Age of Decadence: The Magic of... Magic?

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Written by BuckGB on January 1st, 2009

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What comes to mind when you think about magic in RPGs? Medieval Europe-like place with pointy hats wizards firing brightly colored "magical" projectiles at various creatures. That's all magic is apparently good for as it doesn't seem to offer any benefits to the setting, local industries, and the player.

You don't see wizards transporting goods and golems employed on construction sites. You don't see improved communications ("Crystal Ball News Network"?). You don't see anti-magic defenses and I'm not talking about protection against fireballs. I'm talking about protection against enemy's wizards entering towns and opening portals for troops waiting a thousand miles away. What you do see are firebolts and fireballs, ice storms and chain lightning, magic missiles and meteor swarms.

...

Consider Arena and Daggerfall spells like Passwall and Levitation. These spells gave mages a very unique way to play the game. Mages were no longer restricted by walls and gravity. They could walk through walls and soar through the air at will. Not surprisingly, these "game-breaking" abilities didn't break these games as they were designed with these features in mind. Daggerfall's massive, fear-inducing dungeons were cleverly designed, featuring air shafts, pits, underwater areas, large, open, multi-level halls, which worked great with climbing, swimming, levitating, jumping, walking on water, etc. Even though Daggerfall mages were stereotypical magic fighters, a few non-combat, gameplay-altering spells made playing these mages a memorable and somewhat unique experience. All we need is to take it one step further and build the mage concept around environment interaction:

- Open passages and portals walls are never an obstacle for you. Using my favourite "guarded gate" example to illustrate different ways to deal with game's challenges, fighter fights his way through, thief either sneaks in or climbs the wall, diplomat talks his way through, and mage just opens a passage and travels in style. In King's Quest 6 you can actually enter a castle by casting a Magic Paint spell and painting a door on one of the walls.

- Bring statues to life - a lot more interesting and tactical than summoning wild animals out of thin air whenever you feel like. You can either animate a statue or, better yet, possess it. In game terms the latter would mean that the player loses control of his mage character and gains control of the statue. Needless to say, the statue must protect the mage's body for if it's destroyed, the character dies. The statue can't wander far from the mage's body which would be the natural limitation. The statue can be destroyed, of course, without any (much?) harm to the mage.

- Raise walls and barriers lot of fun and tactical possibilities. Split your enemies into smaller, more manageable groups. No longer you have to exploit dumb AI and draw enemies 1-2 at a time from large packs. Slice 'em and dice 'em as you see fit. Split, isolate, even entomb. Narrow corridors and let your party members deals with an upcoming horde of enemies one foe at a time. What? Impossible to implement? Diablo's Bone Wall spell. Of course, it was weak and didn't last long, but if taken a bit further.

- Collapse ceilings and drop floors logical and tactical. Plan carefully to avoid damaging and splitting your own party members.

- Raise/lower water levels nothing like flashing your enemies down the proverbial drain, slowing them down, or even preventing enemy's traditional (stereotypical?) wizards from using lightning spells. Daggerfall flooded dungeons come to mind too.

- Cast illusions hide traps and hazards with illusions and lure your enemies there. The possibilities are literally endless. Lure vampires outside to enjoy a nice sunny day by casting a "night" illusion. Lure your enemies into bottomless pits and chasms. Or into furnaces. Or combine it with the above mentioned "drop floors" and cast an illusion giving the appearance of solid surface.

- Create walkways from debris and loose bricks or levitate I'd prefer both, as alternative to each other.

- Throw small objects (debris, bricks, wall fragments, etc) at your enemies or even cause tornado-like storms causing damage to anyone within the radius. That way it would be less of an offensive spell and more of a natural barrier.

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