Mages and Shamans and Final Fantasy, hmm hard to explain Options

[Mana Child]

In peoples experience: would you find final fantasies magic to be hermetic or shamanic

and why do you say one way or the other

[Luke Hardison]

It might help to specify which final fantasy you mean, Mana. There are 12, after all :)

:cyber: US FFIII is teh bomb.

And in my opinion, most FF's treat magic from the hermetic perspective.

[Cold-Dragon]

LOL.

I believe most of the magic is hermetic in style, but there are spots where it might be considered more as shamanic. the mages I'd call hermetic, (the ones that like BOOM! spells, or classical white mage/healer). Anything else I believe usually gives the appearance of a more shamanistic style.

but I agree, it helps to pick out a specific Final Fantasy for comparison

[Mana Child]

well i was talking about 10 actually and X-2 (even though i havent played X-2)

[Cold-Dragon]

If you're talking FFX, definitely a mix of both!

although game-setup speaking, it's pretyt much hermetic if it's spell stuff from a class, any of the more unique things might be a bit more shamanistic. (dress spheres, for example, could be considered shaman-based, even though they give you classes with hermetic spell casting.)

[Mana Child]

what would summoners be then

[KillaJ]

I'm not too sure about the other 11, but I would say that the magic users in number six were shamans. They did get all of their magic and a good deal of other bonuses from espers. Only two? characters could learn any on their own.

[Cold-Dragon]

I would call summoners shamans, since the eidolons were actual 'spirits' and SR spirit went under a similar (if not the same) concept.

as to FF6, I guess it's more shamanistic, but being it was chalkful of magic, it was 'traditional'.

quasar!!!! hehe

[Mana Child]

yeah i got thinking about this stuff cause i wanted to build a Final Fantasy Style Magical type character using shadowrun. i dont know why i just felt like trying it out.

[Thistledown]

And what would the drain be on Ultima then? ;) :D


I think FF type spells could work with some tinkering, but the MP system vs the drain system is kind of hard to reconcile if you ask me. A shadowrun mage could in theory cast spells all day, or go out with the first one. A FF mage knows that his spell will always succeed, and casting the next will be exactly the same.

Course, it's not as bad as say, d&d, where you have to memorize your spells for the day (ick).


I do like the idea though. It'll just be difficult. I have a NPC in my campaigns who's a planewalker. He uses magic rules from shadowrun, Krynn (d&d), and a home-made system similar to FF; depending on the situation and his mood. Also nice that people familiar with one don't know how to resist the other system.

[Sahandrian]

Well...

Ultima is an extended-area Powerball or Nova, cast at D and with a high enough force that you can usually expect it to not be staged down. And since I like elemental manips, that'd put it at about ((Force / 2)+1)(DL+3). Force 12 is about the highest a spell is going to reasonably get, so Ultima would probably have a drain somewhere around 13D.

A lot, but assuming a Magic of 12 (to cast without physical), you'd be dealing 12D to everything in a 240-meter sphere.

[Kakkaraun]

[Kagetenshi]

Ooh ooh ooh, or why don't we just all play uber-chill silent break-and-enter types with Blandness and silenced pistols?

~J

[Diesel]

Alternatively, troubled childhood dark loner elven adepts.

[Phaeton]

Or amnesiac over-professional street sams with hidden headware mem, cortex bombs, and Dark Secret who were all on courier runs when they got waylaid. :D

[Kakkaraun]

^Only if they turn out to be dog shamans immune to Essence loss ;).

[Joker9125]

[Raptor1033]

ok i bite, who the hell you guys talking about?

[Kakkaraun]

Google, dude!

[Phaeton]

[Kakkaraun]

However, I feel I must let it be known that I really do like that game, despite it's butchering of basic SR concepts ;).

Guns, guns, guns! Yar tar tee hee ho ta tar!

[Joker9125]

[Kakkaraun]

Well, Goku and the Shadowrun SNES game. Two different things are happening here :).

[moosegod]

I think I'll leave before anyone notices me.

But I have to say, Mana Child, your topic tears into my very soul and makes Baby Jesus cry.

[Kagetenshi]

Good. His tears water my black soul.

~J