[CF-Devel] Re: New races and spells.

[emaillist+cfdev at dogphilosophy.net]

On Tuesday 12 November 2002 02:10 am, Tim Rightnour wrote:

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      If we are going to be adding new spells, races, dieties, whatever.. I think
     
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      some thought needs to go into whatever we create.  For example,
     
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      yet-another-area-effect-spell isn't all that interesting.
     
     
In-and-of-itself, perhaps not, but since as far as I can tell the only way
to get magic exp is to "kill monsters with it", a greater variety of
available "damage types" and effects might help differentiate wizard-type
characters from each other better.  (It seems you don't get magic exp for
killing monsters with scrolls or wands, at least not last time I checked...)

I don't know that it's within my meager abilities to attempt the necessary
coding, but one thought I had was to have a way of allowing spell-casters to
"attune themselves" to a certain extent - wizards who learn a preponderance
of cold spells, for example, ought to find they then have an easier time
learning and casting cold-related spells in general.  As I recall from what
code-perusal and documentation-reading I've done so far, attunement is an
"all or nothing" effect (i.e. you're either attuned to a path, or you're not
[or the path is "denied" or "repelled"]) (can anyone give a good explanation
of what attunement accomplishes?  Reduced casting cost?  Increased equivalent
level when cast?  Easier learning?  All of the above?).  (By "all or nothing"
I mean you can't be "50% attuned" or "25% repelled" or whatever - not that
there's really any reason to add that kind of complexity...).

The "algorithm" I had in mind would be something like "if you have at least
3 spells of the same path and they make up at least 50% of your known spells, 
you are 'attuned' to that path" (or better, the 'attunement level' improves,
e.g. a caster who is "repelled" from a path gets upgraded to normal for
that path).  The attunement would go away if the conditions changed (i.e. they
have 3 frost spells and 3 other spells, and are as a result "attuned" to
frost.  They learn one more non-frost spell and lose their attunement.)  Might 
also encourage a little more thought in spellcaster character development
beyond "learn every random spell found."

>
     
      Races are a
     
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      complex subject.. as it has to offer something new and unique to the game
     
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      to be really useful.  What about a given race would make someone want to
     
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      play it, vs another race?  The dragon race is an excellent example, as it
     
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      is a totally different gameplay aspect than other races.  I for one would
     
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      want to know that a new race had been fully playtested before it went into
     
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      the game.. but I'm just one of many developers, don't rely on my word
     
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      alone.  We often disagree.
     
     
I do agree that races ought to be somewhat distinct from each other, but 
choice is always good.  If we go TOO far into demanding coarse-grained 
differences, we'll have to go back and get rid of "Northmen" and "Gnomes"
and "Half-Orcs" and "Halflings" as not being different enough from humans,
dwarves, and elves...(this isn't such an issue for ME, though, since any
races I personally come up with are likely to focus on the "middle ground"
of difference between "boring old humanoids" and radically different creatures
like dragons...[the Quetzalcoatl's are a good already-existing example of
what I mean])

Here's yet another suggestion/request based on me not knowing how hard it
would be to actually implement - how hard would it be to add a "class face
change" specifier to the race arch's?  That is, be able to specify a specific
face (faces) for particular classes for a race?  In the case of the
lizard-people in my patch, one could adapt the "serpentman priest" graphics,
and specify switching to that graphic for Sossaurian wizards, priests, monks,
evokers, etc. (and by default staying "no class face change" for anything not
listed).

>
     
      1) Weather related spells:
     
     [...]
All very cool ideas.  It'd be nice, wherever possible, if the functions
generating the effects were relatively "generic" such that it'd be easy to
extend them with new effects, too, much as the current "cone spell, bolt 
spell, ball and bullet spell" functions are.

I need to try out the weather support on my system...
[...]
>
     
      2) Other spells:
     
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      Guided Missile: Magic Missile meets create bomb.  A missle goes flying,
     
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      hits, and kaboom!
     
     
I'll have to look at the way the functions are set out, but I MIGHT be able
to do this myself, using the existing "seeking spell" functions.

Of course, considering how prone the current seeking spells are to fly around
loose and hit a wall/the caster...

[...]
>
     
      Do we have any kick-back spells?  Like prismatic sphere, or aura of fire,
     
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      where things take a little damage when they hit you?  Prismatic sphere
     
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      might be fun, as it has that random factor.
     
     [...]
A generic "damage_shield" function that does damage to things that actually
hit you (hitback?) would be a very nice addition to the current
ball/bolt/bullet/etc spells...(as opposed to e.g. aura of fire which is
really an "area of effect - 1 square radius" spell...)
>
     
     
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      3) Skills:
     
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      Perhaps we can come up with some skills that might make people want to play
     
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      as a thief.  Like a backstab skill, where if you are hiding, you can
     
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      backstab a nearby monster for mondo-damage.  You would of course need to be
     
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      using a stab-weapon.
     
     
Perhaps an "ambush" skill that works like hiding, but multiplies damage
based on level on the first attack when coming out of hiding?

>
     
      How about a bezerker rage.. where you go into a wild rage, killing
     
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      everything in sight, under computer control, until you can't see any other
     
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      targets, or wind up dead.  perhaps you do extra damage while raging.. but
     
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      the danger is you can't stop if you are in too deep.
     
     
Might also be able to simulate this with an increase to Str, Con, Hp (but not
maxhp), and speed, and applying "confusion" at the same time...

>
     
      Just some ideas..
     
     [...]
Good ones, I think...