Beric01

Join Date 01/2009

+10

Spellcasters should always use melee weapons?

My proposal for rebalancing weapons/initiative

Something I'm constantly trying to create is an effective ranged spellcaster. As such, the available (and optimal) weapons for such a character seem out of place. Regular staves have no magical effects, and amount to long sticks. Ranged magical staves have severe initiative penalties, meaning you can cast less spells, and also do pathetic damage.

On the converse, daggers have POSITIVE initiative (somehow I'm 25% faster when carrying one?), as do many swords. This means that if I want to cast lots of spells, and yet never see the tiniest bit of close combat, I should still equip a melee weapon. I have always had the impression that in a fantasy setting, ranged mages are better off with staves. It couldn't be further from the truth in FE.

Here's my proposal:

No weapons should increase initiative unless they are somehow magical and have this special property. I should NEVER be faster with a weapon than without one. Daggers can reduce initiative by zero, and go negative from there.
All staves (in particular sovereign's starting weapons) should have some magical properties. Perhaps they're only able to be harnessed if the character has magical abilities. I'm talking about +magical strength/resistance/damage.
Ranged staves should not be so severely nerfed. As they are, they're useless. I can do twice the damage with a melee weapon, and most modifiers also affect melee weapons. Ranged staves are never a viable weapon in my experience, particularly for a spellcaster, but for a regular unit as well. They also need to have my proposed magical attributes of regular staves.
Certain ranged spells should require a staff to be utilized, or else be severely nerfed if the character does not have one.

Currently, I'll have a melee damage dealer, and a magic user with a dagger keeping at range. This just breaks the immersion and does not fit in a fantasy world.

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Why should you never be faster with some weapons but not others> Faster weapons make you move faster, but I agree that has nothing to do with casting spells.

Definitely need to increase power on magical staves but I think they scale with shards (not 100% sure)

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Id love to see more mage gear in general, I think we should think about what would make interesting gear for mages, cause the only thing I can think about is + spell mastery.

Sad to say, but with the balance I see in initiative, spells, and weapons, I think I will end up making my own mod for the game

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Quoting BlackRainZ,

reply 1

Why should you never be faster with some weapons but not others> Faster weapons make you move faster, but I agree that has nothing to do with casting spells.

A weapon should never make you move faster unless it have some special magical capabilities, inherent in the weapon.

What I am talking about is the issue where a spellcaster would be better off equipping a dagger than absolutely no weapons.

Spellcasters should never better off equipping a dagger than nothing at all when they will never see melee.
Spellcasters should be helped, not harmed, by equipping a staff.

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Quoting Kongdej,

reply 2

Id love to see more mage gear in general, I think we should think about what would make interesting gear for mages, cause the only thing I can think about is + spell mastery.

Staff of Inner Flame: +1 fire shard for champions spell calculations.

Clerics Staff: +20% healing and allows you to cast heal once per combat free.

Sorcerers Cown: +2 temporary spell mastery for every spell cast in combat

Magi Cloak: Absorbs 25% mana cost of spells directed at champion

Sorcerers Ring: Lowers targeted enemy resistances by 30% (resist fire/ice/lightning)

Staff of Surity: Cannot be counterspelled. Cannot be knocked prone

Staff of Refund: When counterspelled you recieve the spells mana cost back and cast your next spell with +5 SM

Staff of Cold Flame: all fire dmg from champions spells is converted to cold dmg

Channeling Ring: When you curse a unit move a random buff to yourself from that unit for combats duration

Enervating Ring: Gain health equal to 50% of lightning damage you do

Titan Crown: +2 of every shard type for champion spell calcs. +10 SM. +50% tactical spell cost

Pyre Ring: Allows you to cast pillar of fire outside your territory once per turn

Prism Amulate: +3 of a random shard type for spell calculations for the duration of combat

Staff of Terror/Bravery (depending on faction): Everytime a Death/Life spell is cast by champion in combat all enemy/allied troops get -/+ 1 initiative for combats duration.

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Just for the sake of clarity, I agree with what you are proposing when it comes to Sovereigns and Champions. IMO, the reason staves are what they are is they don't want units of 'mages' just rofl-stomping everything. Let's face it you are so right, in general. I will say that one staff, Staff of the Furnace allowed me to fire dart even when I wasn't playing with fire. It's rare, so I hardly ever saw it again.

