Holding the spellbook

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Lunever
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Holding the spellbook

Post by Lunever »

While the spell book is a great tool for a dungeon designer to control characters' spell progression, it has a couple of slight flaws.
It's intention has been to force spell progression dependant of spell discovery unto veteran DM players. But it also does something else. You can only select spell runes as long as one of your characters has the spell book in his inventory. That means if that character dies during combat suddenly all remaining characters will be unable to compose spells in the middle of combat, they can't even use the runes already discovered anymore. I think this should be changed. Use the spell book to prevent new spells from being used before actually finding them, but don't let it keep characters from casting runes already discovered just because the book falls to the floor along with a dead character.
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Post by linflas »

i don't agree with this : i think many of us already thought about designing "no magic allowed" areas where you must temporarily leave the spellbook to enter.
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Lunever
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Post by Lunever »

But you can do no-magic-zones by using mana-draining tiles, can't you?
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Post by Gambit37 »

We did have huge discussions about this when it was first implemented.

From a "logic, real world" view, I'm with Lunever on this one. I still think it doesn't make sense that the wizards can't cast spells if the book is lost/dropped. It suggests they are stupid and have no memory.

However, in terms of a gameplay mechanic, the way it works currently is actually very sound. To *not* work this way would rather negate the point of having implemented it in the first place. I'm happy to live with it in the context of an 'enhanced' DM experience. It makes you really protect your spellbook!
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Post by linflas »

@Lunever, that's not exactly the same : for the designer, doing this would mean bigger work and for the player, they couldn't use magic objects that consume mana.
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Post by beowuuf »

And when we had this argument, I put forth an exact 'real world' reason why the spellbook must be possessed that has nothing at all to do with a character knowing the runes (part of a suggested guide to magic for RTC DM).

http://chaos.zpc.cz/moremagic.html

"In areas of high magic, those with the gift of mana can feel the fluctuations of the world, such is the power in these places. The rising and falling of armies, the flight of the bird and the flowing of the tides almost crystalise in the air to those who can see it. However, these areas are most susceptable to the fluctuations, and those wishing to command the infuences here will need to possess a Living Spellbook. This spellbook can catch the essence of any influence who's rune is inscribed onto its pages. A mage can then glance at these pages before casting a spell to synchronise his mind with the world around him. Be warned, in such areas this spellbook is the mage's anchor, without it he is likely to lose the ability to invoke those influences once so familiar."
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Post by mikko »

One thing that is daft here is that the whole party needs only a single book. So everyone is peeking in that one (un)lucky guys book and can cast what they like. When he dies and the book falls to the ground, they're helpless. Shouldn't every respectable mage have his/her own personal spellbook? :shock:
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Surely that can be done already

Post by Chaos Awakes »

Technically, a dungeon designer can put four spellbooks at the beginning of the dungeon can't he? Then you could give one to each character and when one dies it wouldn't be a problem.
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Post by Gambit37 »

Never tried that -- if you scribe the runes into one spellbook, are they available in all of them. Would you need to scribe the runes into every book?
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Scribing runes

Post by Chaos Awakes »

Hmmm, good point. I hadn't thought of that.
I would've thought, and I'm sure CG will tell us, that the runes scribed would simply be stored as flags (on or off) and would therefor apply to any spellbook. It would seem more work to me to make each rune specific to a spellbook, especially as I can see no reason why somebody would want to throw away a spellbook and then get another and have to learn all the runes over again.
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Post by Lunever »

But having spellbooks saving runes individually per book (like a specific chest has its own content that is not identical to that of another chest) would allow a dungeon designer to create an EOB-like effect: You can create a dungeon where not every character will have the opportunity to cast every possible spell. So whom of your characters will you give the one and only Ir-rune in the dungeon..?
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Post by George Gilbert »

Gambit37 wrote:if you scribe the runes into one spellbook, are they available in all of them. Would you need to scribe the runes into every book?
The latter. The spell books are all independent from each other. The engine looks at all spellbooks held and the runes that are available are those it finds in at least one.
Chaos Awakes wrote:I can see no reason why somebody would want to throw away a spellbook and then get another and have to learn all the runes over again.
I agree that I can see no reason why the player would want to get rid of a spell book. For an evil dungeon designer though I can see plenty of reasons!

As alluded to above, all these points were considered when I first did the spell book. In fact my original intention was for the spell book to be an icon in the party backpacks (like say the sleep or save one) but was persuaded to do it as a specific object because it was more flexible (for example, the book can now be removed from the party).

