Magic and the like

So convoluted, it deserves it's own topic!

Intelligence/10 + skill level - spell difficulty/2

Spell difficulty would just be the combined effect/damage of the spell. But just because a spell has half the effect of your skill level doesn't mean you get a bonus, just means you've "mastered" that spell and get no negative effect while casting it.

Example: If you have a spell that does 100 fire damage and a skill of 50 you would get a -25 to your roll to cast that spell.

I have no idea how it would affect spells that do x to x damage. I didn't think it through all that well.

Woah am I high or something, I changed the /4 to /2 by accident, spelldifficulty/4. But now that I think about it, you'd get a huge negative for casting any spell over your skill level even if it was just 1 point over. Should that still happen?

How would effect over time work? How does the game calculate your chances of success? Surely we could just use those without too much difficulty, unless the system it uses is excessively complex. I think according to what we have discussed you only get magic xp for using spells at your "stage" (the stages from oblivion: novice, apprentice, journeyman, expert, master) or higher, with an increased risk of failing as you cast higher above your skill level.

I'm not sure about your current calculations. It depends on just how powerful 100 damage ends up being in this game. Pretty powerful, I'd say, so it doesn't sound too too bad.

I have absolutely no idea how Morrowind calculates spell casting, stats don't affect spell casting at all though it's just skill level based and the power of your spell. Having even 2 seconds instead of 1 second on a spell increases your chance of failure by a ton though.

Just checked on the UESB Elder scrolls wiki. This is the formula for success:

Chance of success is (Spell's skill * 2 + Willpower / 5 + Luck / 10 - Spell cost - Sound magnitude) * (Current fatigue + Maximum Fatigue * 1.5) / Maximum fatigue * 2

Spellcost is:
([Max Magnitude + Min Magnitude] * [Duration + 1] + Area ^ 2) / 20
With if it doesn't have a range of magnitude, counts both as being the same. On self spells count as an area of 0. On Target spells multiply the cost by 1.5

These are more complex than I expected, but still not TOO bad. They make an excellent starting point to branch off from, as we figure out how things such as fatigue will be handled.

I dunno man, that looks like it would get tedious if you were a spellslinger.

Not that I have any productive ideas for simplifying it.

Fuck, you're right, that is some convolted shit. Let's just go with gamerguy's calculations. Luckily, these would only need to be calculated every once in a while, then written down for spells you use often.

Alright, time to sit down and try shitting out some different equations to calculate for magic.

The odds of successful casting could be based on intellect and skill level, obviously. Perhaps even willpower as well. The largest portion of the equation I think should be the skill level in that style of spell though. Intellect and more Will can help with any kind of magic, but nothing helps when casting a spell as much as experience casting that kind of spell. A possible formula could be

(Skill level + intellect/2 + willpower/2) - casting difficulty.

We could also make intellect and willpower have less of an impact, making each divide by 4. However, my personal favorite idea is to make it so that some magic skills use willpower and some use intellect. Afterall, Some skills are governed by intellect, others by willpower. Shouldn't the stat they are governed by be the one that affects odds of successful casting?

So destruction, governed by the force of will you put into the casting could be:
(destruction level + willpower/2) - casting difficulty.

Illusion would be the odd one out, governed by personality, but it's easy enough to just put personality in the place of willpower of intellect.

Yeah I prefer keeping just a single attribute modifier.

Alternatively for an even simpler way: gross magic uses will, subtle magic uses intellect.

There are many ways we can do this and the choice-you know how it goes.

Dagoth Durr wrote:Yeah I prefer keeping just a single attribute modifier.

Alternatively for an even simpler way: gross magic uses will, subtle magic uses intellect.

There are many ways we can do this and the choice-you know how it goes.

That could work, I suppose. I kind of like the idea of Illusion using personality though.

We can't simplify everything that way though. You'd be hard pressed to put all the crafting skills in one stat class. The closest I can think is intellect, but even that would be very iffy.

Crafting is done out of combat and wouldn't be something that would have frequent repetitions like casting a spell or swinging a sword. I think we can afford to be a bit more complex for those.

So blacksmithing could be strength and/or endurance, while creating a potion would be intellect.

