160 réponses à ce sujet

[Inprea]

thats1evildude wrote...

Ah yes, I remember having this argument a long time ago with someone else about the smuggled lyrium.

1) You don't know if it would be enough lyrium to power the ritual. And even if it did, you would need several mages to cast the ritual using said lyrium.

2) Said lyrium is implied to be raw lyrium (Rogek tells you not to take it out of the box), which is extremely dangerous. The lyrium they use for the ritual to send a mage into the Fade is presumably processed so it doesn't kill you.

3) Why would anyone want to use the extremely expensive lyrium you paid 40-plus sovereigns for to power the ritual when there are way easier ways of doing it? Man, that's just dumb.

1. Indeed you don't know if it would be enough but that doesn't mean the Warden wouldn't have put it forward as an idea.

2. My Warden is a mage, Wynne and Morgan was with me and Jowan is another mage. How many mages are needed? Does the quality of the mages make a difference as Morgan and Wynne are both high end mages.

3. Because my Warden would gladly pay 30 gold to save the life of a high nobles wife or son. Thirty gold to put a high noble in your pocket seems cheap to me. Plus it wouldn't involve the risk of traveling all the way back to the circle tower.

[Inprea]

MisterJB wrote...

Inprea wrote...
What makes it likely? Jowan didn't need to torture anyone to knock group of templars flat, there is no evidence to show Hawke's father used anything other then his own blood or that he's the type of person who would and I don't recall any proof that Merille used any blood other then her own to compensate for lacking piles of lyrium.

What makes it likely is the fact that Bioware has claimed it is so. If pain and death give power to blood magic, then, logically, blood magic that lacks either will be weakened. By how much, I don't know; but it will be.

Tthe lyrium from the circle works just fine and Jowan didn't know of the lyrium the Warden was packing if I'm not mistaken. So once again why didn't the Warden mention the large chunk of lyrium she was packing?

Because if it was unprepared lyrium, Jowan couldn't even get close to it without dying on the spot.
Yes, a mage warden can, seemingly, carry it without problems but it could be that the lyrium was held in some special box for transportation purposes only.

This is a storyline after all and at times writers will ignore the rules of their own setting for the sake of drama or the rule of cool or do you believe Gaider is above such things?

What Mr.Gaider has done is alter the rules of his setting.

"Jowan: This ritual requires a lot of blood; all of it, in fact.
Teagan: So, someone must be sacrificed.
Fans: Wait, why couldn't they just collect 5 or so liters of blood which is how much an average person has in his body?
Gaider: Because blood magic requires pain and death to work, shut up."

Significantly more powerful doesn't mean 100 times more powerful. It can but it's no guarantee. If the increase was indeed so dramatic why doesn't every blood mage we encounter instantly sacrifice an underling and kill the entire party? Indeed how would the templars even stand up against such a blood mage with a few slaves to sacrifice? They're resistant to magic last time I checked no immune.

Wynne is a senior enchanter and Shale is a golem. Why couldn't Wynne guide Shale through the preperation process? Oghren is another person that could work with the lyrium with relative safety.

Do you have a link to where Gaider actually addressed the issue with Jowan and the blood ritual? I don't doubt he decided that blood magic should be increased by pain and suffering but as for this exact issue are you sure you're not putting words into his mouth? Also plenty of dead soldiers on the ground that suffered much pain.

[MisterJB]

Inprea wrote...
Significantly more powerful doesn't mean 100 times more powerful. It can but it's no guarantee. If the increase was indeed so dramatic why doesn't every blood mage we encounter instantly sacrifice an underling and kill the entire party? Indeed how would the templars even stand up against such a blood mage with a few slaves to sacrifice? They're resistant to magic last time I checked no immune.

What Jowan did by cutting his hand doesn't need to be the standard others blood mages should be compared to. As far as we know, Jowan was just very talented with blood magic.
Basically, I said a 100 like I could have said any other number. We don't have a graph where we can compare the pain inflicted with the results. All that we have been assured of  is pain and death empower blood magic.

