An example of why Reagents should be required for all spells.

This is a simple example of why reagents should be required for all spells.

Healing Touch costs ZERO reagents to cast.
Healing Potion costs 10 Garlic to create and is consumed when used.

 

I would like to think at this point it's a matter of priorities when they get back reagent use. The use of magic should be a strategic one.. not simply power for convenience.

 

That's an example of how healing mechanics are not balanced, but there are other ways for balancing it than making all spells requiring reagents.

 

I hope they bring back the magic system of the old Ultimas. Buying or gathering reagents, every spell needs reagents. Also I hope that we get a spellbook in which we collect the spells we find, buy and learn. And spells should be prepared in advance with the reagents we have - this would add a tactical component to the game.

 

In all fairness though only one Ultima required you to pre-prep spells.. but every Ultima since IV did require you to have them for anything other than a cantrip.

The only reason I can think of to not have them right now is that all reagents aren't so readily available yet and the market hasn't been balanced. If reagents for low to mid-level spells were readily available and affordable a lot fewer people would complain.

Another reason magic should require reagents.. Bows require arrows. If we require ammo for range.. mages should require ammo also.

 

Bows only require arrows for auto attack

 

As if it would be that way at launch... if so that would be totally lame. What actually would you be shooting might I ask? Imaginary arrows?

 

Magic!

 

Saw that one coming..

 

Unless reagents are as cheap and plentiful as arrows and repair costs for weapons, this argument fails to hold any water. That being said, I hope reagents are NEVER an absolute requirement for all spells. I've never liked that magic model and I never will. IF they are cheap, plentiful, and easy to find/buy then I won't complain about it, assuming a small selection of simple, reagentless cantrips ala Ultima 7.

 

I've never cared for systems that require reagents for casting spells. For me reagents should be for crafting/alchemy for creating a potion or other 'permanent' magic effect. So for me the example in the OP makes perfect sense. The casting of a spell should be an innate ability of the spell caster. While to make the more permanent and carry-able magic item, reagents are required. The only time I would like to see reagents used while casting, is to amplify spells... but not as a requirement to cast them in the first place.

But that's just me... I'll use whatever they come up with in the end. Not looking for an argument here it's just the way I view 'magic' in literature and games.

 

Exactly the same as me except the opposite! But it all comes down to taste since magic is not real ^^

 

If a table took 6 boards to produce, but a sturdy table took zero boards to produce, what would your solution to that problem be? To find alternative methods to make tables that did not require boards?

Of course there are "other ways" to balance things. But the most obvious one that is staring us in the face is to make healing spells (and really all spells) require reagents.

 

Not all spells, and certainly NOT for the use of special arrows lol that's lame. I don't have to gather reagents to use an arrow to kill anything in RL, but if I wanted to cast a spell, well then I'd need some reagents to do the potent ones, some are natural abilities , if I was blessed with one telekinesis for one example ... of course I could craft a spell to make my arrows do a bleed or something like that, but not require it to do normal bow dmg .... JMHO

 

I thought this was already answered in your other thread. Basically, Chris needs to revisit his assumptions he made back then and see if now is the right time to implement his long-term solution, which was to require reagents, but have some % chance to consume on each cast.

 

There are more details to be added there... It's true that we're talking about elements with the same objective (healing -> tables) but they aren't supposed to have the same scope of usability. Potions are like Ikea tables, with a high cost and an easy setup, so everyone can do it. Healing Touch is a handcrafted table (you need to be a carpenter to put up that one). So that problem is not entirely related to cost. The real problem there is that everyone is a carpenter because it doesn't cost anything to become one (and those Ikea things are hell! there's always pieces missing). I could play the same game saying "I can lift 20kg box with my hands, but i need a hand pallet to lift 100kg. That's why only top tier spells should require reagents"

I'm not saying reagents aren't a solution, it's just they are a solution i'm not comfortable with, and that it's obviousness is also subjective. I'd be with you if you should say traditional, but obvious....

Despite your example (accurate regarding tables, but only subjectively accurate regarding magic) I could find different methods indeed;

1. Changing the way players are healed, so people should rely more on mitigation instead on just healing; if instead of a healing burst healing spells only place on yourself a Healing over time effect (healing the same amount but over 6 seconds) suddenly it's not that powerful.
2. As somebody suggested in other thread (sorry i don't remember), healing touch and healing ray may be pushed at least one tier above, putting purify (is that how the dispel is called?) as the basic healing spell. Assuming you don't take 1., I'd distribute the trees as purify - healing grace (with power scaled to be in tier 1), healing touch, healing ray, healing burst. The - means they belong to the same tier, so to be able to put points in healing touch you need to have healing grace and purify.
3. Putting casting time on healing touch so you can't use it in the middle of the fight.
4. Restoring all tree's fizzle rates to the same level and put in the trees we want to be easily castable a innate skill that allow people to decrease fizzle rate because of armor and shield (increasing the cost of being a carpenter).
5. Giving a diminishing return to healing (i think you also threw this one once!) so after a lot of healing you need to rest or it doesn't have any effect on you (or it starts to hurt you).

