Magical weapons that "conduct" magic rather than generate it.

[thandar]

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.

[ThomPhoenix]

Sounds good to me. This is like a spin on normal wands and staves, where the wand/staff could also be a sword.
I don't know if this could be properly balanced though.
This should probably only be available to highly experienced players/npc's, because otherwise those newbies will never get past those clackers.

[minetus]

for that kind of system i would like a better draw back added to the mana drain, if skills in oposing way exist they would counter the effect of the other way
example:
crystal way 6, dark way 3

crystal way would count has if it was 3 (6-3) and dark way on a dark way weapon damage would count 0.

this would add a reason for making specific way mages

[stfrn]

A magical weapon that needs power to do its damage is an interesting idea. But it could also drain stamina, or HP... threre are many possiblities. Infact, I think it would work better as a spell

Minetes, they don't always oppose that way, you will see when the magic is more complex. *pokes Xordan to do more work*

[Fayodin]

great idea.

kinda reminds me of Gandalf's sword in LoTR

[Suzuka249]

This reminds me of the battle system used in Azure dreams, though I doubt many here have heard of it. It is one of my personal favorites, even though it is a fairly unkown game. Anyway, onto the relevance. In Azure dreams, you battle with familiars. there are three types of ways the familiar can aid you. 1) cast magic directly on the enemy; 2) physically attack the enemy directly; 3) cast magic upon your weapon to enhance your attack. Your suggestion for weapons conducting magic sounds like the third option. In Azure dreams, any weapon can have a spell cast upon it to add to its dammage, but wand type weapons have an additional bonus for the ammount of dammage done. Also, if my memory is correct, certain spells have unique effects beyond just doing dammage. The reason I bring this up is that I think this could work and would help expand the tactics of players.

[Dahoma]

So you mean that there's no "imbuing of glyphs" involved. The skill is based solely on the caster itself? And through them they can do what kind of damage? Because the way I read it it kind of sounded the same except the weilder loses mana. Unless I missed something, sorry if I did(kind of out of it today ). 

Or do you mean they cast a spell and that spells damage is doubled? Or that it's a whole different thing in which the weilder of the weapon gets a "spell" of some sort that is unique to them(or anybody else weilding that weapon and with the stats)?

Also how do the skills that they get with the weapon differ?Will it always be the same? Or if you are skilled in, lets say, the fire way you get a move or whatever that ends up shooting a fireball when you first attack, for example?

[Nerule]

I was thinking, that maybe it could be used like a glyph, without excess weight. Like if you have a fire longsword (fire glyph + longsword) it casts fireball untill you run out of mana. I belive you need only to copy the code and tweak the trigger.

[The Shadow Nose]

A ideas to add:

How about during the crafting process, the crafter can add a gem to the weapon that alligns it to a specfic way

diamond to crystal way
obsidion to dark way
ruby to red way
etc...


then, the weapon gets a name like 'Icy Dagger' (to use your example) and acts like any other dagger except that it channels magic energy much like you said.

Though, I think the actual effect of the weapon should vary according to the way it is associated with

Red way cases fire damage

Blue way causes ice damage

Crystal way... for some reason I'm imagining a weapon that heals people when you strike them. Since its supposed to be the healing magic in this world. I suppose an alternative would be that the magic heals the weilder a little during combat while having little or no effect on the enemy. I don't think letting it drain life from the enemy to heal you would be really what Crystal Way is all about.

Dark way acts to drain power from the enemy, like draining mental stamina or physical stamina in addition to the damage the weapon deals.



And this is not something you should limit to really experienced players. If a new player can get his hands on a weapon that can channel magic (I have no idea what such and item would cost, but I doubt it would be cheap) then he should be able to get 'some' benefit from it. How much he gets naturally depends on his current stats and skill in the associeted way.


On another note [which may be unpopular]... if you want to create a seperation of magic users and warriors, perhaps make wands and staffs be a needed tool to cast magic spells? Sort of like how you need a pick to mine ore, you need a wand or staff to cast magic. Or if not necessary, let them amplify the casters natural abilities.

[Rolf Blacksmith]

On another note [which may be unpopular]... if you want to create a seperation of magic users and warriors, perhaps make wands and staffs be a needed tool to cast magic spells? Sort of like how you need a pick to mine ore, you need a wand or staff to cast magic. Or if not necessary, let them amplify the casters natural abilities.

I'd back that up.
Maybe strong mages could be able to cast spells without an aid, but less skilled mages would be required to use some kind of wand or magic staff to control their magic abilities.

[thandar]

Thanks for the feedback folks 

To answer a couple of raised points...

minetus. You raised the idea that a drain on Mana wasn't enough of a drawback. I've tried to run a char as a mage a various times and it's mana drain that holds me back. My main char has lvl 20 Crystal but can't use magic to kill a rogue before the mana runs out. He can however punch one to death with his bare hands before the rogue has done 20% damage and strength is far from maxxed out. If think Mana is just about right for this.

Suzuka249. I'm not aware of Azure dreams so I can't comment on its combat system but from what you've said it seems that the 3rd way you mention gives the weapon more power in itself. What I'm proposing is the the weapon conducts or transmits the magical power of the user.

The Shadow Nose. I really like the idea of alignment and think it fits in well with how I was thinking. It would work very well.


So to expand a little but stay on track here...

I read in the player guide that all magic comes from the Crystal. That suggests that Mages are basically filtering the magic and conducting it. The idea of a weapon that conducts magic is simply an extension of that idea in the same way that an iron bar in a fire will conduct heat. Without the fire it's just a bar.

The alignment of weapons to a specific "way" can be thought of as coloured filters held in front of a torch. If you put a green filter in front of white light, the green is allowed through. So it would be with a Crystal aligned dagger, only crystal magic could get through. A mage has skills in a certain ways and so is channelling magic of that "colour". for example, If he or she has abilities in Crystal way, there will be Crystal "light" to filter if he or she doesn't have abilities in Crystal, there is no Crystal "light" to shine through.



Cheers.

[Dahoma]

Oh, so basically the weapon that is being weilded needs no "crystals/glyphs/etc." but just the power of the Caster or Person who's holding it?

So that, say I was skilled in fire way, I would need no glyph but just my power?

But I think that it needs more, like it would take more mana than usual, because you would have to use your power to channel it through the weapon, but that your spells in the end would get a much higher magical damage.

But otherwise that I think that's a great idea.

[LARAGORN]

I like the idea very much.
It would add realism to the magic of PS.
There are so many possibilities for magic that havent even been explored in PS yet. A master of magic should be able to do vertualy anything.
This would be a great start on showing how powerful magic can be.

[Anne Ominous]

I like this idea, think it would be cooler if it were more like a staff or sceptre (spelling?), with blunt damage.

I would say that to have a sword that casts with each hit or does damage based on your ways level is interesting..  would rather have swords that boost the ways themselves...

Anyhow whether weapon boosts way or way boosts weapon; it seems that the ideal would be to make it for melee instead of sword/dagger/axe-- melee currently has no weapons & that would make more sense as a weapon for a mage.. just my 2 cents...