Ideas for spells

[hwoarangmy]

I'm creating this thread so that we can remind and discuss interesting ideas about spells.
For now, I will do a healing spell and an attack one.
But if you have ideas, please write it down.

For example, I've been thinking about a high level spell that would allow to transform chickens into creatures

[eugeneloza]

Just raw ideas:

target: friendly creature
Heal
Level up instantly
Transform (mutate) - into a more powerful (i.e. a spider into kretaur)
Move (from A to B even if B is not claimed)
Invulnerability - the creature becomes invulnerable for a few seconds
Invisibility - enemies do not see the creature
efficiency - kobold doubles/tripples speed&efficiency
Haste - doubles the creature speed
Regeneration - creature regenerates health for some time
Plague - the friendly creature is infected and infects any other creature on contact (i.e. infect your creature and send it away to enemy camp)
Ferocity - tripples the creature damage halves defence
Kill'em all - the creature starts damaging all nearby creature, becomes uncontrollable and crushes everything in range
Protective field - gives the creature some HP above max for some time
Waterwalking
Lavawalking
Duplication - creates a shifted illusionary copy of the creature which takes ~50% of the damage and deals no damage

target: enemy creature
Slow - halves the creature speed
Degrade - (level down the creature)
Poison - slowly drains the creature HP
Rage - The creature gains a damage bonus & starts crushing everyone around (both your and your enemies units)
Freeze - freezes the enemy creature for some time inside an ice crystal
lower enemy attack ability

Destruction spells
Fission explosion - creates an enormous blast destroying walls, claimed tiles, heavily damagin all creatures in range (cast only on claimed tiles)
Fussion explosion - turns a vast area into lava, destroying everything including creatures in a large range
Fireball - heavy damage to all units in-range + some destructions (no walls are destroyed, but the buildings are)
Rogue fire - puts enemy buildings or units on fire. Kobolds put the fire out by fire extinguishers.
Destroy landscape - changes/destroys the landscape (passage -> wall, lava -> wall, gold -> lava, wall -> passage etc)

Creation spells
Create temporal traps, buildings
Create weak illusionary monsters for long time
Summon powerful creatures for a short time

Exploration spells
Reveal the far land - an eye creature with enormous hp amount but no attack that 'sees' everything around it anywhere in the map.
Parazyte - infects an enemy creature and enables you to 'see' with its eyes

Spells of Domination
Out of control!!! - completely blocks an enemy seat (AI or player) for a short time
Spy eyes - enables seeing all 1 enemy seat units, buildings for some time
Depression - enemy kobolds start working slower
Shadow cover - blocks enemy spells in some radius (including Spells of Domination)
Dispell - dispells enemy spells from units/buildings/player including Spells of Domination
Decoy Duck - a female ghost screaming for help and attracting hero faction to a trap. As soon as a hero touches the ghost it disappears.

Spell of Mastery - takes enormous amount of time to cast. Instantly wins the game. All enemies become allies and fight against the casting entity as eliminating him is the only chance of survival.

That's not all, but something to think of

[hwoarangmy]

wow, that's much more exhaustive than I expected. Once everything is there, the game will be at version 5.0.0
There are many interesting ideas but we should order them as not all will be done as a first step ^^
Currently, I'm on the heal spell and creature explosion (spell that damages enemy creatures only).

If you also have some "funny" ideas, please do not hesitate. It can be serious spells but with a funny behaviour. For example, instead of "Out of control" or "Depression", we could have "Let's dance" or "Thriller" that would make enemy creatures stop doing what they are doing and start to dance (like in Michael Jackson's clips ^^ ). When it is cast, could also display a radio visible for everybody (even without vision) that needs to be slapped for your creatures to go back to work)

[Danimal]

"Let's dance" or "Thriller"

+1, and the radio will be an old stereo radiocaset

I like most of eugeneloza spells, ill try to think some different from them.

