Wizard Spell Concept

[frod]

Why not forget the whole prefix/suffix thing and make it so you can combine any 2 words?

Doesn't seem as smooth.

Prefix is the modifier, Suffix is the spell type.

[Erik]

Fire Shield: Will set mobs that attempt to harm the current user on fire.
Ice Shield: Will encase mobs that attempt to harm the current user in ice.
Water Shield: Will leave a small ?x? trail of water behild to slip people.
Thunder Shield: Will shock mobs that attempt to harm the current user.
Explosion Shield: Will cause a small explosion that scales with damage when someone attempts to harm the user.
Mini Shield: Will encase the user in a 4x4 force field.
Maxi Shield: Will encase the user in a 8x8 force field.
Fire Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE fire flash on both the source and destination locations.
Ice Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE cryostylane grenade style effect around the source and destination.
Water Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause the area around the source and destination to become slippery.
Thunder Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE shock grenade style effect around the source and destination.
Implosion Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE Liquid dark matter style effect around the source and destination.
Explosion Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE stun around both the source and destination locations.

[Noah Buttes]

Implosion Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE Liquid dark matter style effect around the source and destination.

That seems incredibly self destructive

[frod]

Implosion Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE Liquid dark matter style effect around the source and destination.

That seems incredibly self destructive

Hey, Certain combos don't have to be particularly effective or helpful...

[ZeWaka]

Hey, Certain combos don't have to be particularly effective or helpful...

Yeah it would be cool if you chose a really bad combo it would backfire on you for thinking of something so horrible.

[VictorMAngoStein]

Aside from being combinatorial hell to test, I don't know how you'd handle more ambiguous terms like "Mini Touch" or "Strength Warp" or "Implosion Infuse".

mini touch-shrink whoever you touch

strength warp-telefrag ("The wizard tears his way out of joe pubby's stomach!")

Implosion infuse-lliquid dark matter in the victim's bloodstream

[Frank_Stein]

Fire Shield: Will set mobs that attempt to harm the current user on fire.
Ice Shield: Will encase mobs that attempt to harm the current user in ice.
Water Shield: Will leave a small ?x? trail of water behild to slip people.
Thunder Shield: Will shock mobs that attempt to harm the current user.
Explosion Shield: Will cause a small explosion that scales with damage when someone attempts to harm the user.
Mini Shield: Will encase the user in a 4x4 force field.
Maxi Shield: Will encase the user in a 8x8 force field.
Fire Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE fire flash on both the source and destination locations.
Ice Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE cryostylane grenade style effect around the source and destination.
Water Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause the area around the source and destination to become slippery.
Thunder Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE shock grenade style effect around the source and destination.
Implosion Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE Liquid dark matter style effect around the source and destination.
Explosion Warp: Allows the user to teleport to pre-defined locations, will cause a small AOE stun around both the source and destination locations.

The thing about that is I think there's a bit of a sameness going on with those spells. I think the prefixes should add more to the spell other than the flavor of the method.

Fire could be generally offensive, and all spells with that prefix could tend to be more aggressive
Ice could be more defensive, and add that element

So "Fire Shield" could be a more offensive kinda shield, like a wall of flame surrounding the wizard, burning up things that cross it while "Ice Shield" is something more like thick ice covering the wizard that has to be chipped away or melted before they take damage.

"Fire Warp" could be turning the wizard into a ball of flame, igniting things along their warp path, while "Ice Warp" leaves a frosty trail behind to give pursers the literal slip

---

Also, maybe there should be a whole element kinda thing going on here, since we have Fire and Water there. I imagine you could use some botany shit for Earth, since Kudzu would make a decent Earth Shield and Killer Tomatoes/Maneaters Earth Golems

[ottumon]

can't wait to use explosion touch and blow myself up with my target

[frod]

can't wait to use explosion touch and blow myself up with my target

That'd probably end up something mundane as shocking grasp.

