Magic gets magical in FE Beta 3

Awesome.

Request: PLEASE make it so (tactical) mana costs scale with spell power (make it so the mana cost in the XML can take calculations.)  Thanks.

Not to be a negative Nancy here, but do these spells have a better grasp of spell target type?

The art itself looks great! So that is what you have been cooking up these last few weeks. Very nicely done.

I wonder if the dead trees will still be burning after the spell was cast:)

Looking forward to new effects!

This and the spell effects in the new trailer look cool, just don't go overboard with the glow & smoke effects since they end up hiding information in the battle.

For example, you can't see units that are inside a zone of fire.

It would be nice if some of the other elemental types had low-level spells with the destructive capability of the fire elemental spells.  Right now, if your sovereign is only an Earth elemental disciple, they might as well go hide until they can recruit a champion with fire.

Bannon Heighsley has gotten beefy!  I'm pretty sure he doesn't have fire spell access in 0.86.

Ditto.  I finally gave in to fire magic in my current game.

It would be nice if direct dmg spells weren't 10x as useful as everything else. It's more effective, unblockable and scales better than summoning, cursing or buffing.

Just imagine what the game will be like with flame wave/volcanoe added.

I believe what you just said was Brad's original intention, but it didn't end up working that way.

Well thats just about balance, I would use earth magic more if stoneskin didnt cost 15 mana in combat...

I do hope that magic gets a knock down in damage, and a knock up in useability besides blasting everything

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Very nice. Glad to see spells are getting some love!

I agree, each element should get a low level damaging spell and have their buffs increased a bit.

My ideas for damaging spells would be something like

Earth: Grasp- A hand made of solid rock forms out of the ground, gripping a target dealing x physical damage. +y per earth shard.

Air: Discharge- Throws a small bolt of electricity at target foe for x air damage. +y per air shard.

Water: Icicle- Launches a jagged icicle at target for for x frost damage +y per water shard.

Life: Judgment- Pass judgment on a target dealing x (physical?) damage +y per life shard.

Death: Decay- Deal x damage to target +y per death shard.

Gives every element some way of dealing ranged damage so that fire wont be amazingly attractive early game. Though its possible that this has been addressed in beta 3.

As for making buffs such as stoneskin more attractive, I'd say a simple change in formula would make buffs better. Something like increases armor (dodge, damage, etc etc etc for all other buffs) by x + y per shard + .5 of target's level. So you throw stone skin on a level 10 unit with 2 earth shards you get 3 defense +2 from shards and +5 from their level bonus for a total of 10 extra defense.

I don't think that should be done. Giving every element a damage spell like that makes the schools to similair. The first Elemental's game had this problem with their first round of spells. Every school had damage dealings spells equivilant to Fire's, just with a different damage type. It made Fire itself very boring.

I have classified FE 0.86 spells into MOM cataegories of spells (refer to manual pg 39)

Do note that its rough, you can quibble etc, some of the tactical creature enchantments that affect a lot of units negatively like horrific wail can be combat spells?

I followed MOM examples where combat spells = damage spells, healing dispel magic etc.. but doesn't seem consistent.

Under MOM convention, "Special" include spells that teleport (in MOM there was plane shift, word of recall), "overland" damaging spells (in MOM there was ice storm, firestorm) , terrtain affecting spells (in MOM there was change terrain)

The point isn't to debate which particular spell should be where but hopefully this is more to aid analysis to see what is lacking. Someone else can do an analysis by "paths"maybe. 

