The Astral Plane of Magic...? (idea)

I have always enjoyed having multiple planes to work on. MoM is the obvious one, but i also enjoyed Age of Wonders system with above and below ground, and liked thier addition of the shadow plane in AoWSM a lot too. Having to worry about up and down as well as across the board adds quite a bit of fun, and i also enjoyed that each plane had something special about it. In MoM the difference were subtler, better resources and stronger monsters in myrran(magic world), more food and space to expand in Arcanum(regular world). Plus some races could only start on myrran. AoW was much more upfront with the effect, you needed cave crawling to get around below and all your units had massive penilties in the shadow realm unless they had a spell/ability on them to protect them.

I would greatly enjoy having multiple planes to work across as they add so much to the game.

I can't tell you how important this idea is to me.  I'm not sure why, but the inclusion of the 'Mirrorian' plan in Master of Magic really energized the game play for me.  I know that it was just an off color repeat of the main board, but it served to effortlessly double the size of the game play and gave the sense that your wizard was really doing neat things with magic by getting there.  I think that Elemenatal would really benifit by having this feature added.  Making it a hurdle to get there and having to guard against invasions from another plane, finding new types of magical energies and facing tougher monsters for better rewards, all this really made me love MoM.  I am already predisposed to love Elemental, and this feature can only make a good game great!

I love it. You manage to differentiate between the different planes and make them meaningful.  That's the problem I've always had with 'below ground' levels - they add additional grind without real meaning, and make me immediately want to stop playing - especially as they usually pile on an additional movement penalty.  In contrast, Myrror in MoM had real, interesting differences and trade-offs.  Your idea might work even better.

Something like this would be pretty neat. It has been mentioned, though, that multiple levels will be supported for modding but not 'canon' with release. However, that was in a thread about dungeons, so maybe the devs will be open to this sort of mirror world idea. I hope so.

Still not a fan of multiple planes. Not a fan at all.

Do it like age of wonders. Normal plane, underground and shadow realm. BUT, single player was like 90% normal with a few underground zones to do caves/forts. Other planes really only showed up in MP, and even there each map didn't have to have all 3 planes. You could do just one or two or whatever you liked. That seemed to work well as those who wanted thier game to be like an onion could get it, and those who wanted a single straight up field with no up and down could get that too.

Well, what I'm proposing isn't really a "second plane" in the way that Master of Magic had a second plane.  The plane I'm proposing is an extra "texture" that lies beneath reality that effects magical manefistations in the real plane.  The laws of physics in this 2nd plane would be completely different.  There wouldn't be mortals or cities or trolls.  My main purposes for suggesting this second plane wasn't to say, "Hey, we should have a second world to explore and build cities in!"  Quite the opposite.  I want it to augment and add depth to the pre-existing plane of play.  The whole point, really, is to add a unique magic system where by you don't have to build more cities and bigger armies to become more powerful magically.  You can instead seek to master the ebbs, flow, and channel of the "astral plane."  Pretty much every magic system in every game is the same.  You get fuel (usually mana) from some source, you point, you destroy.  To be a master of magic with my idea, you'd have to master a magical landscape.

So more like the astral plane from DnD than the myrran plane from MoM. TBH, i would also love that version. Maybe we could get both kinds? full other planes and then a magical sublayer with noting but raw magic in it, different rules governing them. That would be sweet.

Yep, more or less. 

I sort of agree with Luckmann. Whenever I've played a tbs game with multiple planes it just gets way too big. I mean, it's a really fun idea at first, but you essentially allow one of the players a *lot* more room to expand in with a lot less competition.

Yes, I understand that isn't exactly what you are proposing. The astral idea, while entertaining, seems a lot of work and a constant distraction from the normal game. I'd prefer a similar idea that is more abstracted.

Yes, it often did seem that the person on myrran had an advantage. Until you remember that the most dangeround critter wandering the surface world were bears. The most dangeround things wandering myrran were great wryms and such. Plus the native random towns were way dangerous. A halfling town with a couple gaurds isn't so scary. A troll town with a couple gaurds is terrifying.

It was not so much an advantage as it was a scaling. Everything on myrran was scaled up in power. Both your forces and the random critters and neutral towns. TBH, the players on arcanum were probably better off because they had abundunt food and no real challenges except each other so they could exapnd much quicker. On myrran, its a serious issue just to take out the neutral towns, much less fight anyone else who may of spawned on myrran.

I didn't find the two planes of MoM too difficult to play, but I can imagine where it could get to be too much to handle because you have to keep switching planes, losing track of the previous one you were managing.  With the astral plane, though, you never lose site of the Material plane.  When you toggle on the astral plane, it would be like putting an extra layer of translucent jello on top of it.  And not to mention, the astral plane wouldn't have any complex cities, except for a few build slots on the Astral side of each shard: the large majority of the management would take place in the material plane.

