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Inyssius Tor
2008-11-03, 07:47 PM
So, I've been thinking about the 4E cosmology for a while now. Here.

The material plane is linked to the Feywild, the Bright Mirror, a place of birth and life.
It's also linked to the Shadowfell, the Dark Mirror, a place of death and even more death.
"Inward" from the material plane, at what you might call the metaphysical center of the earth, there's the Elemental Chaos--focused on emotions and raw energy and action.
"Outward", there's the Astral Sea, focused on ideas and ideals and philosophies and thoughts.

Now, sentient creatures have kind of a parallel to those last two. They generally have physical bodies, and souls, and anima. A creature's animus, its vitality, its life force, kind of forms a bridge between its body and its soul. It focuses on, well, emotions and raw energy and action. Most undead, even some intelligent-seeming undead (a lot of ghosts, a lot of ghouls, etc.), don't have souls: they only have anima, maybe holding a vague spectral imprint of the soul that once resided there (enough to give it what looks like some form of intellect), and probably glued in place with necrotic energy to keep it all from coming apart.

We know of eight power sources. Arcane, divine, martial, primal, elemental, shadow, ki, and psionic (leave psions out of it for a minute). Arcanists get power from the whole planar cosmology, but not from any fixed place; they take it from whatever plane they can get it from. Divine characters get power from the Astral Sea. Martial characters get power from the material plane and their own material bodies. Elemental characters get power from the Elemental Chaos; Shadow characters, from the Shadowfell. It looks like Primal characters focus on anima, both theirs and other creatures'.

That leaves ki. By process of elimination, ki characters would draw power from souls. Right? ...hey, wait, isn't that Incarnum?

Daracaex
2008-11-03, 09:26 PM
In a traditional sense, Ki is personal energy. It comes from inside yourself. Maybe it can be interpreted as your soul, but that's still different from Incarnum, which uses other souls to draw power.

Starsinger
2008-11-03, 10:14 PM
I rather think that Ki is like Martial, except more fantastic.

Tengu_temp
2008-11-03, 10:16 PM
Ki is Martial with more outrageous hair. Or no hair.

Enlong
2008-11-03, 10:57 PM
Ki is Martial with more outrageous hair. Or no hair.
That needs to be sigged by someone.

Kurald Galain
2008-11-04, 04:26 AM
In a traditional sense, Ki is personal energy. It comes from inside yourself.

Ironically, that's the exact same thing as psionics.

I'm sure they'll make fans unhappy if they don't release a monk and a psion at some point, but there really doesn't seem to be a difference between their power sources.

For that matter, I'm having trouble distinguishing between elemental and either primal or arcane.

RPGuru1331
2008-11-04, 04:30 AM
Ironically, that's the exact same thing as psionics.

I'm sure they'll make fans unhappy if they don't release a monk and a psion at some point, but there really doesn't seem to be a difference between their power sources.

For that matter, I'm having trouble distinguishing between elemental and either primal or arcane.

Psionics are using their brains, Monks are using their body, I thought?

Elemental is actually pretty easy to keep straight, to me. Arcane is about the magic that ties the world together, Elemental is pure elemental energy.

Kurald Galain
2008-11-04, 05:00 AM
Psionics are using their brains, Monks are using their body, I thought?
Not particularly. There's plenty of psionics that affects the body (and some of it is even related to martial arts) and several of the special monk abilities use their brains.


Elemental is actually pretty easy to keep straight, to me. Arcane is about the magic that ties the world together, Elemental is pure elemental energy.
Yeah, but that's not really a distinction. The majority of arcane magic is about pure elemental energy, and blasting people with it.

Kaiyanwang
2008-11-04, 06:55 AM
I think one could say that Psionic Powers come from the mind, even if they don't always affect minds.

I think about Ki powers coming from harmony between body and mind, or body and soul...

Sebastian
2008-11-04, 08:25 AM
Ironically, that's the exact same thing as psionics.

