Design: Spells

talchas said:
I forgot to say this earlier, but for Flesh Golem, you probably don't want unitai_spell - thats just for short lived summons (my understanding was that flesh golemn is permenent). Same with Righteous Cause and the crusader. They should both use NO_UNITAI and let the DLL assign it.

Cool, Ill switch it, thanks.
 
Entry Div II:
Demonic guidance--Target caster becomes a demon and you gain some science.

Spirit Sor I:
Spirit Shield-Target creature gets immunity from all sorcery spells until next turn.

Water Div II:
Sea of Knowledge--Target coastal city gets 1 great scientist point for each water square it is working. One per turn limit.
 
loki1232 said:
Entry Div II:
Demonic guidance--Target caster becomes a demon and you gain some science.

This is pretty good, let me know if you have more ideas.

Spirit Sor I:
Spirit Shield-Target creature gets immunity from all sorcery spells until next turn.

This will come when the metamagic sphere comes in, we need something else for the spirit slot.

Water Div II:
Sea of Knowledge--Target coastal city gets 1 great scientist point for each water square it is working. One per turn limit.

Since this is the Overlord priests first spell id like to get something a bit more active, something they can go out and adventure with.
 
1. Entry 2 divine: Mark of Destruction. Target unit dies after 10 turns.(Unless the curse is dispelled before that happens). Doesn't work on Heroes.

2. Spirit 1 (the spell Elohim adepts start with):
Ethereal form. Caster cannot take damage, and gets 80% magic resist. Caster cannot attack or cast spells. Lasts for 5 turns.

3. Water 2 divine (the spell Overlord priests start with):
Maelstrom: Summons a Maelstrom unit with 4 movement. Once it has been moved it automatically becomes fortified on the sea square it ends its turn on, and may never be moved again. Any ship entering a Maelstrom is completely destroyed. A ship sailing within 1 or 2 squares of a Maelstrom has a % chance to be sucked into it(could be 20 for 1 square and 10 for 2 squares away) and be destroyed. This applies to both allied and enemies. Krakens are not harmed by Maelstroms, however. Maelstrom summoning is limited in the same way as raising skeletons, furthermore no maelstrom can exist within the area of effect(2 square radius) of another Maelstrom, to prevent complete blocking of the seas.
 
Corlindale said:
1. Entry 2 divine: Mark of Destruction. Target unit dies after 10 turns.(Unless the curse is dispelled before that happens). Doesn't work on Heroes.

Probably to powerful even with the delay.

2. Spirit 1 (the spell Elohim adepts start with):
Ethereal form. Caster cannot take damage, and gets 80% magic resist. Caster cannot attack or cast spells. Lasts for 5 turns.

There are some major technical hurdles with this spell, but I love the idea. Im going to add it as a dimensional spell and we will see about tackling it at a later date.

3. Water 2 divine (the spell Overlord priests start with):
Maelstrom: Summons a Maelstrom unit with 4 movement. Once it has been moved it automatically becomes fortified on the sea square it ends its turn on, and may never be moved again. Any ship entering a Maelstrom is completely destroyed. A ship sailing within 1 or 2 squares of a Maelstrom has a % chance to be sucked into it(could be 20 for 1 square and 10 for 2 squares away) and be destroyed. This applies to both allied and enemies. Krakens are not harmed by Maelstroms, however. Maelstrom summoning is limited in the same way as raising skeletons, furthermore no maelstrom can exist within the area of effect(2 square radius) of another Maelstrom, to prevent complete blocking of the seas.

I just checked in an immobile nature summon today (guardian vines) and I like it. This spell is a great idea but i cant even imagine how we will teach the ai to deal with it. Hmm..

I think (if some of the art guys can make a graphic for this) Im going to use this idea for a 3x3 tile sea feature. Use the map script that im using now to force exactly 1 on every map with water on it. Then have a chance of destroying ships that go through it like you mentioned (and when we get into "Fire" have it send the ships to hell instead). I think that would be a better showcase for your idea than the spell.

So let me know what more idea you guys have. :D
 
loki1232 said:
I think that the chaos marauder should be undisbandable, but quite strong. Summoning one is always a risk.

Good point, I will have to see how hard it is to keep a unit from being disbanded.
 
Fireballing or Meteorstorming ships seems a bit overpowered especially in combination with spell extension III.

I would propose to allow land units to defend against fireballs and meteors when on board of a ship (they should also be able to defend against drown btw.) so basically i would allow DOMAIN_LAND units to be able to defend agains DOMAIN_LAND units regardless of terrain. So the ship will be burned by collarteral damage but the units will die before the ship. (Unless you sent a ship in afterwards that sinks the ship as Landunits would not defend against that.)
 
