About reagents for spellcasting. Which system do you prefer?

[laclongquan]

I chose reagents never required.
In theory, you can design a magic system where reagents make sense and can even be fun to acquire - especially for strong rituals.

But in practice, all that games (especially PC games) have done is that you need to carry X amount of Y in your inventory and then you can cast Z.
It's stupidly mundane busywork that is impossible to mess up as a player and you'll always have enough anyway - systems like that should just be removed altogether.
It's the equivalent of ammo counting in games that never actually make ammo a scarcity.

You know what type of modders/developers we call you? Caterer to easy gamers, that's what.

What is it that a lot of games has you carry heavy guns and heavier reloads just so you can BOOM, RPG!!! with the best of them...

Then when you guys turn to magic and all you can think of "free, zero preparation BOOM".

What the fuck? You know what name we call easy-to-get satisfaction feature? Best way to get gamers dropped your products.

A 8-nuke MIRV strike is orgasm because you have to carry that mother of a big ass weapon, then 8 nukes, then finding a place with lots of target... That's when you can launch a mini Jericho-strike.

A Fireball, or Delayed Fireball, with zero cost, is nothing get ooooh-aaaaaah about~

 

[Norfleet]

I think it really depends more on how the matter is treated than whether or not they exist. Functionally, reagents are just ammo. Is there any mechanism that distinguishes them specifically from mana? If you have mana, then you don't actually need a second layer of ammo system. In all cases, anything you're going to use, much like bullets, are going to be relatively common. If it's not common, you will never use it, because we all know how hoarding in an RPG goes. And so if the player is expected to never use it, why even have it in the game? As an easymode crutch?

 

[Stavrophore]

I can see how reagents could make the dev life easier with balancing, but im stalwart adherent of magic being innate ability of the sorcerer, hence no reagents needed.

 

[laclongquan]

I can see how reagents could make the dev life easier with balancing, but im stalwart adherent of magic being innate ability of the sorcerer, hence no reagents needed.

In which case the cost of spells would be how long, and how easy, to replenish spell. Sleep? Cost of sleep? Stamina? Cost to restore stamina? Mana? Cost to restore stamina?

Simplicity is just a word to cover for lazy designs~

 

[Cryomancer]

innate ability of the sorcerer,

Of the sorcerer(in post 3e D&D style), he was born with magic power in his veins. However, if I'm playing an game set in Conan universe, then magic needs to be rare, unatural, otherworldly, ritualistic and dangerous. Just my opinion.

 

[NecroLord]

I think only highly elaborate and complex spells should require reagents. For example a Resurrection spell. You try to resurrect a fallen comrade,you have to "pay" a certain price. You also have to remember that a soul can refuse to return to the world of the living. Maybe it's because it is happy and living in a state of utter bliss(the Upper Planes). Why would it want to come back? Maybe it has become the plaything and tool of evil deities,devils or demons,who will never relinquish their claim over their souls.
And let's not forget about spells such as Wish(who can absolutely destroy you,depending on your choice of words at the time of casting,not to mention the rather steep XP cost) and Miracle(one of the most powerful spells in D&D,easier to use than Wish,but is also dependent on the alignment of your deity for some of its more powerful effects).

Also,I never really liked Mana. Arcanum had fatigue,similar to Mana,but makes more sense,the more you cast spells,the more tired and exhausted you will become.

 

[laclongquan]

In the old time, BG vanilla I think. In the old time, a resurrection mean you have carry that heavy corpse to the nearest temple, which can be quite far. Then some muthafuka of a developer invent a bright idea of resurrection scrolls. Then some other (or maybe same) muthafuka of a developer invent a even brighter idea of resurrection spells. From cheap to Free resurrection! FREE!

You know why JA2 is a better tactical/strategical game than, say, IWD1/2? One important bonus point is that a near-death merc would need a helo-dropped onto a hospital site and sit there for a week. It's also one reason why Fallout Tactics Brotherhood of Steel is just a barely successor to JA2 and not replacing it outright~ Because FTBOS has readily available highest level of healing and nothing like a medical clinic/hospital feature.

 

[Dadd]

Reagents (or their analogs) should have different properties depending on the location they come from, and these properties should affect spells accordingly.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

then magic needs to be rare, unatural, otherworldly, ritualistic and dangerous. Just my opinion.

This is probably how it should be in any setting. It's more fun that way.

 

[Norfleet]

In the old time, BG vanilla I think. In the old time, a resurrection mean you have carry that heavy corpse to the nearest temple, which can be quite far. Then some muthafuka of a developer invent a bright idea of resurrection scrolls. Then some other (or maybe same) muthafuka of a developer invent a even brighter idea of resurrection spells. From cheap to Free resurrection! FREE!

