The use of magic outside of combat

[Erebus]

In PnP, magic (or psychic powers, or whatever) has countless possible uses. But in CRPGs, it's all too often limited to ways of beating the crap out of your enemies. The games just don't allow you to be creative. Of course, that doesn't just apply to magic : whereas a DM can always react to whatever idea the players come up with, the makers of a CRPG cannot think of everything in advance, and even if they could, they couldn't have their game allow every possible action the player can think of.

Still, it's quite frustrating to have these mystical powers that just don't seem to matter much outside of traditional combat.

It struck me a few days ago, when I was playing a sorcerer in a NWN2 module. Almost none of my spells had any possible use outside of combat. I could kill my enemies with fire, lightning, cold, acid or magic force, yet I couldn't use these mighty spells to destroy a wall, a floor or a plot-relevant door. I could cast plenty of protection spells, but it wouldn't really matter outside of combat. I could cast spells that affect the minds of my enemies, but not the minds of non-hostile beings that I might want to manipulate (merchants, for example...). I could summon monsters to fight for me, but not to open a chest that might be trapped, or to scout ahead, or to act as a distraction. Etc.

While it's obvious that a game cannot allow every possible use of a spell, it would be nice if magic was more often useful in non-combat situations.

There are a few spells that are meant to be used outside of combat. For instance, the invisibility spell, which can allow you to avoid combat completely. However, invisibility spells have a mysterious tendency to be completely ignored in plenty of situations.

The transportation spells usually work fine. The M&M have plenty of those : Jump, Flight, Teleportation, Lloyd's Beacon... But these spells are mostly useful for saving time or avoiding minor obstacles. In many areas where they might be really useful, they suddenly stop working.


So I'm wondering if there's any CRPG that really takes into account the mighty magical powers that your wizards/mages/sorcerers are supposed to possess, or at least gives you a few occasions to use spells in a creative way.

 

[racofer]

Oblivion allows you to be quite creative outside of combat using magic.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oblivion allows you to be quite creative outside of combat using magic.

Let me guess... this "being creative" requires lots of imagination to work? As in "I USE MY FIREBALLS TO COOK MEAT"?

 

[BethesdaLove]

I heard in Risen there is a "Miniaturize" spell that makes you fit where you would not fit otherwise.

 

[DraQ]

Morrowind and Daggerfall have a lot of useful utility spells, some of which are entirely useless in battle (like telekinesis in Morrowind), while others can be used to gain tactical advantage but are perfectly useful in non-combat situations as well.

Oblivion allows you to be quite creative outside of combat using magic.

Yeah, you can blow stray items and corpses around for amusement with FIREBALLZ!!1

 

[J1M]

As far as I know the game that has done the most with this sort of thing is Golden Sun (GBA). Spells are used out of combat to solve puzzle type problems.

 

[BethesdaLove]

Is it a good idea to open up a thread where codexers would post their magic/spells ideas for a hypothetical game?

edit

ah fuck, ill just do

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

Dragon Wars has some of this. The game is sort of a blend of the Bard's Tale series and Wasteland. There's one 'dungeon' where you have to use spells in some creative ways, and there's a couple other places where you can use magic to solve problems and open up some secrets. It doesn't hurt that its also a pretty awesome game.

 

[Sceptic]

The transportation spells usually work fine. The M&M have plenty of those : Jump, Flight, Teleportation, Lloyd's Beacon... But these spells are mostly useful for saving time or avoiding minor obstacles. In many areas where they might be really useful, they suddenly stop working.

This trend started with MM3, but in the first games the transportation spells were great. I think there was one location you could only reach with fly in either MM1 or MM2, and in both games Etherealize was absolutely required for many, many locations. And one of the most annoying mazes in MM1 (the Astral Plane) stops being a maze with that spell.

Also, Morrowind. I never use offensive spells in this game, but boy do I rely on just about every other effect.

Ironically (or perhaps not) the best games to utilize non-combat spellcasting are not RPGs, namely the Enchanter and Spellcasting trilogies. The former was particularly good.

