Making a new Magic System Part I: Summons

Merkurian Angel or Guardian Angel from Dimensional Magic I? what spell are you referring to?

Edit: shall i include elemental horde or are we going to drop the spell instead?

Edit2: what about summon tree of life and summon vyrkul?

Edit3: the last summon that is not assigned afaik is the Pegasus, shall we keep it as a spell?

Pegasus should stay as a Spell. (Probably with mana cost)

Add whatever Summon you like as long as it has Unique Art. I want every Summon to be truly unique, but if we can't come up we a cool idea yet we can still comment them out and add them back in later.
 
icons for spell research for your pleasure:

attachment.php


with separate alpha channels :)

edit: i made a fourth one see post #69
 
Spell Research?
Have I missed something? :lol:
 
@sephi i propose to just delete the spells elemental horde and planar binding.
i will change the planar binding spells:
based on alignment they increase the combat strength of angels or demons and in both cases elementals) (buff). i will do this later when the summons are done and we go to the spells.

i will add the vyrkul and tree of life to the rituals, also those two rituals/creatures should have limit of one so will add <iMaxTeamInstances>1</iMaxTeamInstances> to both

when you make a new thread with the spells, i will go crazy in adding stuff :)


edit: added vyrkul and tree of life and made them team rituals (i.e. only build able once per team)
 
i made the new skeleton, beware however if you rename it to skeleton (right now it is called halberd skeleton) the summoning ritual produces weird results. (edit 2: to be clear just renaming it in the wildmananew txt xml will cause this issue, even if the tag differs)
i put the unit unitclass and artdefines in spellsplus

the skeleton looks like the nomral skeleton, but without shield and he wields a halberd (the one from the doviello phalanx).


Edit: besides with coming up with epic destiny victory conditions for the aristrakh i have done everything on your list. please give me new stuff to work on :)

Ideas for the aristrakh epic destiny victory conditions:
-have 2 dracolich riders
-have the most population
-have 4 lvl 15 vampire counts
-own tower of necromancy
 
The new system will not work exactly like this, but quite similar.
...
Definetly. Fire mana for example might increase all direct damage spells.

Cool beans.

Some mana types will decrease mana costs of their spellschool.

Some!? Even better than all. :)

Looking forward to this!

Sephi said:
mana is stackable, but it also has some decay, so you can't hoard mana 100 turns and then blast someone into oblivion.

I'm curious about that. Will different techs and or buildings alter a man cap, a maximum mana you can store? Can various things alter the decay rate? If it takes some effort (Hammers, I guess) to get the cap up or the decay down that could make for some interesting strategic decisions.

Hmmm... Having Ars Magica flashbacks.
Spoiler :

Remember: Only accept Certamen challenges *after* you've stolen the other mage's vis.


Mages could get promotions that represent mana stored independently of the civ's stockpile. But if they're killed there's a "mana flare" against nearby units. :)

This'll all be interesting. For modding, too. For example, I don't remember seeing anything about making magic items, but I imagine powerful Gear requiring both gold and a lot of mana could be modded in.
 
You know, with this new summoning system a civ with more of an emphasis on summoning might be a cool idea. They could be entirely new, or based on an old one, like the Sheaim for instance.

Will the planar gate mechanic be perhaps changed?
 
@DonQuigleone
i was just going to make post about this:


Suggestion:
-Remove the planar gate building
-Remove the whole planar gate mechanic
-Add rituals that summon those units
-The rituals have each a certain armageddon counter requirement
-The rituals are tied to the sheaim
-The ritual are cheaper then comparable summons
-The summons themselves have dimensional mana affinity

@Sephi since all the necessary tags are already there i could easily add this, if you want :)

a second point: the calabim spokesperson that you merged is missing its text
 
@sephi i made a fourth version of the spell research icon maybe you like this:

attachment.php


you can directly use the images in the attachment :)
 
I found a really nice icon for the spell research :). Merged your updates and will send you a new beta tomorrow. Lets wait with civ specific stuff until the general mechanics are done.
 
@DonQuigleone
i was just going to make post about this:


Suggestion:
-Remove the planar gate building
-Remove the whole planar gate mechanic
-Add rituals that summon those units
-The rituals have each a certain armageddon counter requirement
-The rituals are tied to the sheaim
-The ritual are cheaper then comparable summons
-The summons themselves have dimensional mana affinity

@Sephi since all the necessary tags are already there i could easily add this, if you want :)

a second point: the calabim spokesperson that you merged is missing its text

Sounds cool. Perhaps the summons should also be partially influenced by the player's religion? So if the Sheaim worship the Overlords they get aquatic minions, the ashen veil they get Demons etc. etc.

Furthermore will it still be possible for the sheaim to basically morph their cities into demonic gates continuously spawning a torrent of demons?
 
