Making a new Magic System Part II: Spells

[Pickly]

Looking at the spell list, I'd suggest keeping some single suare terraforming spells, since there will likely be situations where a player would rather touch up some squares than change everything in an empire to something else.

Otherwise, it will be interesting to see the results of all these changes.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

whoa I got ninjaed by Pickly.

yeah those domain spells sound good ONLY if they are in addition to the current system and not a substitute, for both this reason and the one Neomega posted earlier. you're gonna piss off A LOT of people if you take away the possibility to use scorch to create a desert highway for the malakim for example, or well any other spell that one is currently able to cast outside his borders. I want to take my magic on the frontlines, not have it limited to my borders. don't take TOO MUCH inspiration off AOW2

 

[DonQuigleone]

If Mages are only going to ever be devoted to one spell sphere, and will no longer be able to summon, then a lot of new promotions are going to be needed for mages.

For instance you could have promotions that reduce continuous channeling cost. Also you should have more spells that produce city effects. There's too few economic effects for magic. Most of the spells suggested here are purely combat focused, whereas I'd like to see some stuff that's more economic. Perhaps this could be integrated to some new magic based victory.

For instance you could put in Archmage towers, and they could be used to achieve some kind of victory where you ascend to a higher dimension. For instance you could have tower improvements, and they might be required to do some kind of summoning ritual in a city. Maybe more tower's would result in more powerful rituals.

Either way getting magic integrated into economy would be ideal.

Also perhaps effects like Ilian winter spread would be a maintainable spell.

Also for those domain effects, perhaps you could have a unit that acts like a portable domain carrier, that extends the domain effects to it's immediate surrounding.

New divine summons will be needed too. Perhaps more concepts along the lines of the planar gate/mercurian gate could be used-> build a gate-> get stuff crossing over.

Also perhaps more could be done to differentiate mages, archmages and adepts.

 

[tesb]

If Mages are only going to ever be devoted to one spell sphere, and will no longer be able to summon, then a lot of new promotions are going to be needed for mages.

they are devoted to one spellschool which is a slight difference since one spellschool contains many spell spheres, sephi also stated that archmages are probably can have a second spellschool

New divine summons will be needed too.

why? we already have a lot of summons, if you put in even more you will make it quite hard to distinguish between the summons. all of them should be unique.

Also perhaps more could be done to differentiate mages, archmages and adepts.

Do you have any specific ideas?

Also perhaps effects like Ilian winter spread would be a maintainable spell.

Also for those domain effects, perhaps you could have a unit that acts like a portable domain carrier, that extends the domain effects to it's immediate surrounding.

i just posted the domain spells, just to provide concrete ideas. i don't actually know what sephi is planning on this end and i am not planning on convincing anyone to adopt my suggestion i just want to provide a variety of possibilities to choose from


Edit: the reason why i posted the list in post #15 is to streamline the spellspheres and make them serve each a distinct purpose, i personally like the idea of a few spells per sphere that "only" get better, more then introducing additional spells, because there is a limit on the effects a spell can have.
take damage spells for example you can offensive summons like fireball, aoe damage spells like maelstrom or one-tile stack damage spells like pillar of flames. if we would introduce a host of new spells there would be a lot of overlapping and this is bad, in my opinion, because you loose the distinctive strength of spellschools and the ui is not fit for such a host of spells.
Now when you do streamline the existing spells similar to my suggestion you can of course give them different names add new side effects when they get better etc. but (and this is important) every higher tier of spell would replace the lower tier one, simply to avoid cluttering of the ui and therefore the higher tier spells have to have at least the same effect like those of the tier 1 spell of each sphere.

 

[DonQuigleone]

why? we already have a lot of summons, if you put in even more you will make it quite hard to distinguish between the summons. all of them should be unique.

I made a mistake, I meant normal divine spells, I may have missed something earlier, but none of the many divine summons have been replaced by something more concrete.

Do you have any specific ideas?

Nothing really at the moment, but I think some kind of extra capability for higher mages would be nice.

An example could be that perhaps a high level mage would be required to continuously channel a high level spell, and be assisted by assistant mages. Or maybe an archmage could keep "apprentices". Maybe an Archmage could build his own tower which would give him extra abilities when in it(or maybe require a tower to be built...). An Archmage should probably approach being a godlike entity and be incredibly powerful. Maybe they can sponsor certain advanced research? Perhaps an archmage can discover one big thing, which afterwards can be quite easily learned by others.

I think the biggest gap in spells is economic effects. In particular magic could be a more concrete less militaristic form of victory, and archmages could be a key part of that.

