Magic salves & enchantments

Isaac and I were having a side discussion in another thread about what role magic enchantments should have in the game and we kind of ended up agreeing on two points.

* ITS MORE FUN IF CERTAIN TYPES OF ENCHANTMENTS ARE LIMITED TO CERTAIN TYPES OF ITEMS. Too many modern games allow random enchantments to every item, multiple enchantments to a single item, have various percentages of their effects, and allow the effects to stack. This makes magic items boring, generic, and mechanical. Everyone wears magic all the time, applied to different parts of their armor, and they end up keeping stacks of varieties of magic armor in their bank, and switch out and replace them at any moment. They dress and undress depending on what they do. It makes it more fun if shields can have different enchantments than helmets, which have different enchantments from boots, and so on. Base suits of armor are probably better if they don't have many enchantments at all. Its doesn't really make for a good game to have players switching out their base armor. Put resistance enchantments in shields, instead. Shields are more easily undress-able and replaceable. That also makes it more interesting, because the player has to consciously block with his shield in battle: imagine a fighter lifting up his magic shield against a dragon, deflecting his firey breath. In the lore, the ability of the item to serve as a focus for an enchantment could probably depend on what the item symbolizes. A shield would be a good focus for resistance magic, because a shield is used, physically and symbolically, to resist things. Rings, pendants, and other pieces of jewelry using stones and gems can probably be more generic. In magic lore, stones and gems have their own magic properties.

* ITS MORE FUN IF ENCHANTMENTS CAN BE EITHER TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT. Enchantments could be based on salves, so right before a battle, a warrior could rub a salve on his weapon to give it an effect. Say he was fighting against a ghost, and he put a salve (say holy water) on his sword that allowed him to pierce through the ghost, because otherwise the ghost would be impossible to hit. Eventually the salve that the player applied would wear off and be ineffective, and he'd have to apply more if he wanted to continue the effect -- similar to applying poison in UO. This would allow players to keep their primary weapon all the time and not switch it out, but give them the flexibility of fighting multiple types of enemies. They wouldn't need to carry around a special ghost-slaying sword. But at the same time, items with permanent enchantments are cool as far as lore goes. The same salves that would be used to temporarily enchant items could probably be employed in a process to make enchantments permanent. Take the holy water salve, apply it to a weapon, form an arcane circle or something and do some chants, and use some fortifying power, or inscribe some binding runes in the weapon -- or something like that process -- and you have a permanent spirit sword.

Okay, so thinking about how this might work a bit more, you could have a special salve for each school of magic, and have it apply differently to different types of items.

So, some examples off of the top of my head -- obviously this would also apply to more types of items that I didn't include, like cloaks (cloaks of invisibility, etc) --

SPIRIT SALVE (Life Magic).
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Spirit Sword. Can cut pierce through ethereal beings like ghosts and wraiths.
APPLIED TO ARROWS - Spirit Arrows. Same.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Spirit Shield. Allows the shield to deflect death magic attacks when used to block in battle. As long as the player chooses to block and times the move correctly, this is 100% effective.
APPLIED TO A HELMET - Spirit Helm. Gives some resistance to death magic but not 100% effective against death attacks.

FIRE SALVE (Fire Magic).
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Fire Sword. Envelops the sword in a magic flame.
APPLIED TO ARROWS - Fire Arrows. Same.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Shield of Flames, or Shield of the Salamander. Allows the shield to deflect flames when used to block in battle. As long as the player chooses to block and times the move correctly, this is 100% effective. Note: historically, salamander's wool was believed to be fire resistant. This could be a reagent.
APPLIED TO A HELMET - Helm of Flames, or Helm of the Salamander. Gives some resistance to heat but not 100% effective against fire attacks. Note: This is like the Armor of Flames spell in Pagan.
APPLIED TO BOOTS - Boots of Flames, or Boots of the Salamander. Allows the person to walk on fire, but otherwise provides no resistances.

