One of the three focuses for Fallen Enchantress is Magic. We want the spells to be unique, to feel like casters with enough mana can change the world. We want magic to fill the game, all the sovereigns start with spells though some like Procipinee are better spell casters than Verga. As in Master of Magic you can choose your sovereigns proficiency with the various magic types when you create them.
I’ve attached a PDF of the spells with this post. It includes the normal spells the player can cast, it doesn’t include spell abilities of creatures, spell like abilities granted by equipment and some other special abilities in the game.
I’d like to give a special thanks both to Unacomn for suggesting the Shadow World spell and NuclearNeumann for suggesting the Blood Curse spell. They are fun spells to play with.
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I Removed the spell PDF as it is almost a year old and woefully out of date. New spells have been added and even more are coming. check out out dev journal on spells here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ArdQVqLHsI&feature=youtu.be
- Derek 4/11/2012
Can we see more interesting labels for the magic proficiency instead of stuff like "Expert"?
"Expert" is a bit mundane. It sounds like something you would apply to a person who is good at C++ for example, rather than a guy who is proficient in magic in a fantasy setting.
Something like "Adept" or "Archmage" would lend a little more flavor I think.
A summoning spell idea from AoW:
Call of the forest. Strategic spell that spawns a random creature to do your bidding in nearby woodlands each turn.
This looks great.
My only question is regarding defensive strategic spells. Has there been any thought around implementing any? The ability to enchant an area to protect it for offensive spells (Curgen's Volcano, for example) or to enchant your land to make it harsher to invaders? Summoning haunted woods that make it harder for an enemy to travel through or force them to lose units/face the spirits of the woods (as an example)?
If I design my sovereign to be an awesomely powerful spell caster he should be able to use those powers to protect his realm without being limited to using them offensively.
Does spell damage only scale from shards? Or is there stats (like INT in WoM) and items that can also boost it?
Shards are a lot harder to come by then making bigger weapons (at least in WoM they are) so I'm concerned that if you can't boost spell damage it'll fall behind as the game progresses.
Yeah, first question same as tridus, how does intelligence influence these spells?
Second, it really seems like magic is very closely tied to champions now, and I'm not sure I like that because it means if you want magic you have to go gravedigging. Will there be units you can train for some factions that may have access to low-level spell-casting?
Third, I really think there's room for a lot more summons. They are key in separating the viability of magic from the viability of champions. So, for example, if you have a lot of magic but end up with no champions, you can still use that magic by summoning units.
Fourth, some farcasting ability for your sovereign might be handy, like in AoW. Ie, your sovereign isn't in the combat but he can still cast spells into it, but at an increased cost the further away you are or something like that.
Fifth, in my opinion a lot of these spells seem a bit too specific in their damage. There's always room for some randomness! Or will that come from the protection side? Ie, this spell deals 5 damage, and the mitigation based on resistance and protection is (0-2)?
Good idea: Enchanting a group of forest tiles (3x3) to increase the movement cost or damage units moving through them.
Agreed. I would really like to see a wider range of summons spells- both for single creatures and packs of creatures. Example: Wolf (Level 1), Wolf Pack (Level 3 - squad of wolves), Wolve Horde (Level 5 - a company of wolves). Along with spells (Book: Enchantment) to deal with summoned creatures; i.e. dispel summons, break control, control summons, etc.
Oh yeah, that too! If Magic is meant to be a big thing, it needs to be usable in combat even if your Sovereign isn't there. AoW 2 handled that really well.
Thanks for the look into the spells!
I wouldn't mind echoing Tridus, Heavenfalls & Kantok's questions.
It would seem fitting if there were a bit more defense / dispelling magic, perhaps in the life tree.
Cheers!
Ok, maybe I'll get flamed but I'm a bit disapointed !
There's lots of cool spells but it's not the complete list, right ? I mean there's tons more of spells that could be implemented ! Just for example the Raise dead spells, etc...
I'm very disapointed to see those useless spells come again like Raise and lower land... Ok, they're fun to play with to modify the land but they're useless unless you have mana to waste.
Most of all, the good battle spells are missing, there's a couple of nice ones (and buffs) but there's still isn't those amazing ones that will make you feel really powerful and that will, in the end, make you afraid to go fight another magic caster like in master of magic ! Could be more buff, more summoning during fights, more offensive spells and there could be spells that modify the battlefield (because in the end it's more important to modify the battlefield with walls, holes, spikes, traps,... than the map itself.
