What do yo want in Mysteries of magic,book2:Dark Magicks?

[Glistam]

Using sacrifices for P.P.E. purposes seems like an awful lot of trouble for very little gain - I'd love to see this book delve into that a little it more. Specifically, why would a caster sacrifice an animal or sentient being in order to gain their P.P.E. at death? Only other mages really have the P.P.E. base to make this lucrative or really useful, and fiction never really has such people being sacrificed. It's always the animals, or the virgins, or something with a small P.P.E. base in the first place.

[Library Ogre]

You're right, animals generally aren't worth it in small numbers (though I think Summoners might strike up very beneficial relationships with slaughterhouses). However, keep in mind that Children and Teenagers (i.e. those virgins you mentioned) have a lot of PPE, and some monsters have even more. In general, there's not a lot of blood magic unless it's required (as for a lot of summoning).

Plus, you might be using the sacrifice not to power the spell, per se... you might be making the sacrifice to some dark god, who is going to give you the PPE to power your spell, in exchange for a tasty young soul.

[Glistam]

You're right, animals generally aren't worth it in small numbers (though I think Summoners might strike up very beneficial relationships with slaughterhouses). However, keep in mind that Children and Teenagers (i.e. those virgins you mentioned) have a lot of PPE, and some monsters have even more. In general, there's not a lot of blood magic unless it's required (as for a lot of summoning).

Plus, you might be using the sacrifice not to power the spell, per se... you might be making the sacrifice to some dark god, who is going to give you the PPE to power your spell, in exchange for a tasty young soul.

Those are some good thoughts there, and the sort of thing that a book dealing with the darker side of magic would hopefully address.

[kiralon]

Mostly sacrificing stuff for PPE isn't worth it, I made a wizards dagger that can help, and I house ruled virgins, properly prepared are a sort of delicacy for demons/devils/interdimensional monsters and give bonuses to the level of being summoned and bonuses to win the control roll.

[eliakon]

Why sacrifice just one thing? I don't recall off the top of my head what the PPE for an animal is, but lets say its 5. Double that its 10. Sacrifice a dozen animals and that's 120 PPE, which is suddenly a good chunk of PPE. Especially since you can use the PPE to recharge your self if your low. (you can only hold excess PPE for a set amount of time, you can 'refill' from any source)

[kiralon]

Why sacrifice just one thing? I don't recall off the top of my head what the PPE for an animal is, but lets say its 5. Double that its 10. Sacrifice a dozen animals and that's 120 PPE, which is suddenly a good chunk of PPE. Especially since you can use the PPE to recharge your self if your low. (you can only hold excess PPE for a set amount of time, you can 'refill' from any source)

You absorb the ppe when you sacrifice something, so you still have the limitation of your maximum ppe. So sacrificing a dozen animals is useless unless you are down that number of ppe as nowhere in the rules haves I seen that sacrificing something lets you go over your maximum ppe.
You can suck up to %70 ppe from one person, or up to %50 from each person with linked hand, but more then 10 people needs a ceremony, and it reads to me that the person doing the killing is the one who gets the ppe, so 12 actions gets 12 lots of 10 ppe, which is a fair chunk of time if you were just using it to cast a spell, so that's generally why only one sacrifice.
I house rule that the ppe cost can be paid over the time of a ritual however so you don't need to have "containers" to hold the 1500 ppe to cast sanctuary for example, if you can get the amount of ppe up in the time it takes to do the ritual all good, it just means that you wont ever cast it as an invocation without sacrificing something with 700 ppe

[eliakon]

Why sacrifice just one thing? I don't recall off the top of my head what the PPE for an animal is, but lets say its 5. Double that its 10. Sacrifice a dozen animals and that's 120 PPE, which is suddenly a good chunk of PPE. Especially since you can use the PPE to recharge your self if your low. (you can only hold excess PPE for a set amount of time, you can 'refill' from any source)

You absorb the ppe when you sacrifice something, so you still have the limitation of your maximum ppe. So sacrificing a dozen animals is useless unless you are down that number of ppe as nowhere in the rules haves I seen that sacrificing something lets you go over your maximum ppe.
You can suck up to %70 ppe from one person, or up to %50 from each person with linked hand, but more then 10 people needs a ceremony, and it reads to me that the person doing the killing is the one who gets the ppe, so 12 actions gets 12 lots of 10 ppe, which is a fair chunk of time if you were just using it to cast a spell, so that's generally why only one sacrifice.
I house rule that the ppe cost can be paid over the time of a ritual however so you don't need to have "containers" to hold the 1500 ppe to cast sanctuary for example, if you can get the amount of ppe up in the time it takes to do the ritual all good, it just means that you wont ever cast it as an invocation without sacrificing something with 700 ppe

