Zambini's Spell Development Thread

Have an idea or great plots for Egoboo? Post them here!

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Zambini's Spell Development Thread

Post by bgbirdsey »

Given some of the discussion on the board I wanted to start a development thread that is a kind of "suggestion box" for spells. Don't worry about whether it can be implemented in-game or not, and put all ideas about game balance on the back burner.

So, what are your ideas?
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Post by Zefz »

- A spell that summons a mount. Max 1 mount per spellbook. Maybe turn bodies into Chocobones? (necromancy spell).

- Morph spell that turns you into a Minotore, allowing you to use all kinds of melee weapon and shields. (giving armour, strength and life)

- Mind control spell? Converts enemies on your team? (lot of bug potentiality here)

- Firewall

- Another trap spell?
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Post by Shade »

Alright, here are some ideas (the spell names are just the first thing I thought of and should probably be changed if the respective spell gets implemented):

Acid Rain (sustain): The caster creates a cloud above himself for as long as the caster can sustain the mana cost (about 1 mana point per second?); said cloud rains down acid drops around the caster for continuous small damage and follows the caster around. The caster himself is immune to the acid rain. EVIL damage.

Voodoo (sustain): If caster INT is higher than target WIS, the target is enchanted with a Voodoo effect; in other words, the target's stats are decreased slightly and it takes continiuous damage. This effect lasts until either the target or the caster are dead, the caster runs out of mana, or the distance between the caster and the target becomes too large. EVIL damage.

Cold Glare (immediate): The caster swings (not necessarily using his hands) a huge ice blade in a 90° arc from above is head to what is in front of him. Upon impact, the blade shatters; the shards deal some tiny damage to everything near them as well. The ice blade itself is rather fast, good damage. ICE damage.

Tremor (charge): Causes an earthquake; anyone standing near the caster takes damage if they're touching the ground in the moment the caster releases the spell. BASH damage.

Berserk (charge): If caster INT is at least twice as high as target WIS, the target is berserked for a small while ([caster INT]/2 seconds?). During this period of time, the target essentially just changes his team, thus causing him to also attack his allies and become attacked by his allies as well.

Wind Edge (immediate): Shoots a small blast of wind at the target. Rather fast and high range, but not-so-impressive damage and doesn't home in to its target like missiles do; just a simple low-level attack spell that pushes the target back a bit upon a hit. SLASH damage.

EDIT: octagon is right, having Wind Edge move the target away a bit also is a good idea. Added.
Last edited by Shade on Fri Mar 26, 2010 4:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by octagon »

I think that the Wind Edge should also blow the target away a bit, what would make it a much more useful spell.

Some more spellbooks:
Book of Collecting (puts nearby items into your inventory if ou have some spare item slots) - medium
Book of Rust Surge (rusts weapons and damages wearers of metal armour) - high
Book of Morph:Trog (self-explanatory) - low
Book of Morph:Cobol (self-explanatory) - low
Book of Morph:Mephit (self-explanatory) - medium
Book of Summon 0 (Acid Blob) - low
Book of Summon III (some Mosquitos) - low
Book of Summon IV (Tranch) - medium
Book of Summon V (Cobra) - medium
Book of Summon VI (Mephit) - high
Book of Shivers (throws some small frost splinters) - low
Book of Rabies (makes enemy rabid - hostile to every other creatures and losing life quickly - if it doesn't resist) - high
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Post by Cimeries »

Wikihack directory of spellbooks

Nature's call *snicker* (charge) - Animals in the vicinity will join the player's team for a short while. Nature magic perhaps? Medium level.

Vacuum (charge, target) - Creates a vortex that pulls enemies into it (targeting like death cloud). If someone comes too close, they take damage. Sort of a quick mass-bind spell you can use to distract a large group of enemies. High level.

Glacier (charge, target) - Bursts a glacier from out of the ground, dealing a lot of Pierce and Ice damage, pushing enemies away, and creating a breakable obstacle in the process, making this both a utility and an attack spell. Very high level. Maybe for Archmages.
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Post by bgbirdsey »

I'm pretty aware of the NetHack spells and I find them to be a bit too generic. However, one thing that we could include the "spellbook of blah sphere." These basically summon a sphere pet that will attack anything that hates the caster. This has loads of possibility.

