Poll: resistances granted to the school of magic it’s from or its counter part

Okay, pretty straight forward. Should you get resistance to a magic type from that school of magic, or should it come from its logical counter part.

example:


Fire magic proficiency gives fire resistance.

Water magic gives ice protections.

Air gives lightning.


OR

Fire gives ice protections.

Water gives fire protections.

Earth gives lightning protections.


On one hand I can see desert dwellers having lots of fire magic and in turn protections from heat.

On the other, I can see that needing a wider plethora of skills leads to players widening their focus.

opinions?

 

My logic is following,
If you try cast a fireball, you are expected to be resistant to fire, to be able cast it.
So stronger your fire skill is, you can cast stronger fire spells.
Like flame thrower from hands etc.
So you don't burn yourself

 

I agree. Also if you think of magical creatures: fire elementals both burn things, and are resistant to fire. That whole "fight fire with fire" saying is complete nonsense. You fight fire (or fire elementals) with water/ice. Same should apply to players; if you're a buffed-up fire-wizard, you'll be resistant to fire but weak to water/cold attacks.

 

That has some different applications.

https://ctif.org/news/prevention-control-using-back-fire-combat-wildfire

"Can fire be combated with fire? Sometimes, counter-fires (back fires) can be lit in a so called Controlled Prescribed Burn to starve a fire of the fuel it needs to spread. But how does the technique actually work?"

 

Well, that’s seems to be the universal consensus.

Appreciate it.

 

I think one thing to consider is passive vs active defense. Let me explain:
If defense is passive, like having heat-resistant skin, then by all means make it same element.
On the other hand, for active defenses (like a shield), then opposite element makes sense. I can conjure a water wall to counteract a fireball.

Your wording I get that you're talking about the first case, so yeah, I agree with the others.

 

I think it depends on the lore of your world. Being able to cast fire spells might not inherently grant resistance to fire depending on your lore...

For example, fire elementals can be immune to fire cos... they are the essence of fire.
But a magician can cast a fireball from their hands yes, but they can do this without getting hurt because
a) while casting their hands are covered by mana and are thus protected
b) the fireball actually spawns a short distance and forms to full size as it moves away from the caster.

Dungeon's and Dragons handles this nicely by setting up the schools, not based on basic elemental properties but by the nature of the spells, eg, abjuration, alteration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, illusion, invocation. Being from a specific school of magic in this case (in D andD) grants saves, not resistance, which makes sense in that, i am familiar with a particular school, i might be able to detect/recognize that such a spell is being cast, and thus i have a higher chance to react and escape, mitigate the effects of the spell. It does not grant resistance to the spells from the school.
As an example of this, Fireball, Evocation Level 3. if some one is casting that and i am from the evocation school, i might recognize it and add 2 to my save rolls, allowing me succeed in my save. This might mean that due to recognizing it, I react in time and manage to dodge to the edge of the explosion thus taking less damage. If i'm smacked by a flaming touch by a fighter, and set ablaze, my evocation specialization does nuts, and i still take the normal fire damage.

I agree with JoNax97 about the difference between passive and active resistance. But you need to be careful here. Assuming you have humans or elves or standard races in your race selection, people have very preconceived notions about the capabilities of such races. Maybe a Dragon Newt might adapt and gain fire resistance skin/scales. But humans and elves? Most people might consider this physically impossible unless its some small amount like 5% resistance or something. A better example of a passive resistance might be that due to so much practice with the fire school, basic spells such as a shield of heat basically become second nature and can be cast without conscious thought, thus mitigating some of the damage of opposing schools. Or if you prefer same school resistance, you are so adept at fire magic that you manage to deflect some of the fire/absorb some of the mana used to create the fireball etc etc

Basically, it depends on how your world and how skills/magic is designed and can be explained. This might be important to decide in order to prevent contradictions later.

 

I imagine a fire mage having the fire resistance of the mother of dragons in the GOT show. Basically complete immunity to fire.

 

Maybe you could create different types of magic fires. Some that can counteract other types of magic fires, and/or some that can make you immune, to certain types of fire magic.

 

If you want a "takes extra damage from" mechanic, being resistant your type of magic feels better. This is where ice elementals are mostly immune to ice magic, but take extra from fire. If we say they're resistant to fire, then we have ice elementals taking extra damage from ... ice?

If you can tame monsters having it be the same seems better. Otherwise an ice mage is better at taming fire creatures. Now they're not really an ice mage (assuming pets can attack) and every mage pretty much has both schools (theirs, and the opposite through pets).