So how I see it, you would be up in the material plane most of the time unless you specialize in astral walking.  You'd just hit a little toggle button on to plop down "the jello" once in awhile.

I would be perfectly fine with a more abstracted or stripped down version of what I had in mind and was originally planning it that way.  The main emphasis is disconnect a lot of magic from the material plane, thus disconnecting the complete dependance of magic on the "city" economy. 

I haven't really played enough of MoM to really judge. I did play Civ II test of time, where most of my experience comes from with multiple planes. Maybe three to four planes per world map is way too much.

Yes. Simulating the Astral plane as more a dungeon rather than a whole new plane I think would be interesting. Having a whole new world that you're compelled to build stuff in and conquer.

I dunno, the idea is sort of growing on me... my main concerns is that the astral plane has a lot more influence over the material plane than the material has over the astral plane... it seems to me there's a lot of incentive to commit your sovereign full-time to the Astral realm.

Maybe the astral plane somehow reflects the mental state of the world... a world filled with war and disease is going to reflect that in the astral realm making the realm more hostile... a civilized and fertile world is going to produce a much friendlier astral realm.

My other concern is purely logistical in that it would take time away from polishing the main experience.

The astral plane should be stronger then material if only channelers can get there. Its like the DnD 3.5 argument about wizards. Everyone claimed that mages were overpowered compared to fighters in 3.5 dnd, and they were. However, who do you think should be stronger, the guy who is really really good at waving a sword around, or the guy who can alter reality itself with a word?

Also, Conan owns any wizard/sorcerer. Go story driven fights, go!

Well, in my mind the idea was to have the Astral Plane influence the material plane more, but victory would primarily be won in the material plane with most win options being in the material plane.  For instance, the channeler can only be killed in the material plane.  If they are wandering in the Astral plane or are defeated in the Astral plane, they are comatose, leaving them helpless for a fairly lengthy period of time in their fortress.  So in other words, your sovereign is easy pickings if they are a big time Astral Wanderer.  But like I said, ultimately most of the action would be in the material plane.

As for your second point, that's a really interesting idea.  I'd love to see ghostly, hostile wanderers in the Astral Plane at the corresponding site where a city is conquered and the population slaughtered.  Likewise, a "haunting" in a town might be dealt with by defeating a corresponding denizen of the astral plane.

Wizards are never played properly in D&D, and the dungeon master rarely enforces their limitations, both physically and from a role playing standpoint.  If the DM holds a wizard player to the strains of sticking to prepared spells, spell component use, concentration breaks, provoked attacks of opportunity, semantic use, and doesn't cut them any slack in regard to their meagre hitpoints then wizards are about on par with other classes (except bards!!)  Yes, a mage can pretty much throw any enchantment spell on a fighter with impunity and overcome their pitiful will saves, but give a fighter 1 round an a wizard opponent is either dead or too bloody to get a spell off.  I know this because, in our campaigns, villain NPC wizards go down waaay faster than fighters (in other words, the PC's single them out and bring them down fast, even if the NPC is insulated with a host of spells.) 

And that doesn't even count role playing limitations.  Wizards aren't supposed to be gung ho adventurers and dungeon splunkers like fighters or rogues, but are instead meant to be scholars.  Most well role played wizards wouldn't necessarily have the freedoms and opportunities afforded most melee classes. 

If your NPC wizards were going down faster than other villans then your DM was running them wrong. Unless we are talking low level, then of course wizards die easy. But toss a premoniton and spell mantle on him and you are hosed. Time stop, wail of the banshee, watch the party keel over dead. Or time-stop, then stick the fighter in the eye with a dagger, your AC and doge do nothing if i can take my time to shove it through your eye into your brain. Summon a balor, then dimension door out with a spell trigger.

Any prepared wizard can rip a party up in seconds, unless the DM has no clue or is handicapping the wizard. And one round? what the hey? thats not long enough for a fighter to chew through stone skin and until you break trhough that you can't even disrupt his casting. Premonition is kinda like flipping the bird at all physical classes. Attacking a prepared wizard on ground of his choosing is like commiting sucide only more spetacular.

Really, most of the restrictions of a Wizard were nothing but time sinks that focused the game too much on the wizard. Not strange that players can get annoyed about it. It's not about "Wizards are supposed to be more powerfull" but about "It's ridiculous" or "I didn't come to watch".

Also, these kinds of games allow wizards to get overpowered spells in matter of few years. Not decades. Someone would suppose that learning to twist the world around your little finger should need some more time, power and preparation. But you cannot impose this on the wizard players or they complain (they could not level up on par with the rest, etc). Fear the heroic nature and unbalanced classes of good old D&D.