I would rather implement the wand effects as spellbooks: Death, Sleep, Slow Monster, and Speed Monster, for instance.
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Post by Shade »

bgbirdsey wrote:I would rather implement the wand effects as spellbooks: Death, Sleep, Slow Monster, and Speed Monster, for instance.

I'd be careful with Death though; a spellbook that instantly kills stuff might be pretty overpowered unless you apply some serious restrictions on when the spell works and when it does not (like, for example, it only works if caster INT and level are both > the target's); however, heavily restricting such a spell at the same time takes away a lot from its usefulness. As such, I'd actually suggest to make death a wand-only spell with the sole restriction of not working against some of the tougher bosses if we implement it, and preferably not make it buyable - I think it's better to have a spell like this be actually really useful, but very rare and hard to obtain, with a limited amount of uses so it at the same time isn't gamebreakingly overpowered.
Just my thoughts though, feel free to disagree.
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Post by Cimeries »

How about a wand of striking? Very simple, just a very powerful hit-scan physical attack. Essentially functioning like a gonne.
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Post by Seanbot »

bgbirdsey wrote:I'm pretty aware of the NetHack spells and I find them to be a bit too generic. However, one thing that we could include the "spellbook of blah sphere."


I second the Blah Sphere motion.
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Post by Maxaxle »

How about spells that affect specific types of monsters, such as "Book of Grilled Grubs", which cooks Grub-based monsters from the inside out and makes them (at least partially) edible?
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Post by octagon »

That type of spell should be local... a spell like the Genocide from Nethack would completely destroy the balancing. But otherwise a good idea... especially if you are a Trog Shaman... :lol:
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Post by penguinflyer5234 »

We could work a scroll of genocide like Angband and friends... kill all nearby enemies, for a cost of some health
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Post by bgbirdsey »

The genocide and death ray are balanced in NetHack, in a way. Genociding certain letters will make your life very difficult down the road. The death ray is is "balanced" by the occurrence of it in the hands of low level monsters in low level dungeons, for instance you are as likely to get killed by it as to kill with it. None of these will work in egoboo, though.

Another way that death magic is blunted is that there is resisance to it (some creatures are naturally 100% resistant, you can get objects that give you the resistance, etc.). Maybe there could be some kind of innate magic resistance and you could figure out the % chance of failure based on the level difference? That is the D&D way.

In any case, this is a brainstorming thread... less talk about roadblocks and more spell ideas! There have been some great ones so far! :)
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Post by Shade »

Some more ideas:

Silence (charge): Immediately removes all remaining mana points from the caster and everyone else standing close enough to him and keeps this behaviour up for a small while (10 seconds or so); the silence area doesn't move with the caster though.

Compass (sustain): Makes two small arrows appear above the head of the caster for as long as the caster can sustain the mana cost (which probably isn't very high though); a red one that points to the nearest unopened chest (the spell also points at trapped ones and mimics though), and a blue one that points to where the boss / the spork / whatever you need to finish the current module is. If you can always just leave the module successfully without doing anything special (like in Zippy), the blue arrow won't appear. If there are no unopened chests remaining, the red arrow won't appear either.

Quintessence (charge): Transforms the targeted item into a floating, glowing red orb of life energy that restores 1 point of life to whatever touches it (even enemies) and then disappears. The item is destroyed this way. Items that are already held by someone or can't be held at all cannot be targeted (so you can't transform braziers or disarm your enemies this way). Possibly drains a tiny amount of Zenny (2?) for each (successful) use and cannot be used if you don't have enough.
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Post by Seanbot »

Sheeps: A flock of sheep rampage past the caster doing general damage to all enemies in the area in front and directly around the caster.

Seems pretty Egobooish
Moogirl wrote: [19:47:14] ­period jokes = not cool
[19:47:23] ­no wait it's the anus
[19:47:25] ­wtf
[19:47:46] ­a cloud cannot have that much blood
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