Mages that you would like to see in the game

[Sailor Vulcan]

Monk should be Holy and Mind, not War. Dark should cost triple. Being a monk is a religious position, like being a priest. The mage's healing abilities would definitely go better with the holy school. If you're thinking of the kind of martial artist monk that you see in movies, it would probably be better off like this. The monk would be for a soloing build. He or she would have good understanding of mind, body and spirit, and the connections between them, and would apply that knowledge in multiple ways in battle. The monk would be able to attack pressure points on enemy creatures to stun or weaken them. The monk would also have elusive. He would also have equipment that allows him to push enemy creatures after a melee attack. A possible example could be...

Force Gloves: (Monk only): Full action attack is "Flip throw" 4 dice--Effect die 7+ Push the attacked creature one zone away in a direction of your choice.
Quick action attack is "Flip toss" 3 dice--when used as a counterstrike, push the attacking creature one zone away in a random direction.

The abilities involving Ki counters are a good idea. However, I think they should be rearranged a bit.

Inner Ki: Every time this mage is attacked, place a ki counter on him or her

Trained body: For each ki counter removed, the monk can heal 2 dice worth of damage OR remove a status effect, OR use "Ki Blast", a quick action 0-1 range attack spell that deals 1 dice of damage for each ki counter removed for it.
For example if your monk has 6 ki counters, one thing he or she could do would be to spend 2 ki counters to heal 4 damage, spend 1 to remove a condition, and 3 to attack for 3 dice of damage.

the monk should also be unable to use armor on himself or herself. Then instead of "combo" he or she should have cards that taunt opposing creatures.

Health at 32 sounds pretty good to me. Channeling at 9 also. He really should not use that many attack spells. Attack spells are all ranged, and the monk really doesn't sound like a regular ranged attacker to me. In fact, I would say that oftentimes his only ranged attack should be the one in his Trained Body ability, "Ki Blast".

Like the Forcemaster, the monk would be a soloing mage. He or she would use position control (including things that stun enemy creatures) along with defenses, the elusive trait and cards that taunt enemy creatures. He would also have equipment that gives him different melee attacks. Like say, boots that give him or her charge and both quick action and full action kick attacks, or gloves that allow him to throw enemy creatures short distances.

What do you think?

[calisk]

with monk I started at holy mind, but came to the conclusion the war fit a melee fighter type a bit better, I was also concerned with giving fighting type moves to the priest by giving them the holy attribute.

I might of been over thinking it though, as holy mind does fit better.

I agree I had the solo style of play in mind for the monk, and I wanted to build a versatile fighting type. I tried to handle him not equiping equipment by making non-monk gear cost criple, equipment wih the monk subtype would all be stuff monks would wear, like prayer beads, or an extendable staff giving him reach, none of it would be armor.

style enchantments would be another way you could go with the monk and I had pictured the ki blast as one of his attack cards.

I wasn't really sure of which direction to go with building ki on the monk, getting hit is one way, but I know most competitive players would probably prefer a progressive style of character to a responsive style of character. thus if he builds ki off of being hit, he should probably have other means of building ki via his cards.

either way I like your ideas, I would need to think of what kind of support cards he'd have with him to really know if they were a good idea, but regardless all good suggestions.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I really don't see the monk as an aggressive character. I think most of the time monks are depicted as preaching peace and balance. Just like the idea of them trying to only receive attacks that they believe are worth taking, they would only make attacks that are worth making. Now that I think of it, most of the monk's attacks that are not aimed at the enemy mage should probably have only 1 or 2 dice of damage, being used more for their taunt, push, daze and stun effects. I still really think that he should only have the one attack spell, "Ki-Blast" and the rest of his attacks should be melee attacks only. With this sort of strategy, I really don't think he needs a bunch of extra cards to build his ki up quickly.

What are you talking about when you say that responsive mages aren't as competitive?

Also, I thought of another idea for something new to try with new mage classes. Mages with less training but more raw power. For instance, a Sorcerer would have less training in arcane then a wizard, but he would have access to more powerful spells that only he can use, and all out of school spells would cost triple. He would have less spellbook points than a Wizard though.