 

[Calavente]

it is not really related to previous posts :
I see many references to AoW or DnD...etc

Do not forget that FFH added creativity, the system was (almost) ingenious and different from already exisiting magic systems.
It's fun.
If you take too many inspiration from other games, you may lose the originality of FFH and maybe have only a "lower quality AoW" as you implement mechanisms form a game into another one.

So, while, changing from the actual 4techs into 3 schools is ok, changing the way spells and summons work is also ok, but please be careful.

ok, on the subject at hand :
-could you explain what you really mean by "summons are rituals" ? does it mean the can only be summoned in cities, with ?
-How will domain spell work ? a mage launch the spell in a city, and "hop" there are "inspiration" buildings in all cities ? will it disappear if the caster moves ? dies ? launch another spell ?
maybe the cost/turn should rise with the number of cities? but what if you don't want to spend so much mana ? as you may have many cities, any "domain" spell may become too expensive to maintain, and you really want it only on some pinpointed cities...
maybe it works only for cities in the same continent ?

It will be hard to balance the + side of having domain-wide spells

-buffs/debuffs : I suppose if auto-cast (enchant blade), every newly created unit will get an enchanted weapon if the spell is activated, with a cost for automating the spell. But, what if you would rather have not used any of auto-activated spell, and just this time you would rather have launched 2 big costly damage spell /summon ?

..Etc

 

[tesb]

Do not forget that FFH added creativity, the system was (almost) ingenious and different from already exisiting magic systems.
It's fun.
If you take too many inspiration from other games, you may lose the originality of FFH and maybe have only a "lower quality AoW" as you implement mechanisms form a game into another one.

thanks for your input, i disagree however on your assessment imho a magic system similar to aow or mom is much deeper because it adds an additional strategic layer to spellcasting, since you have to manage your mana. the current one is a bit superficial you can just spam spells without consequence.

-could you explain what you really mean by "summons are rituals" ? does it mean the can only be summoned in cities, with ?

the summoning rituals cost mana and the creatures themselves will cost mana upkeep instead of gold upkeep, keep in mind that unit upkeep is will also be tweaked (a large stack of units and higher tier units will cost much more upkeep)

-How will domain spell work ? a mage launch the spell in a city, and "hop" there are "inspiration" buildings in all cities ? will it disappear if the caster moves ? dies ? launch another spell ?
maybe the cost/turn should rise with the number of cities? but what if you don't want to spend so much mana ? as you may have many cities, any "domain" spell may become too expensive to maintain, and you really want it only on some pinpointed cities...
maybe it works only for cities in the same continent ?

domain spells were just a suggestion made by me. i don't know if sephi wants to implement them as of now he is still coding the rituals afaik. if i were to implement domain spells i would make them rituals too with a certain upkeep. the effect would stay in place as long as you want. to chancel it there could be second ritual that cost nothing and would just turn that domain spell off.
it was just a suggestion do drop terraform spells and city spells in favor of domain spells, you could have both.

-buffs/debuffs : I suppose if auto-cast (enchant blade), every newly created unit will get an enchanted weapon if the spell is activated, with a cost for automating the spell. But, what if you would rather have not used any of auto-activated spell, and just this time you would rather have launched 2 big costly damage spell /summon ?

you can always toggle autocast off. i don't know if sephi wants to implement an upkeep on basic enchantments. on the other hand he stated that he want to make enchantments "combat auras" those work quite different:
you can toggle them on/off
the aura will have a certain effect on x amount of units
for example:
combat aura: enchanted blade -> grants enchanted blade to x units (whereas x increases with caster level, certain promotions etc.) for y amount of mana per turn

many things are still on the drawing board (and not on mine, concrete answers can only be given by sephi).

 

[Calavente]

I see.
well, to be more accurate : What I would give to see sephi's drawing board

 

[Gelvan]

the thing with divine summons is that they are a bit too "high fantasy" for FFH.

(from MoM)
- unicorns: out
- angels: well... somehow doesn't work with existing angels
- archangels: another Basium? please not!
- guardian ghost, okay that would work. maybe they could get a +100% defense if the sit on mana?

city enchantments (also from MoM)
- Light of Heaven (bonus to defense against dead/demon units)
- Wealth (increases tax output, or money (not commerce))
- Stream of life (increases growth -> maybe reducing the food needed to grow?)
- Consecration (destroys negative city enchantments, protection against spells)
- Dark Ritual (gives +3 mana for free as long as enchantment is up)
- Wall of Fire (does fire damage to attacking units)
and so on, there are A LOT of spells in MoM and most work well with a civ game (after all MoM was a civ game) - although many of the MoM-spells already are in FFH

that one does not work well with the background story of FFH, but the idea is quite rare:
Armageddon: destroys the world slowly with vulcanoes: you get one mana for each vulcano that errupts.

