[Role Playing Game] Various class mechanics

[Trill]

I'm struggling with finding an interesting mechanic for a mage class in an ORPG I'm making.

So far the classes and their mechanics are:
Knight - gaining (though proc or combos) a Lightbringer mode, which allows the use of paladinish abilities. Some are simply unlocked while the mode lasts, others consume it for powerful effect.
Ranger - charge-up skills, like Diablo 2 Assassin. Skills like Flaming Arrow put charges on the Ranger, special skills consume them for extra effects.
Warlock - first of all, heavy focus on summons; second, huge mana costs and low mana regeneration, so they have to sacrifice health to gain mana, and then get that health back, either through draining, or from sacrificing summons.
Druid - all spells are divided into 3 categories; each 3rd spells summons a Spirit based on the categories that spell belonged to; the Spirit persists for just a couple of seconds, but has various abilities.
(there will obviously be more, they are just not even really started at the moment)


For a mage I was thinking about something based on cantrips - weaker situational effects I don't want to make into full-fledged spells, like slow, or counterspell, or spellsteal. One idea was that you pick a cantrip out a spellbook and every 3rd spell (or every crit or something) casts the cantrip, but that's too simple and passive.
It must be something suitable both for a damage dealer and a support/control build.

Note that I'm really not a fan of "elementalist" fantasy. The mage has fire/frost/lightning spells, sure, but they are not divided into those schools and I don't plan any kind of focus on that aspect (neither focusing on a single element nor mixing the elements for the sake of mixing the elements)

 

[cleavinghammer]

What spells does he have?

Maybe something based on the order of the spells, like AoE-Stun-AoE gives a slow effect to the next attack, Stun-Stun-AoE heals the caster, etc.

 

[Trill]

Idea is that you can choose, so in the end he'll have quite a choice, but baseline he has Elemental Blast (which is a direct nuke), Blizzard (which is drop and forget, lasts like 10 seconds) and Fireball (which is based off cluster rockets, so its kind of a small aoe)
They all have cooldowns, but combined with other spells with similar short cooldowns I want him to unleash a constant stream of various spells.

I think that might work, but I'll have to divide spells into different categories rather than "AoE", "stun", etc - those feel too metagamey.

 

[disruptive_]

An Invoker style skill. Basically you have 2-3 orb (could be another thing, like ie. book of fire, book of darkness, etc) skills that do nothing but charging for another skill that actually uses them. The result is a is, as in Dota, an ability for further use. But i would recommend an immediate effect after a succesfull combination.
Given the fact that players might lose some fingers, maybe make the mechanic more accessible, like;
1. Invoke type skill is casted first. It's like a preparatory skill.
2. The caster has some arbitrary seconds to perform a combination with the orb/books/resource type skills.
3. I suggest making 2 resource skills (with 3 or more you will be forced to make lots of abilities), ie. orb of fire and orb of ice, and make the produced effect be based on the amount of orbs used, ie. the caster used 4 orbs of fire (each costing mana), the effect is a fiery explosion around the caster; ie2. the caster used 3 orbs of fire, the effect is an immediate fireball missile that propels forward doing damage (no need a target at all).
4. After the preparatory time ends, things happen; if the caster didn't use any skill then nothing happens of course.
The gameplay would be somebody that uses the Invoke type skill, and then getting creative by madly pressing some hotkeys and hoping for some damage. Worth it.

Elemental Blast (good name by the way) can be an intelligent elemental blast.
If you for example use it on a stone golem, the effect is an air attack (you know, most RPG mandate that air beats earth, but that's freaking ridiculous; but you know what i'm trying to say).
You can even go big here, revolving the mage around the notion of elements, elementals, but making actual content for that, ie. elemental enemies just like the stone golem i presented that are actually affected by elemental skills, that only the mage has.
Maybe make a buff ability that also has additional benefits on elemental units. Finish all this with an ability that allows the mage to summon an elemental unit (that conveniently is good against other elemental units, based on a somewhat edible rationale, ie. fire elemental beats wood units).

 

[The_Spellweaver]

I'm getting a vibe you're looking for something like Dnd/Pathfinder.

