Spell Feedback and Review(long)

[MagisterCultuum]

It makes no sense to me for Dragons to cough up meteors. Breath Fire should be changed to work like Pillar of Fire.

It also seems odd that Drifa, the dragon of the god of ice and enemy of fire, should use fire as a weapon. You might need to make the spell not require the Dragon promotion but be unit specific. Of course, that would require allowing OR prereqs in the spell schema, creating different spells for different dragons, or having a python prereq.

 

[A_Hamster]

It makes no sense to me for Dragons to cough up meteors. Breath Fire should be changed to work like Pillar of Fire.

It also seems odd that Drifa, the dragon of the god of ice and enemy of fire, should use fire as a weapon. You might need to make the spell not require the Dragon promotion but be unit specific. Of course, that would require allowing OR prereqs in the spell schema, creating different spells for different dragons, or having a python prereq.

Would it be possible to have a generic "Dragon's Breath" promo, that would then be fine-tuned by a second promo specific to each Dragon? For example, the basic breath weaponwould do X amount of damage within a certain range to a max of 80%, then Drifa would have a promo that would make it cold damage so the appropriate vunerabilities and resistance promos woudl come into play. Acheron would have Fire, etcetera.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You could. I don't see the need for the promotions though. You could just make the Dragon promotion allow the Dragon's Breath spell, which would work like Pillar of Fire but have if statements determining the the damage type for each dragon. Pillar of Fire works though python anyway.

I'd probably make Fire the default, and have an if statement change it to Cold for Drifa. Should Eurabatres and deal fire too, or maybe switch to Holy and Unholy? The graphics when they attack don't actually seem to have them breathing fire like Acheron does, but rather stars or smoke.

 

[Nor'easter]

You could. I don't see the need for the promotions though. You could just make the Dragon promotion allow the Dragon's Breath spell, which spell work like Pillar of Fire but have if statements determining the the damage type for each dragon. Pillar of Fire works though python anyway.

I'd probably make Fire the default, and have an if statement change it to Cold for Drifa. Should Eurabatres and deal fire too, or maybe switch to Holy and Unholy? The graphics when they attack don't actually seem to have them breathing fire like acheron does, but rather stars or smoke.

I remember from my long-ago D&D-playing days that gold dragons breathe fire and black dragons breathe acid, so maybe that's what could be done with Eurabatres and Abashi?

 

[Zechnophobe]

Chaos Three:

Insanity
Gain the Insane trait, and a random trait.

--Or--

Insanity
Randomly change your traits (Other than Agnostic, Sprawling, or Insane).
Lose the Chaos III Promotion.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

@ Nor'easter: Could be. What kind of damage would acid be? Poison?

Eurabatres' entry actually mentions both fire and acid.

 

[Nor'easter]

@Magister

I guess within the context of the mod poison probably comes closest, no? Unless we want to create a new type of damage for acid, but it would be kind of strange to create a completely new damage type for only a single unit, which may or may not show up in the game at all.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I think water II needs a second spell like death III because otherwise it would be a one time cast. There needs to be a reason that water II lets you cast the water walking spell rather than just giving you water walking itself.

Once I was at war and would have to give up a city to get a peace treaty, but then I changed to the Mercurians and with their inflated power rating they suddenly were offering me technology for peace. I was thinking that might make for a good spell. Call it Intimidate and have it boost your power rating making other civs for fearful, the opposite of Spirit III. I didn't think there was a place for it, but if Chaos III needs something new it might work there, although it would actually be more useful for a peaceful civ and Chaos doesn't seem like something a peaceful civ would use.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I was thinking that might make for a good spell. Call it Intimidate and have it boost your power rating making other civs for fearful, the opposite of Spirit III. I didn't think there was a place for it, but if Chaos III needs something new it might work there, although it would actually be more useful for a peaceful civ and Chaos doesn't seem like something a peaceful civ would use.

I don't like the name, but a spell that boosts your power rating sounds really good. I really don't think it fits Chaos at all though. It might make a decent Body spell since Aeron's original sphere is Strength, or a Spirit spell since it deals with your rivals' emotional perception of your strength. Mind and Shadow also make sense, since this spell is about tricking or controlling your rivals. I'd like it if it were a second Spirit spell (or body-spirit cross sphere spell, even though these spheres are opposites), since trust in a one time use spell and the other appropriate spheres have pretty good level 3 spells. It would preferably be something you could use many times, with a slowly diminishing boost and maybe taking several turns to cast.

Hmm... is the power rating the same as/part of the score that is used to determine who wins under some victory conditions? I never play with any victory condition but Conquest (I don't really try to win, just have fun testing my changes), but if it is then this could be a very good reason not to include such a spell.