Wynne is a senior enchanter and Shale is a golem. Why couldn't Wynne guide Shale through the preperation process? Oghren is another person that could work with the lyrium with relative safety.

For any number of reasons. Maybe they lacked the necessary equipment; maybe it takes an inordinate amount of time.

Do you have a link to where Gaider actually addressed the issue with Jowan and the blood ritual? I don't doubt he decided that blood magic should be increased by pain and suffering but as for this exact issue are you sure you're not putting words into his mouth? Also plenty of dead soldiers on the ground that suffered much pain.

Gaider never adressed the issue; but he did contribute to "The World of Thedas" and it was the thought process that lead to this new revelation regarding blood magic which was what I was attempting to illustrate, nothing else.
It was also an attempt at some humor; not at placing words in his mouth

[thats1evildude]

Inprea wrote...

2. My Warden is a mage, Wynne and Morgan was with me and Jowan is another mage. How many mages are needed? Does the quality of the mages make a difference as Morgan and Wynne are both high end mages.

Ah yes, this old chestnut. You MUST be the same person I had this argument with.

Look, if you have Wynne with you, then you completed Broken Circle. Which means the tower is clear and there would be no delays involved in going there. So why did you go straight to Redcliffe instead of stopping over at the Circle tower to deliver the smuggled lyrium so you can actually get paid? It's not like the Circle Tower isn't along the way to Redcliffe from Orzammar.

You may say it was "in-character" for your Warden mage to waste this valuable lyrium, but unless your Warden was a total moron, there's no good reason for you not to at least deliver that highly illegal and highly dangerous lyrium first, even if you didn't make the side trip back to Orzamma and kept going. Or, if you were really "such a good person" you would throw away all that money, then why is your supposedly saintly Warden even making deals with casteless criminals to smuggle lyrium in the first place?

I know your answer is going to be along the lines of "I didn't want to put off Redcliffe any longer because reasons", but come on. Redcliffe is the logical first destination in the game. If you put off Redcliffe until after Broken Circle and A Paragon of Her Kind AND THEN skipped completing "Precious Metals" until after Redcliffe was done, you were going out of your way to set up this little nitpick you have.

In any case, even if you did manipulate circumstances to have four mages present for the ritual, the first reason I laid out is perfectly valid: you don't know whether the illegal lyrium you have is of sufficient quantity or even safe to use for the ritual. That alone is a good reason for not mentioning it.

Modifié par thats1evildude, 09 décembre 2013 - 11:22 .

[snackrat]

The World of Thedas book (written by the staff and run past them for inaccuracies) mentions that blood magic is actually powered not by the blood itself, but by pain and/or life. So the only way to NOT kill the slaves is to cause them pain. I don't think you can really store pain.

Blood magic can only be considered 'more powerful' in TWO aspects:
-> allowing the ability to control others' minds and bodies through blood, and
-> increasing the casting resource, as mana is dependant on connection to the Fade and must be replenished over time.
If mages can cast bigger spells it isn't because blood magic made them more powerful, it is because it gave them a large enough source to draw from.

Modifié par Karsciyin, 09 décembre 2013 - 11:16 .

[MisterJB]

thats1evildude wrote...
Redcliffe is the logical first destination in the game.

Not that I agree with Inprea but I think it's more logical to save Redcliff until you've acquired the allegiance of one or two other groups. This because:
a) Your word will hold much more weight with Eamon.
If Eamon is in league with Loghain (his forces were conveniently absent from Ostagar), he will think twice before capturing you and delivering your head to the regent if there is a possiblity of retaliation by the dwarves/elves/mages who, despite not being incorruptible, are more absent from the political games of Ferelden than Eamon and thus, the chances of Loghain getting to them are fewer.

[Inprea]

thats1evildude wrote...

Inprea wrote...

