So I did just test this. Using a 9 mana finesse, I'm seeing between 40 and 51% gain. Without finesse I'm seeing between a 41 and 53% gain. This was tested on 6 gem pouches of various size. There has always been a huge random factor, but it doesn't appear that finesse is doing anything for me with my paltry magics. That leads me to still believe that this was a huge nerf for the next few months for all traders who can't naturally cap the bonus.

>Yes, I didn't do a thorough test on Naniaki at the time I made the post

My initial post, I meant.

And my calculations held, my 79th Trader does have a 46% bonus when using Finesse through empirical testing.

So, to repeat with emphasis and clarity, a 79 Trader with 10 ranks or less in all magics (except Arcana) has a 38% bonus normally, but a 46% bonus when a min-mana Finesse spell is up (and boosting Cha by just 2).

Naniaki Felyran

"I have faith in the current crop of GMs to not screw people over"

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

> Currently lacking the skill to complete the pattern, your spell fails completely.

You don't have the TM skill to cast the spell. Arbiter's stylus should require 180ish with the TM feat, maybe less with speculate luck up when you cast it.

> prep crystal dart min prep

Try "target CD <mob>" without quotes. Wait for the targeting pattern is complete message. Then cast.

I was succeeding earlier today, unless something has changed over the last few hours. I was also outdoors though, with Xibar and Yavash up, if that matters.

>I'm still unclear how you're coming up with those numbers. Can you share your work and data?

I have tied pouches specifically worth 10.000x plat each to be able to tell at a glance what the offer % is. I don't keep tabs on how many tries it takes, I go till I get the full 20% range. Individual offers are meaningless, so I don't track them. I just have a small piece in Excel that's the highest current offer minus the lowest current offer, or I just put lowest and highest I've seen in a temporary notepad file, and keep replacing the numbers until the difference/range is 20. The midpoint of that 20 range is the important number, the actual number.

Trader in question:
79 Trader
45 Charisma
435 Trading
407 Appraisal

Getting enough appraisal offers I got a range between 28% and 48%. So therefore, 38%.

When I had Finesse up, I eventually got a range of 36% to 56%, so the bonus is 46%. Seemed to take a bit longer than usual.

These numbers are acceptably within the formulas I determined and put on Elanthipedia. https://elanthipedia.play.net/Trader_gem_selling_bonus

It takes much more than 6 offers to get the range. On average it takes probably 21 offers, but can be as few as 2 or as many as it takes, worst I know I've ever seen has been about 60 or so.

The range is always 20%, except past 100th, because the direct effect of Finesse I'm talking about will actually reduce the range. As I said, at 164th, I only see from 56% to 60% when Finesse is running, but I hit the normal non-Finesse cap years ago at about 98th circle. Archipelago would have to say, but at 200th circle, I'd expect a Trader with Finesse should NEVER see anything but 60% offers, ever.

Naniaki Felyran

"I have faith in the current crop of GMs to not screw people over"

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

Greetings,

While I'm VERY excited to see the release of Trader Magic as a whole, I do have a concern I want to raise..

Magic is being offered to Trader's as a 'new deal'. Without grandfathering, everyone has a clean new slate. By the same token, it's also NOT being added to the guild requirements, as a nod to the folks who've been enjoying the guild for so very long without magic. However, with all that said, converting SPECULATES as a whole to the magic system means established Trader's are taking a huge hit to some of their effectiveness.

Take Speculate Finesse - It's more or less a staple. Everyone's very used to how it worked, the bonus it gave, and the effect on gameplay, and so forth. This means, in order to simply be where they were on the 24th, every Trader is now FORCED to engage in the magic system. The precedent is there (Paladin Glyphs, Ranger Beseeches), to cause magical seeming effects without magical ranks, but converting SPECULATES turns that 'optional' gameplay with Magic into a hard must.

I know it's the new hotness, and I'm personally very excited to see it, this DOES put a crimp in the existing old-school Traders out there.

Samsaren

>>A coldly logical voice enters your mind with a familiarity that imparts the notion that it has always been there and always will. The voice says, simply, "The contract is signed."

So, uh, I got distracted playing with our shiny new toys but, um, could we maybe see the fine print on that contract? I was able to get a little bit from the Negotiants, but I assume there is more.

Speaking of the Negotiants, they show up as plural in person and singular remotely. Intended or is one of those a typo?

Also a question about Fluoresce. Does this increase damage, accuracy, or both against the flouresced thing? I could see it going either way with the messaging. Love the theme of this one by the way. :)

---

“I’m sorry that your mystical, godlike powers do not instantly work as you would like them to.”

Can we get custom preps looked at?

