Gaining Priest Spells

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Sophia
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Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Sophia »

I am playing with a new mechanic for gaining priest spells where, upon leveling up, the character gets a message that the gods have granted him/her a new spell. This level is set up to be the absolute minimum level at which the spell can be used, so lower level characters will always get the "needs more practice" message, effectively locking the spell, as well.

I like the approach because it provides a different means of advancement for priests, but, of course, the problem is, spell selection may tend to be limited-- you might still have to find some of them on scrolls, which kind of dilutes the new mechanic. In addition, you'd obviously need to have ways of gaining the initial levels to be even granted spells.

I'm not sure if I like it, yet. Any thoughts?
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ian_scho
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by ian_scho »

How do you communicate the 'upgrade path' in the interface?

By that I think I mean the message will be something like "Wuuf just gained a priest level, and a VI BRO spell for curing poison". Yet somewhere in your interface you'd could inform the player what spells the character already knows (as others with a lower priest level do not know them). Also maybe an idea as to that the character can intuit what the next spell is that they will gain.

These sort of things in DSB, at least, you could create an 'array' of icons for the dungeon designer that are positioned to the left of the X icon and the disk icon in the inventory, and they'll each call a lua function for painting something over the screen :) I was playing with the idea of having background music in a dungeon, and placing a master controller for changing sound levels would need to go somewhere.

Oh, and I like it by the way! More intuitive than picking up runes as it's based on Priest level and not rune knowledge shared across up to 4 characters.
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beowuuf
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by beowuuf »

Not sure, unless there's a tree based on something else - so a curing path, offensive path, protective path, boosting path

Or something
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ian_scho
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by ian_scho »

Another idea I had was conferring runes on a per champion basis - yet more work to implement Sophia!

It's the most 'logical' along with the idea you've mentioned in this thread. I like the idea of not being able to cast a fireball at novice wizard level, for example.

Code: Select all

cp = 1 -- Champion position 1 in the party
rn = 8 -- VI
g_disabled_runes~[cp][rn] = false
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Trantor
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Trantor »

In theory, I really like it, but the more I think about it, the more problems arise. Ian already named several ones. How do you keep track who knows what? Just by remembering seems bad. As you don't really need to progress in the game to gain a new spell, it would also probably encourage training, and I know you don't like that. :wink:
I think a combination might work: In order to cast Fireshield, you need to find the spell on a scroll AND be at least Artisan Priest (or Craftsman, or Adept, or whatever). The scroll could contain a thinly-veiled message like "As an Adept, you must know FUL BRO NETA" or whatever.
I'd suggest that at least the very basic spells are free. In my mind, these are YA and VI. Without those, you couldn't get any priest levels. VI BRO would probably the first spell the characters need to find (and they need to reach a certain level). Just an idea...
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Sophia
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Sophia »

ian_scho wrote:Another idea I had was conferring runes on a per champion basis - yet more work to implement Sophia!
This one actually wouldn't be so terrible. It wouldn't require any additions to the core, because the magic system is almost entirely Lua-ized at this point. The function sys_render_magic (in render.lua) handles drawing the runes and creating the clickzones, so all you'd really have to do is expand how it uses the disabled runes table.

The thing killing this for me right now is the keeping track of known spells, and the associated problem of how to convey those spells to the player if you take a character with some priest levels. It seems to me that forcing the player to write down/remember spells isn't as big of a deal if you just put them on scrolls, because if all else fails, you can always look at the scroll again. So I may just bow to DM tradition. ;)
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Ameena »

Would giving each character their own spellbook work, or something? Call it "So-and-so's spellbook" and have new spells appear in it when they gain a level. Or they look at the spellbook when they gain a level in order to "write it down" so it appears in the book from then on. Of course, I have no idea whether this would be mechanically possible but just putting forward an idea because umm...I thought of it ;).
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beowuuf
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by beowuuf »

Spellbook icon in the inventory, and when you click on it and 'open' it, it shows the spells known for each player? Pages can be flicked through?
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Sophia
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Sophia »