1. You could categorize spells into subsequent spellbooks. Or replace abilities with subsequent categories on each cast.
Such an example would be:

1. first having spell level abilities 1-7 (max 7 abilities on base unit action board without attack)
2. then school type (like illu, evo, necro, abju, transmu...)
3. and then list of spells available.

Spells of a same level must have a similar effect usefulness/complexness/uniqueness, and they must have their own resource ("spells per day" buffer which regenerates over time. Higher lvl slots having smaller buffer, obviously)

You could instead have "Metamagic" spellbook which would make all eglible spells appear as higher level spells(increased cost), but with a buff to your next cast spell, such as double duration, different damage type etc. whichever "metamagic" buff you have on yourself at the time. In DnD/Pathfinder you can stack metamagic, but only until effective spell lvl 9.
Add a second spellbook containing regular spells (as noted above)
Buffers could be increased with higher int.

2. If you want something more unique and simpler, take a look at Gaia's Retaliation Magician and Sorcerer classes. It uses on-hit effects, throwing balls of water and lightning bolts as side effect to basic attacks (these stack). They also have added effect depending on buffs and debuffs like lightning cleaving on crit to nearby enemies who have been hit with lightning already (debuff). Some argue it takes away the joy of "casting" but I think it looks very neat, and is a very good design.

The only problem I have with spellbooks is inability to control your character, as in autoattacking etc.
If you welcome vJass, I can help with a spell combination system (component abilities + slots for result ability)

 

[cleavinghammer]

Okay, so how about this: The "main" spell is the blast, and using other spells before it adds effects based on whatever classification you end up using (if you're not going by spell effect or element).

Effects such as the spell's damage and radius, restoring HP/mana, or putting buffs on the caster/debuffs on the target.

 

[Trill]

I'm getting a vibe you're looking for something like Dnd/Pathfinder.

1. You could categorize spells into subsequent spellbooks. Or replace abilities with subsequent categories on each cast.
Such an example would be:

1. first having spell level abilities 1-7 (max 7 abilities on base unit action board without attack)
2. then school type (like illu, evo, necro, abju, transmu...)
3. and then list of spells available.

Spells of a same level must have a similar effect usefulness/complexness/uniqueness, and they must have their own resource ("spells per day" buffer which regenerates over time. Higher lvl slots having smaller buffer, obviously)

You could instead have "Metamagic" spellbook which would make all eglible spells appear as higher level spells(increased cost), but with a buff to your next cast spell, such as double duration, different damage type etc. whichever "metamagic" buff you have on yourself at the time. In DnD/Pathfinder you can stack metamagic, but only until effective spell lvl 9.
Add a second spellbook containing regular spells (as noted above)
Buffers could be increased with higher int.

2. If you want something more unique and simpler, take a look at Gaia's Retaliation Magician and Sorcerer classes. It uses on-hit effects, throwing balls of water and lightning bolts as side effect to basic attacks (these stack). They also have added effect depending on buffs and debuffs like lightning cleaving on crit to nearby enemies who have been hit with lightning already (debuff). Some argue it takes away the joy of "casting" but I think it looks very neat, and is a very good design.

The only problem I have with spellbooks is inability to control your character, as in autoattacking etc.
If you welcome vJass, I can help with a spell combination system (component abilities + slots for result ability)

That is a very interesting idea, it didn't even occur to me to adopt slot system for WC3, while it would fit perfectly.
I don't like spellbooks either, but I'll figure something out - perhaps I'll just replace abilities with other abilities. This would screw with cooldowns obviously, but I think spell slots combined with mana costs make cooldowns redundant anyway.

And thanks alot for pointer at Gaia's Retaliation. While it doesn't fit the idea of the mage I'm going for, it would fit perfectly another class that until now was lacking an identity!

An Invoker style skill. Basically you have 2-3 orb (could be another thing, like ie. book of fire, book of darkness, etc) skills that do nothing but charging for another skill that actually uses them. The result is a is, as in Dota, an ability for further use. But i would recommend an immediate effect after a succesfull combination.
Given the fact that players might lose some fingers, maybe make the mechanic more accessible, like;
1. Invoke type skill is casted first. It's like a preparatory skill.
2. The caster has some arbitrary seconds to perform a combination with the orb/books/resource type skills.
3. I suggest making 2 resource skills (with 3 or more you will be forced to make lots of abilities), ie. orb of fire and orb of ice, and make the produced effect be based on the amount of orbs used, ie. the caster used 4 orbs of fire (each costing mana), the effect is a fiery explosion around the caster; ie2. the caster used 3 orbs of fire, the effect is an immediate fireball missile that propels forward doing damage (no need a target at all).
4. After the preparatory time ends, things happen; if the caster didn't use any skill then nothing happens of course.
The gameplay would be somebody that uses the Invoke type skill, and then getting creative by madly pressing some hotkeys and hoping for some damage. Worth it.

