| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Razz |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 03:38:20
Last I remember, the Weave was only a part of Realmspace and nothing outside. Not the Nine Hells, not Limbo, not the Astral Plane, etc. I assume planes that exist alongside the Material, like Shadow and Ethereal, are subject to the same rules.
Which means spellcasters weren't governed by the rules of the Weave when out of Realmspace, correct?
So, then, how is it that she banned higher level magic when all one can do is plane hop away and start researching from there?
If the Weave does govern on a planar scale, that would've made Mystra omnipotent. Being the goddess of magic in the hells, heavens, etc. would've made her above even Ao.
Also (and I'm dipping ever so slightly into 4E lore, as much as I dread to) how is it the entire cosmology changed around from Mystra's death if the Weave has nothing to do outside the Material Plane?
Are spellcasters who pass through the Shadow Plane into an alternate cosmology and entering, say, Krynn lose their use of magic because they lost access to the Weave? Or are spellcasters in the Realms able to cast their spells even without access to the Weave? I assume the Weave is sort of like a "toll booth" to casting spells in the Realms.
A slightly unrelated question, has there been anyone able to cast spells without access to the Weave (or Shadow Weave) and, if so, how? The last question is in part because I have a player with an elven wizard who is doing research on how one could bypass the Weave when casting spells (without resorting to the Shadow Weave). |
| 14 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Quale |
Posted - 14 Jan 2011 : 17:39:04
the Weave extends throughout the crystal sphere of Realmspace, not the planes, the planes have a very similar access to the flow of natural energies except they aren't called the Weave/Mystra, they are either nonsentient or governed by some other beings
the Weave is not the only way to manipulate energy in Realmspace, it's possible to cast spells without the Weave, only much more difficult without the thousands of years of arcane research |
| creyzi4zb12 |
Posted - 08 Jan 2011 : 08:44:10
Binders use vestiges and doesn't access the weave. Look up vestiges in Tome of Magic.
Karsus is also one of them. |
| Alisttair |
Posted - 08 Jan 2011 : 01:10:01
I think a lot of complications stem from the various d&d worlds being interconnectable rather than separate entities unto themselves (notice that a debate like this doesn't question if a wizard goes to Middle Earth for instance, a non-d&d world). |
| Milith holder of HB8 |
Posted - 08 Jan 2011 : 00:17:23
quote:
Originally posted by Therise
Sorry Ashe, but that doesn't answer the problem.
When hopping crystal spheres, mages didn't need to change their "player" because all formats were the same. All magic was mp3, to use your analogy.
It may be possible that the Weave existed on every plane and was simply the conduit for Realms mages and magic users. The Weave existed in Krynn and Greyhawk and even Hell, so a Realm's mage could theoretically go anywhere without suffering spell loss or magical problems.
quote:
After the Spellplague, mages had to re-learn magic and directly tap into raw magic. Faerunian magic supposedly changed to wav, as it were. Or did it?
Why wasn't anything like the Spellplague required in Eberron? That's the inconsistency, and it's major.
I suspect that Toril was the center of the Weave and thus when Midnight was destroyed and the Weave snapped apart, most of the damage was done to Toril and the Planes, where as other realms suffered minimal or no damage at all.
quote:
I'm starting to think that the "Weave" really was just magic all along, and it wasn't destroyed or changed. But if the Weave is just "base magic" and simply the Faerunian name for Art, then what really was the Spellplague and what did it destroy?
Frankly, I think that Shar started creating her "shadow weave" prior to the ToT and events in 2E, and it wasn't meant to be "alternate magic" but rather something that would slowly eat away and destroy ALL magic. When shadow mages tapped "shadow weave" they were just using regular magic and they -thought- they were tapping into a Sharran under-weave. But in reality, the shadow weave was really just a destructive thing that would slowly destroy all magic and didn't have anything to do with shadow magic. I think that we may find out that Mystra discovered this, and allowed her energy to be widely dispersed (i.e. she needed Cyric to disperse her, not kill her, in order to destroy the shadow weave).
I think Mystra essentially needed a lot of time "off the record" in order to remove the shadow weave. All magic is still the same on every crystal sphere out there, but no one really knew the actual purpose of the shadow weave or what it was for. It wasn't a power supply for shadow spells at all, but a kind of disease.
Um, no. The Weave and the Shadow Weave are stated to be conduits that the wizards use. They are simply forms of magic. And I would argue that the Weave is different, as we saw that Faerun has an unusually high count of magic users and high level magic users. However, we saw that when you got hold of the Shadow Weave, you could still cast most forms of spells and you were equal with other spellcasters, though somewhat less versatile.