If the game is in a magic school, immune to your own seems better as well. If fire mages can't hurt other fire mages they'll stick together and challenge the other schools. If they're immune to ice instead, they can challenge classmates, or anyone else except ice mages? That feels odd. Plus, their teacher won't be immune when the spells go out-of-control.

 

Does it have to be symmetrical? Fire vs. ice seems natural, but it's also obvious and cliched. Depending on other aspects of your magic system I'd look at doing something asymmetrical. Maybe fire is resistant to heat and poison, as it can burn off harmful substances before they do damage? It's weak against earth because dirt doesn't really burn, and getting smacked with a rock hurts regardless of temperature?

 

I've heard a game rule that you can't make too many original system for a game or most people will get confused (you will have a small fanbase, and every developer who copies part of your game and makes a ton of money will say how you inspired them). If the spell system is the focus, going with a custom system is great. But otherwise people know "fire vs.Ice effects resistances"; and they know Rock/Paper/Scissors systems; and both (Fire>Water>Earth>Air>Fire, Light<>Dark). For that matter, don't many games use neither? A World of Warcraft ice mage doesn't do more or less damage to fire creatures or fire mages.

 

I think other then the very standard and expected ones like Fire <> Water/Ice, Earth <> Air/Thunder/Lightning, Light <> Dark, everything else has to be learnt... I don't think tweaking the relationship between elements counts as too original or difficult to learn, as long as you introduce it properly and logically in the story/tutorial/lore

Eg, Ragnarok Mobile uses Fire > Earth > Wind > Water > Fire (Actually, its slightly more complex then that, this is the full table https://ragnamobileguide.com/wp-con...akness-table-ragnarok-mobile-eternal-love.jpg)

As i mentioned earlier, everything can be justified as long as your lore is sound, feel free to play around with it.

 

Ragnaros is 90% what I was saying. The elements vary, but everyone know about 4 elements on a wheel when you do extra damage to the next one, and take more from the previous. Everyone also knows the "these two oppose each other" of Good/Evil or Light/Dark or whatever. Even their Neutral element is a common enough thing.The main weird thing about Ragnarus is always doing less damage to your same element.

But then the weird rules for the extra ghost/poison/undead elements... . Those might work since the game is based on everything having an element. It's a major part so people are fine with having to remember funky rules. But if weapons had lots of other stats and most didn't use an element, 10 elements would be annoying.

 

Well, not to get too far into the technicals, my main focus would be a framework where the player is encouraged and rewarded for growing in all directions.

I want the player to be rewarded for trying everything and anything out,.

A player looking to make a warrior still benefits from learning magic.

in this case a warrior learns fire magic, they should be rewarded with the passive that they gain fire (or ice, but almost certainly fire) defense.

The point of the system is that it benefits the player no matter what they choose to build.

I’ve gone over and over and over the skill tree wheel for literally years now and I think I’m coming to a conclusion.

-Combat skills are completely divorced from crafts.

-A little practice in any discipline goes a long way with diminishing returns.

-All skills have a passive benefit that would help any build.

-Developing a skills have bonuses to the over arching concept, but is not necessary. That is every time you level up making blades, in turn gives you a bonus to smithing. You CAN become an expert just making iron daggers, but you’ll get there faster if you make mithryl axes, leather armor, and steal greaves.

-The required levels to reach the end of the game are about 50% of completely maxed out stats.

-Skills are use to learn, but avoid xp farming.

-The game staunchly discourages “grinding” from a series of mechanics, too numerous to name here.

-The game has a exponential risk/reward system that encourages pushing forward rather than playing it safe.

-The game does not allow for pausing and eating 50 cabbages to heal. It’s very much “Can I make it to the next check point? Is it worth skipping the next check point to get bonus experience?”

Edit: and I can not stress this enough, I want players to see “you have leveled up you (blank) stat” frequently. I want there to be TONS of incremental advancements, with chunky perks to go with them. Best of both worlds.

Edit 2: If you want the painfully drawn out details I will gladly post them, but be forwarned, I do mean painfully drawn out details.

 

Whenever i see these type of systems, it just reminds me of the original elder scrolls where you could just keep running and jumping to max out acrobatics, or just figure out certain set ups which let you max out certain skills. hahahaha.

 

Oh, for sure.

I would avoid it by only having combat skills level up this way.

It would all be based around how much damage it does, killing enemies, or certain actions taken in a fight that only apply once per enemy.