[eugeneloza]

A little addition:

target: friendly creature
Enchanted weapon - Unit's weapon ignores enemy armor for some time.
Poisoned weapon - each hit causes poison at enemy.
Cure poison?
Instant weapon - gives a magic weapon to the unit
Bazooka party - gives the unit a bazooka for a very short time.
Carnivore - makes the unit eat its dead enemies not only lowering its hunger, but raising morale plus, maybe, a morale bonus for all who see it. At some point even those who 'see' it may turn carnivore. Maybe it's permament? But the creatuer refuses to eat chickens then - only dead bodies.

target: enemy creature
Bound to earth - stops enemy flying units from flying.
Dragon bane, arachnoid bane, etc.. - deals fantastic damage to a creature of only to a single enemy type (a few types, like rock,ice,marble golems, etc).
Death wish - sends a death cloud upon an enemy creature which has a high % chance to kill it in 10 seconds or at least drain its attributes. The chance depends on creature type and level.
My faithful servant - puts the enemy creature under your control for some time.
Cursed death - after death the enemy unit turns into a lesser undead to serve the castor. May be used both for your and enemy's creatures.
Frost strike - every hit of the creature freezes an enemy.

Destruction spells
Singularity - A horrible spell, may be cast only at 'claimed tiles'. Slowly drags everything and everyone in increasing radius to a black hole vortex finally completely destroying the whole map. Creates winds in the passages that drag creatures and items first. Maybe a good looser's suicide variant - singularity can be cast only at 'your own portal' (and claimed portal also?! i.e. throw all your forces to claim enemy portal and cast singularity and just watch helpless enemy duneon being slowly ruined by the black hole).
Bulldozer - creates a temporal very heavily armored unit that destroys walls (and gold also without acquaring it), rooms, creatures, etc. It can move only one direction and destroys all tiles before it (i.e. 2-3 tiles width). I.e. you place it at claimed 3x3 area and 'send away north'. It's HP are very high, but still destructible. It also fades away with time (i.e. HP slowly goes to 0) or if it impacts an impenetratable wall.

Creation spells
Breeze - creates a strong wind in the dungeon passage (along 1 axis) that drags away any creature (i.e. to a trap)
Fortify - Instantly fortifies an area of the dungeon.
Claim - claims tiles adjacent to yout tiles very quicky with a 'brush tool' until it extinguishes
Profit - Doubles/tripples the amount of gold mined from the target tile.
Hero of Doom - creates a character from 'Doom 1-2' with a shotgun that runs around shooting at all hellish cratures.
Dummy's road sign - creates a false road sign which hero faction creatures always follow (i.e. into a trap).
90's disco - creates a 'room' whith disco that attracks and delays hero faction units.

Spells of Domination
Prolonged spell - makes any spell last for a long time - i.e. you can cast Enchanted weapon on your troll and 'prolong' it with prolonged spell. Or create an illusionary beast and prolong its lifetime from 30 seconds to infinity (until you run out of mana). The prolonged spell requires some mana upkeep.
Greed - every digged map square produces some minor amount of gold/mana.
Drain Arcano - drains an enemy's mana if the temple is in visible range.

[Bertram]

Wow, there a lot!

IMHO, ok to go:
Heal - can be upgraded to Heal in zone with proper research

Efficiency - kobold doubles/tripples speed&efficiency
+ Haste - doubles the creature speed
-> Merged as one dependingon target type.

Rage - The creature gains a damage bonus & starts crushing everyone around (both your and your enemies units)
+ Ferocity - tripples the creature damage halves defence
+ Kill'em all - the creature starts damaging all nearby creature, becomes uncontrollable and crushes everything in range
-> Merged as one depending on target type: Berserk

Protective field - gives the creature some HP above max for some time
-> This one made me think of this: increase armor on a group of friendly creatures.

Slow - halves the creature speed
Freeze - freezes the enemy creature for some time inside an ice crystal
lower enemy attack ability
Depression - enemy kobolds start working slower
-> Could be merged IMHO. Slowing a creature several time could end up freezing it.