You don't have to absorb it, just channel it. And you don't have to kill something, you just have to be ready for it. There is nothing stopping a mage from being ready to channel the PPE from dozens, or hundreds of sacrifices, and even under the rules as written it should work if they are reasonable close (say all in the same melee round as the spell is cast). And while people notice several hundred dead human bodies, most people wont even notice several hundred dead rats, and several hundred dead chickens is likely to be seen as the precursor to a feast rather than a disaster.

[kiralon]

the book only says absorb from what I have seen, channeling isn't mentioned anywhere, the closest thing to it is the ley line, nexus and solstice type events that makes the area around you a ppe battery. It actually says in the book that An evil mage takes advantage of this by murdering his subject and absorbing all the victim's doubled P.P.E.!. This is another of those ambiguous things in palladium where the rules as stated don't match the idea of the power. Personally I allow everyone in the ritual to sacrifice something and hand over the ppe to the ritual focus, but that's a house ruling an my behalf because that's what seems to be the intent. I also allow magic users to store more ppe than they normally can, but that has side effects.

[eliakon]

Page 22 Mysteries of magic has rules on the quick channel of massive magic (150% of PPE PLUS 600 PPE per level)
So....if your lead mage has a PPE of 236 and is Level 2. They can over charge with 354 PPE. They can channel 1200 PPE in one round (from a ley line event, from a ritual source, batteries.....or a mass sacrifice) so that's 1554 PPE plenty to power many of the top tier spells.

page 25 second column last paragraph on blood sacrifice"...usually requires two actions: one to perform the kill, and one to absorb or channel the energy."

[kiralon]

lol, it got cleared up a bit in mysteries of magic, I did read through it, but it was mostly stuff that I had previously house ruled on so mom hasn't been used much at my house (as it was mostly to little too late, the book needed to be 3 times bigger at least), but even the mysteries of magic only talk about the sacrifice of one creature at the end of the ritual.
Maybe Mark could clear it up for us a little ?

[Library Ogre]

lol, it got cleared up a bit in mysteries of magic, I did read through it, but it was mostly stuff that I had previously house ruled on so mom hasn't been used much at my house (as it was mostly to little too late, the book needed to be 3 times bigger at least), but even the mysteries of magic only talk about the sacrifice of one creature at the end of the ritual.
Maybe Mark could clear it up for us a little ?

The manuscript was several times bigger (it covers pretty much every type of magic in Palladium Fantasy up to that point, and at least mentions a number from Rifts), but a lot was cut to make later books.

As I mentioned above:

1) You might set up near or above a slaughterhouse, giving you a ton of easy PPE throughout the day.
2) Children and Teenagers have a lot more PPE, especially of high PPE races (i.e. an elf adolescent can provide a fair amount of PPE)
3) You might also decide to trade things... rather than strictly sacrifice something for its PPE, you might sacrifice it to a deity, demon, or deevil, and get the PPE from your 3D in exchange for that sacrifice.

[Tor]

They say that Union guys don't need familiars to anchor the essence, yet a union NPC gets a familiar.
They say both power/magic guys need familiars for anchors, yet only magic lists them under powers and a power NPC doesn't have a familiar listed.

Where are the NPC's you're getting confused about? Page numbers and books.

The 'Gift of Power' NPC I refer to is the master of the Society of the Knife in Phase World. He doesn't even have a lesser familiar listed even though he's 2nd level. I guess that info could've just been left out though.

The 'Gift of Union' NPC I refer to is in Rifts Mercs 81-82, Leon has a greater familiar of an MDC snake.

It mentions not restoring familiars as punishment if they die, yet mentions nothing about the witch losing their powers if this happens.

why would you think that a witch loses their powers if they lose their familiar? Nowhere does it say in the book that their powers are dependent upon the familiar..

PFRPG2ndPg113 3rd new paragraph "The gifts of power and magic requires that the alien intelligence or essence-self anchor itself to our world. To do this requires a host body, typically an innocuous animal .. but sometimes the witch will serve as both minion and host."

The impression I get from that is that if the master does not use the witch as host, then death of the innocuous animal host (which I figure means the lesser or greater familiar received at 2nd level) could mean a severing of those powers.

