[crossfire] Spell idea: Elemental skills

[Mark Wedel]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> Replying to various mails at the same time.
> 
>>   And idea I had was to change the current spell skills into 4 elemental
>> skills - fire, water, air, earth.  The praying skill would not get changed.
> 
> Sounds good, if we can balance everything.

  Balance is always a hard part.

  But I think by doing it with elements, it in some ways becomes less important.

  For example, if each element had a bolt type spell (there are already 3 of 
need - just need an earth bolt type of spell), and each had the same level, sp, 
damage, they are in a sense balanced with each other.

  Now some monsters are more vulnerable/protected to different attacks than 
others - using any fire spell against wyverns is pretty pointless, and ice 
spells quite effective.  And there are other monsters in the opposite case.  So 
I think that for most all monsters, there will always be cases of this spell 
(skill) is better to use.  And if a player who has fire can't get water (ice), 
that does have some limitations.

> 
> The idea of a 5th skill, well, not totally sure it's nice. I'd rather see 
> generic spells you can use with multiple skills.
> The issue you'd have with a 5th skill is how to level it - if it has enough 
> spells to level correctly, why use another elemental? if it has only 
> utilitarian spells, how can you level it?

  That's a concern I have - it perhaps just needs to be examined more what 
spells really fall out of this area.

  In a sense, most of them are likely to be non damage spells (things like 
detect magic, strength, identify, dimension door, etc).  I'd almost seen that 
misc magic skill would mostly be a place where a lot of non combat spells are 
bundled, with some combat spells added just so you can get exp so you can cast 
the useful non combat spells.

> 
>>   That could be useful in other regards - another thread had the idea of
>> breaking weapons down, so the some classes can only use a limit of the
>> weapons (so a mage can't pick up the battle axe) - if we followed an
>> example of multiple combat skills, something like a dagger could have
>> 'skill simple|complex' type of thing, but the battle axe just have 'skill
>> complex'
> 
> Or what about:
> * create 'axe weapons' as skill, and forbid mages to get it

  The weapon skills could certainly get broken down into more categories (axe, 
mace, sword, dagger, whatever).  That also affects fighter, as now it isn't just 
one handed/two handed skill, but more skills, so if you're really good in sword 
and find a nice artifact axe, you're pretty crappy in that.

  I'm not saying this shouldn't be done, but need to think about its impact.

> * put a cap to what mages can use in item power for weapons
> things like that?

  Depends how it is done.  One could base the item power of a weapon you can 
equip based on the level of the skill to equip it.

  But the real issue comes down to how easy/if it is possible to learn skills. 
The problem case I think of is this - if skills are very difficult to learn, you 
sort of want to differentiate weapon skills for mages vs fighters.  IF a fighter 
gets combat skills but no spell skills, but that mage gets some spell skills 
plus the default weapon skill (1 handed weapons), there is only a minimal 
disadvantage to starting the character as a mage, but still play them as a 
fighter (you get the relevant fighting skills, as well as the spell skills).

  That is where the idea of more weapon skills come up - mages must be able to 
use melee to some extent (dagger lets say), but right now, there is no 
enforcement, so putting in new skills may be a way.  Its just sort of seems that 
if you are fighter and know sword, you should also be able to use dagger with 
similar effectiveness, so it may be nice the dagger & swords use the same skill 
for fighter, but the mage just has a skill that limits them to daggers only.


> And it gives more importance to wands/rods/staves. I never use charging 
> scrolls, for instance, not worth the issue - now if you find a nice wand, you 
> have a use for them!
 >
 > I would though seriously limit the rods, because they effectively have
 > unlimited casting - the golden unicorn horn for instance is really powerful,
 > allowing almost continuous healing. That seems too powerful to me.
 >
  True - way back when, rods didn't exist, and the only way to get some spells 
was via wand or scroll.  I'd almost say that most rods should be artifact/quest 
type items.

  There are some limits on rods, like how fast they recharge - I suspect in many 
cases, rods are an item in need of balance just like a lot of other objects out 
there.