Note that because of the problem of the party member dying whilst holding the spell book, I made an enhancement so that the spell book always appears on the top of the pile of items left behind so that it's quick and easy to pick up mid-battle. So it's not as bad as it could be!
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So does that mean...

Post by Chaos Awakes »

So does that mean that if I have two spellbooks and a scroll with a rune on it, I can only click the scroll on one spellbook to copy that rune into that spellbook? If I then click the same scroll on a different spellbook it will know that the rune has already been scribed and won't do it again into the second spellbook?
Although that doesn't make sense (suddenly forgetting how to write after scribing the rune once), I can see it would make for some fun dungeon designing...
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Re: So does that mean...

Post by George Gilbert »

Chaos Awakes wrote:So does that mean that if I have two spellbooks and a scroll with a rune on it, I can only click the scroll on one spellbook to copy that rune into that spellbook? If I then click the same scroll on a different spellbook it will know that the rune has already been scribed and won't do it again into the second spellbook?
No.
Chaos Awakes wrote:Although that doesn't make sense (suddenly forgetting how to write after scribing the rune once), I can see it would make for some fun dungeon designing...
Yes, in retrospect, that would be interesting, but that's not how it currently works.
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Lunever
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Post by Lunever »

So what do the spellbooks save runes individually for if not only runes can be copied from scrolls into all books around, but 1 spellbook will serve the entire party? To really allow for characters with individual spell knowledge there would need to be an option that demands a character to have his own book.

I would have prefered an eye/mouth-like icon before an actual item too, but then I can see why EVIL dungeon designers would prefer an item (and want to keep it having already created puzzles relying on it). Yet there is an easy solution for that: Let the spellbook be an item as it is now, but create a specific spellbook-slot in each character's inventory, where only the spellbook will fit (or maybe a single scroll in lieu of the spell-book you had to sacrifice because of that evil dungeon designer).

The problem with the spellbook being general for the party could be easily solved if the spellbook would not COPY spells, but instead STORE scrolls in a chest-like manner, allowing the character holding the spellbook to use any runes on his collected scrolls as usual. That would also allow for strategic re-arranging of spells during the game.
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Ok

Post by Chaos Awakes »

So when Lunever says above about creating a dungeon where not every character can cast every spell isn't really possible at the moment without setting up some sort of system whereby a scroll is destroyed after being scribed once which I don't think is possible?
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Post by George Gilbert »

Lunever wrote:the spellbook would not COPY spells, but instead STORE scrolls in a chest-like manner, allowing the character holding the spellbook to use any runes on his collected scrolls as usual.
That was discussed in detail too! (In fact, I even went as far as drawing all the graphics for such a "scroll-chest").

I think the general point is that there were many many ways of doing the spell book, each of which had their advantages and disadvantages. Broadly speaking, the more "realistic" they were (so requiring spell books each, or even having to have them equipped), the more un-usable and more impact on the flow of the game they made. The current solution is a nice compromise between plausibility, game mechanics and game play.

It's easy to suggest some other way that improves on one of those 3 aspects, but usually to the detriment of one or both of the others.
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Lunever
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Post by Lunever »

Ok, it's just been an idea, I didn't know or remember that it had been discussed before.
Yet one thing I would still like to have: An inventory slot for the spell-book. Shouldn't be that difficult to implement and shouldn't cause any problems.
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Post by beowuuf »

Why do you need an inventory slot for the spellbook?
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Lunever
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Post by Lunever »

Because:

1) I think it' strange that, while you do need the spellbook in your possession in order to prepare spells, it is sufficient to have it burried in the backpack. In EOB you had to hold it in the hand. Having a book-slot would be in-between these.

2) If a dungeon designer decides with the current spellbook.functionality to place more than 1 spellbook in his dungeon in order to avoid that "OMG, mage nr. 4 has died, now mage nr. 1, 2 and 3 can't cast spells anymore"-effect, these books will block space that is usually used for other things in O-DM, and wouldn't be used up if the spellbook had been implemented as an inventory property rather than an item.

3) If an option for individual spellbooks per character should be implemented, that would be a useful first step toward such an option.
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Post by beowuuf »

I odn't think any of those are reasons to create another area in the inventory that would take up screen space and make it seem cluttered *shrug* as always up to other people, and then ultimately geoerge, to say if these are wanted options or not and worth doing
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