SHADOW SALVE (Moon Magic).
APPLIED TO A HELMET - Helm of Invisibility. Allows the person to go invisible.
APPLIED TO BOOTS - Boots of Stealth. Allows the person to walk quietly.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Celestial Shield. Allows the shield to deflect absorb a percent of general magic attacks, similar to the Celestial blessing spell in Moon Magic.
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Moonlight Sword. The sword automatically glows a light blue when in the dark, increasing the ambient light around the user when the sword is readied but not bringing full daylight.

WIND SALVE (Air Magic).
APPLIED TO BOOTS - Boots of Quickness. Increases the person's speed in walking, allowing him to move faster.
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Lightning Sword, or Quicksword. Envelops the sword in an electrical energy. Note: the name Quicksword is inspired by Enilno in Ultima II and in cadence with the Boots of Quickness.
APPLIED TO ARROWS - Lightning Arrows, or Quickarrows. Same.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Shield of Sparks, or Shield of the Sylph. Allows the shield to deflect lightning when used in battle. As long as the player chooses to block and times the move correctly, this is 100% effective. Note: the sylph is a spirit of the air, like the salamander is the spirit of the fire.
APPLIED TO A HELMET - Helm of Sparks, or Helm of the Sylph. Gives some resistance to lightning but not 100% effective against lightning attacks.

WATER SALVE (Water Magic).
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Frost Sword. Envelops the sword in an aura of cold.
APPLIED TO ARROWS - Frost Arrows. Same.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Shield of Ice, or Shield of the Undine. Allows the shield to deflect cold blasts when used in battle. As long as the player chooses to block and times the move correctly, this is 100% effective. Note: the undine is a spirit of the water, like the salamander is the spirit of the fire, and sylph of the air.
APPLIED TO A HELMET - Helm of Ice, or Helm of the Undine. Gives some resistance to lightning but not 100% effective against lightning attacks.
APPLIED TO BOOTS - Boots of Water-walking. Allows a person to walk on water.

ASTRAL SALVE (Death Magic).
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Death Sword, or Vampire Sword. Envelops the sword in an aura of death magic, allowing it to drain HP.
APPLIED TO ARROWS - Death Arrows, or Vampire Arrows. Same.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Death Shield. The shield turns hits into hitpoint transfers when used in battle. As long as the player chooses to block and times the move correctly, this is 100% effective.

STONE SALVE (Earth Magic).
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Obsidian Sword, or Vorpal Sword. Makes the sword act as if its heavier and more piercing, despite its weight. Cuts through tough hides, like dragon scales, and stone skin. Ignores or reduces the effectiveness of Stone Skin -like spells.
APPLIED TO AN ARROW - Obsidian Arrow, or Vorpal Arrow. Same.
APPLIED TO BOOTS - Obsidian Boots. Keeps one grounded during an earthquake.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Shield of Earth, or Shield of the Gnome. Allows one to brace oneself against attacks, effectively preventing knockbacks. As long as the player chooses to block and times the move correctly, this is 100% effective. Note: the gnome is a spirit of the earth, like the salamander is the spirit of the fire, sylph of the air, and undine of the water.

SUN SALVE (Sun Magic).
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Sun Sword. Casts a strong light when readied, and is searing when it hits.
APPLIED TO AN ARROW - Sun Arrow. Same.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Shield of the Sun. Deflects blinding flashes back at a spell caster. As long as the player chooses to block and times the move correctly, this is 100% effective
APPLIED TO A HELMET - Helm of Vision. Allows a person to see through concealment spells.

BEDLAM SALVE (Chaos Magic).
APPLIED TO AN ARROW - Chaos Arrow. Applies a random bolt effect to the arrow. When applied to a pile of arrows, each has a different effect.
APPLIED TO A SWORD - Chaos Sword, or Demon Sword. Applies a random bolt effect to a sword.
APPLIED TO A SHIELD - Chaos Shield, or Demon Shield. Like the spell, deflects all magic attacks but has a chance to amplify them. Deflecting is 100% defective if the player chooses to block the move is timed effectively, unless the random chance to amplify kicks in.

Note that I made this work a little different from direct magic, so Shield of Flames is fire magic, instead of an ice magic Ice Shield that protects against fire. Although they do resemble passive resistances that mages get from these schools of magic. Don't know if this is the best way, just my suggestion.

