Spells

[sansthesis]

Do we keep the list of stock spells? Do we implement other ones that we like?

Should spells be moved around groups?

What spells should new classes get?

[sansthesis]

I personally think that the cleric and mage spell lists are full of bloat, and that we should try to get the spell lists down to maybe 20-30 for each, with as little overlap as possible.

Mages should specialize in elemental damaging magic and clerics should specialize in divine/unholy magic, IMO.

[XTremeTennis]

Here is the ansalon mage spell list (93 spells); Lvl 1: magic missile 50 mana ( 1%) ventriloquate 50 mana ( 1%) Lvl 3: detect magic n/a Lvl 5: chill touch n/a invisibility n/a Lvl 6: continual light Lvl 7: armor Lvl 9: burning hands detect invis infravision Lvl 12: conceal alignment shocking grasp Lvl 13: fireproof n/a fly Lvl 15: free action n/a identify Lvl 16: faerie fire n/a lightning bolt Lvl 18: blindness penetrate energy refresh Lvl 19: colour spray n/a detect evil n/a detect good n/a detect neutral n/a locate object n/a weaken Lvl 20: confusion n/a control weather n/a sleep Lvl 22: penetrate fire Lvl 23: teleport Lvl 24: faerie fog n/a penetrate cold Lvl 25: detect hidden n/a detect poison n/a grease Lvl 26: giant strength Lvl 27: penetrate acid n/a poison Lvl 28: cancellation n/a fireball haste n/a penetrate poison Lvl 29: energy drain Lvl 30: charm person corpse visage flood waters understand tongues Lvl 32: know alignment n/a protection element Lvl 33: slow Lvl 34: pass door n/a summon Lvl 36: call lightning dispel magic enchant armor word of recall Lvl 37: find familiar n/a gate Lvl 38: acid blast Lvl 39: enchant weapon n/a recharge Lvl 40: fear Lvl 42: mass invis n/a stone skin Lvl 43: plague n/a silence Lvl 45: mass fly n/a portal Lvl 47: shield Lvl 48: scrye Lvl 50: thunderclap Lvl 53: chain lightning Lvl 55: smoke Lvl 57: sanctuary Lvl 60: nexus n/a prismatic spray n/a translate n/a web Lvl 62: acid breath Lvl 65: earthshield n/a iceshield Lvl 70: protection Lvl 74: flameshield n/a frost breath n/a lightning breath Lvl 75: shockshield n/a thunderstorm Lvl 76: true sight Lvl 78: gas breath Lvl 80: fire breath Lvl 101: fire storm

I think that could at the very least be simplified to (58 spells); Lvl 1: magic missile 50 mana ( 1%) Lvl 5: chill touch n/a invisibility Lvl 7: armor Lvl 9: detect invis Lvl 13: fireproof n/a fly Lvl 15: free action n/a identify Lvl 16: lightning bolt Lvl 18: blindness n/a penetrate energy n/a refresh Lvl 19: locate object n/a weaken Lvl 20: confusion n/a sleep Lvl 22: penetrate fire Lvl 23: teleport Lvl 24: penetrate cold Lvl 26: giant strength Lvl 27: penetrate acid n/a poison Lvl 28: cancellation n/a fireball haste n/a penetrate poison Lvl 30: charm person Lvl 32: protection element Lvl 33: slow Lvl 34: pass door n/a summon Lvl 36: dispel magic n/a enchant armor n/a word of recall Lvl 37: find familiar n/a gate Lvl 38: acid blast Lvl 39: enchant weapon n/a recharge Lvl 42: mass invis n/a stone skin Lvl 43: plague n/a silence Lvl 45: mass fly n/a portal Lvl 47: shield Lvl 48: scrye Lvl 53: chain lightning Lvl 57: sanctuary Lvl 60: nexus n/a web Lvl 65: earthshield n/a iceshield Lvl 70: protection Lvl 74: flameshield Lvl 75: shockshield Lvl 76: true sight Lvl 101: fire storm

That mage spell list is still large and clunky, but is cleared out of a lot of crap. The way I see it mages should have damage spells that work like this;

one mob spells: Magic Missile, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Acid Arrow, Ray of Frost AoE spells: Blizzard, Firestorm, Chain Lightning, Acid Cloud, Prismatic Spray with the possibility for a "penetrate" type spell for each damage type, or maybe even a universal penetrate type spell.

