More exotic spells in RPGs.

[Sharpedge]

Despite how much the original poster dislikes Larian games, they do in fact feature several exotic abilities. Shackles of Pain, Chicken Claw, Rupture Tendons, Teleport, all of the various movement skills, Terrain Transformation, etc.

NoX has some spells which exist in other games, but because of the nature of NoX (it features action combat) the implementation of the spells feels rather exotic. Reflective Shield for example, which reflects enemies spells back to them provided you are orientated correctly relative to the incoming spell. Counterspell requiring being cast within a certain window of time relative to an enemy caster throwing a spell at you. Wizards also have Anchors, teleports, Walls and Wizard Traps. There are probably a bunch of spells in NoX I am forgetting, Wizard gameplay in NoX is great.

 

[Cryomancer]

Using it for warfare and the betterment of civilization? Pft, make my dick giant and sentient please.

You would love FATAL spells...

Teleport

Teleport is not that exotic, there are countless games with short range teleportation and long range, but yes, interesting other spells. As for disliking Larian, is cuz their games are too "modern"

s that they're redundant: melee-focused shapes are pointless because if I wanted to play a melee character, I'd have rolled a fighte

Disagreed. Using that logic, ice magical arrow and a normal arrow are both "redundant".

Also, not all transformations needs to be melee transformations. to use a very popamole example, in Skyrim, vampire lords are mostly about spells while werewolves are all about melee.

 

[Sykar]

Shapeshifting sorely needs to be made cooler, I never play druid because you fart about for 7-15 levels as some gay dog or a cat, which is better but I wanna turn into a gorilla and other much cooler animals and not have to wait an eternity to do that.

The overwhelming problem with shapeshifting spells in CRPGs that they're redundant: melee-focused shapes are pointless because if I wanted to play a melee character, I'd have rolled a fighter. And magic-focused shaped are mostly pointless because their abilities are typically redoubled by spells. Serpent in the Staglands, the mess of a game that it was, had some nice ideas for shapeshifting like non-combat shapes (cat, bat) that allowed you access to difficult to reach places or facilitating fleeing/scouting, or a shape that made your magic even more powerful at the expense of defence (though it works better on paper since defence is the single most important thing in the game). But other than that and Blood Omen (not an RPG) I can't really think of good shapeshifting examples.
Same goes for transforming enemies into something. Cool graphic, but what's the mechanical point? Either it's a simple debuff (turninig enemies into chicken in DOS2) or an instakill (turning enemies into toadstools in Realms of Arkania).

The problem is that they are often underpowered. The idea of shapeshifting is also to give a weak melee fighter a decent possibility to survive melee and deal some damage.

 

[gurugeorge]

Isn't this again (like many other things we complain about here) an artifact of the double-edged sword of graphics improvements?

When you have some shitty pixels that you can barely see what the fucking thing is anyway, you can do anything, as many older games did, but if you have to have a whole pipeline devoted to lovingly rendering whatever's happening on-screen, it backhandedly discourages variety and innovation.

 

[Glop_dweller]

I used to have a blast in Baldur's Gate, where I'd polymorph the werewolves on the Sword Coast into squirrels. Later on when they'd go hostile, these tiny rodents would hilariously burst into full size werewolves.

Just something to do...

 

[Baron Dupek]

I'm trying to remember--was there ever a game that did a good job implementing wall type spells (wall of fire, wall of ice, etc.)?

Those open up some interesting tactical possibilities (e.g. blocking off part of a room so enemies can't attack you from behind).

Path of Exile have Wall of Ice that blocks you, or enemies, from reaching target. Essential for areas with deadly mods. Obnoxious when you clean maps and get spammed by this crap.
Flame Wall - not a big thing, but combined with fire projectiles (arrows, fireball) creates deadly missles that can spread fire in the area faster, or burn toughter enemies, applying various debuffs. You can also convert part of the fire to chaos to make things more spicy.

 

[Absinthe]

NoX has some spells which exist in other games, but because of the nature of NoX (it features action combat) the implementation of the spells feels rather exotic. Reflective Shield for example, which reflects enemies spells back to them provided you are orientated correctly relative to the incoming spell. Counterspell requiring being cast within a certain window of time relative to an enemy caster throwing a spell at you. Wizards also have Anchors, teleports, Walls and Wizard Traps. There are probably a bunch of spells in NoX I am forgetting, Wizard gameplay in NoX is great.

Mostly you're missing Swap Location, Invisibility, Invulnerability (can't attack enemies while invuln though), Inversion (sends spells in flight back at caster, depending on the spell), Telekinesis, and the fact that Drain Mana is actually a very useful part of being a Wizard. Conjurers get fun summons and spells like Fist of Vengeance, Force of Nature, and Toxic Cloud though.

