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"Despite the need for you all to feel insanely powerful, when we already pwn everything, I disagree with you. The only thing we need is ChS. That's it. Nothing else. Nada. Fin."
Which CHS are you thinking of? CHS#1? CHS#2 or perhaps a future CHS#3?
Nothing wrong with disagreeing, but I am not sure if your post was an attempt at humor or just uninformed.
Flavius
"militantly enforcing the overly rigid standards of you and your small collection of friends"
Personally, as nice as it would be for it to be a targetted SvSp type spell, I think it would actually be more fitting as WvW. It would fit nicely along the lines of 4th Tier. After learning the true manipulation of spirit mastery via Eylhaar's/Bitter Feast, the ability to affect said spirit of others negatively while benefitting one's self makes pure and simple sense.
Give it a circle requirement of 40th or some such, and have it even still exceptionally difficult to cast at that point (With general magic reqs for circle). You might have the ability to actually use it on critters and such with around 200 ranks of PM/Harness, but give it a base requirement of 250 PM/Harness to begin being effective on PC's. A minimum prep of 15, with a max cap of 60, much along the lines of PS but with a more strict and difficult guideline. Obvious, if ChS #2 could kill people in one, low mana cast, we could tone the spirit draw down to say, 5-10% at minimum mana, and 40-50% at maximum mana.
This would contribute to the use of Eylhaar's/Bitter Feast at a greater level, and actually give it more potential when your character has under 200 spirit points. Because, before that, it simply isn't feasible to be sapping away 90% of your spirit health in one shot. Obviously it could use more development, but heck, I'm not so much into the overall mechanics of things.
-Player of Krahas
Give it a circle requirement of 40th or some such, and have it even still exceptionally difficult to cast at that point (With general magic reqs for circle). You might have the ability to actually use it on critters and such with around 200 ranks of PM/Harness, but give it a base requirement of 250 PM/Harness to begin being effective on PC's. A minimum prep of 15, with a max cap of 60, much along the lines of PS but with a more strict and difficult guideline. Obvious, if ChS #2 could kill people in one, low mana cast, we could tone the spirit draw down to say, 5-10% at minimum mana, and 40-50% at maximum mana.
This would contribute to the use of Eylhaar's/Bitter Feast at a greater level, and actually give it more potential when your character has under 200 spirit points. Because, before that, it simply isn't feasible to be sapping away 90% of your spirit health in one shot. Obviously it could use more development, but heck, I'm not so much into the overall mechanics of things.
-Player of Krahas
If you want it to have a SvSp/WvW component, then it cannot be a spell that causes potentially fatal damage. It would have to be a debuff or disabler of some kind.
If you want it to be TM, then and only then can it be a potentially fatal spell.
Pick one. You cannot have both.
Rev. Reene
Gylwyn says to you, "Heretics are often the finders of truth."
If you want it to be TM, then and only then can it be a potentially fatal spell.
Pick one. You cannot have both.
Rev. Reene
Gylwyn says to you, "Heretics are often the finders of truth."
As Reene said, its pretty much a given that if it can kill it has to be TM. If it were TM, I suppose it could be a DFA spell that affected players, but with a given that it would have as many restrictions as Burn, and not be as effective as Lightning Bolt. Maybe it could be a spell that ignored shield, caused cold damage and sucked spirit. One of the problems with a spell that kills with spirit damage is the departure time issue. Players whine alot about that. I like the idea of sucking spirit, but sucking too much from any character will cause too much wailing and ultimately a nerf. Let it do mainly cold damage and some spirit suckage.
"militantly enforcing the overly rigid standards of you and your small collection of friends"
"militantly enforcing the overly rigid standards of you and your small collection of friends"
There's room for hybridization. The TM directive is that lethal spells need to contest TM in some fashion relevant to the spell.
For SvSp lethal attacks, I was thinking of exploiting the D&D 3.0 concept of the magical touch attack. A TM attack against Evasion (no shield, no armor) that does no damage at all; it is merely there to see if you have "tagged" your opponent. If so, we roll through the stat contest stuff content that you've proven at least a minimal competency in TM versus the difficulty of your target.
The TM directive was never intended to remove the stat contest entirely from consideration for these spells -- though that was, admittedly, what in practice happened -- simply to interject an actual skill check somewhere along the line.
-Armifer
"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
-Viktor Frankl
For SvSp lethal attacks, I was thinking of exploiting the D&D 3.0 concept of the magical touch attack. A TM attack against Evasion (no shield, no armor) that does no damage at all; it is merely there to see if you have "tagged" your opponent. If so, we roll through the stat contest stuff content that you've proven at least a minimal competency in TM versus the difficulty of your target.
