Here are some ideas I came up with:

Ball lightning – Zero movement, but lightning form ability on 0 cooldown

Avatar – Attack = caster’s Spell Power, defense = caster’s Spell resist, keeps caster stunned while in play, has ability to unsummon self

Djinn – Can cast growth, shrink, heal, curse, blind, slow, and haste

Chronodemon – Can cast mass haste and mass slow

Volatile Ember – 1 move, can explode, killing itself and doing fire damage to all within 2 squares

Earth Spirit – can cast single target version of pull to earth

Chromatic Warrior –  Attack and Defense = 4x total earth, fire, air, and water power; Dodge and Initiative = 2x total earth, fire, air and water power

Doppelganger – Can cast shape-shift; adopting appearance, attack, defense, dodge, movement, and initiative of the target. Can only target 1-square units, if copying a group only copies one member.

Wall of brambles – 3x1, 0 move, has ability which does damage to all adjacent units

Wall of flames – 3x1, 0 move, has ability which does fire damage to target unit

Wall of Ice - 3x1, 0 move, has ability which slows all adjacent units

Wall of wind - 3x1, 0 move, has teleport ability, range 4

Holy Wall - 3x1, 0 move, has ability which heals all adjacent allies

Wall of the Dead - 3x1, 0 move, has ability which summons a skeleton

OK, looking over the list of ideas in the various posts in this thread, I see a lot of good ideas.

What I WOULD LIKE TO SEE Stardock focus on is creating new spell abilities.  As an example, the 'Mirror Image' spell clones a unit, which might require some new code 'under the hood'.

A lot of these ideas I believe can currently be done using the existing .xml code.  So it might be a fun idea to have a 'Submit your spell idea for the Spellpack DLC' contest/round, so that any ground that can easily be 'covered on our end' can be tackled by interested modders.  This will free up some 'in house' resources (whom are essentially on the clock) to work on implementing the new 'spell tag' ideas to complement the ones we have now.

So to summarize:

1)  Ask the community to do some of the heavy lifting here.  Any spells that are 'accepted' for the Spellpack DLC could have a <!-- Spell idea submitted by Heavenfall --> or whatever tag included with the spell listing, to make that person feel special

2) Have the Stardockians work on spells that require a new code implementation (such as the Mirror Image mentioned above). 

On point # 2, I'm sure someone could compile a quick list of things that currently aren't easily attained/possible using the existing code.  Adding new tags, etc. is always a godsend of sorts to our modding community, and helps the game evolve and move forward.

Also, I'd rather see an Advanced Combat DLC first/soon.  I even made a thread with some suggestions at some point, and a few others had some good ideas they mentioned there as well...

Third, I miss Dynasties...  Not Dynasty though (that was a silly show).

Good Morning SD

Just noticed this and was wondering why there isn't more distinction between Kingdom and Empire spells? I understand that there is this split with Birth of Summer and Bloom of Twilight, but what if there was even more separation?

For example:

- Kingdoms should be able to cast Courage. Empires should not.

- Empires should be able to cast Touch of Darkness. Kingdoms should not.

There are probably others that can be split like this too. Also, thinking ahead for the Spells DLC, perhaps this is an approach that can be used to differentiate a few spells.

Also, I may have already mentioned it before, but I really like the spells, like Alchemy, where you need to do a little quest in order to obtain the spell. I'd really love it if a few more of those types of spells were made available.

Thoughts? Comments?

+1

Teleports and other utility spells that synergise well with warrior/assassin/commander. ie, road movement buff, "domain" type spells, more rituals that have permanent effects on units/heroes.

I would also like to see all spheres be able to turn nodes. 

A greater Shadowbolt, Death Magic V or so. Damage would equal to double caster level. 1 round casting time. So less damage than flamedart, but unresistable.

Also, please make quest spells available through research (remove them from quests) - and just place them high enough in the tree.