Mage buffs should be more limited, I like the elemental shield ideas, and then maybe self casting buffs? Mage Armor and Shield that can only be cast on self? Changing the buff spells so that mages and clerics aren't almost identical is important.

Debuffs; should clerics and mages have different debuffs?

Utility spells: Fly and Invisibility seem pretty standard, as with the mass versions of those spells. At one point removing gate and replacing with portal was talked about, mostly so that melee classes could follow a mage during PK, that is something to consider at least. It would be cool if enchant armor and enchant weapon were actually things rather than useless.

[XTremeTennis]

Also, do players really need to lose the ability to recall? I don't honestly see the harm in just having recall be a command for everyone all the time.

[sansthesis]

I'd like to strip out more.

I think that armor and shield are redundant. One should be buffed and the other should be removed.

Penetration should just do all the elemental resistances for mages and be merged into one spell for them, then renamed and added to the maledictions group for them.

It'd be helpful to bucket them like you started doing:

Category	Arcane(?)	Fire	Frost	Electric	Acid
Single Target	Magic Missile	Burning Hands	Ray of Frost	Shocking Grasp	Acid Blast
AOE	Prismatic Spray	Firestorm	Blizzard	Thunderstorm	Horrid Wilting

etc

[XTremeTennis]

I wonder about maledictions too, I think some make more sense than others for mages, plague on a mage always seemed weird to me.

Combat Spells:

Category	Arcane/Energy	Fire	Frost	Electric	Acid
Single Target	Magic Missile	Burning Hands	Ray of Frost	Shocking Grasp (I like lightning bolt more)	Acid Blast
AOE	Prismatic Spray	Firestorm	Blizzard	Thunderstorm	Horrid Wilting

Maladicts/Debuffs:

Yes	Maybe
Sleep	Poison
Silence	Plague
Slow	Weaken
Penetrate X	Confusion
Dispel	Blindness

Buffs:

Yes	Maybe	No way
Haste	Stone Skin	Sanctuary
Invis	Protection	Armor
Fly	Giant Str	X
Shield	Pass Door	X
Elemental Shield (ice, frost, earth, etc)	Protection Element	X
Detect Invis	True Sight	X
X	Free Action	X

Utility Spells: Gate and/or Portal Summon Cancellation (although if players could just willingly de-buff themselves that would work too.) Locate Item (If we switch to bulk random eq, then this isn't needed) Scrye Enchant Weapon/Armor Refresh? Find Familiar Charm Teleport

[sansthesis]

I don't think that the AOE spells should have any duration other than instant, so I'm trying to find an acid type spell that would work with that restriction

Category	Arcane/Energy	Fire	Frost	Electric	Acid
Single Target	Magic Missile	Burning Hands	Ray of Frost	Lightning Bolt	Acid Blast
AOE	Prismatic Spray	Fireball	Cone of Cold	Chain Lightning	Horrid Wilting

[XTremeTennis]

Could always just make one up, even just say acid breath and say its a cone

[sansthesis]

Yeah, I could use acid breath, but I don't want the two spells to have similar names, so something else for the single target then?

