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The College of Jewels (Magical Academy Quest)

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[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.
 
On my phone at the moment, but I want to post anyways to clarify how Witness to Genius works.

So- basically, take for example planar portal size 3. That costs 10 points. If you buy it, you can immediately cast any other spell you can see on the dimensional science list that costs less than or exactly 10 points.

For some spells (Elemental Planar Portal being the primary example right now) being able to treat it as a higher rank than it actually is does make it measurably more powerful. This is because that spell exists on a spectrum of power. Spells where the upgrades are very distinct improvements don't have that ability to get incrementally better, so if you could use all spells cheaper than or equal to 10 points in cost, but the last upgrade for a spell of that type was at 5 points and the next one was at 15, you would only be casting at the 5 point level until you bought a spell expensive enough to let you cast at the 15 point level.

Will further clarify and respond more when I am back at my computer.
 
@Wander, please confirm -- can the spells granted by Witness to Genius be used as prerequisites for other spells? (So rather than worrying about dead-end branches as @PrimalShadow was, we could rest assured that we won't be stuck buying a tree from the beginning once, say, Planar Portal tops out?)
 
Wander said:
On my phone at the moment, but I want to post anyways to clarify how Witness to Genius works.

So- basically, take for example planar portal size 3. That costs 10 points. If you buy it, you can immediately cast any other spell you can see on the dimensional science list that costs less than or exactly 10 points.

For some spells (Elemental Planar Portal being the primary example right now) being able to treat it as a higher rank than it actually is does make it measurably more powerful. This is because that spell exists on a spectrum of power. Spells where the upgrades are very distinct improvements don't have that ability to get incrementally better, so if you could use all spells cheaper than or equal to 10 points in cost, but the last upgrade for a spell of that type was at 5 points and the next one was at 15, you would only be casting at the 5 point level until you bought a spell expensive enough to let you cast at the 15 point level.

Will further clarify and respond more when I am back at my computer.
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Well now I'm not sure which I want more. Flash of Brilliance is unquestionably better at two points:
  1. In the very short-term (until Witness to Genius would give us 100 points' worth of spells)
  2. The long term (when we've learnt enough DS spells that we're losing out on learning other forms of magic enough that overall we're spending more points than Witness to Genius has saved)
In the time between those two points, Witness to Genius gives us more points' worth of spells. But it also stymies our learning of other forms of magic, which might be more important than is immediately obvious - some of those other schools are going to have methods to cover gaps in the DS spellbook, and we may end up in a situation where we'd rather have 50 points worth of spells in say enchanting because there's something really cool and useful there than we would 150 points' worth of spells in DS that we got for free, but that we don't actually need or use all that often. So it's not necessarily true that Witness to Genius will end up better for us between Flash of Brilliance's "strictly better" time periods.

Okay, this was originally meant to show WtG as better than FoB in the medium-term, but I've argued myself back around to much preferring Flash of Brilliance.
 
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As far as what Dimensional Magic can do at very high levels, Saphira knows that all the 'core' abilities tend to converge towards making warded planar retreats and interacting with reality at a step removed and from safety, with, as surmised, sidelines into opening portals into elemental planes and calling spirits from other planes. Note though, that while Dimensional science can do these things, and often with a great deal of raw power, as seen with Elemental Planar portal, they can be extremely dangerous because you won't have any fine control over what you're doing, and little protection besides just not being there when something happens.

No7sHere said:
Something worth knowing might be whether we will ever actually reach the end of a given school of magic because if we do being able to branch out might be critical. Another question is whether we might be able to gain the TA's version of this trait.
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The archmage would say that all magic leads to the same heart. I would say that he's being an asshole and phrasing that misleadingly. Regardless, Saphira isn't going to reach the 'end' of the dimensional science branch of magic within the scope of this quest.
Aoinfinity said:
@Wander, please confirm -- can the spells granted by Witness to Genius be used as prerequisites for other spells? (So rather than worrying about dead-end branches as @PrimalShadow was, we could rest assured that we won't be stuck buying a tree from the beginning once, say, Planar Portal tops out?)
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Yes.
 
