More Spells Brainstorming

[Dean_the_Young]

I like these ideas alot, and I'll comment more when I have the time to read through them all, but I think this could be a good time to introduce a lot more summons, to give summoning leaders* a better flavor feel. Basically, give the option of an increasingly powerful summon at every appropriate spell level. Level 1 summons start as weaker than warriors, Level 2 could be around axemen strength, and so on.


*If summons seem too widespread, perhaps always allowing them to the appropriate leaders naturally, and introducing a trio of new techs branched from the various mage levels that can be researched to allow summonings for that tier to other civs? So the Sheaim, for example, wouldn't have to bother researching Basic Summoning for the tier 1 summons, but Luchirp mages would.

So for example, fire could be...

Tier 1
Summon Fire Birds: re-colored Hawk unit with +2 fire strength, and can cause collateral (max 30%) and have a chance for starting smoke on a forest tile attacked.

Tier 2
Summon Salamander: A recolored lizardman with flame effects. +4 fire attack, +15% against forests, cities, 45% collateral max, and the pyre zombie effect when destroyed.

Tier 3
Summon Fire elemental: Same, though possibly also with pyre zombie effect. Doesn't make sense for it not to be there.


Water might be...

Tier 1:
Summon Kappa: Green-skinned frostling, 2 strength +1 water attack, starts with amphibious, similar desert/fire penalties.

Tier 2:
Summon Sea Beast: Summon a Sea Serpent with weaker stats but possibly Mobility 1 and 2. Can only be cast on coast tiles, and allows for you to pillage fist resources/blockade an enemy city without a navy.

Tier 3:
Summon water elemental. Same.


Wind:
Tier 1
Summon Faeries: Fairies with +2 holy strength and medic 1 appears. Faerie can also do the scouting mission command like a hawk.

Tier 2
Summon Lightening Elemental? I seem to remember those being appropriately weak.

Tier 3:
Summon Air Elemental

etc.



Think summoning deserves a comeback?

 

[Tarquelne]

Think summoning deserves a comeback?

I do. Though this is really OT for this thread...

I think the basic problem with summons *was* that there was too little difference between a summoned creature and a damaging spell. Esp. good ol' Fireball. There were some exceptions, like the unique mechanics behind the law summons whose name I forget... but in general I can understand why the branch was eliminated - not worth the trouble. Anyway, with the new mechanics now available in FF - especially commanders/minions - I bet something quite interesting could be done with Summoning. But I think if resurrected it should get a set of mechanics making it significantly different from "normal" casting, and Summoner-line mages different from Sorcery-line mages.

 

[Randomness]

Hmmm... I like it, Summoners and Socerers. Help diversifiy the arcane civs. For example, I think the Sheim are more Summoners, wheras the Amurites are more Socerers...

 

[WarKirby]

Personally, I'd say creating 3 summon spells for every sphere in addition to non-summoning spells, would be stretching flavour a bit thin. I don't see a problem with mixing summons and sorcery together

 

[readercolin]

Something important to note.

Combat 1-5 grants empower 1-5 to summoned units. Empower 1-5 each add 10% strength to the summoned unit. However, combat 1-5 also adds +5 to spell damage. In addition, metamagic 1-3 each add +5 to spell damage, and the tower of alteration adds +20 to spell damage (and -20 to target resistance).

Currently in game, for (non-priest) direct damage spells, there are a grand total of... 4
Life 2 - destroy undead
Air 2 - maelstrom
Ice 3 - snowfall
Entropy 3 - (that wither promotion thingy)
All of these have caps on them except life (and its cap is that it only affects undead units). Every other damaging spell is a summon of one kind or another. That means that the tower of alteration is essentially useless, metamagic is worthless unless you are using it to summon djinns or because your mage is there to dispell mana nodes when needed, and combat 1-5 exists mostly because of empower.

Then there is the divine direct damage spells:
Ashen veil - ring of fire
Empyrian - Crown of fire
OO - Tsunami
Chalid - pillar of fire
Dwarven Druids - Crush

So we have a grand total of 9 direct damage spells in the entire game, even counting the ones that are for hero's or a specific race only. In my opinion, this means that there should be a few MORE direct damage spells available, and I see no reason to give those to priests.

For myself, I see Necromancy and Elementalism as the primary damaging paths to take, and necromancy seems to me to be more summoning of things while elementalism seems to be more throw fire and lightning. If you look back at my previous post you'll see some of my ideas for this.

-Colin

 

[WarKirby]

Agreed. Direct damage spells are needed.

Even spells which don't directly do damage, like my meteor swarm idea, could be given some additional strength or somesuch, dependant on the caster's bonus spell damage. These promotions don't technically have to do anything per se, but rather the python for damage type spells could check their existence and behave differently if so.

 

[Exsequien]

I have an idea for summons:

Right now, they are treated like better fireballs because they disappear next turn anyways. So how about this:

Each summon is permanent but the mage who summoned them has to 'focus' their powers to keep them running. This means, that as long as that summon is alive, the mage can't cast any more spells. Instead, he has an "Unsummon" spell that eliminates the summon and allows him to cast spells once again.

Summons could then be an important part of your army because they'll get experience. The summons could all fill different roles and specializations, like fire/ice...-resistant summons, guardsmen, marksmen, good vs. melee or mounted units or animals, +city attack, +city defense...

If the summon dies or gets unsummoned, it would lose all experience and promotions naturally.

Of course, the Summoning trait would have to be changed.
I was thinking of:
a) Allow more than one summon at a time (two? three?)
or
b) Allows spellcasting while you control one summon.

The obvious exception are skeletons.

 

[WarKirby]

With regards to summons, I'd love to see a Willpower system. Each caster has a certain amount of wilpower, which increases with level, channelling, and spell related promos. And every summon would require a certain portion of that to maintain. So summoning would effectively be allocating the caster's willpower.

If you summon something you don't have the willpower to control, it instantly turns barbarian and hostile. Likewise if your willpower drops below what is required to control what you currently have (a possible effect for Crushing despair)

With that kind of system, all summons would be completely permanant, and not limited by numbers at all. Though you might only be able to sustain one water elemental, but an archmage could control 10 or so skeletons if that's all he worked on

 

[Tarquelne]

Personally, I'd say creating 3 summon spells for every sphere in addition to non-summoning spells, would be stretching flavour a bit thin. I don't see a problem with mixing summons and sorcery together

There isn't. And given the dearth of mechanics in summons I'd argue they should be together - that's exactly why I was OK with the lines being merged.

What I'm talking about wouldn't even have all that many extra spells. Instead there'd be other promos. or abilities governing the characteristics/#s of summons creatures, duration... stuff like that. But that's what makes it so OT - it's more concerned with a new set of mechanics rather than new spells.

I'm not even proposing to run out and do this right now: I'd just like it. It'd add a big dose of variety/differentiation to the magic system. And in a way that'd wouldn't be covered by adding a bunch of new spells.

 

[Vermicious Knid]

There isn't. And given the dearth of mechanics in summons I'd argue they should be together - that's exactly why I was OK with the lines being merged.

What I'm talking about wouldn't even have all that many extra spells. Instead there'd be other promos. or abilities governing the characteristics/#s of summons creatures, duration... stuff like that. But that's what makes it so OT - it's more concerned with a new set of mechanics rather than new spells.

I'm not even proposing to run out and do this right now: I'd just like it. It'd add a big dose of variety/differentiation to the magic system. And in a way that'd wouldn't be covered by adding a bunch of new spells.

Summon effects could be added to the existing caster promotions. That would be fairly simple. Fire1 could give summoned critters a promo that conveys +1 fire damage, for example.