[XTremeTennis]

It's not really an acid spell, but cloudkill is a good name and not like any of the other spells

[XTremeTennis]

This is the cleric spell list (102 spells);

• Lvl 1: cause light 50 mana cure light 50 mana slow poison 50 mana
• Lvl 2: armor n/a
• Lvl 4: continual light n/a
• Lvl 6: refresh n/a
• Lvl 7: bless n/a
• Lvl 8: cure serious n/a detect evil n/a detect good n/a detect neutral n/a
• Lvl 9: detect poison n/a
• Lvl 10: cause serious n/a icicle n/a
• Lvl 12: blindness n/a fireproof n/a poison n/a
• Lvl 13: faerie fire n/a infravision n/a
• Lvl 14: weaken n/a
• Lvl 15: conceal alignment n/a know alignment n/a
• Lvl 16: cure blindness n/a cure poison n/a identify n/a
• Lvl 17: cure disease n/a invisibility n/a
• 18: call lightning n/a confusion n/a cure critical n/a detect invis n/a
• Lvl 19: protection neutral n/a protection evil n/a protection good n/a
• Lvl 21: cause critical n/a
• Lvl 23: harm n/a lightning bolt n/a
• Lvl 24: control weather n/a corpse visage n/a fly n/a frenzy n/a heal n/a
• Lvl 25: dispel evil n/a dispel good n/a dispel neutral n/a locate object n/a
• Lvl 26: detect magic n/a
• Lvl 27: plague n/a
• Lvl 28: curse n/a remove curse n/a
• Lvl 30: shield n/a
• Lvl 31: detect hidden n/a faerie fog n/a
• Lvl 32: clay spire n/a understand tongues n/a
• Lvl 34: demonfire n/a
• Lvl 35: free action n/a stone skin n/a
• Lvl 36: cancellation n/a heat metal n/a
• Lvl 38: fear n/a
• Lvl 39: giant strength n/a
• Lvl 40: charm person n/a flamestrike n/a sanctuary n/a slow
• Lvl 42: haste n/a teleport n/a
• Lvl 43: mass healing n/a
• Lvl 44: dispel magic n/a word of recall n/a
• Lvl 45: earthshield n/a flood waters n/a ray of truth n/a
• Lvl 46: calm n/a
• Lvl 47: gate n/a
• Lvl 48: silence n/a
• Lvl 52: aqua pillar n/a pass door n/a summon n/a
• Lvl 53: mass fly n/a
• Lvl 55: mass invis n/a protection n/a
• Lvl 56: holy word n/a
• Lvl 60: charge water n/a
• Lvl 62: scrye n/a translate n/a
• Lvl 65: earthen spire n/a thunderclap n/a
• Lvl 70: portal n/a
• Lvl 72: iceshield n/a
• Lvl 75: shockshield n/a
• Lvl 80: entangle n/a flameshield n/a
• Lvl 85: crushing wave n/a nexus n/a smoke n/a thunderstorm n/a
• Lvl 87: true sight n/a
• Lvl 90: earthquake n/a holy smite n/a protection element n/a

And this is one with the easy cuts made (66 spells):

• Lvl 2: armor n/a
• Lvl 6: refresh n/
• Lvl 7: bless n/
• Lvl 8: detect evil n/a detect good n/a detect neutral n/
• Lvl 12: blindness n/a fireproof n/a poison n/
• Lvl 14: weaken n/
• Lvl 15: conceal alignment n/a know alignment n/
• Lvl 16: cure blindness n/a cure poison n/a identify n/
• Lvl 17: cure disease n/a invisibility n/
• Lvl 18: confusion n/a detect invis n/
• Lvl 19: protection neutral n/a protection evil n/a protection good n/
• Lvl 23: harm n/a
• Lvl 24: fly n/a frenzy n/a heal n/a
• Lvl 25: dispel evil n/a dispel good n/a dispel neutral n/a locate object n/
• Lvl 27: plague n/
• Lvl 28: curse n/a remove curse n/
• Lvl 30: shield n/
• Lvl 34: demonfire n/
• Lvl 35: free action n/a stone skin n/
• Lvl 36: cancellation n/
• Lvl 38: fear n/
• Lvl 39: giant strength n/
• Lvl 40: charm person n/a sanctuary n/a slow n/
• Lvl 42: haste n/a teleport n/
• Lvl 43: mass healing n/
• Lvl 44: dispel magic n/a word of recall n/
• Lvl 45: ray of truth n/
• Lvl 46: calm n/
• Lvl 47: gate n/
• Lvl 48: silence n/
• Lvl 52: pass door n/a summon n/
• Lvl 53: mass fly n/a
• Lvl 55: mass invis n/a protection n/
• Lvl 56: holy word n/
• Lvl 62: scrye n/
• Lvl 70: portal n/
• Lvl 80: entangle n/
• Lvl 85: nexus n/a thunderstorm n/
• Lvl 87: true sight n/
• Lvl 90: holy smite n/a protection element n/

