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We know how to make them and they're useful, mainline production.

4 (33.3%)

They seem out of place and run rather counter to a fantasy setting, avoid them.

2 (16.7%)

Get outta here, nerd, nobody finds guns that interesting.

1 (8.3%)

Go ahead and have the NPCs make em, but not worth player input.

1 (8.3%)

Support, but they shouldn't be the standard weapons.

4 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 12

[Amperzand]

I'm not sure that's what he tried to do, but it'd certainly work.


@Spark function; As I see it, this thing runs off of code. The code is written to a hypercomplex crystalline matrix in esoteric symbols, but it's still code. To be able to cast spells, it'd need significant alteration to allow a machine to use complex magic, or technomantic widgets keyed to execute a specific spell. It uses magic to operate, that does not make it a wizard, anymore than your battery, or the motor in the fortress' elevator, is capable of independent magic use.

For that matter, a zombie mage would also be incapable of using magic. A Lich, an undead mage, can. A zombie, a semi-mindless reanimated corpse, could not. Possibly a Husk, one of those nasty things made by cursed dust storms, could also do so, since they're seemingly still independently aware and possess an- admittedly corrupt -soul.

Even a mind-controlled living mage can't actually cast, just be cast through by another. You could avoid burning yourself out by running the actual cast process through an overridden subordinate, but they can't do the spell for you.

[Amperzand]

[ORIGINAL POST EDITED]

{There's new info in the magic section, in addition to minor alterations to Da Rules. I recommend perusal.}

[Dustan Hache]

Spark isn't a spellcaster itself, it's a sentient machine with control over its components. Were you near it, you could cast to defend it, or if you hadn't just been blown up by a cannon, you could cast at range along the link to defend it. Of course, casting at range/along links is harder and more time-consuming than casting at short range/within Mk.1 Eyeball distance. It's fairly easy for, say, a necromancer to cast a functional "Soulrend Sentient" spell against spark in half the time it'd take you to send a defense along your link. Equally, you can throw a fireball before a necromancer can magic up an "Entropic Barrier" to absorb it for his zombies.

@Hache; While base DF necromancy is highly limited in versatility, I'm altering that. While you still don't have a full range of Dark Magic type spells, you are a Death Magician, instead of merely a Reanimator, if that makes sense.

Okay. If that is the case, we need to clarify and think up some stuff PM style. Sadly i am going to be asleep half the day, and cut off from any sort of wireless connection for the remainder of it, so expect slow response.
As for the rules regarding characters, you can refer to the army as brutes, the squad of painless mercs and the few mages tossing stuff as henchmen, and the stranger as a "villain" though that term is not exactly a fit at the moment.

[Amperzand]

I'm basically classing all main player-characters as player-characters, regardless of faction. Yes, you can have more than one, though I reserve the right to naysay any given character beyond the first, if I feel the player is being cheesy and making a private army of characterizations.

[Amperzand]

I'm currently acting under the assumption that you have yet to render everything wireless. The elevator does have a simple security system, allowing it to be easily and quickly sealed from the top. Of course, it can equally easily be unsealed from the top. We have had little reason to consider preventing something from going down into the caverns, since there's nothing of particular significance down there aside from Skalewyrm, who hates literally every animate thing other than the dwarves of this particular fort and is nearly invulnerable, making it more a protector than something to be protected.

[TheBiggerFish]

...I made an alert system around the same time I did...No, BEFORE I did the elevator.  I would have coded something like
if (alarmwidget.isAlert()){gotoFloor(0)/*top floor*/, turnOffInterfacePanel(-1), doResetAdminOnly(1);}
...The elevator SHOULD ALREADY BE OFF.  And additionally require admin rights for the system-the elevator system that is- which would go to the...guard captain, me, probably Amp, the head mechanic,...and maybe a couple other positions, to unlock.
:facepalm:
Need to think this stuff through more.  Though to be fair I was not EXPECTING to have an emergency-shutoff situation occur.

