Eldan
2009-10-01, 03:50 AM
Quintessence. The Luminiferous Aether. The Weave. Allflood. There are many names for it, the medium through which magic manifests itself.
Centuries ago, Alchemists found a procedure, deceptively easy in execution, through which the substance could be distilled, liquefied, filled in bottles. But it proved to be extremely dangerous. It's volatile, explosive, it distorts magic by it's mere presence, it's a lethal poison to magicians and sickening to others.
Alchemists and mages tried to drink it, and they died, spectacularly. Golems infused with it went berserk and tended to explode.
But then, through an accident at first, one man drank it and survived. A young man, unskilled in magic, but healthy enough to survive the side effects. And he became what is now known as the first Quintessence Alchemist...
So, this idea came about when we were discussing magic systems tied to different attribute scores. The idea behind this one is to create a system with magic tied to constitution.
The quintessence alchemist ingests raw magical essence, gaining powers through it. His constitution (and probably level) determines how much he can drink before incapacitate himself.
Now: my basic idea was that the class gains passive powers depending on how much essence is consumed. Here, I would put stuff like an aura that distorts magic, spell resistance and probably several immunities. On higher levels, Spell Reflection or Absorption and, maybe, a shapechange to a form of pure, incorporeal magic. Elemental subtype, probably.
The way I imagined, the alchemist prepares himself, similar to a wizard, by first drinking essence, and then pretty much passing out in meditation for an hour, trying to fight down the effects to a level where they become useful.
I think, to show the dangerous nature of the substance, there should also be negative effects to this. Stat drain may be too extreme, but check penalties might be a good start.
Then, there should be powers that require the alchemist to use up some of the stored essence. Here, I would place things like force bursts of various kinds.
Now, the purpose of this thread is idea-gathering: I have the bare skeleton of an idea that could, probably, become quite cool, but I need some help coming up with enough ideas for essence application to make this class playable.
So, the question to you: what else could happen if one drank pure magical essence? What kinds of power would one gain?
Centuries ago, Alchemists found a procedure, deceptively easy in execution, through which the substance could be distilled, liquefied, filled in bottles. But it proved to be extremely dangerous. It's volatile, explosive, it distorts magic by it's mere presence, it's a lethal poison to magicians and sickening to others.
Alchemists and mages tried to drink it, and they died, spectacularly. Golems infused with it went berserk and tended to explode.
But then, through an accident at first, one man drank it and survived. A young man, unskilled in magic, but healthy enough to survive the side effects. And he became what is now known as the first Quintessence Alchemist...
So, this idea came about when we were discussing magic systems tied to different attribute scores. The idea behind this one is to create a system with magic tied to constitution.
The quintessence alchemist ingests raw magical essence, gaining powers through it. His constitution (and probably level) determines how much he can drink before incapacitate himself.
Now: my basic idea was that the class gains passive powers depending on how much essence is consumed. Here, I would put stuff like an aura that distorts magic, spell resistance and probably several immunities. On higher levels, Spell Reflection or Absorption and, maybe, a shapechange to a form of pure, incorporeal magic. Elemental subtype, probably.
The way I imagined, the alchemist prepares himself, similar to a wizard, by first drinking essence, and then pretty much passing out in meditation for an hour, trying to fight down the effects to a level where they become useful.
I think, to show the dangerous nature of the substance, there should also be negative effects to this. Stat drain may be too extreme, but check penalties might be a good start.
Then, there should be powers that require the alchemist to use up some of the stored essence. Here, I would place things like force bursts of various kinds.
Now, the purpose of this thread is idea-gathering: I have the bare skeleton of an idea that could, probably, become quite cool, but I need some help coming up with enough ideas for essence application to make this class playable.
So, the question to you: what else could happen if one drank pure magical essence? What kinds of power would one gain?