[X] A glimpse of truth- gain the trait Witness to Genius: You gain access to all dimensional science spells you know of with a rank less than or equal to the rank of your highest ranked dimensional science spell, and treat them as though they were that rank for all purposes except casting speed. Costs for non dimensional science magic are doubled.
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.
 
[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.
 
[X] A glimpse of truth- gain the trait Witness to Genius: You gain access to all dimensional science spells you know of with a rank less than or equal to the rank of your highest ranked dimensional science spell, and treat them as though they were that rank for all purposes except casting speed. Costs for non dimensional science magic are doubled.
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.

It's just a 'Glimpse', so it stands to reason there will be more progression which is nice especially with a mentor that has seen the 'Truth'.
 
[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.

Okay, I'm going for 'flash of brilliance'. Why? Because Saphira, despite naturally being extremely good at Dimensional Science, really likes learning and understanding different types of magic. That's what allowed her to connect so well with Ruby, and I really think she'll suffer if other types of magic become much harder. Even in this scene, where she spent a significant amount of time trying to figure her mentor's comments out, she was busy investigating her apartment's enchantments. I don't want to stifle that curiosity.
 
[X] A glimpse of truth- gain the trait Witness to Genius: You gain access to all dimensional science spells you know of with a rank less than or equal to the rank of your highest ranked dimensional science spell, and treat them as though they were that rank for all purposes except casting speed. Costs for non dimensional science magic are doubled.
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.
 
Let's see where we're at on votes.

Vote Tally : Original - The College of Jewels (Magical Academy Quest) | Page 39 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.5
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.
No. of Votes: 24
veekie
Aoinfinity
banelord
blue_daisy
Ct613hulu
Dirk93
FatedBread
fictionfan
Maragas
Marked_One
MooGoesCow21
NemoMarx
Nevill
PayKey
PlatypusofFail
Prent
Pyran
Raron
Razauq
Sinarblood
SpeckofStardust
SystemicHatter
TotallyNotEvil
tricholysis
[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science
No. of Votes: 18
zup
blue_daisy
ChildishChimera
Deathbybunnies
Dirk93
Katreus
LoreOfClarke
Malaquez
No7sHere
PayKey
Prent
Raron
Razauq
SpeckofStardust
Synergy
SystemicHatter
Tew
useofstrike32
[X] A glimpse of truth- gain the trait Witness to Genius: You gain access to all dimensional science spells you know of with a rank less than or equal to the rank of your highest ranked dimensional science spell, and treat them as though they were that rank for all purposes except casting speed. Costs for non dimensional science magic are doubled.
No. of Votes: 16
veekie
Aoinfinity
banelord
Ct613hulu
FatedBread
fictionfan
Maragas
Marked_One
MooGoesCow21
NemoMarx
Nevill
PlatypusofFail
Pyran
Sinarblood
TotallyNotEvil
tricholysis
[X] Kill Morgan Blackreach.
No. of Votes: 8
Malaquez
ChildishChimera
Deathbybunnies
Katreus
LoreOfClarke
Synergy
Tew
useofstrike32
[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points to Dimensional Science.
No. of Votes: 1
Artful Lounger
[X] Kill Blackreach.
No. of Votes: 1
Artful Lounger
Total No. of Voters: 35

Very close on flash of brilliance vs glimpse of truth actually. Not very close on who The World Anew is going to kill, which I suspected when I put the Pact up as one of the options. Still, that should change the topography of Diadem interestingly, and next time you'll have to vote on an actual character to kill.

Edit: Vote is staying open until tomorrow I think given how close it is.
 
Come on guys Glimpse of truth is just soooo OP we can just buy a high ranked DS spell and get everything below it for free whats not to like about that and we have not been doing any other the other magics at all
 
Aoinfinity said:
Elemental Portal alone can duplicate most combat applications of elements.
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With the notable exception of Elemental Protection, which is quite valuable in combat - especially if we are throwing Elemental Magic around ourselves.

Wander said:
So- basically, take for example planar portal size 3. That costs 10 points. If you buy it, you can immediately cast any other spell you can see on the dimensional science list that costs less than or exactly 10 points.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Earlier, you said that rank was cumulative with prerequisite-purchases; are you not doing that any more?
 
