Frayed Knights - I wanna cast 'Magic Missile'!

Dhruin

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Jay Barnson has posted a lengthy update on spellcasting in Frayed Knights, with bonus points for references to the famous Dead Alewives comedy skit (you should know it, but look it up if you don't). This is a must-read for Frayed Knights fans and here's a sample:
A little bit has been said about the number of spells in this game. I must admit, the whole concept is a little bit daunting even to me. I have a little script I run which reports the totals so I don’t have to do much counting, because the counting is getting a little insane. After the last additions, the counts were:
SORCERER SPELLS: 30 unique spells + 109 variants.
DARK PRIEST SPELLS: 25 unique spells + 101 variants.
LIGHT PRIEST SPELLS: 32 unique spells + 139 variants.
NATURE PRIEST SPELLS: 31 unique spells + 133 variants.
If my minimal math skills serve me well, that’s around 118 unique(ish) spells, plus 482 variants of said spells available in the game. So far. That’s like… 600 in total. But it really depends on how you count. When I say unique-ish, I mean that there are a few spells (but actually not many) that are shared between classes that are counted as unique, but may share the same effect — though they may actually be cast at a different level and have different endurance costs. For example, while all three varieties of priests can cast straight-up heals, the divine (light) priests get the spells earlier and cheaper, nature priests (like Benjamin) get it next, and for dark priests tend to get them pretty late and at higher endurance cost.
Spells are divied up, as you can see above, into four categories: Sorcerer, Light Priest, Dark Priest, and Nature Priest. Anybody can take a feat to pick up sorcerer spells (though they will have to pick up a few additional feats to be able to cast the full range of said spells, and will never be QUITE as effective as the sorcerer class at making them “stick”). Anybody can take ONE set of priest spells, too. But only one. The gods are jealous and stuff.
More information.
 
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@Jay: Excuse me, but how do you do it ? I mean, what and how are these variantions actually made of ?
 
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The base spells are generated manually, the variations are algorithmic scaling of the base in effect level (for example, extra damage) or duration, and in cost (both in endurance costs and spellstone cost).

Okay - my apologies, I'm breaking out the game design yammering here:

The problem is that due to the variety of effects, the algorithm isn't all that straightforward. For example, if you have a spell that has multiple effects, it may be "balanced" by having each of those effects a bit smaller than one of a similar level with only one effect. But then if you scale all three effects of one spell by the same amount as you scale the one effect of another spell, the three-effect spell is getting triple the bonus! But the numbers may not be reduce well to being divided by three to make things "equal" either.

And is 4 points of Might reduction equal to 2 points of Charm and 2 points of Brains? No, it's probably worth a lot more. Though if your target is casting a mix of priest and sorcerer spells, then the two-point reduction on both stats might be exactly right.

It's fuzzy.

Juggling the variants isn't easy. I'm trying to handle it all via general rules, but I may end up having to make some of the variants "custom" just to avoid having anything TOO overpowered. But I'm also of the opinion that a little overpowered or a little underpowered is okay.

And it's fun making sure the bad guys have plenty of unique spells to throw the player's way.
 
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Thank you very much for your explanation.

I think you might need a good beta-testing for all of these variations, espcially for balancing.
 
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Thank you. ;)
 
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