[Vitatroll]

With the original list that's 72 different spell effects. Seventy-two spell effects to come up with. Seventy-two spell effects to code. Seventy-two spell effects to balance. The idea you had is super neat, I love it, but it sounds like a nightmare on the back end.

"...but vita" you say, "imcoder and am willing to code all seventy-two effects!" Great, now balance them. You can't have them on the same reset as people would just use the most useful version. Making prefix and suffix power standardized isn't really an option either. The only option I can think of is to make prefix power so minor that it basically amounts to flavor with little difference between full spells.

Ugh. I hate being downer-dude. :saddowns:

[frod]

Alot of them would be minor variations with a few tweaks. i don't see it being that excessively hard. Balance can come from the Timers on prefix and suffix. Min/Maxing is always going to be a thing, but this would at least give silly gimmicks like clown-wizard or fire-starter a chance.

[frod]

Golems!

Fire Golem:
Heat Immunity Aura Effect (for visual flair).
Burn damage instead of brute.
On punch the chemicals are injected heated with a chance of being ignited in container(is this possible in a body like it is with fuel tanks and the like?)
Drawback The chemicals in the golem actively burn off (tic down slowly) and the golem poofs into flame when it reaches 0.

Ice/Water Golem:
Cold Immunity Aura Effect (for visual flair).
Punches Have a side effect of Lowering body temp slightly
Limited aggro range, ~3 tiles away.
When idle, the golem 'melts down' via phase shift animation and becomes a wet floor sprite.
Drawbacks: Electrical sources do more damage.

Earth Golem:
Big, Slow, Hits like a Hulk with knockback. Berserker so it hits anyone in range, regardless of who it's targeting.
Drawbacks: Slow as fuck, so it's easily outrun and taken down with ranged weapons, you just really don't want to get in and melee this guy.

Shadow/Darkness Golem:
Spawns looking like a regular crew member.
Attacks Do normal brute, Doesn't inject chems
On death they Puff their chems everywhere.

Chaos/Clown Golem:
3x Mini Golems!
Each one has ~40-50% the health of a full golem, Does only 40-50% of the damage and volume of inject too.
Fast, weak, numerous.

[Noah Buttes]

Chaos/Clown Golem:
3x Mini Golems!
Each one has ~40-50% the health of a full golem, Does only 40-50% of the damage and volume of inject too.
Fast, weak, numerous.

This would nightmarishly powerful in the right hands.

[frod]

Chaos/Clown Golem:
3x Mini Golems!
Each one has ~40-50% the health of a full golem, Does only 40-50% of the damage and volume of inject too.
Fast, weak, numerous.

This would nightmarishly powerful in the right hands.

All of them are. My personal favorite is the Water golem. Turns him entirely into a pit trap.

[Frank_Stein]

With the original list that's 72 different spell effects. Seventy-two spell effects to come up with. Seventy-two spell effects to code. Seventy-two spell effects to balance. The idea you had is super neat, I love it, but it sounds like a nightmare on the back end.

"...but vita" you say, "imcoder and am willing to code all seventy-two effects!" Great, now balance them. You can't have them on the same reset as people would just use the most useful version. Making prefix and suffix power standardized isn't really an option either. The only option I can think of is to make prefix power so minor that it basically amounts to flavor with little difference between full spells.

Ugh. I hate being downer-dude. :saddowns:

I really don't see that as being an impossible task, especially if you can somehow incorporate the already existing spells into this system.

The more daunting task is settling on the right list of Prefixes and Suffixes to do this without giving yourself a ton of extra work. Some are obvious, like Magic Missile, Fireball, and Ice burst being "Missile" "Fire Missile" and "Ice Missile" respectively but then you gotta think about how Bull's Charge or Empower fit into this system without adding more suffixes or prefixes which you then gotta come up with more effects for.

Which means either dropping some spells for new ones, limiting spell combos into valid combinations, or having bad combinations do something else