Isn't this again (like many other things we complain about here) an artifact of the double-edged sword of graphics improvements?

When you have some shitty pixels that you can barely see what the fucking thing is anyway, you can do anything, as many older games did, but if you have to have a whole pipeline devoted to lovingly rendering whatever's happening on-screen, it backhandedly discourages variety and innovation.

At least half the problem there is just having a slow and cumbersome pipeline instead of something that allows you to quickly iterate designs. People underestimate how much better pipeline optimization and automation can improve your ability to make good games.

Path of Exile have Wall of Ice that blocks you, or enemies, from reaching target. Essential for areas with deadly mods.

Frost Wall has a CD now and whereas it used to block projectiles, they nerfed that so that projectiles just ignore the damn thing, so no more using Frost Walls for bouncing sparks or exploding fireballs. If you want to just deal with enemies with deadly mods, use a Conversion Trap + Multiple Traps support and you can just mind control a few into joining your side and watch the mobs kill each other.

 

[Storyfag]

Isn't this again (like many other things we complain about here) an artifact of the double-edged sword of graphics improvements?

When you have some shitty pixels that you can barely see what the fucking thing is anyway, you can do anything, as many older games did, but if you have to have a whole pipeline devoted to lovingly rendering whatever's happening on-screen, it backhandedly discourages variety and innovation.

Ben getting this feeling for quite some time now. Not unlike how full voice acting reduced true interactivity to much simplified loops.

 

[gurugeorge]

Isn't this again (like many other things we complain about here) an artifact of the double-edged sword of graphics improvements?

When you have some shitty pixels that you can barely see what the fucking thing is anyway, you can do anything, as many older games did, but if you have to have a whole pipeline devoted to lovingly rendering whatever's happening on-screen, it backhandedly discourages variety and innovation.

Ben getting this feeling for quite some time now. Not unlike how full voice acting reduced true interactivity to much simplified loops.

ikr? I mean in an ideal world, one dreams of something with everything beautifully rendered in detail and wonderfully voice-acted, but in practice the closer you approach any sort of ideal, the more and more it costs. At best, you get a compromise. But I suppose that's just life and part of the challenge of making great games.

 

[Sharpedge]

Mostly you're missing Swap Location, Invisibility, Invulnerability (can't attack enemies while invuln though), Inversion (sends spells in flight back at caster, depending on the spell), Telekinesis, and the fact that Drain Mana is actually a very useful part of being a Wizard. Conjurers get fun summons and spells like Fist of Vengeance, Force of Nature, and Toxic Cloud though.

Yeah that covers most of them. I seem to recall Obliteration (the suicide spell, I think that was what it was called) also being useful in some situations when used in traps and it is fairly exotic as well. The push and pull spells are also something you don't see in many games. There are very few games where playing a caster feels as good as it does in NoX.

Other spells which you don't see in many games include Levitation/Water Breathing/Detect Key. (These are all in Elder Scrolls games, but not many games other than them implement them, mostly because most RPGs don't do 3 dimensions.) Morrowind also has a more exotic implementation of the calm humanoid spell, where calming humanoids is actually useful and either allows you to actually play the game as a vampire, or it allows you to talk to specific NPCs that are hostile by default, some of which have quests (or are skill trainers) that you would otherwise be completely unable to obtain without the spell. In most games this would just be a generic mind control spell which does little else.

The Paradox Mage in Tales of Maj'Eyal is, in general a fairly exotic spellcaster. Its similar in flavor to a wild mage, but with a temporal theme. The idea being that the class manipulates time with its main class resource being Paradox. Casting spells increases the Paradox and the higher your Paradox, the more likely it is that temporal anomalies (either major or minor anomalies) will occur, similar to wild surges. Some of its spells include spells like Dimensional Anchor (which prevents enemies from being able to teleport while they are near you), Twist Fate (which allows you to prevent an anomaly from triggering for a short while, but allows you to selectively trigger it) or See the Threads (which allows you to create 3 possible timelines, stretching up to 16 turns into the future, then pick the one you prefer). There are quite a few novel ideas in this game, so if you are looking for interesting classes its worth giving it a play.

Perhaps simultaneously both the most novel spell and the spell I have seen with the least practical application is the Apportation spell from D:OS 2, which picks up items in an area around you.

 

[octavius]

I'm trying to remember--was there ever a game that did a good job implementing wall type spells (wall of fire, wall of ice, etc.)?