I'm sure they'll make fans unhappy if they don't release a monk and a psion at some point, but there really doesn't seem to be a difference between their power sources.

For that matter, I'm having trouble distinguishing between elemental and either primal or arcane.

I think the problem is that in 4e power sources are pure fluff, and in 4e fluff is cheap. For what I can tell you could take any class and change his power source without any differences in mechanics. take the fighter, for example,you could replace his power source is arcane, just re-fluff all the powers so that he does what it does by magic power rather than by training and it would there absolutely no difference between the new arcane fighter and the martial fighter (from what I can see, at least. Maybe I'm overlooking something.)

Kaiyanwang
2008-11-04, 08:52 AM
Sebastian, I think your analysis is correct. I don't say that this feature of the 4th is necessarrly wrong (IMO it is, but maybe it's me).

This is an aspect of the oversimplification and the "one gamestyle" policy of the 4th. In the past, if I would create a setting only with martial charachters, I will obtain a setting very different from the standard fantasy setting: few or no monsters, natural healing only, choose of melee and ranged weapon far more important, thinking about start a combat because there is not resurrection, and so on.

In the 4th, even in a campaign Martial only, the Warlord is very similar to a refluffed Cleric. We will have a guy that instead of saying

"Light of Pelor, Heal his wounds.." and heals the warrior

Says:

"This is not what we worked hard for, Jack. This is not the right state of mind. So, gather your brain pieces, wrap your gut and continue the fight" and heals the warrior.

But is more or less the same, for me, the power source is more or less useless, in game. Anyway, it does not mean that player cannot wonder about it, expecially to create their own coherency in the setting.

BTW, to the OP: I love the rule for the soul -animus for the undead.. I used something similar for undead fluff (connected to Mortals and outsiders fluff) in a past campaign :smallsmile:

Hzurr
2008-11-04, 10:18 AM
Ki is Martial with more outrageous hair. Or no hair.

But remember, if it's outrageous hair, the only way you can activate your ki is by shouting and charging up for the first half of every encounter.

Siegel
2008-11-04, 10:29 AM
I think the problem is that in 4e power sources are pure fluff, and in 4e fluff is cheap. For what I can tell you could take any class and change his power source without any differences in mechanics. take the fighter, for example,you could replace his power source is arcane, just re-fluff all the powers so that he does what it does by magic power rather than by training and it would there absolutely no difference between the new arcane fighter and the martial fighter (from what I can see, at least. Maybe I'm overlooking something.)


Problem is just that most Martial Powers do x[W]+y damage while Arcane powers normale do Xd+y damage. Ok thats minimal but a clear difference.. :smallannoyed:

Inyssius Tor
2008-11-04, 11:08 AM
I do have some reason to be speculating along these lines, by the way. That stuff about anima and the planes is all from Worlds and Monsters, though the Primal thing is just fanwank. And, from page 54 of the Player's Handbook,

"... monks harness the power of their soul energy (or ki) ..."

Inyssius Tor
2008-11-04, 11:11 AM
Yeah, but that's not really a distinction. The majority of arcane magic is about pure elemental energy, and blasting people with it.

Yeah, Arcane draws power from pretty much all the other sources at random. They have Shadow powers, they have Elemental powers, they have powers that deal Radiant damage (which mostly comes from the Astral Sea), they have mind-affecting powers, et cetera.

Kurald Galain
2008-11-04, 11:29 AM
Yeah, Arcane draws power from pretty much all the other sources at random. They have Shadow powers, they have Elemental powers, they have powers that deal Radiant damage (which mostly comes from the Astral Sea), they have mind-affecting powers, et cetera.

For added irony, Divine also draws power from anywhere at random. They have radiant powers (well duh) but also elemental powers, mind-affecting powers, et cetera.

And based on the barbarian preview, Primal also draws power from everywhere at random. Not that it's that big a deal, but it seems that some designers didn't really think power sources all the way through.

