Have you looked at the ice spells for code examples?

<GameModifier InternalName="FreezeEnemyModifier">            

<ModType>TacticalUnit</ModType>            

<Attribute>ChanceToLoseNextTurn</Attribute>            

<Value>.50</Value>          

 <PerTurn>0</PerTurn>          

 <Duration>1</Duration>            

<PlayOnAllTargets>1</PlayOnAllTargets>        

</GameModifier>

This might work right?

@seanw3: the idea is to keep all of the spells in the mod compatible with the base game, so people could play with the Grimoire as the only mod and not need to worry about learning new tech tree strategies, etc.  Its also why we organize spells into "Chapters" at a folder level, to make it simple to strip out anything you do not want to play with.  For instance all of your stack enchantment spells make sense being a "Chapter".  This also helps keep things balanced as it means you tend to add stuff to all of the spell books at once, rather then end up with one book being obviously better than the others. 

The Death spell you propose seems a little weak in comparison to it's Life counterpart (20% heath is worth more than 5 Dodge, especially at 22 vs 28 INT for a requirement)  I personally like the idea of the Death spell being a debuff, and the AI should be able to use this without issue.  I also like the Barkskin spell as an idea, but not sure if it works considering all of the rest of the Terraforming spells (affecting one bit of terrain).  Have you thought about it being a city enchantment instead of a stack enchantment?  Same basic mechanics as the other spells, just affects a city instead of an entire stack at a time.  I like this idea, as currently there are limited options to give a city a "boost" if you know it is about to get attacked.

You like my idea of having them be fixed duration with long cooldowns for implementation?

@Magog_AoW: I like the spiral / tornado on the effect, followed by all the blowing bits, the length of the effect feels about right as well.  My polish notes have to do with the objects being blown around at the end; all of the little bits look good as a dust cloud, but the leaves seem to all be moving in one direction (left to right). 

Would it be possible to make those larger shapes move in a more circular pattern, so that it looks like they are rotating in the same way the "tornado" is (centered around the unit in the tile)?  They don't need to do a full roation, but having multiple of them moving on angles that look right in the context of the previous wind 's direction I think would really sell the effect.  This is all (IMHO), please let me know if I need to clarify what I am trying to describe.

Nice work again!

People done started posting while I was writing a response. 

@ Murteas: For Sheltering Hands I think the TARGET should be the one who looses their turns, not the caster.  I was thinking of it being a SoV / champ specific spell; healing to the target in return for being taken out of the battle.  And I think if you put the ChanceToLoseNextTurn @ <V> 1 </V> for DURATION that should do it.  Note: the SoV should be able to cast it on them self, which would cause them to then loose the turns.

@Magog: If you are interested, I would like to point you to pg 3 of the thread, it has screen shots of the tile we are thinking about using for Hands.  Considering how cool the other effects have been looking, would love to see what you can come up with for that one as the hands claw up from the ground.  There is also a custom decal that John_Hughes did for that tile, in case you are wondering.

Thanks for the input guys. The spiral/tornado is something that I need to polish a bit... The question is, should it look like a magic tornado (like it does now) or a small natural tornado. Or maybe something in between..?

@ Agrippa: I'll see what I can do with the leaves, circular movement for objects other than spinning around their own axis is kind of hard to create.

And I need the xml for the hands. I have an idea but need something to work with in game. It's a protective earth spell, right? What level?

Edit: OMG I just figured out how to make a circular movement! 

I am down with a small magical tornado (something in between).  Having it smaller for the level two means we can have a bigger one later on for a higher level spell.

I thought rather than making the objects circle, you could play with having multiple objects moving in different directions for fixed lengths of time staggered over the animation to simulate the effect.  Going to try and represent this with one of my patented ugly area maps:

X == center of tile  arrow == direction of movement of a "leaf" object

\/000<

00X00

>000^

# == order in sequence

4 0 3

0 X 0

1 0 2

Hands is a first level protective earth spell for champions.  I am sure Murteas can hook you up with XML after he has a chance to put it together. 

Upping the dodge on Wraith's Veil to 10 might make it more reasonable, but the idea was to reduce something since I do not know if health or strength reduction is possible at this point. 

I like the city boost idea, but I think you could justify a whole chapter of magic for city buffs rather than having some added to unit stack. On a philosophical note, I was envisioning Bark Skin to be more like forming a tree into armor using terraforming magic. It is essentially like an earth spell, Stone Skin I think, but this one would affect more people. Either way is good though.

@seanw3 - I think the line:

<PlayOnAllTargets>1</PlayOnAllTargets>  is what I am looking for.  I already had the chance to lose next turn code, but I never saw this line and I noticed that it was not working on any friendly targets.  I am hoping this will allow me to hit "friendly targets".

Okay, so i thought sheltering hands was a cast on self spell, if we want it to be a cast on anyone spell (friendly of course), then what should the range be?   My suggestion is 3-4.   Cooldown should be longer than 5, so you can't just spam it and grief people (in MP if we ever get into MP) by having it constantly on.   What say you guys?

I think Hands would work best as a friendly Champion + SoV only spell; works with the model's in the best way and Heavenfall found that Friendly Champ targeting code.

<SpellTargetType>FriendlyChampion</SpellTargetType>

Means you can take a chance to save a hero and get them useful, but they are out of the fight for a bit.  That was my original conception at least.

I think try the range at 4 and the cool down at 10.  I think too many spells are balanced by being a little weak, this gives some 1st level defensive healing in a pinch, but you are only going to get to use it once, maybe twice a battle. Rare is fun too...