In addition, if we get into stones and gems for rings and pendants, there's plenty of lore to draw from. For example, a carbuncle would be a gem of fire, an emerald (smarag) would be a gem of light (sun magic), a hyacinth would be a gem of water, moonstone would be a gem of the moon, amber would be a gem of life, thunderstone would be the gem of air, diamond (adamant) or obsidian would be earth, chalcedony maybe death magic. I was working on putting a list of gems and stones into my magical reagents list... I'll get back to that later.

 

I like where this is going. It is better than having to switch gear mid combat, and having off spec gear in the first place. This would also cause different types of crafters more valuable.

One thing I think this solves is the person who can do everything by themselves. IF you learn all the mining of or skills, the refining of ore skills, and the blacksmith skill you can make fantastic equipment. BUT now if you want that really want that fire resistance you don't get that from a blacksmith making fancy armor. You need to go to an alchemist. Alchemists would then be able to specialize in a wide variety of things, not just potions.

Then there's also magical enhancements of items using gems or whatever, and another type of crafter might do that.

So this type of thing splits up crafting the items you need up between multiple crafting career types. Also it might keep us from trying to figure out what kind of gear we should wear that day. Let armor be armor, and not all this funky stuff that boosts your ability scores and other things that make no sense until you plug it into a DPS calculator or something. Armor can just be armor, enhanced armor might enhance armor based skills, or provide effects in keeping with armor, and so on.

So unlike all the other games out there, this system would allow us to have gear we like, but still look for stuff we need. Salves and liquids that provide a magical enhancement for a duration. I think this is a great idea. And it makes the crafting tree more balanced, and very interesting.

 

Note also that on the megapost, they have enchantment listed under alchemy and it says this,

I don't know if this is the best way of doing it : --


1. Like Isaiah is saying, temporary effects are useful and wouldn't be handy to be done through a scroll. Its too complicated. Its easier to just make it work the same as a poison if you want a temporary effect. Permanent enchantments, of course, could use scrolls, or binding rituals, or whatever else.

2. Enchantments on weapons and armor should be similar to, but not mimick spells exactly. Its better if enchantments are particular to the type of item you're enchanting, otherwise it gets too boring, generic and mechanical. Wands and staves should, of course, contain pure spells.

3. As to permanent enchantments, they can work the same as they've decided to make magic work. Just like when a caster lacks a reagent, his magic is less effective, when a magic item is low on charges, the magic is less effective. I like wands and staves having charges... I don't necessarily like shields and swords depending on charges. Many modern RPGs do it for weapons (Skyrim) but I really don't like this if the weapon is really a magic weapon and isn't just involving a temporary (salve) enchantment. Otherwise, its really not a magic weapon, its a magically charged weapon. Its not a Fire sword, its a sword charged with a Fire spell. Big difference. When the Fire spell has no more charges, its no longer a Fire sword, its just a sword. Shields and other items with resistances are also naturally excluded from having charges. These are like passive magic.

 

Part of character customization, IMO, is the ability to choose the effects to put on your gear. I'm amusing myself with Neverwinter Online right now, and it's INFURIATING to come up with what seems like a good concept for combining my character's abilities and talents with a certain stat, and then find that the gear that has that stat is primarily for use by another class.

I realize that SOTA is planned as classless, but if the game does NOT include enchantments or enhancements that I can select to support my tactical build, then it will block me just as effectively.

 

@MalakBrightpalm,

Is that a complaint against the concept or just a side comment?

Compared to the currently planned system, at least from what they detailed in the megapost, I think this is better. What they suggested is you're just going to affix a normal magic spell on any weapon or armor. How I assume this would work is you would, say, put an Air Elemental spell on your sword and it would allow you to put a card in your deck to summon an Air Elemental, and it would just work like you had the magic spell. The sword isn't special at all, it just allows you to cast a spell. It would be much better if the effect was specific to the item you cast it on, and didn't require you to cast a spell in combat: the sword you enchanted is now a Lightning Sword.

I think you can get a broad enough range of enchantments this way.

