[merged] Vancian Magic System and cooldowns

[Shadowless]

Knock and its old friends spider climb and invisibility are part of a classic family of spells that made rogue and thief players say, "Hey, why do I exist?" I don't believe their inclusion in pre-4E editions of D&D and AD&D was a great thing. That sort of spell design is good if you're making a game specifically about how awesomely powerful wizards are (e.g. Ars Magica), but I don't think it's good in a class-based system where the classes are supposed to have different strengths and weaknesses. Also, I think the high-level design of rituals in 4E is a good thing because allows casters to retain the ability to use classic spells like speak with dead with a time and material cost. It just doesn't force players to choose, daily, between the spells they use constantly and the spells they use once every three to five sessions (in tabletop terms). It's pretty rare that someone "expects" to cast speak with dead, so any occasion where the player would have a good reason to use it is likely to catch the player unprepared under normal pre-4E conditions.

 

Since you are making a new IP and magic is VERY prominent how about we go a different path where mages can't do all that rogues can but rogues can't get around everything. If magic is much more commonplace in this setting I expect to find more magical locks which should require a mage to use knock or dispell magic types, on the other hand knock should not work on mechanical locks thus preserving the ability of the rogue, invisibilty should be very effective against the commonfolk who don't really use magic but to magic users there should possibly be a give away (small disturbance in the weave, etc.) that someone is invisible and you should cast a dispell over there, while a hide in shadows ability would not be true invisibilty but there would be no telltale signs. These sort of ideas can preserve the usefulness of both of the classes, and parties that lack a mage or rogue should suffer disabilities. Also don't be stingy with traps another way to make rogues useful

[Living One]

http://www.formsprin...733585262007490

 

Josh on cooldowns:

I think they're fine, but it's just one mechanic. As with any timing-based mechanic, I think it needs to be used in conjunction with other tactical considerations to force the player to think more about what to do.

 

So...Dragon Age combat then. Well that's it. I was trying to decide between the $140 and $250 tiers. Now I won't be contributing at all. An old school game with cooldowns. Nice. Unless MCA or Tim Cain can convince Sawyer of the wrongness of them. I'll wait to see if cooldowns are officially ruled out until the end of the kickstarter, but this game is dead to me now. Enjoy your Biowarian twitch-based popamole kiddies. I'll go back to replaying BG2 and anticipating Wasteland 2.

 

I feel for you and I feel the same way.

I really think cooldown is the worst possible solution.

Same for me.I'll just cut and paste my post on cooldowns again and hope that comment doesn't mean they'll be in the game.

 

'Now,my only real concern are cooldowns.What about them?I have to say I'm not really a big fan:they put an excessive amount of focus on timing in a system that focuses (mostly) on different kinds of tactics(the pause function admits this by putting limits to a RT system to allow said different tactics to come into play) and said timing element feels really tackled on because it's a separate counter unrelated from the merits of the specific ability(basically if timing is related to the duration of spell-casting or how much it takes for a fireball to land that's fine,but cooldowns offer a 'detachted' timing mechanic).I also think they're not a good way to stop the player from spamming attacks because a more organic system(spell counts,mana) can do that without the problems above.Furthermore I don't think it's a good way to balance super-powerful spells since I think such concept,well, should not be in games(the spell should have advantages and diadvantages on its own,without need of a feature that,again,I feel,is tackled on.)'

Edited October 1, 2012 by Living One

[TrashMan]

That sounds like a lot of micromanaging of your spell lists, though. Also like you'd tend to find a couple groups that work for the majority of encounters and stick with them, rather than experimenting with something new, or pulling out that little-used spell in a tight situation because nothing else is working, which is basically why I favour having everything available - more likely to go "I wonder if this might help?" at some point, which is where half the fun can come from. One of my favourite Baldur's Gate II memories was a time I was having trouble with the final fight, pulled out a scroll of sphere of chaos on the grounds that I couldn't make things much worse by that point, and ended up with Irenicus turned into a squirrel for half the fight.

 

 

That would make the mage OP...if we're talkign abotu a spell selecatio nas big and varried as in D&D. Suddenly the mage is super-capable of doing everything.

