Master-Class Casters

[Ninjaguineapig]

We know now that Turnamancers can speed production, turn units, and even switch turn orders (or skip turns completely). What if the last isn't a result of a link, but of a Master-Class casting? As casters move up the ranks, they gain more capabilities, and possibly more spells as well. What if this is one of them? What I'm saying is that maybe Master-Class casters have more power than has been shown. Wanda is a Master-Class Croakamancer, does Croakamancy have any applications beyond zombification?
Alternatively, this may tie in to my other theory that the titles given high-level casters (Grand Abbie, Mastermind) are used to denote those skilled in all three disciplines within a class. Turnamancy is a Spookism, and shares that with Dollamancy and Weirdomancy. Kingworld could possibly be a combo of all three of these. We don't know what Weirdomancy does, or if Dollamancy does anything beyond making golems, but this is certainly weird, and maybe the Wheel of Fortune board was a Dollamancy?

[the_tick_rules]

I say she's linked, she has a similar facial look as when the others were linked. Plus everyone was told not to speak to her, maybe to avoid breaking the link and such?

[BLANDCorporatio]

She must be linked. Ending turns is too big an ability to trust on a single caster.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

My guess: A masterclass Turnamancer can change the natural turnorder for the following day. But the spell to end another side's turn prematurley is the result of the link. I don't think it#s a combination of the three; dollamancy creates certain kinds of golems and clothing. Maybe weirdomancy is in the mix, but we don't know what that is.

[Sinrus]

My guess is turna/thinka/turna

[BLANDCorporatio]

Random off-topic thought:

Recipe for five-caster link:

add a Caster of some type.

add a Thinkamancer.

add a Dittomancer to double the other two.

[splintermute]

I don't think the high level caster designation refers to someone who's mastered all three disciplines, because then there could never be any "arch-naughtymancers."

[Kaed]

I don't think the high level caster designation refers to someone who's mastered all three disciplines, because then there could never be any "arch-naughtymancers."

Why would anyone want to be that Naughty?

;D

[the_tick_rules]

Plus Jack was called a master-class and he hasn't shown any stuff from the other two fields has he?

[Kanki-chan]

I also agree that it's more likely for the end turn of the latest page to be because of a link-up, although who the third person is (if there is one) is still a mystery. I tend to think that Turnamancer's class has more to do with "speeding up production/time" by a certain modifier. For example:

Amatuer: reduces popping turns by 10-25%, speeds up opponents turn by same percentage (if a turn took 100 minutes in a specific hex, the opponent has 10-25 minutes less to do something)

Adept: reduces popping turns by 26-50%, same for opponent's turn

Master: reduces popping up to 75%.

That way, a master-class Turnamancer is still a huge advantage, but not so unfair as a linked turnamancer. If a Master Turnamancer used as much juice as possible to reduce an opponent's turn by 75%, there's still time for the opponent to do something (stack, attack, etc.), just not as much in a normal turn. Also, if it takes about 60 turns for a royal heir to pop, a master-class turnamancer makes a royal pop in 15 turns as opposed to an amateur turnamancer making a royal heir pop in 54 turns.

[AllPurposeNerd]

She's linked with Charlie.

We already know the Arkendish is Thinkamancy-based. Forming a link without even being in the same hex sounds like an Arkentool-level ability. Maybe he's linked with one or more other casters, maybe not. Or maybe the link is with the 'dish itself.

It's either that or she's linked with veiled archons which I don't like as much.

[Kanki-chan]

She's linked with Charlie.

My bad, when I mentioned the possibility of being in a link-up, I meant "she's definitely linked with Charlie, but is it just the two of them, or is there a third caster in the link for some extra help?"

As for linking up with Archons, for some reason I find it unlikely. In my understanding of the archons, I don't think they can keep up a veil or still be linked, nor be a certain distance away and link up. That would take away too much juice.

[Sygerrik]

Archons aren't casters. They're Knights. My guess (and of course this is not 100%, but I am pretty confident about it) is that Knights (or other units) with Specials, (dancefighting, leadership, foolamancy) use those Specials as Natural Magic (in the same way that a Twoll's special is Natural Stuffamancy).
Archons don't use juice and aren't eligible for linkups because they're not Casters, even if their abilities mimic some of the functions of Casters.

