I'm working on the scene graph/rendering portion of my game, but I still need to develop some of the mechanics for combat and RPing. I want to survey my fellow gamers for any potential solutions. The idea is that the main character is a powerful wizard in the vein of Magic: the Gathering. Each spell is analgous to a card in any CCG, so a lot of the fun of the game will be building various spell configurations with which to take into battle. I wanted to completely eliminate random encounters by placing enemies within the main field, and when they notice the player, the game enters the battle state, but remains in the main field (no final fantasy screen switching). However, I've realized I have a problem with this design. The dynamic enemies declaring battle don't mesh well with summoning combat. For example, what if you summon several minions, cast enchantments, overcome your enemy and end the battle (implicitly unsummoning your minions, enchantments, etc.) Then, a new enemy notices your presence and starts a brand new battle! Since each battle requires a good deal of setup to create synergy between cards/spells, having battles as often as FF, MegaTen or Chrono Trigger would piss most people off. How should I deal with entering and leaving the battle state? EDIT: I should add that I wanted a fairly dynamic combat system, because the collecting theme extends into capturing animals and minions. If you can't get into a fight very often, how will you ever capture enough zombies to build a zombie army?

Out of curiosity, have you played the M:tG computer card adventure game? (the one battle consists of you playing magic against the computer).

Include two types of magic.
Tactical and Strategic magic.

Tactical magic is the magic you have right now. What you fight with.

Strategic magic controls what you can do on the "big board".

Spells could have two functions: both their Tactical function, and they influence your abilities on the "big board". Some kinds of magic will make you more stealthy, others will make you less stealthy, others will make you move slower, others will allow you to move faster through woods/water/mountains, some will let you see NPCs further away, etc.

Have the NPCs on the "big board" move around, be stealthy, etc. They might even move in and fill power vacuums (left by your character slaughtering everyone in a corridor).

Your character would move around on the big board as well. Sometimes you'll be able to avoid NPCs on the big board, sometimes you won't.

And sometimes NPCs will size you up and say "naw, let's not fight today".

The density of NPC encounters is up to you. If you have some "other" phase of game that is also interesting (but maybe less mentally challenging), you could use it as a break between fights with NPCs...

@NotAYakk:
Are you saying that "strategic" magic like an enchantment with "summoning creatures costs 2 less for you" should be on all the time? That's a fair suggestion, but it seems like it would make fights much less equitable. PvP and boss fights would mostly boil down to who has the most constant-effect enchantments coming into the fight.

I thought about allowing the player to carry a number of artifacts based on strength, that way they would have an edge going into battle, but would need to focus some stats on it. (I won't implement stat/level gaining as spell-collecting is enough for mini-max levelers, but you'll have to invest stats into various areas at creation.)

Even if "strategic" spells were always-on, what about summoned creatures? If I summon a dozen creatures to fight for me, what happens to them after I kill the enemy I was doing battle with? Do they follow me around? What happens if I've summoned 40 weenie creatures, as I do regularly in M:tG with token creature decks?

I would argue that strategic magic shouldn't impact the tactical game.

Strategic magic should impact the non-tactical game (when you aren't fighting).

Make the part of the game outside of combat interesting enough, and you won't have to make the player fight all the time.

Here's my concepts:

First you select a set of spells, that activate automatically when you enter a battle. (From magic these would be your Enchantments.) You then have a set of set up spells that set you're status you bring into combat. Give you're player a certain amount of these at a time, and slowly increase the amount they can have ready to go. They cost mana to cast each time you go into battle, but, you don't have to actually go through the pain of casting them each time you enter into battle. You set these up outside of battle.

Second
Don't do the Generic "counter spell" concept thats in magic. Make it so that spells fall into diametrically opposed groups (life vs death, fire vs ice, wind vs earth) and allow players to use quicker spells to counter slower spells of the opposite color. Give each spell a set of particle effects while casting that you can recognize to counter.

I've yet to see a fun game where the game FOCUS's on being a wizard in an action adventure set.

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Original post by NotAYakk I would argue that strategic magic shouldn't impact the tactical game. Strategic magic should impact the non-tactical game (when you aren't fighting). Make the part of the game outside of combat interesting enough, and you won't have to make the player fight all the time.

Oh! Well, I've already planned for that. One of the reasons I wanted to do an RPG in the terms of M:TG was that most japanese RPGs or western Hack'n'Slash games boil magic down to guns with mana as ammo. I'm still trying to come up with some interesting non-battle spells, but many battle spells will dual-function. For example, in battle "control magic" would put an enemy's turn decisions up to you as if they were your own minion, but outside of battle, it would transfer control from your avatar to the target, which is a good puzzle solution.

Aside from that, I still need to decide on what to do with battle enchantments and already-summoned minions. If I make those enhancements last between battles, when do they end? If they're constant-effect, it would completely unbalance the game, as in Morrowind and Oblivion.

I can't make them time dependant, because combat can be only practical as turn-based. I also can't make the effects end at the end of combat, because each battle would be a chore.