Tactical Battle Spell Pack suggestion:

1. Tactical Spells

2. New Monster Groups with Magic Casters (high and low level encounters groups, different spell selections per group).

3. New Tactical Encounter Maps

- such as an ambush map where the player finds himself in the middle of the battlefield and surrounded

- map with bridge over a moat

- narrow winding mountain paths and blocking terrain (see 5 below)

- forest with blocking terrain (see 5 below)

- Graveyard with lots of tombs to channel attacks

4. New Quests

5. If Possible - Blocking Terrain - blocks ranged and magical attack path from crossing tile side - i.e. simplified LOS - so units must maneuver around the blacking terrain. This would for example, prevent ranged attacks from being fired through blocking forest or boulder tiles.

Tornado (air - level 4 - casting time: 2) - All units (friend and foe) on the tactical map are knocked prone and displaced x tiles (1 tile per air shard) by a powerful wind storm unless they resist. Tactically, the caster's army should have high resistance (air) before this spell is cast.

Forest Fire (fire - level 3 - casting time: 2) - Summons a thick dark cloud of smoke that covers the battlefield and prevents the use of ranged attacks by friend and foe. Effect can be dispelled by some air spells. Duration: 1 turn per fire shard.

Demons and Wizards adds some religion mechanics (divine spells, special units etc) if you're interested in trying mods:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/446891

http://demonsandwizards.wikidot.com/

I would like a spell that summons a mount for the caster. It could be two versions, one for death magic that summons some kinde of demon horse and one for life magic that summons an unicorn or something simmilar.

Another thing I really would like is a spell that destroys roads, as there is  no good way to undo roads atm. You could make a pair. One spell that creates a road on one tile and one that destroys a road on one tile.

Also a "spell" that converts Crystals into Mana would be nice.

As I like sandbox games that have the victory conditions disabled one thing I would really like woukd be powerfull abilities that you unlock once you meet a victory condition (instead of just winning the game). My suggestions would be.

Spell of the Making: If you have the "Spell Victory" disabled you casting the spell of the making wouldn't end the game but have a powerfull bonus, like giving your souverain XP every turn or creating a mana every turn.

Quest Victory: Instead of just winning fulfilling the Quest could give you aspell (or a Crown that could be equipped as helmet and grants the wearer(which probably has to be a souverain) a spell) that let you tame dragons.

I'd like to see more powerful spells take more than one turn to cast. 

If opponents then attempt to counter spell I'd like to see a struggle take place between the caster and the countering opponent. If there are more then one mages countering I'd like them to gang up on the caster. Unless perhaps you can assign mages of your own to support your casting.

Tied into that idea I'd love to see mages be able to hi-jack summoned creatures or unsummon them, to dispel wards through mental combat such as described, and to be able to summon death clouds and insect swarms which can run amock if your spell is disturbed. As in, you have to concentrate on the spell each turn, and its canceled if you don;t do so. If your concentration is broken there is a chance the spell turns on you (depending on how violently it was broken). That way attacks on mages and counterspelling by mages have a lot of visual influence, and more powerful spells can be made because they'd be balanced by casting time and concentration requirements. Things such as cloud spells could be made as a sort of special creature(s) or recurring spell effect each round.

The underlying idea is that this would make Elemental / Fallen Enchantress a game in which magical spells not only play a general role in combat, but in which mages can oppose one another directly on the battlefield in struggle of magical power. It creates a part of the game specifically devoted to magical battles - the struggle between enchanters.

I hope tickles anyone's fancy.

(I tried to look at how complex it'd be to make this as a mod for FE but I just don't have the time. My hobby is game-design programming so I put some thought into it. I'm trying to make something similar to the above for an online NWN2 game server for which I've been building a replacement magic system) 

R. 

I think a spell where you double a single units damage for 1 or 2 rounds after which they are instantly killed sounds very Quendar.

This is obviously off-topic, but is it possible to share shard control within Alliances? If not, would this DLC be able to address this? Like, if I have one water and my ally has one water, both of us would have two water, thus eliminating the desire to un-ally just to get the shard...