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Spells & Comments on Magic/Skills

Table of Contents/Index


General

It is easy to set up sets/families of damage spells:

  • Fire

    1. bolt

    2. wave/breath

    3. ball

    4. fire wall

    5. circular wall

    6. wave/moving wall

    7. fire nova/moving circular wall

    8. apocalypse/super spell

  • Magic

    1. bolt

    2. flash

    3. blast

    4. spirit wall

    5. magic hedge

    6. storm/moving wall

    7. illuminate/moving circular wall

    8. holy flash/super spell

  • Lightening

    1. charged bolt

    2. thunder

    3. lightning bolt

    4. wall of lightening

    5. lightning shield

    6. chain lightening

    7. nova

    8. hammer of thor/super spell

  • Necromancy

    1. bones

    2. blood star

    3. bone spirit

    4. undead (golem)

    5. revenir (guardian)

    6. mass bones

    7. blood swirl

    8. undeath star rain

  • The same can be done for healing spells

    1. heal

    2. heal others

    3. full heal

    4. resurrect

    5. resurrect self

    6. mass heal

    7. mass full heal

    8. mass raise dead

  • Or sensory spells

    1. light

    2. infravision

    3. penetrating infravision (infravision from the game -- sees through walls)

    4. knowledge (extend map)

    5. illumination (full map for level)

  • Or identification spells

    1. identify item

    2. identify prefix

    3. identify suffix

    4. identify special factors

  • Or Shapechange (mana goes into area)

    1. Shift dex

    2. Shift vitality

    3. Shift strength

    4. Shift magic

    5. Shift fire resistance

    6. Shift lightning resistance

    7. Shift magic resistance

    8. Shift hit points (mana shield)

  • Or transportation

    1. Phase (random/short teleport)

    2. Limited Teleport

    3. Teleport

    4. Limited Town Portal

    5. Town Portal

    6. Limited Wilderness Portal

    7. Mass Teleport

    8. Inter-town Portal (Wilderness Portal)

  • Or Poison and Cold (the two areas Blizzard is committed to).

That is just a start.  But if using a "higher" spell requires knowing all the lower spells, then you will get fire mages, and lightning mages, and necromancers, and utility mages, etc. just by limiting the total number of spell slots to 15 or so.  Skills can be built in similar trees.

Repair [item type]
Impale/Special/Extra Damage with [item type]
Block/Entangle /knockback with [item type] (note, this type of skill is much more important in a "Mortal Kombat" style game than in a Diablo style game).
Search [terrain type]
Disarm Trap (including locks) [type]

Paladin (healing/anti-undead/anti-demon)

Fighting Skills to 8 with any weapon
Resistance Skill (resistance to various spell families) to 8
Other Skills to 4
Healing (as Skill) to 6
Anti-Undead (Damage Spells) to 8 (an ever more powerful and longer range anti-undead specific flash spell)(more levels make the spell cheaper to cast, higher levels increase range and side effects).
Anti-Demon (Damage Spells) to 8 (see above)
Shapeshifting Magic to 5
Other Magic to 2
No Necromancy

Amazon (fighting tricks)

Fighting Skills to 8 with spear/bow
Trap Skills to 3
Search Skills to 5
Special Skills
Shapeshifting Magic to 5
Any Magic to 4

Bard /Harper (blended rogue/monk replacement)

All skills to 4
One magic to 7
Shapeshifting Magic to 8
All other magic to 5

Necromancer (no healing spell, own dark skills and spells)

Necromancy to 9
One magic to 8
Other magic to 7
"Shape Shifting" to 2
No healing
No skills

Witch/Sorceress (infravision, healing, identify spells) 

Necromancy to 2
Other magic unlimited
One skill to 3

Reflections

Looking at things, maybe there is a need for twenty or more skill slots (one slot per level) and two skill points a level.  My original thoughts may have been too sparse.  Adding in [shift] to the [q] to [b] hot key sequence (cap lock on/off) allows a very high level of hot keys for skill/spell choice.

Monster Resistance should probably be shifted to resist 25%, 50% and 75% with 75% replacing the old immune (and far fewer truly immune creatures -- all specials).  It should, perhaps, go beyond a skeleton's resistance to edged weapons as far as weapon resistance goes as well.

The purpose of this outline/approach is three-fold

One, keep the characters balanced both in game play and in enjoyability. (No "one trick pony" characters).

Two, keep the characters recognizable as within the Diablo game world.  (Everything is close to the original game in many ways -- keeps the flavor and approach).

Three, keep the growth and combinations of potential characters dynamic.  (Lots of different combinations -- all of them useful).

 

to Diablo
 to Diabloii Notes

linkHeroquests (Chaosium/Runequest)
linkShattered Norns
link Runequest Scenarios
linkWing Commander
link King of the City  -- a proposal.
link Ftp item directory, link Ftp1 item directory
link Hellfire -- the Barbarian, Bard and Cow Quest
link Diablo 1.5 -- Fallen Angels

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