I messed up this post. :(

I have been pwned by the internet
 
Collateral damage limit: is the minimum of lp a unit has after the collatteral attack, so increasing it actually makes the unit weaker meaning the Meteor should have an equal or lower value than the fireball ;)

Reducing the raw power seems absolutly reasonable as those spells are devastating for their colateral ability.

Maybe we could even reduce the move to 1 as spell extension allows it to go up by 3 points. And 5 is already the standard distance between two cities, so 4 as maximum spell distance sounds reasonable

So i would recommend
iCombat as you proposed.
base move 1 or 2
collateral damage limit 25 %
maximum targets 6 seems ok.

about the collateral damage i am not sure as i do not know how it works exactly. But if it does as i suspect (i think is correlated to the damage the unit would do in direct attack) then 80 and 100 seems reasonable (as the iCombat is reduced an increase for both seems a good idea).

The main advantage of the meteor will still be that it is three instead of 1.
 
I don't want to take fireball down to 1 base range because its range 2 movement is such a large part of the fun of it (though it may be worth cutting Extension III from the game). I will switching to the following based on your feedback:

Fireball:
[tab]iCombat: 3
[tab]Base move: 2
[tab]Collateral damage: 50
[tab]Collateral damage limit: 30
[tab]Collateral Damage targets: 6

Meteor:
[tab]iCombat: 5
[tab]Base move: 2
[tab]Collateral damage: 100
[tab]Collateral Damage limit: 20
[tab]Collateral Damage targets: 6
 
I just tried out the Water Walking spell, and it's really great. In fact, I think it may be slightly overpowered. My Archmage can stand in the ocean and shower coastal or inland cities with meteors, and if they don't have any boats nearby, there is nothing they can do about it. He can even reach inland cities which aren't able to built boats.

Some suggestions for weakening the spell a bit, ranked by severity:

1. A mage cannot cast Fire spells while standing on water. Makes sense in an odd sort of way, and prevents Meteor Shower, which is probably the most potent of the offensive spells. He would still be able to use all other spells from the safe distance, however.

2. A mage can ONLY cast water spells while standing on water. So he can basically just use Tsunami.

3. A mage cannot cast spells on water.

(Note: Even with one of the above restrictions, it will most likely still be possible to abuse the spell by using 1 move point to step inland, cast a spell, and then step into the sea again. Perhaps a mage loses all movement in the transition between water and land?)

4. Water walking is not permanent. It has a 5% chance to break each time a mage ends his turn standing on water. With this, none of the above restrictions would be needed, but it might be frustrating to risk that one's experienced Archmage drowned.

I also tested the Tsunami spell - it doesn't seem to do anything. I tried using it against a spearman, an improvement and an empty square, no effect in either of the cases.
 
Am I the only one who can't get the Dominate spell to work? I've only tried it against animals, and againts units of a civ I was at peace with, so perhaps that's the issue. For the latter it would make sense if it didn't work.
 
Corlindale said:
Am I the only one who can't get the Dominate spell to work? I've only tried it against animals, and againts units of a civ I was at peace with, so perhaps that's the issue. For the latter it would make sense if it didn't work.

Hmm.. I will check it out (and the Tsunami spell).
 
Corlindale said:
Am I the only one who can't get the Dominate spell to work? I've only tried it against animals, and againts units of a civ I was at peace with, so perhaps that's the issue. For the latter it would make sense if it didn't work.

Ohh.. it was broke, thanks. Fixed now.
 
Ouch, I just found a potential problem with Ring of Flames. I cast it next to a city, but there was also an innocent Balseraph Acrobat near me. Needless to say Perpentach declared war! Shouldn't this only damage enemies or at least give a warning when you might damage a non-enemy?

edit - Acrobat, not hunter
 
Is it alignment based? I accidentally cast it again with Alexis nearby and nothing happened to her, but something happened to my own unit 1 tile away! Bizarre. I think it should effect everyone, but maybe a warning would be good.
 
I think there should be an air sphere spell that pushes a unit back a space. Something like Gale or Torrent.
 
Civmansam said:
I think there should be an air sphere spell that pushes a unit back a space. Something like Gale or Torrent.

Tremor does that (Earth spell). Its actually speced as a Force spell (wave of force) and as a side effect of the Air tornado spell 9which may randomly distribute units in the effected square.
 
Ideas for new sphere's

Blood Sphere


Blood Curse: Caster loses 10% health, Target's health Degenerates

Blood Summon: Caster loses 20% health, summons Blood Demon.

Blood Heal: Caster loses 20% health, Target healed.

Cosmic Sphere

Star Reading: +2 Visibility

Constellation: +30% Strength

Shine: Target loses all movement points

Lunar Sphere


Full moon: Turns target into werewolf

Strong Moon: Turns Werewolf into next stage (blooded)

Moonlight: Turns unit invisible for that turn
 
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