timeline on that?


~Purehand

You feel that for the moment you've learned all you can about harming shopkeepers.

I would enjoy this, and I know there are more then a few people that would change races if they didn't have to start all over, but I highly doubt it's an option. From an IC point of view, it's a lot easier to play off dimples suddenly sprouting then it would be to be a completely different species, and it doesn't really seem to fit in with the lore behind shifting.

>>Another option would be to put all shift options into the character generator and open up more interesting options for life manipulation for Empaths in general.

There's plenty of Shift options that exist that wouldn't be appropriate for the "natural" argument. There's a difference in effectiveness between the arguments that someone might want their character to naturally be a little short versus someone who wants their character to naturally have blue hair.

>>Anyways, I was just wondering if somewhere down the road, Empaths (or GM's) would have the ability to shift from one Race to another.

I don't like to say "never," so I'll just say "I cannot imagine a scenario where it happens."

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

For what it's worth, Empaths handle it a lot better than some guilds. There's some guilds I simply can't write fiction for because every shred of it becomes a screaming demand for new powahs.

But, yeah, when the guild's fiction includes "capacity to become godlike entities," there's going to be a gulf between what can be in the story and what can be in play.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

on the tangent of our potential abilities, I always thought a natural extension of our powers as masters of repairing and altering the bodys is that we would be to boost stats on ourselves or on others in some way. I always have found it rather ironic that we have one stat boosting spell; still rooting for AGS to be turned into an agility booster instead of just brawling to make it 2!

But whatever man, constructs ftw.


~ Purehand

>collect coin
You manage to collect a pile of coin.
Roundtime: 30 sec.

... Jackpot.

>>Just from the sheer story perspective, I love it. I'm the sort of person that really digs a sort of tragic, against-the-odds sort of scenario. The Necromancer transcendence arc was written exactly with that prohibition in mind, "There is something keeping me from transcendent glory, and I will destroy the earth to grasp the divine."

If Empaths get something even remotely equivalent to the transcendence arc, it will be the best thing that has ever happened in the history of anything.

~ Trem

I'm sharpening my halo into forest thorns // I'm sanctifying pages in the protocols of war.

>It's unfortunate that we've ended up at the opposite extreme, though, where there's practically nothing that we can do with our supposedly awe-inspiring power. It doesn't help that "modern Empaths have been neutered to the point of inability to do much of anything" is also written into the fiction, I'm sure. Hopefully we can break through that and actually start going somewhere with Empathy soon.


>I sort of understand the people that want their side/guild/race to be happy, functional and victorious, but aesthetically I'm way on the other end of the spectrum.

I'm sure you can understand the frustration of the fact that when I look at what I can do now with over 600 empathy (the focal point of the guild itself) as compared to 300-400 ranks ago it comes down to I have more cosmetic options. That's it.

So every month or two when someone comes around looking for a shift and I get a response like "pfff, that build shift is supposed to be 15 plat".. it makes the whole feeling of advancing very underwhelming. Think about how many build shifts at 15 plat I would have to do to afford something at that recent fest auction. I could care less about the sum of money that won't even replace my broken gweth so I tell aforementioned person to go stuff it but it makes you think. Is this single use of advanced empathy why I circle? I didn't join the guild to make money. The only function of empathy is cosmetic character changes right now. Is that really what we want to settle down with..? Shift seriously seems like something that would be more useful as a trader system not an empath one. I feel like I would have to camp out in the Crossing Trader tent and set up shop to utilize my single high empathy rank ability.

The path that is being blazed with paralysis, AGS, and the opening of a creature ladder is a step in the right direction.. but none of those things have anything to do with empathy. The core skill of our guild that applies universally to all of our titles, circles, and lore has no tie in to any ability past healing which caps out in the first 25 circles.

>I'm the sort of person that really digs a sort of tragic, against-the-odds sort of scenario.

I am all for the RP scenario that this brings but because of the reasons I talked about above it's completely legitimate what Karthor said. We need an ability in the 100+ range to make empathy an actual functional "core" skill because for the time being there is ..literally.. nothing. Perhaps to support the "against the odds" scenario that has been built it would need to be an ability that the Empath guild is not happy that you are using like Shift, only useful this time. The fact that our fiction supports the empathy skill being so powerful makes it all the more frustrating that we can't do anything with it.

Vote Karthor for mayor!

---

Grixlek says, "Courage is dangerous, it leads to attempts at heroics..."
Vegas asks, "What like dating?"
Grixlek says, "Nothing that dangerous I believe, but still crazy stuff."

like a Sect for empaths?

---

Grixlek says, "Courage is dangerous, it leads to attempts at heroics..."
Vegas asks, "What like dating?"
Grixlek says, "Nothing that dangerous I believe, but still crazy stuff."

>like a Sect for empaths?

