Ability Components

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Abilities

An ability is a special function that a character is capable of learning/utilizing, depending on the lore piece. For example, magic users are capable of learning spells and creatures might have some special retractable claws. Both of these can be considered abilities. Abilities are, for purposes of this thread, synonymous with the word Spell. 

 

• A combative/combat ability is an ability that is capable of being used in a conflict encounter, which can be both PVP (Player versus player combat) and PVE (player versus environment, events typically, combat). Combative spells can be used out of combat as well, unless otherwise specified. 
• A non-combative ability is an ability that is incapable of being done in a conflict encounter. It does not matter how it is done, but a non-combative ability can have no impact or change on the initiation of combat or any of it’s characters. 

 

That said, whether they be magical or not, all abilities written into a magic/feat/creature/race/invention/et cetera have to be balanced. We have laid out a number of sections for you to read and understand what you should be taking into account when designing abilities for your lore. 

 

 

Let’s build an ability together. Formatting for an ability is as follows.

 

(Ability Name & Labels)

[Tier 3] [Combative/Noncombative] - Fireball

 

In this section, it should be labeled clearly at the top- before any other portion of the spell what tier a spell is, so that people know when it is available to learn and to cast. Afterward,  [Combative] or [Noncombative] is put in brackets. You can put one or the other, or even both. Following this, you’ll want to include the ability name. For the purposes of this, we’ll have a simple fireball spell, but they can be less straightforward. Some abilities which have more complex names are “Wailing”, “The Name That Lives On”, “Living Tether”, and so on. Just be sure it makes sense and can be used in roleplay, since most people will say it’s name in roleplay. 

 

RP Description

Many fear the wayward mage, for their terrifying flame is as destructive as it is potent. Conjured of their foul voidal magick, they push forth a ball of an unstable inferno which would blast-dead anyone who stood within it’s path.

 

This is the RP description of the ability and its capabilities. This is mostly flavor text and fluff, particularly of what the ability looks like or does in a more fantasy-way. This description does not include how the spell is used exactly, that is reserved for mechanics. Have fun with this part, and don’t worry about how it will be viewed. Give people ideas on how they can interpret or put variance on the spell, like changing how it is cast or giving different tell emotes to it.

 

Mechanics

Fireball takes [3] emotes to cast (1 connect, 1 charge, 1 cast). If interrupted, fireball would explode, and harm the caster with first degree burns if unprotected. Fireball, when striking a target, would explode to pieces, affecting anyone within a [3x3x3] range of the hit with second-degree burns and searing pain. Fireball may be cast onto targets up to [20] meters away.

 

This is the OOC description of the spell that covers things like emote counts and other specifications that you need to be aware of. Make sure you include everything that is talked about in this thread, and consider all the parts that can be used, and the questions that will be asked. Get feedback on these, and take a look at other lores to see how they balanced their spells. Be very careful with your wording, and do your best to remove all fluff and flowery wording. You want to make sure there is no misinterpretation of your lore. Throw in the range too, which is important to your spell. How far it can be cast, and maybe even what happens if it even misses.

 

Redlines

-This spell may be cast while moving at halved speed.

-This spell may be interrupted with Abjuration, Auric Oil, or Thanhium. 

-This spell is Tier 3, and takes [X] amount of mana from one’s mana pool.

-Fireball is doused easily by water.

-Fireball, once it strikes it’s target and explodes, does not continue to light a target or any nearby on fire. Once it explodes, it dissipates.

-Fireball cannot be used to light buildings or trees on fire.

-If one is wearing armour, the burn effect of Fireball would be lessened to first degree burns. A shield would block the spell fully, unless one was caught within it’s 3x3x3 range.

-Fireball requires line of sight to cast.

