Spells Feedback

[Tom]

This is odd...I don't know how I screwed that up, but somehow the Gauge Crowd spell is registering as using Harm and Fire rather than Perceive and Mind as it should.

Yeah, there is some weird bug somewhere deep in the code. I can't reliably reproduce it, which is why I can't fix it right now.

[Tom]

wtf? One of my spell won't be submitted ever. The guy wants me to submitted it as a ritual but I don't see the option to do that.

There is no submission for rituals, because they are free-form. They don't have formulas.

[Zakilevo]

oh. So I can just use it in my story then? That would be pretty cheap.

[Tom]

yes, you can basically just do it. If you have the proper skills, etc.

[loren]

Just a note, "illusory" is actually a word.  I resubmitted the spell anyway, but I'm likely to use it again.

Thought it was a typo, you can resubmit as illusory if you want just PM me.

[Nathan]

There is no submission for rituals, because they are free-form. They don't have formulas.

I'm guessing this is the same for spontaneous magic too?

[Zakilevo]

huh I thought we were not going to start with spells we made but guess we are. I will probably need to trade a LOT or make more spells to make my character what I want him to be.

[cjnodell]

I have a question regarding change. I was told that change must always have a duration and that change can not be permanent. This makes no sense to me. Perhaps my understanding is off. If I take an object, any object, and change it using mundane means it stays changed. The duration is how long the change takes. When it comes to magic spells I think of two options:

Big effect, instant duration: The magic changes the target instantly. Once changed the magic is done. The effect would be huge requiring a 4 or 5 (5 in my opinion). After all you just ended the existence of the target by changing it's form (like reducing them to ash). A full change like this results in all kind of side effects. Like having the brain of a frog. Lots of possibilities with this kind of change. Like changing yourself into a newborn babe as a way of avoiding death. Problem is all knowledge and experience is gone with the old brain. New brain is blank. Perhaps you could hire a team to retrain you but nothing is certain. Or you could turn someone into an adult orc. Same problem. New brain. Enough functions to live but no understanding of how to walk or talk or anything else.

Slightly smaller effect, non-instant duration: The magic is doing more than just changing your body. It is retaining your mind, interfacing with the new body, making you able to use the new body with ease, and being there to change you back when the spell is complete. More powerful in most ways but the magic has to be there the whole time to hold all this together. Once it is gone you pop back to yourself.

What are all your thoughts on such change magic?

[cjnodell]

I figure my character to be little more than an apprentice who will need to learn and grow in game. Honestly, I am having a hard time making a lot of spell ideas fit into the intent/domains. I need to buy myself come creativity!

Also, since we are making a 1 spell per effect system would it be possible for us, as players, to see the spell list? It would help to reduce duplicate effort and could help spark ideas in others. Of course, our characters might not know of all these spells but that is what role playing is all about. Makes you wonder what the point is if 9 from ten spells are rejected as duplicates.

[Anaris]

I have a question regarding change. I was told that change must always have a duration and that change can not be permanent. This makes no sense to me. Perhaps my understanding is off. If I take an object, any object, and change it using mundane means it stays changed. The duration is how long the change takes.

Seems to me that if you're changing an inanimate object, it's reasonable to have the change be permanent, so long as it falls under reasonable restrictions—conservation of mass seems like a good one.  Another would be not being able to dramatically increase the complexity—say, to form a fully-fledged tower, with lots of interior rooms and whatnot, out of solid bedrock.  That's not the sort of thing a spell should be able to do.  Perhaps in these cases, the amount the complexity can increase can be dependent on the amount of time you spend casting the spell? And that's where the duration comes into play?

Transforming any living thing, though, is a whole different order of change.  If you want it to stay living, you need to make sure that what you change it into has all the bits in the right places.  Moreover, it seems like it would make sense for balance reasons: if you've trained a dog to be your faithful animal companion, the ability to just transform him permanently into something significantly more dangerous than a dog seems...overly powerful.  Similarly the ability to transform a human into some other form permanently.

And if you were to transform yourself permanently in such a way as to lose your personality and memories, would there really be much point?  You'd no longer be a spellcaster, so you'd be easy prey for any rivals who wanted to kill you at that point, and it would take you long enough to return to power that it really wouldn't make much sense to retain your character as a PC.

[Nathan]

I have a question regarding change. I was told that change must always have a duration and that change can not be permanent. This makes no sense to me. Perhaps my understanding is off. If I take an object, any object, and change it using mundane means it stays changed. The duration is how long the change takes. When it comes to magic spells I think of two options:

...

What are all your thoughts on such change magic?

I think your understanding is off

If you want to change your enemy into an ogre permanently, then you're creating an ogre from the body of your enemy. If you want to change someone's face so that they're the most beautiful person ever to exist, but only until the clock strikes midnight, then it's a change spell because you're changing their face for a while.

[Jinsyn]

because you're changing their face for a while.

[146|5208663cce7dfabfbad451e79afcbbaffa8a1a0b]

[Tom]

huh I thought we were not going to start with spells we made but guess we are. I will probably need to trade a LOT or make more spells to make my character what I want him to be.

Nothing right now is final, your spell selection will very likely change on launch.

[Tom]

I have a question regarding change. I was told that change must always have a duration and that change can not be permanent. This makes no sense to me. Perhaps my understanding is off. If I take an object, any object, and change it using mundane means it stays changed. The duration is how long the change takes.

For all spells, but especially for change and creation spells, the following principle applies:

The duration of a spell is how long the magic lasts. After the duration ends, the other natural laws assert themselves.


Examples:
If you move an object 10 metres into the air, when the magic ends, it will fall down (gravity).
If you move it 10 metres to the left, it will stay there when the magic ends, because there is no force forcing it back to its old position (unless it's on a hill etc - you get what I mean).

If you create an un-natural object, such as summoning a demon, or creating an illusion, it will disappear when the magic ends.
A magically created natural object, like a wall or some coins, will stay after the magic ends.

If you change an object or person into something else in a natural way, the change will be permanent. Example: Healing spells, grooming spells, etc.
Unnatural changes will revert at a "natural" rate. So a 3rd arm will wither and die off, not a pleasant experience. It won't vanish immediately, because that wouldn't be a natural thing, either.



For those spell with a permanent result, duration is not the duration of the change lasting, but the speed of change - the duration during which the change takes place. Don't make instant change spells if you want the target undamaged/unharmed, because the human body and most objects will rupture if you change them too suddenly.


Maybe we should have different intents for these. I think that would make sense. Looks like we have to clean up our intents once we have a full picture.

[Zakilevo]

nice I was actually thinking the same thing when I was making my spells. Unnatural things eventually turning natural.