And if anyone wants a special spell sword, it could be a custom item that works like a wand or staff, with a gem or whatever is required to store magic spells.

 

I forgot that about enchantment. I think there is a place for permanent enchantment, and a place for temporary enhancement like a buff.

An oil of sharpness would be a good example of a temporary enchantment for a bladed weapon.

However, I also see the good in permanent enchantment in the case of creating a frostbrand weapon or a flaming weapon.

If they create weapons like that then why not have a death magic enchantment that does some health transfer, or earth magic type physical damage bonus, life magic (anti-undead) and so on.

We could have the choice to enchant our items by one of the 9 schools of magic... that is counting chaotic

EDIT: This is a really cool idea redfish.



Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk.

 

What if wands and staffs could be enchanted with permanent enchantments as well, not just charged.

That way the mage can choose to use it for storing spells, or enhance it with a particular perminant enhancement based on one of the schools of magic...

Faster casting, faster focus, etc etc.

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk.

 

@Isaiah,

Sure, it could work the same way I suggested, that the magic is greatly weakened when it runs out of charge, but doesn't disappear entirely. And of course, we could always have scrolls in the game too, which are one time use.

Dividing salves by the schools of magic is just what I did. I'm not sure that permanent enchantments should be different than temporary ones, except that they'd be more permanent. Just like we're probably going to be able to combine spells from different schools of magic, it might be interesting to see where we could go by combining salves from different schools of magic, too, which would create more types of enchantable effects.

 

I'm sure they've been working on an alchemy system for potions; they've hinted on it before. But it would be interesting to apply the same rubrick to potions here as I did to salves,

LIFE MAGIC. [reds to yellows]
Heal.
Cure.
Purify.
Refresh.
Regenerate.
Restore.

DEATH MAGIC. [greens to purples]
Poison. {Doubles as salve}
Necrosis. {Doubles as salve: prevents healing and regeneration}
Toxin. {Doubles as a salve: like poison, but drains focus/energy/mana/stamina}
Feign Death.

MOON MAGIC. [blues to blacks]
Invisibility.
Sleep.{Throwable; Doubles as a salve for arrows: ie. a Sleep Arrow}
Smoke Blast. {Throwable; Doubles as a salve for arrows: explosion effect when weapon hits target, ie. a Smoke Blast Arrow}
Glow. {Makes something have a magic, luminescent, glow, like moonlight effects}
Stealth.

FIRE MAGIC. [oranges to whites]
Conflagration. {Throwable; Doubles as a salve for arrows: explosion effect when weapon hits target, ie. a Fire Burst Arrow}
Fire Resistance, or Flameproof.

AIR MAGIC. [whites to transparents]
Agility.
Lightning Burst. {Throwable: Lightning-in-a-bottle; Doubles as a salve for arrows: explosion effect when weapon hits target, ie. a Lightning Burst Arrow}
Lightning Resistance.

WATER MAGIC. [blues to whites]
Water-Breathing.
Cold Blast. {Throwable; Doubles as a salve for arrows: explosion effect when weapon hits target, ie. a Cold Burst Arrow}
Cold Resistance, or Warmth.

EARTH MAGIC. [purples to greens]
Strength.
Grow. {For plants}
Stone Skin.

SUN MAGIC. [yellows to whites]
Reveal.
Awake.
Blinding burst. {Throwable; Doubles as a salve for arrows: explosion effect when weapon hits target, ie. a Blinding Burst Arrow}

CHAOS MAGIC. [yellows to blacks]
Confusion Blast. {Throwable; Doubles as a salve for arrows: explosion effect when weapon hits target, ie. a Confusion Blast Arrow}
Charm. {Throwable; Doubles as a salve for arrows: ie. a Charm Arrow}
Shapeshift.

 

Could this incorporate body parts into the equation as ingredients/reagents for these enchantments? It would be a use for corpse trophies besides decoration. *drools*

 

Only for evil enchantments. :/

 

Yes of course! Only the best then! muhahahahaha

 

Yeah, it's in FAVOR of your suggestion.