 

Redlines can be tedious and monotonous to think of EVERY quirk your lore may have, but try and write in broad terms to cover these topics. Detail and specify the parts that are needed, and allow for mild interpretation where necessary. If I did not include that abjuration/auric oil/thanhium line, this spell would probably be accepted just fine. Instead of looking to the spell, the player or the ST could look at the lore, and find that “Oh, this magic is mana based, so it could be countered by anti-magic measures like these”. Don’t overthink these, and do your best to think of questions people could ask on how this spell works and what its effects are.

 

And there we have our spell! This is what it looks like all put together.

 

[Tier 3] [Combative/Noncombative] - Fireball

Many fear the wayward mage, for their terrifying flame is as destructive as it is potent. Conjured of their foul voidal magick, they push forth a ball of an unstable inferno which would blast-dead anyone who stood within it’s path.

 

Mechanics

Fireball takes [3] emotes to cast (1 connect, 1 charge, 1 cast). If interrupted, fireball would explode, and harm the caster with first degree burns if unprotected. Fireball, when striking a target, would explode to pieces, affecting anyone within a [3x3x3] range of the hit with second-degree burns and searing pain. Fireball may be cast onto targets up to [20] meters away.

 

Redlines

-This spell may be cast while moving at halved speed.

-This spell may be interrupted with Abjuration, Auric Oil, or Thanhium. 

-This spell is Tier 3, and takes [X] amount of mana from one’s mana pool.

-Fireball is doused easily by water.

-Fireball, once it strikes it’s target and explodes, does not continue to light a target or any nearby on fire. Once it explodes, it dissipates.

-Fireball cannot be used to light buildings or trees on fire.

-If one is wearing armour, the burn effect of Fireball would be lessened to first degree burns. A shield would block the spell fully, unless one was caught within it’s 3x3x3 range.

-Fireball requires line of sight to cast.

 

 

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Ability Components

Abilities are made up of a number of components. These need to be properly accounted for to create the ideal ability, which is creative, fun, interesting, and well written.

 

Labeling Abilities

Abilities are required to be labeled as either “combative” or “non-combative”. You can do both, just note that the combative variety of the spell should be limited in what it can do. We are giving people more freedom in what their abilities do for non-combative spells, under the premise that they recognize it is incapable of being used in combat.

 

• Non-combative spells are mostly there for aesthetic or flavor. They can provide minor boons which can make non-combative rp easier or more interesting. Be creative with these, as they can have a lot more leeway in freeformity. Not all non-combative spells fall under this, with spells like healing and rituals. Keep respect to narrative themes and power-scaling in relation to the magic, feat, or creature you are writing for.
• Combat spells are often under a bit more scrutiny, just to be certain how far a spell can go when it’s taken to it’s farthest, and how it can interact with others. Combat spells should be well balanced, and should be as well defined as possible. If a combative spell is able to be used in noncombative scenarios, be sure to define (if applicable) what may be different, if anything. 

 

Timing, or “Emote Count”

Combat spells should have emote counts, such as 3 emotes to utilize the ability. Non-combat spells can have emote counts, time measurements in “Narrative Time”, or may not have emote counts at all. 

 

How long does it take for the ability to be used? This is primarily for combative abilities, as it’s imperative for the caster to understand how to emote it out. For combat situations, you should always use hard-set emote counts. 4 emotes, 3 emotes, etc… IRL or Narrative time can be difficult to track for combative scenarios, and should not be used. However, if one’s ability is meant to be used for the entire duration of combat, terms such as “Passive”, “Passively” or “Until the end of the combative encounter” may be utilized. If there is some exception, such as a spell that only effects one target, situational timers can be applied. Such as “Effective until target is incapacitated”, or some other status.

 

Using IRL time as a cooldown after the combat encounter ends is iffy, but works though as the combat has ended. For example, if you write that the above ability can only be used once an hour, you can easily track that once the encounter ends and there’s no potential issue of things getting dragged out. However, given how time can be tricky, particularly when applying from combat-to-combat, we simply endorse the use of long IRL timers (Such as 24h), and not narrative time.