 

Having an answer to everything all the time is not interesting.

 

A "solution" to this is to severly reduce the total number and type of spells a mage can have...but that is a horrible idea IMHO, as it entirely kills the draw of a mage.

 

No, no..the only way to have a mage that is as varried as a D&D mage is to place limitations on spells. Serious limiations.

[TrashMan]

Also, I'd like to add that mages in D&D were perfect - because they were so flexible.

 

Want a mele mage?

Take stoneskin, bulls strngth, tenser transformation, black blade of disaster, fire shield, mage armor.... etc.. You could build a very specific melee mage too, since you had such a big choice.

Want a range nuker?

Oh boy, did you have a selection!

Want support mage?

Teleports, blurs, illusions, etc etc.... you coudl keep the enemy busyy adn distracted easily. And knock, leviate and others? You could be a good backup rouge.

 

But the point is that you could do all of those - BUT you had to pay. You had to sacrifice spell slots so you couldn't do it all at once. You could have noth spells for mele and ranged...but not for everything. And that was the beauty of it. You could adapt as necessary.

 

With cooldowns, you have all spells avialable at all time - you just pick which one.

With mana, it's the same thing. The only difference is that you have to chug a potion or wait a minute for your mana to re-charge.

 

With Vanican you can't change on-the-fly.

 

 

 

And to those that say "with proepr spells the game becomes too eas and wihout them it's impossible" - I have played every IE game. That happens so rarely it's not even worth mentioning. Most of the time your regular spells will be enough. The "specialized" spells will rarely make THAT big of a difference...of course, this depends on the spell balancing and design.

 

If an all-fighter party can clear the game then definately wrong spell selection doesn't doom you.

[curryinahurry]

That sounds like a lot of micromanaging of your spell lists, though. Also like you'd tend to find a couple groups that work for the majority of encounters and stick with them, rather than experimenting with something new, or pulling out that little-used spell in a tight situation because nothing else is working, which is basically why I favour having everything available - more likely to go "I wonder if this might help?" at some point, which is where half the fun can come from. One of my favourite Baldur's Gate II memories was a time I was having trouble with the final fight, pulled out a scroll of sphere of chaos on the grounds that I couldn't make things much worse by that point, and ended up with Irenicus turned into a squirrel for half the fight.

 

 

That would make the mage OP...if we're talkign abotu a spell selecatio nas big and varried as in D&D. Suddenly the mage is super-capable of doing everything.

 

Having an answer to everything all the time is not interesting.

 

A "solution" to this is to severly reduce the total number and type of spells a mage can have...but that is a horrible idea IMHO, as it entirely kills the draw of a mage.

 

No, no..the only way to have a mage that is as varried as a D&D mage is to place limitations on spells. Serious limiations.

 

One way to put limitations on a magic user without having to revert to Vancian mechanics in the exmples mentioned is to have secondary skill or ability checks. We used to do this in my PnP sessions. It wasn't enough to cast the spell, you also had to have a skill or ability associated with the task to accomplish the objective;

 

Cast spiderclimb? still had to have a high enough dex to scale the particular wall

 

Cast knock? still had to have either a few points in open lock and make a DC check

 

Disable magical trap? Had to know the spell used, have it in your spell book, have high enough arcane knowledge

 

We altered base rules to allow this, but it worked well as we often didn't have complete parties. There are a lot of ways to make classes varied and interesting without defaulting to D&D

 

Oh, and mages in D&D weren't perfect; they were too weak at low levels and too strong at high levels. That was part of the chall;enge of playing the class...but like a good deal of D&D, it always felt a bit random

Edited October 1, 2012 by curryinahurry

[TrashMan]

@Trashman: That's true enough I guess, I just don't think it fits with any RPG world I've ever been a part of, it always seems mildly opposed to the ideas of it. In the end I just don't like the system, I'm perfectly fine with using it, I just think it requires far to much foresight to use well. It's kinda like playing chess with out knowing the rules. A lot of infinity engine encounters in BG where actually built around the idea of ganking you immediately on first run in with it. It was some bizar way ot getting you to know what your going up against so you re-load and prepare ahead of time for the fight its self. The fact they actually thought about it that way and designed the encounters with the idea you'd die, get that knowledge of what the fight is in the process and 'reload and prepare for it' just always felt kinda stupid to me.