2. My Warden is a mage, Wynne and Morgan was with me and Jowan is another mage. How many mages are needed? Does the quality of the mages make a difference as Morgan and Wynne are both high end mages.

Ah yes, this old chestnut. You MUST be the same person I had this argument with.

Look, if you have Wynne with you, then you completed Broken Circle. Which means the tower is clear and there would be no delays involved in going there. So why did you go straight to Redcliffe instead of stopping over at the Circle tower to deliver the smuggled lyrium so you can actually get paid? It's not like the Circle Tower isn't along the way to Redcliffe from Orzammar.

You may say it was "in-character" for your Warden mage to waste this valuable lyrium, but unless your Warden was a total moron, there's no good reason for you not to at least deliver that highly illegal and highly dangerous lyrium first, even if you didn't make the side trip back to Orzamma and kept going. Or, if you were really "such a good person" you would throw away all that money, then why is your supposedly saintly Warden even making deals with casteless criminals to smuggle lyrium in the first place?

I know your answer is going to be along the lines of "I didn't want to put off Redcliffe any longer because reasons", but come on. Redcliffe is the logical first destination in the game. If you put off Redcliffe until after Broken Circle and A Paragon of Her Kind AND THEN skipped completing "Precious Metals" until after Redcliffe was done, you were going out of your way to set up this little nitpick you have.

In any case, even if you did manipulate circumstances to have four mages present for the ritual, the first reason I laid out is perfectly valid: you don't know whether the illegal lyrium you have is of sufficient quantity or even safe to use for the ritual. That alone is a good reason for not mentioning it.

The dwarf said you could use it yourself after all you're the one that purchased it. I wanted to see if there would be some special use for it later on in the game. After all you never know whenever a large chunk of lyrium would be useful. It's sort of like in KOTOR when you pick up a shipment of rapidly breeding space frogs. You can poison them for 100 credits and solve the quest right away or you can hold onto them and sell them to a merchant on another planet for a profit instead of a loss and more experience points.

How am I to know whenever I'm going to need a significant mystic power source?

Not knowing if the lyrium will be potent enough isn't a reason not to recommend it. The Warden was asking what their options were after all trying to see what might work. How would you know the lyrium won't work if you don't even bother to ask? Do you keep quiet unless you're absolutely certain your solution will fix the problem? 

[Treacherous J Slither]

So blood magic was retconned huh? smh

Whatever. As long as blood magic is a mages only defense against Templars, all of my mages will be blood mages.

Freedom at any cost.

[The Elder King]

JSlither wrote...

So blood magic was retconned huh? smh

Whatever. As long as blood magic is a mages only defense against Templars, all of my mages will be blood mages.

Freedom at any cost.

 

Not really a retcon. You hurt yourself (or others) regardless when you use blood magic. More pain, more power. Killing someone, even more power. It was never stated that blood magic is on the same level if you cut your arm and stab someone in the heart. 

[Vit246]

I've wondered about the "economical" applications and uses of blood and the blood magic. How it could be a superior and alternative renewable resource in comparison to lyrium. How mages could start some sort of blood breeding programs using animals and livestock like pigs and cows. Store the collected blood in containers preserved by cold magic. Store blood into portable vials and use those instead of sacrificial slaves. Or just do some old-fashioned animal sacrifice.

Now we have info from World of Thedas about how blood magic is actually powered by pain, suffering, life, and whatnot, which does make unfortunate sense. That the actual amount of blood might be irrelevant. Does animal blood and sacrifices even work? I guess thats why live slaves are used instead of glass vials.

I would think that a properly trained blood mage could relatively easily deal with resisting demonic possession.

Modifié par Vit246, 14 décembre 2013 - 06:04 .

[Hellion Rex]

Vit246 wrote...

I would think that a properly trained blood mage could relatively easily deal with resisting demonic possession.

It would seem that when resisting possession, it appears to be a battle of wills. So amount of training might not matter when actively attempting to resist. It would all come down to willpower.