Sir Corazin isn't a knight. However, based on his effects and how he's supposed to be played, I would say Baras really should be both war and holy.

Being spiritual doesn't necessarily make someone a clergy member, or even religious at all. A shaman is quite spiritual, but not a clergy member. Priests and monks are in positions of religious authority. Shamans are not. As I see it, spirituality doesn't automatically equate with the holy school. Religion does. Unless its an evil religion, then it would go to the dark school.

I suppose, but I wouldn't normally expect a pictomancer using runes to also be trained in water. Earth I can almost see, since runes are often carved in stone, but I don't think earth training is fitting for a pictomancer. And before anyone says that the Pictomancer should be called an Erilaz, Erilaz means earl, not rune master. Of course, since Etheria is not Earth, etymology of certain words could be different. Hmm, perhaps Erilaz would be a cool word for a mage that uses runes after all. Problem is, it sounds a lot cooler than Hedge Witch.

I was talking about four different mages: a monk, a hedge witch, a sorcerer and a pictomancer. Hedge witches and sorcerers are the ones that would have lower spellbook points, not monks. Sorry for the confusion. Unless your point was to suggest a three school version of the monk. I just don't see that happening. A martial artist monk would be a great fighter, but I doubt he could be warlike. I think he'd be preaching "peace and balance", not "Beat em up!" and would be a reactive soloing build. War is never waged solo, so I really really can't see the monk being trained in it. Perhaps that's just my opinion. Maybe a monk could be trained in war for some reason. But I have no idea what possible reason that could be.

I suppose that makes more sense. They'd be trained in arcane, then, instead of water.

While it sounds really fun, I think there should have more flavor. Instead of using the generic name "magician", it should be a "Hedge Witch". You know, since she has no particular training? However, what the Hedge Witch lacks in education she makes up for with adaptability and raw power. In fact, Hedge Witches would sometimes have trouble controlling their power, so they might occasionally suffer some adverse effects when channeling, hence why they can't be properly educated in a school.


Also, because of their versatility (as well as their lack of education) perhaps the Hedge Witch should have higher channeling but lower spellbook points? I'm thinking around 100 or so spellbook points and 12 channeling. I think the Hedge Witch's versatility should come more from her spellbook design then from actual play. If you want a mage with tons of versatility in play but less in designing their book, I think a good idea would be a pictomage, that can make their art real. The pictomage would be trained in Water, their creatures would be shapeshifting ink blobs, and they would have enchantments and incantations that could copy or steal spells from the opponent.

What do you think?

Wiz is completely right, I apologize.

Not that it's an excuse, but the reason I reacted that way is that I've been picked on a lot both online and in real life for my strategic preferences in games. Ironically, that very reason I reacted so strongly should have been a reason to realize my bias and come back later with a clear head. Sorry I didn't respond with my apology for this sooner, I've been stressed with taking all the exams that I didn't get to take until close to the end of the summer semester. Anyways, now that that's out of the way...

I think your concept is actually quite interesting, and I'm upset at myself for practically bashing it earlier. In fact, I think this could make multiplayer work with minimal politics and still be just as dynamic and engaging as facing the same number of opponents normally would be in a regular multiplayer game. I think I might actually want to try this in real life for a four player game, once I have a playgroup that is, which hopefully will be soon.

For the three player version, I'm already imagining an awesome warlord idea in which I trap the other two players behind walls in their corners, and then use archer's watchtowers, one for Deadeye Sniper and one for my Ivarium Longbow equipped Mage. That's assuming that the format is still going to use a triangular board of course.

I'm thinking it would be ideal to use 10 triangular zones, but creatures can only move diagonally. I know this sounds weird, but I think it might be the only way for it to work with a triangular board. I drew a couple diagrams on a piece of paper, and the results for a 16 or a 9 zone triangle board where creatures move adjacently rather than diagonally, were not good.

If you have a 16 zone triangular board, the zone distance from one corner edge to the other is 7 zones. On top of that, there is one zone in the very center of the board by itself, and it is four zones away from any corner edge. There are three other zones that are diagonal from the center one that I would probably also consider center zones to a great extent, but then that would make about 4 center zones. The thing is, 16 triangular zones in a triangle shape is too big. However with 9 triangular zones, I noticed that there is no one center zone. Rather, there are "6 center" zones arranged like a wheel--more than there are corners, which since it is a triangle are half as many as the center zones are. However, if you arrange the same 16 zone board, but take out the 6 upward pointing ones and only allow creatures to move through the corners of each zone suddenly it looks a bit better. Each side of the triangle would now have 4 zones like in the regular rectangular board, which might be too small. Worse, this creates a center zone that is only 2 zones away from every zone on the board.

Then I drew a 25 triangle board, and excluded all 10 upward pointing triangles to leave 15 total zones, including 3 corners, 3 center zones and a maximum range of 4, so each side would be 5 zones long.

Now I've noticed a problem that all triangle-shaped boards share when movement is adjacent rather than diagonal: 3 triangular zones in the corners means that you can be walled off with just one wall in the corners, and 2 walls anywhere on the sides.

So instead, I propose a 12-agon shaped board. It would have a hexagon of 6 triangular zones in the center, and around that would be 6 adjacent square zones, and then between the squares would be 6 more triangular zones, for a total of 18 zones. The farthest range would be 5, a length of 6 zones between a square zone and an outer triangle. Each player would start in an outer triangle.

What do you think?