 

 

You should base your dislike on one game. BG is an oldie. And again, balance is key.

You shoudl try toehr games.

I have played ToEE recently and I can't say I experienced the problem you mentioned. I have yet to suffer a TPK because I didnt' have a specific spell.

All the encounters that killed me I could have won with just a change in tactics, rather than spell selection.

 

Except maybe a few of the really big ones, but when you're entering the fire node, going in there without fire protection spells is just STUPID.

 

 

Picking skills? That's metagaming, hating on that just cause of the word metagame makes no sense.

 

How is picking skills metagaming?

[TrashMan]

Well, the power scaling problem of old D&D mages is easily fixed... Jsut normalize the spell slot distribution. Problem solved.

 

Not to mentio nthat later additions give mages more starting spells.

[Adhin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagame

 

Anytime your doing anything outside of the actual stuff related to what your character would know, is metagaming basically. It's just a stupid semantics things, people decide to only use it for stuff they think is bad instead of all the other crap they do that's good. The word, isn't, bad. It's just a term used for all the extra stuff going on. You play a super low int character leading a group and still use good tactics? Metagaming. So, srsly, who cares?

 

As for ToEE I did play that and I didn't run into that issue as often yeah. Ultimately it comes down tot his, I will use the system and enjoy it for the game it is. I still think its an incredibly stupid system, but I'm not exactly a binary organism here. I can enjoy stuff I think are incredibly stupid and arcane. I understand 'why' its that way, and that's simply its the easiest way to handle spells when dealing with PnP. ALL Of DnD 3E+ is setup the way it is because its EASIER to do while your dealing with a PnP setting and don't have a computer to deal with stuff for you. D20 is a good example, BAB with the D20 is super, super speedy in determining if you hit or not. Everything is basic adding.

 

The whole number of fireballs or whatever spell setup is a very easy way to deal with spells in a non-computer based game as it's simpler easier to keep track of and not worry about another pool of numbers that you subtract things from everytime you do something (HP). Psionics is I think the only other class that actually has a pooled number you end up subtracting or adding to depending on whats going on. Probably the most involved in keeping track of 'stuff'. Also the way a Wizard works, or a Sorcerer with in that, matchs up easily with all the other abilities, spell-like or otherwise as they often use a per-day setup as well. I still think that's kind of silly as people aren't that binary. In that instance, cooldowns make far more sense though they're also kinda simplistic in that you'd think a say, 30 second cooldown would take less time while your not in combat as you'd 'recover' faster from fatigue. Somethings just walking for a bit can get you back to normal. In DnD its literally just 'go sleep for 8 hours', as the only method.

 

Frankly, i'd want just as much restriction or 'more' put on a different system, but have it be a bit easier to ease up on things as far as how you go about recovering, at least in the short term stuff. In the other thread like this, Swayer mentioned having a bunch of pre-set stuff that you can swap easier then when resting, or even just while your not in combat so you have that Wizard flexibility with out having to rest for 8 hours every 5 danm minutes. Which i think would remove a lot of the frustration from resting all the time and still have that kind of in-combat restrictions you need for balancing something as crazy as a Wizard.

[TrashMan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagame

 

Anytime your doing anything outside of the actual stuff related to what your character would know, is metagaming basically. It's just a stupid semantics things, people decide to only use it for stuff they think is bad instead of all the other crap they do that's good. The word, isn't, bad. It's just a term used for all the extra stuff going on. You play a super low int character leading a group and still use good tactics? Metagaming. So, srsly, who cares?

 

 

Erm..no, not really.

Skill selection isn't metagaming...unless you pick skills your character really shouldn't have.

But even that is a grey area, sicne you're adventurers and travel a lot, you can always pick up skills along the way.