 

If it is an out of combat ability, an emote count OR length of time can be provided. For example, brewing a complicated alchemical concoction could take longer than a day, so there’s no need for exact emote counts. Most noncombative spells have minimal emote counts or no required emote counts at all, which is fine. Be sure to clarify what it is in your noncombative spell.

 

Be sure to as well list how long your ability may last. If it is channeled, how long its effects are, and so on. Consider how strong this may be, or how short it may be. You do not want a spell too frustrating to repeat-cast so often, and you do not want a spell which takes minimal effort but has major impacts throughout the encounter. 

 

 

Effects

Any effect that an ability causes need to be thoroughly written out. These effects of your ability could be truly anything. A damaging spell? A healing spell? An enchantment? A passive effect? A simple manipulation of elements? Storytelling? It’s entirely up to you. However, it’s effects need to be absolutely clear. While the Description of the spell can be as flavorful and flowery as one may like, its mechanics need to be rock-solid understandable. Below is some criteria to think about. 

 

What the ability does must be described as detailed as possible, otherwise it becomes hard for the user to convey how people should react. Think of how to describe your spell using three pillars, or “The Three C’s”.

-Ease of understanding (Clarity)

-Lack of frustrative interpretation (Conciseness)

-Use of any and all considerations, and baseline to understand (Completeness)

 

For Clarity, consider how easy it is to understand a spell. A spell should be easy enough that someone who has not read the lore, with perhaps five or ten minutes of time, could understand how to utilize, know it’s limits, and know when something has gone too far or broken lore. Be as clear as possible with spellwriting, and be sure to consider that while you may know your lore in and out, others may not. 

 

For Conciseness, consider how concise you are in your explanation. You should not have, after two people reading it, two different varying spells from what is intended. While tells, ways of casting, and so on may change, one thing is for certain- The ability’s effect should never, ever, be different from what is written on the page unless the spell has variance in some matter. Be sure that you are concise in your writing, avoiding flowery wording or overly-descriptive terms. Save your prose for the description and the guide!

 

For Completeness, consider that you have everything included. The ranges, the effects, the conditions that require casting, the resource cost, the after effects, etc… Be sure to take these things into account. Rather than being over-descriptive, try and be broad. This may sound odd, and counterproductive. What is meant by this, is to try and lay down labels that define your ability, so that it is clearly understandable. As stated before, one does not have to write for every spell of a mana-based magic “Vulnerable to Thanhium”. This is because it is known the magic is a mana-based magic, and thus, Thanhium is vulnerable to so. However, consider how individual spells may interact in certain scenarios. Maybe your one heat or fire ability in your arsenal is vulnerable to being doused by water, or maybe it isn’t! It’s something you should consider. Less is more, in this circumstance- define things in broad terms for your baseline of understanding, and define where this ability deviates from the norm.

 

When coming up with effects, you also need to account for existing lore and their playerbases. If your ability targets plants, you should account for it going against druids and balance it. Consider how a lore which may use mana is affected by Thanhium. Most of the time, this is not a problem. See Explanation Topics: The Lore Web for more information. In any case, reaching out to these playerbases to discuss the lore is not a bad idea to ensure that both sides are happy with the results and so that you are as informed as possible to write good lore.

 

For example, a spell that disorients someone should describe how it is doing so. Dizziness, inability to think straight, loss of depth perception, et cetera are all different ways that disorientation could be done, so you should be clear in order for the victim to RP it properly when hit. The severity and length of the effect should also be described. Does it last for a few emotes? A day? Etc.

 

Consider then everything that not only may change with your character through an ability, but another’s character. How should they respond? What should change about their condition? Your condition? What is different from before? Be as clear, concise, and complete as possible. 

 

 

Counters

The best abilities are ones which by some sort, have some form of counterplay where applicable. Typically, counters should be restricted to Lore Locations or Spell-like abilities, perhaps even enchantments. 