Last but not least, I like the new effects on screenshots and I hope new visual effects will be as good as the spell effect. I love the Wall of Fire spell from master of magic , this is great can't imagine how happy I am about it !!!! This was one of my favorite spell !
I just wonder if the battle into a city will be different and walls will play it's part during the battle ! Remember Master of Magic and city battle ? I was really disapointed by the battle system in cities in War of Magic which seems inexistant during a fight
Well, maybe I'm wrong and I hope I am (I'll be flamed), but even if this is a big step forward compared to War of Magic, there is still something missing when I remember all my hours playing master of magic
I'll second (or third or fourth) this question. I've always liked the general idea and thought it should be tied to a high level once per empire/kingdom building that requires your sovereign to be present to use (wizards tower or whatever). It gives you the ability to cast spells into tactical combats that your sovereign isn't present in at an increased cost or decreased effectiveness and also somehow gives you a benefit if you're present when casting strategic spells or is required for some more powerful spells.
There are plenty of ways to implement farcasting, although I don't think it should just be added as an ability that allows your sovereign to do it anytime/anyplace. There needs to be some choice and consequences around it.
I disagree. The straight terraforming spells are certainly useful. They allow you to shape the land around your cities, clear space for a new city/outpost (if you're trying to push back the fog of war and potential monster spawn locations), and allow you to at least try to control where other people can enter your realm. I frequently use them to funnel foreign empires into highly defended cities (at the danger of a volcano or some such wiping out those cities).
I just wonder if the battle into a city will be different and walls will play it's part during the battle ! Remember Master of Magic and city battle ? I was really disapointed by the battle system in cities in War of Magic which seems inexistant during a fightWell, maybe I'm wrong and I hope I am (I'll be flamed), but even if this is a big step forward compared to War of Magic, there is still something missing when I remember all my hours playing master of magic
I believe Derek said that battles within cities is not on the FE feature list for launch.
I'm surprised that you think you'll be flamed for voicing concern/questions. This is one of the friendliest forums I've ever been a part of.
Reading through the manual- some questions of my own:
1) it was Life shards can get converted into death shards. Does the inverse happen.
Edit: was mentioned in comments. Question answered, though manual needs to be edited.
2) My running AI complaint, will the AI be able to use tactical spells at all, and do they take mana? Will there be limits on tactical spells that can be used in one battle?
Overall though, you did everything I wanted in magic. My only real complaint is that I think you could use even more spells- I want the number of spells to be comparable to AOW:SM, which is what the system reminds me of. (Maybe take some spell ideas from there)
Air could use some illusionary magic
Water some healing magic
Fire some more maledictory/utility stuff, maybe a spell that gets rids of plagues and curses, but damages the unit in the process (boiling blood)
Earth some enchanting perhaps (Reshaping weapons and armor?)
How does intelligence affect spell casting. I read through the PDF and there was a spell that added to INT and reduced to CON. After reading the description, it appears that INT will not affect damage or effects.
Does it reduce magical defense
Does it make effects more likely to stack. If so, some spellbooks do not need high int (Fire) where as others will depend upon it (Death).
I welcome the decision to ditch spell books. The idea of books coming from tech research and spells coming from spell research seemed sort of like saying the same thing twice as far as i was concerned.
Overkill is a good mechanic as well. It means that two guys in adjacent squares take the same damage as two guys in the same square. Just makes sense. Hopefully it does not mean the end of area of effect spells completely however.
Some criticisms:
- The move back to selecting an element at character creation disheartens me. All it means is a random disadvantage for most players (because they will start near the wrong shard) and a random advantage to those who can be bothered to reroll their world. Surely it would be better to either auto-spawn the appropriate shard type, or give the player his first specialization WHEN he find his first shard, if you want to continue with choose-an-element.
- Teleport appears to have been removed. I can see why, however, i think this is a poor solution to the problem of teleport abuse. I would rather see it kept, but limited to the caster himself. Getting armies around will always be fiddly, and if teleport is going to be banned, then why can’t we have a spell that increases the movement rate of an entire army (rather than just one unit)?
- Selection of spells is still very small and I predict I will quickly lose interest after getting the one or two i need. Especially when i need to choose a new one every 10 turns. I’d rather have a system where i researched the books themselves, made the books into techs, and then combine spell research with magic/sorcery research. To do this you would need more books and more spells (Greater Book of Fire etc?) but it is my belief this is necessary anyway, and the benefits from reducing micro and consolidating two previously underdeveloped areas (magic tech research and spell research) would be considerable (btw, i know this contradicts my first statement, the point is we should either have book research or spell research, but not both).