[XTremeTennis]

For clerics there is also some easy reduction possible by making the dispel good/evil/neutral just a spell called "dispel" that affects everyone of a different align than you, same goes for protection good/evil/neutral. You could combine all the remove curse/cure disease/cure poison/cure blindness into a single spell as well, but I don't know if you would want to.

[XTremeTennis]

I see clerics working like this:

Divine Damage Spells;

Target	Spell	Notes
Single	Harm	Pure damage to single target, maybe magic in nature?
Single	Dispel(?)	Damage affected by alignment, can do more than harm to outside of align but less inside align?
AoE	Wrath	AoE alignment based spell

Healing:

Spell	Note
Cure	Obtained at level 1, heals in a range that gets bigger the higher in level you are
Heal	Obtained later, costs more mana than cure but heals an assigned amount every time
Refresh	Heals moves

Buffs:

Spell	Notes
Bless	Bonus to hitroll and maybe saves
Armor	bonus to Ac or DR or both
Sanctuary	Damage reduction
Divine Blessing	I think an alignment based buff spell would be cool, where it works different based on what the casters align is
Protection	less damage from those outside alignment, then we can remove protection X alignment

Debuffs:

Spell	Notes
Calm	makes target unable to attack
Blindness	blinds someone
Weaken	lowers strength/damage roll
Curse	lowers hitroll
Plague	I'm not sure if we actually need plague
Poison	damage over time

Utility Spells

• Remove/Cure X
• Gate/Portal
• Summon
• Detect Align/Concel align (?) - Seems like it has potential to be interesting if you make clerics more alignment based, but could also be stupid
• Fly
• Invis

[sansthesis]

I think we roll stone skin into armor at higher levels, like armor provides ac at lower levels, then at a certain point provides armor and weapon resistance.

And maybe do the same with shield and the protection element spells for mages.

And give mages shield and clerics armor.

[XTremeTennis]

Chris had talked about implementing straight damage resistance at some point, but improving spells is a decent idea, I like the idea of shield instead of providing weapon or DR providing energy resist, and earthshield providing acid resist so that mages are more about protection from elements than physical damage. More focus on elemental damage types and resistances on mobs would make it so you might have to spell up differently in different areas and use different spells so there is more of a reason for these damtypes

[sansthesis]

I was thinking of removing the elemental shield spells entirely and folding their resistances into shield. I'd add energy resistance to shield so that it affects the 5 elemental types that we're setting mages up to have mastery over.

I'd do the same with stone skin by rolling in weapon resistance, holy, and unholy resistance into armor for clerics, so that clerics and mages have a clear bifurcation of their domains.

[sansthesis]

This would also allow us to remove sanctuary as a spell, since we'll be handing out all kinds of damage reduction left and right.

I'm currently concerned that the mage defensive buffs really only affect mage<->mage combat, while clerics' buffs will help them in any physical combat. Maybe that's ok? Maybe we should roll a weaker weapon resistance into shield too?

[XTremeTennis]

could have elemental shield that does the elemental resistance, and then a secondary spell (mage armor or shield, whatever) that does physical resistance. One appeal I think of having the shield spells be different is having to choose which energy type you are resistant too rather than it being a catchall

[sansthesis]

Yes, I'd like there to be some strategy involved, but making 5 extremely situational spells is counter to reducing the overall number of spells.