Those open up some interesting tactical possibilities (e.g. blocking off part of a room so enemies can't attack you from behind).

Nahlakh and The Earth Lords had wall type of spells, the former in the shape of rocks or trees, the latter metal walls.

 

[vortex]

I've read the title as "More erotic spells in RPGs". Well that's quite normal codex thread feed.

 

[V_K]

The overwhelming problem with shapeshifting spells in CRPGs that they're redundant: melee-focused shapes are pointless because if I wanted to play a melee character, I'd have rolled a fighter.

That's more of a problem if all fighter-types are functionally identical. It's possible to build up variance between melee weapons and builds, as well as give animals slightly unusual abilities. If you give a basic panther form night vision, stealth bonuses, a special ambush attack from stealth, higher movement speed, and a leaping attack to pounce on enemies from a small distance then even if they are disadvantaged against spears and shields and not as good at damage as a dedicated warrior type, it still has its uses in many situations.

The problem is that they are often underpowered. The idea of shapeshifting is also to give a weak melee fighter a decent possibility to survive melee and deal some damage.

That creates the opposite problem: if shapes are more powerful and/or more flexible than melee classes, then what's the point of melee classes?
We're also talking about CRPG situation where there's a closed economy of resources (all effects have to be pre-coded, have their animations etc.), which makes the cost-benefit ratio for having unique shapes with unique abilities rather high.

Disagreed. Using that logic, ice magical arrow and a normal arrow are both "redundant".

Depends on the implementation. If both are in unlimited supply and just deal damage, then very much yes. In fact, mages being unimaginative reskinned gunmen is a very common criticism of RPG magic systems.
On the other hand, special arrows in DOS were mechanically different enough from mage skills (they were a finite resource, but not cooldown-restricted) that it justified their inclusion in the game.

 

[Sykar]

The overwhelming problem with shapeshifting spells in CRPGs that they're redundant: melee-focused shapes are pointless because if I wanted to play a melee character, I'd have rolled a fighter.

That's more of a problem if all fighter-types are functionally identical. It's possible to build up variance between melee weapons and builds, as well as give animals slightly unusual abilities. If you give a basic panther form night vision, stealth bonuses, a special ambush attack from stealth, higher movement speed, and a leaping attack to pounce on enemies from a small distance then even if they are disadvantaged against spears and shields and not as good at damage as a dedicated warrior type, it still has its uses in many situations.

The problem is that they are often underpowered. The idea of shapeshifting is also to give a weak melee fighter a decent possibility to survive melee and deal some damage.

That creates the opposite problem: if shapes are more powerful and/or more flexible than melee classes, then what's the point of melee classes?
We're also talking about CRPG situation where there's a closed economy of resources (all effects have to be pre-coded, have their animations etc.), which makes the cost-benefit ratio for having unique shapes with unique abilities rather high.

Disagreed. Using that logic, ice magical arrow and a normal arrow are both "redundant".

Depends on the implementation. If both are in unlimited supply and just deal damage, then very much yes. In fact, mages being unimaginative reskinned gunmen is a very common criticism of RPG magic systems.
On the other hand, special arrows in DOS were mechanically different enough from mage skills (they were a finite resource, but not cooldown-restricted) that it justified their inclusion in the game.

There is no problem unless magic is limitless.

 

[Absinthe]

Yeah that covers most of them. I seem to recall Obliteration (the suicide spell, I think that was what it was called) also being useful in some situations when used in traps and it is fairly exotic as well. The push and pull spells are also something you don't see in many games. There are very few games where playing a caster feels as good as it does in NoX.

Yeah, but Push and Pull spells are of marginal benefit. You can try to Push for some distance from a Warrior but Pull is pretty limited. Telekinesis also does a bit of both, and can be extremely obnoxious if you stack TK like 10 times at which point you can just move your cursor and fly across the map or send a Warrior far away. It's not a particularly popular spell though, because making enemies fly away from your cursor ruins your ability to land Death Rays and makes targeting enemies in general more of a bitch. Obliteration is the suicide spell, yes, but manually casting it is pretty rare and there are ways to counter it iirc. You generally want a Slow or Stun to go with it so they can't run out of the AoE first, but the main stunt is to try to catch people with their pants down.

That creates the opposite problem: if shapes are more powerful and/or more flexible than melee classes, then what's the point of melee classes?
We're also talking about CRPG situation where there's a closed economy of resources (all effects have to be pre-coded, have their animations etc.), which makes the cost-benefit ration for having unique shapes with unique abilities rather high.