Yes, it should be mechanically possible, in DSB, anyway. Whether or not I actually want to do it is another question. ;)

It seems like this would be more of a generic way of showing the spells known to each player, regardless of how they got them (it could be penciled into the book via scroll, too)-- seems sort of Black Crypt-ish.
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beowuuf
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by beowuuf »

Ishtar had the spell icons appearing at the bottom that you could click, but that took up space at the bottom of thescreen, of course
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ian_scho
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by ian_scho »

Sophia wrote:The function sys_render_magic (in render.lua) handles drawing the runes and creating the clickzones, so all you'd really have to do is expand how it uses the disabled runes table.
Cool, this is a top idea. Thank you
Ameena wrote:Would giving each character their own spellbook work, or something? Call it "So-and-so's spellbook" and have new spells appear in it when they gain a level.
As is this!
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Des
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Des »

I still find it hard to understand why people want DM's spell system to work like AD&D, and/or other fantasy RPGs. The rune-based spell system is wonderfully fun and free and one of DM's major plus points. Changing the formulas is cool, but making players find scrolls or be a particular level sucks. IMHO.
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Sophia
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Sophia »

Des wrote:Changing the formulas is cool, but making players find scrolls or be a particular level sucks. IMHO.
I'm not quite sure what you're against, to be honest. I mean, if you're not a high enough level, you get the "needs more practice" message, so there is a certain level requirement built into basic DM, as well.

I think any other sort of means, like locking spells until you've found their scroll, locking certain runes, and whatnot, is just to keep from players who know the spells from blazing through the dungeon in ways that players who don't know the spells can't. This can have both advantages and disadvantages, I guess.
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Des
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Des »

Ever watched the TV show Merlin? Dunno if it shows in the US. Often the young wizard attempts incantations but they don't always work, and sometimes they do when he perseveres. Spells in DM are supposed to work in a similar way :-)
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Sophia
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Sophia »

I haven't seen it. I think I see your point, though... if you try a spell but don't "know" it yet, it can blow up in your face? :D I partially agree with not being too D&D like, but the thing I'm trying to avoid is just, where once you know the spells, you can blaze through the earlier parts like nothing.

Honestly, it's kind of tough, because on the one hand, I like the idea of rewarding experimentation and trying new things, but on the other hand, someone who tries out all the rune combinations and then knows all the spells before even starting on the quest sort of takes the fun out of locking away secrets and whatnot...
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Trantor
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Trantor »

Des: From what I understood, this is still the case in Sophia's scenario. It's just that you need to find a scroll or get to a certain level before you are even allowed to try the spell - or did I get that wrong?

I agree with Sophia that doing something new with the spells creates a fresh feeling for long-time players like us. The rune system itself is awesome, no doubt about that. But giving it a twist can be very good if it is done well.
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beowuuf
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by beowuuf »

Conflux does that balance - the spells were altered so some experimentation was needed, but powerful spells required an unlock through scrolls, etc. And that breaks after the first play thourhg - you know you are limited in some powers until you can open certain sections of the game, but otherwise know the spells right away.


If DSB can easily track a spell's power, what you could do is something like casting a spell lets you learn that spell, and you can build up the abiltiy to cast powerful versions of it through repetition parallel to priest level. Make a material component necessary to begin with to stop training.

Meh, actually, sounds hard and broken :(
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Re: Gaining Priest Spells

Post by Joramun »

The problem of getting more spells as you progress is that it doesn't cut the "exponential progression of priest skill", because anyway you'll cast more and more spells as you progress.
Maybe it's okay if you carefully balance your dungeon, but what if a sneaky player finds a way to train quickly in the beginning ?

Ingredients are the best way to limit priest spellcasting, it adds lots of background story, but is very severe especially if the ingredient is consumed by the spell: if you can't find the ingredients, you can't cast the spell...

Or lock the spell away until a quest is completed, like in Conflux.
What Is Your Quest ?
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