Elemental Blast (good name by the way) can be an intelligent elemental blast.
If you for example use it on a stone golem, the effect is an air attack (you know, most RPG mandate that air beats earth, but that's freaking ridiculous; but you know what i'm trying to say).
You can even go big here, revolving the mage around the notion of elements, elementals, but making actual content for that, ie. elemental enemies just like the stone golem i presented that are actually affected by elemental skills, that only the mage has.
Maybe make a buff ability that also has additional benefits on elemental units. Finish all this with an ability that allows the mage to summon an elemental unit (that conveniently is good against other elemental units, based on a somewhat edible rationale, ie. fire elemental beats wood units).

Hm, that's interesting, but similar to what Ranger is doing. I guess I'll add some kind of "weaving" ability as an optional ultimate ability for the ranger, which would allow him to combine charges from arrows into more complex effects instead of just causing separate ones.

Okay, so how about this: The "main" spell is the blast, and using other spells before it adds effects based on whatever classification you end up using (if you're not going by spell effect or element).

Effects such as the spell's damage and radius, restoring HP/mana, or putting buffs on the caster/debuffs on the target.

That's exactly what Ranger is doing though. Each enchanted arrow has immediate effect and puts a charge onto the Ranger, then special attacks consume those charges for bonus effects. E.g. Storm Arrow deals extra damage on hit and grants a Storm charge. Flaming arrows put a short strong DoT onto the enemy and gives a Flame charge. Now the Ranger uses Fly True, which not only hits the enemy for heavy damage, it consumes Flame charge to leave a patch of fire on the ground, and Storm charge to cast mini-Forked Lightning at enemies behind the target.

 

[cleavinghammer]

How about every spell cast puts a different buff on the mage, and every X spells these buffs are dispelled and provide some kind of bonus?

For instance, casting only defensive buffs casts a strong AoE armor spell, healing spells gives high AoE regen, offensive gives a big damage multiplier to the mage or causes all allied cooldowns to reset, casting multiple types works like a weaker Arcane Scroll, etc. Sort of like your original idea, but now the player needs to think about what he casts and in what order to get the right bonus.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

I think you want to give mages a certain personality that make them interesting to play, adds spmething uniqie into their rotatiom and fits their lore.

Seeing mages as almost omnipotent spellcasters, not bound to special schools, i would probably pick that up and try to play with their power:


Give them a stability meter. Mages play with the very fabric of magic and thus the world and are alaays at a risk to face repercussion. Each spell increases the instability of the threads of mana in the world, shown by a Percebtage Textcoubter at the wizard. Small soells have very low impsct on the counter, like an ekemental bolt only adding 1% on it, while something like a blizzard puts 10% on it. The mage got a base degen on instability of 1% per second. The higher the instability is, the higher is the mages grip on the thread, increasing the power of hus spells the high instabilized he is. Should he go over 100%, the world around him is unstable. In this state, the spells power is highly increased, but every further touch of the threads can cause a major disfire. Whenever the mage casts a spell while over 100% instability (that is no cap, it goes all the way to 200%), his spells have a (%Instability-100%) chance to misfire, causing a random detrimentical effect to all allies abd enemies in the area. Effects are, among others:

-being polymorphed
-suffering from heavy burns
-EXPLOSION!!
-Being frozen
-Calling a tornado

Each rupture causes the stability to regenerate by 20%, potentionally going under 100% again. Also, each rupture damages the mage above.

This causes some playstyles:
Getting the instability up and juggle it with small skills to put up sustained damage.
Going in with big spells and using the ruptures and offensively, more a burst style.

Support spells could play a special role, since some manipulation could require the world to be instabilized enough to make them happen or others could cause the reality to snap back to a stabilized state, enabling support builds to use the worlds stability around them as a recource.

