Unhearted Arcana - new Magic System mod project

[Twan]

Disclaimer : For the moment it's just a project... As I know I tend to rarely finish anything and it's an huge one, I'm not at all taking the commitment of releasing a playable full mod soon, but at least I'll publish some dozen of spells other modders will be able to use or take inspiration from.

Anyway, the main ideas if I do the whole thing would be :

Exploiting all possibilities of spell modding...
(one of the main goals will be to explore how the AI uses all the new spells ; then harass K.O for some spell AI modding commands )
- using the 13 levels of research instead of 9 (as Kristoffer recently said it's possible to continue after level 9 ; I hope research levels 10-13 will be displayed in spell lists in a future patch) and probably all the spell slots available (actually just the new alteration battle spells use 20, so 176 free slots won't be too much)
- spells having bad secondary effects (self mallus or dammage spell are not used in vanilla dom 3 but possible) ; examples : see my armor of ice spell giving a temporary slimed effecf, or the increase weight spell giving a curse of stone effect if the caster fail a MR check)

Changing battle magic ; especially mass spells to make endgame different :
- higher requirements/gem costs for the powerful instant spells affecting the whole battlefield (probably no battlefield dammage under level 9, and no mass control spells before levels 11 or 12), but large AE versions before, so placement remains important even in late game (and defender advantage is reduced)
- mass spells protecting all friendly units will also be harder to cast, but some spells will get lower level versions affecting the two armies (ie : antimagic will have a first midgame version buffing ennemies too, and only in very late game another allowing to protect your troops only) often with a condition (ie : spells buffing all magic being on the battlefield or all units failing a MR check ; so the interest of these spells will depend on your and ennemy army composition)
- but there will be better spells with limited area effects (ie : small ae spells giving full immunity against one element - new resist lines are already made) in general more troop buffs (about all personnal buffs will get some aoe versions if allowed by the engine) so late game will be less dominated by SCs
- more spell in each line, including copied spells allowing high level mages to use similar effect without gems (ie : if there is a marble warriors spell a level 3 mage can cast for gems, there will be a marble warrior spell a level 6 or 7 can cast without) and intermediate AoE versions (no line having one personnal effect in low levels, then an ultra large area one in high levels without something in between ; ie: instead of mistform -> fog warriors, my mistform line has 2 spells in between with progressive AE)

...And summoning (not started)
- global boost to troop summons (at least as much as in CBM, even more for some) ; far more troops summons scaling with mage power (about all spells summoning a number of units > to required mage level should scale)
- more summons out of death (nature will get a big line of summon spells based on mutations/enlarged animal in alteration ; elements would have several different elemental spirits to summon like efreeti, djinns, in conjuration and/or constructs in construction ; each path will have one midgame and one endgame thug chassis at least, death just having the most cost effective
- in endgame summoned spirits using onebattlespells will provide a choice of buffs usable before defender casts

Less specialized paths/schools :
- more options in each path to dammage an ennemy immune against the main element (ie : air would have the best shock spells, but also some less effective spells doing cold dammage or perhaps a spell using winds to launch objects doing mundane dammage)
- as well schools will never have the monopoly of a kind of spell (ie : instead of all protection buffs in alteration, it would get the best spells of protection lines, when enchantment provide some less effective versions) ; the idea would be to allow nation to specialize more in one school, getting many kinds of spells but not the best out of this school speciality (like it's already the case for the dammage spells and summons)

Attachment is a test version with the first new spells (all are researchlevel 0 for test, planned levels are listed below and in mod comments).

(Burden of Time, Creeping Doom, Mists of Deception are for the moment replaced and used to stock secondary effects, and so not researchable with this mod ; I'll probably try to find more useless spells than BoT and MoD for my effects in a next version, especially as I'll include the MoD fix)



Spells added so far... (22/176)

(for the moment only some of the new alteration battle spells are done, not started the summons nor other schools)

-The alteration* elemental immunity lines (one aoe 1 spell costing 1 gem for low level mages around research level 4, one aoe 1 for no gem for better mages around research level 6, one aoe 10+ for 2 gems for very powerful mages around research level 9).
Grant Fire Immunity
Grant Cold Immunity
Grant Shock Immunity
Grant Poison Immunity
Adept Fire Immunity
Adept Cold Immunity
Adept Shock Immunity
Adept Poison Immunity
Master Fire Immunity
Master Cold Immunity
Master Shock Immunity
Master Poison Immunity

* Enchantment will keep larger AE 50% resist (with 0 gem versions for powerful mages)

-Increase Weight (alt 3, e 2) : personnal buff, give increased strength + trampling, but caster must succeed a MR check or will also be affected by a curse of stones.

-Adept Quickness (alt 5, w 3) : a low range quickness allowing powerful mages to buff who they want.

-Muddy Ground (alt 6, e 3 w 2) : 25% of the squares are affected by earth grip, defense allow to avoid the effect.

-Improved Muddy Ground (alt 8, e 3 w 2) : all the battlefield affected by earth grip (defense allow to avoid the effect) + quagmire effect.

-The mistform buff line :
Mist Warriors (alt 6, a 3) : AE 5+ mistform for 1 gem.
Fog Legion (alt 8, a 5) : AE 20+ mistform for 3 gems.
(the full battlefield vanilla Fog Warriors will be level 10 or more)

-The mirror images buff line :
Glamour Warriors (alt 7, a 2, 50 fat) : AE 5+ mirror image
Mass Glamour (alt 9, a6, 3 gems) : battlefield effect


+ some spells I'll finaly include in construction rather than alteration

-Armor of Ice (constr 5, w2, personnal buff) : boost protection, give cold aura and 25% FR but shaping the armor so the caster can move and attack freely isn't instant : he is affected by a slimed effect (-50% att, def, ap) for 2 rounds

-Iced Legion (constr 7, w3) : aoe 5+ version of this spell



Things discovered and AI problems...

BE related effects can't be "clouded" for a limited duration, even if they are used out of a BE (ie : a "curse of stones" secondary effect with limited duration doesn't work ; when a slimed effect with limited duration works).

Spell AI seem to prioritizes very high the new AE immunities and don't recognize some modded buffs like the ice armor as non cumulative with itself (very problematic for this spell, I had mages chain casting ice armor to only gain more rounds of the slimed effect...).

Spell AI completely refused to cast a spell giving only trample power (effect 23 dammage 64 is overwriten even by flying shards), but accepted to cast a spell giving trample power + another effect (I used an unknown one which seem to do nothing ; effect 23, damage 576) ; this spell anyway had rather low priority as a primary effect (AI overwrited it with the new AoE 1 immunities), I finally got a correct behavior only with the strength boost as primary effect and trample (23/576) as one of the #nextspell.

AI often refuses to cast self mallus if they are primary effect (finally Spell AI isn't so stupid) but there is no problem to use detrimental secondary effects as nextspells.

Even with dozen of water gems, AI refused to cast iced legion as long the spell costed some (my first version was Aoe 12+ for 2 gems) ; I reduced the cost to 80 fat for AE 6+, and AI now accept to cast it.

My idea of using aoe 0 effects in the 1000-9000 to make buff/malus with a duration don't really work , even if the spell is personnal the effect is lost when the unit moves (iced legion temporary slime looked like it worked because mages chain casted it, so moving units were re-slimed, in fact the slime effect can only work as long troops are immobile - and an invisible cloud of slime remain where they started).