 

Abilities should be fun for the person using them, but also, the person affected by them! To prevent too much bloat in your writing and too much frustration upon your end, consider including baseline counters in your lore rather than counters for each individual ability. Perhaps your CA is vulnerable to gold, or your magic does not work well when it is night time. Take these things in mind, and allow for both active, and passive, counter-play to your magic.  

 

Any ability that can affect a person or area should have some kind of counter. It does not necessarily need to be a magical counter either. Consider how accessible these counters are, and how to make that both fun and interesting for your ability.

 

Rather than looking at counters like “How can someone ruin my day”, moreso, “How can my spell excel in certain conditions?” Perhaps rain does not play well with a fire-based magic, or that being nearby Voidal-based casters makes your nature magic shrink and become weak. Think about how there is two types of counterplay- both active, and passive.

 

Active counterplay is counterplay in which an “Opponent” would actively consider your capabilities, and try and play against that by doing something which is unfavourable to them. Maybe your stone-armor is easily vulnerable to hammers. Perhaps your vines and brambles are vulnerable to fire. A form of “Active” counterplay would have someone bringing hammers for that armour, or flames for those organics. These should be an option in some circumstances where a powerful ability warrants it.

 

Passive counterplay is counterplay in which is mostly brought on by the person with the ability. Maybe they need concentration for a spell, or to be vulnerable to attack while using an ability. Maybe they need to be within a certain weather or time condition, or perhaps in proximity to others, or even alone. Maybe they need time to setup to be truly effective in combat. Passive counterplay is often factors which a person brings onto themselves, or rather, that can be overcome throughout the progression of combat. 

 

Make sure to avoid “Shut down” counters. Particularly when writing something built for counters, avoid something which completely shuts down or turns the situation to an automatic-win for the person with the counter. This is not fun, and often used to justify excessively powerful abilities. You want to try and keep counters fun, and with a chance to still win for the person being countered, even though they are certainly disadvantaged.

 

For example of a counter in action, if you have a spell that is cursing someone with an illness, you could write in the counter to be a type of alchemical/mundane medicine. Counters should not be a niche thing either unless the effect is minor. For example, if your cursing spell can result in someone’s death, the counter for it should not be some obscure herb that only a small handful of people have access to. Or if it’s some magical entity, the only weakness should not be thanhium.

 

 

Damage and Lethality

Damaging abilities can be a tricky topic for some. Many look to other lores asking themselves “What did they do right, that I can to?”
Understand that damaging abilities framed individually can look okay, but you should try and take a look more importantly at the bigger picture. 

 

But, in general, abilities should try and strive for a balance which takes into account all these other factors within this thread. Emote counts are important, ranges, line of sight (or lack thereof), conditional modifiers, and so on. Let’s dive into some details. 

 

The ability itself should be balanced, especially if it is combative or has negative effects on people/areas. There should always be some degree of fairness, as both sides are meant to think creatively and have fun in combat. Unfortunately given the nature of open lore on the server, there will always be those who pre-plan everything before combat, and make no effort to try and roleplay on their own. You should not write lore in account to “Arms Race” these types of players, as it only reinforces the nature of bad faith roleplay and seeking those out. Be open, and describe exactly what an ability does, and it’s ins-and-outs. A lore should not be left open to interpretation on what an ability does, or even if the ability is there in the first place. 

An example, in the past arms-racing lead to a problem in the past between Paladinism and Shade. The two writers for the lorepieces refused to work amongst one another, and would write in effects that specifically targeted eachothers lore. This lead to a lot of bad roleplay in which moderation and story team were constantly called to watch over each conflict, with each player more focused on disconnecting/PKing other players rather than having any roleplay motivation to do so. The magics aswell were extremely overtuned, as they kept trying to out-do one another with every subsequent rewrite.

