When a Spell goes bad...

[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  ) .

[Wormtail_]

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.

[Saphire]

Mutations 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.]

[Monketh]

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.

[Icefalcon]

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

[SaintNuclear]

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!

[Cyrandir]

Can anyone say \"Critical Failure\"?  DMs love that kind of thing.  I\'m fully in support of implementing these ideas.

[Abemore]

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!).

[SaintNuclear]

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! )

[Xanaroth]

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.

[Icefalcon]

Ahh I didn\'t mean Runescape\'s system...thats just plain annoying. But your other ideas are good too...

[Wormtail_]

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.

[Levski]

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....

[Seytra]

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.

[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

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