Dragon Wars has some of this. The game is sort of a blend of the Bard's Tale series and Wasteland. There's one 'dungeon' where you have to use spells in some creative ways, and there's a couple other places where you can use magic to solve problems and open up some secrets. It doesn't hurt that its also a pretty awesome game.

That it was. Far, far better than the BT series, though sadly it never got the same success and the sequels were canned.

 

[ElectricOtter]

Also, the Detect Life spells from Morrowind were immensely helpful to stealthy characters.

 

[laclongquan]

Erebus, congratulation! You have achieved a portion of the reasons why fantasy novels and games are sneered at. The authors imagine an whole world but cant imagine all the aspects of it, all the utilities of magic, etc...

Shrug. Deal with it!

 

[JarlFrank]

Ironically (or perhaps not) the best games to utilize non-combat spellcasting are not RPGs, namely the Enchanter and Spellcasting trilogies. The former was particularly good.

 

[oldmanpaco]

The problem with spells being used outside of combat is they make the spell-casters (arcane/divine) even more powerful. These classes already have the highest int/wis and so dialog checks will almost always favor them.

Unless forced not too it is almost always wisest to play a caster in a cRPG. If spell-casting outside of combat was widely used it would make it almost a necessity unless there were counter abilities by the non-spell casters available.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

That Death Gate game apparently
http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=26469

 

[Erebus]

Unless forced not too it is almost always wisest to play a caster in a cRPG. If spell-casting outside of combat was widely used it would make it almost a necessity unless there were counter abilities by the non-spell casters available.

True enough (although magic can be used to a limited extent by non-spellcasters, in the form of magic items). However, that balance issue is also true in PnP.

Classes such as thief or ranger have access to plenty of abilities that could be used creatively outside of combat. Classes such as warrior or paladin seem to have less non-combat abilities, but they offer possibilities nevertheless.

The problem remains the same : the makers of the game would have to spend a lot of time thinking of and implementing such possibilities.

 

[JarlFrank]

Unless forced not too it is almost always wisest to play a caster in a cRPG. If spell-casting outside of combat was widely used it would make it almost a necessity unless there were counter abilities by the non-spell casters available.

True enough (although magic can be used to a limited extent by non-spellcasters, in the form of magic items). However, that balance issue is also true in PnP.

Classes such as thief or ranger have access to plenty of abilities that could be used creatively outside of combat. Classes such as warrior or paladin seem to have less non-combat abilities, but they offer possibilities nevertheless.

The problem remains the same : the makers of the game would have to spend a lot of time thinking of and implementing such possibilities.

Thinking of them shouldn't be *too* hard. It requires about the same amount of work that proper use of dialogue skills requires. In general, it just requires a certain developer mindset: wanting to give multiple paths for quests that don't revolve around fedex/foozle-slaying.

The rest comes kinda naturally. Want to get past that door? Convince the guard to let you through. Bash the door in if you're strong enough. Use a fireball if you're a mage. Use explosives if it's a scifi game. Really simplistic example, but still - how many games *do* allow you to open quest-related doors in any way that does not revolve around "kill bandits who have key, get key, open door"?

 

[Murk]

Arx Fatalis had great use of spells outside of combat. From levitation to vision to invisibility to haste. The vision spell was one of THE most useful, especially in some of the levels where torches were being used up like condoms in a whore house.

Risen had a few parts where you had to use utility spells to get through them - Nautilus to get through cracks (gothic carry over) or levitation to fly over spikes/chasms/etc. Telekinesis (almost always for switches or items).

Utility spells are fun but almost always depend on overly creative use in situations, as such, I can definitely see how implementations of the possibility of them in games is beyond headache inducing. If you wanted it to just be a case of "cast this spell now for a bonus" then... well, that happens a lot in games. NWN 2 even had an actual quest where you had to cast druidic spells and shit to progress.

But you guys don't want scripted sections, right? You want the game world to respond to the rule-set, to respond to possible interpretations of the spells functions? Like using Silent Image, a simple illusion spell, to conjure an army off in the distance to keep the local village in check while you send a death squad from the rear dressed as water merchants... (a group of wizards that loaded up on water using 'conjure water', after all... a village in siege will need water).