[Amperzand]

Nor would you have been. Of course, it locking down as soon as an alert comes up would prevent soldiers from quickly helping people in the caverns.

Also, it's worth noting that there's also a nice convenient set of stairs, the gate to which can be easily opened from the top, right next to the elevator.

The jury's out as to how any ally of Hache's knows his way around the inside of the fort, since he never successfully reconnoitered the interior bits.

You can always seal the entire cavern entrance shaft semi-permanently with the dynamite charges planted there, but that's a kinda overblown reaction to somebody trying to go down. Again, there isn't anything I can think of down there we mind a necromancer getting to. He might be clever or something and prove me wrong, but for now I see no reason to stop him getting out of the important bits of the fort and into a pitch-dark deathtrap full of nothing we care about.

[TheBiggerFish]

It wouldn't because the guard captain can override the lockdown.

...*shrug* He has triangulation/trilateration/whatever from his zombies?  Or he can sense magic the elevator shaft.

Also, while I'd think I'd've installed a magic lock on that gate as well, eh.  That is probably easily broken.

[Amperzand]

Agreed. Carry on.

[Dustan Hache]

one, he knows he wants to go down from detect magic, and two, he is simply finding the way down as he goes. I am assuming of course that the hallways are semi organized, and that a lift would have a rather large doorway leading to it due to the potential to mine out resources below.

[Amperzand]

You could certainly use the signage, it doesn't have batshit-crazy succession fort architecture. I had previously assumed you were acting on some fraudulent foreknowledge.

[Amperzand]

Suffice it to say that what happened in the narrator text updates happened, and that Murdoc is in the best position to act about The Stranger.

Fish, please accept that Spark is going to have fairly limited functionality. It's a research assistant with combat abilities designed to support those around it and prevent itself from being destroyed, not an all-purpose reconnaissance/hunter-killer drone. If you want one of those, spend a few months building it, you'll get the time. Golems work here, as do robots if you get the infrastructure built.

You can also claim an NPC to act as secondary character if you want multiple points of action.

[Dustan Hache]

Speakin of which, get on with the updop! I would rather not have my current unnamed dark mage character stuck with a miniature abomination strapped where its leg should be for the rest of his probably brief life.

[TheBiggerFish]

Suffice it to say that what happened in the narrator text updates happened, and that Murdoc is in the best position to act about The Stranger.

Fish, please accept that Spark is going to have fairly limited functionality. It's a research assistant with combat abilities designed to support those around it and prevent itself from being destroyed, not an all-purpose reconnaissance/hunter-killer drone. If you want one of those, spend a few months building it, you'll get the time. Golems work here, as do robots if you get the infrastructure built.

You can also claim an NPC to act as secondary character if you want multiple points of action.

*shrug*  I'll accept your vision of the character I guess.
Eh.
I still think the tail spike is totally reasonable.


Now...What would I build if I was going to build a purely bodyguard focus drone...
More than one, that's for sure.
Timecheck on producing a distributed node security dronelike thing.  That can cast magic without me having to shove mana in.

[Amperzand]

Murdoc has next action, which is the reason for my delay. If he doesn't show up soon, I'll skip him, call it shock or something.

Notably, I am selectively blind and didn't actually notice the tail-spike thing. The tail spike/blade is totally reasonable and you can have it. Still doesn't do any good for now, since Spark is offline with an empty power supply.

You can't build wizardbots, at least not without spending a lot of time developing layers of perquisite. You can build magitek that deploys preset spell-like energy constructs, but that's not the same thing.

The point of magitek is that you don't need to put mana in after getting it working, provided nothing goes wrong. Of course, with how limited the Geothaum is here, magitek is basically still using your mana supply, since there's so little to go around that any use of it counts. In DTG, you'd probably have more personal mana storage by far than the field here can supply within days.

There's only so much energy to go around, and this region's likely to run out before the battle's up, leaving anything that wants to use magic in the lurch.