It just requires the know how to access the different form of magic. Therefore, I think that what we saw was just the destruction of the Weave and the Shadow Weave, but magic itself remained. I put the idea that wizards couldn't control raw magic as just something that the goddess of magic made up to both protect Toril and her monopoly.
When both Weaves were lost, the mages had to adjust themselves to raw magic. It wasn't a problem with magic, so much as it was the user having compatability issues. I would suspect that if Raistlin had appeared sometime after the Spellplague, he would have been able to use his magic just fine. |
| Mr_Miscellany |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 23:12:00
It’s as much a mechanics issue as a lore issue.
Spellcasters being able to work magic on different prime material planes worked for previous rules editions because D&D was (and still is) a game and it made for fun game play back in the day when you could easily hop between worlds via Gates (read: portals) or by running a Planescape game.
In other words: it would really suck (and be poor game design) to find a means to travel between worlds, only to have all of your wizardly powers stripped from you. This would also imply different D&D game mechanics existed between worlds, which is a very dumb thing to impose on players and a DM.
On the lore side, the Weave as an overlay or buffer against raw magic was a condition unique to the Realms and its cosmology* (outer planes, inner planes, etc…)
On a world like Krynn there’s no condition of raw magic saturating everything (that I know of; Sage or any other Krynn expert please correct me here if necessary) so there’s no need for a buffer.
Absent a buffer like the Weave, we know from the novels and the rulebooks that wizards on Krynn can cast wizardly spells.
Absent a buffer like the Weave, we know from the novels (and the rulebooks) that wizards on Toril will probably blow themselves up or suffer ill effects if they cast spells.
With a buffer, Torillian wizards can cast wizardly spells.
Therefore, if you are a magic user native to Toril and you manage to find your way to Krynn, your spells work because you know how to access magic (i.e. cast wizardly spells).
Things were different between these two worlds, but at the point of play (i.e, the player running the Wizard), magic worked the same.
So why, post-Spellplague-did spellcasters in the Realms need to relearn magic and why do the lore/story changes require us to use the lopsided (in my not so humble opinion) 4E magic rules?
Like Therise, I questioned why mages the Realms over weren’t being blown to bits by raw, unregulated magic, every time they tried to cast a spell after the Spellplague ended. (Note mages exploding, etc…did happen when the Spellplague was raging, so we know that raw magic did take its toll.)
There’s not much lore to answer this question from the FRCG. (Are their other sources in the novels, anyone?). The FRCG mentions that things “settled down” (my words, I’m paraphrasing from memory) after the Spellplague.
Hypothesizing from this scant information, my opinion is that the majority of raw magic was used up like a fire blazing through a dry forest when the Spellplague hit.
Post-spellplague, the sum of raw magic is low in the Forgotten Realms. If this is true, then raw magic is not nearly as dangerous to a spellcaster as it was before.
Mages tapping into that minimal reservoir (what 4E would call the “arcane power source”) requires a group effort and copious material components to achieve certain, complex spell effects. This is why Rituals are required for certain classes of spells that previously could be cast by a solitary wizard.
In a world with a low reservoir of untamed magic, spell effects are easier to cast when they're of the damaging, unrefined variety—fireball, magic missile and so on. These can be cast by a single spellcaster.
And with no goddess of magic inhibiting spellcasting or otherwise forbidding certain spells to be cast, incredible (read: Epic) spellcasting feats are quite possible for Wizards who have learned through hard won experience how to coax the most magic for their efforts from the miserly remnants of the Weave.
I won’t touch Eberron because I don’t know a single thing about that setting’s transition to 4E, beyond saying that just because wizards could cast spells more or less equally in all D&D settings prior to 4E, it doesn’t follow that it’s automatically incongruous for the 4E spellcasting rules to work the same in both the Realms and Eberron even though one setting underwent a massive RSE and the other did not.
I’ve shown why it was possible mechanically and lore-wise for wizards to cast spells the same pre-4E, despite differing spellcasting conditions between worlds (i.e. the presence or absence of a Weave).
I’d need to know everything about the lore and design decisions behind Eberron’s transition first before I made the decision that things “don’t make sense” re: spellcasting in Eberron and the Realms in 4E.