I find it odd that it says the witch 'sometimes' serves as both... if familiars don't come until 2nd level wouldn't that mean that all 1st level witches serve as both?

Or perhaps an animal is chosen at first level to become a host, but you don't get to familiar link with it? Meaning you care for it like a pet or something until either a Flink gets established or an essence fragment possesses it, or it gets replaced by a metamorphed demon, at next level?

Dark Magicks is going to be a Palladium Fantasy book, not a Megaverse Sourcebook. I wouldn't hold my breath for Palladium to unify multiple settings in this book. Megaverse doesn't mean one rule set for all settings, it means similar character creation in all settings that allows for easy adaption to other settings and their setting specific rules.

Witches were introduced in the PRPG, their presence in Rifts is only due to a 'conversion book', making PF the core setting for addressing questions and inconsistencies pertaining to the OCC.

[kiralon]

PFRPG2ndPg113 3rd new paragraph "The gifts of power and magic requires that the alien intelligence or essence-self anchor itself to our world. To do this requires a host body, typically an innocuous animal .. but sometimes the witch will serve as both minion and host."

The impression I get from that is that if the master does not use the witch as host, then death of the innocuous animal host (which I figure means the lesser or greater familiar received at 2nd level) could mean a severing of those powers.

That's given me a good idea for an adventure, I think that could work if you kill all the anchors/familiars of that particular alien intelligence on the palladium world.

[Prysus]

PFRPG2ndPg113 3rd new paragraph "The gifts of power and magic requires that the alien intelligence or essence-self anchor itself to our world. To do this requires a host body, typically an innocuous animal .. but sometimes the witch will serve as both minion and host."

The impression I get from that is that if the master does not use the witch as host, then death of the innocuous animal host (which I figure means the lesser or greater familiar received at 2nd level) could mean a severing of those powers.

That's given me a good idea for an adventure, I think that could work if you kill all the anchors/familiars of that particular alien intelligence on the palladium world.

Greetings and Salutations. Wow! Okay, I haven't really been paying attention to this (sort of, but not really), and I've been way too lazy to open up my book and check the facts for this until now. Okay, so let me get this straight ...

Tor, your argument is that since an alien intelligence or evil god anchors themselves to the world via a small innocuous animal for a Witch to have power at first level ... that this must be the same as the demon familiar that a Wtich gains at second level ... because a Witch gaining powers before the alien intelligence anchors itself even though the anchoring is a requirement makes sense ... and that even though the Witch had its power for a full level before the alien intelligence does so that if the familiar is killed the Witch loses all its powers ... even though the Witch had powers before the anchoring ... and that this means that a "alien intelligence or dark god" is the same as a "demon"?

Okay, for any who think Tor is right, allow me to clarify: An alien intelligence and demon are NOT the same thing. This may be a shocker to some, but it's true. There are demon stats in the back of the PF2 main book, and there are evil god and alien intelligence stats in Dragons & Gods. I assure all of you they are different stats, different names, and the only thing we can safely say are the same is that in the case of a witch they both often take an animal as a host.

Now, as to the actual question of killing the host body of the alien intelligence ... yes, this may very well cut off the Witch's power (for the two specific types of pacts mentioned). However, finding the host could be difficult. There's nothing saying the host even needs to be in the same nation, let alone same town or dwelling. However, I will admit I think it's likely the alien intelligence would do so, if for no other reason than to observe and relish in any torment, etc. Identifying the alien intelligence could prove difficult though. The Demon Familiar is more likely to be discovered first (as it's sevant and protector to the Witch), and if the player group takes it out the alien intelligence might take cover (not impossible to find, but more difficult) and less likely to give itself away (might still be tricked).

I do think this could provide an interesting tactic and storyline, but in no way does it come close to meaning a Alien Intelligence and Demon are the same thing ... just no! Hopefully that helps. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

[drewkitty ~..~]

For it to be published soon.

[kiralon]

PFRPG2ndPg113 3rd new paragraph "The gifts of power and magic requires that the alien intelligence or essence-self anchor itself to our world. To do this requires a host body, typically an innocuous animal .. but sometimes the witch will serve as both minion and host."

The impression I get from that is that if the master does not use the witch as host, then death of the innocuous animal host (which I figure means the lesser or greater familiar received at 2nd level) could mean a severing of those powers.