 

Ability targeting: How your ability targets people is very important and something to keep in mind when writing your ability. The target/opponent should have a chance to dodge or react to the ability in some form before being fully utilized. 
 

• Short Range (Quiet (8 blocks/metres) range or less): “Touch” spells are common within this category. With “touch” spells, be sure to have a tell of somekind that indicates something is going on abnormal. Of course, this can be addressed within your connection details and not necessarily with your individual spells, but sometimes the difference is something that’s nice to have. Be sure to indicate how touch is made; skin to skin contact? What about clothing? Armour? Think outside the box and put it to test yourself with some ideas of how it could be utilized.
   
  • Something aswell with these are “Short Range” spells, spells that are very close-range and meant for most likely, melee or disengage-related combat. Try your best to not make your spell too painful to use, if that is not the intent. Consider the distance one may be at with a combatant, and what ideally that maintained distance is; but consider that not every scenario will be there. Think of how you want your Flamethrower spell to be ideally hitting a target between six and eight blocks. Too close, and you may be attacked by them. Too far, and they may run away and simply sit outside the range.
     
  • Healing spells are most common here, and rightfully so- while a ranged healer could be considered, it does somewhat greatly impact the server’s direction in regards to healing. For more info, check out Explanation Topics: Healing, and General Criteria: Ability Types
     
  • (Self) affecting abilities are most commonly here too. Consider how much your ability may deter or affect melee combat, and if that is problematic in making the ability user untouchable in some form.
     
  • Be sure to take into account movement particularly with these these spells, and take absolutely into account interactions with melee combat and melee combatants.
    
     

• Medium Range (Attacks within #rp (20 blocks/metres) distance): Abilities that harm people from afar should give the target a chance to dodge or at least react to the ability in some regard. Projectiles should be visible when being fired at someone. Any ability that involves a tether or connection to their target should also have some method of neutralizing the ability prior to connection, beyond just making the target flee the effect radius.
   
  • Things to consider for Medium Range are most particularly, line of sight, clarity of tells, and your spellpower. Spellpower is very important to consider because a target may be unable to, or take a long time, to reach the ability user. Consider why this ability has this certain level of power, and consider what use it has prepping going into, or coming out of, melee combat. Consider interactions with other ranged combatants, and movement speed while utilizing this ability. With line of sight, consider how it may be broken, if that at all affects the ability.

 

• Long Range (Attacks greater than #rp (20 blocks/metres) distance): Abilities of this caliber are very, very tricky. Typically these abilities are at greater susceptibility to dodging, but consider how much it may strain the user to use an ability at this range. Consider as well, how much they may be impaired movement wise, and particularly with line of sight. This range doesn’t have to be too hard. Think of how you can utilize someone, or something, approaching from this range. Perhaps you want to use the ability to curse, weaken, impair, or mark your target to otherwise benefit you or others. Consider how being attacked from this range may be considered unfair. And if at any point doubting power, take a look at mundane weaponry. Bows, crossbows, slings, arbalests- consider how this power works, and try and translate that in the best way you can to an interesting ability. Perhaps some damage or weaken over time, perhaps something as simple as a bow re-skin or slight upgrade.

 

 

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• Emote Economy: Familiar with Dungeons and Dragons? You may have heard of a term called “Action Economy”. In short, it means what actions one can realistically perform in one turn- and how that affects progress on big impact events. How much value you get for spending a certain amount of emotes over another magic, how effective your time spent using your magic/feat/ca is over another. Power-creep is something to consider too- there’s been plenty of lore pieces who have taken abilities from other magics, and given them a simple tune-up or slight adjustment to give them more power. Compound this with more and more lore pieces following this, and we have a much more compact and much more powerful set of lore than we did before- which not only harms lore interactions, and those older lores, but it severely hurts “Mundane” players who don’t utilize much, if any, lore combatively.
  
