Post by finalparagon on Jan 9, 2010 18:32:28 GMT -5
Haven't posted in a long, long while, but I figured I'd bring up some assorted opinions I have mostly on things I find bizarre with the magic system:
1: There's a pretty strong focus on the customizability of spells, but the majority of Divination spells seem to be left out of this. As it is, most of the effects are one-off 'have it or don't' knowledge spells and the only way to make costlier or different spells is to combine multiple detections into one. In a way, this does make sense, but all the same the school doesn't seem as robust as the others when over half of it is boolean "Either the spell does this or the spell does not do this" effects. The Diviner class focuses on this stuff, but even then it feels like the focus is exclusively on the "Divination" and "Twist Fate" spells.
Why then, can't most of the early Divination spells have at least a power level associated with them? Reveal already works this way, you can either center it around yourself or a selected point and you can boost the radius of the effect. I don't see why the Detect spells shouldn't work the same way. Likewise, Identify could have a power level which determines up to what value items in your inventory are identified. It'd make the basic spells less useful, sure, but it'd also make a pre-Diviner character (Or one who, for whatever reason, chooses to opt out of that class entirely) who specializes in Divination capable of making the sort of unique spells available to every other school. You could, for example, make something that detects everything within Radius 10, but have a separate spell to detect just stairs across the entire dungeon.
2: Circle vs. Ball. I've only done a little bit of testing on this, but far as I can tell damage and cost-wise they're exactly the same, except Ball can do what it does at any cell with line-of-effect rather than only the one the character's standing on. I feel like the Circle effect should be cheaper than an equivalent Ball effect, because otherwise there's not really any reason to use it.
3: On the note of effect types again, why no 'Cone'? A short-ranged penetrating blast seems like it'd be useful for making stuff like fire breath or sound bursts or things of that ilk. Radius could be used in place of its maximum range.
4: Not really related to magic, just something I came across when scrolling through the Abilities help file: If both do exactly what's written, the Soul Guardian's "Soul Guide" ability is universally inferior to the Priest's "Divine Blood". Which is particularly strange since the Priest is a basic class and the SG isn't. Also because the Soul Guardian is the only advanced class that requires Wisdom but not levels in Monk, which seems to indicate that a lot of Priests would be set to move into that class before most other advanced classes.
1: There's a pretty strong focus on the customizability of spells, but the majority of Divination spells seem to be left out of this. As it is, most of the effects are one-off 'have it or don't' knowledge spells and the only way to make costlier or different spells is to combine multiple detections into one. In a way, this does make sense, but all the same the school doesn't seem as robust as the others when over half of it is boolean "Either the spell does this or the spell does not do this" effects. The Diviner class focuses on this stuff, but even then it feels like the focus is exclusively on the "Divination" and "Twist Fate" spells.
Why then, can't most of the early Divination spells have at least a power level associated with them? Reveal already works this way, you can either center it around yourself or a selected point and you can boost the radius of the effect. I don't see why the Detect spells shouldn't work the same way. Likewise, Identify could have a power level which determines up to what value items in your inventory are identified. It'd make the basic spells less useful, sure, but it'd also make a pre-Diviner character (Or one who, for whatever reason, chooses to opt out of that class entirely) who specializes in Divination capable of making the sort of unique spells available to every other school. You could, for example, make something that detects everything within Radius 10, but have a separate spell to detect just stairs across the entire dungeon.
2: Circle vs. Ball. I've only done a little bit of testing on this, but far as I can tell damage and cost-wise they're exactly the same, except Ball can do what it does at any cell with line-of-effect rather than only the one the character's standing on. I feel like the Circle effect should be cheaper than an equivalent Ball effect, because otherwise there's not really any reason to use it.
3: On the note of effect types again, why no 'Cone'? A short-ranged penetrating blast seems like it'd be useful for making stuff like fire breath or sound bursts or things of that ilk. Radius could be used in place of its maximum range.
4: Not really related to magic, just something I came across when scrolling through the Abilities help file: If both do exactly what's written, the Soul Guardian's "Soul Guide" ability is universally inferior to the Priest's "Divine Blood". Which is particularly strange since the Priest is a basic class and the SG isn't. Also because the Soul Guardian is the only advanced class that requires Wisdom but not levels in Monk, which seems to indicate that a lot of Priests would be set to move into that class before most other advanced classes.