If there's a way to keep the bloat down with that, we could give "mage armor" to both mages and clerics and have it provide weapon resistance, and then they each get their own elemental protection spells (energy/fire/frost/shocking/acid) and (holy/unholy).

[XTremeTennis]

So, is your concern with spell bloat on the balance/code side, or the playability side? If its a concern with there just being too many spells on casters, then we could limit the amount of spells you could possibly get, force specialization so that you cant get all of them. Also, I'm iffy on holy/unholy because it puts neutral casters in a weird spot, I don't know if its possible to just have one damage type thats 'divine' or something and then have it be pure alignment, so that a good cleric/paladin can't do nearly as much damage to other good aligned things, but can do full damage to neutral/evil

[sansthesis]

Having too many spells in general leads to balance issues, yes, but there's tons of spells out there that are so situational that they're not useful -- faerie fog, floating disc, create food/water, ventriloquate, call lightning, detect poison, dispel good/neutral/evil, holy word, all the way down the list. It's too much to keep in mind and too much to waste practices or spamming time on. The cleric spell list looks much more compelling than the mage one atm due to clerics having a tight focus and few situational combat spells.

Holy and unholy are two other damage types in the codebase and have no bearing upon being just two more elemental types. I don't care too much if they get merged into one or not.

[sansthesis]

Mage spells (35 atm):

Category	Energy	Fire	Frost	Shocking	Acid
Single Target	Magic Missile	Burning Hands	Ray of Frost	Lightning Bolt	Acid Blast
AOE	Prismatic Spray	Fireball	Cone of Cold	Chain Lightning	Horrid Wilting
Shield	Energy Shield	Flameshield	Frostshield	Shockshield	Earthshield

Debuffs
Sleep
Slow
Embrittle
Confusion
Silence
Dispel Magic

Buffs
Haste
Mage Armor
Invisibility
Fly
Detect Invis

Utility
Portal
Summon
Cancellation
Scrye
Enchant Weapon
Enchant Armor
Find Familiar
Charm Person
Teleport

[sansthesis]

Cleric spells (30 atm):

Target	Spell	Notes
Single	Harm	Pure damage to single target, maybe magic in nature?
Single	Purge	Damage affected by alignment, can do more than harm to outside of align but less inside align?
AoE	Wrath	AoE alignment based spell

Healing:

Spell	Note
Cure	Obtained at level 1, heals in a range that gets bigger the higher in level you are
Heal	Obtained later, costs more mana than cure but heals an assigned amount every time
Refresh	Heals moves
Cure Poison	Cures poison
Cure Blindness	Cures blindness
Remove Curse	Removes curse

Buffs:

Spell	Notes
Bless	Bonus to hitroll and maybe saves
Mage Armor	bonus to Ac or DR or both
Sanctuary	Damage reduction
Divine Blessing	I think an alignment based buff spell would be cool, where it works different based on what the casters align is
Protection	less damage from those outside alignment, then we can remove protection X alignment
Invisibility	Turns target invisible
Fly	Makes target fly
Detect Invis	Detects invisible things
Giant Strength	Increases strength

Debuffs:

Spell	Notes
Calm	makes target unable to attack
Blindness	blinds someone
Weaken	lowers strength/damage roll
Curse	lowers hitroll
Poison	damage over time
Dispel Magic	Removes buffs

Utility
Portal
Summon
Cancellation
Scrye
Charm Person
Teleport

[XTremeTennis]

So it looks like the real question is what to do with the shield spells for mage. Also, do we want giant strength or free action?

[sansthesis]

I missed giant strength, but free action doesn't make sense without the spells that necessitate it, like entangle, etc.

[XTremeTennis]

29 cleric spells, 35 for mages, that seems like much much cleaner lists

[sansthesis]

We're up to 30 cleric with giant strength.

[XTremeTennis]

given that clerics will have an additional combat skill or two, it probably balances out in the end