Schoolless spells & HLAs

[Guest amanasleep]

Alacrity

Like Hast/Slow and Timestop it deals with time. All of those belong to alteration school.

 

Haste and Slow affect the metabolism, but not time itself. Timestop is straight time manipulation. Both of these are within Alteration's purview (changing the qualities of pre-existing creatures, objects, energies/forces).

 

However, Alacrity deals with manipulating magic itself, specifically the post-spellcasting "aura" that prevents multiple spells per round. Evocation is more appropriate, as I consider Alacrity to be closer to the Sequencers, Triggers, Contingencies, and to Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, all of which are Evocation.

 

Dragon Breath

Well, I'm not fully sure myself...

 

I agree that Dragon Breath should be Evocation, and that the Dragon Head is meant to be merely window dressing to the energy manipulation of the spell. This is especially true because if it was Conjuring an actual Dragon Head you would not expect the damage to be party friendly...

[SixOfSpades]

Sounds great, but you need two things: approval of Demi and ideas!

See what it says there, under my picture?

 

Here's an idea for an Invoker-only HLA:

Empowered Magic Missile -- creates a spray of 11 Magic Missiles that fly unerringly toward a single target, dealing 11D4+11 Magic Damage. Each time this ability is selected, the Invoker can throw an additional 3 of these spells per day.

 

Schoolless spells

Within SR certain spells belong to the "Universal" school, and the complete list should be: Find Familiar, Simbul's Spell Matrix, Contingency, Simbul's Spell Sequencer, Limited Wish, Simbul's Spell Trigger and Chain Contingency. These spells imo don't seem to fit a particular school, and all them are also too important to be flagged as unavailable to some specialist. Don't you agree?

Awesome. I myself wouldn't call the various Contingencies & Sequencers "too important to be unavailable," as I never use them myself, but they do have a definite air of being created by "Generalist magic," as opposed to being tied to some school like Evocation. So if we add Wish to the list of Universal spells, that ties up the problem nicely. (Wish itself would be schoolless, but its various effects that strike other creatures should each belong to a school, so Spell Immunity could still be useful against it, yes?)

 

Two-School spells

Regarding spells with two schools, I'd like to know players opinion.

I would be fine with either

A. Making all spells single-school, or

B. Keeping some spells as dual-schooled, but adding a note (in SR's Readme) that the first school listed in each spell's Description is the school it's treated as in-game, and therefore the Spell Immunity that must be chosen in order to block it. The scroll should also be flagged as Unusable by practioners of both Opposition schools (except possibly for Spellstrike, but that spell's its own can of worms).

 

What I'd rather not see is spells that belong to more than one school using that trait to sneak into the Universal school, e.g. Wizard Eye is Divination & Alteration, so Conjurers can learn it as an Alteration spell and Abjurers can learn it as a Divination spell.

 

HLAs

Ideally, for each of the 8 schools, there would be 1 spell HLA of that school that could be chosen by any Wizard not of the Opposition school(s), and 1 spell HLA that would only be available to a Specialist of that school.

My own intention is to do something like that (a la Refinements), though I still haven't understood if this belongs to SR or KR.

The kit-specific HLAs obviously belong in KR, but we have to work out all the details in order to consider the ramifications that they'll have on the spells in SR, like which vanilla HLAs (if any) will be unavailable to which kits, and/or will strike as "schoolless" in that they bypass SI.

 

About being able to circumvent Spell Immunity: I gave Weimer a lot of grief about Improved Bodhi's absolutely unblockable "Cloud of Bats" spell, stating that the only creatures that should have that kind of control over the laws of magic are gods, and they can do that only while on their own home planes. I'm going to have to backtrack on that now, but it's for reasons of game balance: If the sole function of a Divination HLA is to strip away any & all illusions protecting an enemy, it seems ludicrous that a single 5th-level spell (that's used by just about every AI) could stop that HLA in its tracks. It gets even sillier when you realize that a Level 4 Thief who put all his points into Detect Illusions could do what an epic-level Diviner could not.

 

I simply love Transmuter's Create Flesh Golem

I'd have picked Flesh Golem as much more strongly flavored of Necromancy, myself. Granted, Necromancers have their own HLAs already, but wouldn't a Transmuter prefer to work with Clay, Stone, or Sand instead?

 

Speaking of pre-existing HLAs, probably since V2.9 (but surely within the current V3 Aranthys and Shaitan have) I've assigned them a school (though I've made Improved Alacrity belong to Universal school), and I do think they should have it.

 

Regarding Dragon's Breath and Comet, I really can't decide, I've made both Evocations, but I actually feel Comet may be a Conjuration as it doesn't manipulate any energy, it really conjures a real comet which deals crushing damage and bypasses magic resistance.

I'm in full agreement on Improved Alacrity: It has the same air of General Magery as the Contingency spells. About Comet vs. Dragon's Breath, however:

"This spell causes a disembodied head of red dragon to appear and breathe fire,"

"A more powerful and specialized version of Meteor Swarm, a huge meteor or comet strikes the earth," (Meteor Swarm is indeed an Evocation spell.)