That's given me a good idea for an adventure, I think that could work if you kill all the anchors/familiars of that particular alien intelligence on the palladium world.

Greetings and Salutations. Wow! Okay, I haven't really been paying attention to this (sort of, but not really), and I've been way too lazy to open up my book and check the facts for this until now. Okay, so let me get this straight ...

Tor, your argument is that since an alien intelligence or evil god anchors themselves to the world via a small innocuous animal for a Witch to have power at first level ... that this must be the same as the demon familiar that a Wtich gains at second level ... because a Witch gaining powers before the alien intelligence anchors itself even though the anchoring is a requirement makes sense ... and that even though the Witch had its power for a full level before the alien intelligence does so that if the familiar is killed the Witch loses all its powers ... even though the Witch had powers before the anchoring ... and that this means that a "alien intelligence or dark god" is the same as a "demon"?

Okay, for any who think Tor is right, allow me to clarify: An alien intelligence and demon are NOT the same thing. This may be a shocker to some, but it's true. There are demon stats in the back of the PF2 main book, and there are evil god and alien intelligence stats in Dragons & Gods. I assure all of you they are different stats, different names, and the only thing we can safely say are the same is that in the case of a witch they both often take an animal as a host.

Now, as to the actual question of killing the host body of the alien intelligence ... yes, this may very well cut off the Witch's power (for the two specific types of pacts mentioned). However, finding the host could be difficult. There's nothing saying the host even needs to be in the same nation, let alone same town or dwelling. However, I will admit I think it's likely the alien intelligence would do so, if for no other reason than to observe and relish in any torment, etc. Identifying the alien intelligence could prove difficult though. The Demon Familiar is more likely to be discovered first (as it's sevant and protector to the Witch), and if the player group takes it out the alien intelligence might take cover (not impossible to find, but more difficult) and less likely to give itself away (might still be tricked).

I do think this could provide an interesting tactic and storyline, but in no way does it come close to meaning a Alien Intelligence and Demon are the same thing ... just no! Hopefully that helps. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

Maybe I didn't read it all either, I wasn't saying Demons and AI's are the same, I was just going by the idea that the anchor of the AI is unlikely to be the only anchor that the being has in the palladium world (demons/devils are just so passé) and to banish its presence from the world some brave adventurers will have to travel the world looking for all those anchors and kill them, and which weakens the main host creature enough to banish/kill it. Fairly standard fantasy action.

and

this thread will probably have the start, middle and end of the adventure before the book is released.

[Tor]

your argument is that since an alien intelligence or evil god anchors themselves to the world via a small innocuous animal for a Witch to have power at first level ... that this must be the same as the demon familiar that a Wtich gains at second level

Although I initially said "I figure means the lesser or greater familiar received at 2nd level" I followed this with "perhaps an animal is chosen at first level to become a host, but you don't get to familiar link with it? Meaning you care for it like a pet or something until either a Flink gets established or an essence fragment possesses it"

Meaning, I think that it would be common to turn the animal-anchor into a familiar or fragment-host because it would power them up and make them harder to kill, securing your power-anchor better.

It's plausible that the lesser/greater familiar could be an entirely different animal than the anchor-animal, of course. The upside being that if your familiar died, you could keep your witch powers. The downside being that you now have an untame animal you need to take care of separately.

a Witch gaining powers before the alien intelligence anchors itself even though the anchoring is a requirement makes sense

All I can figure is that there is a difference between power-anchoring a normal animal and possess-anchoring a Greater Familiar. As above, ups and downs to having them coincide on the same animal or having them be different ones.

even though the Witch had its power for a full level before the alien intelligence does so that if the familiar is killed the Witch loses all its powers ... even though the Witch had powers before the anchoring ...

I believe anchoring has to occur at first level, therefore reading PF's version (keeping in mind differences exist between this and RCB and PRPG) if the anchor is not the witch themself (which IMO is the most reliable thing to do... not sure why it would be done differently, but apparently it is) there must be an animal-anchor, and that animal-anchor might possibly be upgradeable via LesserFamiliarLinking or via GreaterFamiliarPossession. I don't think a demon metamorphed into a Greater Familiar could serve as an animal anchor though, since they aren't actually the animal.

and that this means that a "alien intelligence or dark god" is the same as a "demon"?
Okay, for any who think Tor is right, allow me to clarify: An alien intelligence and demon are NOT the same thing.
This may be a shocker to some, but it's true.