  Consider how much your spell allows someone to do something. Consider how versatile it may be, and how much they can get done, or rather, avoid, during it. Can someone dodge? Wield a weapon? Block, parry, even attack at the same time? Can they move at full pace? Be fully aware of their surroundings? Can they impair someone, their actions, or any of their ability? Consider these things when weighing in how many emotes it takes to get something done- what options are closed, open, and so on.
   
  • 1 emote ability: These abilities are typically very minor, if combative whatsoever. With these, be careful if your lore has “Connection” of somekind which mandates a prep-emote. Consider if there’s persistent connection (Ability to maintain connection between abilities), and how this may make a one-emote ability rather strong, or overpowered. Try keeping these to a minimum, as cantrips or flavor spells. Things like drawing weapons, minor empowerments to the self, one’s tools, or to others, etc.
     
  • 2 emote ability: Without a connection or prep-emote of some kind, these spells should be spells used either leading into a combo of some kind, or minor spells which give a quick, but ultimately nonfactor advantage. Sand in the eyes, impairing an opponents movement, enhancing your next ability or abilities, or even something like preparing yourself, your tools, or others in a moderate or good form.
    
    With a connection emote adding to [3] total emotes, even with persistent connection keeping it to [2], these are your bread-and-butter abilities. These should have reasonable damage that would impair or wound someone, but maybe not fully take them out. A “Bullet in the shoulder” type wound, something which would stop the unprepared in their tracks, but those truly determined or prepared could be ready for so. These could even be utility abilities, such as ones which move you around quicker or give you some defensive advantage. Given the low emote count, keep it cautious.
     
  • 3 emote ability: Without a connection or prep-emote of some kind, these spells are more powerful and would be moderately wounding. Spells capable of wounding someone, potentially taking the wind out of their sails- but by no means stopping them, killing them (if as a first strike), or so on. These are the heavy-hitters, but not necessarily your most powerful move in your arsenal. With these emotes, you can start to play around with mild AOE effects, or side-effects to your harm- that benefit you, others, or detriment your opponent and their allies. These abilities are a bit greater and should give some advantage to the user. In terms of utility, this is a spell which may not be always applicable, but provides them an advantage if it has taken this long to cast. Something rewarding, greater than one’s capabilities if they were trying to perform an action normally.
    
    With a connection emote adding to [4] total emotes, even with persistent connection keeping it to [3], these are your greater abilities which would reasonably be able to inflict moderate to severe wounds. Concussive force, bloodloss, trauma, second to third degree burns, etc.. These abilities should be mortal wounds of some kind, which would hurt someone greatly and require them to seek medical treatment soon, if not immediately. These abilities in terms of utility can grant a user a significant advantage in their situation, be it in movement, defense, and so on that strengthens them/presses an advantage with how long they have been allowed to cast.
     
  • 4+ emote ability: Without connection, these are your most powerful, or most niche, abilities. Abilities taking this long would sustain a large effect, or an effect which would last a significant (if not indefinite) duration. Abilities this can be ritualistic, which depends on your type of lore on where that exactly goes, or how it works. But consider how with these long emote timers, how one could mortally wound or incapacitate someone, if not severely damaging the unprepared. These abilities  should carry very clear emotes and tells, and should be very taxing energy-wise. These abilities can as well scale into “Niche” purposes. Large AOE abilities not useful for single targets, or useful against specific types of targets. Perhaps these spells are only useful in some scenarios, and worthless in others despite their cost. In terms of utility abilities, these may grant extremely useful abilities to a user. Maybe it is ignoring a subsequent hit or two, or healing/pausing a deeply harmful wound. Maybe they impair the other combatants or allow you to perform things like movement, reactions, or actions to a greater ability than normal.
    
