How Do You Do It?
By Bricu | January 17, 2010
I have a question for you, dear reader. How do you write up your character’s in-game powers?
For paladins, do you pray for the Holy Light to Smite, Hold or Heal? Does your mage call on complex arcane formula’s to reign fire down on her enemies heads, or is it a more innate power? Is your druid’s shifting power a quick, painless transition or is it painful?
Write up how your character demonstrates their power!
7 Comments
Rashona on January 18, 2010 at 11:46 am.
For Rashona, shapeshifting takes effort but no thought – it’s essentially the metaphysical equivalent of muscle memory. Her shifting powers come from her dedication to the Earthmother, and their use is very much an emotional/instinctive thing for her. *Healing*, on the other hand, is hard and clumsy; in an emergency, she can recite a prayer or two, but that’s about the extent of it.
I actually have a lot of fun with this question on my BM hunter Khallan, trying to walk that fine line between “above-average rapport with her pets” and “talks to the animals”. With her, I play it as having spent a LOT of time out watching and/or battling various Azerothian critters, to where she can achieve significant (but still non-verbal) communication with them. Gives me an excuse to research animal behavior, which is something I enjoy.
Sorcha on January 18, 2010 at 1:11 pm.
My balance druid sings her spells. She’s a dual-class character, and when she’s a priest, she weaves her spells out of light and shadow with her fingers, then does something to set them off.
Anea on January 19, 2010 at 2:11 am.
The first time I really gave thought to writing out descriptions of spells that my character may have was when I read Dueg’s Saturday RP. I am loath to pick one or two posts for you to read because it breaks up the story – if you have time to read them all, I’d advise it, since he doesn’t only write about Dueg’s spells as a priest, he adds in other classes as well and it’s very enlightening to read them. I hadn’t ever given thought to how the spells happened because I only saw race casting animations over and over – but of course different classes would cast differently!
But again – I really enjoyed Dueg’s and I’m sure you would too.
(un)Holy Dueg! on January 19, 2010 at 9:08 am.
Well, after Anea talked me up so much I figured I’d make a comment on my system that she kindly pimped for me. Basically I look at the three different types of casters: divine, spiritual and arcane. For me, divine casters cast spells using prayers, so they speak in a normal language and there’s no set rote they have to speak, they simply have to have faith in their words. Shamans and druids are similar since they both draw their power from spiritual sources, but it seems to me that shamans ask spirits for help in their spell casting with more of a cooperative feel whereas druids don’t need to speak at all when casting, adept at manipulating and molding the energy of the emerald dream. Finally, arcane casters cast everything by rote and in an arcane language, using words of power to draw energy by force of will.
At least, that’s how I see it. Thanks for talking me up Anea!
Sorcha on January 19, 2010 at 12:11 pm.
I’m convinced that NE priests and human/dwarf priests do their spells differently. Humans and dwarves are priests of the Light and Night Elves are priests of Elune. That’s a significant difference, in my view.
So my human priest uses her spiritual power to bend the Light, which is a form of prayer. I see Elune as a deity of balance, so my NE priest weaves all spells out of both light and shadow. Sometimes, one is foreground and one background, and sometimes it’s reversed. The most powerful spells, however, have them in balance, sort of like those Escher paintings where figure and ground are confused and shifting.
Niv on January 19, 2010 at 2:43 pm.
Hrrrm…. Niv always shifts at a thought into her feral forms, she’s so used to switching around in them she gets itchy if she stays in one to long as a matter of fact. Her tree form in harder usually taking a few moments of meditation while she reaches for a stronger connection with nature.
Rai… well… she just kinda slings cold and darkness while attempting to decapitate her foes, She pretty much makes up death knighting as she goes, it’s part of the reason she’s frost all those procs to watch give her a very random feel.
Corise on January 19, 2010 at 4:51 pm.
I see Yelgah’s tanking and healing as very different. With tanking, she does a lot of meditation and prayer beforehand, drawing the Light into and around her; combat itself tends to be a mixture of the physical and the spiritual that comes instinctively with enough practice. With healing, it’s more purely spiritual; her healing spells take the form of spoken prayers, and it requires a great deal more mental focus to keep at it with all the distractions on the battlefield. (This is how I explain why Yelgah is, IC and OOC, considerably better at tanking than healing — the physicality of tanking is something she’s been able to train her body to do, while the abstract nature of healing is a bit more tricky for her.)