Potential New Spells?

[AdamBlue]

Hi. This is an offshoot of the 'Alternative to Spellcasting' thread. I posted an idea for a bunch of different new spells we could maybe add to the list of magickers to increase the number of 'things' they can do while also maybe slowing down branching to higher-level spells, while also giving touched perhaps access to more utilitarian magicks as well so they feel less like a 'baby mage' and more like 'yeah, this is a way to utilize my power to the full effect!'

Please feel free to add ideas of your own!


Suk-Krathi

Neverburn: You cannot fail cooking skill checks while this spell is active. The food cooked while this spell is active is particularly delicious and is preserved longer than usual. Adds a special 'seasoning' at the highest level when food is cooked using it, making it spicy.

Campfire: You conjure a magical campfire in the room. At the highest level, it functions as a kiln. Gives bonuses to cooking, clayworking, brewing, and provides light. Can maybe give a bonus towards setting up a campsite. Provides a special damage bonus when people ignite their arrows off of it.

Flare: Conjure a burning lance of fire to launch off into the sky, briefly causing an entire area to be lit up. Can only be done outside. Is also directional and can be seen from many rooms away when first launched. A massive number of utility could be derived from this. May attract raiders from up to three rooms away when seen.

Sauna: Using any rock as a component, causes it to superheat into a 'molten chunk of slag' that cannot be touched on risk of burning. When water is 'poured' over the rock, causes a cloud of 'refreshing steam' to fill the room like incense. Anyone in the room with the steam for an extended period of time has their clothes cleaned automatically. At higher levels, significantly lowers the timers on poisons and disease by letting them 'sweat it out'. Doesn't work outdoors.


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Vivaduian

Quench: Reduces someone's thirst. Provides a small buff that gives resistance to thirst for a while. Cures Krath-Sickness.

Conjure Bandage: A plant springs from the ground and can be used as a bandage by anyone. Bandage changes appearance based on location. (Aloe vera in the desert, thick moss in a cave, lichens in the forest, ect) Quality scales with power, and can cure some poisons as some excellent quality bandages are capable of at high levels.

Rain: Cause it to rain briefly in a localized area. Waters all plants within. Makes the room very swampy and muddy, drastically increasing movement costs. Might wash off clothes. Repeated uses at high level may cause an area to flood.

Foul: Spray someone with a blast of disgusting, fouled water, making them and all of their garments smelly. Makes animals, including mounts, not want to be ridden by them until they clean off. At higher levels, has a chance of making the target sick as well.



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Whiran

Carry Voice: Allows your 'yells' to reach up to three rooms away in distance, carried on the wind. At highest level, screaming might cause an enemy engaged in combat with you to flee with a mild fear effect because you're so god damned loud.

Camoflauge: Changes you to blend in with the environment. When you're not hiding, you are incredibly obvious as your skin appears to be shifting. When you are, you get a massive bonus to hide to blend in with the environment. Does nothing for 'sneak' as the effect is disturbed upon moving, but doesn't detract either. Makes you a 'blur' without making you actually invisible.

Whisper: Allows a single message to be 'whispered' to a person much like a Way, except it's one way and bypasses psionics, as well as being totally anonymous.

Arrowtrue: Cast on an arrow or bolt to ensure it is perfectly accurate. Due to the nature of the spell, it always hits center mass, meaning the 'body', and cannot hit the head or neck. Can still be swiped out of the air. Enchantment ends after being fired.

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Rukkian
Suregrip: Your hands become covered in an incredibly fine dust. Massive bonus to climbing, subdue, become extremely hard to disarm. Provides a bonus to 'forage' while active since it's easier to grab stuff.

Stern: You root yourself to the ground and cannot be knocked down by any means. Massive bonuses against being bashed, charged, trampled, subdued, or otherwise moved by other means (magick, ect). Effect ends when you move rooms.

Toolforge: You create a tool of your choice, with quality based on strength. Can be used for any type of mundane craft. Has a chance of being a metal tool at mon. Eventually fades away back into simple sand.

Fist: Your hands harden significantly. Bonus to damage and stun for unarmed attacks by a significant margin, allows the parrying of blows bare-handed.

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Elkrosian
Jolt: A dual-use spell. Acts as smelling salts to wake up someone who is knocked out due to stun or is immobilized due to focus loss. Immediately sets someone who is at below 1 hp to 1 hp.


Reflex: Provides a defensive bonus against ranged attacks in particular; They receive an echo that their hair 'stands up on end' when someone aims a ranged weapon at them. Sometimes gives false-positives out of nowhere, to keep them on edge. Allows 'Arrowtrue' to miss.

Staticky: Become immune to pickpocketing or having things taken forcibly off of you. On attempt, the person attempting is shocked by static electricity and takes a little damage and automatically fails.