Creature Summoning

Nature's call (Tactical/ Earth and Life disciple)

Pariden's Return (Tactical/ None)

Summon Earth elemental (Strategic/ Earth Master)

Summon Fire elemental (Strategic/ Fire Master)

Summon Ice elemental (Strategic/ Water Mage)

Summon Shadow Warg (Strategic/ Summoner path)

City Enchantments

Antipathy (Strategic/ Death Mage)

Aura of Commerce (Strategic/ None)

Aura of Grace (Strategic/ Air Disciple)

Aura of Might (Strategic/ None)

Aura of Vitality (Strategic/ Life Disciple)

Bless City (Strategic/None)

Blessing of Restoration (Strategic/ None)

Blight (Strategic / None)

Call to Arms (Strategic/ Life master)

Calm (Strategic/ Life & Water Disciple)

Curse City (Strategic/ None)

Earthquake (Strategic/ Earth Archmage)

Gentle Rain (Strategic/ Air and Water Disciple)

Inspiration (Strategic/ None)

Meditation (Strategic/ Water Apprentice)

Sacrifice (Strategic / Death Archmage)

Wall of Fire (Strategic/ Fire Archmage)

Creature Enchantments

Annointed by Fire (Strategic/None)

Battle Cry (Tactical/ Air disciple)

Berserk (Tactical/ Death Apprentice)

Blindess (Tactical/ Death Disciple)

Blood curse (Strategic / None)

Blood rage (Strategic / Death archmage)

Burning Blade (Strategic / Fire Disciple)

Celerity (Strategic / Air Archmage)

Chaos (Tactical/ Water Disciple)

Cloak of fear (Strategic/ None)

Confusion (Tactical/ None)

Courage (Strategic/ Life apprentice)

Curse (Tactical/ Death Disciple)

Death Ward (Strategic / Life Archmage)

Defiled Benediction (Strategic / None)

Destiny's Gift (Strategic/ None)

Destiny's Gift (Strategic/ None)

Domination (Tactical/ None)

Escape (Tactical/ None)

Evade (Strategic/ Air apprentice)

Focus (Tactical/ Fire Mage)

Freeze (Strategic/ Water Disciple)

Giant Form (Tactical/ Earth Archmage)

Glyph of Life (Strategic/ Life Apprentice)

Graveseal (tactical/ Death mage)

Growth (Tactical/ Life mage)

Guardian Wind (Tactical/ Air Disciple)

Haste (Tactical/ Air Disciple)

Horrific Wail (Tactical/ Death and Water Disciple)

Hymn of Torax (Strategic/ None)

Infection (Tactical/ Death Apprentice)

Mana Shield (Strategic/ None)

Mantle of Fire (Strategic/ Fire Master)

Mantle of Ocean (Strategic/ Water Master)

Mass curse (Tactical/ Death Master)

Nature's Cloak (Strategic/ Earth Apprentice)

Obscuring Fog (Tactical/ None)

Pandemonium (Tactical/ Water Mage)

Paragon (Strateigc/ None)

Pull of Earth (Tactical/ None)

Regeneration (Strategic/ Life apprentice)

Reprisal (Tactical/ None)

Shrink (Tactical/ Life)

Slow (Tactical/ Water apprentice)

Steal Spirit (Strategic/ None)

Stoneskin (Strategic/ Earth Disciple)

Syphon Strength (Tactical/ Death and Earth Disciple)

Tireless March (Strategic/ Air and Fire Disciple)

Touch of Darkness (Strategic/ None)

Wither (Strategic/ Death Apprentice)

Global Enchantments

Crusade (Strategic/ Life Archmage)

Grip of Winter (Stategic/ Water Archmage)

Ineluctable Vision (Strategic/ None)

Morian's Chant (Strategic / None)

Sumoner's Boon (Strategic/ None)

Combat Spells

 Barbs (Tactical/None)

 Blizzard (Tactical/ Water Master)

 Burning Hands (Tactical/ Fire Apprentice)

Contagion (Tactical/ Air and Death Disciple)

Counterspell (Tactical/ Path of the mage)

Dirge of Ceresa (Tactical/ Death/ Master)

Drain Life (Tactical/ Death Mage)

Feedback (Tactical/ Fire Mage)

Fireball (Tactical/ Fire Mage)

Flame Dart (Tactical/ Fire Disciple)

Fracture (Tactical/ Earth Master)

Heal (Tactical/ Life disciple)

Mana Blast (Tactical/ None)

Shockwave (Tactical/ Earth Mage)

Soulburning (Tactical/ Death and Fire disciple)