New Ideas to Improve Staves:

*Some give increase to magic power based on level of the item. Common +3, Uncommon +6, Rare +10, etc.

*More staves like staff of the furnace, allows access to a spell to its wielder only. Whether its thunderstrike, or chaos, or heal, or .. list could be longer.

*Staff gives a small bonus to dodge (since there's no parry in this game / no matter the semantics the staff helps them not get hit )

*other line of magical staves give protective bonuses like small increases to spell resistance

*staves that do ranged damage, are all equally available in each elemental flavor.

That's what I can come up with off top of my head.

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Your making a statement that weapons should never make you move faster is not an objective truth, it is just your opinion and I disagree. A lighter weapon WILL MAKE you move faster. Have you ever held a dagger, and then held a giant 2 handed axe. You are going to move faster and be able to attack more with the dagger than the axe. Your logic is flawed. Of course there are other variables like strength, ability, etc. but given the same strength and skill the person with the dagger will be faster.

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Quoting BlackRainZ,

reply 7

A lighter weapon WILL MAKE you move faster. Have you ever held a dagger, and then held a giant 2 handed axe. You are going to move faster and be able to attack more with the dagger than the axe.

Yes but the game already takes that into account with weapon weight and encumberment. The +4 initiative is on top of weight considerations and is more like you cast spells faster and run further becuase its quicker to stab someone with a knife as opposed to swinging an axe at them.

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DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

Quoting BlackRainZ,

reply 7

A lighter weapon WILL MAKE you move faster. Have you ever held a dagger, and then held a giant 2 handed axe.

Wrong the knife slows you down less, it doesn't make you faster. If you hold nothing do you run slower then with a knife, No. Should holding a knife make you cast spells faster then barehanded or with a staff, No.

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Quoting Stupidity10,

reply 5

Quoting Kongdej, reply 2Id love to see more mage gear in general, I think we should think about what would make interesting gear for mages, cause the only thing I can think about is + spell mastery.

Staff of Inner Flame: +1 fire shard for champions spell calculations.

Clerics Staff: +20% healing and allows you to cast heal once per combat free.

Sorcerers Cown: +2 temporary spell mastery for every spell cast in combat

Magi Cloak: Absorbs 25% mana cost of spells directed at champion

Sorcerers Ring: Lowers targeted enemy resistances by 30% (resist fire/ice/lightning)

Staff of Surity: Cannot be counterspelled. Cannot be knocked prone

Staff of Refund: When counterspelled you recieve the spells mana cost back and cast your next spell with +5 SM

Staff of Cold Flame: all fire dmg from champions spells is converted to cold dmg

Channeling Ring: When you curse a unit move a random buff to yourself from that unit for combats duration

Enervating Ring: Gain health equal to 50% of lightning damage you do

Titan Crown: +2 of every shard type for champion spell calcs. +10 SM. +50% tactical spell cost

Pyre Ring: Allows you to cast pillar of fire outside your territory once per turn

Prism Amulate: +3 of a random shard type for spell calculations for the duration of combat

Staff of Terror/Bravery (depending on faction): Everytime a Death/Life spell is cast by champion in combat all enemy/allied troops get -/+ 1 initiative for combats duration.

This is the kind of equipment I'd like to see. Equipment right now is too base and boring. We can have as many types of equipment fitted as a character in an action RPG, so why not make the gear as varied?

Quoting DsRaider,

reply 9

Quoting BlackRainZ, reply 7 A lighter weapon WILL MAKE you move faster. Have you ever held a dagger, and then held a giant 2 handed axe.

Wrong the knife slows you down less, it doesn't make you faster. If you hold nothing do you run slower then with a knife, No. Should holding a knife make you cast spells faster then barehanded or with a staff, No.

It's this simple fact that ruins the immersion for me.

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My post never went anywhere.

Also this has been an issue since war of magic.

Sadly the developers don't seem to thing this is a big deal.

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Quoting Sarudak,

reply 11

My post never went anywhere.

Also this has been an issue since war of magic.

Sadly the developers don't seem to thing this is a big deal.

I have remembered similar threads from the past. I just would have hoped they would have fixed this by now.

I especially like this comment:

Initiative should only impact weapon attack rate, that's it. Spells should fire at a set rate, impacted by skills/items/intelligence.