Yeah, stick to PnP.

... i do remember a moment in ToEE tho where I was webbed and about to get raped by a sortie of enemies where I got out by blasting them with a fireball, hurting my own guys in the process (the web lit up and damaged everyone webbed in it, but cleared the web in the process), and then charging only to die anyway. fun fight, even with the loss.

 

[mondblut]

I totally loved flight in Ravenloft 2. The game was a limited 3d and you could rise a couple of floors above ground level outdoors with flight or levitate, and with flight, quickly traverse the desert laughing at the hapless monsters below. Too bad you couldn't cast it indoors to bypass all those retarded pits and pressure plates. You could also teleport at any spot on any map providing you revealed it through the (quite generous) line of sight.

As OP noted, the utility spells are a bane of the designers who think of themselves as ingenious masterminds of devilish traps. M&M3-5 were particularly offensive; whenever you were thrown into an annoying trap with an easy way through with a particular spell, said spell mysteriously stopped working. Fuck you too, Van Caneghem. If you can't design a puzzle without breaking the rules of your own game, to hell with the puzzles.

As for summonings, that's easy - summoned creatures for the duration of the spell should function as a party member for all relevant purposes, including being a meat shield for traps etc. What, there is no party mechanics in the first place? Well, the game is already gay and nothing will salvage it anyway.

 

[commie]

I heard in Risen there is a "Miniaturize" spell that makes you fit where you would not fit otherwise.

Yep. After a few 'tutorial' locations where you get the spell pretty much just before you need to use it, there are locations where there is little hint that this spell is useful, but where you have to figure out it's utility for yourself. You can avoid combat, go into secret locations, find alternate entrances into locked crypts etc. A very neat spell.

 

[empi]

Golden Sun despite being a jRPG uses this a lot, with zelda-style puzzles. For example, you can freeze a puddle of water to create an ice column, push the column around so you can walk on top of it and access a new area.
The Realms Of Arkania series does this a fair bit. There is a spell to open locked doors/containers, teleporting spells, etc. There are also some more specific uses available, for example in RoA2 you have to enter a place where elves are banned from entry, if you have the correct spells however you can: make your elves invisable, or disguise them to make them appear as children. That's just one of the few instances off the top of my head.

 

[Sceptic]

M&M3-5 were particularly offensive; whenever you were thrown into an annoying trap with an easy way through with a particular spell, said spell mysteriously stopped working.

It didn't happen that often. I recall only a few places where both Jump and Teleport didn't work, and even there you could always rely on Etherealize.

 

[Mastermind]

Yeah, you can blow stray items and corpses around for amusement with FIREBALLZ!!1

No, you can use telekinesis to manipulate objects from a distance, open lock (actually this spell renders the lockpicking skill useless, and is probably one of the reason why a lot of rpgs don't have spells that are useful outside of combat: it renders other classes useless; why be a thief when the mage can turn invisible, open locks and activate traps on his own and his spells can kick ass a lot better than your sissy knife), improve people's disposition, boost attributes/skills (not all of which are combat only), increase weight capacity, breathe water, walk on water, create light, see in the dark. I do wish they'd bring passwall/levitation/slowfall back, but something tells me todd howard will remove even more features just to piss off the codexfags who constantly whine about shit they don't know much about.

 

[DraQ]

The problem with spells being used outside of combat is they make the spell-casters (arcane/divine) even more powerful. These classes already have the highest int/wis and so dialog checks will almost always favor them.

Bullshit. You can always balance the things out so that mages are not walking nukes in combat and *HAVE* to rely on creative solutions *IF* you make those creative solutions possible.

You can also increase usefulness of other stats - for intimidation, higher carying capacity, etc.

The problem is rarely something being overpowered, it's usually all the other stuff not being powerful/fun enough.

Unless forced not too it is almost always wisest to play a caster in a cRPG. If spell-casting outside of combat was widely used it would make it almost a necessity unless there were counter abilities by the non-spell casters available.

True enough (although magic can be used to a limited extent by non-spellcasters, in the form of magic items). However, that balance issue is also true in PnP.