 

Basicly when I take the "heal" skill, I'm saying that my character spent time (in town or durign resting/traveling) learnign this skill and got better. That's isn't really metagaming.

 

 

Low in't character having good tactics? Can't recall ever runing into that situation, as leaders are usually not stupid. Even then basic tactics can be instinctive, and while you are the party leader you are not alone. Your companions should be smart enough to know the basic of how to fight without the PC's imput.

 

 

 

As for ToEE I did play that and I didn't run into that issue as often yeah.

 

My experience is different. Maybe you just ain't that good

 

Also, cooldwons DO NOT make more sense.

 

 

 

Frankly, i'd want just as much restriction or 'more' put on a different system, but have it be a bit easier to ease up on things as far as how you go about recovering, at least in the short term stuff. In the other thread like this, Swayer mentioned having a bunch of pre-set stuff that you can swap easier then when resting, or even just while your not in combat so you have that Wizard flexibility with out having to rest for 8 hours every 5 danm minutes. Which i think would remove a lot of the frustration from resting all the time and still have that kind of in-combat restrictions you need for balancing something as crazy as a Wizard.

 

 

Again, if you have utiltiy spells, then the wizard again is overpowered. Because utiltiy spells you use outside of combat, and sicne you can switch spell list outside ofcombat. Guess what - your wizard always has acess to utiltiy spells.

 

 

Kill guard, walk to door, change spell list, cast knock, detect traps (or whatever), change list back, wait a few seconds for cooldown to complete, go in and fight.

Abusable as hell.

[Adhin]

I mean skill picking as in when you level up, not selecting from spells in your wizardy spell book. Anytime you level up your starting to weigh options about what that'll mean 'for' your character and how it'll effect them. Your going outside of things to edetermine where they're going, your basically playing god with a fake thing. And yes, taking healing skill because he got better at it, is metagaming. USING it once he has it isn't.

 

Also ouch for not being good int hat I didn't run into any issues playing ToEE? Maybe you read what I said wrong. And yeah, cooldowns well, Like I said, if they where changed in that the timer changed based off combat vs non-combat make sense, or at least somethign to show you've recovered. That is in no way an advocation 'for' cooldowns. I think there a lazy concept and quickly go into 'CD rotation' for most efficient combat damage and all that BS. Then you stop thinking tactically in this kind of game and just get into your button rotations... fine for MMO with giant ass bosses and 20+ people dealing with it (where you at least have people to talk to to keep you from passing out). But yeah horrible in most situations.

 

As for the utility spells lemmy quote you from another thread 'you lack imagination'

 

Think about it this way, anytime you switch spells anything you casts effect disipates, and you can only do it outside of combat. This would make it so if you want those buffs, or those things that you'll be using in fights where its important. As for your example? Folks can do that and did in BG via 'resting' instead. All im saying is (and a dev was the one who mentioned this) it's just a method of switching with out needing to rest for 8 freakin' hours everytime. Also, I think the spells you listed as **** for a mage. I think theres generally more interesting utility spells that don't completely take over existing game skills like detecting traps, picking locks and so forth. That's probably one of the biggest issues I had with DnD, spells had a tendency in there overall expenasiveness to allow you to be that jack of all trades and generally be almost better then the specialists whos life revolves around it.

 

in conclusion, if you have a lockpick skill ANYONE CAN TAKE.. why the **** do you have a spell that also does that? It's just redundancy for the sake of moar-spellz and lowers the whole reason to have the skill in the first place.

 

-edit-

Just my opinion of course we don't have to agree (except that im right, ha ha haa)

Edited October 1, 2012 by Adhin

[Shevek]

My earlier concern was that lack of Vancian magic meant they were going to have to limit the wizard repetoire and thats exactly what they are doing. I guess I'm ok with it to a certain extent. Certainly the mage being able to trivialize entire advancement paths with a single spell was a bit much. J.E. was right about that (especially about things like knock). Sadly, all we are left with is damage (fireball, magic missile, etc) and control (slow, hold, etc) magic. Utility magic is dead apparently. The mage who could throw up a bunch of protections and then go into battle is probably dead too since that would encroach on the role of tanks (a shame, that made fighter/mage multiclasses fun and touch attacks viable).

