Aug. 11th, 2013

alexandraerin: (Default)
...but today, for the first time ever, their review process ended with them sending me a note asking me to please confirm if I really, really, truly, truly own the rights to this thing or else mark that I think it's in the public domain and explain why.

I'm not too surprised by this, because the legal name on my account doesn't quite match the public use-name that is also my pen name, and also large swathes of text in the manuscript can be found by Googling, because they've also been published online. By me. I don't know if they do random web searches for text in the book or what, but it wouldn't surprise me.

But the weird thing is that this is the third thing I've published from them that fits the same criteria (names don't match, text online) and the first time this has happened. Of course with the volume of stuff submitted to Amazon I imagine there's a randomized element to how much scrutiny the review process involves.

Still kind of weird and mildly frustrating, and mildly worrying. The instructions said that if I did in fact own the rights then all I need to do is submit it again. Basically, make the same assertion that I hold the publishing rights.

So it's probably not a big deal. But since the Kindle store is a big chunk of my sales money and the biggest source of sales to new readers, any kind of hitch with them makes me nervous.
alexandraerin: (Default)
So, the reason that the Pyromancer made the list and no other elemental specialist did is that at the time I added it, I was limiting a good chunk of the list to three Qualities that could be used to make fairly iconic versions of each of the four old school D&D classes, and fireballs and fiery shields and things like that are pretty iconic. Even a wizard who's not focused on elements or one element is pretty likely to employ fire, sparks, or smoke.

Now that I've abandoned that constraint in favor of a more comprehensive basic set, it seems worthwhile to round out the options. This requires a bit of thought, because I can't just copy and paste the Pyromancer... the Pyromancer's abilities were formulated specifically to evoke the feeling of fire, the same way that Weapon Expert: Bludgeon and Weapon Expert: Whip don't have nearly the same set of abilities to convey what they're doing with their chosen weapons.

The Pyromancer has a straight element bonus to spells involving fire, yes, but that's the smallest part of their ability set. They can sense heat and fire using Magic. They have the ability to add a die of fire damage to their attacks (originally just magic attacks actually using fire, but I've since generalized it to any attack. Yes, even social attacks. A Pyromancer can really let loose with blistering curses) if they take some of the burn themselves. And any time a spell fizzles, they have the option of taking fire damage and adding a die to the check. They also have some flexibility in experiencing Magic Burn as actual burn, if they have more room to absorb physical damage.

The purpose of these abilities are to emphasize the unpredictable and dangerous nature of fire while still following the Lake Wobegon School of Game Design. I could just make a Pyromancer's spells and attacks more powerful and have a random chance of getting a fiery backlash, but that can easily become a drag on the character, making Pyromancers as a class more cautious than other mages with their powers, which would be the opposite of the intended effect. By allowing the player to choose when the character's powers blow up in their faces, it allows them to use them with less restraint.

That's Pyromancer. As I said, I can't just copy it and then search/replace for the others. But I can use it as a model. The Pyromancer Quality has its element bonus, it has a sensory ability, it has some resistance to the related element, it has an ability to help manage Magic Burn, and it has an ability that can magically boost a non-magical activity related to the nature of fire (i.e., inflicting damage). Not every elemental quality needs all of those things, but it's a good guideline.

The Geomancer Quality is unabashedly inspired by Toph Beifong in particular and ATLA's earth-benders in general, simply because I don't believe there's been a better or more iconic depiction of earth magic/earth channeling in fantasy fiction. Geomancy is a more physical ability set than most magical traits. Geomancers gain a bonus to a wide range of purely physical activities (including withstanding physical attacks) while they're motionless and in contact with the earth, they can boost any non-swimming athletic check (meaning jumping, climbing, and keeping balance) while in contact with the earth (at the beginning of a jump, obviously), and they can ignore a point of Magic Burn under the same circumstances by drawing on the stability of stone. The "Stonesense" ability is not as powerful or refined as Toph's, because her level of development would be a whole Character Quality in and of itself.

The Hydromancer is much less explicitly ATLAish, simply because using water as a whip and blade are pretty distinct touches. Hydromancers have an ability that explicitly puts creating appreciable (but not room-flooding) amounts of water within the realm of their magical abilities, along with freezing, thawing, evaporating/destroying, and magically moving water without a container... this is because the way the magic system in AWW works, creating water for any other purpose than a transitory effect would not otherwise be possible. Hydromancers can move through water freely (walking or swimming) and breathe underwater indefinitely, and can extend this benefit to one person per level as long as the whole group is in contact with each other. Hydromancers can sense the purity/quality of water, and through this ability have a power to detect illness and poison in people, beverages, or food (three things that contain a lot of water), which also gives a bonus to Healing Checks. Once per level per adventure, they can salve anyone (including themselves) of one Wound Point or one point of Magic Burn... usable less often than the "Magic Burn sinks" of other elements, but more versatile.

Hydromancers can also sense the tides and the position and phase of the moon. Those aren't things that are likely to come up in an average adventure, but if nothing else that lets them figure out elapsed time. The most dramatic ability of Hydromancers is the power to turn still water into a scrying/communication pool. The potential range is dramatically higher than most magic, but it must be targeting either a location you've visited, an object you've held, or a person you've met, and it always costs Magic Burn. If there's no still water near the focus, you take the Burn and it fails. That, and anyone who would be within view of the scrying gets a resistance attempt if they don't want to be viewed/found.

I haven't yet formulated Aeromancers, but they will likely have a focus on mobility and possibly on stealth (air being the invisible element).

Now, that's four elements. Character creation involves choosing three Character Qualities. What if you want to make a general elementalist?

There's an app Quality for that: Elementalist. The Elementalist gets an element bonus with all four elements, but since they lack a deep connection to any one, they don't have the dramatic other abilities. Instead, they have bonuses for magical defenses using (or made against) the elements, with a specific caveat that ordinary attacks by ordinary weapons don't count as an elemental attack regardless of the material, unless the weapon is actually on fire. Their main advantage over the elemental specialists is that because they have studied the concept of the elements themselves, they have advantages in dealing with elemental beings and forces. A salamander or fire spirit isn't necessarily going to react to a Pyromancer as a kindred being, but an Elementalist knows how to relate to them.

Right now the Elementalist's four-way element bonus is the same as the individual ones... after all, what method you say you're using to do something with Magic is largely a special effect. Doing everything with a single element is mostly a matter of having a little more creativity, and I think the side bonuses of the specialist ones are both more useful and more dramatically cool, so I'm willing to give that slight edge to the generalist. Element bonuses are the one specific example in the rules of bonuses that don't stack, so you could make an Elementalist/Pyromancer to be someone with knowledge of the four elements and mastery over one, but you'd only use one element bonus when working with fire (they start out the same, but if you have more levels in one, it might be higher).

As with all specialty wizard types, the new elemental Qualities end their descriptions with a "Focus Option", which if taken, boosts the element bonus and another incidental bonus at the cost of giving a penalty to any other Spell Checks. I think I'm going to nudge the wording of those so that the penalty applies to Spell Checks that don't benefit from any Focus Option, so you could make a wizard with a broader specialty.

(Also, as a sidenote, I've shot right past the 60 Quality limit. I'm currently thinking I'm going to end up with 72 or 75. But I'd rather have a product that doesn't seem to be riddled with random omissions and lopsided choices than hit an arbitrary target. Selling expansions is a major part of my semi-business plan for this, but I don't want the model to be "I SOLD YOU HALF OF AN AWESOME GAME AT A PRICE THAT SEEMED REASONABLE BUT NOW YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME MORE MONEY TO MAKE IT WORTHWHILE!")

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