Spell Leach (Tactical/ Water Mage)

Stinking Mud (Tactical/ Earth and Water Disciple)

Storm (Tactical/ Air Mage)

Sunder (Tactical/ Earth and Fire Disciple)

Thunderstrike (Tactical/ Air Mage)

Touch of Entropy (Tactical/ Death Master)

Wellspring (Tactical/ Life Master)

Special Spells

Alchemy (Strategic/None)

Birth of Summer (Strategic/ Earth Archmage)

Bloom of Twilight (Strategic/ Earth Archmage)

Call of Titan (Strategic/ None)

Cloud Walk (Strategic/ Air Master)

Consume (Strategic/ None)

Corruption (Stratgic/Death Disciple)

Create Mountain (Strategic/ Earth Mage)

Curgen's Volcano (Strategic/None)

Destroy Land (Strategic/ Earth Master)

Eyes of Eagle (Strategic/ None)

Falling Star (Strategic/ None)

Firestorm (Strategic/ Fire Archmage)

Infernal Convenant (Tactical/ None)

Inferno (Strategic/ None)

Lower Land (Strategic/ Earth Apprentice)

Pillar of Fire (Strategic/ Fire apprentice)

Raise Land ( Strategic/ Earth apprentice)

Return (Strategic/ None)

Shadow World (Strategic/ None)

Spell of Making (Strategic/ None)

Titan's breath (Tactical/ Air Master)

Tornado (Strategic/ Tornado)

Tremor (Strategic/ Earth Disciple)

Vetrar's Howl (Strategic/ Water Archmage)

I would like to see spells that counter the effect of a specific element and weaken your resistance to another element

Water Spell: Ice Shield = Fire: Resistance +50 & Electric: Resistance -50 

I can see why every element getting a nearly-identical generic damage spell is an undesirable homogenization, but they still need some kind of damage - should fire really be the only element capable of killing things at the beginning of the game? Stoneskin could give 1000 defense and cost 0 mana, and low level earth mages would still be helpless to kill things, unless you and the bandit trading 1 damage staff hits for 40 turns sounds like a fun way to spend combat

It is possible to give different elements ways to kill things without making them identical. Off the top of my head, some modifications to Kaesho's earlier ideas:

Earth: Grasp - A hand made of solid rock forms out of the ground, gripping a target dealing 4 (+3/shard) physical damage and reducing their dodge chance to 0. Any movement by the target will break the grip, dealing an additional 3 (+2/shard) physical damage and removing the dodge debuff.

Life: Repentance - Applies a debuff that causes the target to regret their evil deeds: every time target deals damage, it will suffer 2 (+1/shard) physical damage and heal its victim for 2 (+1/shard). If the target slays a foe, it will suffer an additional 2 (+1/shard) damage and the debuff is removed.

Death: Call of the Grave - Skeletal hands grasp the target's feet, dealing 3 (+2/shard) death damage every time the target moves. Debuff removed if the target slays a foe.

Air: Discharge - Throws a small bolt of electricity at target foe for 8 (+4/shard) damage and knocking them back 3 tiles, melee range.

Water: Icicle - Launches a jagged icicle at target for 8 (+4/shard) frost damage and chills the target, reducing their movement by 1 and initiative by 2.

Fire: Burning Hands - deal 12 (+2/shard) damage, melee range (more than it does currently, if fire is still going to be the damage-dealing element it needs better damage to set it apart. The melee range and relatively poor scaling should ensure you still want the better fire damage spells).

Meh, damage spells in every school isn't needed imho. As long as every school has combat-effective spells like Stonekin, I'm happy. If you want damage, just go fire?

The thing I don't like about that is an earth mage with just stoneskin doesn't really play like a mage - he's a melee fighter with a buff thrown in to help him be a better melee fighter. No matter how powerful your buffs/debuffs are, if you can't use them to kill things, you're forced to resort to hitting things with a weapon. The moment you do that, you have to question whether mage-oriented traits and gear are really worthwhile when you spend most of your time hitting things, pretty soon you're not really a 'mage' anymore.