The TM directive was never intended to remove the stat contest entirely from consideration for these spells -- though that was, admittedly, what in practice happened -- simply to interject an actual skill check somewhere along the line.
-Armifer
"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
-Viktor Frankl
>For SvSp lethal attacks, I was thinking of exploiting the D&D 3.0 concept of the magical touch attack. A TM attack against Evasion (no shield, no armor) that does no damage at all; it is merely there to see if you have "tagged" your opponent. If so, we roll through the stat contest stuff content that you've proven at least a minimal competency in TM versus the difficulty of your target.
To be honest I'd rather it worked the other way, the damage was based on TM and the to-hit was a stat check. A spell like what you're suggesting would probably teach pretty awful TM given that TM isn't used in the damage calculations. In addition, I've always really thought that TM should be a major component in determining the damage dealt. Of course, my major concern here is really the amount that a spell like that would teach, other than that it seems perfectly fine.
What's wrong with hybrid spells which do more like: TM determines to-hit and damage dealt, spell vs spirit determines secondary effect. In addition, I assume spells which alternate spell vs spirit and TM-based effects are still on the table (pulsing like I suggested for Winds of Asketi in a previous thread).
As much as I like the concept of lethal Spell vs Spirit spells, I'm very wary of doing stat-contest based damage. I've worked hard to train my TM so that I do good damage with my spells, I don't want to have to train charisma too :P In addition, it seems pretty hard to balance said spells.
Is there actually a requirement that spells which do spirit health in damage use spell vs spirit mechanics? That seems to be everyone's assumption, but I haven't really seen that stated. Why can't we have a pure TM spell which does spirit damage + wound damage, but doesn't do vitality damage (or does only partial vitality damage)?
To be honest I'd rather it worked the other way, the damage was based on TM and the to-hit was a stat check. A spell like what you're suggesting would probably teach pretty awful TM given that TM isn't used in the damage calculations. In addition, I've always really thought that TM should be a major component in determining the damage dealt. Of course, my major concern here is really the amount that a spell like that would teach, other than that it seems perfectly fine.
What's wrong with hybrid spells which do more like: TM determines to-hit and damage dealt, spell vs spirit determines secondary effect. In addition, I assume spells which alternate spell vs spirit and TM-based effects are still on the table (pulsing like I suggested for Winds of Asketi in a previous thread).
As much as I like the concept of lethal Spell vs Spirit spells, I'm very wary of doing stat-contest based damage. I've worked hard to train my TM so that I do good damage with my spells, I don't want to have to train charisma too :P In addition, it seems pretty hard to balance said spells.
Is there actually a requirement that spells which do spirit health in damage use spell vs spirit mechanics? That seems to be everyone's assumption, but I haven't really seen that stated. Why can't we have a pure TM spell which does spirit damage + wound damage, but doesn't do vitality damage (or does only partial vitality damage)?
>>Of course, my major concern here is really the amount that a spell like that would teach, other than that it seems perfectly fine.
Any of the non-damaging TM ideas we're discussing (touch-attack contests, Empath TM, and so on) will necessitate a different way to approach TM EXP. Not a technical problem in the least, but there would certainly be some back and forth about appropriate amounts to award.
>>What's wrong with hybrid spells which do more like: TM determines to-hit and damage dealt, spell vs spirit determines secondary effect.
Nothing technically wrong with it -- Wythor has designed plenty of Warrior Mage spells that follow that route. My only issue with going that route is that if you score a meaningful TM hit, any secondary effect can quickly become irrelevant to the primary effect of being dead.
>>Is there actually a requirement that spells which do spirit health in damage use spell vs spirit mechanics?
Not a strict requirement, though I consider it thematically appropriate and would like to pursue it if it isn't too much of a PITA to work out properly. Same thing with idea for Moon Mage psychic-themed TM attacks.
-Armifer
"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
-Viktor Frankl
Any of the non-damaging TM ideas we're discussing (touch-attack contests, Empath TM, and so on) will necessitate a different way to approach TM EXP. Not a technical problem in the least, but there would certainly be some back and forth about appropriate amounts to award.
>>What's wrong with hybrid spells which do more like: TM determines to-hit and damage dealt, spell vs spirit determines secondary effect.
Nothing technically wrong with it -- Wythor has designed plenty of Warrior Mage spells that follow that route. My only issue with going that route is that if you score a meaningful TM hit, any secondary effect can quickly become irrelevant to the primary effect of being dead.
>>Is there actually a requirement that spells which do spirit health in damage use spell vs spirit mechanics?
Not a strict requirement, though I consider it thematically appropriate and would like to pursue it if it isn't too much of a PITA to work out properly. Same thing with idea for Moon Mage psychic-themed TM attacks.
-Armifer
"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
-Viktor Frankl