* Note I use the term “cosmology” as opposed to “Crystal Sphere” because anything and everything Spelljammer is just a useless crap add-on to the Realms IMNSHO. The 3E revision to each setting having its own cosmology is a much more accurate depiction of the Realms, even if Spelljammer’s deleterious effects on Realmslore haven’t explicitly been removed from the setting. |
| Razz |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 22:26:38
It's rather confusing. Particularly exactly where the Weave is located. Many sources officially say Faerun...then others began saying all of Realmspace...and now I hear it's all over the planes?
Which is it officially? I assume everywhere, even the planes (strangely), but why do sources refer only to the Material Plane? These sorts of clarifications were spread through all editions prior to 4e. |
| Bladewind |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 18:20:50
It's a rather airy and flighty topic, as between the edition changes there seem to be some rather odd changes in how weave based magic must be handled. I'll try to adhere to the 3rd edition philosophies for this.
Magic usually is a means to channel and shape 'life-energy' that radiates through out the whole multiverse. Each world is inundated or blasted with constant waves of this energy, both internally from all life of the world, and externally from all life energies from other worlds among the stars and their cosmologies. The life-energy is often used to create connections to certain parts of a cosmology to create the desired effect of a spell. An example for this is Teleport, which creates a link to the astral plane and subsequently bridges the gap between two places on the prime material plane, enabling for instantaneous travel. Another example is See invisbility which 'opens the window' and enables the mage to peek into the ethereal plane.
Certain Planes DO have a profound influence on the way magic works. The timeless Astral plane for example enhances all spells as if they were quickened, on the dark Shadow plane light spells are more difficult to pull of, the inner planes maximise spells with the correct elemental discriptor and impede casting spells with their opposed element.
Because of the inherent abiities of spells to interact with the planes around them, a self-conscious field of magic that surrounds a world can only function as a sort of catalyst or collector of life-energy. Mystra's weave is therefore not a source of energy, but a battery of convenience for a spellcaster, a storage construct that collects magic around the immediate multiverse (i.e. Fearuns cosmology) around Toril. A 'weaved' spell that breaches the planar boundaries uses the same energy used on other planar locales, but is not any more or less powerful for it. A spellcaster that somehow offended Mystra could be severed from the weave by alligning his weave sensitivity such that his attempts at attracting magic energy got diverted or absorbed by herself instead of the calling mage.
The weaves effect is purely something that can best be left to roleplay, i.e. the life-energy of other worlds than Toril feels somehow differently to a magic user of Fearun, but they could still use it nonetheless. I imagined Mystra's divine touch and influence on magics energies feels slightly 'warmer' to a magic user, more vibrant somehow. This could even be addicting to them in a way, having the comfort of the knowledge a goddess watches over the raw energies of life for you. |
| Barastir |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 17:36:00
I always thought that the weave would be everywhere, but it would be governed by Mystra in Realmspace (or just in Faerűn, but not in Zhakara, for example), and other gods would take care of it in other spheres or places. So, there would be a "council" of the deities of magic that would set the common rules for all the planes/planets/settings... |
| Erdrick Stormedge |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 16:58:19
I shall address these issues forthwith, whence I havest possession of a few choice scrolls, libri and times! Worry not, Seeker Razz, thou shalt havest the knowledge thy seeketh! |
| Therise |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 15:14:00
Sorry Ashe, but that doesn't answer the problem.
When hopping crystal spheres, mages didn't need to change their "player" because all formats were the same. All magic was mp3, to use your analogy.
After the Spellplague, mages had to re-learn magic and directly tap into raw magic. Faerunian magic supposedly changed to wav, as it were. Or did it?
Why wasn't anything like the Spellplague required in Eberron? That's the inconsistency, and it's major.
I'm starting to think that the "Weave" really was just magic all along, and it wasn't destroyed or changed. But if the Weave is just "base magic" and simply the Faerunian name for Art, then what really was the Spellplague and what did it destroy?
Frankly, I think that Shar started creating her "shadow weave" prior to the ToT and events in 2E, and it wasn't meant to be "alternate magic" but rather something that would slowly eat away and destroy ALL magic. When shadow mages tapped "shadow weave" they were just using regular magic and they -thought- they were tapping into a Sharran under-weave. But in reality, the shadow weave was really just a destructive thing that would slowly destroy all magic and didn't have anything to do with shadow magic. I think that we may find out that Mystra discovered this, and allowed her energy to be widely dispersed (i.e. she needed Cyric to disperse her, not kill her, in order to destroy the shadow weave).
I think Mystra essentially needed a lot of time "off the record" in order to remove the shadow weave. All magic is still the same on every crystal sphere out there, but no one really knew the actual purpose of the shadow weave or what it was for. It wasn't a power supply for shadow spells at all, but a kind of disease.
