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The Undead and Death Magic

Discussion in 'Release 16 Feedback' started by Poor game design, Mar 27, 2015.

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  1. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    I love how the skeletons come back to life. I think that's a great mechanic. I think the ambush mechanic is "ok", it's a little bit better than it was last release so I'll just leave it at that for now and assume that more revisions are on the way.

    What I don't like is that the undead can still be killed by using Death Magic. It really bothers me. Not only does this make Death Magic even more useful than it should be, it makes the game less immerssive.

    I'd like to see Death Magic have either no effect on undead at all, or actually heal them. Also, I made this suggestion in R15, but it's worth bringing up again. Corpose Explosion is really not very useful. What I'd like to see is Corpse Explosion become a combo move (combine it with Fireball) and replace it with something that make the undead your friend, like Animal Charm (only Undead Charm).

    I think this would be a great addition to the game.
     
  2. Net

    Net Avatar

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    Yeah, I think that instead of two summon spells in death tree we should have summon and control spells. Corpse explosion is not useful either, I would like to see 'Curse! added to death magic tree instead (Curse -removes all buffs from your target - shields, increased Str/Dex/int, light, healings over time...) and maybe prevents those to be casted for a few seconds.

    Also, I think that death magic should not be able to kill undead, I would like it is effects of life transfer reversed on undead as well (you lose life and they got it).
     
  3. Drocis the Devious

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    I like all those ideas. The one thing that bothers me about this system in general though is how Death Magic can be so powerful and useful - and would seemingly be even more useful by adding this ideas, and other spell schools are really just one dimensional forms of DPS (or a lack of DPS). I fear Chaos magic will be like that (OP) when it finally arrives.

    Broken Record: Counters and Blocks
     
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  4. Duke Lorimus

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    IMHO ,, They should make Corpse explosion useful instead of tossing it aside . use it to break aggro from stacking mobs .. as the guts make things confusing to the attacking mobs to tell friend from foe.
    or it could disorient all for a short time to allow escape .
     
  5. Themo Lock

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    Heals should hurt them! XD
     
  6. Drocis the Devious

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    Because I don't particularly think the goal should be to either have Death Magic or Life Magic or both...I think it would be very cool if the more Death Magic you used, the more it increased your vulnerability to Life Magic, and vice versa.

    The more Fire you use the more Water hurts you... I think that might be a very VERY good way to balance some of the combat situations in the game work for both PVE and PVP.
     
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  7. Waxillium

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    Corpse explosion could be made into a handy gathering skill!

    Joke.
     
  8. Isaiah

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    You have a point. If I use fire ball against a fire elemental it might not damage the guy as much as if I used some other form of damage dealing.

    If death magic is basically the same force that is at worth inside undead, shouldn't death magic also be resisted just like fire is resisted by fire elemental.

    There is a problem though. Wouldn't the death magic people be at a greater disadvantage than a fire mage if this happened? There are a lot of undead in this game. A fire mage can walk around and burn the butts off of just about anything because fire elementals don't hang out all over the place. Fire tends to stay in hot dry places. Undead can be anywhere. Also fire mages have the ability to take on fire resistance as an innate skill.

    So if they do nerf the death magic against undead, shouldn't they also have some kind of compensation spell? Maybe if they had some death magic spell that made the necromancer also appear to be undead so the common undead won't attack them. Although a litch probably is smart enough to see through that type of thing. That might be better than death resistance skill... because death resistance really implies that it is harder for you to die in general. So all combat skills are really making people more death resistant I suppose.
     
  9. Drocis the Devious

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    Ideally, I like to see players that are "highly skilled" in death magic be able to blend in with the dead more easily. Or someone that is "highly skilled" in fire magic, be accepted more. Meaning they wouldn't have to fight, they'd just walk right on by.

    But thinking you're going to kill fire elementals with fireballs is silly. That shouldn't happen, imo.

    (I say all of this as additional discussion points. I'm not pointing this reply directly at you, Isaiah.)
     
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  10. Isaiah

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    yeah walking right by might be right up there with death resistance. huh. Maybe a charm undead spell would be more reasonable. lol

    Well maybe death magic resistance is a reasonable thing to have too.
     
  11. Isaiah

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    Hey wait !!! Undead aren't necessarily killed by death magic anymore. I killed a ghost with death touch and it ressurected at full health again.

    The next time I killed it I made sure to use a fire spell to finish it off, and that seemed to do it quite nicely.
     
  12. Drocis the Devious

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    I wish that was what made a difference. I went through the Spectral Mines last night and killed everything with Death Magic. Unless they just patched it, I think it's still the same.
     
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  13. Xi_

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    death magic should heal them and life magic should damage them. There needs to be a command undead skill under the death magic tree as well.
     
  14. Isaiah

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    I can understand the perspective that death magic ought to heal undead. Although there is a reasonable fantasy based solution that could explain why it does not heal undead too. I tend to be on the side that thinks death magic should just have no effect on the undead.

    Science Fiction explanations of why death magic can or cannot heal:

    Say the storyteller imagined death magic as a force of anti-life that draws the life out of one being and restores the caster, then technically it is acting like a life magnet. If it functioned like a life magnet where like charges repel then using a death magic spell on an undead would be repelled. So the undead would likely not take any damage and the caster could not be restored.

    Another way somebody could imagine it is that the death and life magic draws on positive and negative life forces in magical ether that channel through the caster. So instead of just healing the undead a storyteller could say casting death magic is a life transfer from one to another, and casting death magic on an undead could draw life out of the caster into the undead. So you are killing yourself to empower the undead.


    So really there is no right or wrong way for them to make death magic or life magic. Although I can totally understand why some people are bothered by something that doesn't make sense to them. Some people like vampires to die in sunlight and other people like vampires that sparkle in sunlight. Vampires don't really exist so the story teller can say what they like.
     
  15. Discovereuse

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    I disagree about all of this. I have been wondering if the undead regeneration weren't a bug. I think the undead should die and that death magic or whatever means we have to defeat them should keep them dead. The game keeps being "improved" to be more tedious and hence less fun. This is one of the ways.
     
  16. Greymarch

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    If any kind of magic were capable of messing with undead, you'd think Death magic would be it.
     
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  17. Drocis the Devious

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    Yes, from a ritual standpoint I would agree. But what happens intuitively when you cast death magic on something that is living? It dies, right? So what happens when you cast death magic on something that is already dead? It can't die, it can't live. It seems like it would either have no impact or it would make the thing stronger.
     
  18. Turk Key

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    Vampires don't exist? What about ghosts, skeletons, zombies, elementals, golems, Garriots, and wisps?
     
  19. Isaiah

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    If we really want to ponder it Undead are quite animated for being "dead". They are UNdead.

    Although something must be animating these creatures. If the answer is the same power that is at work in death magic is actually animating the undead, then what kind of energy should the player receive from them... death I guess.

    I understand that a player can draw life out of the living with death magic. So Maybe death magic should do damage to undead, but maybe players can't get any health from it because undead use something other than life to be animated.
     
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  20. Mimner

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    I like the idea of necromancers being able to charm undead as pets, though making it so undead doesn't agro them would be very over powered. I could imagine PK's hiding among hordes of mobs and gaining a huge strategic advantage. The ability to charm an undead pet and use it to kill other undead still gives death magic a way to fight undead creatures while simultaneously making undead immune to death touch, ray, etc.

    I also really like the idea of healing spells doing damage to undead. This goes well with the traditional fantasy concept of life magic and priests being more effective against undead than other types of enemies.
     
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