Fission explosion - creates an enormous blast destroying walls, claimed tiles, heavily damagin all creatures in range (cast only on claimed tiles)
Fussion explosion - turns a vast area into lava, destroying everything including creatures in a large range
Fireball - heavy damage to all units in-range + some destructions (no walls are destroyed, but the buildings are)
-> All are cool. But the strongest ones could maybe be either really expensive or used as gift boxes.

Create temporal traps, buildings
Create weak illusionary monsters for long time
Summon powerful creatures for a short time

Reveal the far land - an eye creature with enormous hp amount but no attack that 'sees' everything around it anywhere in the map.
Parazyte - infects an enemy creature and enables you to 'see' with its eyes
Spy eyes - enables seeing all 1 enemy seat units, buildings for some time
My faithful servant - puts the enemy creature under your control for some time.
-> I'd rather have all that in the good old DK1 Spy spell.
If we later add something alla Spy eyes, I'd rather have something that makes me take control of the creature and turn the game into the FPP mode. That way, I could end being spotted by other players and killed that way.

Cure poison?
-> Why not. But rather a cure spell. Otherwise, it will be too weak.

IMHO, more fitting as a "Gift box":
Level up instantly (all creatures)

Regeneration - creature regenerates health for some time.
-> A bit redundant with heal since creatures already regenerate. To hasten one single creature wouldn't be that practical imho but a gift box to apply this on all creatures for some time would be really useful.

Waterwalking
Lavawalking
-> Too powerful if a spell but cool as a level gift box.

Invulnerability - the creature becomes invulnerable for a few seconds
Invisibility - enemies do not see the creature (for a few seconds).
-> Too powerful a spell but triggering that one once on a level would definitely be fun.


Handled by a room:
Transform (mutate) - into a more powerful (i.e. a spider into kretaur) -> Temple

Decoy Duck - a female ghost screaming for help and attracting hero faction to a trap. As soon as a hero touches the ghost it disappears.
Dummy's road sign - creates a false road sign which hero faction creatures always follow (i.e. into a trap).
-> IMHO, this could be merged and turned into an actual trap. Maybe the trap could lure the creatures and the one touching could have a decrease in mood.
Hence, coupling this one with another trap could make interesting results?

Poison - slowly drains the creature HP
-> I'd rather have a poison room, and thus no real need for a redundant spell.

Fun! But require some work:
Plague - the friendly creature is infected and infects any other creature on contact (i.e. infect your creature and send it away to enemy camp)
-> I'd rather have this one as a skill from feral creatures. but in any case, the infected creature should be micro managed and I'm not sure it will be feasible.

90's disco - creates a 'room' whith disco that attracks and delays hero faction units.
-> XD

Hero of Doom - creates a character from 'Doom 1-2' with a shotgun that runs around shooting at all hellish cratures.
Bazooka party - gives the unit a bazooka for a very short time.
-> Could be merged IMHO.

Breeze - creates a strong wind in the dungeon passage (along 1 axis) that drags away any creature (i.e. to a trap)

Not sure, maybe a creature own skill?:
Move (from A to B even if B is not claimed)
Duplication - creates a shifted illusionary copy of the creature which takes ~50% of the damage and deals no damage
Enchanted weapon - Unit's weapon ignores enemy armor for some time.
Poisoned weapon - each hit causes poison at enemy.

Carnivore - makes the unit eat its dead enemies not only lowering its hunger, but raising morale plus, maybe, a morale bonus for all who see it. At some point even those who 'see' it may turn carnivore. Maybe it's permament? But the creatuer refuses to eat chickens then - only dead bodies.
--> IMHO, this is a characteristic of certain creatures and should be used that way.

Cursed death - after death the enemy unit turns into a lesser undead to serve the castor. May be used both for your and enemy's creatures.
Frost strike - every hit of the creature freezes an enemy.

Rather a Keeper skill, IMHO:
Prolonged spell - makes any spell last for a long time - i.e. you can cast Enchanted weapon on your troll and 'prolong' it with prolonged spell. Or create an illusionary beast and prolong its lifetime from 30 seconds to infinity (until you run out of mana). The prolonged spell requires some mana upkeep.
Greed - every digged map square produces some minor amount of gold/mana.
Drain Arcano - drains an enemy's mana if the temple is in visible range.

