Caster of Magic II Spell System overhaul discussion

[Seravy]

Well, if Fire Mastery was a common or uncommon spell (which I even mentioned as a possibility in the initial thread starting post) that could help with that a little so maybe it's something to keep in mind.

Fire Mastery
Combat global enchantment
30 MP
All of the caster's units gain +1 magical ranged attack strength, +2 strength to their breath attacks, and creatures that have Fire Immunity gain +1 defense and resistance.

Or something like that. The problem with this one is that we don't actually have a flee slot at common or uncommon and none of the spells there could be moved up to rare. Maybe Insulation could be rare but then it would be like the weakest rare in the game and would be coming far too late to be useful (who needs lightning resistance 30 turns after all the heroes died to enemy Lightning Bolts which are uncommon?). The other spells are absolutely necessary t remain at Chaos uncommon. Common doesn't have spells that could be moved either. Warp Creature needs to stay common for the combo potential. Maybe Disrupt but then we're removing one of the most "offense" spell in the entire tier, the one that destroys the walls and allows your units to actually conquer things.
So no, sadly, I don't think anything can be done to early game Chaos, but it's definitely not as weak as it looks like. If it was, there would be spells to remove or improve.

(on the other hand, Fire Storm becoming rare does make Chaos quite a bit weaker so maybe we need to do something about it anyway)

[Anskiy]

Hmm, what is Chaos uncommon going to look like? Fire Storm is arguably overpowered at uncommon, I'll agree there. Similarly, while Disrupt and Warp Creature are very situational, they still fulfill decent roles in the design. Perhaps Corruption could be removed, since later it gets replaced by a superior resource denial spell anyway? Though that would make Shaman less important, and as it stands they struggle to justify their inclusion in any field army or garrison.

[Seravy]

Corruption is important, we can't remove it. Yes, Volcano is better but Corruption is available at the beginning of the game so lucky starts with mithril and adamantium can be countered by it before they are used to produce troops. It also serves to introduce players to the concept of city curses in general and the important to either maintain peace with players who have any or prevent them to scout your cities.


Common are these :
Warp Wood
Disrupt
Fire Bolt
Hell Hounds
Corruption
Flame Blade
Wall of Fire
Shatter
Warp Creature
Fire Elemental (this is reduced to 14 MP now)

Uncommon are these :
Lightning Bolt
Fire Giant
Chaos Channels
Mystic Surge
Gargoyles
Fireball
Raise Volcano
Immolation
Chimeras
Insulation

So other than possibly compensating for the loss of Fire Storm (if that even counts as losing it, as I plan to put it into the lower research cost bracket in rare) there isn't that much need to make Chaos stronger.

Yes, death and nature summons better or more cost effective creatures. That's their specialty.
Life buffs better, that's theirs.
Sorcery, well, they do specialize on moving through ocean so yes, they have Nagas and Floating Island while Chaos (and life) has no spells to cross the ocean.

Chaos specializes in direct damage, so they have the best such spell, Fire Bolt, then Lightning Bolt and Fireball.
It specializes on destruction of resources, so it gets Corruption. Not a spell most players wish for...until they notice the enemy wizard next to them started on adamantium and plays a race or books you don't want to fight early.
It specializes on offense, so it gets the only common wall destruction spell. Again, doesn't seem to be a big deal until you stop to think "all my enemy units lose 2 defense if I break the tile they fight on. For only 5 MP!". There is also Immolation which will wipe out almost any early game unit so it's in many ways a lot more potent buff than Holy Weapon or Heroism.

...anyway what we need is a rare chaos spell right now because that slot is empty.

[Seravy]

Fire Mastery
All of you units that originally had Fire Immunity gain +3 defense and resistance.

Ok, so I think this is the best we can do, and as long as it's a low cost enchanemtment that is reasonably possible to use with Fire Giants, it's good. It also isn't as big a problem for Efreets because the low cost means it's easy to dispel and then the Efreets are vulnerable again until you recast, although I am worried about it a little.

However we can still improve the combo potential a little :

All of you units that originally had Fire Immunity or Lightning Resistance gain +3 defense and resistance.

Then add Lightning Resistance to Storm Giants (obviously should have it anyway) and Sky Drake.
We probably need a different name than "Fire Mastery" for this but the effect itself seems okay.

Edit : maybe 3 attack, 3 defense but only 2 resistance would be a more balanced effect.

