Some of you know the revamped stuff I am working on, my little pet project, and I have gotten to a point where I am definining the various elements of magic. I have eight elements, those being Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Light, Dark, Natura and Arcane. The current element I am working on is Fire.
Fire
Fire naturally has the most offensive spells of all the elements. It also covers a small amount of feats that increase your non-magic offensive capabilities. Now, since Fire is so based on offensive spells, I looked for a way to make them interesting in their own right, instead of just designing alot of random offensive spells, and I got some ideas how to handle this.
Wrath Spells: Wrath spells are not offensive spells in their own right. They are enchantments that only affect the caster. They provide some benefit to his Fire spells. One caster is only allowed one Wrath spell on him at any given time. Currently I have quite a host of ideas for Wrath spells, including spells that increase Fire spell DC's, increase area of effect, increase your chance to hit with spells which require an attack roll, Wrath spells which grants bonuses against certain types of opponents. Wrath spells are supposed to act as a way for the caster to overcome the defences of his opponent. If your opponent has high Reflex saves, you boost your saving throw DC. If he has Fire Resistance, you can boost your ability to overcome it.
The reason Wrath spells are necessary for the fire mage is because he is highly focused on offensive magics. The Fire element has no real defensive spells, so the whole combat routine revolves around, pretty much, killing your opponent before he kills you.
Attack Roll Spells: The bulk of the offensive fire spells will be spells which requires the caster to succeed at an attack roll. All the good single-target spells fall into this category. Attack Roll spells become available at second spell level (there are no attack spell at all on first spell level).
Reflex Spells: This category includes the old-fashioned Fireball type spells, spells which affect an area. I am contemplating making them less effective against single targets than the attack roll spells, i.e. giving them damage slightly below that caused by the attack-roll spells.
Instant Spells: The third type of attack spells available to the fire mage will be a series of spells which a casting time of instant or interrupting. As with the attack roll spells, you will receive them starting at spell level two. They are fast to cast, but they cost more than the other two types, and they usually cause less damage.
Bombard Spells: The last type of offensive spells are the Bombard spells. As with the Wrath spells, only one Bombard spell can be in effect at any given time. A Bombard spell creates a hovering sphere of fire next to the caster. As a free action, the caster can direct targets to his Bombard, targets it will assault with some form of fire attack as long as the target remains within range. None of the other elements will have anything similar to the Bombard spells. The Bombard spells will allow a fire mage to increase his offensive magic abilities in preparation for a fight, giving him an edge, damage-wise, over the casters that have to wait for the combat to actually ensue before they can cast offensive spells. The Bombard spells, as with the other types of spells, will come in a large number of variants. Some will be relatively simply Bombard spells which simply fire a dart or bolt of fire at the targeted enemy. Other Bombard spells will have incendiary effects which will increase damage taken from other spells, while some will fire effects that have area of effect.
My plan is to make at least one of each of the types of spell at each level. It sounds like alot, having a minimum of four different offensive spells to choose from at each level, but being a very offensive element, the fire mage needs to have a large and variable array of spells. Remember, that the magic system is designed so that you can not really specialise in more than two elements. You will be unable to cast spells outside of the elements you have focused on. Of course, the caster can always choose to spread out his specialisation to a huge number of elements, but this will significantly weaken his powers inside all elements (Jack of all trades, master of none).
Feats
The feats that I am contemplating for the fire school will allow the caster to specialise further in the different types of spells mentioned above. There will naturally be some generic feats for the fire element, feats that will cause all the spells to combust their targets, causing additional damage over time, for example. The majority of the feats will though focus on boosting a specific type of fire spell. Wrath feats will allow the Wrath spells to cost less, reduce their casting time, increase their potency, etc. Same goes for the other feats. So basically, I hope to end up with a set of spells and feats that allows you to design completely unique fire mages. You could imagine, for example, a fire mage which focuses heavily on his instant spells, a mobility based mage that will use the rest of the round to manouver away or around his foes. You could imagine a mage which goes for versatility, focusing heavily on improving his Wrath spells. You might imagine a mage which focused on plain, straight damage. Anyways, enough rambling, hope it all makes some kind of sense.
