[Suggestion] Magic system improvement

from Elemental Forums

I apologize in advance for the wall of text, I do hope it doesn't hit too hard. ;P

I have read the forums and seen ingame (beta 3 and 3A) how the magic system works currently. I agree with some of the posts about magic essentially feeling a little underwhelming. Most of the problems I see here come from essence being such an integral part of the spellcasting process. So I started thinking how the current magic system in the beta could be improved toward something that still holds current ingame components while making magic feel powerful and useful

1.The role of essence.

Essence should be a resource only available to the sovereign, only usable by the sovereign. Essence essentially needs to really feel that your sovereign is pouring a part of him/herself into the spell being cast, which in turn will give you a massive return reward. For example when you Imbue your hero with essence, that hero will instantly gain the ability to cast spells (see point 2 for spellcasting revamp) at the cost of 1 essence. Or you have been really unlucky with food in the game, so you sacrifice a part of yourself to empower and enrich the land to create 1 food patch. A third example would be the ability to summon a, lets say Storm Titan, that would be a single powerful unit with 30 attack 30 def and 100 hp, but would once again cost 1 essence. A sovereign would start the game with between 1-5 essence depending on how much you would spend at character creation(minimum of 1), and for every level your sovereign gains he/she would be granted 1 more essence automatically. The ammount of essence would allso directly correspond to the power of spells, and the overall power of your sovereing, so that there would be a reason to keep your essence to yourself, to make your sovereing feel more powerful (think Sauron at the start of The Lord of the Rings hammering away entire groups of enemies).

2. Spellcasting revisioned

Spellcasting will be directly related to 2 statistics primarily and will draw from essence as a third statistic to limit massively powerful spells. Intelligence would directly affect the magnitude and effect of a spell being cast, from giving timed spells more duration to granting that fireball a bigger area of effect as well as more damage. Wisdom on the other hand would directly relate to your characters ability to cast spells by adding 1 "Mana" per level of wisdom. Mana regeneration would occur at the end of every turn, returning a casters mana back to full, so next turn the caster can fight against that pesky spider infestation with a new volley of fireballs instead of waiting several turns just to see mana regenerate.

3. Minor improvement, rename spell points to spell research points or something similar to clarify their use.

4. Constant effect magic

By constant effect magic I mean summoning spells or city improving enchanted farms etc. These spells would put a strain on the specific spellcaster maintaining the spell. Lets say for example that our sovereign casts Brilliance on one of my cities. Maintaining Brilliance would put a constant strain on my sovereign by reducing the amount of usable spellpoints per turn. For example my sovereign would have a wisdom of 15, which would give him 15 mana to use each turn. Now if he casts Brilliance on a city, that number would drop by 1 to 14 mana available each turn. This way it would be beneficial to sacrifice your essence to give other characters magical abilities so they can cast spells, or if they are not combat oriented, to maintain beneficial summoning or enchantment spells up on your cities and armies. This would also punish the sovereign or hero for being careless in combat as the individual maintaining said spell goes down, so does every spell in his maintained spells list.

 

I'm hoping this will give the developers some new ideas for the direction of the magic system and how it can be paced to be faster and more engaging/rewarding.

Overall I'm pleased with how the game is shaping up, and am hoping that pacing will be fixed for 3B, so that training a damnably useless peasant doesn't take 5 turns!!!

Dartanis out.

683 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Funny, I seem to be getting immune too walls of text... lately... I mean I'm tired and your idea looks perfectly clear...

Anyway, just wanted to note... AFAIK the ability to create fertile grounds isn't currently in-game. Most of "reviving" spells have been stripped (or hidden) during transition to 3A, and the one that is left only makes green ground like the one that grows around settlements. (and then there's raise/lower land and snow/desert spells but no land "restoration" spells)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Yea, and I think they were take out for a good reason, if you can just use magic to create food without any penalties, it will severily unbalance magic and food aspects of the game, the sovereing dynasties idea in your post was really good btw. Shame I didnt think of that. :grin:

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Dartanis, reply 2
Yea, and I think they were take out for a good reason, if you can just use magic to create food without any penalties, it will severily unbalance magic and food aspects of the game, the sovereing dynasties idea in your post was really good btw. Shame I didnt think of that.
End of Dartanis's quote

Didn't they originally eat essence? Current "make green ground" spell does.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry if you read this in the other post:

  • Essence SHOULD be the measure of a spellcaster's casting POTENTIAL.
  • Mana SHOULD be totally seperate. (mana=gasoline; essence=engine)
  • A caster's essence level should never get lower, only higher [(unless a stat such as int is decreased, or in the case of the Light, land is corrupted (see below)].
  • The dark side should gain essence through death (population/retainer sacrifice, absorb souls during battles, etc), while the light side gains it through life (cultivating the earth/special nature points of strong magic; size of population in a city and the healthiness of the city; etc).
  • It should be easier and faster for the dark side to gain essence through these means, but the repercussions should be noticable (i.e.: population loss in a city upon sacrifice; retainer death; sovereign character becomes more and more corrupt, losing humanity the higher their essence)
  • The light side should gain essence slowly and steadily from the richness of life as they revive the world. This would fit in well with how magic has faded since the wasting of the planet. We can imagine that the energy of life was not lost, but trapped inside the crystals. Unleashing magic taps into that energy. Using it to enrich the earth would be an investment. While it would cost initially to invest in the revival of the land, as the land continues to get greener and more vibrant on its own, it begins paying off small dividends of essence for the Light-side sovereign, thus slowly increasing their essence over time.
  • Since this dark vs. light is a big part of the game, we need to really feel these differences through the magic system! The powerful dark vs the tenacious resiliancy of light; the spellcasters themselves begin to change the closer they get to each extreme (with benefits/drawbacks).
  • As far as imbuing a retainer with the power to cast spells, this should be a sustained spell that costs the sovereign essence points as long as the spell is active--they are just lending their champion some of their power temporarily (functions similar to an enchantment). Also, depending on whether or not the sovereign is a light or dark magic-user, the retainer should also gain these characteristics.
  • All loss of essence due to spellcasting should be temporary as long as the spell is active. Simple solution.