Grimrock

Sooner or later, people are going to try to create their own spells. Let's discuss the logic behind the runes for the existing spells, so we'll see some logic behind the custom spells as well.

UncleSporky made a lovely overview of the existing spells and their rune requirements.

The images for the different runes:




All air spells use the rune, obviously.
All earth spells use the rune, obviously.
All fire spells use the rune, obviously.
All ice spells use the rune, obviously.
Both spellcraft spells use the rune. However, there are currently only 2 spellcraft spells, so this does not have to be a rule.

The basic elemental spells use their elemental rune. The basic ice spell also uses the rune.

The Enchanted Arrow spells use the and runes, in addition to the elemental rune.

The ball/bolt spells use their elemental rune, as well as the rune. The air spell Lightning Bolt also requires the rune (but of course does not require the rune twice). The fire spell Fireball also requires the rune (making it the only combat spell that requires 3 runes).

The Shield spells use the rune, in addition to the elemental rune.

Let's check this out per rune as well:
is used for all fire spells.
is used for all Enchanted Arrow spells and Light.
is used for all air spells, and all ball/bolt spells.
is used for Lightning Bolt.
is used for all Shield spells, Light, Darkness and Invisibility.
is used for all Enchanted Arrow spells and Fireball.
is used for all earth spells and Ice Shards.
is used for all Enchanted Arrow spells, Darkness and Invisibility.
is used for all ice spells.

To summarize:

• Skill trees that focus on spells focus on a specific rune.
  Runes that are the focus of a skill tree can be used sparsely by other skill trees. Make sure there is no overlap.
  When spells from different skill trees are similar, they usually use the same runes, except for the rune that is the focus of the skill tree.
  Combat spells use between 1 and 3 runes, depending on how powerful they are. Spells that have use outside combat can have more than 3 runes.
  Not every skill tree that focuses on spells requires a spell using only 1 rune.

The list and information for the Runes are in the Manual

Ah, yes. I should've added those. Thanks for including them. Still, having the lore description, and a list of what rune does exactly what are two different things.

For example, if you plan on adding something like a "True Sight" spell to the Spellcraft tree, you could imagine that and would be a nice combination, since Spirituality is practically unused, and Balance is used for the other Spellcraft spells as well.

On the other hand, if you want to build an entire tree of skills around a rune, you'd know that would be a poor option to go with, as there are very few options remaining without overlap, especially for the 2 rune spells.

A Priest could use the runes based of life (healing and potion), death (attack and attack bomb) and balance (defense, shield).

if you considered position runes like a numpad

5 : Basic Shield

84 : Magic Heal
86 : Heal Potion

276 : Fire Bomb
296 : Air Bomb
216 : Earth Bomb
236 : Ice Bomb

For "True Sight" I thing rather 459
"Magic Footprint" could be 156
"Open Door" : 4 or 45
"Kill Ghost": 24

I'm not so sure about taking Balance as the central rune for a skill tree. It's too central, and already being used too much by the existing spells (already 7 existing spells use it). I'd personally go with Physicality/Spirituality, or perhaps leave it open. It feels weird to have a tree called "Physicality Magic" or "Spirituality Magic".

So priests could have:
Life Magic - Healing spells oriented around the Life rune:
Death Magic - Offensive spells oriented around the Death rune:
Support Magic - Other spells that would rely on the Physicality, Spirituality or Balance rune, or no rune in particular.
Spellcraft - So they can enhance their spell speed just like mages can, and are able to cast the most basic of spells as well.
Staff Defense - Like mages, it should be possible to orient on their defense.
?Maces? - While the elemental skill trees have several offensive spells each, priests need to focus on Death Magic for their offensive power. Giving them access to a weapon skill provides an alternative to those that don't want to rely on offensive magic on their healer.

It's important to keep in mind that priests should not become a requirement to each party. LoG currently allows combinations like 4 mages or 4 rogues (4 fighters is not as viable, since they have no back row skills). So Life and Support magic should be interesting and helpful, but not mandatory.

Also, LoG's spells are mostly fire and forget. You enter the spell, and can't target it after. So we can't really have spells that affect a single member.

For Life magic, there are a few things I could think of:
- Heal - Replenish everyone's health to a certain degree.
- Cure - Remove the Poison and Disease debuffs from the party.
- Exorcism - Cast a bolt of light. Deals quite a bit of damage, but affects undead only.
- Vigor - Boost the health regeneration rate of the party for a minute or two.
- Create Food - Raise the food bar of the entire party.

I thought of a skill that could resurrect a party member, but that might be hard to balance.

For Death magic, I could think of:
- Curse - Would lower the attack power of the creature(s) on the square right in front of the party for around 30 seconds.
- Slow - Would lower the movement speed of the creature(s) on the square right in front of the party for around one minute.
- Death Ray. A direct damage spell. It does not bring the power of Fireball/Lightning Bolt or the utility of Frostbolt/Poison Bolt, else mages would be pretty useless.
- Fear - Would force the creature(s) on the square right in front of the party to stop attacking and try to flee for about 30 seconds.
- Death Shield - Would temporary make the party immune to Curse/Slow/Fear cast by monsters.

