PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Levski on April 23, 2004, 01:41:03 am
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I think it would be really nifty if something bad happens when a really powerful spell goes bad.
For example:
If you are a necromancer/shaman/spirit-talker (whatever), and you are summoning the spirit of a long dead persona. Now this persona was extremely powerful in his lifetime, so summoning his soul is going to take quite a bit of determination and skill. BUT, all of a sudden, something\'s gone bad! For some reason, you can\'t control the spell, and instead of summoning the soul of the already dead person, you partition your soul into two parts. Now there are two of you! An NPC (which would have to move and fight and the like), and you. And you have to figure out how to make your soul one now.
This is an interesting idea, because this could trigger a quest also. It\'s also interesting because of the NPC concept. This NPC could be online only when you are online.. because it is your second half. And you would have to perform a certain spell/eat a certain herb/whatever to get your soul in one piece again.
Just an idea, hopefull there haven\'t been TOO many threads with something like this :)) .
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I doubt there are any threads dealing completely with this topic, but I could be wrong... Others, I believe, just deal with uses of magic, not possible backlashes. Or a little on the backlashes. *shrug*
Anyway, perhaps less powerful spells could backfire on the caster. Such as minor explosions that harm the caster, or a sudden draining of a stat.
Your post reminds me of a scene in the WoT series. It is when a \"bubble of evil\" surfaces and one of the main characters, surrounded by mirrors, has his reflection (in all the mirrors) crawl out and attack him. The former reflections drain the character of his energy. Rather similar to having a soul break into two parts... Except with different causes. Perhaps your otherself could be either hostile or friendly, depending on your luck.
Is it really a bad thing if you divide your soul into two parts? It would be if your NPC persona was hostile, but if they were another companion, it would be only an addition.Something that actually makes soul division a negative thing.
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Mutations (http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=6938&boardid=11&sid=08b6dc3a9694f697666fe8e2980bb82a) happen when something *really* bad happens. ;)
(Please dont ressurect the thread)
Basically, you gain contamination when you miscast and if you get too contaminated you gain good, bad, and cosmetic mutations (though mostly bad) as well, some races could mutate with their own mutations, like breathing fire or naturally developing their own scale-mail armor. (grown from plates of bone, for example)
[this is related, because they both end up altering your character in some way. A \"You feel split between two sides\" mutation could be similar to this, where there\'s a 50/50 chance you\'d lose or regain health when you do something good/bad; sort of like you\'re Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde :) As well, a \"You fight with yourself\" mutation could be similar to where a situation like the original idea stated.]
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Originally posted by Levski
I think it would be really nifty if something bad happens when a really powerful spell goes bad.
For example:
If you are a necromancer/shaman/spirit-talker (whatever), and you are summoning the spirit of a long dead persona. Now this persona was extremely powerful in his lifetime, so summoning his soul is going to take quite a bit of determination and skill. BUT, all of a sudden, something\'s gone bad! For some reason, you can\'t control the spell, and instead of summoning the soul of the already dead person, you partition your soul into two parts. Now there are two of you! An NPC (which would have to move and fight and the like), and you. And you have to figure out how to make your soul one now.
This is an interesting idea, because this could trigger a quest also. It\'s also interesting because of the NPC concept. This NPC could be online only when you are online.. because it is your second half. And you would have to perform a certain spell/eat a certain herb/whatever to get your soul in one piece again.
Just an idea, hopefull there haven\'t been TOO many threads with something like this :)) .
Cool!
I think that the spell itself should backlash on the player. Though I\'m sure a lot of more interesting things like Levski\'s idea here could be incorporated.
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Yes I like this idea, If you dont have alot of skill in that magic way, the spells sometimes fail and backfires on you causing wierd things to happen, lik if you are trying to say, boost your defence during battle, you could accidently boost your opponents defence. As your skill increases, this happens less frequently, and eventually you will master the spell and it will never backfire. That would be awesome 8)
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I\'m not sure about Levski\'s or Saphire\'s ideas, but it could be cool if spells would \'go wrong\' and do something unexpected.
Sometimes the spell might just fail, and not work. Sometimes it\'ll blow while the caster \'charges\' it. Sometimes it\'ll do something completely diffrent from what the caster wanted (could be good, or bad, depends on your perspective perspective).
...And in some other times, it might spawn small green elephants with wings that fly around and moo. I\'d love to see that! :D
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Can anyone say \"Critical Failure\"? DMs love that kind of thing. I\'m fully in support of implementing these ideas.
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I don\'t like the idea of being having a failure/success rate when casting spells. This of course reminds me of a MMO game that will forEVER haunt my dreams. But I digress.
I\'d rather a system where either you fail all the time (with unpredictable consequences), or you succeed all the time. This of course should depend on your skill in that particular way.
There should be no indication ahead of time if you are able to cast a spell. The only way to know is to try. Try and fail--face the consequences. Try and succeed--the spell is now your bitch (make me a pie, spell!).
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Yeah, that\'s a nice idea. If your skill is too low, certain spells will always fail to you. Once you\'re more skilled, that spell will never fail (maybe 5% chance of failing?).
(and spells shouldn\'t be able to make pies, that\'s the cook\'s job! :P)
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i totally agree.... succes/failure rate is just .... aaarrggghhh.... played rune*cough* and a failure system just isn\'t working, it only decreases the fun of being a mage.
Edited for language.
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Ahh I didn\'t mean Runescape\'s system...thats just plain annoying. But your other ideas are good too...
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Perhaps other factors other than just skill could affect success rate. If you\'re drunk, for example, you would for sure have trouble casting spells. I think.
