OK, first problem (spell effect)...

[Lord Rocket]

Right. I've been buggering around with my first dungeon, and one of the more ambitious things I want to try is a total reworking of the spell system - and, even though what I want to do simply isn't possible at the moment, I think I've had a couple of decent ideas. One of these is a spell to create a cloud that can damage an entire 'square' of monsters as long as they stay within the cloud. Now, the other spell effects are obviously one monster affairs, so I figured I'd have to generate an invisible flooritem underneath the cloud - using a relay, I suspect - that can do the damage. HOWEVER, my problem is that I strongly suspect this would exclude flying/levitating monsters from the effects. Any ways I can weasel out of this, or does anyone know a less convoluted way of achieving the same effect? Cheers in advance.

(While I'm at it, does anyone know of any utilities to extract graphics from Eye of the Beholder? I'm using the DMII wallsets, but the DMII monster graphics are cartoony and, frankly, crap, while the original monsters are a bit dodgy).

[Ameena]

Does a Poison Cloud not affect the whole square? Can you not just clone that in some way? That seems amazingly obvious so it's probably not what you're after but thought I'd mention it in case it was .

[Lord Rocket]

It doesn't seem to, but I may well be wrong about that. Obviously I'm not at all familiar with all the mechanics of the game.

How would I go about checking?

[beowuuf]

Poison cloud affects all monsters. If not (test it with a group of 1hp monsters in single tile, obviously) then this is a bug. The floor triggers, unlike DM, can trigger monsters passing over like any other object, or even you can target the specific monsters by type (if the cloud is a cloud of cold and so would affect black flames more, for example ).

The damage tile will affect all monsters in the square too, regardless of flying, so you simply have the spell generate a cloned haze/cloud and a damage tile, and have it destroyed at the end of the effect

While thye are slightly hidden, can I suggest you create a test dungoen with every 'action' type tile and play around with them? Also if you haven't already sophia's editing guide makes good reading on how to use some of these objects and for an insight into how to start using action objects, etc

[beowuuf]

Just to go off topic while I remember, the most ambitious spell system I considered for RTC (and I'm convinced it would work too!) was to implement the sorcery three letter spells. You'd use the sixth rune of each set as a 'next page' that looked blank when cast, and it was somehting I could never do as you'd need the suggestion of allowing a fifth set of runes. With access to 30 runes (well, 25 really) that would cover all the 48 spell words of sorcery. You would effctively be casting three spells through relays with probably some text showing the stage your spell was at.... quite convoluted and of course needing that fifth rune set, never tried it

Sorry, just something I remembered about and totally OT : )

[Lord Rocket]

OK, cheers guys. I tested poison cloud in the approved manner and found it worked alright, but it's far too weak for my purposes.
Still, I know what I'm doing now.

[Tonari]

Damage increases if the numerical value of poison cloud of damaged by magic in monster's Stats tub is raised.
If that of the flying monster is adjusted to 0, damage becomes 0.

Perhaps, when this method is used, you will have to make all monsters a clone.
And, true poison cloud will have to be excluded from the game perhaps.
Still, is it good?

[Gambit37]

I had a quick play around with Beo's idea -- doing a modified version of the Sorcery spell system by spelling out 3 letter spells, using the first row as power and the last three as the letters.

Although it works, the big problem with it is the cost of spells. As every spell will always be four runes, the cheapest spell to cast is 9 mana (LO MA VEN KU -- but obviously transposed to letters, eg, LO Z A P).

I like rationalising it that magic is *expensive* anyway. So it makes magic a much less easy option than in DM.

However, 2 problems:
1) You'd need to significantly increase the amount of starting mana for each character.
2) The experience gain you get at low wizard levels is not enough to reward the player with enough mana to cast stronger spells using this system. You only get a few points and these level-up bonuses are hard-coded and can't be changed by the designer. You also can't create any mechanics to give out permanent higher stats increases.

I think this system might be doable in DSB, but I don't think it's viable in RTC unless someone can solve the above issues?