Mage suggestions

[Marhem]

Hi, thought i would make a couple suggestions about mages we might like to see in the arena. Please add other suggestions and critique.


Elementalist : Trained in 2 elemental schools of your choice. He would be a mage of variety as his attack spells would have a choice between attacks. It would have 4 attacks, 2 of witch you could use depending on your training. He would also summon elementals, depending on school training choice.


Weapons master: he is trained in the war and arcane schools. Solo mage, like forcemaster, would have very little creatures( floating bows, swords, shields, etc.) and would have many pieces of exchangeable  equipment witch would be cantrip. His theme is power through energy weapons. One special ability is his melee attacks would be ranged 0-1, still having the melee trait.

[blackirishguilt]

I like the Elementalist ideas.  One of the first things I thought about building once I had the game was an Avatar mage who cast only Elemental spells but from all 4 schools.  Here's one I've been thinking about.

Drow Assassin: Dark Elf, trained in Nature and Dark.  Would be super cool to see "dark" versions of living creatures and maybe introduce some evil animals (Bugbears, Gnolls, stuff like that) and a Mage that would pair really well with [mwcard=FWQ09]Sectarus, Dark Rune Sword[/mwcard] and some poison style curses.  The thief class is one that is really underrepresented in the game, and I love seeing Mages trained in multiple schools as well.   Would have to pay triple for Holy or Fire spells.

[Brian VanAlstyne]

I've wanted a Dark Priest for a while but I dont know how you balance it power wise. You'd almost have to create a whole new symbol or find a way to allow them a specific number of holy and dark spells. Or if you want to get mathematical they have to pay 1.5 for holy/dark or something like that.

[Marhem]

One thing I think mage wars has overlooked and I think still would overlook in the siren expansion is Frost, which brings me to another idea.

(no idea the name): He/She is an Ice wizard who can summon Ice elementals, Ice imps, and other Ice creatures. One of her special abilities would be frozen ground. Every deployment phase the mage may place a frozen ground token on a tile (like vines). all creatures on the tile gain slow trait. The mage may summon ice creatures to that tile. Ice creatures gain the fast trait on these tiles. if a creature is attacked on one of these tiles and damaged, It gains a chilled token, if it already has one, it gains frostbite and looses the chilled. chilled does not go away on these tiles. The frozen ground token will disappear after 3 turns. If a fire spell is used in the tile, cancel the spell and the frozen ground is destroyed, if a creature with a burn token goes in or passes thru, the burn is destroyed and one turn is removed from the tile. Chilled: melee attacks on this creature add 1 dice to the roll. The creature gains the slow trait. The marker is destroyed after on turn if the creature is not on a frozen tile. Frostbite:   melee attacks on this creature add 2 dice to the roll, 1 dice to all ice spell attacks. creature takes 2 damage every turn. If a creature has chilled and gains a second chill, destroy both chilled markers and replace with frostbite.

[Elessar]

Weapons master: he is trained in the war and arcane schools. Solo mage, like forcemaster, would have very little creatures( floating bows, swords, shields, etc.) and would have many pieces of exchangeable  equipment witch would be cantrip. His theme is power through energy weapons. One special ability is his melee attacks would be ranged 0-1, still having the melee trait.

I like the idea.  How about this?  Instead of a "weapon" equipment slot and a "shield" equipment slot, he has two weapon slots and could use them both as a full action.  I.e., dual-wielding. 

Or maybe a trait on his mage card that gives him extra dice when using a two-handed weapon?  (Which would make the orc warlord's hammer actually useful). 

[Marhem]

I really like the dual wielding part, it would be like a master double strike. Or another thing is he could use a 2 handed weapon as a one handed and if he wanted to switch energy weapons, he could pay 3 mana at anytime one of his creatures move.

[flamespeak]

Steampunk Gnome. Heavily focused on living conjurations like steam powered golems, clockwork hounds, and similar ideas. Give him a mobile spawn point like a walking fortress or something.

Unstable Necromancer variant. Turn the undead into living bombs. Plague bombs for zombies to poison folks and the skellys do bone shrapnel damage.

Muscle Wizard (forcemater variant). Unable to use equipment, but enchantments have double (both positive and negative) effects where applicable. His life and basic melee damage are high, his channelling is total garbage.