Another idea that people were talking about in the custom cards section was "the magician", a versatile mage with no particular training. First copy of a spell would cost x1, second copy of a spell would cost x2, and so on. However, I thought that rather than have the generic name "Magician" it would make more sense to use the name "Hedge Witch" since they have no particular training. What they lack in training they would make up for with their intuition and raw power, since they would have access to any spell that isn't (insert mage here) only. But they would only have around 90 spellpoints or so. I think she would have 12 channeling.

The Hedge Witch would be extremely versatile in spellbook design, so it would be hard to predict her but not quite as versatile in play. While it would be difficult to predict what strategy she is going to use, she might only have one chance to set it up. I think a good counterpart to her would be a Pictomancer.
The Pictomancer would be have less versatility in spellbook design, but more in play. His creatures would be shapeshifting ink blobs, and he would have spells that can copy or steal opponent's spells. He would have training in Water.

I think this sounds really cool. Thoughts?

[Moonglow]

Channelling represents raw power more in MW than spell book points. A trim down to 90 really just reduces diversity of spells.

[Sailor Vulcan]

The raw power thing was supposed to represent the extra channeling, not the lower spellbook points. The lower spellbook points represents having less knowledge because of having no formal magical education. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

While a trim down to 90 would reduce the diversity of spells that are actually in the Hedge Witch's spellbooks, the diversity of the spells she has access to would still be a lot greater. Also, someone pointed out to me that a pictomancer using shapeshifting inkblobs probably doesn't fit so well in the world of Etheria, and that it would be better if the pictomancer created things from runes.

[calisk]

I think it would be better to do something like the following

monk

training: mind,holy,war. level 4 or greater spells cost double. dark costs triple.

this way they have more training diversity, but has a restriction on upper end of what the monk can use.

[Sailor Vulcan]

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.

[calisk]

was just using the monk as an example of how you could do a 3 training mage by restricting the higher level spells.

wasn't really a suggestion for the monk.

[haslo]

As for monks, the way I see them represented in many games is indeed as a solo fighter with war-like abilities. In the spirit of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin really.

[Moonglow]

Even in history there are documented examples of fighting monks who weren't umm holy in the archtype represented here by the holy school.  I would have thought that the mental/war schools reflected this better than including holy.  If you go down that road the beastmasters and shaman and everyone should be holy as they're associated with some form of spiritualism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%8Dhei

As for monks, the way I see them represented in many games is indeed as a solo fighter with war-like abilities. In the spirit of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin really.

[Sailor Vulcan]

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.

[Sailor Vulcan]

If you expect the monk to be a solo build then he should not be trained in war. According to the article you linked, the warrior monks, or "sōhei",

"did not operate as individuals, or even as members of small, individual temples, but rather as warriors in a large extended brotherhood or monastic order. The 'home temple' of a sōhei monastic order might have had several, if not tens or a hundred, smaller monasteries, training halls, and subordinate temples."

The "yamabushi" on the other hand were mountain ascetics, so even though they are referred to as warriors, I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the sense of waging or participating in war, since who would one war against all by yourself on a mountain?

For a yamabushi monk, training in holy and mind makes more sense. For a sōhei monk, holy and war.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Elven mages that can manipulate and control life itself; magic would flow through their very blood, and all Elven would be mages. Elven would be able to accelerate the aging process of trees into forests to hide in (these forests block LoS into a zone, but not out of it. They also die sooner due to old age). Elven would also conjure patches of poisonous mushrooms to afflict temporary statuses on enemies who step on them. Furthermore, some of their creatures and conjurations would have an ability that allows a certain amount of damage to them to be prevented and transferred to a creature or conjuration that shares the ability as long as they don't share a card type. (Conjuration to Creature or Creature to Conjuration)

Arcane/nature training of course. I would describe it as a denial-attrition build, using efficient defensive creatures and conjurations combined with ways to counter or disable some of the enemies spells/objects to outlast them. Tanglevines, elusive, defenses, the trees/forests that are described above, regeneration, mana flowers, counter spells, I think you get the idea. I would love to see this mage.

[RayLancer]

I would love to see more oriental based mages. Maybe something like shrine maidens. Also more races would be nice. A dark elf enchantress sounds great.