Won't reasonably happen but I love imagining it.

Rogue fire - puts enemy buildings or units on fire. Kobolds put the fire out by fire extinguishers.
-> Particles, new animations, and new logic.

Out of control!!! - completely blocks an enemy seat (AI or player) for a short time
Shadow cover - blocks enemy spells in some radius (including Spells of Domination)
Spell of Mastery - takes enormous amount of time to cast. Instantly wins the game. All enemies become allies and fight against the casting entity as eliminating him is the only chance of survival.

Dispell - dispells enemy spells from units/buildings/player including Spells of Domination
-> Useless for now IMHO, at least until we have domination spells in game.

Singularity - A horrible spell, may be cast only at 'claimed tiles'. Slowly drags everything and everyone in increasing radius to a black hole vortex finally completely destroying the whole map. Creates winds in the passages that drag creatures and items first. Maybe a good looser's suicide variant - singularity can be cast only at 'your own portal' (and claimed portal also?! i.e. throw all your forces to claim enemy portal and cast singularity and just watch helpless enemy duneon being slowly ruined by the black hole).

No go to me, may break the game's mechanisms or certain need/use of features:
Instant weapon - gives a magic weapon to the unit
Bulldozer - creates a temporal very heavily armored unit that destroys walls (and gold also without acquaring it), rooms, creatures, etc. It can move only one direction and destroys all tiles before it (i.e. 2-3 tiles width). I.e. you place it at claimed 3x3 area and 'send away north'. It's HP are very high, but still destructible. It also fades away with time (i.e. HP slowly goes to 0) or if it impacts an impenetratable wall.
Fortify - Instantly fortifies an area of the dungeon.
Claim - claims tiles adjacent to yout tiles very quicky with a 'brush tool' until it extinguishes
Profit - Doubles/tripples the amount of gold mined from the target tile.
Dragon bane, arachnoid bane, etc.. - deals fantastic damage to a creature of only to a single enemy type (a few types, like rock,ice,marble golems, etc).

Bound to earth - stops enemy flying units from flying.
-> Too weak a spell IMHO.

Death wish - sends a death cloud upon an enemy creature which has a high % chance to kill it in 10 seconds or at least drain its attributes. The chance depends on creature type and level.
--> IMHO, is redundant with some nice killer spell. Maybe if time permits.

Thanks again for all the ideas

[eugeneloza]

Had two more ideas yesterday:

Racism - The unit starts hating everyone around not of its kind including your and your enemy's units (like spider&hornet), but gains a huge stats bonus.
Stinky - The unit starts 'spoiling air' around it, dropping other units morale and making them hate him, but raising his own morale. (Too weak for now, but some additional profit may be made, like producing gold/mana instead of **** in the way)

(upd) Singularity - takes some time to cast at a claimed portal. I.e. you cannot quickly rush and overtake enemy portal and cast singularity. You have to hold it under your posession for ~30-60 seconds giving the player seat a little time to revert the process and having your units guard the portal making them very likely to be the first victims of the singularity.

[eugeneloza]

No go to me, may break the game's mechanisms or certain need/use of features:
Instant weapon - gives a magic weapon to the unit

---- it's temporary (short-term)

Bound to earth - stops enemy flying units from flying.
-> Too weak a spell IMHO.

And a very cheap one. But might be a disaster if cast when the flyer flies over lava.

I was just wondering of two gameplay styles: A wizard and A brute force. I.e. that a keeper can go without any buildings just managing temporary magic base and providing his units with magical abilities that can match ones from brute force gameplay style. This is very hard to balance, but looks like a good idea. And if balanced nicely this can be a cool addition to the gameplay. Another one being zerg-rush ability (i.e. making tons of weak creatures) - maybe a bad stuff for the human player but a very nice idea for AI or rogue creatures/spawners.
Of course it requires Keeper Alchemy ability to 'GOLD -> MANA -> GOLD' with some expenses like 75% efficiency.

