Reddit Q&A Part 2 with Tim Cain

[rjshae]

Hey look at it this way, once you run out of spells in your grimoire you've got something heavier than a phone book to hit people with.

 

Please make grimoires melee viable and do 1 damage.

 

As long as they make a satisfying "whomf!" noise and release a small cloud of dust.

[nikolokolus]

Hey look at it this way, once you run out of spells in your grimoire you've got something heavier than a phone book to hit people with.

 

Please make grimoires melee viable and do 1 damage.

 

As long as they make a satisfying "whomf!" noise and release a small cloud of dust.

 

A little light hacking and coughing would be a nice touch too.

[rjshae]

The other cooldown has to do with your grimoire. A wizard may know a lot of spells, but he can only cast a few basic spells plus the ones that are in the grimoire that he is holding. Grimoires vary in size, holding various numbers of spells of different spell levels, and the player is free to load up his different grimoires with spell combinations of his choice. But once combat begins, switching grimoires causes a cooldown for all of those spells, leaving the caster only able to cast his basic spells until the grimoire cooldown passes. This means the player will have to think carefully about which spells he adds to a grimoire and under what situations he would want to switch one for another.

 

Hey, I had a thought about this concept. As written it sounds like the Grimoire is functioning as a type of focus for the spells held inside. But what if the focus was a separate item, like a charm or a gem stone? Then the focus acts as a storage device that the Wizard must periodically renew with the set of spell instructions. He does this by referring to the grimoire and performing a ritual to rebind each of the hard-coded spell links.

 

This way the Wizard need only carry one copy of each spell that is recorded in the focus, rather than multiple grimoires with redundant spells. He would still need to think carefully about what spells to put in each focus, because the entry is permanent. Hence, the game mechanic is still there. But now the Wizard could leave his grimoire behind for a brief foray, with the knowledge that the focus would temporarily lose the spell links if he ever rested.

 

What do you think?

Edited October 8, 2012 by rjshae

[Kaelan]

I have no idea how can anyone think about positioning, flanking, spell-combos and all that stuff they want to get in in a real-time. Even with pause, bad AI and pathfinding really could **** up everything they say.

 

Agreed. I have no idea why people insist on making D&D-based games in real-time. The whole point of the strategic options available is that only one character takes a turn at a time, so timing and spacing can be precise.

 

Pausing doesn't really help; even if you pause every frame, multiple units are still taking their turns all at the same time.

 

Not sure what to think about the spells. Sounds like they're effectively making everyone a spontaneous caster (plus spell book management).

[makryu]

I don't see why flanking and spell combos can't have an effect at real time. In fact I think it's already been done a few times. It's not like all enemies will keep hopping to get out of tough positions instead of attacking or executing other actions.