I had a drow wizard and his gang being surprised by the adventurers in Undermountain. They cleared the drow gang quite easily until they had to face the surprised wizard. A simple levitate and improved invisibility spells were close to put the adventurers on their knees. But for "balance issues", usually I let the wizards be more of a glass cannon with bodyguards because if players are not for careful planning, wizards are just too much if properly prepared (specially with lots of save or die spells at high level) or not properly prepared but ready to use their spells in creative ways (hunting birds with magic missiles for food doesn't count).

But yeah, I agree with that point, Cerevox. But players would be idiots if not entering prepared with strategies to counter the wizard (it's not like players don't have access to divination spells of their own, know how to cleverly explore, use terrain to their advantage, know when to retreat, know when to taunt... well, I'm supposing creative and intelligent players ).

I'm not sure how you are using most of these spells or what version of D&D you are playing, but you can't take any actions that modify the landscape with time stop meaning you can't cast spells other than buffs or summon, attack, etc.  In other words, you don't get 1d4+1 5 rounds to do whatever you want.  And besides, it's ninth level.  Stone skin gives you 10 damage reduction...  which is trivial even if the fighter isn't wielding gear up to snuff (unless we are considering some level 9 defense spells, but even then a fighter has counter measures through a host a magic items they would have by that point.  Just find a way to wield an anti-magic field.)  If the fighter has gained enough magic items, they have strength stacked up to the sky which will pierce through even spells like iron body at an equivalent wizards level.

But of course, what spells you have is determined really by how liberal the DM is with spell flow throughout the campaign.  In our campaign, NPC and PC wizards don't get to flip through the spellbook and pick out whatever spells they want--- many high level spells aren't even on the plane, so if you want something exotic you have to either travel to that plane or spend in-game years to actually research it.    

Like I was saying in my previous post, wizards are allowed to get away with murder by having their limitations lifted (often because its boring to a lot of people to have to play through them or people enjoy roleplaying less than hack and slash).  With their gold being drained by components and spell research they don't have as much gold to purchase magical items as other classes.  That doesn't even count the experience hit they take from losing a familiar (which people just play without) or from making magical items.  If a wizard gets caught while he is sleeping or studying after a long day of casting, he's useless AND a liability.  And yes, a NPC wizards may be able to cast a spell that exploits a party's blind spot, but that just means that party was unprepared and it's good that they are suffering for it.  Your own wizard should have true seeing available or a player with a trinket of true seeing in the event that someone may have greater invisibility and you should DEFINATELY have a means of using anti-magic (hell beholder in a box even?).  I've DMed 1 campaign from level 1 to 25 and another from level 1 to 28 (roughly 1 level gained per session) both of which held wizards to their limitations, and they were balanced just fine (and that doesn't include the 10+ smaller campaigns I've hosted).

So do you see my point?  Wizards are supposed to be stronger than other classes when they have everything they need, but DM's usually don't bother enforcing it their limitations. 

I agree that wizards can take up a lot of session time by reading the text of a thousand spells or flipping through a monster manual to find the next creature they want to shape change into, but I disagree that their restrictions are time sinks.  If the player is a novice D&D player, I can see where they would muck up their spell preparetion after a party's rest, and that could be a pain, but if a wizard doesn't have every spell in the Spell Compendium it should be a problem for a player whom has played a campaign before.  Spell components?  Not really a problem unless you want to force the wizard to go "shopping" for each and every one of them (although sometimes, I will inform the player, certain high level components simply aren't available at a certain time.)  If the player is spending too much time flipping through the spellbook, they need to read their spells on their free time.

We take our D&D seriously folks.

Actually, spell components are one of the "weaknesses" of the wizard, so it's supposed to be abused to balance the class. I never forced to buy every single component needed for spells (except for uncommon/rare/expensive ones) as it was boring and it's not like I asked the fighter to follow the real procedures of armour and sword keeping.

The good side of our wizard was that he always came with the homework done in the spellbook department, needing little time to decide what he needed. I wish our fighter had been like that. He had lots of problems just deciding what to purchase for the next expedition (healing potions aside).

Oh, and I'll reiterate the time sink argument because although it was good to try to offer things to every class so they could have more fun and shine, the wizard requirements (if properly done) were the biggest. Damn, even the cleric was easy to deal with. (and roleplayed smart) Where is the fun of waiting for many minutes withoutn nothing to do while the DM is being distracted by the many requeriments of one of the players? (I was so noob at the time that I take part of the blame for that though)

If I were to DM now again things would be quite different. *cracks the whip* Oh yeah, different. If I had anyone to play with, that is.

Back to astral plane: i actually really like the idea. It allows plausible small magical kingdoms and offers unique strategies to play the game. Would love to see it implemented.

Good idea on getting back on topic :-)  Thanks for the vote of confidence.

It doesn't look like there will be multiple planes in this release, but there are some good suggestions here for something that might be added in a possible expansion.