Goodgimp's Spell Changes

[Medicine_Man_55]

Fire Magic:

Elemental weapon buffs? Perhaps a similar buff could be implemented for frostbrand as well?

Flametongue: +1 fire strength. Permanent unless dispelled. Caster only.

*****​

I'm sure this seems very "World of Warcraft" to the current generation but both flame tongue and frostbrand date back to 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons, which is part of FFH roots, if I remember Kael's stories correctly.

While this seems like a very minor spell, a +1 strength buff on adepts could be quite useful in practice. For any Civ that pushes for Knowledge of the Ether early, an adept could be the equivalent of a line infantry unit in the early game (ie. a bronze armed warrior). For an arcane Civ, the adept could quickly become a strong secondary combat unit -- more than capable of defending itself. In the late game, an archmage with this spell would be better able to farm xps.

If a frostbrand equivalent of this spell were implemented, it should be a Water I spell for balance reasons. Ice magic is relatively rare and these weapon buffs should be a common trick. Also Spring (Water I) needs a companion spell as much as Scorch (Fire I) does. The Illians get both Water and Ice anyhow so the thematic malus is nil.

 

[Goodgimp]

Thanks for the suggestions, Medicine_Man, keep 'em coming. I'm taking the Holiday break to play some WildMana with my friends, but as soon as the New Year rolls around I'm getting back to work and there'll be a ton of new updates.

I agree, especially on the Chaos and Water fronts, that there needs to be more oomph. Mutation is a great spell but Chaos overall feels lacking, as does Water.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

I've had some thoughts about my earlier suggestions.

Re:

1 -- Bedlam: This spell needs to be balanced on the assumption that the AI will cast it all the time. With this in mind, this spell could be a real pain while a chaos magic using civ is defending against invasion. Attacking units will have 0% healing and defending units may also not heal (if in the field with no medic).

Perhaps reducing the -healing % on the spell is in order? Maybe reduce the % to -10 on enemies and removing the malus on the caster's unit entirely? Although a bit less colourful, I don't think it would be overpowered this way.

2 -- Flametongue/Frostbrand: Of course I didn't think about how this type of spell could be exploited when I suggested it. The Amurite civilization, especially with Sephi's Amurite+ module, would have a hay day with this kind of spell. For this reason (balance issues), only arcane class units should be able to cast this spell. Weapon buffs for archer and melee units are covered by enchantment and recon by nature.

Not only would exploiting this spell(s) make the Amurites a bit OP, it would also make them more of a drag to play due to yet another layer of micromanagement being needed to play them. Every line infantry unit would *have* to play Govannon a visit.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

I had another thought regarding spells that I figured I'd float in your direction.

As Fire magic is already a fairly attractive sphere and will be more so if you decide to implement the flame tongue spell, perhaps Fireshield could be moved to Air I? The concept would work rather well as some variant of the old druid-style Cloudburst spell. Many of the civs that use Air magic by default have reason to defend against fire too -- the Lanun and Ljosalfar for example.

Just throwing ideas out there. I do wonder if the whole Fireshield concept is a bit too powerful though. It does allow a tier I caster to effectively neuter the only precise collateral attack spell mages get in FFH2. Maybe this spell should only be usable for units in a city?

 

[Sephi]

I have merged v. 20 and applied the following AI changes

SPELL_JUSTICE is considered a City enhancing spell
City Defense Mages value PROMOTION_LAW1 as a possible promotion if a courthouse is in the city. Only one mage per city will pick LAW1. value is relatively low (below enchantment for example).
City Defense Mages value FIRE1 and LIFE1 as promotions. If they are running out of useful promotions, these promotions will be picked by several mages in a city. AI understands that the spells related to these promotions have to be cast every turn. (so AI knows when promoting two adepts it's better to have a pair of adept 1 enchantment1+fire1 / adept2 life1, than a pair of adept1 fire1+life1 and adept2 enchantment1).

AI warmages consider AIR1, FIRE1 or LIFE1 useful. AI understands that the spells related to these promotions have to be cast every turn and that not every warmage in the stack should pick these promotions.

AI values mana different now. Good alignment players values mana that law II summon has aptitude with and evil alignment players value mana that entropy II summon has apitutde with.

AI considers units with AIR1, FIRE1 or LIFE1 to be able to buff other units.

 

[Fafnir13]

<Phoenix Wright>SUGGESTION!</Phoenix Wright>

Blaze interacts with blizzards like spring interacts with fires.