Classes such as thief or ranger have access to plenty of abilities that could be used creatively outside of combat. Classes such as warrior or paladin seem to have less non-combat abilities, but they offer possibilities nevertheless.

They can intimidate, they can do heavy lifting, they should evoke more trust in many NPCs than some obviously underhanded sneak or an unpredictable wizard.

The problem remains the same : the makers of the game would have to spend a lot of time thinking of and implementing such possibilities.

Thinking of them shouldn't be *too* hard. It requires about the same amount of work that proper use of dialogue skills requires. In general, it just requires a certain developer mindset: wanting to give multiple paths for quests that don't revolve around fedex/foozle-slaying.

The rest comes kinda naturally. Want to get past that door? Convince the guard to let you through. Bash the door in if you're strong enough. Use a fireball if you're a mage. Use explosives if it's a scifi game. Really simplistic example, but still - how many games *do* allow you to open quest-related doors in any way that does not revolve around "kill bandits who have key, get key, open door"?

This. Also, if you can help it, never script, always simulate.

Utility spells are fun but almost always depend on overly creative use in situations, as such, I can definitely see how implementations of the possibility of them in games is beyond headache inducing. If you wanted it to just be a case of "cast this spell now for a bonus" then... well, that happens a lot in games. NWN 2 even had an actual quest where you had to cast druidic spells and shit to progress.

But you guys don't want scripted sections, right? You want the game world to respond to the rule-set, to respond to possible interpretations of the spells functions? Like using Silent Image, a simple illusion spell, to conjure an army off in the distance to keep the local village in check while you send a death squad from the rear dressed as water merchants... (a group of wizards that loaded up on water using 'conjure water', after all... a village in siege will need water).

Yeah, stick to PnP.

... i do remember a moment in ToEE tho where I was webbed and about to get raped by a sortie of enemies where I got out by blasting them with a fireball, hurting my own guys in the process (the web lit up and damaged everyone webbed in it, but cleared the web in the process), and then charging only to die anyway. fun fight, even with the loss.

That's why conventional RPG design is a dead end. To make all kinds of stuff happen naturally via mechanics, you can't just take the bare bones, insular ruleset of a PnP RPG. You need an in-depth simulation, preferably using 3D physics engine, and different materials, but in a pinch something Arcanum seems to have tried should work in a limited way. Think small, the build bigger building blocks out of smaller ones.

PnP rulesets can't into cRPG.

Also, Morrowind. I never use offensive spells in this game, but boy do I rely on just about every other effect.

Personally, I'm an avid offensive spellcaster in this game, but this illustrates how useful utility spells are in this game.

Yeah, you can blow stray items and corpses around for amusement with FIREBALLZ!!1

No, you can use telekinesis to manipulate objects from a distance

Which you can do just as well with fireballs or arrows - it's not as if you ever need any precision when doing so in oblivious, and, as unlike the latter two, you can't use TK to actually deal damage by pushing people into enviromental hazard or bashing them with objects (all the more idiotic because it generally works like HL2 grav-gun, except you can't do anything with it). You also can't use it for disarming traps (which are harmless due to being easily avoidable anyway), nor can you use it for distracting anyone - a textbook example of an useless gimmick spell. It was far more useful in MW despite its lack of HAVOC.

open lock (actually this spell renders the lockpicking skill useless

As if lockpicking skill wasn't perfectly useless on it's own.

No, what made lockpicking skill useless was combination of minigame, skeleton key, and lack of fucking probes and trapped containers/doors.

and is probably one of the reason why a lot of rpgs don't have spells that are useful outside of combat: it renders other classes useless; why be a thief when the mage can turn invisible, open locks and activate traps on his own and his spells can kick ass a lot better than your sissy knife)

First, "open" spells are staple of fantasy RPGs - Wizardry has those, DnD and it's cRPG adaptations have those, Arcanum has those, etc. You have chosen an excessively wrong example for your argument, so I will just sit down and try to get this shocking display of stupidity out of my system before continuing, if you don't mind.

...
There.