You know why JA2 is a better tactical/strategical game than, say, IWD1/2?

Because people die when they are killed? And I guess their magic system has reagents. To cast "fireball", you need a grenade as a material component, and if you want a greater fireball, you need a LAW. Delayed Blast Fireball consumes dynamite as material component.

 

[The Avatar]

As a generic fantasy RPG, I'd rather have no reagents just for the sake of smoother gameplay and less micromanagement. That said, I think it would be neat to have an ars-magica style wizard simulator game where spell components(and collecting them) are a core feature of the game. The closest game I can think of like this is SpellCraft: Aspects of Valor, an old DOS game almost no one remembers.

 

[Cryomancer]

SpellCraft: Aspects of Valor

I will check this game. Seems interesting by the name.

 

[Norfleet]

As a generic fantasy RPG, I'd rather have no reagents just for the sake of smoother gameplay and less micromanagement. That said, I think it would be neat to have an ars-magica style wizard simulator game where spell components(and collecting them) are a core feature of the game. The closest game I can think of like this is SpellCraft: Aspects of Valor, an old DOS game almost no one remembers.

They would also have to be reagents that are somehow valuable and not incredibly abundant, too. Low-end D&D reagents to be purely symbolic: They aren't in any way valuable, so manifesting them as objects in the world would either be lagtastic or make them artificially scarce for no logical reason, and the concept "exists" purely to give you the option to take them away entirely (by throwing the character in prison, for instance), rather than to specifically limit standard usage. Of course, when the material component is rat poop, you can probably find that in prison, too. So maybe the goal is just to make wizards gross and unsanitary.

 

[laclongquan]

Too valuable and players would hesitate to use them at will.

The kind of value as in Morrowind should be enough, I think~

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd like to see some RPGs with magic that is rare, difficult to use, and powerful. Reagents that are hard to acquire would be part of this.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Reagents never required Votes: 21 33.3%

bunch of fucking casuals

 

[Cryomancer]

This is probably how it should be in any setting. It's more fun that way.

I don't think so. In an pure historical settings, magic should't even exist. Same with a cyberpunk setting. Also don't see any problem with very high magical settings, like Netheril: Empire of Magic. But yes, very low magical settings and historical settings are underrepresentated in CRPGs.

Too valuable and players would hesitate to use them at will.

And what is the problem? Powerful spells like AD&D stoneskin needs to have the player hesitating to use it hence needs to cost something like Diamond Dust.

Reagents never required Votes: 21 33.3%

bunch of fucking casuals

Yep. Din't expected this to be the most popular option in freaking Codex!!!

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

This is probably how it should be in any setting. It's more fun that way.

I don't think so. In an pure historical settings, magic should't even exist. Same with a cyberpunk setting. Also don't see any problem with very high magical settings, like Netheril: Empire of Magic. But yes, very low magical settings and historical settings are underrepresentated in CRPGs.

High magical settings? Like Lord of the Rings? I don't see any fireballs out of nowhere or characters casting timestop for 9 seconds. The magic there is more like the medieval/historical western conception of magic being taken from spells, rituals, Illusions, Enchantments, and contact with otherworldly entities or are divine powers of certain races like Gandalf and Saruman (Both are from the Ainur race and this is where they get their magic from). That's excluding whatever chemistry is there of course. Even in this high magic setting, it's actually magic, not just a stand-in for artillery or deus ex mechina as a character ability. No fireballs out of nowhere or storms conjured up by some random guy who's only notable feature is that they read magic books for an hour.

 

[Cryomancer]

Like Lord of the Rings?

Like Eberron, Mystara, Faerun, Warhammer fantasy, GURPS technomancer, Ars Magica or ... talking books, harry potter, Dying Earth and other vance's novels... I would classify "Shadow and Bone" as mid magical.

About weather changing spells, GURPS did a much better implementation of such spells. Learning them is incredible hard and casting them, takes an extremely long time and effort. Also depends in the weather. For eg, in Ushuaia or in Northern part of Canada, casting hailstorm is much more easy than in a freaking desert.

But more ""spectacular"" types of magic do appear in some legends, folktales and myths. In Norse mythology, Fafnir become cursed and transformed into an dragon which would be D&D equivalent to an 9th tier spell + permanency. Odin could shape reality by merely speaking, similar to "wish" spell. If Odin says "an river of magma appeared bellow my enemy feet", that would happen.

One "kit" which I always wanted to play in AD&D but never played is ths shadow mage. It loses evocation and hence can't be an living arcane artillery. Is better used for infiltration and stuff like that. I do agree that the excessive focus on "blasting" magic is boring. In Dark Sun, you can cast spells like fireball? Yes, but no one does that as it draws too much attention and people hate magic users there.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Like Lord of the Rings?