Clap: Clapping one's hands together creates a sudden blast of energy that does no damage but attempts to knock over a target into a prone position for an extended time. At highest level, does some stun damage.


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Drovian
Echo: Cast on a mundane item to make a shadowy copy of said item. Functions just as that item would, except it has a value of 0 and cannot be crafted, as well as being obviously magickal. The copy disappears after a while. As the copy is imperfect, doesn't work on delicate things like keys.

Ghost Hands: Provides a single-use bonus to steal; If caught, only reveals that 'their own shadow' was the one picking their pockets! Massively increases success of 'sleight of hand' tricks while active, such as 'latch'. Can't be shocked by statick.

Wordmouth: While active, the user of this spell automatically echoes out whatever messages they receive via the Way, as long as both are in contact with eachother. A shadow-figure manifests bearing the same sdesc of the Wayer appear to recite the words. This allows a Drovian to pass along a message far more effectively to a group of people. At higher levels, this extends both ways, allowing for two groups to communicate extremely effectively.

Persist: Conjures a shadow copy of the user at a particular location. The user can see, hear, talk, and emote as if they were present through the copy, until the copy is dispelled, attacked, or destroyed. The copy is obviously a copy, and made of shadow. It cannot attack, give take or hold anything, cast magick or do anything beyond communication and seeing.

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Nilazi
Devour: Cast on a corpse to immediately devour it to restore hunger and thirst, leaving behind a 'carcass' like an animal had savaged it. Prevents any negatives of cannibalism. Immediately triggers a 'blood splash' to cover your clothes in blood.

Pretend: Allows you to 'appear' as a certain type of elementalist, or a sorcerer to other mages senses, or as a completely mundane person under all but the most intense scrutiny, including casting messages.

Sacrifice: Significantly reduce the user's max health to gain a significant boost to one's stats. Temporarily makes one entirely unable to cast any magick at all while the effect is active, but also prevents them from passing out or dying due to being in negative health unless it equals the user's max health. Dies as normal if the spell ends while in significant negative health that would normally kill them.

Harvest: While active, gain a combat bonus against anyone capable of magick. If cast upon a foe at 0 or below health that is capable of casting magick, kills them in horrifying fashion, and grants the caster a permanent boost to their max MP.

[LidlessEye]

These seem nice! I think what I would like to suggest is, your sauna spell not being able to clean clothes, since redacted. Everything else seems capital!

[zealus]

Hi!

Just a reminder not to post spell details in here Otherwise carry on

[Kavrick]

Only issue I have with some of these is like the 'never fail at x' 'become immune to y' stuff. Rukkians being immune to being knocked over basically removes one of the big counters to magick users, which is stuff like bash and charge, would rather not have that. Also knocking people down is something rukkians do, not elkrosians, I think it's important to keep different elements to their niche, and avoid overlap. Same goes for allowing elkro to 'revive' people under 1hp, that's a vivaduan thing.

Whirans can go invisible so camo on top of that feels like it would break some balance. Personally I'm kinda against spells that are just 'do mundane thing better', because magick should really be incomparable to mundane stuff if you want an interesting balance.

Otherwise I do like the idea of a lot of these, one of my biggest critique of magick has been that it feels like most spells are just made for combat, any spell which is added to the game that doesn't interact with combat is a good one imo.

This is all just from a game design perspective.

[AdamBlue]

I disagree, I think some overlap is good! All of the elements are connected in some way, and I think playing on those strengths makes magick a cooler, more dynamic thing.

The with the 'do thing that mundane can already do but better' should apply more to the already-existant abilities of the touched in some of these circumstances. A Suk-Krathi already gets master cook (this is on the helpfile no mad), so the fact now it can't burn food just means that it takes away a slim possibility of a goof. Conversely, something like Trueaim would let any joe schmoe use a bow, as long as a Whiran touched it first, but the shots are going to hit the probably most defended part of someone. Great for hunting, not so much for PVP. And because the shots always hit, you're not going to get any actual skill using it, which means it's like a crutch that makes you a very reliable, if boring archer that never gets better or worse.

Elkros has some bearing in 'getting energy back', followed with the very obvious 'starting someone's heart back up' that I think the idea of Jolt follows on, since it isn't doing any -real- healing it's moreso just stabilizing someone, they would still need to probably get healed by an actual healer or apothecary.


I do love the feedback on it, though, and I'm not even a designer or a game balancer, so my word is moot and boot, I want to see other people's ideas and hear what they have in mind. Lot of you have been playing this game for forever and I know some of you got a 'Why isn't this...' 'Wouldn't it be cool if...'

[Inky]

There are all pretty neat.