That's a solid idea. It makes sense to me that there could be an option where like a necromancer who is evil taking a path to redemption an empath could start veering toward a less than righteous path. The history is certainly there to back it up.

An ability could certainly become known through a Khalo or guild leader who decided that the hidden teachings of the guild should be shared and not repressed. That would certainly not be popular with the majority of the leaders.

That ability could perhaps have two sides.. once the cat is out of the bag normal guild leaders could explain how it is safely controlled.. perhaps in a manner to lend beneficial empathic aid to a group. Some sort of sustained area link that would provide minor healing benefits and possibly buffs for surrounding PC's.

The second side could be what the exiled leader exposed that the ability can be used for violent purpose. The area link is somewhat mutated to cause confusion and perhaps harmful/detrimental effects through bodily manipulation. Someone using this ability would incur increasing empathic shock (yeah! a shock tie in!)and would eventually lose the ability to aid others through healing. There could be an eventual path to redemption from this (shock quest) and this could be a sect of somewhat "fallen" renegade empaths like Jomay.

Eksharo showed on a massive scale (Kermoria wide) that empathic link manipulation is possible and this could be a dual option on a much smaller scale for the most skilled (100+) empaths around. Those who love to aid/heal/assist can keep their path and have a great ability while those who would like to take a path more violent, shock riddled, abusing what they have learned (and what the guild has kept under wraps for so long) about the true possibility of empathic links.

I agree that the way Shift is played out in lore doesn't make much sense and I understand what Karthor meant by a red flag. Perhaps there is a way here to have both sides of empathy be valid and lend an option for empaths to choose their own path.

>Not 100% relevant to your comment, but for the record AGS is Evasion + Brawling, not just Brawling.

Yeah, I know, but the reasoning behind my request to make it an agility booster was because we now have access to regular combat via constucts instead of just circling and bobbing. The agility boost is nice though.


~ Purehand

>collect coin
You manage to collect a pile of coin.
Roundtime: 30 sec.

... Jackpot.

I'm just going to throw out two vague observations here - neither of which you should expect anything to come from until I can shove some other things off my plate or some other GM decides to grab them first.

1) Empathy is useless! Well... yes. It somewhat is. However this is not a problem unique to empathy, and applies to many lore skills and is very much a problem. As I recently told the Bardies re: Musical Theory and a similar complaint; I have plans to have plans to fix this, but do not yet have plans.

2) Empath Sects. Funny you should say that while I'm in the middle of building a generic framework to support subguilds for any guilds and pathways specifically for Bards. While it is unlikely Empaths would be one of the first guilds this is done for (If it is decided by the Empathic powers they want it at all) it is also one of the guilds that as far as I know doesn't have some clear divisions (Beyond healer/combatant). As such - if you want to have a brainstorming sessions over potential empathic "Sects" I would actually find that quite interesting and useful. Try and aim for 3, perhaps 4, of them and read the logs of the mini-meetings with the bards from the last few days for a better idea of what I'm talking about.

-Raesh

I warned you guys. It's been nothing but Sects talk all over the place.

<3

Annwyl
Message Board Supervisor

If you've questions or comments, take it to e-mail by writing me at DR-Annwyl@play.net.

>>Perhaps shift can become much more than what it is if it can be tied into the core of the guild - health.

My main thought here is that Shift, specifically, is beyond the pale. And while that's a wonderful bit of flavor to add, I don't think it's particularly fitting for Empaths to set up base camp there.

My personal inclination would be toward focusing on new or already existing but lackluster verbs and concepts of how Empath Voodoo works and get off the endless cycle of making the shining star in Empath abilities something that they ICly aren't supposed to use.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

>>Could it be perverted to allow the Empath to inflict their wounds onto someone else? Or, even more heinously, use their own body as a conduit to transfer wounds from one person to another?

Your use of the term perverted is appropriate, but also rather damning. At that point you're making the Empath a Not-Empath, attempting to end run around the most basic, defining features of the guild.

Again, I fear the wrong take home message was received from the K'Eksharo thing. It was not "look at this awesome devastating attack Empaths can do," it was "look at this Empath nobly sacrifice his supernatural abilities so that Lyras can be stopped" with a side order of "look at the Empath Guild manipulate its members into helping him without telling them of the danger they were in."

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

I don't want to give you the impression I'm frustrated or anything. This has been a huge year for Empaths, and I hope you'll agree with me that it's been a very positive one too.

There's a perhaps delicate path to walk between the continued growth and expansion of the Empath guild, something I think everybody is onboard with, and making sure at the same time we keep the conceptual core of Empathy, this life-affirming connectivity to others, intact.

If it was clear cut and easy to do, they would've done it a long time ago. There's definitely room for debate and discussion about how to honor the concept while elaborating it.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas