Piphan

Former mod, still staff. The way your topic's worded, it's currently wishy-washy on what you're looking for. If you're looking strictly for lore, we can keep that one alive. If you're looking for a discussion on whether people could/should/can/want to RP with someone with such magical "restriction", then over here's good. I'd suggest rewording and maybe retitling each to fit what you're looking for. There's nothing against having a lore thread for the facts and an RP discussion thread for people's opinions. ...you'll....just wanna keep them separate because those are pretty different topics. I had hoped placing my key questions at the end of the post in bold would resolve any "wishy-washy" uncertainty as to what was I was asking. I'm not really asking if folks could/should/etc RP with someone with these kinds of abilities; I really only included that part in my post to avoid the conversation focusing too heavily on that. It seems like any time I've asked hard questions about how lore and RP mesh, I've gotten a lot of defensive or aggressive responses, and I mostly wanted to avoid that. My questions are really lore-centered, but I'm asking them for the purpose of RPing with whatever knowledge is gained. To that extent, I had sort of expected my thread in "RP discussion" to be the one that got locked down, but I'm not overly concerned about it either way. All the same, I appreciate you weighing in here! Yeah, I can definitely see how it'd be sort of "open to interpretation". I tend to view "magic" as just a more fantastical version of RL science, and so I really enjoy when any fiction attempts to explain how their concept of magic functions. Still, with so many different kinds of people RPing in their own way, I can understand why many others would tend to view magic as simply a means to an end (i.e., healing magic being a super-fix-it button). As for aetherial fire and fire started by flint... I mean, if aether is the source of all things in this universe, then it stands to reason that regardless of whether fire is started by flint, a bolt of lightening hitting a tree, or a Black Mage's spell, all fire would still possess aether... Er, right? In which case, all fire would still be more or less the same. If anything, "aetherial fire" might be more "pure" or something because it was brought about by atherial means rather than being forced through some other mechanism. And if any of that holds true, then the only things I could see varying are the manner in which it spreads or how hot it is at the start. For example, consider the way a fire behaves when started from oil verses fire started from flint. You can't quite put out a grease or oil fire in the same way you might put out others because of the type of fuel it's using to continuously burn. Hahaha, this sort of speculation is sort of headache inducing, I have to admit. All the same, I think of it as a fun sort of thought-experiment to weight out the different possibilities and the logic behind them.

Thanks for merging them instead of just deleting one! I was a little worried some of the cool responses might be lost, but that was a huge relief. As a new member, I wasn't really sure how to go about reaching out to a moderator for a swift response. Is there a way I can tell which moderators are currently online and available for pestering? Thanks for letting me know!

NO Haha, not that I'm inclined to disagree with you or anything (given everything I said in my initial post), but... Would you mind explaining your position a little more? I'd love to hear more details.

*Ohhhhhhhhhh.* Haha, I understand. Makes sense. Is lightning special in that regard, or are there fancy names for fire and ice spells as well? I wanna be down with the magical lingo. Of course not! I'm well aware that we're all just ultimately speculating on what we've read, heard, or seen. But that having been said, I do think that with some patience, sound reasoning, and plenty of conversation, we could probably come up with a much more solid understanding of how aether and magic work. The writers for this game did an excellent job in leaving a lot of clues about. So I'm totally content to spit-ball along with you and whoever else. Other than getting a direct line to the writers behind all this stuff, I can't think of a better way to go about discerning these things. The aether-crystals and their usage are definitely a big part of what got me thinking this way. Normally, I'd assume the same as you have: Fire conjured by magic must surely be at least a little different than fire created through natural means.... Right? But when I stop to consider the way aether-crystals are used and the explanation given of how aether ultimately gives life and energy to everything, it seems harder to discern how the two would be different. I'm still digging around and talking for folks to look for examples, though. There could very well be something in the game or in the lore that disagrees with the line of logic I've been following so far, and if so, I'd be pleased as punch to find it.