Edit 2 : Implemented with this effect :

INNER POWER
Chaos Rare - Global Enchantment
Casting Cost : 390
Upkeep : 12
All of the casting wizards units that have Fire Immunity or Lightning Resistance gain +3 to all their attack strengths, +2 defense and +2 resistance. (Units who gain these effects from Insulation are not affected)

[Seravy]

Divine Favor
Cost 60/300
Unit Enchantment
Enchanted normal unit has 100% chance to hit and 60% chance To Defend.

After some more thinking about this, I think it's way too powerful to be allowed to be cast in combat, or maybe simply way too powerful overall.
Even assuming Prayer and magic weapons, which is 50% to hit, this outright doubles the damage output of a unit before shields so the effective buff is even more than double damage. An Orc Horde with 7 swords would do 7*8 = 56 damage with the buff, enough to oneshot a very rare even through its shields.

Do we have any other idea for Life Very Rare?

[htester]

Do we have any other idea for Life Very Rare?

"Convenience"
Cost 300
Overland unit enchantment
Enchanted unit has all unit enchantments you can cast.

There is Convenience and Divine Protection item effect as possible ideas discussed.

*Possible a new spell with both effects could be added

[Seravy]

That might work.

Maybe it's even safe to allow in combat if the cost is high enough?

Convergence
Cost 100/300
Enchanted unit has the effect of all positive unit enchantments you can cast that can target the unit, except Destiny.

As it only adds the effect of the spells, not the spells themselves, dispelling this makes all the buffs go away which is functionally very different from Spell Lock or simply casting the spells without protection.

[htester]

I think it`s ok to allow to be casted in combat. Although some of the buffs added by the spell cannot be casted on combat so maybe overland only?

[Seravy]

I think it`s ok to allow to be casted in combat. Although some of the buffs added by the spell cannot be casted on combat so maybe overland only?

Well, let's see... not castable in combat are...
Endurance, +1 movement is hardly an issue at very rare
Blood Lust, double damage on normal units isn't an issue BUT this turns the unit permanently undead. So we want to exclude this either way.
Chaos Channels but again this turns the unit permanently a chaos creature so we should exclude it.
Sanctify - this has no combat effect so it makes no difference.
Water Walking - this actually can be useful in sea combat but nothing to worry about.
Land Linking - combat castable pathfinding is useful but not gamebreaking at very rare either.
Focus Magic - This actually might be quite inconvenient to get on the unit as it gains a ranged attack that's weak. Shift does force melee attacks but not everyone will notice that feature. Also, making touch attacks ranged in combat is a bit on the unfair side.
Wind Walking - this depends on what we decide the new effect to be
Holy Armor - probably ok

And these are castable in combat :
Resist Elements
Elemental Armor
Iron Skin
Regeneration
Guardian Wind
Flight
Invisibility
Magic Immunity
Haste
Flame Blade
Mystic Surge (this too should be excluded obviously)
Immolation
Bless
Holy Weapon
Heroism
Discipline

...etc, I think we already have too many things that need to be excluded so probably should discard this idea entirely.

We will need a new idea then.

[Seravy]

What if we used the "Amplifying Wave" idea as a Life spell?

Life Mastery
Global enchantment
Whenever you cast a spell that heals or deals damage, that spell heals or deals 1 more to all targets, or 2 more damage if the spell is single target. Whenever you cast a spell that requires a resistance roll, there is an additional -1 save penalty for that spell.

Explanation :
I feel Life doesn't have as much combo potential between realms as others, while it also has a set of spells that offers the least redundance and situational effects - basically in other realms your creatures, damage spells, etc will be replaced by a higher tier spell much more often than in Life which has no creatures to speak of, and all their buffing spells stack so nothing ever gets obsolete.
This means, a new spell that's only mildly useful for Life wizards, but much more useful for other realms could work better.

Life+Sorcery has obvious synergy in the theme of "peaceful diplomacy" and also share the defensive unit buffing theme so they work very well together as is, meaning it's fine that Sorcery wizards don't benefit much from this enchantment beyond the +2 damage on Psionic Blasts
Life+Nature is not bad but not very outstanding either. Life and Nature buffs don't work so well together as one targets normal units and the other targets summons, and there is redundancy in that both has healing magic. The added damage from Call Lightning would be a major combo for these two realms although it requires luck to get both spells (you don't get guaranteed very rares in more than one realm), but it still opens up Save or Die and Direct damage to Life which it doesn't have on its own and that can be buffed by this.
Life+Chaos is obviously the big winner here.
Life+Death also gains a lot, the extra save modifier is huge, and Gate of Hades dealing an extra damage is also excellent.

I would have preferred something in-combat but I didn't have any such ideas.