[crossfire] Spell brainstorming

[Mark Wedel]

Kevin R. Bulgrien wrote:
>> Lots of discussion about spells, etc, on the slow down combat thread, but I 
>> thought I'd start a topic with just general ideas on spells.
> 
> A different sort of attune/repel by vocation:
> 
> It is interesting how you can pick a particular spell path by vocation when
> a character is created, but at least at mid-levels, after getting all the
> different skills or talisman's, you can completely change your character's
> vocation, or level each equivalently.  By vocation, I mean sorcery,
> evocation, summoning, and pyromancy.  I stumbled on this idea because of
> the description of one of the magic vocations indicates the character will
> be a generalist of magic users even though it is difficult to see how that
> is true in point of fact.
> 
> It strikes me that I have heard that it is not possible to have all of the
> vocations/paths/skills/whatever at the same level at the highest level or
> end-game, so this might not be applicable at all levels of play.

  It is highly likely that talismans/rings/whatever don't exist to get all the 
attunements active at the same time (and most items that attune also repel 
something else).  But this is purely on archetype/map enforcement.  Within the 
code, there is nothing preventing someone from having all the skills, and an 
item being created that gives all the attunements (or more likely, some 
combination of items that give all attunements with minimal repels)

> Nonetheless, it struck me when creating a character the other day that it
> could be possible to change the way vocations are handled outside of the
> attune/repel attributes that religion can impose on paths.
<much snipped>
> Admittedly I have no real clue about role-playing game rule sets as I am
> mostly a "player" not a game designer or DM, so this might be somewhat
> preposterous, and further, after applying race mods and religious
> attune/repel mods, perhaps the system would be way too complex, but it
> is a thought on how one might achieve balance across the spectrum of
> levels and vocational lines.

  At some level, that is more a discussion about skills, and not just spells, as 
it also applies there - can someone be really good in all skills (fighting + 
magic) - it isn't just a matter of spell skills.

  I don't remember the outcome of those discussions off the top of my head.  The 
complication here is that there are probably some skills which shouldn't be 
counted against, otherwise no one would use them (most of the item creation 
skills.  They are a fun diversion and somewhat useful for adventurers, but if 
having them decreased the amount of exp I gain through play using the main 
skills, I wouldn't use them).

> 
> Right now, in the game there are places where talismans/skill scrolls
> may be found so one can hit up those places frequently to increase the
> chances of finding all of them, or, one high level player can give a new
> player a pile of talismans to make a super-magician at low-levels.
> Perhaps game balance would be facilitated by making it more difficult to
> create these super-magicians.

  IMO, it is probably reasonable for skill scrolls to get removed from random 
treasure, and used sparingly even for quests.  But that really doesn't fix the 
problem - even if the sorcery skill is buried in some high level quest, people 
would probably give you scrolls if you asked for it.  And then there is the 
question of what is the point of being able to learn sorcery skill if you're 
character is level 80?

  I didn't specifically mention it, but if the idea of green school of magic and 
red school of magic was added (names purely arbitrary here - something better 
could be chosen) was done, my thought is the only way to get those skills is at 
character creation.

  If you choose a character that has the red magic skill, you get it.  Likewise 
for green magic.  There wouldn't be a character that has both red and green. 
And if you choose a class/race that doesn't get either, you're out of luck.

  In some sense, if you choose to be a fighter at first level, you will be a 
fighter for the entire game.

  where this sort of breaks down is the melee skills - mages still need to be 
able to use weapons, so if that green mage gets the magic skill + weapons, then 
characters that want to be fighters can still take that class, but optimize the 
stats for fighters, but still have the option for spell casting.

  Another idea mentioned was different versions of the skills, that have 
different exp gain rates.  Skills that characters start with would generally be 
the best, and ones you pick up off of scrolls (or talismans) would be mediocre - 
this sort of matches one of your ideas.