- Damage spells still appear to be under thought. There are references to intelligence boosting spell power, yet the spell descriptions only describe how they are improved by shards. Elemental has never, in any build i have played so far, had direct damage spells that were competitive in both the early and late game. Now it may well be you have some great damage formulas written for how these damages will scale with intelligence AND the number of shards, but even if you could do that, wouldn’t you still have a spell that was overpriced in the early game and underpriced in the late game (because mana costs do not scale up with damage)? So to my mind the game really needs to have some superior direct damage spells that you research in the late game. There seems to be some revulsion to having “the same spell twice,” but most other games (even those that have great scaling, like D&D) still do this. And it is not “the same spell twice” because often you will use the weaker spell when you wish to conserve mana. So please swallow your pride and add some high damage late game spells (whilst keeping some scaling), to give me something worth researching.
I would guess that Int is spell resistance and ability to cast as in WoM.
Are we to assume that the reason for the small number of spells is to make sure the AI can use them? In that case I think there are plenty here. I don't really count lack of summons though, as it is probably the easiest spell to add.
I really like the Focus spell in particular. Also, the +50 dodge adds a sort of dread to fighting a good AI.
Mana shield is something nice to stop humans from Sov killing at the beginning of every battle.
Really looking forward to elemental vs champion battles. It looks as if even the highest level summons can be ripped apart by the right spell.
Also, love it when people use MoM as an example of good spells, when the game is not remotely geared to allow the AI to use those wonderful spells. Granted if you all can copy paste those spells AND make the AI use them, I would but two copies.
I was just about to post the samething.
@Sethai,
lol volcano is the only late game spell I plan on using...
New version of the doc uploaded. Fixed the fact that Slow was listed twice (it was correctly a rank 1 water spell), added the spell type to Pull of the Earth (Tactical) and removed the rank name of Expert (though Im not so sure Im in love with them yet so they may change again). Thanks for the feedback!
"They are fun spells to play with"
Easy for you to say!
Ha ha it's sounding marvelous so keep up the amazing work!!!!
Derek - Reprisal on page 15 needs "stuck" changed to "struck" I think.
Re: Summoning
The addition of tactical summoning is great. That said, I think that adding more tactical spells; such summoning and counter summoning spells would improve the variery of tactical combat and make it less predicatable.
Examples of Counter Summoning Spells:
Confuse (Enchantment Level 3) - Target unit; including summoned creatures, are 50% to lose turn due to becomes disorientation and confusion. Lasts for 1 turn per caster level.Dispel Summons (Summoning Level 3) - Dispels Summoned CreatureBreak Control (Enchantment Level 4) - Break enemy casters control of a summoned creature. Summoned Creature attacks nearest randomly selected unit (friend or foe). Counters Control Creature.Control Creature (Enchantment Level 4) - Takes control of a targeted summoned creature; friend or foe. Counters Break Summons.
It sucks Oh well, I hope they're thinking about it.
Yes, I'm always prepared to be flamed because I've been flamed a couple times in other Forums... Forums are not always about expressing your opinion I guess =/
I'm mainly on the SOASE forum and the community is truly great.
I can agree and second that !
I also saw the shard converting / destroying, I hope there will be other conversion spells and maybe a "build shard" for a big big big amount of mana and would be one very last spell to research.
Originally I wanted to complain about only there being 9 spells per each school (water, earth,..) but then I saw the whole other groups of spells that you research or find or do quests for and I decided against it
Great stuff and great artwork.
Oh, I hope you put as much effort into making factions as different and the units they use.
Spells do seem very cool even if it seems like there is room for a few more. I guess that's what modding is for, although the awesome artwork will be hard to match.
Summoning things like wolves would be kinda bland. How about more interesting things like summons that drain the summoners health, have time limits or other cool stuff.
How about instead of master it goes:
Mage-->Archmage-->Avatar
I think avatar fits because they are "channeling" the elements.
Really excellent artwork.
Mana Blast and Mana Shield are some of the type of creative spells I really like, although I wonder about balance if there is no mana limit.
Some way to counter buffs/summons would be nice to have though, but all in all it seems to be a quite nice foundation for an interesting magic system. To be expanded later on of course.
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