@DonQuigleone
i was just going to make post about this:


Suggestion:
-Remove the planar gate building
-Remove the whole planar gate mechanic

I think that's going way too far. It's already a unique system that's independent of mage spell-casting summoning. It's also a civ's special feature, and isn't prey to the "instant army" syndrome.

As game-mechanics go, the planar gate building has nothing to do with mage summoning. And lore-wise, and judging by the results, there's already huge differences between normal mage summoning and the Gates.

So while the planar gate system could be scrapped, it seems something of a waste. I'd rather see:

-The rituals have each a certain armageddon counter requirement
-The rituals are tied to the sheaim
-The ritual are cheaper then comparable summons

added for the Sheaim and the their system kept. Maybe re-rigged for new creatures, but that'd be pure lagniappe.

OTOH:

DonQuigleone said:
You know, with this new summoning system a civ with more of an emphasis on summoning might be a cool idea. They could be entirely new, or based on an old one, like the Sheaim for instance.

I think that'd be great. Though I think I'd go for a Neutral-to-Good civ, just for variety. Elementalists, say, with pretensions toward angelic dominion.

Though how integrated are elementals to Erebrus lore? Beyond the level 3 summoning spells, I don't remember them being mentioned. An Evil summoning civ seems easier to justify.
 
Quick question that the answer isn't clear to me from reading this thread.

Are we going to have the number of mana, and mana node types reduced? While at first I was kinda caught off guard by the number of mana types in FFH, after playing it a good while, I've come to really like it, and the amount of options regarding specialization it brings with it.
 
@Lorak
i think the different types of mana will stay, they will even be expanded by dimensional mana afaik
 
@sephi
Affinity:
Summons from Dark Magic School have Death Affinity
Summons from Light Magic School have Creation Affinity
Summons from Elementalism School have Metamagic Affinity

affinities are prone to balancing issues imho and should be rare (although aptitudes would be fair)
instead why not give the rituals a mana cost decrease for every mana available, for example:

Ritual: Summon Balor
Mana cost is decreased by 10% for every dimensional mana node (upkeep stays the same and summoner trait would reduce the upkeep instead)

Ritual: Summon Sand Lion:
Mana cost is decreased by 10% for every sun mana node

and so on

edit: maybe add diminishing returns on the manacost reduction so it will flat out at certain manacost-percentage-decrease.
 
I think that'd be great. Though I think I'd go for a Neutral-to-Good civ, just for variety. Elementalists, say, with pretensions toward angelic dominion.

Perhaps a Bannor offshoot? Maybe some of the Bannor split off and tried to find out a way to build a gate out of hell themselves, rather then find one. In doing so they learned other methods to summon beings from beyond? Indeed they became somewhat trans-dimensional themselves? However perhaps they're viewed as something heretical by the original Bannor. Maybe most of their units are summoned beings, or units who are infused with extra-dimensional substance?

Maybe their capital is their original gate, perhaps they can only summon their best units from there? Maybe later they can build other gates.
 
how about syron (the race from age of wonders) or a dnd outsider race that is stranded (for various reasons) in erebus and have to summon their reinforcements?
 
how about syron (the race from age of wonders) or a dnd outsider race that is stranded (for various reasons) in erebus and have to summon their reinforcements?

Could work, you could do something along the lines of the githzerai/githyanki. Perhaps the Bannor I mentioned made a gate out of hell, but it didn't go back to Erebus, but went to the planes, and they kept flitting between them, until they eventually got back to earth. In the process of flitting over so many dimensions they eventually got "changed". Maybe they got infused with elemental powers.

Another alternative is some kind of extradimensional civilization that has some reason to go to Erebus, and most of their units need to be summoned in at a gate of some kind. They're much more dependent on mana then any other Civ, as it's the only way they have of getting more units, and sustaining their own existence. Hammers could mostly be of more limited use, and they could have unique improvements which draw more mana. One reason they could be in Erebus is that they're homeworld is "dying" and so they've decided to conquer a new homeworld for themselves. Or perhaps they're combating some kind of evil.

Such a race could start with very powerful units,but be constrained to not be able to leave a certain channeling range from home (basically their cultural borders...). With some later techs they can be more free.

Any such race could bear some form of relation to the mana guardians.
 
githzerai/githyanki.
those i had in mind when i wrote dnd outsider race :)

@sephi
the combat auras buttons are ready, i did not however made numbers on them. if you want them tweaked please let me know :)

the first three are effect 1 to 3
then range 1 to 3
and last targets 1 to 3

attachment.php
 
I think that'd be great. Though I think I'd go for a Neutral-to-Good civ, just for variety. Elementalists, say, with pretensions toward angelic dominion.

Though how integrated are elementals to Erebrus lore? Beyond the level 3 summoning spells, I don't remember them being mentioned. An Evil summoning civ seems easier to justify.

the khadi? i want samurai lol
 
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