Shoals Surfer
Posts: 312
Joined: Thursday, 9th June 2011, 19:12
Suggestions for Hex Spells
Problem:
Hex school is undesirable since by midgame you cannot rely on them, and they are not powerful enough to waste a turn on if they do not work.
In addition the Charm, and specifically the Charm/Air schools are a no-brainer for casters because the movement, missile defense, and to lesser extent flight spells.
Suggested Solution:
Straight up removing Haste/Swiftness and the repel missile spells would require significant rebalancing. I would like to add the following three spells. They could serve as an alternative way for a caster could gain similar utility without being forced to train charm/air.
Dust Cloud-- Lvl 2 hex/earth: By hexing the omnipresent dirt and sand the caster creates a cloud of dust at a point specified.
Mechanic: This acts as a smite targeted fog spell, very useful for controlling line of sight. Useful for making casters close, or protecting against missile attacks. As a meta-mechanic, it would also block other clouds (as all clouds do).
Earthgrab—Lvl 3 or 4 hex/earth: The caster causes stone hands to erupt from the earth, briefly pinning the target in place. After freeing themselves, the target will be wary enough to avoid futures traps for a while.
Mass Earthgrab—Lvl 6 hex/earth: This spell casts Earthgrab on all targets in LOS/Range, causing stone hands to erupt from the earth, briefly pinning all targets in place. After freeing themselves, the targets will be wary enough to avoid futures traps for a while.
Mechanic: This spell gives an unresistible hold effect to any target(s) (possibly size affected) for 20-50 time units. Enough time to either get in a couple of swings against a target without their evasion, or to get a critical few spaces of running room. After the spell wears off, the target gains (clarity?) for 150 time units, giving them immunity until it wears off. Frankly I feel that all confuse type spells (especially Mephitic Cloud) should give this effect to prevent chaining. As an alternative to clarity, one could give the breath effect (sorry Nagas) and not allow one to cast it again until it wears off. I don't know which would be easist to code.
Reasoning: These spells give casters an alternate path to the necessary utility provided by the charms/air combination without being too powerful. Or at least no more powerful than the already highly useful swiftness and repel missiles spells. Earthgrab HAS to be un-resistable or it would get no more use than confusion currently does later in the game. Its shorter duration and lack of chaining will act as its balance.