If you can do the Death enchantment as a debuff, I think that would work best.  Maybe call it Despair, knocks down two stats by 15% at the cost and other stuff listed? Loosing combat speed and dodge would be a particularly brutal combination.

@Magog: dude, just saw the Edit, can't wait till you post something if you have that one cracked!

Okay, I posted a beta version here:  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12727985/MG_Beta.zip

I am still testing and will upload new versions there as they are available.  Only sheltering hands in this version.

edit:  No matter what I try I can't get the lose turn to apply to the caster of the spell.  :(    And the modifier lose next turn does exactly that it causes the unit to lose the NEXT turn, not this one, so you can cast it, and then the target unit can run /attack /cast etc. this turn and next turn they lose their turn.   :facepalm:   

Gaaaaah! Damn leaves!

Sorry guys but the Howlings winds are not going to look much better than the movie above... Do you think you can accept that one? Please?

Magog, it looks really good.  I think we can accept it as you have it.   Post the files when you are ready.  :)

Magog, post it up.  The one you had look good, feedback was all polish points.  Much rather have you happily producing more cool new stuff then beating your head into a wall of engine limitation (circular movement). 

Looks good guys. If you want to use any of the code or particle effects from my defunct mod, feel more than free. It's not posted anymore, but that's easily fixed.

We'd welcome anything you'd like to add to the project.  If you are interested in adding some of the spells you had in your mod, feel free to post ideas here and we'll get them in.  :)

Here's the xml (I changed the whirlwind slightly to a more natural look, otherwise the same):

http://www.shell.linux.se/dsk2293/ewom/Howling_winds_10.xml

I need the following changed in MG_BattlefieldSpells.xml

        <SpellDefEffect>
            <EffectName>Howling_winds_10</EffectName>
            <LocalPosition>0,0,0</LocalPosition>
            <EffectScale>1.0</EffectScale>
            <EffectDelay>0.0</EffectDelay>
            <SnapToTerrain>1</SnapToTerrain>
      <PlayOnAllTargets>1</PlayOnAllTargets>
        </SpellDefEffect>
    </SpellDef>

I'll give the hands a shot next.

Thanks Magog!

@LightofAbraxas: Thanks for the offer, I just looked through your posting and you have some really interesting spell ideas.  I personally never played with your mod, so I am unsure of what is available for content.  Are there any particular custom effects and or spells you would suggest?

Check out this post I wrote for affecting friendly units with spells, it may help you out: https://forums.elementalgame.com/404995

Btw I'm working on spells of my own...have about 35 right now, will upload them when I feel I have enough to do so.  Should be a few more days.  Thanks for all your hard work.

Some odd stuff with the sheltering hands...

<SpellTargetType>FriendlyChampion</SpellTargetType> means I can't use it on myself/sovereign? Because I can cast it on myself and the fx I made shows up, but the tile does not show up and there are no modifications to defense etc to the sovereign.

Also, the +10 defense only seems to last for 1 turn. And the heal does not seem to work either (only when fully healed it gives you a green "+2" text every turn.)

@mqpiffle - That is great information.  I will test with that this afternoon/evening after work.  Bring on the spells.  :)   We'd love any contributions.

@magog - yeah, right now, the spell is completely borked.   It does not work as advertised.    I am working on it, we may not be able to limit the spell to sovereigns /heroes only.   The game simply doesn't treat all spell targets equally, so not all modifiers work on everyone.   I'm not sure we can overcome it, but mqpiffle gave me something to try.  I will get the howling winds effects in the next beta build.  Great Job!

@Agrippa & Murteas: Well, it's up to you all what (if anything) you want to include.

Right now the status of the mod is that it's just for personal use, since I don't really care for the 4-school system that Elemental has now. So, all the xml is working (but would need the new AI tags added), but most of the new spells in the new schools may or may not not fit with what you all are trying to do here.

When I start playing the game again, I'll probably just pull the spells I like from here and the D&D mod and integrate them into what I have already (again, just for personal use, so I won't be stepping on toes), so don't feel obligated to add something on my account. Just, you know, thought I'd make the offer, since this mod seems to have taken off!

That's very generous of you.   I'll take a look again at your mod and see what we might want to use.   Thanks and if you change your mind about making more than a personal mod, feel free to join us or use this mod to help.

It looks good Magog. If you wanted to try something might I ask to see a version that has the leaves just fall to the ground from above to indicate the wind stopping.

Quick update:   Sheltering Hands is driving me crazy.  Ok that is it for now.  Bye...

J/K  - so I have the spell working for the most part.  The only thing that is not working is that when you cast it on someone other than yourself, they still can take any remaining actions in this round (the next round they have no actions as expected).    so the lame thing is that they can move away from the hands, and still gain the effects the following rounds.    I am trying to find a way to set the combat actions to 0, but I haven't stumbled upon the right combination yet.  If anyone has an idea, let me know.   As soon as I get this fixed, I will put out a beta and start on the new spells.

No way to set CombatSpeed to zero, 1 is the minimum for this stat. There is no good GameModifier to pull off tactical hold / root type spells right now.

All you have to do is lose initiative...

Just throwing this out. Is there a way to reduce AP's to zero at the start of a combat round? Then a character has to wait to regen the points at the start of the next round. In case that is totally noob talk, here is a carrot and a smile.

First a smile

Now the carrot.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8370296/MG_Fire_Ring_02.rar

I am looking into Ice Barricade as well.