 

Also, they still have to figure out what to do about buff and summon magic because being able to cast those, then swap out to something else and charge into battle seems way too cheesy. Perhaps swapping magic sets would cancel out your buffs and unsummon whatever you had summoned? Maybe rest is something that should be required to swap out spells? That would be an interesting compromise.

 

Will they get rid of these types though? Does wizard buffing encroach on bards? Does summoning encroach on druids? We don't even know the classes yet but there are limited roles out there and already there are a plethora of classes.

 

Oh well, wizards do seem considerably less interesting in this game. Thats a real shame.

[Nakia]

My PDN comes from a character from IWD II. She was set as a fighter/rogue and meant to be support. A halfling. I swear she developed her own personality. Was braver than the thanks and ended up being a big assest to the party. She was a wonder and not by my doing. Something in the game itself developed her. I took her name when I became involved in the IE community.

[Shadenuat]

Knock and its old friends spider climb and invisibility are part of a classic family of spells that made rogue and thief players say, "Hey, why do I exist?" I don't believe their inclusion in pre-4E editions of D&D and AD&D was a great thing.

 

Concidering specialist transmuter is one of the few specialists really worth and fun playing in D&D, that's a pretty damn scary thought right there. Also, these spells can be fixed pretty easely to up rogues a bit. It just requers more hand-placing and light-coding with them - make mages open only magical doors or doors barred from the inside, but leave rogues to their complex locks; invisibility - you can't be seen, but still can be heard, so exploit that (two cones of vision for monsters maybe, with vision being the longer one); spider climb... what CRPG featured that? But it has in-build limitations also - you need to get off your shoes, your gloves, you can carry only so much, ect., as far as I remember.

 

Rituals

They are cool. At-will concept is't bad either, if they did't carry it to the point that you can nuke people with it.

 

By they way, I believe 5th edition D&D is actually going back to the roots, even with alighments and spells. I think even WotC understood that for a good RPG, using MMO mechanics and going full popamole is not the right way.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Shadenuat

[Sensuki]

Cooldowns

 

[Badmojo]

Mages are my favorite character, but I really hope they don't turn their magic to nothing but fighting, that would suck. Wow, my magic consits of nothing but fireballs, lightning, and other offensive/defensive magic. How original. /sarcasm.

[Jaesun]

Keep that WOW Cool-down crap out of PE please. thx.

[TrashMan]

If they go with cooldowns and/or a limited mage spell selection I will be really, REALLY dissapointed.

 

 

@Shadenut - you cna actually balane it differently. Have rouges be more effective than a knock spell. Reuzire that a mage has at least the most basic lockping skill to use the spell.

 

The WORST game design I can image is the one where classes have exclusive roles and other classes are forbidden from taking over. The point isn't that other classes are as good - the point is that other calsses should be able to do a passable job.

[Merin]

So...Dragon Age combat then. Well that's it. I was trying to decide between the $140 and $250 tiers. Now I won't be contributing at all. An old school game with cooldowns. Nice. Unless MCA or Tim Cain can convince Sawyer of the wrongness of them. I'll wait to see if cooldowns are officially ruled out until the end of the kickstarter, but this game is dead to me now. Enjoy your Biowarian twitch-based popamole kiddies. I'll go back to replaying BG2 and anticipating Wasteland 2.

lol

 

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, right?

 

"My way or no money from me." The less of those responses on the forum, the better.

[Living One]

If they go with cooldowns and/or a limited mage spell selection I will be really, REALLY dissapointed.

 

 

@Shadenut - you cna actually balane it differently. Have rouges be more effective than a knock spell. Reuzire that a mage has at least the most basic lockping skill to use the spell.

 

The WORST game design I can image is the one where classes have exclusive roles and other classes are forbidden from taking over. The point isn't that other classes are as good - the point is that other calsses should be able to do a passable job.

This.I seriously think magic system should be the subject of a next update.