If melee classes are more powerful and shapeshifting is more flexible, then it's just a different way to doing much the same shit magic usually does: give a basket of flexible options the warrior does not have. If shapeshifting is more powerful and less flexible, then the warrior still gets advantages on average vs shapeshifting (but you may want to check that the sum total of shapeshifting and spellcasting options doesn't render warriors' flexibility advantage into a disadvantage). If it's both, then we balance it by usually attaching some kind of price to it, so that resource management becomes a concern. In general I'm fine with shapeshifting having niche capabilities and some power while warrior-types have more abilities to do helpful things in the battlefield.

 

[V_K]

it's just a different way to doing much the same shit

Which is the definition of redundancy.

 

[Absinthe]

it's just a different way to doing much the same shit

Which is the definition of redundancy.

Today, I have discovered the Codex does not have a facepalm emote.

Don't be a moron. It's only redundant if you genuinely make spells and shapeshifting forms that do the same shit.

EDIT: Yes, there's a facepalm rating, but no facepalm emote.

 

[Cryomancer]

de Levitation/Water Breathing/Detect Key. (These are all in Elder Scrolls games, but not many games other than them implement them, mostly because most RPGs don't do 3 dimensions.)

Ironically, I can think more in early 90s RPG's with such spells than modern RPG's.

Eye of the Beholder 3 underwater antimagical zones where a pain in the ***. And in Menzoberranzan/Ravenloft : Stone Prophet, you need levitation and jump to complete the game. In Stone prophet, there is a part where you need a speak with animals spell too.

 

[V_K]

It's only redundant if you genuinely make spells and shapeshifting forms that do the same shit.

You're just not thinking it through. Say you have a dragon shape with a fire breath attack. Even if your game doesn't have a fireball spell, that attack is still indistinguishable from it. So what's the point of having a dragon shape if the same effect could be achieved by having a fireball spell? Same goes for melee abilities.
It works better in PnP where turning into a dragon could give you a lot of other contextual options - but in a CRPG you'll just end up with a reskinned fire mage.

 

[Absinthe]

At that stage it's a matter of stylistic preference. Also, usually a fire breath doesn't take the form of a fireball and has a different range and spread. Generally you're going to give a dragon shape more than just an ability to breathe fire though. It also has wings, claws, and a tail, plus the ability to bite enemies.

 

[JarlFrank]

Need more sex spells. You know if magic was real, the bigger half of it would be devoted to weird, sexy shit.

Using it for warfare and the betterment of civilization? Pft, make my dick giant and sentient please.

FATAL has the best damage spell: Perpetual Orgasm.

It makes the target orgasm forever, which leads to a heart attack after a couple of minutes.

 

[Cryomancer]

Need more sex spells. You know if magic was real, the bigger half of it would be devoted to weird, sexy shit.

Using it for warfare and the betterment of civilization? Pft, make my dick giant and sentient please.

FATAL has the best damage spell: Perpetual Orgasm.

It makes the target orgasm forever, which leads to a heart attack after a couple of minutes.

FATAL has some really creepy spells like "warm her corpse" or some shit like that. Also had crazy rules, like tables to calculate the chances of your sex slave be impregnated. And don't forget. Roll for anal circumference!!!

 

[Fowyr]

Exile 3 had a lot of great spells. Mind duel that allowed you (if you had certain material component) to leech mana from enemy wizards (or lose it yourself). Summoning of the previously soul captured monsters, Corum Jhaelen Irsei and his magic crystal eye style. Quickfire that completely destroyed any map and everything on it. A lot of the various field spells and the magic walls.
Aethra Chronicles has a lot of magical schools with the shapeshifting spells (some of them were even two-part) and other interesting magic.
Ultima Underworld has a great magic system (derived from U5's) with that Kal-Vas-Corp spell that just deleted anything on the map.
RoA has a spell that make you enemy to literally shit his pants and leave the battlefield. Very German spell.

 

[mondblut]

I'm trying to remember--was there ever a game that did a good job implementing wall type spells (wall of fire, wall of ice, etc.)?

The Exile series before Vogel ruined them with remakes.

Speaking of which, Exile had a Quickfire spell that eventually spread across the entire level, burning everything on its path, and remained active for days.

(ed: ninja'd)

Heck, popping stinking cloud or blade barrier in doorways worked splendidly even in Goldbox games.

 

[mondblut]

Need more sex spells. You know if magic was real, the bigger half of it would be devoted to weird, sexy shit.

Using it for warfare and the betterment of civilization? Pft, make my dick giant and sentient please.

Give man a whore, he'll be happy for a day. Teach man "Charm person", he'll be happy for a lifetime.