Effect for Elemental Wands

[Drugar Stonesmasher]

Hello,

just in case that there is nothing yet planned for the elemental staffs i would like to propose the following to discussion.

Give the elemental staff a unique kind of critical effect with maybe 5% successrate.

Earth wand:
makes the earth swampy and engulfing the feet of the target.
Effect: if possible reduce or stop movement for 5 seconds, maybe even depending on the type of ground the target is standing on.
(if possible at all of course: swamp: immobile, earth/grass/forest: reduce speed strong, rock/street: reduce speed weak)
If movement alone is not possible maybe reducing agility strongly (maybe 50%) for the 5 seconds.
(A way to stop movement might be reducing strength very strongly so that the victim is overloaded)

Air wand:
makes the victim whirl around and disoriented.
Effect: similar to 2 handed weapons make the victim loose his target and maybe even be moved a step or two

water wand:
makes the eyes of the victim watery or raise a kind of lokal fog
Effect: reduce the perception of the victim for a given time (maybe 30 seconds as the effect is way less powerfull i believe)

mind wand:
befuddles the victim mentally
Effect: reduce willpower of the victim for a given time (maybe 50% and 5-10 seconds)

fire wand:
has a chance to create a lasting fire
Effect: simmilar to fire spitting creatures create 1 firefield that lasts maybe 5-10 seconds



The Staffs in that case have different cases of use.
earth is strong against agile close combat fighters (and admittedly can be very deadly for those who rely on agility)
air is effective against any fighter but the effect is rather weak
water is mostly effective against ranged fighters
mind is effective against spell casters (but unfortunatly not against monster spell casters i believe)
fire is again effective against all

[Jupiter]

Hey,

there are already effects planned, most of them even scripted (but not activated until all have an effect). The spirit wand is still lacking one. I fear lowering the willpower for a few seconds is not good enough. Especially, when fighting against someone who already has only 1 point in willpower. In such a case the effect would have no effect at all.

[Drugar Stonesmasher]

Ah, if something is already planned and coded this is of course not needed.

as for the effect on willpower... i believe there is no mage with a willpower as low as that and the wand might have mages as primary target.
lowering intelligence might be another good effect as well...

but since i do not know in which regions the current coding is done, something else would be more feasible.

[Rincewind]

The proposed effects need to have the same effect and be useful against all opponents.

[Drugar Stonesmasher]

The proposed effekts need to have the same effekt and be usefull against all opponents.

may i ask why?
in just about every fantasy rp system certain spells or elements have a very different effect depending on the object.
a fire elemental will not care about someone casting fire on it, a undead will not care about death or cold spells, etc..

or do you mean the percentage thing? which is just an idea, where absolute numbers are just as fine.

but this discussion is rather academic due to the fact that something is already planned.

[Rincewind]

As Jupiter said we still lack Ideas for the spirit wand, and the LV60 isn't decided yet either i guess.

The decided effects we already got fulfill that requirement. It would be not beautiful and clean scripting if one wand is only useful against other mages. While the others have great and allays useful effects.

The main problem is the difference between Monsters and PCs, since first one got no mana bar or hunger bar yet.

Also all effects that work with the aggro of monsters will be useless on PCs.

Also you need a valid way to aim the effect to be allays useful even when the player can't know when it is used.

So my approach is to boost the users ability to cast. Increase mana regeneration, or make the special attack cost less mana.

[GolfLima]

may be for magical Spirit wands:
1) target of the "spell" loosing their target
2) "spelltarget" moves a certain time (..seconds) uncontrolled around ((not sure if this is possible)) -may be moving time depends on mage lvl

[Rincewind]

@ 2) how is that an improvement to the usual attack? Sounds like wasting mana to me. No mage would willingly do that. Also you will probably hurt your allies.

[GolfLima]

@ 2) how is that an improvement to the usual attack? Sounds like wasting mana to me. No mage would willingly do that. Also you will probably hurt your allies.

the"target" cant attack during this time and after that the target has to check the area around and find new enemy - inbetween the mage can run away or prepare a new / other attack

[Drugar Stonesmasher]

I think the effects would be usefull,

but the current approach - a constant benefit to the spellcaster - seems easier to realize and easier to define in its effect.

and the fact that monsters are not affected by some damage / disabeling effects has also a point.