aluminiumtrioxid

Still better than the Drow Aww, c'mon. The Drow are cool. Back-stabbing racist fundamentalist superhumans with magic resistance and leather/BDSM fetish. What's there not to love? Even the rampant gayness of the Chaotic Good Rebels Who Shun Their Kin's Wicked Ways can't completely obliterate the sheer awesomeness of this race.

Or have scimitars and dual-wield pet panthers. Now, THAT would be epic. What about panthers that dual wield scimitars? Rakshasa?

Spell ideas I've mentioned in other topics: Awaken the Torn Defender This spell animates a fallen body to defend the spellcaster and his allies. For some reason, the animated body undergoes a strange transformation while under the spell's effect: its eyes seem to retract a bit and dark circles appear around them; the muscles seem to atrophy, while the belly becomes swollen. All in all, the target somewhat resembles to a victim of hunger. There is no known reason why this transformation occurs, or how to get rid of it. The freshly created Torn Defender tries to protect his master by throwing itself against enemy blows, functioning as a literal "meat shield". It doesn't attack, nor does it grapple the opponent or try to hinder it in any way; but its agility, resilience, and resolve to protect its owner makes it a reliable annoyance. The easiest way to deal with the creature is to hack away its legs; it robs the body of both the agility and the required height to effectively protect against any blow. Summon Doomshriek The spell conjures forth a Doomshriek, a predator of another plane. They are gigantic, pale, blind eel-like creatures floating in the air. It is theorized that they live underground, swimming in a substance lighter than the air of our plane - thus, they're able to float here. They attack with their strong jaws, tearing huge chunks out of their victims' flesh after they've stunned them with their shrieks. These narrowly focused sound blasts can induce deafness and complete sensory overload in the victim. Of course the constant shrieking makes it quite hard to concentrate, let alone identify the enemy spellcasters' formulae, so countering enemy spells becomes quite hard with this creature on the battlefield. Notable weaknesses: it's not unheard of that they attack their summoner under the influence of a berserk spell, or if no other, more compelling targets are present. Also, the emitted sounds seem to play a huge part in their navigation in the environment, thus a sufficiently strong Silence spell renders these mighty creatures almost completely impotent.

Or have scimitars and dual-wield pet panthers. Now, THAT would be epic.

Temporal rejuvenation To the uninitiated eye, this spell may seem to be one geared toward the manipulation of lifeforce, but it's pure time magic. It creates a strangely specific time bubble around the target's body, inside of which weeks, or even months may pass in a blink of an eye. The process is little understood even by experts, but the spell simultaneously allows the target to manipulate his surroundings despite the temporal differences. The effect is similar to most healing magics': wounds mend, fatigue or stunning become no longer applicable as the body quickly regenerates over the course of the months passing in the bubble. It is, however, worthy of noting that this actually makes the recipient older, so over-reliance on the spell's curative effects in elderly patients is strongly advised against. Even more devastating is when it's used on poisoned, diseased or profusely bleeding targets: the results can quickly prove fatal. Some might argue that this is actually an advantage, making the spell's usage a lot more versatile, allowing it to be wielded as an assasination tool; such opportunistic views are, however, generally frowned upon and considered to be ignoble and dishonorable.

Nevermind.

Evil bdsm-enthusiast goth elves?

A city floating a few inches above a lake. (Or, perhaps, the exact height between a given building and the surface of the lake is determined by the stature of the inhabitant - the nobles' estates float meters above the commoners' houses.) A mining settlement built on the back of a giant, wandering earth elemental, thriving on the rich mineral and ore deposits the creature excretes regularly.

I don't really care about how they implement it, but I do want to be able to summon some really otherwordly and alien creatures.