[Björn Stornämd]

Every mage has one primary magic type and possibly a secondary. I don't think Arcane Wonders will divert from that.  I doubt we'll see mages with two primary or none. Maybe there will be an exception to this rule with an Elementalist.

Wizard, Beastmaster, Priest, Warlock, Warlord, Druid, Necromancer and Paladin are very basic classes from RPGs. Forcemaster and Siren are not your standard RPG class but they fit into the mage wars fantasy world just fine. The spell cards' flavor text mentions Primus, Tempus, Archeon, General and Warmaster. I think these flavor texts refer to individual's titles rather than hints at a new classes of mages. I don't think AW will go mad and introduce lots of crazy ideas for mages, they will stick to some of the classic fantasy classes.

All the mages have a subtype that they are really good at. Wizards got mana and metamagic, Warlocks have demons and curses, Necromancers have undead, Priests have healing, Forcemasters have force, Beastmasters have animals, Druids have plants and Warlords have command spells. I'm guessing the Siren will have control as in the spells charm and mind control. Paladin might have protection, light or something completely new. I'm sure there will be future mages released that are great at transform (turn to stone), psychic (sleep, mind control, charm, mind control) and poison (ghoul rot, poison blood, poison gas cloud).

legendary creatures such as Otto Kronig, master engineer and Sir Corazin, Blademaster aswell as goblin alchemist, even though he isn't a legend, suggest that engineer, blademaster and alchemist won't be mages but take part in the game as minor characters.

Since the game is called mage wars, I don't think we'll see classes such as warrior, hunter, rogue, ranger or bard. They might make an entrance as legendary creatures instead.

This game has no apparent race abilities. I don't think all high elves/dwarfs/orcs will be sharing any traits. All races seem pretty equal in the arena. AW wants the mages balanced. They all have 120 spell points and fairly close hp and mana. This makes me think we won't see Troll kings or fairy princess as mages but perhaps as legendary creatures.

spell card art that may hint at future mages:
[mwcard=MW1E23] Jinx[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I06] Dispel[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWI01] Destroy Magic[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E20] Harmonize[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E24] Magebane[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E31] Poisoned Blood[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I11] Explode[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I16] Lay Hands[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E11] Divine Intervention[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E37] Sacred Ground[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I12] Force Push[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWE01] Charm[/mwcard]


In conclusion, here are my guesses of future mages:
Arcane: Mystic, Enchanter, Sorcerer, Conjuror
Dark: Vampire Lord (vampiric), Witch (curses, frogs, cats, charms, poison)
Holy: Paladin (protection), Monk (air)
Mind: Siren (control), Seer (psychic), Illusionist (illusions)
Nature: Shaman (totem), Shapeshifter/Werewolf (lycanthrope)
War: No idea

Legendary creatures:
hunter
spider queen (spiders)
bard
scout
assassin
sage
warrior
troll king (trolls)
fairy princess (fairies)
ranger
rogue

I'm sure a lot of this has been mentioned in the forum before. I don't follow it and wanted to share my thoughts on what to look forward to in the future of mage wars expansions.

[BoomFrog]

I agree with almost everything you said, but I think subtypes are our biggest hint at what lies ahead. Subtypes are used most often for rings and spawnpoint restrictions so a common creature subtype indicates a future mage who focuses on that type. With several insects so far I think it likely that we will have an insect focused nature mage at some point.

I also think druids 1 level of water was quite a surprise so I think they will have more surprises in the future. Paladin will probably have level 1 war.

[Marhem]

Well,
1. Warlord is not technically a mage because (except dwarf) he all he does can be done without magic. Therefor it makes the shade possible.
2. Though you say the weapons master has too many main classes, he could be like the archmage.


If I'm forgetting anything, please let me know .

[Sailor Vulcan]

http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=14161.0

The Warlord can summon creatures out of nothing but mana. Yes, he's a mage.

Command spells are too magical. Do you think a regular old goblin grunt knows how to charge without his warlord's battle orders? If it did, it would charge every time it moved and attacked.

