Let's talk confound, or specifically this:
>perc aura
You close your eyes and take a measure of your aura.
Starlight dances vividly across the confines of your aura.
Your aura contains as much starlight as you can safely handle.
Roundtime: 6 sec.
A confound in DragonRealms is a unique thing each guild brings to the table that modifies how magic is performed and what magic can do. For Traders, we are introducing a system called the Starlight Aura. Under certain conditions, which can be broadened with the use of magic, a Trader passively accrues starlight energy in their aura which can be spent on certain spells and feats.
By default, starlight aura growth is fairly punitive. A Trader needs to be outside, at night, in less-than-overcast conditions. An introductory spell called Noumena will relax these requirements based on the Potency of the cast (it's a bit like Piercing Gaze in effect).
Your Starlight Aura generation is based primarily on your Wisdom, modified by the environment. The roof of how powerful your Starlight Aura can become is based on your Lunar Magic skill.
There are three ways that you can spend Starlight Aura currently:
1) Some particularly exotic spells will require SLA expenditure to function at all.
2) Some spells will allow you to circumvent environmental limits with a SLA expenditure.
3) You will be able to learn spells remotely (without going back to a guildhall) with a SLA expenditure. More details on this part as the plot progresses.
The starlight aura is invisible. It's not a literal aura of light, but the supernatural energies of the heavens "caught" in your proximity. It does not interfere with stealth actions, nor does it provide a light source by default (future magic may exploit it in visual ways, however).
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
DR-ARMIFER
DR-ARMIFER
Teaser: Starlight Aura (Part 2)
11/14/2017 04:53 PM CST
Since I left this open ended, I thought I'd return to starlight aura regeneration and specifically the capacities of the Noumena spell.
Without Noumena in place, there are three conditions necessary for natural aura growth:
1) It must not be overcast. Mild cloud cover doesn't hinder you.
2) It must be night time.
3) You must be out under the open sky.
If all three conditions are met, you get your optimal aura regen (based on your Wisdom).
Noumena allows you to violate conditions #1 and #2 on the list (we'll talk more about #3 at the end of this post). Any cast of Noumena allows you to regen your aura in overcast conditions, with a penalty that decreases as the Potency of the spell rises toward 50% of max. At 50% of max, you have worked off the penalty for cloud cover as much as you can -- the penalty doesn't go away entirely, but it's pretty darn small at that point.
Past the 50% mark in Potency, the spell starts allowing you to regen during daytime. This is a substantially larger penalty than cloud cover, which diminishes as you approach and then reach the Potency cap. Even at cap the penalty for doing this during daylight is pretty noticeable.
If both conditions are present and your spell is powerful enough to mitigate both, you suffer both penalties cumulatively. This isn't as big of a deal as it may sound since you max out your cloud cover negation before even starting your sunlight negation, but it will still result in lower numbers than if you were trying it on a clear sunny day.
Okay, so what about the outdoors requirement? Noumena does not address that, since the purpose of the spell is to mitigate penalties that are beyond your control. However, there will be a few more aura-management spells that will help on that side of things. There will be no natural regen indoors... but I do keep using the term 'natural' there.
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
Without Noumena in place, there are three conditions necessary for natural aura growth:
1) It must not be overcast. Mild cloud cover doesn't hinder you.
2) It must be night time.
3) You must be out under the open sky.
If all three conditions are met, you get your optimal aura regen (based on your Wisdom).
Noumena allows you to violate conditions #1 and #2 on the list (we'll talk more about #3 at the end of this post). Any cast of Noumena allows you to regen your aura in overcast conditions, with a penalty that decreases as the Potency of the spell rises toward 50% of max. At 50% of max, you have worked off the penalty for cloud cover as much as you can -- the penalty doesn't go away entirely, but it's pretty darn small at that point.
Past the 50% mark in Potency, the spell starts allowing you to regen during daytime. This is a substantially larger penalty than cloud cover, which diminishes as you approach and then reach the Potency cap. Even at cap the penalty for doing this during daylight is pretty noticeable.
If both conditions are present and your spell is powerful enough to mitigate both, you suffer both penalties cumulatively. This isn't as big of a deal as it may sound since you max out your cloud cover negation before even starting your sunlight negation, but it will still result in lower numbers than if you were trying it on a clear sunny day.
Okay, so what about the outdoors requirement? Noumena does not address that, since the purpose of the spell is to mitigate penalties that are beyond your control. However, there will be a few more aura-management spells that will help on that side of things. There will be no natural regen indoors... but I do keep using the term 'natural' there.
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
