Bosper wrote:JohnK wrote:Indeed, it's not. Of course, I've noticed that damage spells cost a lot more in terms of AE expenditure. Damage spells tend to be overrated in my opinion, as it's a lot more fun to find a more subtle way of using spells for combative purposes, but still...
Damage spells are only really viable if you focus on them.
I think this is true of game systems that don't use levels, where spells tend to be separate "skills" (like in TDE) or "abilities", and have to be learned very independently of one another. One can take groupings of spells that make one more...focused on certain aspects, like combat, or healing, or travel related or whatever. That said, I like the spell set-up in TDE. Magic in the game comes across as more subtle than in other rpgs, at least from the materials in the Core Book (and some of the stuff I've glanced at in the Almanac). That may likely change, depending on what's in the Magic sourcebooks, of course.
Bosper wrote:There are a few different kinds of battle mages which got interesting ways to make them unique and useful. Warmages with enormous range, Battlemages that increase the damage and others that reduce the cost. My very experienced fire-elementarist casts 2d6+14 Ignifaxius spells for 2-3 ASP every second turn without penalty. Thats 20 spells until he is drained, with increased regeneration of 6-8 ASP a night. Thats a battlemage. But on the other hand, he is really bad up to incapable in everything that isnt burning targets.
Being relatively new to The Dark Eye, I don't know whether players more often than not deliberately go out to make the characters battle mages or non-battle mages, or whether they try to get a more balanced approach to magic. I like to think that most roleplayers in the game would choose their spells and rituals with some leaning and bearing from the personality and background they want to play for the character, but that may be incorrect or misguided on my part.
I gather there is more information on "focused" mages in this respect in the Magic supplements?