[Encard]

Interesting.

Before making any comments on just how you might want to consider working these mages, I feel I should mention that actually, Order vs. Chaos is a fairly common theme in fantasy. A good example of this would be many of Michael Moorcock's books, the best probably being the Elric saga... These were, iirc, actually the inspiration for the D&D alignment system.

Also, although in you're correct that in many cases order has been linked to good and chaos to evil, there have also been a good number of cases I've seen where, in literature, RPGs, or otherwise, it's been the opposite way around. This seems to be particularly true among newer fantasy works, although that may be just my imagination. Nonetheless, evil empire vs. noble barbarians, tyrannyical dictatorship vs. freedom-loving woodsmen, and other such things have been used quite a bit, so the idea is unlikely to be totally unfamiliar to your players.

What your mythology teacher said sounds logical... On the other hand, once again, the flip side is definitely not uncommon. Order has often, in fantasy, been portrayed as a force of stagnation and sloth, while chaos has often been portrayed as the driving force behind creativity, progressive thinking, and freedom.

Now, hmm... You're using a Mongoose supplement, I see. I haven't had the opportunity to personally look at this one, I'd suggest being a bit wary of it. Mongoose seemes to have a reputation, at least somewhat deserved from what I've seen, for making moderately to highly unbalanced supplements. Now, let's see, a few comments...

direct damage effects (self-explanatory)

Makes sense, I think. I assume that by direct damage, you mean primarily fire- and energy-based magic? I ask because, while those sorts of affects work well with the chaos = destructive, some other types seem to be a bit less easy to fit in, the primary one being cold. Now, since cold is the absence of heat, and more heat generally, from what I remember, increases the randomness of a system, cold would actually appear to be more appropriate to order magic than to chaos.

domination effects (all matters of mind control and mind alterations)

I can see why this would seem odd, and to a degree it does. However, it mainly depends on how one looks at it. Within the context of the mind, order is presumably a patterned system of thought. Now, using chaos purely as a force of destruction, it makes sense that it could be used to break the will of the subject; after all, why would order be used to destroy an already-ordered system? If that's all that chaos is, however, then it seems as though it might take both types of magic to Dominate a target rather than simply inflicting a Confusion (or similar) effect on them. On the other hand, if chaos can also encompass change, then it makes sense that it could be used to break the subject's will and then manipulate it into the new, desired form. It also works in the sense that chaos can be seen as shifting from the norm; the norm being the subject's normal thought process, a Dominate (or other mind-altering) effect would obviously be a shift. it all depends on how you'd rather look at it.

materialization effects (creation of objects and construct creatures (and illusions, too), but all of limited duration)

Hmm. Illusions make sense for this, as they are often considered to be formed, at least in part, by manipulating light, and light, being energy, is often seen as the domain of chaos. Not necessarily for evil chaos (although that often involves fire, which of course produces light), but, nonetheless. The creation of actual physical things, however, wouldn't work too well if you gave order the province of being the patron of creation.

transformation effects (includes both body alterations and enhancing abilities)

Seems moderately odd that chaos has the ability to enhance abilities. After all, making things work better rather than worse would seem to be more the province of order than chaos. Of course, unnatural alterations do seem like they might work well for chaos.

healing of any sort

No actual HP healing makes sense, more or less. However, something that should be remembered is that if chaos can be used for destruction, it could presumably be used to destroy such things as poisons and diseases.

divinations of any sort

Odd. Temproal divination often seems to be characterized as looking into myriad possible futures, and the uncertainty there would seem like a natural thing for chaos to deal with. The same for many divinations dealing with other beings, since most things' actions and beliefs are never completely certain. I suppose it would make sense for order magic to function by narrowing down possibilities, or such, but chaos does indeed seem to also make sense.

summoning spells (other than essentially gating in uncontrolled creatures)

This would make sense if you removes chaos being able to use Dominate-type magic. However, as they can do that, it seems odd that they can't control what they summon.


Hmm. Now, it's a bit difficult to give advice on rebalancing without knowing the exact parameters. However, what might work:
- Damage spells: remove spells that do cold or force damage, as both would seem more suited to order than to chaos, at least in my opinion. Necromantic magic can work for either order or chaos, as it can either seen as the destructiona dn dispersion of life (chaos), or the formation of perfect order that pushes out the energy needed to sustain life (order).
- Remove ability enchancement spells
- Remove pure creation affects
- Add divination, cure poison/disease type spells, and summoning.
I'm unsure of just how extensive their abilities in the areas I suggested removing are, so I can't say for sure whether that's balanced or not... It may be necessary to give them some other bonus, such as extra damage on attack spells. Another option, which would be particularly necessary I think if removing their ability to Dominate, would be to enlarge their available spells... Magic that harmfully affects die rolls, or that stirs up the surroundings (i.e. by creating a storm) could work.

Order seems about right... I'm curious as to what these classes have for BAB/saves/etc, though. If the order mage uses wizard BAB and saves, then they'll need some rather powerful summoning and other abilities to do much good, without damage spells. It might make sense to allow them access to a few cold and force based spells, in that case.

I'd suggest against using nature-mages in an Order vs. Chaos setting, unless they were supposed to represent Neutrality. In that case it might work... Otherwise, though, I think it'd just become confusing. I'll note, however, that both sides would stand to pick up druid spells. After all, druids have magic that falls into both order and chaos affect categories.

Now, the roles of order and chaos in common life... That depends, lots of options. I wouldn't be at all surprised if powerful outsiders stepped in, as you said... There's certainly a great number of them around that wouldn't mind being venerated as deities or near-deities. If you wanted to keep an evil theme for chaos, just using werful denizens of the Abyss, the Far Realms, and possibly Limbo would work... Otherwise you could also incorporate chaotic-aligned celestials of various types. For order you could use lawful-aligned celestials if you wanted to maintain the order = good thing, or also incporporate other things like Baatezu.

Without actual deities, soulds could go anywhere after death... it's perfectly possible that reincarnation works in both cases, or in neither. Souls might be destroyed, or sent to an endless plain to sit for eternity, or harvested by these quasi-deified outsiders for various purposes (such as being transformed into lesser demons or larvae, for example). If you want to link chaos to destruction, it might make sense to have chaotic souls be destroyed... How chaotic would a person have to be, however? Would having a chaotic alignment be enough, or...? On the other hand, not sure why orderly souls would be reincarnated. It seems more likely that they'd be built on in some way, perhaps being transformed into lawful-aligned outsider after death, or sent to some higher plane of existence (whether in the normal D&D cosmology or not).

Speaking of which, how are you thinking of dealing with the alignment system?

Hmm... Long post. I hope I didn't manage to get too confused while writing it.

EDIT: Ah, yes... I'd suggest reading some books by L.E. Modesitt, since he also focuses heavily on chaos and order. The White Order and The Colors of Chaos are particularly good in this regard.

[ 08-28-2004, 01:06 AM: Message edited by: Encard ]