It's a special modifier making the tile unpassable.

The rock slide spell actually uses two modifiers, one that makes it unpassable and one that adds a custom tile to the target tile, in this case the rock slide tile. I have a spell somewhere that places a kind of iffy ice tile with blizzard effect, makes the tile unpassable and forces the unit in it to loose its turn untill the duration is up.

I'll have a look when I get back home in about an hour or two, if I don't fall asleep first .

@John: Alright, I get it.  And for a "feel" that seems perfect to me.  I will try out the snow effect when I get a chance, could you give me a path towards it in builders forge?  I was looking and best I found was the flowers.  I am actually kind of happy with it in game, was able to use layered object rotation to kind of get the idea I was looking for.  I think it might just be too tall when applied to a tactical tile with models.

@Heavenfall: thanks for the tip

@Nimbyjester: that would be most helpful if you can provide, thanks for offering.  For my own curiosity, what is the status of your staff mod?  Will there be another version of it?

@Murteas: would it be possible to send out a "beta" version of the next chapter with the tiles enabled, even if the spells do not do the desired effect?  This would enable John to continue conjuring awesome, while I can work on making my flower ice suck less.  Also my idea was to use the water elemental's "Drown" attack as as the animation that fired when the spell did, before the tile showed up.  Just a suggestion.

I had a go at the particle cauldron to try and make a custom version of it for Freezing Rain, and ended up .  Have noticed some interesting guides in forums, so shall read up and try again.

Thanks Nimby.  That is exactly what I've been working with, and as you said it doesn't work for anyone that enters the tile after the spell is already going.   

I'll try to get a beta out soonish so you can try it out.   

John, it should work, but then again several things "should" work that just don't.   I'll try something out and get it to you guys to test.

Hey everyone,

Here is a beta to try out the battlefield spells.  Some of the effects still don't work, but this will give you at least a view of what's going to be there.   Currently, the spells are all in the combat spellbook and you start out with them.  They are priced at 5 mana and do not require any shards (just to make it easy to test).

If anyone wants to look at the spells and see if you can get the effects to work, please feel free to try it out.

You must (!!!!) delete all the old mod files before installing this version as I have renamed the folders, and you will have a mess if you don't delete the old stuff first.  

Enjoy:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12727985/MG_Beta.zip

Note:   Grasping Hands is really small, however I like the look.  It doesn't currently stop the person (in fact it gave someone 1 extra combat move in my last test  )...and the wall of flame doesn't do any damage even though it is supposed to.  

Here is an update. For a Single unit it looks way better. Let me know what you all think. The decal auto scales btw no need to replace. If we can apply the stop parameter we are golden. Great job Murteas.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8370296/Grasping_Hands.rar

I added the shadows files, just in case.

@ Murteas: Sweet, sweet combat magic! Congrats on getting a beta of a chapter up.

Damn John_, I leave work, eat dinner, next thing I know you fixed you have fixed your tile and found a way to get the missing effect on a couple of spells.  Slow down, your making me look bad!

Seriously though, nice freaking work.  I can confirm the code adds the stop to Rain and Grasping (didn't try to add the shard boost).  I will work up a 2x2 of the ice (and now we know that one)  I have some questions / feedback bits:

1. Can we detect where a model is on the tile (centered vs on a side)?

2. Can we do any logic structures in a spell?  Like load different tiles at the beginning of the spell based on a troopcount driven switch case?  I have seen nothing like this in a GameModifier tag, and I am really, really missing it.

3. Can we make a Game Mod tag NOT display a name of the ability as it triggers?  Like we could see them once, or with their own names rather than just repeating the spell name for all 4 effects?  Is this an explicit flag I have just missed?

4. I had pictured freezing rain as having a 1 tile area of effect; is the current monsoon of ice just for testing?

Finally and most importantly;

 Should my slippery ice tile keep the currently light pulse effect or go with a different, light running underneath and on surface of ice idea?

Okay, I've made a few modifications.  I left the freezing rain as a -3 combat speed modifier because that seemed to be the goal of that is to slow them down as opposed to completely stopping them, right?   I can certainly change that to a lose turn modifier if that is what you want.   I've made it a single tile effect as well.  using the new grasping hands tile, and code to lose a turn.    

I've made a few changes to the wall of flame, let me know if it is doing damage now.   It should also reduce movement by a little.   Damage may or may not occur over both turns, let me know either way.

I won't be able to test it until later today, but I can probably make more changes if needed.   

Same link as before:   http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12727985/MG_Beta.zip

Allright gentleman, going to split my comments into two posts to fit in the coffee breaks.  First up:

Gameplay:

I would say go ahead an start using the more accurate modifiers when you have a chance, we start see how they feel for balance / play purposes. The goal of these spells is to affect tactical battles to be more geographically interesting.  We are also trying to keep with the larger game spell idea of having each one be uniquely useful.  Given the current limitations of the engine and tags, I suggest the following general ideas:

Grasping Hands: short range, stops units, deals damage, shorter duration

Freezing Rain: medium range, slows units and decreases combat effectiveness (accuracy, combat speed, dodge, etc), shorter duration

New Thoughts:

Wall of Flame:  medium range, deals damage, explosion moves unit back 2 tiles, blocks tile for brief duration

Howling Wind: unlimited range, decreases combat effectiveness [accuracy & damage], preferably by giving Dodge bonus to targets (this makes is specially for countering ranged units), longer duration, unit enchantment so sticks to target when they move

I know the air spell is not geographic, but I think that exception helps keep everything tactically interesting.

Thoughts?

Spells are in with the spell cost set to a projected value.  I left them in the combat spellbook and you should get them immediately just so they are easier to test.   Once we say we are good to go, I will move them to the appropriate elemental spell book.   

By the way, I assumed these were going into level 2 in each of the elemental (fire, water, earth, air) spellbooks.   

Also, just to help with casting spells for testing, if you create a new sovereign check out the new talents/history available, they may be helpful.  I don't know that I'll keep these for the final version, but they do help when trying to test.

Beta is at the same link as before:   http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12727985/MG_Beta.zip

Just read M. Agrippa's post above. I have have a look at the hands tile.

Ok, after a quick run through, 20 Mana is a bit high early unless you build your SoV with the 2 Mana generator trait and on a side note the Arrow at 5 is a bit abuse-able.

I like (almost all) the new Tiles. Not sure if we have any control of interior tile movement at all but if the Grasping Hands is cast and the target is attacked, they move out to the edge of the tile and out of the actual Hands. Also the Hold length is to short. I counted one turn. I believe the casting round is counted as 1. Perhaps a hold of 3 would provides the wanted delay of 2 Turns.

I like the Auto apply of the Howling winds spell. Never could figure out why SD has their on self only spells requiring a target (doh!) Good job Murteas.

I like the SoV addition as well Murteas.

Now for some negativity. Sorry M. Agrippa but I just can't get past the flowers on the Ice tile. Even zoomed out they look like flowers... Not sure what to do but I will see if I can find a more suitable filler.

Hate to be a bummer but for testing, can we just get all the spells available at the start. We can hunt Bandits and Bears to test early on. Having to build city tech to capture Shards can be time consuming....