For Support magic, I could think of:
- Shield of Faith - Raises the Protection score of the entire party for a few minutes.
- Bless Arrow - Enhance arrows and bolts to deal extra damage, so players have an alternative to bringing a mage for this. This would of course require the addition of these items.

montagneyaya wrote:A Priest could use the runes based of life (healing and potion), death (attack and attack bomb) and balance (defense, shield).

if you considered position runes like a numpad

5 : Basic Shield

84 : Magic Heal
86 : Heal Potion

276 : Fire Bomb
296 : Air Bomb
216 : Earth Bomb
236 : Ice Bomb

Not too sure about the bomb spells. It feels to me like they belong to the elemental schools of the mage. Also, I don't think the priest's focus should be direct damage, why else bring a mage?

montagneyaya wrote:For "True Sight" I thing rather 459

I guess it could work. Why ice, though?

montagneyaya wrote:"Magic Footprint" could be 156

What would Magic Footprint do?

montagneyaya wrote:"Open Door" : 4 or 45

Tricky. I've thought about something like this, but if you want to include a means to open doors other than by keys, it raises a few issues. There are some ways to limit these issues, though.

1) These doors should only lead to optional rooms with perhaps a bonus item or two that don't have a major impact in the game. A few more consumables maybe, or a temporary weapon/armor upgrade, but not the endgame item.

2) These doors can also be opened by other means, for example, beating a tough group of monsters, or solving a very hard puzzle. The player could resort to the Open Door spell to bypass such an encounter. Come to think of it, this would be a great solution to "speed puzzles".

3) The ability, or a similar one, is available to lots of classes. For example, the spell could be accessible to both mages and priests by putting it in the Spellcraft tree, and giving that tree to both classes. In addition, Rogues would receive a Lockpick skill somewhere, which they could also use to open said door.

montagneyaya wrote:"Kill Ghost": 24

Perhaps undead instead of ghosts? Like my Exorcism suggestion?

Your ideas are good.

For use Priest Defense (with balance rune) I thought all shield spells for him.
And yes bomb spells for Mage instead of shield spells for exemple.

potion could be :

876 : potion heal burn
896 : potion heal stun
816 : potion heal poison
836 : potion heal frostbite

True Sight : not with ice, with air like for invisibility (affects vision)

Magic Footprint create footprint on the floor where you going for a limite time, convenient in a maze.

Open Door open/close only classic door (not lock door with key or puzzle and not slide wall) to run quickly

For Kill Ghost I mean kill unmaterial monster (not necessarily undead).

- Create Food - is tricky, the food manage can be important in level design if you are this magic you skip the manage food !

montagneyaya wrote:Your ideas are good.

For use Priest Defense (with balance rune) I thought all shield spells for him.
And yes bomb spells for Mage instead of shield spells for exemple.

The bombs aren't all that different from the bolt/ball spells. They're the consumable versions, so to say, so I don't think we need to re-create them as spells as well.

I kind of like it that if you run into a fire mob with your fire mage, that while you cannot hurt the mob, you can still assist the party by raising their defenses. I don't think this needs to be changed. If it would be changed and moved to a Defense tree (either making a new one for the priest, or adjusting Staff Defense and make it available to both mage/priest), then the elemental trees, which looked pretty slim already, would look even slimmer. I'd rather add some spells to them than take spells away.

montagneyaya wrote:potion could be :

876 : potion heal burn
896 : potion heal stun
816 : potion heal poison
836 : potion heal frostbite

Do you think it's smart to let the priest brew potions? There's already a good mechanic in the game for creating potions (the Mortar and Pestle), which needs to stay in, as the priest class should not be mandatory. Also, what's stopping a player from stacking a huge load of potions before every fight? The arrows are already tedious work. I don't think we need a lot more of that. More potions, sure. But let's keep those to the Mortar and Pestle.

montagneyaya wrote:True Sight : not with ice, with air like for invisibility (affects vision)

Ahh. My bad. I was thinking the numbers on a phone, rather than on a keyboard.

Air makes sense. However, there are already so many spells relying on the Air rune (it's the most used rune out of all, used in 8 of the 19 official spells). Also, since it's a spell you want to constantly keep up, just like light, I didn't want it to use too many runes.

montagneyaya wrote:Magic Footprint create footprint on the floor where you going for a limite time, convenient in a maze.

Could be useful! Earth makes sense.

montagneyaya wrote:Open Door open/close only classic door (not lock door with key or puzzle and not slide wall) to run quickly

Doesn't really sound like it has any use whatsoever, if it only saves you from pulling a lever. I think clicking that lever is faster than clicking cast animation, then several runes, then cast.

montagneyaya wrote:For Kill Ghost I mean kill unmaterial monster (not necessarily undead).

Something like Slay Spirit? Could work. It would be very powerful against Spirits and very useless outside of that.

For True Sight/Magic Footprint/Open Door/Kill Ghost, where did you have these in mind? What skill tree?

montagneyaya wrote:- Create Food - is tricky, the food manage can be important in level design if you are this magic you skip the manage food !

Correct. It's the reason why I put this at the very bottom, so it is reached last. Since we can't make the healing really powerful, and most of it can be done by potions instead of magic, this would actually make you feel good for bringing a priest, without breaking the game. If the spell would exist in Grimrock, I'd place the scroll somewhere in level 10.

Slay Spirit (sound good) in Death Magic.

True Sight , Magic Footprint, Open door, in Support or Spellcraft, not sure.
Invisibility should change tree I think (in the same that True Sight).

Bomb and potion are useful if you are out of mana. For create potion or bomb, flask is necessary (like arrow for enchanted).
If you create bomb with flask you lose the flask (destroy when you use the bomb).

Open Door is convenient for avoid turning when the lever is on the wall left or right of the door, but not really useful.
But we can imagine a dungeon with door without open mechanic, only the spell Open Door can open this door (or slash attack if breakable wood doors are add).