New Magic School idea: Transmutation

[Nerfix]

Interesting idea, but conceptually pretty close to Alteration.

[Endoperez]

Yeah, these spells would be in Alteration. Check out Iron Pigs - it basically does just this, but because humans wouldn't accept it, it's cast on pigs.

[Azhur]

It is indeed true, that alteration and transmutation have some similar spells. The biggest difference however is, that alteration is 90% about quick battle buffs, whereas transmutation permanently improves or lessens coms/units stats & abilities with ritual spells. So more likely it goes somewhere between alteration and construction.

Personally I like this school, because it has so much variety. You could make an army of flying knights or turn Jotun giants into trampling nightmares. There are endless possibilities.

I also have one thematic improvement for this school, which gives additional excitement:

Each spell in transmutation has a very small percentage of failure (5%?). This would cause something very random to happen (e.g caster grows two new heads or goes hostile). This naturally grants even more hilarious moments to be written in Dom's history.

[Twan]

I always wondered why, when dominions has a troop selection mecanism for rituals (see gift of reason), there are so few spells using it (compare with MoM or AoW where perma buffes on troops are a part of most winning strategies).

As recruitable troops can't be improved over time, this kind of school/powers would really give a new dimension to the game, if made to work better for troops buffing than for SCs. I would suggest for medium levels small permanent buffs (max +2 to a stat, +25% resist) but affecting several soldiers (of the same troop type / squad) at a time, so casting them on a lone commander wouldn't be cost efficient (eventually high level spells can include some more powerful but one unit only perma buffs).

Alteration and enchantment are already powerful schools, so I think a new one for this kind of spells would be a good idea. If transmutation is too close to alteration, perhaps it may be called the enhancement or sublimation school ie, a school using magic to develop/give natural abilities to mortals more than to transform them. With this idea of amplification of natural abilities, spells having effect in relation with the natural stats of the targets can also be imagined (ie : the same spell "improved dissimulation" increasing stealth for stealthy unit or giving a 25% air shield before they attack to other units ; "improved health" giving +1 to regeneration for units with a natural regen when it adds some hp to others, etc...).

[Nerfix]

I'd like to see permanent troop-affecting buffs with some mechanism to make sure they're not obesely good on SC's. Perhaps gem cost that scales with base stats and size and so on.

[Shovah32]

Hmm, lets give my f9w9 helhirdlings extra defence and health

[mivayan]

With the current interface I'd hate to buff 5 soldiers per turn with such spells.

[Shovah32]

Then make it very expensive and have it affect 20+ troops/a single commander.