[Maginius Kaentao Maous, Rare Books Room]
Four unusual statues hold up the ceiling of this fairly small room, each face blackened and doglike, and covered by gilded mesh helms. A wide ironwood case holds a series of large, foreboding tomes, each lit by a single, off-colored gaethzen sphere. Empty shelves fill the rest of the space, awaiting their own uncommon tomes and careful readers. You also see a crimson-robed mage that is sitting and a massive oaken door.
Obvious exits: none.

>ask mage about prep
A crimson-robed mage whispers, "I sense you are not magically inclined, so there is nothing I can share with you."

Thanks!
~Barder

Going for a stretch here, but could Traders get a way to predict the weather? Say like SPECULATE WEATHER? I only ask because weather has a large impact on some of our spells and aura regen. It would be helpful to have a way to tell when the weather will be changing. Thanks!

>>These will no longer apply if you have SPELL BRIEF ON at the time of casting.

Hooray, thank you!

>>Only fails when the entire sky is overcast.

Ahh, got it. Thank you.

>>While we can consider QoL improvements, let me say that cambrinth roundtimes are part of this spell's balance.

Okay, thanks for the response. If that's the case, you might consider the ability to turn the Array on and off at will. That way we could decide when we want to obtain the benefit (at the cost of extra cambrinth RT).

Bugs

>>Arbiter's stylus should require 180ish with the TM feat, maybe less with speculate luck up when you cast it.

>>Stylus is only intermediate difficulty, so less than that.

FYI I have 150 TM and TM Mastery and cannot cast this spell. The DISCERN says it requires 80 ranks at minimum so I'm wondering what's up there.

I had my Cleric friend cast Avren Aevareae (on Yavash for what it's worth), and only he was able to perceive the effect in the area. Not sure if this is a bug or has to do with my pathetic Attunement skill.

I also had my Cleric friend try capping some of the spells to see what the max duration was. All the ones we tested capped at 30 minutes, which I found odd because the standard is 40 minutes. Not sure if this is due to him using the stealing spell or what.

Spell Restrictions

I have been working at updating elanthipedia and am about halfway through recording the spells. It would be really helpful to get clarification on the restrictions of some of the spells. I've taken what I can from Discern and our conversations here but there are a few more I'm unclear on.

Spell	Restrictions
Fluoresce	starlight, bright moonlight, or Starlight Aura
Crystal Dart	starlight, bright moonlight, or Starlight Aura
Regalia	starlight, bright moonlight, or Starlight Aura
Blur	starlight, bright moonlight, or Starlight Aura
Starcrash	starlight or Starlight Aura
Avtalia Array	starlight only
Avren Aevareae	any moon or Starlight Aura
Mask of the Moons	any moon
*Trabe Chalice	starlight, bright moonlight, or Starlight Aura?
*Arbiter's Stylus	??
*Stellar Collector	starlight only?
*Elision	starlight or Starlight Aura?

The rest I was able to cast during an overcast day so I assume have no restrictions.

Suggestions

>>Spam away!

Okay, you asked for it. These ideas are primarily themed around what I feel the Traders need mechanically rather than what fits well with our (totally beautiful and artistically poised) spell trees.

- The ability to restock my shop from afar. To do this I'd need access to my shop, my caravan box, and the ability to claim deeds. Astral projection into the shop would work as long as the box could be stored there (or I could have a shop-specific vault) and deeds could be claimed there.

- The ability to project into my shop to answer questions.

- Some more offensive accuracy boosts. So far we have +Agi for weapons and +Int for TM, which are greatly appreciated. Also some arguments could be made for +Stealth, +Shield, and +Tactics being useful for offensive accuracy. (Note that I'm only talking about accuracy and that's why I didn't mention Fluoresce.) I stress this point because we are the only all-tert offensive guild, with all weapons and TM tert. Even with the boosts we have at this point, I imagine I will still be inevitably held back completely by being unable to hit foes, and, also important, will be completely unable to participate meaningfully in PVP. Maybe I should resign myself to the fact that Traders are not meant for PVP, but call me crazy for wanting a slim chance. For comparison, my Bard can boost Agi, Int or Disc, TM, offensive factor, Stealth, and all ranged weapons if I pick up Tailwind, not to mention use debuffs to immobilize, make prone, give RT, sleep, reduce reflex, knock off balance, and more. I don't expect to be on par with a Bard but something else would be nice!

- Illusory Boundary. Fill up engagement slots with illusory creatures and/or walls. This would allow me to control engagement in combat and ideally completely negate it at times. Would need some kind of balancing a la Whole Displacement, of course. It would be super useful for gathering trips in dangerous areas, plus getting to observe/participate in invasions.


- Navesi

>>Is there any chance Noumena could allow for using moon light in situations where it's overcast during the day and we're not yet at the point where we can pump enough mana into Noumena to overcome daylight?

Could you explain this a bit more? Noumena only affects aura regeneration, and moonlight does not affect aura regeneration.