IMO, Command spells command the body, while the words command the mind. Or haven't you noticed that casting charge on a friendly creature doesn't force them to charge at the enemy? It only makes them better at it if they do decide to charge. Casting on guard is a separate action from the creature guarding, and you can cast "On Guard" in a zone and not have any of them guard afterwards.

[Marhem]

The shade can summon creatures also, though there are limited options. Shadow stepping is also magical(similar to TP). It works.


Also, about the weapons master,  he could be regular and just have all other schools coast triple.

[KosmosAlive]

One thing I think mage wars has overlooked and I think still would overlook in the siren expansion is Frost, which brings me to another idea.

(no idea the name): He/She is an Ice wizard who can summon Ice elementals, Ice imps, and other Ice creatures. One of her special abilities would be frozen ground. Every deployment phase the mage may place a frozen ground token on a tile (like vines). all creatures on the tile gain slow trait. The mage may summon ice creatures to that tile. Ice creatures gain the fast trait on these tiles. if a creature is attacked on one of these tiles and damaged, It gains a chilled token, if it already has one, it gains frostbite and looses the chilled. chilled does not go away on these tiles. The frozen ground token will disappear after 3 turns. If a fire spell is used in the tile, cancel the spell and the frozen ground is destroyed, if a creature with a burn token goes in or passes thru, the burn is destroyed and one turn is removed from the tile. Chilled: melee attacks on this creature add 1 dice to the roll. The creature gains the slow trait. The marker is destroyed after on turn if the creature is not on a frozen tile. Frostbite:   melee attacks on this creature add 2 dice to the roll, 1 dice to all ice spell attacks. creature takes 2 damage every turn. If a creature has chilled and gains a second chill, destroy both chilled markers and replace with frostbite.

How about Cryomancer for a name? Ice Magic would be his/her specialty, of course. Ice Elemental, Blizzard Terror, Abominable Snowmen, Yetis, Icicle Cave spawnpoint, Frostbreath Iceshard Dragon, and the Freeze condition are my suggestions. 

Frozen Ground markers could be very similar to the vines, as you said, in that they could be sacrificed to cast Frost or Ice Magic creatures to their zone. There could be Ice attacks including freezing wind, icicles, and even a sword made of Ice.

Something that could tie into the Siren's strategy is the idea of Melting Frozen Ground: When a Frozen Ground marker is targeted by a Flame attack, it would cancel the attack and be destroyed like you said, and it could also create a small effect of water in the Zone until the end of the round. Perhaps it could be something like Flood that the Siren would also utilize. This would make a possible chain reaction between a Cryomancer, Siren/Hydromancer, and Fire mage: Cryomancer casts Frozen Ground, Fire mage casts attack and melts into water, Siren uses flood to summon a Water creature. This could be the very first example of Fire mages and Water mages having a cohesive strategy when teaming.

That 2V2 game would be epic, especially if it were Warlock + Fire Wizard on one team, and Siren + Cryomancer on the other team - so epic! lol

[Sailor Vulcan]

Why would ice slow creatures? Isn't ice slippery?

Also, that cryomancer just sounds like an ice version of a Druid. With way overpowered "vine" markers.

Tbh I kind if think maybe the typical conception of an ice mage that were all familiar with could use some refining. Everybody knows they use icy weather and ice monsters, and build scary palaces/fortresses of ice with icy booby traps, and freeze their enemies on blocks of ice, and are able to do anything that ice/snow can possibly be used for.

But I'm not sure what it would be trained in, besides water. Considering all the fortresses and constructs that ice mages make (the better to keep their hearts locked away in the icy prisons of their own making), maybe war training would make sense. It would be good for helping to expand the war school beyond soldiers, at least.

[Zaunpfahl]

Thematically I want a Bard/Skald character (so bad it hurts).  Mechanically, I'm not sure how I would work this though; the Warlord already occupies the obvious (to me) design space.

Training in all Level 1 Schools seemed like an interesting idea, but it's actually boring (many tough choices, or splashing is removed).

A limited (per-game) pre-paring a spell from your discard pile? Or returning a spell from your discard to your spell book?

An interesting mechanic (maybe not right for the bard):

[# of times per game] you may pay 1 mana when casting an incantation spell, to give it the Cantrip Trait.