I'm inclined to agree with this view.  One of the joys of playing M:TG is that choosing a different color (or color combination) as yours made it effectively a very different game: red had a lot of direct attack spells, but was weak in some other ways; blue countered the magic of others, but had little in the way of powerful attacks or creatures, etc.  (Classic M:TG.  The game was watered down severely over the years.)  I'd like to think that by becoming a fire mage, one gained a lot of attack spells with some defense, but no shielding (unless against fire) or heal spells.  Each element should play out differently, at least in my opinion, so that the game is a richer, more individualized experience by choosing one or two elements to concentrate upon.

It's not as though a sovereign focusing on air magic will lack for the others, either--not if they carry around a mage or two expert in other magical disciplines.  Useful, meaningful choices: it should be about these, to craft a unique game experience.

I think each school should have at least *1* in each main category.

They can be a lot weaker, or have some other unusual effect,  but it's too one dimensional to go Fire = direct damage and nothing else.

Since you brought up M:TG... Red was the undeniable champ of direct damage.. but wasn't the only color capable of doing so. The other colors that had the ability played on their theme. Example: drain life.. a black direct damage spell.. it wasn't as mana efficient as a red DD spell but also had the added benefit of giving you the damage in life points.

Point is:

I have no issue with giving other Elements Direct damage capabilities.. but they need to A fit the theme and B shouldn't be as mana efficient as fire.

What I personally think needs to be done is to really develop what they want each element to specialize in and make sure that its good in its own way. Sure give some of them some DD capabilities but fire should remain the best DD while other elements become the best at whatever their selected specialization is. That was what M:TG was back in the olden days when I played it, and from what I  rememeber from the last time I fired up the beta FE fails at this, Every element has 1 or 2 useful spells.. and a bunch that never get used. Each should have plenty of USEFUL spells that play to a theme/specialization. If not then every game ends up playing out the same because the player wants useful spells and gets pigeonholed to a few specific elements to achieve that at this point.

Example for illustration purposes.

Fire- Direct Damage

Earth- Defensive buffs

Ice - offensive buffs

Air- Teleports and summons

Life- Healing

Death- Debuffs

Sure throw a few spells of different types in each elements book but work to make each element the Best at its chosen specialty, not only with one powerful spell of that type but a variety of spells that fit the criteria giving that element more flexibility in HOW it can do the selected specialty. You could even give them a minor.. for example.

Fire- Direct Damage, minor in offensive buffs

Earth- Defensive buffs, minor in summoning

Ice - offensive buffs, minor in DD

Air- Teleports and summons, Minor in debuffs

Life- Healing, Minor in defensive buffs

Death- Debuffs, minor in healing and DD through draining life from units(your own or enemies).

Really at this point the only element that I see has a functional specialty is fire. Thats more of a problem  than other elements not having DD capabilities IMO.

Hopefully this will be addressed in beta 3. While I'm all for pretty effects I'm more worried about making the different elements both interesting and useful.

(P.S. I haven't touched the beta in awhile.. is there a drain life spell? if not.. then WHY not?)

MTG comment nailed it.

I prefer the MTG/MOM magic system over the elements system simply because there isn't a place for countering type spells. Is coutnering/metamagic, water? I don't think so.... 

Ya I was gonna mention that but figured my post was long enough.. I don't like that counterspells are a generic thing everyone has. Counter spell in each element that counters the opposing element.. fine. Counterspells being a specialty of one of the elements fine.. but counterspells being a generic ability seems kinda meh..

I agree. Each element needs to be useful and play differently.

Earth needs to have spells that can change the battlefield - i.e. Rock Wall (Creates an impassible 1x5 wall of rocks), Earth Maze (25% of all unoccupied tiles are impassible), Rolling Boulder (large stone rolls in a straight line from the caster, stone stops when it reaches impassible terrain, moves 4 tiles per turn), Earth to Mud (creatures in 4x4 tile area must resist to move), Shatter Earth - Dispels Earth Magic Spells, Mud to Stone (creatures in Mud Terrain cannot move for duration of battle)