Arcane Mastery Suggestions

[Swinkscalibur]

A mod for ffh2 was brought up as a possible addition to RifE, the problem being that RifE has four additional spell spheres. One per area. Valkrionn was looking for suggestions of how the mod could be altered to be both balanced and fit RifE.

Here is my suggestion:

- Drop the "minor" master promotions altogether (as it stands they give effects not spells, further expansion of magic will likely include cross sphere spells anyway)
- Roll the effect of each "minor" master promotion into the master promotion for each area.

Ex) Changed - Master of the Elements:
- requires Air III, Fire III, Water III, Earth III, Ice III
- requires Level 12
- gives 1 fire combat, 1 movement, healing while moving, 25% withdrawal chance, and 1 strength
- a minor effect related to the ice sphere - perhaps double movement on tundra, ice, snow

Ex) Changed - Master of Alteration:
- requires Body III, Life III, Creation III, Enchantment III, Nature III
- requires Level 12
- gives +30% combat, 2 first strikes, Heals extra 20% everywhere, Double movement in forests, +1 strength
- a minor effect related to the creation sphere - perhaps an additional casting (maybe +x% to miscast)

My thinking here is that the extra spell sphere in each area already represents an increased promotion requirement for the Master promotion. It would be unfair to essentially increase the promotion requirement by 4 (if you required an Ice Mastery as well as Earth and Wind, and Water and Fire). This way we have a net increase in promotion requirements of Ice I, which is easy enough to earn for free with an extra Ice mana.

 

[Valkrionn]

Posted this in the FF thread, but I'll transplant it here as well.

As for the picture I mention PL posted, here it is.

Spoiler :

Personally, I'd prefer to keep to the original setup, and alter it according to the image PL posted.

That said, I WOULD tweak it. The 'lesser' Mastery promotions would become Autoacquire promos... As soon as you have the necessary level 3 spells, you get the promotion. Should cut out 2 (3, if you add the new spheres) purchased promotions per branch, so you can get the whole thing slightly easier.

Instead of 19 promotions (Not counting the 63 for the spell spheres....), you have 7. Yes, that means 12 less, which just happens to be the number of new promotions you need for the 4 new spheres. Still, I like the setup better.

My ideas, now that you all have me thinking about it (Damn you all! ):

• Creation - Twincast, +30% miscast chance
  • For those of you who don't know, twincast in FF can be used for any spells, rather than doubling the amount of summons you get. It is also stackable, so if you gain a twincast effect from multiple sources (Amurites under Tya, in FFPlus), you can have 3,4,5, etc, casts a turn.
  • As for the reasoning for the effects....
• Ice - Passively grants Winterborn to units in stack, +30% Cold Damage, allows casting of a permanent version of Frozen Lands.
  • Winterborn clone, so that Illians/Doviello are still stronger in Ice. Lost if you leave Ice/Tundra.
  • For the spell... No other lesser Mastery promotion grants a spell, so it's interesting, and would be the only *Permanent* method of freezing terrain for non-Illian/Frozen civs.
• Dimensional - Teleport effect.
  • Not completely sure if this is possible via Promotion, if not I'll work on making it so.
  • I'd see it as an airdrop effect, up to 5 tiles away.
• Force - Non-Allied summons within one tile are banished each turn
  • 75% immunity to magic, and the Dismiss spell: Banishes all temporary units. This is your own, the enemy's, and neutral summons.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't get why Force is under Divination and Creation under Alteration. It would make more sense to switch them, as Creation is not a sphere about changing what already exists but is rather well represented by Muses that help men create.

 

[Valkrionn]

I think it was to place it with Life and Nature... But switching them would be simple.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

Passive Rust for Ice seems extreme, IMO. You could just as well argue that Fire would make it to hot to hold/melt it, Force would keep you from raising it, Water would make it to slippery, etc as 'passive' effects.

A rust effect it could be, but as an active spell. If it's passive, you're effectively getting a free spell from another sphere per turn, which would make Ice overly strong as is.

Unless, of course, the rust effect affects you own people as well...

 

[Valkrionn]

Well, I was figuring a %chance, rather than ALL weapons ALL the time like Rust.

Could say... 20% for enemies, 10% for friendlies? This way it hurts you as well, but is more likely to hurt the enemy. Would be a toggleable effect as well.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

Why? You're closer to the source of the cold than your enemies.

