Solution for Magic Duel

[B0rsuk]

Endoperez said:
There are few weird things with that. First, it'd cancel any possible negative Astral effects as well as good.

It'd cancel out Luck and Body Ethereal cast from AoE 1 spells.

And that's the point. Otherwise SC's would use Mental Seal. Magic Duel was designed to keep SC's in check. But it doesn't discriminate. Magic Duel is carpet bombing in vague direction of astral mages. I made up Mental Seal to make it possible for weak astral mages who are NOT SC's to survive battles.

[dirtywick]

Mental Seal seems OK for mages that have paths other than Astral as you don't have to use it all the time, just when you're fighting S1 or higher mages.

The item, I don't know, probably wouldn't use it as you can just cast Mental Seal instead and save gems.

Is this a hypothetical? I don't see it anywhere before or after the patch either.

[B0rsuk]

dirtywick said:
Is this a hypothetical? I don't see it anywhere before or after the patch either.

Yes, it's fully fictional. But assuming that modding commands get a little extended (it's already possible to mod spells somewhat) it could be possible to make the spell give negative astral bonus.

Potential problems:
- how to prevent combat AI from casting it without permission ?
- it can easily fail if enemy mages go first.

[dirtywick]

B0rsuk said:
Potential problems:
- how to prevent combat AI from casting it without permission ?
- it can easily fail if enemy mages go first.

Also, I really have no idea what orders a mage defaults to when it can't cast spells anymore. Does it go forward to melee? Wouldn't want that to happen either.

[thejeff]

dirtywick said:
Mental Seal seems OK for mages that have paths other than Astral as you don't have to use it all the time, just when you're fighting S1 or higher mages.

But Magic Duel isn't really a problem for mages with only (or mostly Astral). Sure they can be killed by it, but either they've got enough astral the chances are low (or the other duelist also expensive) or they're cheap enough that it's no great loss.

It's only expensive mages with low astral that are really crippled by Magic Duel.

It would also be possible to have the item simple autocast Magic Seal at the beginning of combat. That would avoid the overland issues.