Magic spell customisation

[IchigoRXC]

Perhaps we have a chance to see what Tim Cain thinks on the matter of spell customisation and if it has a place in a world like PE's.

I have added a question relating to this thread on the reddit for this weekends update. If this is something that interests you I suggest upping it, or posts similar to it so we can get a feel on how magic is going to be done

 

http://www.reddit.co...her_reddit_q_a/

[Quadrone]

Actually I must say that I'm against this.

Just like crafting&enchanting I fear this would eventually lead to munchkinism and min-maxing.

If mages can make their own spells and change existing ones then half the original spells will soon be obsolete or be changed to be overpoweringly good.

You could potentially alleviate certain drawbacks or make low level spells so effective that they make higher level spells useless in comparison.

Not to mention that this could make any mage type class into the perfect Swiss army knife: Trolls only take damage from fire? No problem! Reload and change all your relevant spells to deal fire damage and suddenly the fight became a joke.

Edited October 3, 2012 by Quadrone

[IchigoRXC]

Actually I must say that I'm against this.

Just like crafting&enchanting I fear this would eventually lead to munchkinism and min-maxing.

If mages can make their own spells and change existing ones then half the original spells will soon be obsolete or be changed to be overpoweringly good.

You could potentially alleviate certain drawbacks or make low level spells so effective that they make higher level spells useless in comparison.

Not to mention that this could make any mage type class into the perfect Swiss army knife: Trolls only take damage from fire? No problem! Reload and change all your relevant spells to deal fire damage and suddenly the fight became a joke.

 

What i have been aiming for throughout this topic generally renders most of those issues obsolete. They are all very valid points and I will try and run down my ideas on what I want and how they avoid you issues

 

1) If mages can make their own spells and change existing ones then half the original spells will soon be obsolete or be changed to be overpoweringly good.

a) For me only high level mages would be able to make spells, the more you add to a spell to make it epic, the higher level spell it would be (if they use levels, basically their equivalent) but it could also increase spell casting times, possibly need items for casting (like in pnp) or have a high failure rate. There would be many ways to stop the creation of "ultimate spells" while still giving us choice in what to make for our namesake mage

 

2)You could potentially alleviate certain drawbacks or make low level spells so effective that they make higher level spells useless in comparison.

a) By doing so, they would no longer be low level spells but be the higher ones you mentioned. I do not wish to change the spells we get, merely have the ability to create some of our own utilising elements or abilities of the ones given.

 

3)Not to mention that this could make any mage type class into the perfect Swiss army knife: Trolls only take damage from fire? No problem! Reload and change all your relevant spells to deal fire damage and suddenly the fight became a joke.

a) Well, many people often reload change spells and rest in games... but that doesn't matter. As for the swiss army knife, with my proposal you would create 3 maybe 4 spells in your name for the entire campaign. These can not be changed once they are made, they are your spells, scribed onto scrolls and into your spellbook. I am not suggesting changing spells on the fly or slotting things in and out. More a research over long periods of time and coming out with a cool original spell you name and you can use in the rest of your adventure.

 

 

I hope this clears up any issues you may have regarding my idea and I completely understand all of the issues you raised, I would hate them all. But luckily none of them fit with what I envisaged when I made this thread

[moridin84]

What about the Diablo 3 style system? Where some spells have a limited number of mutually exclusive modifications.

 

So you have a lightning spell. Later on you might be able to change it into a chain lightning spell, or arc lighting or a fireball-like lighting globe.

 

Or maybe you have a spell which lets you conjure a bunch of spiders onto an area. Instead of that you might conjure one spider queen that creates her own spiders continuously Or maybe you could conjure spiders which explode! Or cover an area with webs!

 

Actually can we have spell which lets you conjure a ton of spiders around a mob? Cause that would be awesome.

Edited October 3, 2012 by moridin84

[IchigoRXC]

Actually can we have spell which lets you conjure a ton of squirrels around a mob? Cause that would be awesome.

 

I fixed that for you

[moridin84]

Actually can we have spell which lets you conjure a ton of squirrels around a mob? Cause that would be awesome.

 

I fixed that for you

What kind monster are you, to send innocent squirrels to their deaths?

[IchigoRXC]

Battle hardened squirrels, ready to annihilate any wrong doer I come across

[Zeful]

It might be nice, if it wasn't for the requirement that magic be very simple to facilitate spell crafting. If your magic system is even remotely complex (see Skyrim) the number of variables the player would have to mess with to interpolate it's costs are insane. The only cost mechanic in a magic system that could be complex and still have spellcrafting is cooldowns, because who cares if it takes 20 minutes of real time for the spell to reset, just make a series of weaker versions to make up that time.