Elemental race aptitude concept

[seth]

This isn't a suggestion for a complete race, just a general playstyle. Since the devs had said they were only interested in new races that took advantage of unused and interesting aptitude sets, I was wondering if anyone thought this would make for an interesting game.

This is just to get a very rough idea of what I'm suggesting:

Spellcasting......-2 (I kind of picked this arbitrarily)
Conjurations..... -3
Charms............. -3
Hexes............... -3
Summonings..... -3
Necromancy...... -3
Translocations... -3
Transmutation... -3
Fire Magic.......... +4
Ice Magic........... +4
Air Magic........... +4
Earth Magic........ +4
Poison Magic..... -3


Pretty basic, as you can see; the idea is to have one race than can feasibly pull off dabbling in opposing elemental schools. After specialization, the opposing school aptitude would be at 0, which would still be second best (besides the other elemental school, obviously).

Is +4 in two elements simply too powerful regardless of the negatives everywhere else? What if it were just +3, or if the other schools were even lower than -3? Feel free to make improvements.

[MrMisterMonkey]

If you want your race to dabble in opposing elemental schools, I think it might work better if you make it so they cross-train instead of anti-train (but with crazy apts).

[KoboldLord]

The stronger disincentive for using opposing elemental skills is that there's no point. Fire provides… raw damage. Ice provides… raw damage. Earth provides… yes, more raw damage. Once you've spend xp on raw damage, there's minimal incentive to spend even more on yet more raw damage. It's redundant and a waste regardless of the aptitude. You could just pick up Mystic Blast if you need versatility and not have to pay any additional xp at all.

Ultimately, air magic is the only elemental skill worth training with any other elemental skill. Even an earth-focused caster will want to pick up the extremely useful air buffs once they are found, and the amount of xp wasted getting them castable is not a major concern.

[seth]

Yeah, I see your point. I'm not incredibly familiar with all the spells in the game, and I didn't realize anti-training was really just there for flavor.