Summon the Mourners This spell calls forth the mystical creatures called the Mourners. They seem to have no interest in the mortals' affairs, yet answer the summons of a sufficiently skilled wizard without the need of a tribute, or a chance of turning against their summoner. When summoned, they appear as extremely tall humanoids in shapeless black robes covering their entire body. Their face is never seen under the hood, yet a constant stream of tears is visible from every angle. After they appear, they do nothing but stand silently beside the mage. Usually it's more than enough, since their mere sight inspires a mixture of uneasiness, sorrow and despair in the onlookers, who soon find themselves totally overcame with these emotions, to the point where they are completely unable to continue fighting. This is further aggravated by the facts that after the first glimpse, it becomes progressively harder to turn one's gaze away from the creatures, and that the magnitude of these emotions exponentially increases with every dead lying on the battlefield. The easiest protection against their influence is not to look at the creatures at all, since even the strongest magics designed to amplify one's willpower and ward off such emotional manipulation can only offer a temporary aid, which will eventually be overcome.

Flicker The target of the spells temporarily flickers in and out of space. This happens randomly, so there is an equal chance of the target automatically avoiding an attack or automatically missing on his own attack due to not being actually there when the blow connects.

Shadow Ally The spell separates the shadow of the target (preferably enemy, see later) and animates it to fight by your side. The conjured shadow is of the same character class and build as the target, but somewhat weaker. Any damage the shadow takes is equally divided between the creature and the target. It can be dispelled though.

Which seems quite likely. So, where's the problem?

Romance is great... for laughs. I mean, really. The most hilariously awful dialogues in the history of gaming can usually be attributed to this feature. I've never had such a good time with BG2 as the first time, when I was trying to explore this option with Viconia, usually with mixed (read: catastrophically botched) results. So yes, I'm all in for romance, as long as the developers make it sufficiently hard to achieve, and don't take it too seriously. (Ridiculously over-the-top or subtly sarcastic NPC dialogues are also a plus.)

Because in most games, your companions happily ignore your "run away, you fools" command, and start to wander back into the area of effect to hack some baddies as soon as you turn your attention elsewhere? But if we make the AI able to run away from spells with AoE, we should implement it for enemies who know about the spell being cast (succesful Spellcraft check or equivalent, have a mage in their party with the same spell, etc.).

And outwit one would be... priceless ^.^

I don't mind if mages can pick up a skill/talent/perk/whatever which helps in minimizing the collateral damage. Also somewhat more realistic than the "turn on/off in the menu" option.

I wonder how... She cut them off the Force, like they planned to do with the Exile. The resulting shock killed them, not what she did.

Additional benefit of this approach is that there will be room for further advancement in the sequel(s).

Still, they should have implemented some consequence for letting the demon wreak havoc while we were busy running around getting the mages to help. Edit: arrh, I've been beaten. Curse you, SerTabris :D

Absolutely brilliant, I'd like to have this feature implemented in the game.

But different tiers (or types) of masterwork items is reasonable, I think. One type of alloy makes the blade heavier, giving more armor penetration and damage, but resulting in slower attacks. Another technique may make it somewhat more flexible, yet resistant, giving a bonus to parry attempts, at the cost of armor penetration. Et cetera.

Please, feel free to explain how misogynistic writing is appealing to people who are not misogynists. Go on. I'm waiting. Did the writing in any game made by Obsidian or Black Isle strike you as misogynist? If not, I don't really see the issue. We can trust them not to f*** it up, just like the didn't do it in the previous 10 games (or so).

I loved this in KotOR 2. Sion presented an over-reliance on the Force (as opposed to you who cut yourself off), while Nihilius has taken the concept of "Force vampire" to the extreme.

Warriors focused on tactics - buffing, debuffing, moving companions around. Mages focused on metamagics - altering enemy spells' effects or targets. Perhaps combine it with chaos magics - you won't know exactly what will it be, but the target spell changes, usually achieving a result opposed to its caster's intention (healing spell instead slows, a fireball becomes blessing etc.). A school of magic focused on manipulating the shadows. Aiding rogues, providing concealment and defense, conjuring creatures out of them. A magic school of passion and madness. Perhaps thematically tied to the moon. Poisoner and plaguebearer-type class (race?).