This:
"How I assume this would work is you would, say, put an Air Elemental spell on your sword and it would allow you to put a card in your deck to summon an Air Elemental, and it would just work like you had the magic spell."
Would kinda suck, requiring my equipment to also be subject to the card system while cheapening the talent trees. Why invest in the tree to learn a skill when I can just enchant it?

Whereas your suggestion adds a new layer to the build, one that works on different rules, thus complicating the puzzle and giving satisfyingly complex ramifications and reverberations.

I prefer multi-layered systems, where what you do on level 3 affects how level 5 works, while levels 1, 2, and 4 are doing something completely different... all of which adds up to your overall strategy.

 

Temporary enchantments should be able to applied on the field, I think.

For permanent enchantments (Chris is going to hate this), how about: a new table with an arcane circle, like the Arcane Enchanter in TES, plus a scroll. You place the item on the table with the scroll and the salve, and the magic runes transfer from the scroll to the item, consuming the salve in the process. The runes bind the magic into the item....

Come to think of it, I'm not sure what the magic on the scroll would be if these wouldn't be exact replicas of magic spells. Maybe you make the enchanting scroll first, with the salve and a prepared or empty scroll, and then use the scroll with the item.

And also come to think of it, we haven't even been told where spell scrolls come from yet. There's no scroll crafting skill on any of the skill trees. Maybe spells could also be put into scrolls using the arcane table and reagents, too.

 

Personally I've always preferred the Tolkein Dwarven system of enchanting. You know what the magick is, you know what runes are needed, then you get materials that align to the spell's needs, and CRAFT the spell into the materials, coincidentally shaping an item out of them.

In this case, for enchanting a sword, you would then use the blacksmith's table to apply the enchantment with a hammer.

For enchanting robes, you would use the tailoring station, for enchanting furnishings, the carpentry station...

 

@MalakBrightpalm,

Okay, that would just add another table, then. We still would need the salve -- what would normally be used to apply a temporary effect, but we want to make it permanent -- and we still need something with the runes on it -- and that would likely be a scroll.

But we still need a way to create scrolls, and the devs haven't really gone into this yet, and its nowhere on any of the skill trees. Which is what an arcane table would be useful for, making the scrolls. Then, I suppose, it could be brought back to the physical crafting table; the scroll and the sword brought to the blacksmithy table.

I mean, the scrolls could be non-magical too, and just be copied from a book with a pen, but I'm assuming that it would also be nice in the game to be able to have expendable spell scrolls like in UO, Ultima, etc..

 

Wow. You're blowin my mind today man.

I haven't thought about them crossing two enchantements between multiple schools like they do spell combos.

I can really see them doing this.


Ok they proved the combat system works, but these other things like alchemy and enchanting are far better than I thought. At least there is a whole lot of potential.

There is so much potential, I wonder if they will release it all for episode 1, or if they will release all this in stages. What you are talking about here seems very reasonable, and a really natural path for this to take form.

I look forward to hearing what they intend to do with alchemy. .... in fact it seems they already have a complex food system comming up too. This game has massive potential.

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk.

 

Something I didn't point out as well as I could have in the first post is I think a salve system like this would help the player deal with scenarios like fighting ghosts and wraiths in a way that is 1. realistic , 2. non-tedious. You want a player to need a special weapon to attack a ghost, but don't want him to be forced to go through a permanent enchanting process just to do that.

But this applies to all sorts of situations, too.

I listed arrows, but permanent enchantments would make more sense on bows than arrows. Arrows would generally need temporary enchantments, unless you could recover the arrows.

 

If you can enchant a sword with an air elemental spell, what if somebody can use chaos magic and bind a demon to a weapon using summon demon/control demon? Would that become a black sword like stormbringer with glowing red ruinic text?

I dont know what properties such an enchantment would do but it I like the look of it. LoL

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk.

 

I don't mind this actually.

For the record though, in skyrim items were limited by their use in how they could be enchated.

I also think that any item that can be enchated like that should be seeded throughout the world in dungeons and the like. That way there is more then one way to skin a cat. Now, the rareness of said item will have to be good enough to encourage those to buy them as well.

We are a ways away from that now.