Second, there are a lot of abilities and opportunities that could be unique to other classes, so no, the only reasons for not including utility magic is stupidity/laziness on part of the devs.

Third, it's trivial to code-in drawbacks, like making open spells flashy and noisy like Troika did in Arcanum.

improve people's disposition

Not that it ever matters in Oblvion, especially with dialogue wheel and everyone accepting bribes.

boost attributes/skills (not all of which are combat only), increase weight capacity, breathe water, walk on water, create light, see in the dark.

Mere shadow of what you could do in Morrowind, especially given how useless some of the effects have become - what's the point of waterwalking in Oblivion anyway? Where are the underwater caverns bristling with unique loot or quest solutions necessitating waterbreathing?
Why is there no levitation or slowfall or places where those would be useful? What with my fucking recall?

I recall only one effect - detect life - that was genuinely improved, but where are the other detection spells?

No, sorry, utility magic in Oblivion was banal, shit, boring and completely superfluous, whereas in MW or DF it beat the shit out of even the mightiest fireballs (including the almost hackish mosaics of synergistic effects magic enthusiasts love to create).

Also, the Detect Life spells from Morrowind were immensely helpful to stealthy characters.

Or non-stealthy ones who wanted to have tactical awareness before doing something potentially stupid - imagine playing ironman Morrowind.

 

[Bluebottle]

To my mind, a good varied magic system should focus on three core areas:
The method of acquiring the spell
The method of preparing spells/the resources required
The spells themselves.

It is possible (even in a system artificially limited to purely combat spells) to have a wealth of gameplay that is magic-centric, outside of combat. The fact that the accepted practice in almost all games, for each of these three elements, is the most pedestrian one possible speaks volumes about why playing a mage rarely feels particularly magical.

- In DnD you acquire spells by simply choosing which should be dropped into your spellbook come level-up. In TES you buy them from shops, like they're tins of corned-beef.

- In almost all games there is no preparation, and your only magic resource is a single, regenerating blue bar. DnD is considered a breath of fresh air, because it requires you to prepare your spells by selecting from a list, and then clicking sleep. (NB. I do actually quite like the DnD system, certainly in comparison to the uninspired mana system, but its hardly the best that anyone could come up with).

- The spells themselves are actually the area that games do get mostly right. This isn't exactly surprising, as it seems they aren't even aware of the creative potential in (or even the existence of) the first two areas...but, hey. Still, there's always room for more inventive spells.

So, what would be better then?

Well, in terms of the acquisition of spells, I'd take a leaf out of the Witcher's book. Not in relation to its magic system, but instead its journal. In the Witcher certain gameplay events or encounters would update your journal to reflect that you now possessed certain knowledge. Possessing a specific piece of knowledge, or a combination of several pieces of knowledge, would then allow access to more dialogue options, areas, porno cards or whatever. Spells would, in my system, therefore be acquired by specific combinations of knowledge, in specific areas. Knowledge could be acquired through books (pretty limited, as you don't want players to be having to sift through hundreds of shitty books), asking other mages (good luck with that), seances/summonings, disection of magical beasts (or terrestrial beasts if you prefer necromancy), experimenting with chemicals/reagents or planar-walking. Obtaining the knowledge to a specific spell wouldn't necessarily mean you were capable enough to cast it, however (prevent obvious meta-gaming).

Preparation of spells would be lifted fairly wholesale from Ultima VIII. Spells would require a specific ritual, equipment and reagents to cast. From fairly mundane things like ginseng and fire-root placed on a simple altar for a fireballs spell (x60), to some hastily sewn together human remains (good luck getting hold of them), a necromatic altar (made out of human bones, so...yeah) and some virgin blood to create your very own walking Frankenstein's monster. The greater the benefit, the rarer or more risky the ingredients. This would also have the benefit of making things illegal within the lore (like necromancy) actually mean something. Where the fuck are you gonna find a proper necromantic altar? People might start suspecting if you try that shit in a town. How are you supposed to get hold of those crazy drugs required for summoning demons?

Spells themselves... well, as mentioed, these wouldn't necessarily have to be so far removed from the regular list of spells, as it would become their acquisition and preparation that was the important thing.