Over the last few years, I've read a lot of posts about magical weapons and how they should and do work. I like the idea that was raised a while ago about how glyphs could be fixed to a weapon to give it properties.

In that time I've had an idea that has not, to my way of searching , been discussed.

I've not posted this before because I find it a bit tricky to explain without getting bogged down. So please bare with me.

I'd like to see weapons that can conduct magic rather than just generate it.

The way I see it at the moment is that basically a magical weapon has been charmed in some way to do more damage. (I know some can increase stats but that doesn't matter here). The damage is just normal, ordinary damage. There is simply more of it than there would be 

I propose to allow some weapons to channel the magical skills of the wielder so that the amount of damage done depends on the magical ability of the person using it. When the weapon touches an opponent some damage will be done.

If you consider a normal attack (I'm not a dev so I'm using educated guesswork here).

• You try to attack something
• The system calculates whether or not you've made contact
• If contact is made, physical damage is worked out based on the attacker's stats.
• The system decides how much the armour reduces the physical damage
• Damage is done

With a conductive weapon there could be magical as well as physical damage done
And now with a magical weapon that conducts magic.

• You try to attack something
• The system calculates whether or not you've made contact
• If contact is made, some magical damage will result
• If contact is made, physical damage is worked out based on the attacker's stat's.
• The system decides how much the armour reduces the physical damage, magical damage is not affected
• All damage is totalled up and damage is done

In the example above you can see that if a magical weapon strikes an opponent, some damage will be done regardless of the armour the defender is wearing (anti-magic armour could be introduced of course).

As "there's no such thing as a free lunch and everything has a price", this too is not without its drawbacks. I suggest that every time a conductive weapon does any damage, the wielder looses some "Mana" until it's depleted and the weapon looses it's magical power (until the wielder recovers of course). This will give an interesting spin on things when an over ambitious mage tries to take on a creature with his staff only to find it becomes as useful as a stick.


So now for the "Why" rule.

This allows for a nice way to give mages "Staffs", "Staves" etc.. Without the mage, a staff would just be an ordinary stick, but in the right hands it could be a useful weapon.
If can strengthen the RP settings regarding the "ways" of magic. For example, an "Icy dagger" may be aligned with the Crystal way and so a mage with Crystal way skills will be better able to use it.
It allows another way for magic to take a proper place in PS. For example, your char may may be essentially a healer but would need a weapon of some sort (it's a jungle out there ).This way he can have a staff.


I hope I've explained that well enough and that you can see what I'm getting at here. If I've not made it clear, let me know and I'll try to explain in a more lucid fashion.

What do you think folks?


Cheers.

Firstly, Kayruu, I know there is a thread about non-combat uses for magic so if you feel it would be better off there, feel free to move it.
However, as things get lost in long threads, please can you leave it for a couple of days before moving so people get a chance to shower me in praise or cast me to the fires?

Thanks.

On to business.

I would like to see a spell added that can be used to indicate the direction of things or people. When cast it would simply appear as an arrow pointing the the direction of the object named in the /cast.

This is bourne out of my desire to give Mages spells that make them useful in their own right rather than as a side-line occupation when the fighting is a bit slow. It would be great to see parties of people heading out to adventure with the mages giving direction, warriors providing muscle etc. Smiths to repair the weapons etc.

Its visibiltity would be the same as any normal spell. It's duration would be about 5 seconds so as to avoid litter and also to add some sense or urgency about things and its range would depend on the abilities of the caster, so that a newbie could find a rat in the next tunnel and a higher rank could find someone on the road out of town.

The target would be named in the /cast and in the case of PCs and NPCs this seems straightforward. In the case of places I'm not sure but there should be some way to fix a name to a place. I know the maps don't all line up and so it would either not work across maps or just point to the portal that leads to the map concerned.


What do you think Folks?

I like the idea of expanding the NPS dialogue and think this is a great idea. I hove to bow to Kary's insider knoledge though re the difficulty in policing it and as a programmer it sounds like it would be trick to get right.

As an aside, if Kary or one of the other dev/GMs is watching. Is there a need for volunteers to work on NPC dialogue? and could it be split out so that someone can do just that without having to become a fully fledged dev?


Cheers.

Hi Folk,

I'd like to suggest a magic "marker" spell.

What.
It would be a low power, low skill spell, ideal for newbie mages, that when cast, falls to the ground and remains where it was cast for a short time, upto 2 mins.

Why?
For a few reasons...

When I was a newbie, I spent hours learning my way around the sewars, checking where this passage or that passage went to. Being able to drop an item would have helped a lot. Now you could drop real things but I've seen GMs appear and chastise people for littering the landscape. This way the litter dissapears by itself after a couple of minutes. Also, no one can pick these up.

Also, I think many people like the idea of mages being useful people, the idea that it's not just about fighting. This is a way the mages, especially newbies can do something useful and have a spell that isn't implimented in any other way. For example, my main char [Delrin] is at lvl 20 crystal but it's still quicker to hit rats with a dagger than use magic (heck it's quicker to rub two rats together to make fire than use magic).

It adds to group RP. Newbie groups of explorers can take a trainee mage with them to help them navigate.



What do you think?


Cheers.

I'm not sure if there is a current list anywhere but this thread from way back gives some light...

http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=14605.0

Cheers.

Thandar.

Hi,

I\'ve just completed this quest too, with some help.

It\'s worth pointing out the Brintec won\'t respond unless the dialogue is spot-on.

Normally an NPC will say something whenever you talk to them, even if it\'s to say that they don\'t understand. Brintec isn\'t like that. He won\'t say a word.

I was starting to think that the NPC server had gone down because Britnec wouldn\'t talk to me no matter what I sadi. It was only whenl a fellow traveller pointed out the right phrase to me that he burst into life.

Cheers.

That\'s interesting.

I often find I\'d like to send a variation on what I\'ve previously sent.

How about adding marking/cutting/pasting in to the command line? Would that do it?