 

[Valkrionn]

Yes, but if it hurts you more then it wouldn't be very useful.

Not really sure about the Ice effect at all, though. Could probably do without the rust at all, and just leave the Freeze spell and the cold damage.

Maybe add some Defense?

 

[Dean_the_Young]

Why not rather than passive rust, an ability to give the winter-born promotion for the stack (to wear off, say, the turn a unit steps out of tundra). That would make a mage much more deadly in the artic.

Edit: Or, if you want to keep the natural Winterborn people stronger, just add the equivalent of the Winterborn to everyone, so it doubles the natural Winterborn.

 

[Valkrionn]

....I like that. Could do it easily, too...

<PrereqPromotionsOnTile/> and <PrereqTerrains/> would solve it all.

I'll go with it.

 

[Valkrionn]

Just wanted to say, this is officially part of R i f E.


Full details are here and in post two... Additionally, all of the first level Mastery promotions (total of 12) are autoacquired. All other promotions had their level requirement dropped by 4.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

how about giving Ice a Path of Frost effect where it automatically turns the casters tile into tundra (snow if it is already tundra) and have the auto terraformed tiles have a duration of 5 turns or so.

you could also give creation a Path of Life effect where it automatially turns the tile closer to grassland and spawns forests temporarily if it is already grassland.

 

[lemonjelly]

I like that. Just imagining an archmage walking down a road, trees growing and flowers blooming next to him...

and then them all burning as the Fire1 adepts come... MUAHAHAAA!

 

[FireBlaze]

What's omnipotence give?

 

[Valkrionn]

High strength/defense.

 

[Mike283]

I think, that "Master of Creation" is rather bad - especially if your mage has twincast. Three turns without magic vs some chance of extra spell (and absolutely no bonuses with twincast). Maybe the chances to miscast should depend on level?

 

[Valkrionn]

I think, that "Master of Creation" is rather bad - especially if your mage has twincast. Three turns without magic vs some chance of extra spell (and absolutely no bonuses with twincast). Maybe the chances to miscast should depend on level?

Have you tried using it? In FF, and RifE as a result, Twincast allows you to cast an extra spell of any kind... And is stackable.

So if you have twincast, you can summon and cast Maelstrom... And if you have the Master of Creation, you can cast fireball too.

Should try it under Tya.... Gets a free twincast for mages on up, plus normal twincast, plus master of creation, gives 4 spells.

 

[Mike283]

Have you tried using it? In FF, and RifE as a result, Twincast allows you to cast an extra spell of any kind... And is stackable.

I wanted to say that 3 spells * 2/3 of them successfull = 2 spells.

 

[odalrick]

Have you tried using it? In FF, and RifE as a result, Twincast allows you to cast an extra spell of any kind... And is stackable.

So if you have twincast, you can summon and cast Maelstrom... And if you have the Master of Creation, you can cast fireball too.

But miscasting disables all spell casting for a few turns. At 30% miscast, you get an average of a little over two spells per miscast. Three turns of no spells equals three lost spells.

Essentially you get maybe one or two spells a few turns early. As if you could cast a spell extra at the cost of not casting a spell next turn, but random. Very unimpressive compared to Spellstaff or even Newt's Draught.

With twincast, you get to cast two spells once every four turns. Two spells over four turns compared to the eight spells you'd get with just twincast.

Should try it under Tya.... Gets a free twincast for mages on up, plus normal twincast, plus master of creation, gives 4 spells.

Except the third spell misfires and you lose all subsequent spells for a few turns. Yay for two spells instead of the three one would get without Master of Creation.

 

[Valkrionn]

I wanted to say that 3 spells * 2/3 of them successfull = 2 spells.

But miscasting disables all spell casting for a few turns. At 30% miscast, you get an average of a little over two spells per miscast. Three turns of no spells equals three lost spells.

Essentially you get maybe one or two spells a few turns early. As if you could cast a spell extra at the cost of not casting a spell next turn, but random. Very unimpressive compared to Spellstaff or even Newt's Draught.

With twincast, you get to cast two spells once every four turns. Two spells over four turns compared to the eight spells you'd get with just twincast.



Except the third spell misfires and you lose all subsequent spells for a few turns. Yay for two spells instead of the three one would get without Master of Creation.

Good points... When I set it up, I actually wasn't aware that a miscast disabled spell casting for a few turns. I thought it just caused the one spell to fail.

I'll drop the miscast chance to around 10% for the next version.