So if that's true, why did magic change dramatically on Faerun and Eberron both? Well, perhaps Eberron's 4E magic is what naturally evolves as Art when there is no deity around to promote magic. And just the same, without Mystra around (and due to magic being offline for a while) the Faerunians needed to re-learn magic without the benefit of a goddess helping things along. |
| Ashe Ravenheart |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 14:51:17
Magic appears the same to the viewer and user no matter where you are.
If you're playing music on a computer, is the music from mp3 files, wav files or played off a cd in the drive? You don't know unless you dig down further than your music player software. If you're just playing the music, you don't know the format it's in. |
| Therise |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 06:24:19
A major inconsistency pops up, though, if you consider that magic was magic no matter to which crystal sphere you traveled. Spells worked the same, generally... a magic missile was a magic missile wherever you went, and you didn't have to re-learn a new technique every time you used a Spelljammer to travel. Spellbooks worked where ever you went, as spells were pretty much the same (except that you might not find all the uniquely researched spells of Faerun on Grayhawk and vice versa). Greyhawk spells and Toril spells worked the same, and there was supposedly no "Weave" anywhere except Toril.
Yet we are supposed to believe that the Weave was a kind of "overlay" on raw magic, that not only protected mages from the raw power but also controlled and refined magic to some degree for the users.
Now, without that "Weave" in existence, isn't it funny that (for example) the magic of Eberron and Faerun is equivalent? And Eberron didn't have to suffer a Spellplague, or have massive planar rearrangement, etc.
|
| althen artren |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 04:26:52
Go ask Ed, hell set u straight. |
| Milith holder of HB8 |
Posted - 07 Jan 2011 : 04:07:47
quote:
Originally posted by Razz
Last I remember, the Weave was only a part of Realmspace and nothing outside. Not the Nine Hells, not Limbo, not the Astral Plane, etc. I assume planes that exist alongside the Material, like Shadow and Ethereal, are subject to the same rules.
Which means spellcasters weren't governed by the rules of the Weave when out of Realmspace, correct?
So, then, how is it that she banned higher level magic when all one can do is plane hop away and start researching from there?
If the Weave does govern on a planar scale, that would've made Mystra omnipotent. Being the goddess of magic in the hells, heavens, etc. would've made her above even Ao.
Also (and I'm dipping ever so slightly into 4E lore, as much as I dread to) how is it the entire cosmology changed around from Mystra's death if the Weave has nothing to do outside the Material Plane?
Are spellcasters who pass through the Shadow Plane into an alternate cosmology and entering, say, Krynn lose their use of magic because they lost access to the Weave? Or are spellcasters in the Realms able to cast their spells even without access to the Weave? I assume the Weave is sort of like a "toll booth" to casting spells in the Realms.
A slightly unrelated question, has there been anyone able to cast spells without access to the Weave (or Shadow Weave) and, if so, how? The last question is in part because I have a player with an elven wizard who is doing research on how one could bypass the Weave when casting spells (without resorting to the Shadow Weave).
Alright, where to start?
1) The Weave extends to all of the planes, as we saw that when Midnight stripped Cyric of the Weave, it extended to all the planes, not just the Realms.
2) Even though this is the case, that does not make her stronger than Ao. Ao has shown that he can easily overpower all the gods. The sound of his voice alone can force all the gods to their knees.
3) Spells seem to work in any setting, as does arcane magic. We know this from The Wizard's Three articles that Ed wrote for Dragon sometime ago. I don't recall there ever being a sort of compatability issue.
4) Mystra exerts her power through the Weave and that is how she mantains her monopoly on magic in the Realms. Her power comes directly from and is over the Weave. That's why Shar was able to gain control of the Shadow Weave without Mystra instantly slapping her silly for it.
This also works when we look at 4e Realms. According to the portion on magic in the guide for FR, there are many forms of magic, the Weave and the Shadow Weave are two just two of them. Going with this, Mystra was able to screw even gods over simply because they could only use the Weave and she had control over it. So, any god (such as Shar) who has control over a different form of magic (such as the Shadow Weave) can avoid this.
Therefore, Krynnspace mages and gods wouldn't be affected by choices Mystra made to the Weave because they don't use the Weave. They use Krynn moon-magic-or-whatever. Nor would say Greyhawk because they again, work on an entirely different form of magic.
In essence, think of a magic user as a PC connecting to a network. Network Weave has X rules that say you can do this and that. Network Boccob's Magic however, is another network that works off of Y rules that say you can do that and this. And so forth.
At least, that's my understanding of it. |
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