-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

>>Is your Lunar Magic really low by chance?

Currently 20. However the average of 20 and 150 is 85, and I also have TM mastery. So unless Lunar Magic plays a much bigger role than I imagined, I think I should still be able to cast it.


- Navesi

I should clarify for TM, because it's a special case.

The effective cap only applies to contesting the difficulty of casting a spell. As far as your murder potential goes, you still are getting the full 150 ranks of it in combat contests.

-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

>Spam away!

Many believe that the cosmos seeks a balance, with ill fortune leading inevitably to good. Sages maintain that such thinking is erroneous and that fortune has no such memory, yet the idea persists, often subconsciously. With this spell, Traders impose this fallacy upon reality -- when it's to their benefit, that is.

Effect: Whenever something bad happens to the caster, their luck improves. "Something bad" could be as simple as getting hit in combat, but ideally it would be any roll that consults the caster's luck and comes out poorly.

So, trader magic is fun so far... Starlight Aura drains pretty fast, is really the only compliant.

Outside of grandfathering... Most of the spells are weak, because of the power I can't put in them. Is there some SimuCoins I can buy, to have my magics train as secondary?

Had I had the ability to train magic, I would have been doing it all along... It feels almost as if I'm being penalized, now.

>>So, trader magic is fun so far... Starlight Aura drains pretty fast, is really the only compliant.

Three things to note about the aura.

1) Its capacity is directly related to your Lunar Magic and scales pretty high. The floor of the system is at 20 ranks of Lunar Magic (below that you're just given the value of 20 ranks as a courtesy). Your aura will have double its original capacity by 40 ranks, and it will continue to grow until you hit 1000 ranks.

2) Its regen is directly related to your Wisdom and each and every point in Wisdom contributes to the size of your regen pulse. It will double from its default (assuming a 0-mod race) at around 40 Wisdom and continue to grow in perpetuity (though there's a practical limit to how much you'll want to invest into Wisdom).

3) Most aura costs are related to the mana you're putting into the spell. It costs more aura to power a 4-mana spell than a 2-mana spell.

So, when you're drawing on your aura in the early stages of your magic you want to be careful about how much mana you put in. Bearing in mind that early in a Trader's life (and for every Trader during this preview) they have free access to Analogous Patterns spells that cover every skill except Utility, which can be covered by Noumena at 2nd circle.

As your skills and stats increase, the aura's limits loosen up considerably and casting more powerfully and repeatedly under adverse conditions will become possible. By the time you lose access to the AP spells you should have enough Lunar Magic to notice a substantial improvement over Noobler's First Aura.

-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

>>I'm casting everything very low, during the day. Just not enough gas, to keep it going all the time.

While I'm open to complaint that aura may start too weak, bear in mind that the default assumption is that you don't consume aura for repeat-cast training.

>>I learned DO for target. While crystal dart is fun, that's the one that put the biggest drain on my aura, with how much I had to cast.

Yeah, I grant Crystal Dart is in a fairly rough spot since it is a spell you are expected to spam. The other TM spells are sufficiently useful that their aura costs are fully justified, but I can see an argument for special handling for CRD.

-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

>>Yeah, I grant Crystal Dart is in a fairly rough spot since it is a spell you are expected to spam. The other TM spells are sufficiently useful that their aura costs are fully justified, but I can see an argument for special handling for CRD.

Would you consider looking at Fluoresce also as it is our only debilitation spell so far and while I don't quite spam it, the duration is so short I do cast it very often. It's not an issue if a good moon is up and it's not totally cloudy, but the weather sure hasn't cooperated lately.

>With Isharon's help, I've made a new spell list image for epedia. If anyone sees anything wrong with it, please let me know. Thanks!

Thank you!

- Felicini

>>I love the spell thematically, and it's nice to have effectively have self-repairing armor, but the base hindrance is way too high for the protection it provides.

More Potency lowers the weight of the pieces, though I admit I am uncertain if that will directly reduce hindrance in this case.

>>1. Like summoned weapons, is or can there a way to increase protection? Maybe via metaspells or verbs or holding rare metal ingots when summoning? I'm happy to play with it if this is an option, but I don't want to go on a snipe hunt.

It theoretically follows the same scheme as Moonblade: Base T3, two +1 tier options. Unfortunately, one of the Regalia +1 options did not make release. I'll coordinate with the others after the holiday is over to figure out if we can push a release or come up with a second option.

The currently existing mod is the universal one for summoned equipment: if you know the crafting technique that covers the armor you're fabricating, you get +1 quality.

-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

Thanks for checking. I guess it makes sense that it's more moonblade than summoned weapon. One thing that could greatly change the value proposition is creating synergy between summoned armor and Avtalia Array. Where moon mages get spell nodes in their blade, can we get cambrinth in our armor?