 

[xienwolf]

Or instead of a second spell it could just have a second function. If the caster doesn't have Water Walking, it just grants WW. But if the caster DOES have it, then it grants some healing, more or or something...

 

[A_Hamster]

You could. I don't see the need for the promotions though. You could just make the Dragon promotion allow the Dragon's Breath spell, which spell work like Pillar of Fire but have if statements determining the the damage type for each dragon. Pillar of Fire works though python anyway.

Okay, I didn't know if there was an easier way to differentiate breath weapon damage.

I remember from my long-ago D&D-playing days that gold dragons breathe fire and black dragons breathe acid, so maybe that's what could be done with Eurabatres and Abashi?

Consulted my AD & D Monster Manual (from the days before edition numbers) and Gold Dragons have two breath weapons, fire and chlorine gas. Interestingly, all the good dragons have at least two breath weapons which can be used multiple times, unlike the evil dragons who just have one (although in the case of some of the "weaker" metals the second breath weapon is not that dangerous). For example, the Copper dragon can breathe acid like a Black dragon, and a cloud of gas that acts like a Slow spell.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Chaos Three:

Insanity
Gain the Insane trait, and a random trait.

--Or--

Insanity
Randomly change your traits (Other than Agnostic, Sprawling, or Insane).
Lose the Chaos III Promotion.

That seems like it would really detract from Perpentach. Plus, insanity is more of a Mind than Chaos thing.

 

[Nor'easter]

@A_Hamster

I didn't have my Monster Manual handy when I wrote that, I was going from memory. I'd forgotten about the two breath weapons that the good dragons had -- thanks for the memories.

 

[A_Hamster]

@A_Hamster

I didn't have my Monster Manual handy when I wrote that, I was going from memory. I'd forgotten about the two breath weapons that the good dragons had -- thanks for the memories.

You're welcome. I didn't remember either, but when MC mentioned fire and acid, that did not sound right for a Gold dragon. So when I got home from work I looked it up. (Of course, never fought a good dragon in my AD&D days so that's some excuse for forgetting. Evil, that's a different story.)

 

[WCH]

Yeah, for some reason in D&D all the good dragons are substantially stronger than the evil ones. True in AD&D, true in 3.5. Dunno about 4.

 

[hbar]

Idea for another spell, but as usual I can't think of a good name...

Entropy III - River of Death
Can only be cast on riverbanks
Immobilizes caster for XX turns
While caster is immobilized, a resource is created on that tile that is granted to all cities on the river, creates one per population. In addition, every unit in these cities has YY% chance to become diseased each turn.

It would be great for softening up cities, it is horribly evil (magical biowarfare), and it would be powerful but situational.

 

[Grand Seeker]

Entropy III - River of Death
Can only be cast on riverbanks
Immobilizes caster for XX turns
While caster is immobilized, a resource is created on that tile that is granted to all cities on the river, creates one per population. In addition, every unit in these cities has YY% chance to become diseased each turn.

Sounds realy nasty However would it be difficult to code?
Anyway, I like it.

An other question. If a unit is poisoned, withered AND desieased, is it possible
to give the unit NEGATIVE healing each round and that it slowly dies off? That would be kind of fun.

 

[WCH]

Another way of doing it would be to make the river run dry temporarily... say for 20 turns, change all flood plains into desert and replace the river with a new "riverbed" graphic. Would make an excellent third level spell.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

River of Death really sounds more like a Death spell than an Entropy one. If I were to ad something like this I'd probably make it a Death/Shadow cross sphere spell.


Giving the resource to everyone on the river could be tough. If it just game the resource to the civ that owns the tile and is connected by the river trade route it would be fairly easy. If you use a resource, I'd probably make it grant the diseased promotion the same way shuet stones and nightmares grant their eponymous promotions. Creating one resource per population is almost certainly impossible. I guess one way would be to not bother placing anything on the map but to handle its effects directly in python, perhaps relying on adding some buildings.



Negative healing used to work (in early versions of Fire), but Kael removed it because he was afraid of how the AI would deal with it (waiting to heal, but instead dieing, rather than withdrawing to your own territory and using priests/grigori medics). I don't think he added it back. I personally think that negative healing should be allowed, but capped at reducing a unit to no less than, say, 20% strength (it would probably be good to define this cap in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml, so we can play around with it)




I believe that rivers are kind of tricky. I don't think that making rivers run dry temporarily would be easy to do. If I knew how to add new rivers (I was thinking this would be a great effect of a miscast spring spell) I'd say a spell that just removes them entirely might be good (I also think that Hell's rivers should dry up).

 

[smusebaer]

One thing, I asked myself a couple of times, is where is the buff spell for mounted units. Melee units, archers and scouts have it, but why are mounted units lacking it?