 

[DonQuigleone]

the thing with divine summons is that they are a bit too "high fantasy" for FFH.

(from MoM)
- unicorns: out
- angels: well... somehow doesn't work with existing angels
- archangels: another Basium? please not!
- guardian ghost, okay that would work. maybe they could get a +100% defense if the sit on mana?

Maybe not christian angels, but you could easily use the semi divine beings of other religions, like Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, or Judaism, or ancient Greek, Roman or Egyptian religion. Of course it's true that in history people have been far more imaginative when imagining evil beings over divine ones...

 

[tesb]

when this system i in place i will make new race it is just so tempting:
-good/neutral civ
-come from an other plane, they seek refugee in erebus and will slowly transform the land into something akin to their plane
-have next to no normal units (i.e. the ones that require gold and hammers)
-most of their units come from summons
-spread a unique terrain that reduces hammers, gold and food but gives a small boost to mana income

art and lorewise something akin to the syron with the shadow realm being the new landscape

edit: hmmm the infernals could be changed to a system akin to this too


@Gelvan:
we have enough summons as it is, what we need are replacement spells that fill the gap the summons have left open, both for arcane units and priests (their spells will use faith instead of mana and will be called miracles)

 

[DonQuigleone]

when this system i in place i will make new race it is just so tempting:
-good/neutral civ
-come from an other plane, they seek refugee in erebus and will slowly transform the land into something akin to their plane
-have next to no normal units (i.e. the ones that require gold and hammers)
-most of their units come from summons
-spread a unique terrain that reduces hammers, gold and food but gives a small boost to mana income

art and lorewise something akin to the syron with the shadow realm being the new landscape

edit: hmmm the infernals could be changed to a system akin to this too


@Gelvan:
we have enough summons as it is, what we need are replacement spells that fill the gap the summons have left open, both for arcane units and priests (their spells will use faith instead of mana and will be called miracles)

An otherworldly race seems a good fit. You might find some kind of entities in the lore already, however, to fit it rather then create a brand new one.

For instance you could easily have an evil counterpart (like the shadow demons in AOW) who could be the overlords of the octopus overlords, and BOTH Civs could be from a plane that often coincides with people's dreams, or something. Certainly the "overlords" could be an interesting summon based civ. (Or of course they could be like the Mind Flayers)

 

[Pazyryk]

My modular modmodmod (I don't know why I like to write that) uses some mana promotions to add spell ability to units under special conditions. These are:
Water II
Air I, II
Earth I, II
Nature I
also Channeling I (to open all level I spells)

Will these have the desired effect in 9.0? If not, what promotions does a unit need to access the new magic system?

Edit: There is a small cosmetic issue in the current autocast system that could be fixed. If a spell has a level requirement in the XML, then the autocast button appears even when the unit doesn't meet the level requirement to cast the spell. (Maybe true for other XML requirements too -- I didn't check.)

 

[Sephi]

My modular modmodmod (I don't know why I like to write that) uses some mana promotions to add spell ability to units under special conditions. These are:
Water II
Air I, II
Earth I, II
Nature I
also Channeling I (to open all level I spells)

Will these have the desired effect in 9.0? If not, what promotions does a unit need to access the new magic system?

Most likely these promotions will stay to allow Units ability to cast only a single spell. Promotions of Arcane Units (adepts/mages/archmages) will be much different though.

 

[tesb]

Spellauras will come next. They will replace all the buff spells. So any ideas for buff spells are welcome

suggestion:
-keep the current spells and just transform them into spellauras, for example:

Enchantment:
enchanted weapons:
tier I: gives enchanted blade
tier II: give enchanted blade and flaming arrows
tier III: gives enchanted blade, flaming arrows and spellstaff

Body:
tier I: gives haste
tier II: gives haste and regeneration

...

those buffs would be given to x units in y range, whereas x and y can be increased by promotions and caster tier (adept, mage, archmage)
maybe you take a look at RIFEs new adaptive mutation, basically they made so that one promotion (in their case mutation) can have different strengths this could come in handy here too, for example an enchanted blade from an adept is less effective then one from an mage and you could give them the aura promotions that increases the effect of auras as well.

with this you can simply change the buffs to spellauras and they are effected by promotions and caster tier would increase targets affected, range and strength of the buff

 

[tesb]

@sephi
are you sure about changing all buffs to spellauras? right now the combat auras from the summons are fairly unique and the buffs system if pretty decent. why change a good working system?

i would keep the buffs as they are with some minor modifications:
-costs mana to cast the buffs
-maybe add a minor mana upkeep to the buffs, and make chancel-able
-streamline the buffs more akin to post 15
-the higher tier the caster is the less the spell costs
-let units have the ability to gain those promotion when in a city with a mage guild and available mana corresponding to the buff (i.e. for enchanted blade you need 2 enchantment mana), but this would be the costliest of all methods to cast

maybe you can clarify on how the buffauras will be different from the combat auras of the summons besides that the combatauras are permanent?