Expecially ruling OUT cooldowns would be nice.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Living One

[Merin]

In the old IE games rogues weren't DPS kings. You had to be invisible to backstab, and once you got off a single backstab, that was it. You became visible and your subsequent hits were normal weapon damage, and far less than what a standard Fighter could do per round. If you wanted to backstab again, you had to re-stealth, which was nearly impossible to do without magical assistance, and literally impossible to do in the same round as your previous backstab.

 

In IE games rogues were so unnecessary that I almost never had one. Locked doors? Knock spell. Traps? Run through them and heal the damage. That's how I played all my D&D cRPGs. Magic really made rogues absolutely unnecessary.

[Living One]

So...Dragon Age combat then. Well that's it. I was trying to decide between the $140 and $250 tiers. Now I won't be contributing at all. An old school game with cooldowns. Nice. Unless MCA or Tim Cain can convince Sawyer of the wrongness of them. I'll wait to see if cooldowns are officially ruled out until the end of the kickstarter, but this game is dead to me now. Enjoy your Biowarian twitch-based popamole kiddies. I'll go back to replaying BG2 and anticipating Wasteland 2.

lol

 

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, right?

 

"My way or ignore list." The less of those responses on the forum, the better.

fix'd

[aVENGER]

http://www.formsprin...733585262007490

 

Josh on cooldowns:

I think they're fine, but it's just one mechanic. As with any timing-based mechanic, I think it needs to be used in conjunction with other tactical considerations to force the player to think more about what to do.

 

So...Dragon Age combat then. Well that's it. I was trying to decide between the $140 and $250 tiers. Now I won't be contributing at all. An old school game with cooldowns. Nice. Unless MCA or Tim Cain can convince Sawyer of the wrongness of them. I'll wait to see if cooldowns are officially ruled out until the end of the kickstarter, but this game is dead to me now. Enjoy your Biowarian twitch-based popamole kiddies. I'll go back to replaying BG2 and anticipating Wasteland 2.

 

Easy there... he didn't actually confirm that cooldowns will be in the game.

 

Project Eternity is still is very early development stages and a lot of different ideas are getting thrown around. That said, it should be fairly evidend for the Obsidian developers that cooldowns are not what the majority of their target audience wants to see in this game.

Edited October 1, 2012 by aVENGER

[Merin]

Project Eternity is still is very early development stages and a lot of different ideas are getting thrown around. That said, it should be fairly evidend for the Obsidian developers that cooldowns are not what the majority of their target audience wants to see in this game.

 

Early development, yep.

 

But I'd be careful about that "majority of their target audience" claim. It's really hard to know that kind of thing. It may be true, it may not. Vancian wasn't universally loved by role-players in the past, let alone today. And cool downs are not universally hated.

 

All we have with a thread like this are the vocal people speaking on their preferences. You can't take around 300 votes and treat it as a scientific sampling of the 50k backers... not how these polls are done, especially.

 

Besides, if you WERE to use this poll for anything along those lines - the majority voted against Vancian. But, again, it really doesn't mean much at all either way.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Merin

[Elerond]

Cooldowns are good system in games which need absolute class/character balance, for example MMOs and Diablo like games. They make balancing special abilities much easier.

 

But in single player game I would like see more original magic system, even if it causes class disbalance and it is also reason why I would not like to see magic system cloned from D&D, but some sytem which take it's own route. And in my opinion best way to do that is mix different sytems like memorization, point-based and skill based sytems to one sytem. Rune Quest is for example has magic sytem where all three sytems are mixed together.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I'm not going to rule out cooldowns and I'm not going to design the entire magic system on the fly over the course of three weeks. Both Tim and I want the magic system to feel expansive, powerful, and flexible. We want the player to have to make prep choices when selecting spells for active use. These things do not require a Vancian system, nor do they require the absence of cooldowns as a mechanic. As I wrote in one of the class threads, our goal with class design is not to limit the role of classes but to ensure that every class does have at least one combat role they can clearly excel in. This does not mean that wizards won't be able to cast protective spells, transformative spells, etc. It is likely that they will not be able to select from all of those things in the moment but unlikely that we will require the player to rest to change what he or she has access to.