Weapons and Magic

I certainly hope they stick to that then! Was there a way to see the percentage? I was still a little overwhelmed during my limited play time and didn't get to look as deeply as I would have liked.

 

There was a "character sheet" that showed all your stats. It had a ton of information on it.

 

Huh. I had no idea. Just spent my time placing skills, building decks and running away from skeletons.

P.S. You asked about the leather boots, but I never responded. See, I don't get much time during the release to play and I hate crafting. Leather boots were the only footwear in my inventory and running around barefoot just looks silly, so I kept them on and tried to get as much combat in as I could.

Honestly, if fizzle stays purely an equipment based mechanic and can avoid it with cloth, I hate it a great deal less. I still don't love it. Never been a fan of random failure as a balancing mechanic, but it's not nearly so bad.

 

I think its V

 

I got fizzle ONE time with leather boots and leather pants (an 8% chance) and that was it...I made all cloth gear for myself. I hate crafting too.

That's when I realized that all cloth was essentially like being naked during Release 8 so I just started running around naked.

There was also a time where I made full chainmail armor for myself but then I realized that magic was OP and people using polearms in cloth and leather were OP and chainmail for R8 was pointless.

 

Were they were talking about the chaos school of magic?

 

I think it is good that weapons cause some kind of spell fizzle. That way we won't have so many pure mages running around with twohanded swords, warhammers and shields.

 

No, but they were just spouting ideas; they never said it was set in stone. The idea was that all spells would have a base fizzle rate and that different armor would multiply that (with skills to mitigate it to some degree iirc).

 

I only had the leather boots and i lost count of the fizzles. But I'm notoriously unlucky.

 

I have no problem with casting while equipped with a weapon, with a few limitations.

You have to have a hand free to cast a spell. Spells cast with one hand are weaker than spells cast with two hands. If you have a weapon in your dominant hand (determined by an option, right or left), your weapon attacks are full strength, but spells are further weakened. If you cast spells with your dominant hand, your weapon attacks/parries are weakened. Auto attacks are determined by your dominant hand.

If you have a two handed weapon, you must release one hand to cast spells, and your weapon cannot be used for attacks or parries until after the spell is cast.

I think that should cover it. Suggestions for things I might have missed are welcome.

 

For that we need a fast weapon swapping system, i suggest 2 options of hand weapons set. ( Two hand weapon, one hand weapon/free hand, Shield/one hand weapon, shield/free hand, Etc..)

Or maybe when you cast a spell automatically one hand get free while casting it.

Or maybe you could only be able to cast the weaker version of a spell when you have not at least one of your hands free.

My take on weapon swapping and why it would be important to be able to do it:
click here

 

It's all good in theory, but you already can't attack or parry until your spell is cast regardless of equipment. You stand there and cast and may do nothing else until it's done. That would have to change for this part of your idea to have an effect.

Unless you mean something different?

 

I honestly don't see the need for the requirement for free hands. Spells and rituals are performed with spoken words. What is in your hand at the time of invocation is immaterial with the notable side effect that equipped iron weapons count towards the possibility of fizzle/slugs.

 

But that is just a convention. I think that the priority is to make the system fun .

Unless in blade of the avatar there would be mages that cast as you say. That would be a lore argument.

Oh look, it seems Stephen imagine battlemages with a free hand too ^_^

 

A weapon swapping system, sure, but not a fast one. There should be a penalty imposed for swapping weapons. I don't want to encourage people to carry around a golf bag filled with weapons.

That is a good point. In that case I would suggest imposing the weapon swapping penalty suggested above whenever you have to release a hand from a two handed weapon in order to cast a spell. Perhaps you miss a turn before you can next employ that weapon.

 

In most of the animations I have seen, spell effects emanate from the castors hands. One free hand at least would be required in that case, and two free hands would result in a stronger spell.

 

Agree that it's just a conventional or lore argument. Why add additional requirements?

Also, fun factor is not enhanced by requiring a weapon swap.

 

The additional requirement would be for balance. Weapons confer attack benefits. Spells confer attack benefits. Weapons and spells confer greater benefits.

That requires balance, so the combination of weapons and spells are not overpowering.

 

About free hand to cast spells: It is easier, even more fun, to cast as we did on R8. But maybe it would be difficult to balance that way.

About Swap: "Fast" to me is 2-3 secs xD. Not instant. And i say not to golf bags!. I think that only 2 sets of hand equipment should be allowed to swap at any given time (like you could see on Diablo II). There could be some other penalties like a focus cost. nad the card system should only bring you cards associated with your current weapon on hand. Anyway, if you swap weapons/equipment you should wait for the properly skill to appear on your bar. That is a big penalty.

This relates to the discussion because you could be able to swap with magical, hand equipable devices: Orbs, wands, staffs, books, etc.

 

To handle weapons swaps, one should define separate decks, and the penalty for a weapon swap would include the penalty for a deck swap. That way, you wouldn't get cards not associated with your current weapon.