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Original post by StaticVoid Name: Tic-Tac-Toe Element: Computive Range: single Mechanical/robotic target style: The target is forced to play Tic-Tac-Toe with itself. Status Effect: Target is stunned for n turns until gives up. n dependant on targets computive power. Name: Global Thermo-nuclear War Element: computive Range: single Mechanical/robotic target style: The target is forced to play Global Thermo-nuclear War. Status Effect: Target is stunned for n turns until gives up. n dependant on targets computive power. Effect: May result in other character on battle field being nuked. Dependant on targets computive power.

Firstly, what the hell kind of element is computive and secondly the target would just give up as soon as you cast the spell.

Siolis

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Original post by Siolis Firstly, what the hell kind of element is computive and secondly the target would just give up as soon as you cast the spell.

I think he was making a clever reference to War Games.

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Original post by Sandman Quote: Original post by Siolis Firstly, what the hell kind of element is computive and secondly the target would just give up as soon as you cast the spell. I think he was making a clever reference to War Games.

Firstly, I’ve never herd of war games, secondly I can’t access that link at collage which is where I is at the moment and thirdly I have a question.

Earlier on in this thread composite spells were mentioned and I’m trying to work on them right now. How would people suggest that they would be made as I’m struggling with it? I have how normal spells would be made and all their components in my game but I can’t seem to work out if you would combine individual spells into one spell by casting one after another or if you would just make a spell with multiple elements, status effects etc. I’m leaning towards the later as making one spell cast after another in a row would make magic-agility pointless.

Siolis

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You made a very good spell hear becuase no one has mentioned trade off spells yet such as lowering one set of stats to raise the level of anouter such as: O Raiseing M-Attack and P-Attack by 30% O Lowering M-Defence And P-Defence by 30% The mana cost of this kind of spell would be low or nothing due to the trade off.

Thanks. When I design spells & abilities I try to think outside the "X damage/healing to target Y" equation that is permeated by classic RPGs. I think spells with intrinsic drawbacks to balance their power, although more situational, are also more strategic.

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Original post by Siolis My personal view on this is that yes, a system could be made with the correct limits for a PC game, either off or online for updating with new components to be made where players could make their own spells and maybe even skills such as steal with mods made to them. It would just require the correct meshes, colour samples and a database type system to handle the creation and recording of the spells, although I would think the maths behind their use would be a bitch to work out.

I don't know/think that it would be to hard (on your part anyhow, seeing that player might need to discover/learn base parts of the spells).

I would either use 8 bit or 16 bit (depending how long of a list you want/need) to encode each part of the spell. Then you can check the spell against the "master" list of spells & give the appropriate out come. The pain part is sitting down with your list and making the master list to weed out the "junk/stupid" spells.

Btw, I think that term composite spells sounds better than my original name "free base spells" (Insert joke here [wink]).

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Original post by Lost I don't know/think that it would be to hard (on your part anyhow, seeing that player might need to discover/learn base parts of the spells). I would either use 8 bit or 16 bit (depending how long of a list you want/need) to encode each part of the spell. Then you can check the spell against the "master" list of spells & give the appropriate out come. The pain part is sitting down with your list and making the master list to weed out the "junk/stupid" spells. Btw, I think that term composite spells sounds better than my original name "free base spells" (Insert joke here [wink]).

From what I’ve seen so far, by making spells using excel, the two biggest issues for spell construction are the styles (so many styles) and names. The way I’ve made my construct is that you can’t make junk/stupid spells as all you’re doing is choosing from a pre-defined list of components. Effectively my master list exists already but is entirely abstract (and can remain that way) because no matter what components you chose from my construct, ergo no matter what spell you make, you cant make a spell which is completely ineffective or has a stupid effect, you wont understand the full effectiveness of the system until you see it really but I cant very well go posting 100+ hours of excel work on a public forum, can I?

As for composite spells, I’ve gone with a single spell (single name and style) and all the various effects happen at once, it just costs extra Mana for each new effect or damage point you add on. So for example, if you add on a STR buff to a hp recovery spell it costs X for the hp recovery (one Mana per point recovered) and Y for the STR buff, (one Mana per point buffed for Z seconds).

The tricky part of all this is integrating the different construct formats. I need to just make one for spells which can then be expanded to include more and more effects like in my last example. This way when I make the other constructs for summoning spells, warrior skills, feild abilitys etc it will leave me with a set of 5 or 6 different constructs instead of a few dozen, one for a spell, one for a composite, one for a effect spell etc.

Siolis

Compound spells should have some sort of non-linear cost progression or added difficulty, or something to balance them against casting all the spells separately.

Obviously casting the spells separately is slower; if the compound spells cost exactly the same, but are cast faster, then people will always prefer to use compound spells whereever they can.

(gah stupid thing logged me out before I made my post)

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Original post by Sandman Compound spells should have some sort of non-linear cost progression or added difficulty, or something to balance them against casting all the spells separately. Obviously casting the spells separately is slower; if the compound spells cost exactly the same, but are cast faster, then people will always prefer to use compound spells wherever they can. (gah stupid thing logged me out before I made my post)

True, hence why compound spells require an additional Mana cost to counter the magical agility bypass and/or maybe some kind of alternative cast or construction system asides from the one I have currently. What you have to remember is that at this stage I currently have system ideas which I’m developing, some of it may not make it into the game and most of it will have some kind of quest or task to get to begin with, not to mention I haven’t specified how spells are constructed which composite spells might be more difficult because you need additional items or something to make one. Something like composite spells will have a quest and will require some serious levelling (or my games equivalent as I might not have a levelling system ;)) to get to begin with. Think "Rare Magic".

You raise some good points though, it’s all stuff to consider.

Siolis

yarg! It logged me out when I posted that! (me == templewulf)

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Original post by Anonymous Poster Since we seem to be thinking similarly about magic systems, I might as well throw mine in. There are no "compound spells" in mine. If you want additional functionality, you just throw in the additional symbols. The trick is that my "spell difficulty" parameter increases with each symbol added, and not just linearly. difficulty = aggregate symbol difficulty * number of symbols That way if you want to cram all that functionality into a single spell, you'll pay more for it. Difficulty is a factor in determining spell cost, so there definitely is a discouraging factor in larger spells. I also thought about a "maximum working size" based on the mind stat, so that you could only handle so many symbols at a particular level, but it wasn't free-form enough for my tastes.

My spells generally work on the principle that if you cram a load of effects and damage onto a spell you will end up paying loads of Mana to cast it, the difference between your system and mine is that you use symbols to represent the components where I’ve stuck to pure design elements and haven’t used any game terms like symbols.

What dose each single one of your symbols do exactly? To me it sounds like each one of your symbols just consist of a spell component, if this were the case then both yours and my system are the same (including composite spells) with the exception that you have used symbols to represent spell components (which when put together in mass quantities make composite spells) where I have used words to represent spell components.

I like the idea of "Maximum Working Size"; mine would probably be based on the intelligence stat of my character status.

Do you have a MSN address cus I would love to talk to you about each of our systems without worrying about how much were giving away to the public?

Siolis