 

[Trill]

That's an interesting idea, though it doesn't quite fit the image I have for mages.
However, I think I'll use it for the necromancer class - since focusing necromancer on pets is too obvious, and warlock already does that - however it will be more about making mockery of life and nature, rather than wrecking reality.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

You can flavor that kind of threshold-mechanic of course in different ways. You can find it in many different types of games, like in shooters with gatling guns that can overheat or in tome4 with equilibrium or spacetime stability. You can also use it for berserker (rage: increased attack speed for each ability but at a treshhold high chance to go into an uncontrollable frenzy). Legency of kain: Soul reaver got the same with the soul reaver that drains your health if it gets used to often. Get creative!

By the way, what is your picture of mages then when its less about reality manipulation, but also not about element mastery? Maybe sonething else can be found.

 

[Trill]

I decided to implement spell slot + metamagic system, it also perfectly lent itself to the image of masters of complex refined spells, who only have a couple spells that directly blast enemies with energy, and mostly have various complex effects. This also makes them a bit more unique as supports - instead of a simple shield or teleport for allies they have a shield that teleports an ally away if its broken.

 

[Pyrogasm]

I decided to implement spell slot + metamagic system, it also perfectly lent itself to the image of masters of complex refined spells, who only have a couple spells that directly blast enemies with energy, and mostly have various complex effects. This also makes them a bit more unique as supports - instead of a simple shield or teleport for allies they have a shield that teleports an ally away if its broken.

I really enjoy this description of magi. Sounds cool!

 

[The_Spellweaver]

I decided to implement spell slot + metamagic system, it also perfectly lent itself to the image of masters of complex refined spells, who only have a couple spells that directly blast enemies with energy, and mostly have various complex effects. This also makes them a bit more unique as supports - instead of a simple shield or teleport for allies they have a shield that teleports an ally away if its broken.

If you need help implementing all kinds of spells, you can PM me no problem. I'd actually enjoy it, since I've never seen the slot system in wc3. (I'm also interested in how you want to implement it ^^)

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

Im interested in the implementation either, but even more to from the interface side of things. My current project works with only 7 spell slots (So only 1 command card) and i played witht he metamagic theme, but im struggling with the implementation on such small space.

 

[Trill]

I am using D&D 3rd edition Sorcerer or rather 5th edition Mage rules - i.e. you pick spells, but slots are shared among all spells of the same level.
That is much easier to implement and gives enough flexibility.

I'm a bit stuck with metamagic itself because I realized I need a system to detect which spell hits who, to apply extra effects, so that's a bit on hold.
But the idea is that Mage can pick 6 spells + 1 spellbook for metamagic effects.

 

[Trill]

So, after some time, I've got this:
Knight - can charge spells with extra mana, making them stronger or granting them extra effects.
Ranger - no change, see first post.
Warlock - no change, see first post.
Druid - on hold;
Mage - spell slots and metamagic.

Bandit - currently not implemented, but will be something about combining multiple weak debuffs on enemies.
Shaman - puts down totems that passively drain his mana; spells also cost quite a bit of mana, forcing a tight management.
Engineer - can use "contraptions" (which can be both buffs and summons) which reduce his maximum mana while active. Think Path of Exile auras.
Berserker - is all about Berserker Rage, which allows him to use most of his abilities, and empowers others. Berserker must generate charges for it, make best use of the mode when its active and do something about downtime.

However, I'm stuck with the next class.
Warlord is supposed to be a savage and barbaric frontline commander. His mainstay are various shouts for group buffs and debuffs and he's first and foremost a support, but can also be an effective tank and damage dealer. However I have no idea what mechanic would fit him and make him fun. I tried to go "psychs himself up with several shouts and gets to use a powerful ability", but that's extremely boring and doesn't force the player to make choices.
There are also two general problems with the class:

First of all, there's also supposed to be another tank/support class, called Captain - except its gotta be more "civilized", with stratagems and banners, and decent ranged damage capabilities (Captain can use crossbows and guns), but I am still concerned about them overlapping too much.
Second, I am not sure whether or not to combine him with Beastmaster. On one hand, Warlord is a bit too generic and similar to Captain, and adding predatory theme would be nice for him, while summoning beasts would add some interesting skills. Beastmaster currently hasn't got much in the way of identity besides "lots of animals", so there's that. On the other hand, I feel like that would be a disservice to both archetypes and end result will feel like a random mish-mash.