To me, this sounds like the Conjurer summons a real dragon (possibly by opening a portal which she just sticks her head through), while the Invoker actually creates the comet, in the same way as a Fireball or Lightning Bolt (which probably explains why it can be cast underground). Granted, if the general consensus is that it should be the other way around, we could as easily just change the descriptions.

 

And I'm afraid that Spell Revision cries for new wizard scripts, especially after adding new spells. Why I hate most of spell-additions is that no one with exception of player is using them.

Yup. Good thing aVENGER and DavidW are taking part in the discussion, so we can promise not to make any spells that'll royally screw the AI . . . and hopefully, they can promise to (eventually) crank out some AIs that use our new & adjusted spells.

 

Planetars - conjuration, as pure as it can ever be

Alacrity - transmutation

Energy Blades - evocation, same as Mordy, MMMs, BBoD, etc.

Comet - I counted it as evocation, but you're probably right about it's similarity to Acid/Flame Arrow spells

Dragon Breath - it does summon the dragon's head, so a certain aspect of conjuration is here, but given there're already two better candidates to that school then evocation it goes to

Planetars: The Conjuration connection is obvious, but this is such an important summon that I'm tempted to argue that the HLA should be Universal. Then again, maybe this could be the "accessible" Conjuration HLA, available to everybody except Diviners.

Improved Alacrity: I see why you might say Alteration, as it's speed-related, but as amanasleep said, this spell is about clearing away the stray elements of the Weave that hang around after completing a spell, so in actuality it's more Generalist magic.

Energy Blades: Strong Evocation (and some Alteration) leanings, but again it's so important that we should at least consider keeping it Universal.

Comet: I've already stated my preference for Evocation, & why.

Dragon's Breath: I've already stated my preference for Conjuration, & why. As for its being party-friendly, I recall that the only reason we decided to let it remain so was because the AI couldn't handle it otherwise.

Extra Spells: This is KR, not SR, but I'll just mention it here for completeness. Extra Spells I should grant 1 extra spell of Levels 1, 2, & 3, Extra Spells II grants +1 to Levels 4 & 5, ES III grants +1 to 6 & 7, ES IV gives +1 to 8, and ES V gives +1 to Level 9.

 

Honestly, I like what Refinements did with the Sorcerer HLA's. It differentiated them from wizards a bit. If you are going to redo all HLA's for the spellcasters, then I suggest similar measures.

I agree. "Different but balanced" is an ideal for many things other than StarCraft. Perhaps more spells with an Enchantment flavor, as Sorcerers are supposed to be largely Charisma-based? Sadly, this can only take place as the HLA level, as I'm fairly sure that it's hardcoded that it's impossible to make a Wizard spell that Sorcerers can't use. True, this is more KR than SR, but if we wind up making a Sorcerer HLA that affects his use of lower-level spells, we need to take that into account during work on SR.

[Ardanis]

Empowered Magic Missile

Well, you go ahead and make a projectile capable of launching 11 MMs

 

Two-School spells

I must be missing the point. Whatever the description says, the .spl itself can belong to a single school only.

 

Improved Bodhi

So you're the one to thank for her Bats becoming a conjuration? Thanks a lot man, I've no idea how I'd beaten her otherwise

 

too important to be unavailable - Planetar, Alacrity, Energy Blades

I think it's only for the best that some of the most useful spells will remain abroad. Makes you think twice which kit you wanna to go with. Clearly, to balance out the loss of such an invaluable asset as Planetar the specialist should get access to equally useful and powerful ability.

 

Extra Spells

Extra Spells I should grant 1 extra spell of Levels 1, 2, & 3, Extra Spells II grants +1 to Levels 4 & 5, ES III grants +1 to 6 & 7, ES IV gives +1 to 8, and ES V gives +1 to Level 9.

100% how I saw and see it.

[Kalindor]

too important to be unavailable - Planetar, Alacrity, Energy Blades

I think it's only for the best that some of the most useful spells will remain abroad. Makes you think twice which kit you wanna to go with. Clearly, to balance out the loss of such an invaluable asset as Planetar the specialist should get access to equally useful and powerful ability.

 

I think being denied access to certain spells as part of a kit makes it a more interesting decision. What if only Conjurers got Planetars, only Transmuters got Alacrity, only Evokers got Comet, etc? I think that would go a decent way towards making the Wizard kits a little more distinct and also toning down the end-game dominance of mages a little.

[Salk]

Just a small note:

 

I am in favour of having spells either be schoolless or belong to one and one only school.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I am in favour of having spells either be schoolless or belong to one and one only school.

Then perhaps you do not understand... cause if a spell has two schools, it's a Universal spell, this is cause the kit restrictions and nothing else. And what comes to the Spell Immunityes, well it's a 5th level spell and it's powerlevel is also 5, so all the higher level spells bypass it, including the Breach as it's powerlevel is 5 but the maximum level is 9 so it removes many other spells... Secret Word that has power level of 4 and maximum level of 8 (so it can remove the topmost spell from that level) etc etc. in the original game.