Devils_Advocate
2008-11-04, 07:32 PM
It sounds like you might be confusing the source of power with what the power is used to do.

Kurald Galain
2008-11-05, 05:11 AM
It sounds like you might be confusing the source of power with what the power is used to do.

No, I'm saying that when more power sources are added, the distinction between them will become increasingly meaningless, as the difference in crunch is nonexistent, and the difference in fluff is merely taken from a thesaurus.

Sebastian
2008-11-05, 08:17 AM
Problem is just that most Martial Powers do x[W]+y damage while Arcane powers normale do Xd+y damage. Ok thats minimal but a clear difference.. :smallannoyed:

well, as you say it is a clear difference but minimal, also I didn't check it throughly but I think the swordmage (which have an arcane power source) does damage based on the weapon is using on many of his powers (correct me if I'm wrong), so it is more a guideline than a rule.

Beleriphon
2008-11-05, 02:02 PM
No, I'm saying that when more power sources are added, the distinction between them will become increasingly meaningless, as the difference in crunch is nonexistent, and the difference in fluff is merely taken from a thesaurus.

Powers sources a descriptions, the only meaningful effect you need to worry about ruleswise is what the power does. This is how Mutants and Masterminds handles things, descriptions are important but the mechanical effect is always the same for the same sorts of effects.

Starsinger
2008-11-05, 02:03 PM
Powers sources a descriptions, the only meaningful effect you need to worry about ruleswise is what the power does. This is how Mutants and Masterminds handles things, descriptions are important but the mechanical effect is always the same for the same sorts of effects.

Yeah but unless it's hard coded into the rules there's no such thing as flavor in D&D.

Holocron Coder
2008-11-05, 02:20 PM
Problem is just that most Martial Powers do x[W]+y damage while Arcane powers normale do Xd+y damage. Ok thats minimal but a clear difference.. :smallannoyed:

Actually, I'm pretty sure the difference you're quoting is this:

Implement Powers - XdY + stat
Weapon Powers - X[W] + stat

Artanis
2008-11-05, 03:25 PM
Sebastian, I think your analysis is correct. I don't say that this feature of the 4th is necessarrly wrong (IMO it is, but maybe it's me).

This is an aspect of the oversimplification and the "one gamestyle" policy of the 4th. In the past, if I would create a setting only with martial charachters, I will obtain a setting very different from the standard fantasy setting: few or no monsters, natural healing only, choose of melee and ranged weapon far more important, thinking about start a combat because there is not resurrection, and so on.

In the 4th, even in a campaign Martial only, the Warlord is very similar to a refluffed Cleric. We will have a guy that instead of saying

"Light of Pelor, Heal his wounds.." and heals the warrior

Says:

"This is not what we worked hard for, Jack. This is not the right state of mind. So, gather your brain pieces, wrap your gut and continue the fight" and heals the warrior.

But is more or less the same, for me, the power source is more or less useless, in game. Anyway, it does not mean that player cannot wonder about it, expecially to create their own coherency in the setting.

BTW, to the OP: I love the rule for the soul -animus for the undead.. I used something similar for undead fluff (connected to Mortals and outsiders fluff) in a past campaign :smallsmile:
If you want to ban certain things and/or classes with certain types of abilities, then you can still do so. The only difference now is that you have to put more work into it than just saying "no spellcasting classes."

Inyssius Tor
2008-11-05, 03:35 PM
If you want to ban certain things and/or classes with certain types of abilities, then you can still do so. The only difference now is that you have to put more work into it than just saying "no spellcasting classes."

More work?

"I don't want anyone playing a Leader. No multiclassing into Leader classes either. Also I'm outlawing the Raise Dead feat."

Artanis
2008-11-05, 03:38 PM
Well, considering how many people bitch about 4e being "oversimplified" and "dumbed down", it doesn't seem like a trivial amount of extra complexity would matter.