Fire
Fire naturally has the most offensive spells of all the elements. It also covers a small amount of feats that increase your non-magic offensive capabilities. Now, since Fire is so based on offensive spells, I looked for a way to make them interesting in their own right, instead of just designing alot of random offensive spells, and I got some ideas how to handle this.
Wrath Spells: Wrath spells are not offensive spells in their own right. They are enchantments that only affect the caster. They provide some benefit to his Fire spells. One caster is only allowed one Wrath spell on him at any given time. Currently I have quite a host of ideas for Wrath spells, including spells that increase Fire spell DC's, increase area of effect, increase your chance to hit with spells which require an attack roll, Wrath spells which grants bonuses against certain types of opponents. Wrath spells are supposed to act as a way for the caster to overcome the defences of his opponent. If your opponent has high Reflex saves, you boost your saving throw DC. If he has Fire Resistance, you can boost your ability to overcome it.
The reason Wrath spells are necessary for the fire mage is because he is highly focused on offensive magics. The Fire element has no real defensive spells, so the whole combat routine revolves around, pretty much, killing your opponent before he kills you.
Attack Roll Spells: The bulk of the offensive fire spells will be spells which requires the caster to succeed at an attack roll. All the good single-target spells fall into this category. Attack Roll spells become available at second spell level (there are no attack spell at all on first spell level).
Reflex Spells: This category includes the old-fashioned Fireball type spells, spells which affect an area. I am contemplating making them less effective against single targets than the attack roll spells, i.e. giving them damage slightly below that caused by the attack-roll spells.
Instant Spells: The third type of attack spells available to the fire mage will be a series of spells which a casting time of instant or interrupting. As with the attack roll spells, you will receive them starting at spell level two. They are fast to cast, but they cost more than the other two types, and they usually cause less damage.
Bombard Spells: The last type of offensive spells are the Bombard spells. As with the Wrath spells, only one Bombard spell can be in effect at any given time. A Bombard spell creates a hovering sphere of fire next to the caster. As a free action, the caster can direct targets to his Bombard, targets it will assault with some form of fire attack as long as the target remains within range. None of the other elements will have anything similar to the Bombard spells. The Bombard spells will allow a fire mage to increase his offensive magic abilities in preparation for a fight, giving him an edge, damage-wise, over the casters that have to wait for the combat to actually ensue before they can cast offensive spells. The Bombard spells, as with the other types of spells, will come in a large number of variants. Some will be relatively simply Bombard spells which simply fire a dart or bolt of fire at the targeted enemy. Other Bombard spells will have incendiary effects which will increase damage taken from other spells, while some will fire effects that have area of effect.
My plan is to make at least one of each of the types of spell at each level. It sounds like alot, having a minimum of four different offensive spells to choose from at each level, but being a very offensive element, the fire mage needs to have a large and variable array of spells. Remember, that the magic system is designed so that you can not really specialise in more than two elements. You will be unable to cast spells outside of the elements you have focused on. Of course, the caster can always choose to spread out his specialisation to a huge number of elements, but this will significantly weaken his powers inside all elements (Jack of all trades, master of none).
Feats
The feats that I am contemplating for the fire school will allow the caster to specialise further in the different types of spells mentioned above. There will naturally be some generic feats for the fire element, feats that will cause all the spells to combust their targets, causing additional damage over time, for example. The majority of the feats will though focus on boosting a specific type of fire spell. Wrath feats will allow the Wrath spells to cost less, reduce their casting time, increase their potency, etc. Same goes for the other feats. So basically, I hope to end up with a set of spells and feats that allows you to design completely unique fire mages. You could imagine, for example, a fire mage which focuses heavily on his instant spells, a mobility based mage that will use the rest of the round to manouver away or around his foes. You could imagine a mage which goes for versatility, focusing heavily on improving his Wrath spells. You might imagine a mage which focused on plain, straight damage. Anyways, enough rambling, hope it all makes some kind of sense.
