Cross Circle Spells

[Aldaron]

So what categories of spells are there?

Elemental circle only spells
Effect circle only spells
Cross circle only spells
Cross circle spells that can be cast from either elemental or effect circles.
Combo spells

So Obscuring Mist could be cast as a cross circle Air + Water spell or from either water or air. But what you are asking for here are ideas for cross circle spells only or spells like Obscuring mist that can be cast from several circles?

[Aaron]

The categories run thus:
Elemental Circle Spells
Effect Circle Spells
Cross Circle Spell (Requiring more than one circle to be researchable.)
Combo-Spells (Spells that combine two different spells effects.)

What I want are suggestions for spells that would require more than one circle to cast. Like lightning based spells which would require air and water.

[Aldaron]

Alright, I'll give it a shot:

Fire + Augmentation = Aura of Fire
Death + Mentalism = Cause Fear (and Fear, etc)
Air + Augmentation = Cat’s Grace (and Fly)
Death + Destruction = Finger of Death
Life + Mentalism = Calm Emontions (strategic spell to reduce unrest on a city)
Protection + Summoning = Dimensional Lock
Life + Summoning = Entangle (or maybe earth instead of life, I'm not sure on plant related spells).
Earth + Mentalism = Hallucinatory Terrain
Water + Destruction = Ice Storm


PD: Feels weird to have both death and necromancy.

[Iron Kaiser]

I feel a little out of my element on this one. Not sure I quite have a full grasp of the system quite yet. But still, I’d like to take a shot at helping out and getting my voice out there. Just take what you like, and toss out the rest!

Fire + Earth
---Meteor-“A flaming boulder crashes from the sky onto the selected enemy unit!” Effectively a super-powered fireball. However, unlike Fireball, Meteor is not cast immediately. Meteor requires an extra turn from the time of casting to actually hurtle down onto its target. If the wizard is killed, stunned, or otherwise distracted in that turn, no meteor falls down, and you’ve wasted that mana. [Similar ideas: Meteor Shower, which summons 3 meteors to target 3 random enemy units. Comet, which is a strategic spell that destroys all improvements and damages all units on targeted tile.]
---Forge’s Favor- A strategic enchantment that improves the base quality of all weapons built in the city.
Fire + Air
---Beam- A quick, targeted burst of light shoots forth from the caster. Beam provides small chance to stun, and if target is adjacent to caster, caster gets an immediate melee follow-up attack (an attack of opportunity, one might say).
---Solar Flare- A blinding array of light that gives every enemy unit a chance to stun.
---Far Sight- A strategic spell that illuminates three tiles out from the targeted unit. Reveals disguised or hidden units.
Fire + Water
---Magma Flow- City enchantment that turns connected roads into, you guessed it, a river of lava. Enemy armies will be damaged if they attempt to use or cross the road, and the road cannot be destroyed.
---Molten Trap- Encases a besieged city in a circle of fire, which increases unrest and the rate of supply depletion.
---Flame Drench- A weapon enchantment/special ability. Upon hitting an enemy unit with the Flame Drench ability, the three tiles immediately are hit with fiery splash damage. (Visually, I imagine it like lava spewing forth from the caster’s blade, as if it’s been soaking in lava).
Water + Air
---Shiver Storm- A blizzard briefly besieges the battle, greatly enhancing the likelihood of a “miss” on every enemy unit’s next turn.
---Winter Warriors- A unique summon that will conjure a glacial golem or sharp-eyed snowman slinger to your side.
---Winter Wanderlust- A strategic spell that freezes over rivers/oceans/water tiles and makes them walkable.
Water + Earth
---Mud Slide- A low-cost spell that greatly increases an individual enemy unit’s chance to miss, plus any units adjacent to him, plus any units adjacent to him, etc. (IE, if the whole army is bunched together, it’s a great benefit at a low cost!)
---Geyser- An explosion bursts forth from the ground, and a stream of steaming water pushes back all units within it’s line of fire. [Actually, this may be a pretty good water-only spell, but I’m going to leave it here anyway.]
Air + Earth
---Sandstorm- A sandstorm whips across the battlefield, greatly reducing the likelihood of enemy projectiles missing.
---Magnetic Pull- Powerful gusts and the pull of the earth combine to pull an enemy unit to a space adjacent to a targeted allied unit.

[John Madlock]

Like lightning based spells which would require air and water.

Air, water and no effect circle?

[Aaron]

Having death and necromancy does strike people as odd. In WoM necromancy is using both positive and negative energies to manipulate living and undead beings with physical form. We may end up having to rename it. Biomancy has been suggested as an alternative name.

I like those suggestions. I'm going to have to start putting together tentative cross-circle spell lists soon. A lot of this is going to require discussion and play testing. It's very important that the system ends up feeling philosophically pure so that everyone (well, almost everyone) will understand why spells ended up in the circles they did.

Yes, taking one tier in Air and one tier in Water will give you access to tier 1 Lighting based spells. At least that is the thought at the moment.

One of the real reasons we're discussing this is because this is a new system and, as such, it's going to have to have some of the kinks worked out before it's implemented (even for play testing). The idea is to give the player more control over which spells end up in his “research list” while at the same time making depth in a single circle or spreading your points across multiple circles viable play options.

In MoM ten spellbooks was almost a cheat because the spells you could get to were so powerful. What we're trying to do is come up with something that makes spreading your points out strategically between several circles a solid, as well as, an interesting option. We're trying to accomplish this while sticking with MoM's general theme. It's not the easiest thing in the universe to accomplish

I admit the system can seem a bit confusing. I need to do a sticky post about it to make sure we're all on the same page. I'll throw it in my todo pile.

[John Madlock]

Yes, taking one tier in Air and one tier in Water will give you access to tier 1 Lighting based spells. At least that is the thought at the moment.

This makes the spell system unintuitive for me. Fireball is only fire circle? only destruction? both? And same with all spells, I suppose.

[Aaron]

OK, fireball is a good example spell. It's fire or destruction. It's totally fire based, no one can argue that. It's also has a totally destructive effect. So it is squarely in the fire circle and in the destruction circle.

It's a tier three spell. You can take three tiers of fire or three tiers of destruction to get access to it. You can take two fire and one destruction or one fire and two destruction. Together you will get access to tier three spells that are both fire and destruction.

In the spell descriptions the circles to which a spell belongs will be listed. So fireball will have something like:
Circle(s) - Fire, Destruction
When you see that you will know that you can get access to it with fire or destruction or a combination of both.

[James Davey]

Nature
- Barkskin - Armour
- Living forest - creates a unit of a forest terrain that will sit only in that terrain and defend it until death
- Bloom - area gives extra food bonus'
- Terraform - changes the terrain to either a random or selected terrain
- Wall of thorns - Creates a wall that has a chance to grow every so often
that sort of thing right? o.O

[Trudd]

I really love the "Living Forest" spell!