[Salk]

I am in favour of having spells either be schoolless or belong to one and one only school.

Then perhaps you do not understand... cause if a spell has two schools, it's a Universal spell, this is cause the kit restrictions and nothing else. And what comes to the Spell Immunityes, well it's a 5th level spell and it's powerlevel is also 5, so all the higher level spells bypass it, including the Breach as it's powerlevel is (1)0, as in so many other spells... Secret Word that has power level of 8 (so it can remove the topmost spell from that level) etc etc. in the original game.

 

Doesn't a universal spell belong to no school?

 

If I didn't understand before, I am more confused now. Thanks!

[Demivrgvs]

I am in favour of having spells either be schoolless or belong to one and one only school.

Then perhaps you do not understand... cause if a spell has two schools, it's a Universal spell, this is cause the kit restrictions and nothing else. And what comes to the Spell Immunityes, well it's a 5th level spell and it's powerlevel is also 5, so all the higher level spells bypass it, including the Breach as it's powerlevel is (1)0, as in so many other spells... Secret Word that has power level of 8 (so it can remove the topmost spell from that level) etc etc. in the original game.

 

Doesn't a universal spell belong to no school?

 

If I didn't understand before, I am more confused now. Thanks!

Jarno you're making some confusion imo:

* SI having power level 5 doesn't cause higher level spells to bypass it (it could have power level 1 or 8 and it would work the very same way. On this spell power level is only used to decide if Spell Thrust/Secret Word can dispel it)

* Secret Word has power level 4 in vanilla (which is wrong imo), and I've changed it to 0 in order to let it bypass any spell protection of 8th level or lower instead of being blocked by GoI despite its description. The "remove protection" handles which spell level can be removed, not the power level.

 

To clarify for Salk, spells with two schools and universal spells are clearly not the same thing for me, but the formers currently work in various ways:

- most of them actually work as if they belong to only one school (e.g. Fire Shield is only an evocation despite the description, and is treated as an evocation in all cases such as being blocked by SI:Evo and not being usable by Enchanters)

- few of them actually work as universal spells (e.g. Spellstrike is usable by anyone and bypasses any SI)

I'd probably vote to have only one school per spell, and have only Universal spells as exceptions.

 

Too important to be unavailable - Planetar, Alacrity, Energy Blades

I think it's only for the best that some of the most useful spells will remain abroad. Makes you think twice which kit you wanna to go with. Clearly, to balance out the loss of such an invaluable asset as Planetar the specialist should get access to equally useful and powerful ability.

 

I think being denied access to certain spells as part of a kit makes it a more interesting decision. What if only Conjurers got Planetars, only Transmuters got Alacrity, only Evokers got Comet, etc? I think that would go a decent way towards making the Wizard kits a little more distinct and also toning down the end-game dominance of mages a little.

Strange...I agree with Ardanis! Kalindor and him are right imo, it doesn't make sense to use the "it's too important" excuse to make all powerful spells Universal, and having some of these spells unavailable is actually very cool as long as the opposite school has something equally powerful/interesting.

[Salk]

I'd probably vote to have only one school per spell, and have only Universal spells as exceptions.

 

Then in short you are agreeing with what I said?

 

Thank you for making me feel less dumb, by the way...

[SixOfSpades]

Well, you go ahead and make a projectile capable of launching 11 MMs

I'm almost positive that there already is one. DLTCEP lists MM1 through MM11, but the existing spell only uses MM1 through MM5. Even if it doesn't work, we could always use the existing animations fired with a very brief delay.

 

Two-School spells

I must be missing the point. Whatever the description says, the .spl itself can belong to a single school only.

Yes. The question now is whether to restrict the usability of the scroll to match the description (and make a note as to which school the spell actually acts as in-game), or to tweak the description to match the usability. There seems to be a bit more support for the latter.

 

As for Jarno's idea that a spell having 2 schools means that it's part of the Universal school, it's possible that he'd misinterpreted what I'd said in Post #17 of this thread, when I said that that's what I didn't want to happen.

 

. . . few [spells] actually work as universal spells (e.g. Spellstrike is usable by anyone and bypasses any SI)

You have made this change? I don't know if I like this. Granted, Spellstrike's nature (and level) lend support to its being able to ignore SI, but it's clearly either an Alteration or (more likely) an Abjuration spell.

FWIW, the "Arcane Spells (most notable changes)" thread only says that Spellstrike now has a relatively small AoE.

 

 

Improved Bodhi

So you're the one to thank for her Bats becoming a conjuration? Thanks a lot man, I've no idea how I'd beaten her otherwise

You're very welcome. Me, I tend to combat the munchkin with the cheesy: If her spell is unavoidable, abuse her AI and make her waste it on a throwaway summon.