Spells could perhaps be \'defective,\' as in they travel to the enemy and explode or do something rather unexpected. Or on allies as well as enemies. It would take away the damage from yourself, do some of the intended effect to the target... And do something rather unintended.
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Or on allies as well as enemies.
Yes, I\'m sick and tired of having a spell just pass through an ally simply because he is an ally...
So any one have any more ideas for this thread? It would be really boring if the only thing that happened was that the caster would get blown up....
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So you say that a spell will need to _always_ succeed? Why? An attack will also not always succeed, even if you are the most experienced fighter, still you can slip or whatever and the attack goes wrong. Magic is the exact same thing.
Therefore, I propose the following:
If your skill is below a certain level in comparison to the spell complexity, you have a greatly increased chance of failures, also the effects could be more uncontrolled than if your skill is adequate. In this case, it\'s going to work almost always, and even if not, simply fail or at least not do much harm.
Read
http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=6517&boardid=11&styleid=3&sid=8045f4a2de6b2a706a4a2aed33ab4b3c
and
http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=9458&boardid=13&styleid=3&sid=8045f4a2de6b2a706a4a2aed33ab4b3c
for some discussions involving this topic.
Also, friendly fire might be a problem because of the limited options available to you: you can\'t easily direct the spell inbetween people as you would IRL. Therefore, the chance of hitting your team would be way greater due to interface constraints, which would not be good and IMO is why it is most often left out of games. same for ranged weapons, btw.
You might, however, add this for special spells, like fireball, which will affect a great area anyway and which therefore couldn\'t be cast i.e. through two ppl. who stand near each other anyway.
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spells should only backfire if its a spell that you have learnt not spells that you cast off scrolls and such, but yeah this kind of system would make me more paranoid with mage friends
the chance of being successfull has to be at the right percentage otherwise mages are either too powerful or too weak, I have yet to see a game that has done this perfectly
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Originally posted by Syzerian
spells should only backfire if its a spell that you have learnt not spells that you cast off scrolls and such, but yeah this kind of system would make me more paranoid with mage friends
Well, all the spells will be cast using glyphs, so maybe if you arrange them in a wrong order or something the spell could backfire. Also, if you take too long to use the next glyph, maybe then the spell could backfire, or just die out.
But on the other hand, it would be a nice RPing effect that non-mages are wary of mages and their supernatural powers.
Originally posted by Seytra:
If your skill is below a certain level in comparison to the spell complexity, you have a greatly increased chance of failures, also the effects could be more uncontrolled than if your skill is adequate. In this case, it\'s going to work almost always, and even if not, simply fail or at least not do much harm.
Well, here is where we bring in numbers again. And we all (well most of us) agree that too many numbers aren\'t good in an RPG. So let\'s base this on skill, and not numbers and percentages. Maybe if your skill is not as high as the spell would usually require, maybe you have to add an extra glyph, or read the glyphs in sequence faster, or change the sequence around even. But a success/failure rate shouldn\'t be fixed for every single player, they should have the chance to prove themselves.
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Ahem I think i have a fair bit of idea as to how magic works in ps.. >: D ^^
Right then if you mess up the glyph combination its simply not the same spell The glyphs are what makes the spell Come on surly some of you have played Dungeon master... any way i digress The point is that spells wont have a Completly set difficulty The more power you channel into it the harder it becomes and less means easier spells will be made by combinations of runes/glyphs i will give you a SS off Dungeon master the glphys will look more flashy in ps but the idea is pretty much the same
(http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload8/dungeon_master_screenshot.jpg)
The first symbol is power of spell that is the spell at its weakest then comes elemental power and then delivery
I know the system wont be quite the same in ps but it will be fairly simular
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I also believe to know some stuff about the PS rune system by now. The explanation I gave was greatly simplified because the links provide it in greater detail anyway.
I don\'t know about the combinations of glyphs, but I\'d rather gor for a \"charge intensity\" for each glyph or glyph combo that you can freely select. The combination of glyphs will define the spell, no single glyph will IMO represent \"the spell as such\", unless it\'s a one-glyph spell. Even if it is, the same glyph can appear in other spells at different locations as well.
Glyphs _might_ represent spell properties, like fire / water / whatever but I doubt it. There might be blocks of glyphs representing spell attibutes. These blocks could be charged to any extent by your wish. The overall power might also be a combo. This way, you could, by simply varying the attributes, change the fireball spell into a ice explosion spell. If you know how to handle these elements, that is.
The charge level could also be set to more zhan 100%, overcharging the spell. Doing this for the overall power will of course be the most risky thing, but overcharging the individual attributes will make them unstable as well. If you overcharge fire and earth, you might end up having a powerful volcano spell, but also fire could break down and you\'re left with a heap of dirt, or whatever.
Undercharging will make the whole thing easier to control, but still your skill is important. Undercharged spells will, natrally, drain less mana and be less powerful.
The end result has been called \"k-factor\", which is very much like (no, even more natural) the P&P system\'s rules, isn\'t it? THAC0, for example. ;)
Also, as for the \"number v.s. skill\": \"skill\" _is_ a number. Whether it is actually being displayed or not is entirely irrelevant. For the devs it\'s going to be a number, for the player it\'s a skill, because it\'s what\'s they deal with from their particular environment\'s point of view.
Perhaps we could base the internal rule representation on fuzzy logic. This would yield greater flexibility and closer resemble real-world rules. It hasn\'t been tried for RPGs, but it might be good, albeit much work.
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I like Seytra\'s idea. Another further idea is that when the caster is attacked, every attack will trigger a check to see whether the spell will fail or not. The higher the caster\'s level is relative to the spell they\'re casting, the less the chance of spell failure.