Multi-channeling (Numbers and Flavours)

[Xandrea]

Playing around with a Warlock I've found that opening multiple channels is a little bit of a hassle.
I think if we could make opening channels and conversely how many channels are opened could change and more helpful!

This is what shows for a channel. Opening three of these will spam it's flavor text to not just you but, everyone in eyeshot.

Inky black tendrils snake and writhe around your hands as you summon nether to your command.

We could play with this a bit! It has a three second roundtime per channel we open. The roundtime isn't a problem, it's just a risk.
I suggest that typing a channel name "Sorcery" in this case and a number, "Sorcery 1-3 .etc" Would open that many channels at once and combine the roundtime.

With this idea in mind, some flavour text showing the intensity would be interesting to kick around aswell!

• 1x Inky black tendrils snake and writhe around your hands as you summon nether to your command.
  2x The inky black tendrils begin to flare and loom ever higher as your will draws more Nether to command.
  3x Continuing to draw further upon Nether you can feel the tendrils coiling around your arms as they grow ever larger.

Now, remember how I said roundtime was risk? Well, this is a lot of roundtime if you go from 0 to max. Some channels won't seem as scary as nether does but, you're drawing upon a lot of power at once! What if the more channels you attempt to draw in a single go could have a form of risk? Whether dependant upon Meditation or the channeled-skill.

Introducing risk for the ability to open multiple channels at once I think is enough to warrant a roundtime reduction. (So in this case halve the roundtime and round it up.)
For Nether I could see the risk being you losing energy. So the risk could be 15 energy per channel. (Making it 45 at 3x which could really hurt!)
Additionally that would reward your control and give more reasons to have meditation as a part of a magic-user's kit. You can control a lot of power but, do you have the proper knowledge/mental capacity to handle such a spike in power? Or maybe you're particularly talented (Willpower) and that helps you naturally? (Note that I'm biased for WIllpower)

Alternatively it could synergize. Using a combined point total of both meditation and the Channeled skill (Maybe half?) to determine the outcome.

All this said, opening multiple channels would allow said magic-users to show off their mastery with increasingly cool flavour text upon opening them. Where the experienced magic-users could pull on much more power much more quickly, whilst the lesser trained must ramp it up slowly (To avoid the back-lash) which would make a visual and mechanical distinction between said Novices and the more experienced. (Not to mention a magic-user could pull all these channels at once. It would be some really cool flavour for trying to intimidate/ward people with ill intent or to further punctuate one's own ill intentions.) Some text shown to those observing the magic-user which differs between opened channels which are controlled better or worse as a result of the back-lash would also just simply be cool for RP distinctions. If there are any players that want to RP and play having A LOT of power capacity but, less control.

[Rias]

I like the idea of differing messages based on how many channels are already open, and possibly skill level. Do keep in mind that you can open additional channels while still in roundtime, though opening multiples at once in a single command would make it less spammy, I suppose.

[Xandrea]

That was the idea. When I was playing my Warlock opening three channels at the start of every encounter (which would be done in rapid succession) would pop three lines out that everyone can see. I'm aware we can still open channels during the roundtime incurred from opening a channel but, I figured we could cull that down a little and get some cool flavour text to boot.