Yeah, that's really the reason I've bothered to look into it so much. He's stressed that he doesn't actually fight very much in RP and that he really only maintains it as an important aspect of a certain mystery he's got his character caught in for his storyline. That's understandable to me, but I'm sure there's got to be a way to accomplish whatever it is he's hoping for in a better way that doesn't so blatantly go against the lore. When pressed about how it *would* affect an RP fight, it seems like it's more or less just a way for him to keep his character alive and to create a more dramatic scene. For example, he could survive a direct blast from a Fire IV spell, but it would still leave him in pretty bad shape. At the same time, he also wouldn't be able to just receive some heals and be back to normal. So it seems like it's something he's trying to use to create more tension for his character. Again, I think this is a clumsy way of going about it, but to each their own. If you happen to know, how does Nidhogg's resistance to magic work? Does he possess some ability that just makes magic generally less effective against him, or does he just have a bunch of different elemental resistances that, together, bring a similar effect about?

I really wasn't sure which section it better applied to, so I figured I'd post in both and if it was a big deal then a mod would lock one down and I'd be better informed on where to post questions like this in the future. I'm new to the forum and since my question applies to both role playing and lore, I wasn't sure... Er, well, there's also the small hope that I might get more responses that way, so I have to admit I was taking advantage of the ambiguity to some degree. Sorry! But on to your points: I was thinking along those same lines for the resistances, but I feel a little foolish for not looking at character stats for more detailed information. Great point! Also, I wasn't aware that elements brought about by aether manipulation were any different from what's found in nature. Not that it's too surprising, I just hadn't found much info that suggested one or the other. I'm definitely interested to hear more, though! What is "arcane levin"? All the google results I pull up on that just leads me to "Lord of Levin," which seems to focus more on the character/quests than anything else. Also-also, thanks for responding!

So, I have a friend who RPs as a character that apparently holds a "high resistance" to basically all magic. He has stressed that it's not an "immunity," but that his character is just unable to use magic and is also far less affected by it in all respects. So while this means his character is less affected by offensive magic, it's also intended to mean that he is much harder to heal with healing magic as well. Now, as far as I have seen so far in my research of the lore, I have a really hard time understanding how something like that could be feasible for a character. It seems like the source of all magic seems to be aether which, in turn, appears to be the source of *everything* in the Final Fantasy universe. Magic users seemingly only manipulate aether to meet their will: So, for example, if you wanted to receive less damage from a fire spell, then you'd just have to have a higher resistance to fire in general. A Black Mage's fire attacks aren't any different than fire found in nature; it's just a matter of size and scale in regards to one's personal reserves of aether and their ability to manipulate it. If this is truly the case, then one couldn't just simply say, "I have a high resistance to all magic," right? The individual in question would have to have a resistance to the elements being used, like fire or ice. If I'm correct in my understanding of how magic and aether work, I personally feel like this sort of characteristic not only "disagrees" with the lore, but kind of flies in the face of the very heart of it all. Being "resistant" or "immune" to all magic seems like it would necessitate the same being true for aether in general which, again, just doesn't seem feasible when you consider that everything in existence depends on aether in some way or another. Now, I'm not looking to argue about how to RP in the "right" or "wrong" way. If my current understanding of how aether and magic work is correct, it's not like I'm going to go and try to argue with him that he *has* to make a character more lore friendly. I think that's a personal choice for him to decide on, just like it's my personal choice to decide whether or not I find that engaging enough to RP along with. That having been said, he has asked me if there's a viable in-lore explanation that could allow his character to remain lore-friendly without any big changes to his abilities. Which brings me here: Is it possible for someone to be generally resistant to all forms of magic? If so, how would that work? In game, how are resistances to magic explained? Are there any key aspects of how magic and aether work in this world that I've missed in my summation above? Any and all input that can help me figure this out would be greatly appreciated!

Well, okay, maybe not that fresh. My IGN is Piphan Balans and I'm currently playing as a Thaumaturge. Most folks I meet online call me Piph or Piphan. This is my first time ever playing on an RP server! And it's my first time playing an MMO again since... sometime around 2008. Seriously, it's been a long time. I just transferred onto Balmung after spending my first few days on Leviathan, mostly because I'm hoping to play with a more social crowd. What's the fun of an MMO if you're not hanging out with other cool players, right? I'm hoping to meet a lot of new people and to find an FC that won't mind showing me the ropes for a bit. I'm excited to engage in at least some casual roleplaying, but I can't say I've given it much forethought than that. Any pro tips or knowledge you can share would be greatly appreciated! I'm hoping to have a blast here.