So... reagents is an option. But not the obvious one for everybody, and certainly not the only one.

They said they removed that requirement, but they're still in game... don't know if there's a penalty for using the skills without the special arrows. I'll test it this week now that my character resembles an archer somewhat

I enjoy discussing this anyway . I could settle with % chance of consumption in the same way i could settle with mandatory consumption since both of them are elements that allow the designer to introduce another balance tool, but i like none of them, so i love when this topic is brought up, because i enjoy contributing with my opinion. Or maybe i just enjoy arguing with Drocis. Or maybe both

 

So you agree that...

Reagents do need to be available and cost effective. That has always been the case. It is unfortunate that so many people appear to assume that they won't be. If they're not then it breaks the system and you have to go with something like what we have now.

 

Yep, any system that favors massive consumption of reagents needs to satisfy that. I'd prefer if reagentes are something scarce and hard to find (because that's what make them meaningful to me), so that's why i go with "not everything needs reagents" proposals.

 

This can be achieved as a means of balancing the use of high level spells. Stuff like the summons that you wouldn't normally use several times an encounter. Reagents for those high level power spells should be a bit rarer.

 

I have mentioned this elsewhere but let me rephrase it here.

First an observation/premise that the "rules" of gathering the resources may currently differ a lot from the "rules" of using the resources, at least this is true in the context of spell reagents. By different rules I mean, if you gather a resource, say garlic, you get 1-4 garlic per gathering (more with meticulous gathering, but that's kind of beside the point here). You do not get 10-40 garlic per gathering because it would not be feasible from game mechanics viewpoint. Now if you use them "raw" as spell reagents, you have reagents for only 1-4 spells requiring garlic. This creates a problem of scarcity -- if you need to cast a certain spell say 200-300 times, then you need to either gather or buy 200-300 garlic which may sound as very tedious or very expensive. There is no way to balance spell reagent use in the current system -- the units are simply too coarse for that.

What Chris has proposed (if I understood it correctly) is a way of "dividing" the gathered resource, by putting a probability on it getting actually consumed. So if the probability is for example 33%, you will get, on average, three times more bang out of the resource in question. This allows one to fine-tune the abundance/scarcity. It's not a bad system, but somehow it doesn't feel believable -- I find it hard to imagine that a gathered resource is a necessary ingredient for a certain spell, but oh wait, sometimes it isn't! This feels odd -- not immersion-breaking-odd, but disturbingly odd nonetheless: roughly as "realistic" as needing some kind of herb in my inventory to be able to shoot a bodkin arrow..

So what I would propose instead would be to divide the gathered resource by crafting. Let's assume you have 25 garlics. You might use them as raw for spells requiring garlic as an ingredient, and you would then have enough for 25 spells. However you could take those 25 garlics and make "Essence of Garlic" (vial, pouch, whatever) that has 100/100 durability (or 1000/1000 durability, whatever, I'll use 100/100 in my examples). This achieves the same thing as the probability approach (being able fine-tune the ingredient cost of spells, possibly making them cheaper to use), with the added bonus of

1. Adding to crafting, meaning more interesting items to craft, and a skilled crafter might be able to make a full 100/100 essence whereas a less skilled one might only succeed in making a 80/100 one
2. One can make very cheap reagents for low level spells, if one desires to make them mandatory for all spells (whether or not this is desirable is beside the point here, I'm merely saying it's easy with this approach)
   
3. Improving player based economy (potentially more trading)
4. More believable than the probability approach (a spell can be made to always consume some of the reagent), also from player viewpoint I think it is generally easier to understand, also easier to estimate inventory (not all folks are good with probabilities)
   
5. Adding to the existing system (freshly gathered reagents can still be used, for example in emergencies)
6. Advanced (but still easy to understand) fine-tuning of reagent use, for example

• low level spell may consume only 1/100 of the essence, whereas a very high level spell might consume 5/100 of the same essence (this would also make preparation of high level spells very important as it would be very expensive to just use freshly gathered reagents)
• there would be possibility to fine-tune by player skill/experience (skilled player may be able to use the reagent more judiciously)

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