1) Why the +1 fighting apt? Where is that coming from? (certainly not their wizardly or "good" divine heritage.)
More from bookish knowledge than anything. They know about fighting but they don't know how to fight (sort of like the skillset of an Ogre spellcaster)
2) Similarly, why the +2 stealth apt? I would imagine that a race that inherently glows is going to have a hard time picking up stealth skills.
Good point, will change that. I left that there because the glowing mutation was the last thing I added.
3) As "agents of the good gods", I would expect a very strong invocation apt.
Got a good point there as well. Raising it to +2 would tie it with Demonspawns, who also have a connection to gods save Demigods, although in the evil respect.
4) Have you considered how this race would behave with respect to amulets of guardian spirit, rings of magical power, going berserk, and other things that modify either HP or MP totals?
- GS: "You feel something move through your very being, then leave."...it already acts as a guardian spirit unto itself, so GS doesn't work for Archons.
- Going berserk: "You feel magic flowing around you slightly faster. You shrug it off."...no blood for blood rage, so Berserk does not work for Archons.
- Magical Power and Staff of Power: "You feel more alive!"...these items get half bonuses at MP levels over 50, so I think the same rule should apply here.
- Regeneration/Rings of Regeneration will not work...regeneration seems to be like Wolverine-style healing, and Archons don't have what you would call flesh. If there were a way to regenerate magical power though (ring of energizing? we can only dream!), I think that would work, but that time isn't now
Other than that, I don't really recall other ways to gain HP or MP besides berserking, and as mentioned before that doesn't work.
5) What's the rationale for disallowing helmets? Do they have horns or something? Similarly, although "Armor fits poorly" mutation seems reasonable (no legs, etc.), not sure why body armor in general would be disallowed (though it's probably moot, as the race is so heavily biased toward spellcasting that armor builds seem unlikely.)
Nah, it's because I was thinking that stuff like helmets would disrupt magical flow, or some other flavor-based reason. They don't really have any physical reason for disallowing helmets, so yeah *shrug*. Similar story for armor. Also, I couldn't decide whether Archons had heads or a formless flaming spout where the head would be (like the headless horseman).
For consistency's sake, I think that I'll stick with the Archon with a head, and allow armors and helmets. I'm definitely going to add the "armor fits poorly mutation", though, it's a good idea even if I went with a headless Archon image. However, the Armor skill is going to stay the same, you're going to have to work for the right to wear armor
Overall, I think there are a *lot* of positive benefits, with little to no disadvantages, for a spellcaster.
The big disadvantage would be potentially dying a lot faster due to using a singular (relatively small) pool of energy for both casting and living. It's mostly centered around that balancing act. A thing I was considering was to disallow use of evocable items (because Archons don't trust any form of magic other than their own
), and if this idea gets to that point of unfairness I think that adding that would be fair