Dungeon Fantasy 4: Sages is released!

[Rasputin]

Quick question: how specialized can the knowledge from a manual be? Would something along the lines of Defiling Good Altars in the Name of Evil for Dummies be a valid title?

[Kromm]

Manuals are defined by skills. If you can figure out a skill specialty that does what you want, then you can have a manual for that skill.

[Kromm]

As for true photographic recall . . .

I've seen no research on anyone who could speed-read hundreds of pages of hundreds of books and comprehend and use the knowledge therein indefinitely. There are many well-documented cases of people memorizing vast writings -- like the entire Qur'an -- through painstaking study and repetition. There are many cases of savant syndrome that involve astounding instant memorization and recall without assimilation. But I've yet to hear of even one case where the subject could glance over a large text for a few hours and then systematically use its teachings for practical purposes for days, weeks, and even years afterward.

Thus, I don't think this is an especially useful phenomenon to simulate in games. I think that the system in place for scholars is good enough for dungeon crawls, though. ;)

[El Guapo]

I just got it. It's just a morsel, but a tasty one. I am not disappointed. I just have a question about the table on p. 14 -- does the weight stop going up after the first 3 spells or were the "+" signs just omitted?

[Kromm]

No, I assumed that once you've built a basic groundwork for the college, further spells are relatively brief, and you're paying more for access to secret knowledge than for any significant number of additional pages. More practically, I didn't really want books to get stupidly large. The ones on the table are already . . . massive.

[Taliesin]

I hate being wrong. ; ( <--- Grumpy face

I though DF4 was going to suck and be useless.

DF4 rocks, it's gots lots of good stuff I'm gonna use on Sunday.

I am so gonna put a Gnome artificer marysue in my game.

My players are either going to build an alter to Kromm or hunt him down and shoot him dead in the street.

Oh, and when is DF5: More ways to kill PCs going to come out?

[El Guapo]

Originally Posted by Kromm

No, I assumed that once you've built a basic groundwork for the college, further spells are relatively brief, and you're paying more for access to secret knowledge than for any significant number of additional pages. More practically, I didn't really want books to get stupidly large. The ones on the table are already . . . massive.

That makes sense. The 70-lb spellbook would be a little silly. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, great job of DF4! I can't wait for the next one.

[Captain-Captain]

This justifies the purchase on it's own:

[Stuff that, once posted here, means that nobody else need justify the purchase. Please don't post verbatim text from brand-new products here. Thanks! -- The Administration.]

Banestorm gets more interesting if you can apply it to the An'Fo'Tama monk power of "Reading the Akashik Record". ;)

[Highland_Piper]

Yeah I was skeptical as well, but after reading it the flood gates in my mind opened up. The Artificer can be seen in many anime movies that are fantasy based. Winry Rockbell from Full Metal Alchemist, I know I've seen more in more traditional Fantasy Anime but they where pretty old and I can't remember the titles.

Book-Learned Wisdom is fine the way it is and fits perfectly in the DF setting.

Great Job!

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Kromm

As for true photographic recall . . .

I've seen no research on anyone who could speed-read hundreds of pages of hundreds of books and comprehend and use the knowledge therein indefinitely. There are many well-documented cases of people memorizing vast writings -- like the entire Qur'an -- through painstaking study and repetition. There are many cases of savant syndrome that involve astounding instant memorization and recall without assimilation. But I've yet to hear of even one case where the subject could glance over a large text for a few hours and then systematically use its teachings for practical purposes for days, weeks, and even years afterward.

Thus, I don't think this is an especially useful phenomenon to simulate in games. I think that the system in place for scholars is good enough for dungeon crawls, though. ;)

It's useful when modelling AIs with big, fast, efficient memory banks or other similar creatures.

The fact that humans can't memorize books/skills like that seems to come mostly from the fact that humans don't have MA:Super-Memorization, unlike some characters.