Before telling people how wrong I am, you might want to run your interpretation by me first to see if I agree with your summary, I don't.

Witch masters can be alien intelligences, dark gods, or demon/de(e)vil lords. Normal non-Lord demons/de(e)vils sometimes serve the role as metamorphed Greater Familiars (the alternative being an essence fragment possessing an animal) and as people who come and get the pacts signed, since their masters are usually too busy to trek out and do that.

Now, as to the actual question of killing the host body of the alien intelligence ...
yes, this may very well cut off the Witch's power (for the two specific types of pacts mentioned).
However, finding the host could be difficult.
There's nothing saying the host even needs to be in the same nation, let alone same town or dwelling.

Or world, or even dimension for that matter, although I'd put at least that limit on it in practice.

I'm just perplexed as to the purpose of it... if an animal-anchor survived the death of its witch, would the witch be any better off for not being the host?

The only plus I can see to an animal-anchor is that it could prevent witch rebellion, give a vulnerability to a witch's powers.

That's usually pointless for most pacts though, since most give the master the freedom to strip a witch of powers if they rebel...

The only 2 pacts (my faves) are firstborn-sacrifice and enemy-slaying. The terms of them allow a short-term service and permanent powers. If the witch is the host, then the witch would have to die to end the pact, which might be hard to do. Much easier to make their powers easily strippable by the master if you anchor them in a pet hamster or something along those lines.

That way, even if the witch does complete the service of the pact, if they ever crossed you, even though the pact prevents stripping them of their powers directly, you could pursue that end indirectly by fixing it so their animal-anchor gets killed off.

Are there any witch-beneficial sides to having animal-anchor instead of self-anchor though? I can only hypothesize it's possible to make witches easily controllable by masters, but I might be missing some kind of subtle benefit.

[Library Ogre]

My usual opinion on the difference between a god and an alien intelligence is:

A god is a powerful mortal being, made even more powerful by harnessing the power of worship. If you kill all of a gods followers, they will become mortal... still incredibly powerful, but mortal.

An alien intelligence is as powerful as a deity as a natural state. They may benefit from worship; they may find the existence of tools willing to do their bidding, and the boost in power from being worshiped useful; but they have no inherent need for worship to sustain the bulk of their power.

The Demon and Deevil lords are, for the most part, Gods. They are powerful gods, who harness the worship of powerful races (the demons and deevils themselves), and they have a trick most deities don't know (making essence splinters that can empower witches), but they are of the same range as deities, not alien intelligences.

[The Beast]

So Mark, I see a book based on an area already covered may come out next year. Is there any chance your follow up book will join it?

[Library Ogre]

So Mark, I see a book based on an area already covered may come out next year. Is there any chance your follow up book will join it?

*shrug* I turned in everything I had years ago.

[gaby]

I hope Necromancer,s spells from Rifter will be in it.

What do you want in it?

[kaid]

I hope Necromancer,s spells from Rifter will be in it.

What do you want in it?

The last couple rifters with necro spells most of those spells would be great cannon adds. Some of the ones from the last batch that let you do the PPE drain if you killed with that spell are VERY well suited to necromancers and a niche they could have fun with. They also do a good job of fleshing the class out with some more attack spells and a lot more utility which would make a necro pay more attention to his own necro spells and not lean as heavily on generic spells like they currently do.

[eliakon]

I hope Necromancer,s spells from Rifter will be in it.

What do you want in it?

The last couple rifters with necro spells most of those spells would be great cannon adds. Some of the ones from the last batch that let you do the PPE drain if you killed with that spell are VERY well suited to necromancers and a niche they could have fun with. They also do a good job of fleshing the class out with some more attack spells and a lot more utility which would make a necro pay more attention to his own necro spells and not lean as heavily on generic spells like they currently do.

A couple of the Rifter spells would be interesting additions, assuming that the are brought inline with the rest of the magic.
The PPE drain/kill spells are sickly powerful for instance (when you get into mid levels the spells start getting to be free or have negative costs....)
And while I love the Malevolent Smile spell....it just doesn't strike me as 'necromatic'
I like the idea of 'thematic' magics that flesh out the darker classes...But not at the expense of turning necromancers into apex combat mages. They should be creepy death mages, not the go-to class for damage/DPS.

[URLeader Hobbes]

I'd like it to not be full of errors and mistakes like the first MOM book.

[Kargan3033]

I'd like to see the *lost* magic of biomancy/flesh crafting/magical genetics