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Quoting DsRaider,

reply 9

Yes, it slows you down less, I understand that if you want to nitpick but it translates in game to being able to move faster, meaning more turns. This is how the mechanic works. I also said that it should not affect spell casting if you had read my post completely (might have been the first post I made)

I suppose encumbrance does already do this but there needs to be a balance between weaker weapons and the stronger ones and just going by encumbrance doesn't do enough in my opinion.

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Not that I plan to do a mod for this anytime soon, but it is very simple to balance. I would set each weapon to have a weight that is essentially a reflection of how much that weapon would weigh you down in battle. Masterworked and magical weapons can have bonus Initiative or less weight. Then Encumbrance could be set to be much more incremental. Instead of weight in the sense of gravity weighing something down, this would reference the number weight given to reflect how encumbered a person is.

Maul: 30

Longsword: 12

Broadsword: 10

Shortsword: 8

Mace: 20

Ice Staff: 15

Longbow: 30

Dagger: 2

No armor or weapons would have the best advantage for pure spellcasting, except for magical weapons and armor. Given that Initiative is already at 20, one might make each 5 points of encumbrance subtract 1 Initiative from your overall stat. Armor will make the biggest difference in encumbrance, but weapons will also matter quite a bit. One might even set the penalty distribution to look like this:

0%-20% Encumbrance = No penalty = 20 Initiative

20%-30% Encumbrance = -1

30%-40% Encumbrance = -3

40%-50% Encumbrance = -5

50%-60% Encumbrance = -7

60%-70% Encumbrance = -9

70%-80% Encumbrance = -11

80%-90% Encumbrance = -13

90%-100% Encumbrance = -15

100%+ Encumbrance = -18, -1 Moves

Now that you have a general idea of how you want to have the penalties work, figure out where you want each set of armor to fit.

Leather should give the average unit 40% Encumbrance.

Chain should give the average unit 60% Encumbrance.

Plate should give the average unit 90% Encumbrance.

Now you know what armor should do. You can then figure out exactly how much weight out of 100 each full armor set would weigh. Then give each armor piece a weight to reflect its importance and armor addition.

Then give each weapon a corresponding weight to reflect how cumbersome that weapon would be in a battle. The above weapon numbers were really just starting points. Many calculations would be necessary to get it perfect.

Now special weapons can be considered and given special advantages. Masterworked would weigh less, while Legendary and Magical could actually add Initiative within reason.

All that would make for alot of modding effort or development work depending on who does it. The only real benefits would be a more logical weapon attribute system. Of course many things could be built off of that. There is reason the weapon lists are missing Sword of Haste and other magical weapons that one would expect. Standard weapons do that as a matter of course. I am not sure this is where I want alot of dev time spent since it would be alot of work for very little reward, but it would be much more logical and offer up some new possibilities for unit balance.

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Quoting seanw3,

reply 14

Not that I plan to do a mod for this anytime soon, but it is very simple to balance.

cut

i like the general idea a lot

ofc like you say it needs testing and balancing but its a start

what about the weapon themselves?

once we established what casters should use (daggers staves etc) now what advantages would give instad heavy weapons to real warriors?

just more dmg as a astart i suppose?

since casters should go towards light stuff but warrriors should go towards heavy stuff that would give them a penalty even if they can carry those weapons

so they need to have more dmg and maybe other stuff

last but not least the more important point

why would a caster wear caster stuff with these settings

why not again build a tankmage and take the initiative penalty?

thats imo the biggest flaw of this combat system right now

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Well, would you rather cast 1 firedart or 6?

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to cast 6 i need mana, and i cant afford to do that always

so i rather cast 1, and in the meantime being nearly unkillable and able to go melee and deal some dmg

but ok with a good balance pass i guess that could be mitigated

also the problem now is that often the best weapons are good both for meleeing and for casting (thnx to initiative)

once you balance them, best initiative weapons wont be good i assume for fighting

still it would be better to finally have a set of light armor for casters

also well maybe having more caster weapons could help so once you have a discount to mana cost etc its more convenient to go light and cast more

anyway im looking forward to try your mod, good work

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Oddly enough I balanced Mana so that you can absolutely afford to cast Firedart 6 times. The reason I don't plan to make the example above into a mod is because, as you implied, it would take a rebalancing of every weapon and their placement in loot and the tech tree. I can live with the current system, but that would be the ideal system. Perhaps the expansion will have enough dev time to take a serious look at this kind of fix? Or a new modder could pick up the slack and do this kind of a mod. It would not be technically difficult as much as it would be time consuming.

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