[Ninjaguineapig]

I don't think the high level caster designation refers to someone who's mastered all three disciplines, because then there could never be any "arch-naughtymancers."

Plus Jack was called a master-class and he hasn't shown any stuff from the other two fields has he?

You're mixing the two things I said. One was that maybe Master-Class casters have greater spells than lower ranked casters. The other was that maybe Kingworld was a multi-discipline spell.

[drakeblood4]

My money says that there was a linked up caster, and that it was a Hippiemancer, specifically a Florist, for several reasons:

-It revolved around time, and time has been known to crumble around Hippiemancey
-It revolved around the cessation of combat, and Hippiemancey has been known to focus on that
-Florists, by definition, work with flowers. Certain flowers have been known to cause one to forget about doing things that are important, especially if inhaled or ingested.
-Hippies interact with aforementioned flowers on a very regular basis.

[Dasrak]

On the actual topic of caster-class levels, we know practically nothing other than master classes are somehow better than the other classes of casters. We know a little bit about how a master class Thinkamancer is capable of managing more units simultaneously (presumably with more juice) than a lower level thinkamancer, but we don't know if they have additional abilities. We also don't know much about how a caster's class level is decided. Is it decided when they pop (some just pop "better" than others?) or can they level up to improve?

Right now, "master-class caster" is a more or less meaningless term that just means "better". You can speculate, but there just aren't enough facts here. Aside from thinkamancers, the story has yet to introduce two casters of the same type, so we don't even have any benchmarks of the variation within a specific discipline of caster. Thinkamancy is probably the best described form of magic in Erfworld currently, but that really only underscores how little we know about it.

[splintermute]

Right now, "master-class caster" is a more or less meaningless term that just means "better". You can speculate, but there just aren't enough facts here. Aside from thinkamancers, the story has yet to introduce two casters of the same type, so we don't even have any benchmarks of the variation within a specific discipline of caster. Thinkamancy is probably the best described form of magic in Erfworld currently, but that really only underscores how little we know about it.

Even among thinkamancers, we may not have seen more than one class. Charlie has unmatched thinkamancy, greater than a Mastermind, but he may not necessarily be a thinkamancer - we don't know how much of what he does is Mastermind-class thinkamancy and how much is due to the dish.

That leaves Bunny, but we haven't seen her do anything Maggie can't do, and the Magic Kingdom thinkamancers - we don't know if "Spock" is a thinkamancer (I'm actually leaning towards florist) or the thinkamancers "Carl Sagan" summoned are Masterminds, but assuming they are, we only saw them demonstrate two abilities - the Vulcan nerve pinch, which, if it's not hippiemancy, could be analogous to Maggie's "hoboken," and unraveling a trimancer safely. It's implied that Maggie was not powerful/capable enough at the time to unravel a trimancer safely from within, but we don't know if she could have done it from outside of a trimancer link. Also, we don't know if this is still the case today, in light of all the linking practice she's been getting with Sizemore.

[bob the 6th]

we don't even know if mastermind is better than adept or if they are different classes of thinkamancer, adept might focus on small things like links wile a mastermind focusus on large scale organization.

[splintermute]

An idea I recently had, and posted in another thread, is that you can semi-deliberately pop a master-class caster.

All sides can pop warlords, and royal sides can pop regular and noble warlords, and sometimes if you try to pop a warlord you get a caster - what if sometimes when a royal side tries to pop a noble warlord they get a master-class caster. The only two confirmed "master-class" casters we've seen were Jack and Wanda - assuming they were from Faq, a royal side, they might have been the result of Banhammer's attempts at a noble warlord. If Maggie and Sizemore aren't master-class, it might be because they were the results of Saline IV's attempts at a regular warlord - if he was willing to appoint Stanley his heir, he probably wasn't the kind of overlord who got hung up on the nobility of his warlords.

[Rogthnor01]

My theory is that Charlie just used his thinkamancy to make stanley end the turn at that it took so much juice for the caster because she was speeding up the effect to a speed where no one would notice the magic.