[✗] [Magic Lore] - Lightning Evocation

[Zarsies 6028]

52 minutes ago, Jentos said:

 

 

Sage advice.

[PrimnyaQuorum 1039]

2 hours ago, Jentos said:

amped reflexes allows one to automatically dodge or even swat away a projectile. its effectively a guaranteed 2 emote block of a 3 emote nock, draw and shoot emote, let alone the dodging of an even larger spell. Instant dodges have often been sort of "problematic" in lore. And even the fire-ward azdrazi can pick (out of many other way better spells) takes like 3 emotes to cast and only blocks 1 spell. 

 

Shifting Spells under Translocation (Notably Brisk Step and Minor TP) allow the user to dodge incoming attacks and projectiles reactively if its on the cast emote. Air Evo has redirect, which is mechanically the same as Amped Reflexes (knocking away incoming projectiles at arrow speed or slower) with no real range limit besides how far the mage can see. I think Amped Reflexes is fine since the mage would need to already be in position to knock away a incoming projectile, or spend further emotes casting Lightning Step or just running to maneuver into place. 

[H 746]

7 hours ago, Jentos said:

amped reflexes allows one to automatically dodge or even swat away a projectile. its effectively a guaranteed 2 emote block of a 3 emote nock, draw and shoot emote, let alone the dodging of an even larger spell. Instant dodges have often been sort of "problematic" in lore.

 

 

10 hours ago, HurferDurfer1 said:

-snip-

 

The design intent for Amped Reflexes was to balance it around the Redirect spell which already exists. This is also a guaranteed 2 emote block of a 3 emote nock, draw, and shoot emote. It's also balanced around Air Shield, which is a 2 emote block of multiple projectiles at once (as it forms a 2x3 meter wall). Brisk Step also exists as an instant dodge with up to 12 blocks of movement attacked to it as well, which currently allows a mage to instantly avoid melee attacks, ranged attacks, or spells with an incredible level of movement attached in 2 emotes (1 if they're already connected). 

Our goal was for Amped Reflexes to not change combat balancing whatsoever compared to existing spells, which should be the case.

 

As for Lightning Step, the intent is for the spell to be useful but not overpowered - as the spell does not boost a mage's strength, and does not allow them to cast or charge any offensive spells while it's being used, it shouldn't make the mage's increased movement overly oppressive. I've broken down the math in an earlier post, but in short: Lightning Step is significantly worse than competing options in Translocation, and potentially worse than not using a spell at all and just being a regular swordsman on foot.

Lightning Step vs. Regular Swordsman:

Spoiler

Emote 1: Regular Swordsman sprints 8 blocks and cannot attack. Lightning Evocationist can move up to 4 while casting Lightning Step but cannot attack either (because they're preparing Lightning Step).

Emote 2: Regular swordsman sprints another 8 blocks for a total of 16, or can move 4 while attacking for a total of 12. Lightning evocationist can move 8 while attacking for a total of 12.

Emote 3: Regular swordsman can sprint another 8 blocks for a total of 24, or can move 4 while attacking (total of 16 or 20 depending on last turn). Lightning evocationist can sprint another 8 blocks for a total of 20 while attacking.

Emote 4: Regular swordsman can sprint another 8 blocks for a total of 32, or can move 4 while attacking (total 20, 24, or 28 based on previous turns). Lightning evocationist is fatigued and immobile now, for a total of 20 (no movement).

 

 

7 hours ago, Jentos said:

As well, for the general effect of lightning on people, you'll have to explain it in full detail. how does it affect non-living beings like undead? how does it affect muscles and flesh? realistically speaking, if ur wearing full armour irl and you get hit by lightning that armour is going to conduct the lightning into the ground, and every time that I used lightning evo back in the days that same argument came up. 

As mentioned in the lore, lightning has no effect that is not explicitly stated in a spell description. Real-world logic and conductivity rules do not apply, specifically to avoid the sort of clarity issues that previous Lightning Evocation had. It has no effect on muscles and flesh beyond what is specifically mentioned in a spell description. Full armor only has the interaction with lightning that is listed in the lore. 

The idea is that evoked Lightning is not real Lightning, and plays by different rules. This allows for it to be balanced around what would be narratively satisfying and mechanically balanced compared to other evocations, not real-world physics or logic. This isn't without precedent - pretty much every evocation element works slightly differently than their real counterparts, especially Fire.

That being said, we hear you, and for thematic reasons (as well as to avoid any potential loopholing) we've made the following changes to Amped Reflexes and Lightning Step:

• Amped Reflexes can no longer be used to dodge melee attacks, only projectile attacks. This makes it effectively identical to Redirect (maybe slightly worse, because an arrow fired at an ally across the room can be Redirected, but not stopped with Amped Reflexes).
  • In practice, this shouldn't change anything from the original write, because using Amped Reflexes to dodge or parry a melee attack would be worse in every way from using a non-magical dodge or parry - it would cost mana and use up the mage's major action for that turn, while using a non-magical dodge or parry would cost no mana and still allow for some form of attack or major action. Remember, if a mage chose to parry, Amped Reflexes wouldn't have boosted their strength anyway.
  • However, because this makes Amped Reflexes identical in combat usage (if not flavor/noncombat RP utility), we're hoping this should settle any balance questions.
• Lightning Step and Amped Reflexes can no longer be maintained at the same time. If Amped Reflexes is cast during Lightning Step, the Lightning Step ends. This removes any interaction between the two spells, allowing Amped Reflexes to be assessed balance-wise entirely on its own. As stated above, it is in practice identical to Redirect.

I'll be adding a changelog at the bottom of the original post to track these changes.

 As of now, the changelog looks like this:

 

Spoiler

• 11/16/23 - Formatting changes. Added a specific mention that Anorum armor was excluded from the Static penalty (this was implied as the original post stated the armor must be metal to incur a penalty, but this makes it explicit).
• 11/18/23 - Amped Reflexes can only be used to respond to projectile attacks.
• 11/18/23 - Lightning Step and Amped Reflexes cannot be cast at the same time, and no longer have any sort of interaction.

With all that said, thank you for taking the time to read the lore, and thank you for your feedback. I know this has been a very controversial magic in the past, and our goal was to try and bring it back with its own niche, greater clarity, and without changing the balance of combat RP compared to current magic.

[Laeonathan 3980]

If you are afraid of the ampered reflexes you've never seen shifting with a focus.

[Spindle 651]

😳

[Kabo0m 36]

+1
Seems really interesting, I like the stacks system involved!

[tezzaract 117]

Late to the party, but +1! This is a really fascinating take on the concept of lightning magic, and I hope it gets to be explored further!

[Islamadon 4429]

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