Like Eberron, Mystara, Faerun, Warhammer fantasy, GURPS technomancer, Ars Magica or ... talking books, harry potter, Dying Earth and other vance's novels... I would classify "Shadow and Bone" as mid magical.

Meh. Those settings are just the marvel universe of their respective holding companies. Terrible settings and not intended to take seriously in any way.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

But more ""spectacular"" types of magic do appear in some legends, folktales and myths. In Norse mythology, Fafnir become cursed and transformed into an dragon which would be D&D equivalent to an 9th tier spell + permanency. Odin could shape reality by merely speaking, similar to "wish" spell. If Odin says "an river of magma appeared bellow my enemy feet", that would happen.

Odin and the mythical creatures were supposed to be gods (non-human, special guy) or their enemies. Otherwordly beings who could do things like this due to their nature. Whereas the human wizard is stuck to spells, illusions, rituals, and enchantments all dependent on these otherwordly creatures or chemistry & craftiness for their magic.

This is of course dismissing the fact that Norse legends were just bardic tales and skalds would just make up variations on the spot to try to make their stories more entertaining for their audiences.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Reagents never required Votes: 21 33.3%

bunch of fucking casuals

Yep. Din't expected this to be the most popular option in freaking Codex!!!

It's not the most popular because it's retarded or at least, its execution would be in 99% of the RPG games games games going for it.

No wonder Rusty likes that shit, it's probably a MMO feature.
After this, his next preferred feature would be farming monsters or harvesting and crafting systems to get the rare reagents for spells.
And before you know it, the game has nothing to do with the RPG genre.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Reagents never required Votes: 21 33.3%

bunch of fucking casuals

Yep. Din't expected this to be the most popular option in freaking Codex!!!

It's not the most popular because it's retarded or at least, its execution would be in 99% of the RPG games games games going for it.

No wonder Rusty likes that shit, it's probably a MMO feature.
After this, his next preferred feature would be farming monsters or harvesting and crafting systems to get the rare reagents for spells.
And before you know it, the game has nothing to do with the RPG genre.

have you ever considered you don't actually like RPGs but instead you like tactical games and that's why you hate anything that's actually about roleplaying rather than rollplaying?

you're crying about a wizard having to obtain rare reagents to use magic, there's no way you actually like RPGs.
What's next? The warrior might have to delve into dungeons to find a good sword? The horror!

 

[Darth Canoli]

have you ever considered you don't actually like RPGs but instead you like tactical games and that's why you hate anything that's actually about roleplaying rather than rollplaying?

you're crying about a wizard having to obtain rare reagents to use magic, there's no way you actually like RPGs.
What's next? The warrior might have to delve into dungeons to find a good sword? The horror!

Sure I do, but I also like good RPG and it doesn't include simulations nor MMO or mobile games.

You might not know this but I play a lot of games, or at least, try them, most of the time, under 30 minutes because 90% of the games out there with a RPG tag on steam are just mixing as much genre as they can hoping their game will be the second coming and of course, it doesn't work like this.
Most devs have no idea about what they're doing and they're releasing mobile garbage quality games.

And apparently you don't either because you're last sentence is just idiotic, everyone but the devs releasing that garbage knows the only good way to get a sword is in a dungeon or as a quest reward and yet, look at BG 2 and all the +3 weapons you can buy.

In PK, you can get a +2 or +3 scyte in a village's garbage bin.

So, adding ingredients to cast spells isn't going to make a game any better, just the opposite, it'll just add the the retarded features bloat list.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

have you ever considered you don't actually like RPGs but instead you like tactical games and that's why you hate anything that's actually about roleplaying rather than rollplaying?

you're crying about a wizard having to obtain rare reagents to use magic, there's no way you actually like RPGs.
What's next? The warrior might have to delve into dungeons to find a good sword? The horror!

Sure I do, but I also like good RPG and it doesn't include simulations nor MMO or mobile games.

You might not know this but I play a lof of games, or at least, try them, most of the time, not for long because 90% of the games out there with a RPG tag on steam are just mixing as much genre as they can hoping their game will be the second coming and of course, it doesn't work like this.
Most devs have no idea about what they're doing.

And apparently you don't either because you're last sentence is just idiotic, everyone but the devs releasing that garbage knows the only good way to get a sword is in a dungeon or as a quest reward and yet, look at BG 2 and all the +3 weapons you can buy.

In PK, you can get a +2 or +3 scyte in a village's garbage bin.

So, adding ingredients to cast spells isn't going to make a game any better, just the opposite, it'll just add the the retarded features bloat list.

so are you actually going to provide an argument beyond "I don't like it because it triggers my autism"?