Casting difficulty. How will we set it?

I think we should give every kind of effect a base difficulty modifier. So silence would be harder to cast than sound. Magnitude seems straightforward, but calculating difficulty from the change in time the spell lasts and the range of the spell seems tricky. Not to meantion whether it is on self, touch or target.

And this isn't delving into Thaumaturgy and the different effects it can achieve.

Any thoughts on this, other people?

I suppose we can afford to be a bit complex with this because a player is likely to have a few spell effects he/she uses frequently that he'll calculate and write down beforehand.

If we want to be really complex with it we can have different modifiers for each effect as well as an increase in difficulty for every 25 pts of effect/duration?

But if difficulty only increases every 25 points, what is the point of having effects less than that? Sure a few circumstances might require less, but most of the time it wouldn't be needed. I think I'll look through UESP and check out the different spell effects and try to put together a list of modifiers for each effect.

EDIT: Also, how are we going to handle casting cost as opposed to difficulty? Perhaps the two should be the same, the difficulty of a spell is also how much magicka it requires. How does that sound?

Okay, I'm looking at the spell system with fresh eyes (I didn't even look at it before now, so I mean REALLY fresh eyes).

I figure casting difficulty should be based on:
Magnitude
Time
Effect
Number of Effects
Type


So Magnitude is self-explanatory
Time is how long it's gonna last
Effect is what the spell does, broadly - damage? fortify? drain? damage? absorb?
Number of Effects is how many separate effects are used. that means a fire spell with an upfront damage and a duration damage would have 2 effects. A fortify spell that boosts 3 abilities would have 3 effects. And so on.
Type is simple: Self, Touch, Target, or Overland (don't have a better name than Overland for that, but this is for spells whose targets are not visible and/or are far away. Scrying, hexing, voodoo-style manipulation, etc.)

A random idea: since we're using thaumaturgy as basically meta magic feats, how about a magic skill that lowers a spell's mana cost but increases its casting difficulty?

Dagoth Durr wrote:A random idea: since we're using thaumaturgy as basically meta magic feats, how about a magic skill that lowers a spell's mana cost but increases its casting difficulty?

ooh, I like that. Maybe a skill perk for Thaumaturgy? Or even, since everyone loves making their own spells, have that be an additional factor during spell creation. Trade cost for difficulty.

Only problem that could come up is that newbie spell makers can't use anything they make because the cost would be too high. it would have to be carefully balanced.

Dagoth Durr wrote:Only problem that could come up is that newbie spell makers can't use anything they make because the cost would be too high. it would have to be carefully balanced.

I was thinking more, low-level spells aren't that difficult or that mana-hungry. Reducing mana cost puts a huge strain on the caster, and thus you'd have to trade a little bit of mana for a lot of difficulty. We don't want archmages casting double-strength fireball spells for nothing all day every day, but we do want to give them spells that they can cast frequently to keep them on par with the warrior-types in terms of sustained damage.

Yeah, I agree. One of the big problems with Oblivion's gameplay was that, even with level scaling aside, unless you REALLY minmaxed your character a caster was the same at level 30 as at level 1. The numbers involved were just bigger. You still cast the same number of spells for the same (proportional) amount of damage.

That was kinda the problem with every class in Oblivion, but I see your point. And while world-bending ubermagic doesn't take place very often in TES, at least that i'm aware of, it would be nice for high-level mages to strut their stuff a little bit more thna "I cast fireball, but slightly bigger this time."

Eventually, in the far future of the project, I think it would be cool come up with epic level stuff where the players start becoming the kind of demigods you see in the series. Guys like the King of Worms, Pelinal Whitestrake, the Nerevarine, etc.

But that would probably be a supplement added after the core rule book is done.

That would be nice, although even the Nerevarine is technically bounded by the rules of the core book. Perfect in every stat, yes, but still bounded. Unless you used that Corprus glitch, but I'm not going to count that.

I think the Nerevarine is just about the limit of what we want to let mortals aspire to. Beyond that lies the territory of the Almsivi, Aedra, and Daedra. If a Scrollkeeper (I've officially adopted the term) wants to let his players ascend, that's his deal.