@robert4818:
What if the enemy comes into battle more enchantments than you? That would certainly be a large enough disadvantage to discourage a lot of people. Also, why would a quicker spell counter a slower spell? Unless it says "counter target spell", it doesn't make sense that it would prevent the other spell from casting. I mentioned earlier that artifacts could do this for you, but because it forces you to put stats into strength to carry more artifacts.

Does anyone have any suggestions as for the structure of moving in and out of combat states and dealing with summoned creatures?

With the counter spell idea, you could have a scissors/paper/rock (S/P/R) system where one type of magic can counter another type, and then that type can counter yet another and this new type can counter the first (A->B->C->A). This can also be done with larger numbers (any odd number is easy to do, but I would recomend either a 5 or 7 type system).

This counter might be specific "Counter Spells", but it could be a simple "Any Water defence spell can Counter Spell any Fire attack spells if use as a counter spell". This would not have the counter spell work as intended, but it would effectivly discard the counter spell to break or block the target of the counter spell.

If you are blocking then you must use a counter spell that is quicker to cast, and if you are trying to break a spell/enchantment already in play then you must use a spell that is more powerful (in mana cost) than the target.

This creates a situation that even though a Boss might have more enchantments than the player to start with, the player might be able to counter spell the enchantment on the boss and therefore weaken it. The different requierments between a counter spell and breaking an enchantment or spel already in effect creats a strategic element to the "deck" design of the player, in that they must decide if they want to have fast spells for counter spelling or use powerful enchantment breaking spells (not to mention spells for when they attack too, as they have to take into account what the enemy will use to block their spells from being cast or break their own enchantments).

This could lead to intersting gameplay where each mage is using counter spells to counter the other mages counter spells. Eg Mage A has a Fire shieled enchantment which protects against watter attacks. Mage B cast a powerful water spell as a counter spell to break that enchantment instead of using it to attck. Mage A then casts a quick fire spell to counter Mage B's water spell. And so on.

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Original post by Edtharan Rock Paper Scissors...

That sounds pretty good, but should a fire attack spell (deal 5 damage to target creature) be able to target a water enchantment (each creature an opponent summons costs 4 more mana)?

I was thinking more along the lines of what M:tG does but in the four traditional elements, where fire can destroy physical artifacts, earth destroys enchantments, air's speed and volatile nature lends itself to counter spells and target re-directions, and water deals with the spiritual and casts a lot of enchantments.

I don't know if fire magic which focuses rage into a burst of magical violence is really a plausible candidate for counter spell trickery. I'm not sure how one would write that into the logic of the game's universe. Perhaps an "overpower" spell where you would have to pay a buttload of mana to magically strong-arm your opponent?

As far as casting speed goes, I was thinking that the two levels of spell speed in most CCGs would suffice (normal and interrupt). I'm trying to keep things simple with as few numbers as possible. I think that was one of M:TG's strengths, the simplicity of its design is far more elegant than, say, D&D.

Do you think assigning a casting speed to each spell would be more interesting, or would you prefer spells to stack in First-In-Last-Out with interrupts?

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As far as casting speed goes, I was thinking that the two levels of spell speed in most CCGs would suffice (normal and interrupt).

Well you could use an interupt spell to interupt another interupt spell (did that make sense?). Each interupt spell can jump infront of another interupt spell. Normal spells can't do this (but tend to be more powerful).

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I was thinking more along the lines of what M:tG does but in the four traditional elements, where fire can destroy physical artifacts, earth destroys enchantments, air's speed and volatile nature lends itself to counter spells and target re-directions, and water deals with the spiritual and casts a lot of enchantments.

This could be for the main uses of the cards, but if you have them able to be used as counter spells as well then you can have the best of both worlds.

I've always wanted to see a mage combat game that was purely quick play, similar to mage challenge in quest for glory 3. The basic idea is the mage duels consist of a spells used either as an attack, defense, or counter. The Mages themselves can't sustain much damage. In fact maybe you start off with only 1 life point so a single hit means you are defeated in battle. Players could invest points at level up to increase the amount of hits they can take.

The actual mechanics of the game could be based around spell attributes.

So let’s say the opponent summons a lesser water elemental.
Life Points 1
Speed 2
Water
Summon
Water Based
Water Affinity

And I have the following 3 spells at my disposal:

Fireball
Damage 2
Fire
Projectile
Fire Based

Stone Spear
Damage 2
Earth
Projectile
Earth Based
Piercing

Acid Rain
Damage 1
Water
Environmental
Acid Based
Water Affinity


The fireball would kill the lesser water elemental and be classified as a defense since its damage is equal to or greater then the lesser water elementals life points.

The stone spear would kill the lesser water elemental and continue towards the opponent since it has the piercing attribute which means its damage decreases by the life points of creatures or the defense of shields it hits but it is not stopped as long as its damage is greater then 0. So it would be classified as a counter since the opponent is now on the defensive.

Acid rain would do nothing as it has the water affinity attribute and the lesser water elemental is water based.