 

[Sephi]

@sephi
are you sure about changing all buffs to spellauras? right now the combat auras from the summons are fairly unique and the buffs system if pretty decent. why change a good working system?

The current system isn't good. The autocasting option for many spells is just a hack to make it playable at all. There is little point/fun in having to cast a spell like haste every turn or run around with your unit and give enchanted blades to every unit.

Spells are just a tool to apply Promotions and Combatauras are a much better tool for this. In the new system all this casting micromanagement is gone and it is more about mid/long term decision. For example you will have to make the decision which secondary effects you add to the Combataura as Combatauras of the same Type do not stack.

maybe you can clarify on how the buffauras will be different from the combat auras of the summons besides that the combatauras are permanent?

Once an arcane unit has learned a combataura, it is permanent as well. However Combatauras of Summons have all unique effects and are of different types, so they stack with the Combatauras from the Spellschools that arcane units can learn.

I could use Ideas for the secondary effects of the Combatauras. For example something along the lines: Frost armor, gives Cold Resistance and passes slow Promotion in Combat.

 

[Sephi]

Completed Spells:

Death I: Enervation:
Affects only living enemies (30% Resist): Places a debuff with the same name: -100% Resistance to Death Damage; -10% Healrate; -10% Strength; 50% chance to wear off

Death II: Black Fire:
Buffs all your units: -1 Strength, +1Deathcombat; +10% Strength


Entropy II: Energy Drain:
Debuffs Enemies: -10%expierence Rate; -20%Strength; 5% chance to wear off. If the Unit, affected by energy drain, kills another unit it will gain the promotion again up to threee times in total

Meta Magic III: Anti Magic Shell:
gives the caster magic immunity

Do you still have the XML for this? I would like to add it now

 

[Sephi]

The current list of secondary effects is

Spoiler :

Holy Armor

• Enchanted Blade: +10% strength to melee, recon
• Cleansing I, Cleansing II Removes Disease, withered
• Valor +Experience%,effect scales
• Loyalty +Fear Resistance%, effect scales
• Blessed Weapon +Bonus vs. Evil%, effect scales(*)
• Righteousness +Resistance to Mind effecting Spells (Domination, Charm), effect scales (*)
• Holy Shield absorbs damage 1/turn, effect scales (*)
• Giant Strength +1Attack (*)

Elemental Augmentation

• Air Mastery: +20% Strength vs. Ranged Units
• Water Mastery: Water Walking
• Fire Mastery: Very High resistance to Fire Damage
• Fire Blade: +1 Fire Damage
• Iron Skin: +1 Def, Ignore Number of First strikes (effect scales)
• Frost Armor: +50% cold Resistance, passes slow Promotion in Combat
• Regeneration: Heals a little bit every turn
• Earth Lore: Double Movement in Hills, increased Health Regeneration
• Earth Mastery: Strong Promotion
• Flaming Arrows: +1 Fire Combat to Ranged and recon units (*)
• Anti Magic Shell: magic immunity

Dark Blessing

• Blur: Ignores number of Firststrikes (effect scales)
• Chaos Channels: Mutated Promotion
• Unholy Addiction: Heals Undead every turn
• Cannibalize: Cannibalize Promotion
• Immolation: Passes Immolation Promotion to units in battle (reduces strength, % to wear off every turn)
• Berserk: +30% attack, chance to be become enraged
• Lycanthropy: Werewolf Promotion
• Eldritch Weapon: Bonus vs. Good (effect scales) (*)
• Chaos Blade: +1 Firststrike (*)
• Poisoned Weapons: +1Poison Damage (*)
• Black Fire: -1 Strength, +1Deathcombat; +10% Strength

(*) not yet implemented

If anyone has more ideas, just post them

 

[tesb]

looks very nice, i have the xml somewhere, but i will first finish the holy avenger.

ideas:
-exploding arrows: ranged units deal a small amount of collateral damage to x units
-martyrdom: units gain x% strength (very much) but die at the end of combat
-Storm mastery: gives resistance to lighting damage (same with earth gives resistance to poison)

where are the poisoned weapons though?

edit: i would suggest you scale the effect of chaos blade as well