Any thoughts?

 

[cleavinghammer]

Warlord could emphasize mobility and have the buffs and auras while Captain has more of an overview role: where the Warlord gives strong buffs to units near him, the Captain can give more complicated orders (such as giving a buff to every unit of a specific type, forming armies (more than 12 units) and giving them orders, ordering nearby units to attack a specific unit type, etc.).

Captain could also have a specialty, with his buffs/commands being more beneficial to one type of unit (or detrimental to others), such as infantry, artillery, cavalry...

For the Warlord beastmaster, I had a concept somewhere where the hero has several AI-controlled wolves that always stay near him, and his non-summon spells consist of giving them orders (target this enemy, get back here, etc.). Something like that?

 

[Trill]

Warlord could emphasize mobility and have the buffs and auras while Captain has more of an overview role: where the Warlord gives strong buffs to units near him, the Captain can give more complicated orders (such as giving a buff to every unit of a specific type, forming armies (more than 12 units) and giving them orders, ordering nearby units to attack a specific unit type, etc.).

Captain could also have a specialty, with his buffs/commands being more beneficial to one type of unit (or detrimental to others), such as infantry, artillery, cavalry...

For the Warlord beastmaster, I had a concept somewhere where the hero has several AI-controlled wolves that always stay near him, and his non-summon spells consist of giving them orders (target this enemy, get back here, etc.). Something like that?

Its ORPG though, no troops.
As for auras, most classes can have an aura, and in general I prefer active skills - they feel more fun and invite decision-making.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Perhaps it's because you only wrote short descriptions here but to me there seems to be a lot of gameplay-mechanics overlap between Druid, Shaman, and Engineer. Create a thing on the ground that costs/uses/drains lots of mana and provides effects while active.


I think you could differentiate between Warlord and Captain with slightly different resource mechanics for them instead of mana or charges. Imagining something like WoW warrior rage that usually sits at 0 when out of combat and builds up over time while fighting or doing other activities. Obviously they need something to do at 0 resource to get going (WoW warrior Charge for example) but that's up to you.

Captain - Resolve, which increases when units take damage or are healed. Captain gains additional resolve if the damage/healing is directed at himself or the last ally he has targeted with an ability.

Warlord - Flow, which increases when sound battlefield tactics are employed. Getting critical hits, killing enemies, absorbing damage via shields, flanking or attacking enemies from behind/in their weak spot, applying crowd control, switching focus to a target below 50% hp (I would put a per-unit cooldown on this), etc. Some flow could come from allies' tactics.

Bandit sounds like it could use an energy based resource system (WoW rogues). Fixed maximum which isn't enough to cast all your spells at once but it regenerates quickly. That promotes stacking the right debuffs for a combo without worrying about overcasting and depleting your mana pool for the next fight.

 

[Trill]

Shaman and Engineer are indeed similar, difference is Shaman's wards are mostly passive effects or procs and most of his gameplay comes from active skills that he has to spare mana on, while many Engineer's summons can handily work on their own (e.g. turrets or pocket factory) and his gameplay is more about what and when to sacrifice to make way for other effects (which all take engineering parts, forgot to mention that, so he can't swap them willy-nilly).

Druid ended up boring, I'll rework him, I have some ideas.

Ideas about Captain and Warlord are interesting, but I'll have to think how to make resource generation depend more on player's choices. Captain will probably have some kind of Focus, i.e. him watching over an ally (or an enemy), and gaining resource when that ally does something. Good allies will pay attention whom the Captain is watching and adapt actions accordingly, while a good Captain will switch focus to allies that need an emergency heal or are about to execute a super-combo, to capitalize on their actions.

As for Warlord, I think I'll focus on his allies capitalizing on his shouts and commands, so he will get a reward if an ally moves into flanking position or runs out of fire after getting a speed buff.... which means Warlord will probably be the last class I make, 'cos I'll need to improve my trigger-fu a lot to implement that. But its nice to have a clear plan.

Regarding Bandit I was thinking about something like that, except he'd get energy from successful combos.

Thanks a lot, that's some really great idea there!