    With a connection emote adding to [5+] total emotes, even with persistent connection keeping it to [4+], these spells should be careful. Often, these can be slow, clunky, and seen as unusable outside of events. Make sure your abilities are appropriately adjusted to their purpose, and carry unique use-cases instead of being your simple “Biggest Attack Move”, which can seem as lame and distasteful. Think of how your can incorporate other effects into your ability which could affect yourself, others, or even the environment around you significantly. In terms of utility, these could be abilities which empower your caster for the rest of the fight, or to an ability severely above normal. Perhaps they teleport a significant range, or ignore pain/wounds, or are rewarded for subsequent spellcasts. The choices really are endless.
    
    Overall, more emotes aren’t necessarily a pass to do more damage or more things, as you still have to be in good faith when writing these abilities.

 

 

 

Energy

Abilities cost energy, just as swinging a sword makes one tire out. Mana systems are a part of near every lore to some extent, unless the purpose of that lore is to have no mana system- suffering in other ways, such as Eidola who have unlimited endurance but are slow and clunky. Energy is not limited to mana-type systems though, and often applies to individual spells themselves. Lets go into detail. 

 

Some lores do have mana systems unique to them. See Explanation Topics: Power Sources for a bit more detail on this. However, in any case, abilities usually cost some form of mana. In some circumstances, this is up to the roleplayer to determine- such as in Voidal Magic or Housemagery, without defined mana limits. Other lores such as Paladinism or Naztherak, have custom mana systems which limit their users. Whatever type of mana-system and power source your lore use, it should apply to your spells too. Be sure to list in the mechanics, or the redlines, perhaps even both- how much mana an ability costs. While not all abilities should cost mana, be mindful that ones which you want to limit the use of, should have mana costs, or on the other hand, limits- see that below.

 

Limits are a fairly new type of energy placed within a few lores. Some spells may have both Energy-cost and Limits, while other spells just have one or the other. For spells you particularly want limited in their use or “Spammability”, be sure to apply a Limit. A limit is effectively a “Charge”, of how many times you can use a spell in a certain amount of time. Some lores have spells which can only be used once, than going on a four emote cooldown before being able to be used again. Some lores only have spells eligible to use once per combat. Others, have some form of recharge-system, in which they have to earn their ability to cast again somehow.

 

In any case of what your limit may be, be sure it is appropriate, and be sure that your spell has an appropriate cost energy wise. Make sure to write how your ability may exhaust the person using it in the guide, and define how tolling that much energy taken away is. 

 

As well, energy in general should not be tracked by large or arbitrary number systems. Try and keep mana-costs and mana-pools small and in low number. In the days of old, people often had to bring out calculators mid-combat only half as a joke to keep track of how much Mana or Resources they expended. Keep it simple, and keep numbers easy to track and easy to think of. 

 

  

Red Lines/Restriction

All abilities should have red lines that dictate the limitations of the spell, outside of their general mechanics. Try to be clarifying with redlines, and restrictive, rather than additive. These limitations are there for you to outline what an ability can or cannot do with more detail. You should not implement redlines that are overly restrictive without a justifiable explanation. In every case of lore exists the clause that “Unless it is written, you cannot do that”. Do not answer a “question” with a redline that asks more questions- try and be definitive. 

 

Any ability should come with restrictions/red lines that dictates clearly the limitations of the spell outside of their general mechanics. If you leave things vague, it becomes open for people to abuse. As such, all red lines/restrictions should be concise and easy to understand. Bear in mind, the red lines/restrictions is not the end all be all when it comes to the ability limitations. Your mechanics section is just as important.

 

Make sure to never use hand-wavey wording. Be decisive, and be affirmative. “May lead to” and “Sometimes” or “Perhaps” are all examples of bad word choice. A redline that says “Being burnt with a fireball may leave burns” is much different than “Being burnt with a fireball will leave burns.” Be clear and do not allow for misinterpretation. Account for what limits you may have to put on something- that a spell cannot be held for too long, that one requires line of sight, that one cannot use an ability under certain conditions, etc…

 

Be clear with your redlines, and be sure to write what it is your spell CANNOT do, and what its LIMITS are.