[X] A glimpse of truth- gain the trait Witness to Genius: You gain access to all dimensional science spells you know of with a rank less than or equal to the rank of your highest ranked dimensional science spell, and treat them as though they were that rank for all purposes except casting speed. Costs for non dimensional science magic are doubled.
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.

Been lurking, but think I'll vote given vote closeness.
 
[X] A glimpse of truth- gain the trait Witness to Genius: You gain access to all dimensional science spells you know of with a rank less than or equal to the rank of your highest ranked dimensional science spell, and treat them as though they were that rank for all purposes except casting speed. Costs for non dimensional science magic are doubled.
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.
 
[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.
 
Wander said:
Normally it is, but that makes witness to genius stronger than I would like it to be. Sorry for any confusion. Alas, I'm not a game designer, so my systems are a bit messy.
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Well with that
[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science

The other choice has now been totally nerfed.
 
You know what? I think that with the Glimpse option is interesting, but at this point I'm just not feeling it. With the current mechanics, the WtG trait is going to invite a rather boring playstyle in terms of DS spell purchases. Basically, we will try to save up to 25 for Elemental Planar Portal II, and when we buy that we will have everything currently visible under the DS tree. From that point on, if we want to meaningfully improve at all, we are going to have to save for something costing ~50 points in DS, and that will take literally months. I'd like to think that part of the gap would be made up by us doing research to discover new spells (I dunno - "spirit portal", maybe?), but from the way @Wander described it there isn't all that much to discover out there.
In the meantime, the costs for everything else also go up, which means that raising them suddenly becomes less fun too. This is particularly vexing since high-level DS spellcasting could seriously use investment in other categories. General Magic is necessary if we want to reduce the cast time of anything advanced to a combat-applicable duration. Things in the Elemental tree let us better use our Elemental Portals, and stuff in the Spirit tree let us use Spirit portals. So - WtG will give us breadth in our DS casting, but will make it hard to acquire the support abilities that would let us properly leverage our DS spells.

[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science
 
PrimalShadow said:
You know what? I think that with the Glimpse option is interesting, but at this point I'm just not feeling it. With the current mechanics, the WtG trait is going to invite a rather boring playstyle in terms of DS spell purchases. Basically, we will try to save up to 25 for Elemental Planar Portal II, and when we buy that we will have everything currently visible under the DS tree. From that point on, if we want to meaningfully improve at all, we are going to have to save for something costing ~50 points in DS, and that will take literally months. I'd like to think that part of the gap would be made up by us doing research to discover new spells (I dunno - "spirit portal", maybe?), but from the way @Wander described it there isn't all that much to discover out there.
In the meantime, the costs for everything else also go up, which means that raising them suddenly becomes less fun too. This is particularly vexing since high-level DS spellcasting could seriously use investment in other categories. General Magic is necessary if we want to reduce the cast time of anything advanced to a combat-applicable duration. Things in the Elemental tree let us better use our Elemental Portals, and stuff in the Spirit tree let us use Spirit portals. So - WtG will give us breadth in our DS casting, but will make it hard to acquire the support abilities that would let us properly leverage our DS spells.

[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science
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I will say that you will have the opportunity to research more niche dimensional spells if you pick Witness to Genius, so don't assume that you're entirely limited to the description I gave. Just don't also assume that Dimensional Science covers absolutely everything efficiently either. Other kinds of magic do other things much more easily.

Edit: See, the issue I'm faced with is that if I describe all the cool things niche dimensional magic can do, people will focus on those things because I've described them and not consider that other kinds of magic might achieve the same effect much more easily or be more broadly applicable. It's tough to strike a balance between saying enough to keep the option interesting, and not saying so much that people will think this branch of magic is the best at everything just because it's the one you've seen the most of.
 
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[X] A flash of brilliance- gain +100 points in dimensional science
[X] Banish the Pact from this plane of existence. It will return, but while it is gone, the City Council's control over the hearts and minds of Diadem will be dangerously weakened.
 
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