[hwoarangmy]

And a very cheap one. But might be a disaster if cast when the flyer flies over lava.

There is no such concept as "flying" in OD. Only creature speed over terrain type. Of course, we can always add this parameter.

But IMHO, we should focus on 2 or 3 spells (I've already added heal and explode) and that should be enough for 0.6.0. For later, we will see. We will have a nice database in this thread anyway ^^

[charlie]

Racism

A better name would be xenophobic since racism really means dislike of the same species due to ethnicity.

[eugeneloza]

It's just a consequence of a joke:

In this world I hate two things: the Racism and the black people!!!

[charlie]

It's just a consequence of a joke:

In this world I hate two things: the Racism and the black people!!!

That's not a funny joke. I would suggest you are a bit more alert to cultural differences when it comes to making references to racism.

[Danimal]

I dont have that problem, i hate all species equally

[eugeneloza]

I would suggest you are a bit more alert to cultural differences when it comes to making references to racism.

Oh, ok! Sorry. That may be different meaning of (attitude to) the word in different countries. Now I've remembered I've read about it before.

[BioHazardX]

My (basic) ideas:

Shapeshifting: transform an enemy into a chicken
Icy needles: as the name says
Poison gas: as the name says


and...


the classic FIREBALL!!

[charlie]

How about something funny like The Spell of Ultimate Doom! which just makes them run away screaming (for a bit).

[eugeneloza]

Resurrect spell (no comments, available only a few seconds after creature death)
Dumbness - damages creature AI / permanently?
Fly flies - create a horde flies that fly over the dungeon (randomly to all acessible areas) and damages (very lightly) all enemy creatures. Usually never enough damage to kill even a spider, but an 'preparation for attack' to weaken enemy defense.
Life seal - creature does not die, just is knocked unconcious. May be revived if carried to the temple. ?=resurrect
Chain lighting - strikes the target, and then the closest one (not yet striked), and the next few targets without discerning friend/foe.
Mud - slows all passing units
Mana bank - deposit mana to gain it back in some time with +%.
Why can't we be friends - forces an AI seat to be your ally for some short time (stop attacking your creatures and agressively move on to other enemies if any).
Happy end - creatures happiness is raised to max for some time.
Question of life the universe and everything - costs enormous amount of time&mana to cast. When done displays 'the answer is 42' (and maybe unlocks an achievement).
Reflect magic - a friendly unit reflects incoming magic attacks (including by magic weapon) to the nearest enemy unit.
Wind shield - protects the unit from all ranged attacks (from range more than X)
Time stop - immediately stops time for a few seconds and gives some time to issue orders. Other seats are blocked?
Disintegration - destroys enemy unit's weapon
Fire storm - burns an area (like a fireball) but goes for prolonged damage rather than instant.
Wasting - makes enemy units take more gold next payday.
Warp reality - makes other seat(s) see the map incorrectly in some region. Maybe, blurry-whirly...
Famine - makes enemy chicken die. Maybe, deplete a whole farm?
Werewolf - makes humanoid creature turn into a werewolf in some cases (i.e. after taking ~50% of damage, or every 10 minutes)
Spell of return - ??? If the player's temple is destroyed but he still has enough mana he can cast 'spell of return' and try to retake his base (maybe another portal&temple are placed at unexplored area nearby).
Butterflies - fills the dungeon with butterflies. Some monsters like this, some don't. Some eat them (like spiders).

PLUS:
Mystery spell - a secret spell delievered by the Ancients themselves. No one knows for sure what it does. But it looks outstandingly powerful. Actually, 95% chance it does absolutely nothing. And 5% it does something really useful but almost invisible (like regenerating gold). Make it and watch the holywar in the forum: "I tell you, I've checked 20 times and it does absolutely nothing!" - "You are not attentive!!! I've got a huge green dragon come into the dungeon in 30 minutes, the one I've never seen before!" - "Prove it!!!".